Isn't it Ironic?

Pregnancy holds many ironies:

1. While I was blogging about all the drama regarding the hot tub back in December, I had to bite my tongue. 5 days after all the drama was over, and we were able to finally relax in the tub, I found out I was pregnant! So the hot tub is almost off-limits now!

I can go in at a reduced temperature for 15 minutes, but have only actually gone in about 6 times due to mommy-to-be-paranoia. So lucky Colin has the tub to himself!

2. In the first 3 months, I felt/am feeling nauseated and utterly exhausted. But during this time, no one is allowed to know! I can't request a bus seat yet because my belly's not big, but during these queasy mornings and afternoons, I could really use one.

3. The year we get a huge snowfall, and take a vacation to Golden (which had feet of powder), is the year I am not able to snowboard! However, the day Colin and Justin went skiing in Golden, Colin did something romantic. He sent me to the spa for an afternoon of pampering! It was heaven!

That being said, the sacrifices are obviously worth it, and I only occasionally feel like I'm missing out of things. Besides, I think I'm doing something pretty exciting already!

OUR SECRET IS OUT!

So...all of my regular blog readers (that I know about) know that I am 3 months pregnant! It was sooooo hard not to blog about, which is my excuse for my lack of posts lately. I haven't been able to think of much to blog about, and I've been too tired for anything to happen to me! Go to work, come home, nap, eat dinner, go to bed!

I apologize if all I blog about from now on is this crazy change that's happening in our lives, but it is so thought-consuming, and so exciting!

Return It

What's the oddest thing you've ever returned?

Up til today, I wouldn't have been able to answer that question, but thanks to Colin's boldness, I now can!

Last May we bought six 7-foot tall cedar hedges, and planted them in our backyard. On the 2 days we were allowed to water them in the summer, we drowned them with a sprinkler. And on the days we weren't allowed to use a sprinkler, we watered them by hand. My parents even kept this up during our holiday.

Regardless of our TLC, one of them died quite quickly, and another one kicked the bucket a few months later.



Colin keeps the reciepts from all our house maintenance projets, so he decided to ask for a refund for the 2 dead trees on our trip to Costco today. I must admit. I was skeptical. I was embarrassed. It's been 8 months, and they are (or were) a living thing! How can you get a refund for that?

But when he asked at the refund counter, no questions were asked. All she said was "Bring them in!"! So Colin dug up the hedges, root ball and all, and headed to back to Costco!





Oh the weird looks he got with the dead trees in the shopping cart! It was the busiest he's ever seen Costco, and EVERYONE was looking at him. When he got to the counter, the two cashiers whispered something to each other. The cashier said, "And what is the reason for your return?". Colin says, "Uh....they're dead!". The other cashier said "I can't believe you actually asked him that!".

I think he brightened their day.

How's THAT for a refund policy??

My Civic History

Here is the tale of our Honda Civic.

We used to have a really nice car. A VW Golf GTI. It was actually Andrew's car, but we bought it from him when he moved to Austrailia to get married. It was so fun, so fast...oh sorry. This is the tale of the CIVIC.

Since Colin and I were both in school and not working during our 3rd year of marriage, money was tight. So with a few shed tears I said goodbye to my GTI. It paid for a semester of our school, and our beautiful old 1992 Civic.

It's first trip was a few days after we got it, when we went to Oregon. See the photo of her in her glory days? She felt so cool with that surfboard on her roof rack.



We didn't live in the safest part of PoCo at the time, and that became evident the following spring. In 6 weeks we had the following problems:
1. The car was broken into at BCIT. The stereo was stolen, and the case of CD's. $300 ICBC deductible.

2. The truck was broken into in our apartment underground. The window was smashed and a case of CD's was stolen. When will we learn our lesson?? $300 ICBC deductible.

3. This one is my favourite. I get a phone call at 7:00 am from a policeman telling me they've "recovered my vehicle". Huh??? "From where?" I ask. I didn't even know it was stolen yet! It wasn't completely bad news because maybe they wrote it off and we can get a different car!!

I remember going in to see the car and it looked just the same as it did before (except the lock was punched out). We were actually disappointed, because now we had to pay ANOTHER $300 to get it back and all we got was a new lock.

4. The car was broken into in our underground lot. COME ON PEOPLE! The only thing left in it was my insurance papers, which they stole. Identity theft. Now I don't know who I am anymore. There was no way we were going to pay ANOTHER $300 to get the lock fixed or the window seal replaced, since we were convinced it would get broken into again, so for the past 2+ years we've left nothing in it of value, and we don't lock the doors.

Lately, every time we get into the car, something breaks. It's always part of the body of the car (the latest problem being that the hatch doesn't open anymore), never the motor. But nevertheless, it is literally falling apart, so it's time to upgrade!

But first, Colin has started to fix the problems!

After working on it on Saturday, the following new problems have started:


Um, I won't talk about this one. (for some reason the photo is sideways, and can't change it). Also, the interior has changed a bit:

He was trying to fix the lock, and now it is permanently locked, and he can't get the panel back in until it can open! So everytime we get in and out of the car, we BOTH have to get out the passenger door!

Sometimes I wish we could just drive it off a cliff.

The Illusionist

We saw this movie last night, and I definately reccomend it! A love story with drama, and a lot of mystery. (You may wish to fast forward one scene though).

Instinct

I must join the fish story bandwagon Laura started.

When we were first married, we lived in a basement suite. There was an indent in the wall that looked like a fireplace was supposed to go there, but there was no fireplace, just a hollowed out area.

So for a wedding gift, Andrew, along with a bunch of other friends, got us a 30 gallon fish tank starter kit to fill this awkward area. The rule for fish tanks are 1 inch of fish per gallon. So we could have 30 1 inch long fish, or 15 2 inch fish, and so on. We stayed pretty close to the rule.

It took us a few years to get the fish tank ecosystem "just right". Sometimes they'd develop white spots and all die, or sometimes you have one big mean bugger of a fish who likes to snack on the small ones, and eats them bite by bite, day by day. It's painful. We had to flush it.

But my favourite story is about the fish named Salmon.

Poor Salmon. He was an interesting fish. He was in our lives when we lived at our next place: a friend's basement suite.

We don't usually name the fish because there are so many, but for him, we made an exception. You see, he actually THOUGHT he was a salmon. He had that natural instinct, only found in salmon. We have a filter for the tank that has a waterfall that recirculates the water from the filter to the tank. One day we were looking for it and couldn't find it anywhere! Then we heard some splashing around in the filter, and found Salmon in the filter resevoir. He swam upstream, like all salmon do.

It became almost a daily routine to check to see if Salmon was in the filter, and most of the time, he was. So we had to keep "fishing" him out.

One day he wasn't in the tank, and wasn't in the filter! What? Where is he? After a long time of looking, we found his dried up body on the floor behind the fishtank. He tried to swim upstream, but missed the filter and landed on the floor. Poor Salmon. Poor, dumb, Salmon.

BANG THE DRUM!

Every couple develops their own rituals. Things that no one else would understand except the two of you. Things that are usually quite private. But today is your lucky day. I'm going to let you into our Friday ritual!

It all started about 3 years ago when we were both in school, and living in our tiny apartment. Every Friday night before we started making dinner, we'd blast a compilation CD of all our favourite country songs (called "Chickin Kickin Beats").

We'd dance around the 10 square feet that contained no furniture while we made dinner. It was so much fun! We were both just so happy that it was finally Friday! No more classes for 2 whole days!

One Friday night, Colin was particularly happy for the weekend. With the music on, and me dancing and stirring at the stove, he went over to the water cooler and started banging (not tapping) on top of it shouting,

"BANG THE DRUM, IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!"

It was hillarious!

I don't exactly know why it stuck, but it did. From that day on, not a Friday has gone by without us happily exclaiming the above statement (except of course, if we are on vacation). Even when we got rid of our water cooler, we still said it. I receive emails from Colin on Fridays with the subject line "BTD!!!".

Well, there you go! A little secret in the Roth house exposed! All I have left to say is...


"BANG THE DRUM, IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!"

Wanna Laugh?

If you haven't already, check out this post by Super Sleuth! See if you can figure out who's who!

Mrs. Popularity

YES!!!!!

The moment I've been waiting for!

I've now joined the "1000+ red dot club" on my cluster map! Thanks, Lower Mainland readers, for making me feel special today.

Day 2 - Vancouver Blizzard 2007 - Revenge of the Commuters

I would like to take credit for writing this, but I can't. It was an e-mail I received from a friend last year. Enjoy!

Chilled Vancouver commuters faced their second day of winter hell today, as an additional ¼ centimeter of the peculiar white stuff fell, bringing the lower mainland to its knees and causing millions of dollars worth of damage to the marijuana crops. Scientists suspect that the substance is some form of frozen water particles and experts from Saskatchewan are being flown in.

With temperatures dipping to the almost but not quite near zero mark, Vancouverites were warned to double insulate their lattes before venturing out. Vancouver police recommended that people stay inside except for emergencies, such as running out of espresso or biscotti to see them through Vancouver's most terrible storm to date. The local Canadian Tire reported that they had completely sold out of fur lined sandals.

Drivers were cautioned to put their convertible tops up, and several have been shocked to learn that their SUV's actually have four wheel drive, although most have no idea how to use it. Weary commuters faced soggy sushi, and the threat of frozen breast implants. Dr. John Blatherwick, of the Coastal Health Authority reassured everyone that most breast implants were perfectly safe to 25 below. "The government has to do something," snarled an angry Trevor Warburton. "I didn't pay $540,000 for my one bedroom condo so I could sit around and be treated like someone from Toronto."

Geek Chicks Rule

Thanks to Andrew, I want something from www.thinkgeek.com.

Thanks to Blogger, I can't post a photo of it.

Here it is.

If I get it, I plan to wear it whenever I'm on holiday, whenever I'm in transit, and whenever Colin picks up a chainsaw.

A New Way to Fence

JLo's backyard has a hill behind it. So we built a jump so we could soar over the fence (I'm the one behind the camera, enjoying the rapid fire option)!
Fun times, fun times...

Nothing Better to do on Dec 24 than...

What does the average "Joe" do on Christmas Eve? Go shopping? Wrap presents? Open presents? Help their wives prepare appetizers for the family party that evening?

Probably. But my husband is no average Joe.

No. He grabbed a handsaw and the rock climbing gear (first sign of bad news), and proceeded to climb up the evil tree that dropped the bomb on the hot tub. Why?

REVENGE!

Even though it was pouring rain, he climbed about 40 feet up that tree, sawing off potential threats to the hot tub in the next wind storm.

"At least I'm using a HANDSAW instead of the chainsaw this time!". Oh yes. That makes me feel so much better.

All I could so was shout "I don't want to become a widow on Christmas Eve, Colin!", take photos (of course) and watch as a dozen 20 foot branches come crashing to the ground.

Now our lovely Evergreen looks like a Charlie Brown, but at least there's nothing left to fall.
He did a great job, though, and since you've seen posts with photos of him after this event, you know that he survived.

Digging for Cache

I can now say that I've geocached in my snowpants. The 1-2 feet of snow made it a cold and interesting experience! Good thing we brought shovels! We found both we searched for.

I felt kind of bad leaving the sites heavily dug out, and the caches exposed, but a few feet of snow fell a few days later to cover up the evidence.

HAPPY 2007!

So what did everyone do to ring in the New Year?

Us and JLo went to 4 parties!

The first party was at the Recreation centre in Golden. It's Golden's 50th anniversary this year, so they had a special big party for the whole town. There was ice skating, popcorn, a free "Golden Anniversary" pin, glow sticks, and tons of activities for kids to do. Like gingerbread cookie decorating, which Colin snatched one off the table. Also, a pinata. The candy flew everywhere, including the top of some vending machines. Since Colin's so tall, he noticed some candy there a few minutes later so got to enjoy the pinata too.

The next party was up at the Kicking Horse Mountain. They had fire dancers and fireworks! We almost missed it because we were too busy enjoying the wonderful pork roast that super sleuth made, and lost track of time. We made it though, and the fireworks were impressive! After that, they were offering free tubing on the dinky little tubing hill, so we warmed up by running up the hill a bunch of times to race down on our tubes. Thanks to Colin and Justin, we almost got kicked out. We're still not sure if the tubing hill was actually closing, or if it's just what the guy told us so we'd leave.

By this time it was about 10:15, so on to the next party: an impromptu party. On the way back to JLo's, we noticed that the local toboggan hill had a rather large and hot bonfire, and there was no one in sight. We initially stopped just to put out the fire, but then adventure got the best of us.

We opened the trunk of the truck, blasted some party music, grabbed tupperware lids and cardboard and took turns ripping down the tobbogan hill! It was so much fun! This was by far the steepest hill I've been on so it was kinda scary. But scary = fun!

When we were too tired to hike one more time up the hill, we danced around the fire and then put the fire out with snow. Ohh, it's getting close to midnight...we need to get to our last party!

Back at the JLo pad, we sat exhausted for awhile. When we decided that we were being lame, we played Guesstures to ring in the new year...the exact same thing we were doing LAST new years! We rang "in" 2006 the same way we rang it "out".

Golden is in Alberta's time zone, so our New Years was an hour before it is here. They only have one channel (CBC), which is in Vancouver time, so there was no countdown on TV. So when the oven clock said 12:00, we just started counting down from 10. We don't even know if it was really midnight! When we got to 0, the noisy boys went outside and banged pots and pans screaming "Happy New Year" to the quiet neighbours outside.

We stayed up long enough to do the CBC countdown with Vancouver, then all went to bed.

What a fun day, and a fun way to start 2007!

Greyhound vs Snailhound

Happy New Year everyone!

Colin and I have returned from Golden, where we were visiting the "Super Sleuths" (aka: JLo) for a week. We had a wonderful time! I will blog about the actual visit once I've had time to look through the millions of photos we took.

But for now, a little transit story to keep you entertained in the meantime.

We drove up with JLo, so we had no car. So we planned in advance to take the Greyhound bus home. A scheduled 10 hour bus ride, but we were actually looking forward to it so we could relax together, play some games, and have a nice long nap.

We woke up on Jan 1, 2007 a little late. The tickets said to be at the bus depot 45 minutes early (10:10 am). We didn't make it quite that early, but I was glad. You see, the Golden bus depot didn't even open on New Years Day, so we were stuck waiting in the car. It was reaaally cold outside too.

Since we had our tickets, it shouldn't really matter that the bus depot didn't open. However, when we purchased our tickets in Coquitlam, we were informed that we'd get baggage tags in the Golden bus depot. So when the bus came, in our unmarked bags went.

The bus was nearly full. No two seats together could be found. Despite my whining about it to Colin, who was sitting across the isle and back a bit, and despite me trying to be super annoying by stretching my arm to hold hands with him, no one budged.

COME ON PEOPLE! Why do you need the window seat if you are SLEEPING??????

ARGH.

The bus left relatively on-time. It drove HALF A BLOCK, then stopped in a Subway parking lot. The bus driver announced "It's 11:00 now, we'll be stopping for lunch here for 45 minutes".

No. That's impossible.

It was an unscheduled stop.

So we had to wait in the bus for 45 minutes.

Shortly after we FINALLY got going again, the snow started. We hit the Rogers pass and it was a blizzard. At times I couldn't even see out the window, because it was so white. Colin had his GPS and noted that even though it was so stormy, the bus driver was still going, like, 114 km/hour on the wintery road. I tried to sleep with no success.

There was nothing to do but people-watch.

There was this guy who just could NOT sit still. Fiddling with the light/air buttons. Going to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Taking his clothes out of the overhead area, going through them, and putting some on, and dropping socks on people. He was a slow mover too, so everything took too long. I don't know why I was annoyed at him, but I was.

My most uncomfortable moment came when a large, very intimidating looking man who was sitting across from me started swearing at the bus driver who apparently walked past him and brushed his face while he was sleeping. The small framed bus driver stood up for himself very well.

I sat beside Batwoman herself. She had a Batman pillow and was reading "The Batman Handbook". The part of the book I spied was a page describing how Batman scubadives. And guess what movie came on our pint sized TV's? "Batman Begins"! Unfortunately, she had reached her destination and didn't get to watch it.

In Sick-a-moose (I'm not even going to TRY to spell it), we were able to steal 2 seats together which was perfect! We only had one set of headphones, so we each could take an ear to hear the last two movies.

There were 3 movies. Other than "Batman", the other two are not worth mentioning, but I will mention "The Lady Killers" so none of you ever waste time to watch it. I wish I hadn't wasted BUS time to watch it, and that's saying a lot. The movies did help pass the time though.

In Kamloops we were stopping for dinner. They try to suck all your money out of you by making you buy lunch in their cafeteria which sells a small fries for $3. We're not falling for that. So we went for a jog across town to the closest fast food joint we found, where I fell and scraped my knee. By the way, did you know my name means "Graceful"?

The 10 hour bus ride ended up taking 12 hours because the 10 minute stops turned into 20 minute stops, and I guess a bit had to do with the 2 blizzards we encountered on both the mountain passes.

That's half an entire day, and 4 hours longer than a car ride.

We got home with enough time to empty all the boxes in our cupboards to try and put something together that resembles "lunch", then pass out exhausted.

I'm not sure we'll take the Snailhound again.