July: unexpectedly crazy

In the weeks leading up to our wedding I kept telling people that we'd have lots more time in July to hang out. I'm here to tell you now that I accidentally lied. This was UNTRUE. We have hardly had any time. Once again, it's been crazy, but still mostly fun. Here is July, in a nutshell.

1) Mexico

We flew to Mexico right after dumping all of my belongings into Joel’s house, leaving a disastrous mess of boxes behind for poor Lewis to live amongst.  It was a week full of sun, delicious Mexican food (GUACAMOLE! Piles and piles of it eaten on the beach), hangouts with family and my friend/cousin Melissa and her man-friend, topped off by the wedding of my cousin Lindsay! It was a good time, although poor Joel had to hole up in our hotel room studying for his defense, which leads me to the next major item…

2) Dr. Husband!

We flew back to the airport in Calgary on Sunday night and drove the rest of the way home in a  rainstorm. Monday and Tuesday were full of thesis defense prep, and on Wednesday, he/we spent dawn-til-dusk defending and partying. Well, I didn’t do much defending, but I consulted on tie choice (see above), drank coffee (pictured above), waited around, and watched the presentation (which was excellent)…and then I went out to party afterwards. So proud.

3) Vancouver House Hunting

Now that we had the gigantic PhD defence out of the way, we drove out to Vancouver to look for our new home. We left on Monday morning, arriving late that night, and budgeted…ONE DAY to find the perfect home to rent. Ummmm, whose dumb idea was that? Turns out it was OURS! We pretty much did it though, and I patted us both on the back for the entire drive home for being so organized, prepared, and lucky in our house hunt. We found a great place, and although things looked a bit dicey for awhile, it’s ours now for the next year and that’s all that matters for now. The pics above show the tilework at the entrance to our building, and the rows upon rows of lavender growing out front. I think it was meant to be.

 4) Rosebud

We drove back from Vancouver right after we signed our new lease and felt confident that we would have no problem driving the whole way to Calgary. But then we realized we left Vancouver at close to 4:00 p.m.  Another brilliant idea. So we slept in Golden after a white-knuckle drive through the dark for several hours and woke up early the next day to rush to Rosebud, AB. We saw “Jake and the kid” with my parents, sister and aunt and uncle. Rosebud was just as sweet at my mom has always said.

4.5) Calgary Folk Festing  

We went from Rosebud directly to Calgary Folk Fest, which froze us out via miserable rain, and then eventually cleared up enough for us to enjoy. We met up with Kerry and Leanne at various points, and stayed with Melly.Tasting a maple bacon donut (pictured above, bottom right) at "Jelly" is an part of the weekend that should not be overlooked. Fun if you like donuts, which I do. As a donut-appreciator, I am always surprised how many people don't like them. I think at least 60% of people who say they don't like donuts are just telling themselves that so that they aren't tempted to eat them all the time for every meal. Donuts are delicious. 

5) Birthday and Garage Sale

 

When we got back from Calgary it was my birthday the next day, so Joel made a delicious dinner of pork tacos with homemade tortillas for me and my family. So fun. Then we got down to business and prepped for our upcoming garage sale. We cleared space in Scott and Heidi’s garage and loaded all of our crap over there to make sweet moolah. It was SO WEIRD the things that people bought. So if you are ever having a garage sale and wondering whether to include an item...DO IT. Someone will probably buy the thing you least expect them to. Also, it was fun to hang out at their house all weekend and we made a decent profit, which we used to buy ourselves a new couch! But more on that later, as it is sitting flat-packed in our basement right now.

6) Dave and Jamie's Wedding

And then, after all that, Dave and Jamie got married! Those are two fine people and they put on a great wedding. It could not have been more perfect for them. Beautiful day, thoughtful ceremony, and ridiculously awesome entrance into the wedding being carried by their friends on custom-made wooden platforms. Oh, those two. 

All in all, a good month.

June in a nutshell

After a month-and-a-half hiatus from my regular life, I decided to pop up and populate my neglected blog with a new post, since I can’t see life returning to anything closely approximating regular for quite some time. At the rate we have been going, I am thinking I might start to unwind sometime in January 2012.

That’s fine with me though. Life is good and fun and exciting and we are still young enough to keep up. I’ll start at the beginning of the chaos and do a little whirlwind update. I originally planned to do it in one giant post, but I think I’ll just start with June for now.

1) Wrapping up the job I’ve worked at for the past three years

In a truly inspired moment, Joel suggested I wrap up work before our wedding instead of after, thus leaving us a bit of time as newlyweds wrapping up our life in our beloved Edmonton --- not kidding about it being beloved, by the way, so keep your comments to yourselves any Edmonton-haters --- before we have to pack up and start a new love affair with Vancouver (that's a lot of endings before we get to the new beginnings). As well, after years and years of work, Joel was almost ready to say goodbye to student life and hello to life as Dr. Kelly (PhD, not MD). But that’s a story for my July-in-a-nutshell post. Basically, we wanted to be able to take maximum advantage of this interim period, because I’m guessing it won’t be often in the coming years when we are both able to be off from work/school at the same time. Anyways, wrapping up was a positive thing. I think they were sad to see me go, which is a nice feeling when leaving a job, and the timing turned out to be perfect, since we had a bunch of chaos (both expected and unexpected) in our general lives, so it has been nice to have the extra time to deal with it properly instead of rolling it all up into a giant ball of overwhelmed-ness and disorganization that we would have to deal with once we got to Vancouver.

The pic above is the Louise McKinney walking bridge looking over to downtown. I'm pretty sure one of those towers is Scotia Place, as it is one of the downtown buildings that you can see from almost anywhere in the city. 

2) Getting married (!!!)

 Best thing I’ve done. Seriously. I never suspected it would be such an absolute blast to attend my own wedding. We had an amazing time. Our families and friends amazed us with their support and helpfulness. All of our wedding vendors were champs. We were in love. What more can you ask for? After the excitement of the actual wedding was over, my emotions were running so high that my eyes welled up with happy tears at least once a day for twelve consecutive days afterwards. Hilarious. Following that it was about once every two or three days. It was all just so overwhelming and excellent. I recommend it.

The picture above is the reminder Joel set in his iPhone for our wedding day. Ha.

  

3) Honeymooning

We figured we’d have a lot of time this summer. We were mistaken. This makes me increasingly glad that we decided to getaway for the week following our wedding. We had a super relaxing week full of sleeping in, swimming, bbqing, hiking, canoeing, biking, and coffee. I would not trade that week for anything.

4) Packing up and moving out of my old place

I decided to leave my little apartment basically untouched while we went away after our wedding. It was good not to worry about moving before the wedding, but the major downside to that was that we had to come home and pack and move me in a three and a half day span of time. Whose idea was that? Ummmm. What a whirlwind. I tapped into the most dedicated version of myself and spent a few 16 hour days packing before Joel and Lewis championed my move up to my new home downtown. Thanks guys.  Then I returned to clean up and say goodbye. This is a final goodbye shot in the bathroom mirror where Natasha had drawn a sweet heart for us to return home to after honeymooning.


That brings us to the end of June. I'll tackle both the wedding and July later on. And by then it will likely be time to catch you up on August.