Books

I'm super busy with school, but I've still got time to read. I'm working on the second book of the Outlander series, but I thought I'd blog about my latest book club books as we are looking for new suggestions.

Over the summer, we read "An audience of chairs" by Joan Clark. It was a strange book, but good. I couldn't decide if I liked the main character or not, as she was very odd and eccentric but it was still a good read.

We then read "Divisadero" by Michael Ondaatje, which I didn't enjoy all that much. It was the first novel I'd ever read by him and I gave it a 7/10. It certainly kept to the theme of its title; the book was really like two books, but neither came together in the end and I like endings that wrap themselves up a little more than that.

Now we are reading a really good book. I completely adore YA novels, and this one is called "The book thief". It takes place just before and during WWII in Germany and is about a little girl who steals books from the Nazis and other places. It's amazing so far.

However, we've decided we need to branch out in the type of book we read, so I've been trying to come up with some new suggestions before our next meeting, which will be at my house. All of our books lately seem to have the same theme of separated families due to a traumatic experiece; a father gives a daughter up for adoption without telling the mother in one, a father takes a mother's children away because of her mental disability in another, and then a daughter runs away from her father in our last one.

Here are the future possibilities on our list:

Late nights on air, Elizabeth Hay
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
and
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

Have you read any of them? What would you recommend?

Northern Lights

I saw the northern lights for the first time since moving up north the night before last. Mike was working night shift and he came home early, at around 4am because they were having a slow night. He woke me up to say that you could sort of see the northern lights in our backyard, so I threw a housecoat over my pj's and went out into the night. It was surprisingly warm and lovely. I looked east and could see a vibrant green streak of light that started like a flare at the horizon and spread out across the sky of my backyard. While watching it slowly fade away I caught a glimpse of a shooting star. It was a small glimpse, but beautiful nonetheless. I felt like a true northerner.

Apparently the best time of the year to view them is around the 22nd of September, so I will be looking at the sky again next week and hoping for a clear night.

THE trip Part two

Wow, this last week and a half has been super busy. School and planning is taking up all of my time...so I'm just finally getting around to posting about the rest of my trip. For the last day of Disneyland, on monday, and then all the way until Saturday, we had the pleasure of visiting with Jenn, Matthew and Bronson. We stayed at Disney's Paradise Pier hotel and had a lot of fun watching the parade, going with Bronson on the Winnie the Pooh ride, and the big Pirate ship in the river. We also finally went on the California Screamin' roller coaster and Soarin' California, which was like a giant Imax where you were in a seat that felt like a plane ride. We finished off our last night at Disneyland by watching the fireworks one last time. They are really cool fireworks, especially the part where Tink flies over the castle. Here are some photos from our last day, including Bronson with Pluto, me with Prince Charming, the boys on the pirate ship and the four of them waiting for the parade to start. On tuesday morning we spent a few hours wandering around downtown Disney buying some souvenirs. I got a tinker bell t-shirt and Jenn snuck in and bought be a Disneyland picture frame for my birthday. We also went into the only Anne Geddes store in the world, where I bought a couple of baby shower gifts. We then headed in to Pasadena. Over the next few days we played board games, read a lot of stories to Bronson, toured Caltech, swam in the pool, went to the LA zoo with Matthew and Bronson and finally to the beach on the last day before heading to the airport. Beach photos: It was nice to have a few days of relaxing after the business of Disneyland. When we arrived in Vancouver, we had a visit with Mike's parents, and then had a looong drive home...it took us about 14 hours. Then it was back to work! Oh, and one more thing. Here is a short clip of the very end of the fireworks display. If you look carefully you can just see Tink flying from the right side of the castle to the left. It's so magical....

THE trip...Vancouver, Disneyland, Pasadena

Mike and I recently had the most fun of our lives...we went to the happiest place on earth...Disneyland, of course! It was an amazing holiday, with many highlights, including a couple of busy days in Vancouver with my Dad and a few friends I had the chance to meet up with, 4 days in Disneyland, and 5 days in Pasadena, visiting Jenn, Matthew and Bronson.

Our first day, we left bright and early at 5:45am and drove the 1200km's to the west end of Vancouver, where we stayed with my Dad for three nights. On wednesday we went to the beach, and I met up with a few friends who were able to drive over and visit with us. Then, on thursday we went over to Nanaimo on the ferry to meet family for lunch at Moxie's. It was fun, but I was suffering from a very sore neck, so managed to get an emergency chiropractic visit and was fine from then on (thankfully so, otherwise I don't think I could have managed all the rides at Disneyland!).



Me, Pamela, and Ravinder.



The three of us HAD to stop at the cupcake store.


Me and my mommy.



Granny.


The real fun began on friday morning. We caught the earliest flight available to LAX, to maximize the amount of time we would have at Disneyland. Unfortunately, the shuttle system was confusing and slow, so by the time we got to our notel it was already nearly 1pm. I was slightly grumpy and tired, but the hotel cheared me up completely. It was truly amazing. We got great service and warm cookies upon arrival. Mike and I rushed to our room, jumped onto the bed (there were two, so we each collapsed onto our own) and ate our cookies while watching the olympics. Once we had relaxed and eaten lunch, we took the shuttle to Disneyland! Fortunately for us, 2:45pm is a great time to arrive at Disneyland, as most people are heading back to their rooms for a nap and a swim, so we basically had no waits at all on the rides! It was Mike's first time, so I let hime be the little kid and choose everywhere we went. We started out with the fabulous Pirates of The Caribbean, which I'd never been on before, followed by a train ride, and finished at 11pm having enjoyed 10 different rides, a yummy mexican dinner and the fireworks. Pretty good for the first day, and we were grateful to collapse into the comfy beds and sleep in the next morning.






The famous giant turkey leg...you gotta try all the crazy food at Disneyland (Churro, frozen chocolate covered bananas, frozen lemonade...etc)


On Saturday, needing the rest, we slept until 9am, ordered breakfast in, and took our time getting ready. Mike went to the gym and I enjoyed the pool and "Outlander" for an hour. We arrived at Disneyland at around noon and stayed until closing, going over to California adventure park for a few rides too. We were fortunate to be there at the same time as my sister, Felicia and her two kids, so we met up with them at 6 for dinner and some rides, before heading over to watch Fantasmic. The best part of the evening was when we rode Splash mountain continuously from about 11pm until midnight when the park closed. We took up all 6 seats in the boat and alternated spots each run. I don't think I've ever laughed so much...our faces in the photos they take are priceless.









Me, Mike an Jess...very wet after splash mountain.




How could you resist chili in a Mickey shaped bread bowl? And yes, we did eat all this food, while watching Billy and the Hills.



Sunday was hard to get up, but we really wanted to take advantage of our early morning admission day...you can get in up to one hour before the park opens. We made it there by 7:30 and by 8am when the gates opened we had already been on all the Fantasy land rides...usually they have huge waits. After breakfast, we made our way to Frontier land to ride all the boats that go around the Pirate's Lair island. We rode the Mark Twain steamboat and took the raft to the island, where we met Captain Jack Sparrow, who, taking a liking to me, asked Mike to move over so that we could get a picture together. We also saw the Indiana Jones show and ate at two amazing restaurants. For lunch, we ate at the Blue Bayoo, which is this New Orleans style restaurant situated on the Pirate's of the Carribean ride. From the ride, you can see these ghostly waiters serving people at dimly lit tables. You feel sort of like you are eating outside at night time with a dark sky and glowing lanterns all around.




They had a fairy tale arts booth, where I was dying to get my face painted the whole weekend. It was so much fun! It's the one place where adults can be fairy princesses too :)





And, of course, Captain Jack.




I tried to take a pic that would show how cool the Blue Bayoo was; this was as close as I could get, but doesn't really give you the same feel.


Once we had officially seen pretty much all the rides at Disneyland,(some several times) we headed over to California's Adventure park. This park is cool, but there are about 8 really popular attractions that EVERYONE wants to see, so we managed by doing about 2 or 3 rides each day. On Sunday, though, Mike took me on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and I just about died. If you know me well, you know that I'm claustrophobic and afraid of elevators, so you can imagine how well I enjoyed being in an elevator with 21 people while being dropped 13 floors up and down! Well, I survived anyways.

That evening, we took a nap in our hotel before heading over to the dinner reservations I had made at Downtown Disney's Catal restaurant. It is the only fine dining restaurant in Disneyland, and we had a beautiful seat on the balcony reserved for us. Just as our dinner was served the fireworks began...how romantic.

Our final day of Disneyland was spent with Jenn, Matthew and Bronson. I will save it for another post as this one is getting long and tomorrow is the first day of school...

I'm 25!

So, I know I've been home for almost a week now, and still haven't posted about my trip, but it's been pretty busy. We returned monday night at around 8:30 pm and I slept all day tuesday, then spent the rest of the week at school getting ready to teach! But, today is my birthday, so I'm taking a break to have a little games night and blizzard cake...yum. Also, went out for lunch with some friends which was nice, and it's beautiful out right now. It was crappy all day, but as soon as I saw the sun, I headed outside for a few minutes of peace in the garden. There won't be many days to enjoy the sun now! I think I will spend tomorrow outside and cleaning up my office so that I'm totally ready for school come tuesday. I also have to finish a book club book by thursday, yikes!

Well, off to get ready for my party! Pictures of Disneyland will be posted by tomorrow, I swear.

I'm off!

Just a quick post as it is 11 pm and I have to get up in 5 hours to head to Vancouver, and then off to Disneyland and Pasadena to visit friends on Friday. I'm so excited and promise to post lots once I return!

If you're in Vancouver feel free to come and visit me at my Dad's! Just send me a message.

I promise to say hi to Mickey, although I don't know if he will remember me...I haven't seen him since 1989 :)


I don't have time to post about the Dawson Creek fall fair and Rodeo, which was awesome, but here's a pic of my hubby in the fall fair parade!

A little bit of poetry

Ode to Tea drinkers

Sometimes I wonder if you can tell
a person by the tea they drink;

the pomegranate green tea would say,
with its big flavour,
this town is too small
close your eyes
and see the city.

Orange pekoe is for those
who drink tea from bulk boxes,
almost an afterthought,
while Earl Grey says traditional
the striped bowtie of tea,
the old standby, with a hint of desire
to dress up. It wishes
secretly to become a London Fog,
sipped in cafés, earn a spot of its own
on the menu.

Deep Rooibos sucks in the drinker,
fooled by a name inflated and round,
it won’t release you until every syllable
of its flavour is drawn in like pipe smoke,
resonating on the tongue like the beat
of a drum held warm in the hand.

Meanwhile, even-tempered Chamomile whispers
to its drinker, the romance novel reader
on the couch, or the man on the front porch watching
the dandelions march over the yard.

Sometimes I wonder if you can tell a person
by their tea, unseam the bags that hold
their weight, cup life
in a metal spoon.

Time with hubby

Today is the last of Mike's four days off, and fittingly, it is rainy and Novemberish. Actually, it's more septemberish for up here, but November-like in say Victoria. Here's what we did on our four days together.


On tuesday we had a relaxing day and Mike cooked me this lovely meal before settling down to watch a couple of movies.

On wednesday, Mike invited A watch and C watch over for a bbq. (It's not that we don't like B and D watch, but they were the ones working). Plus, we wanted to have a small gathering of our closer friends from the detachment, which ended up being 12 of us in the end, but it was the perfect amount of wives and husbands so that I got to sit at my patio set outside and chat with the ladies while we ate yummy food. Afterwards, we played pictionary in our living room, and the boys unfortunately won, although only because they couldn't hear me shout out the answer :)

Then, yesterday we decided to enjoy the last forecasted day of sunshine for the week and headed to Tumbler Ridge. It was the first time I'd driven all the way there, (it's about 115km away) so I was excited to see the town, as I'd heard it looked more like what I was used to. And, it was true. Full of mountains and hills and trees, it was very small but beautiful, and felt more like home. While there, we went on a short hike to Quality Falls, took lots of pictures and ate lunch at the base of the waterfall. I was a little worried about Grizzly bears, but thankfully we didn't surprise any!







Now, it's his last day off and we are just puttering around the house while it drizzles rain outside. And, tomorrow it's back to working for him and being bored for me!

Garden Party

I've been planning a garden party my whole life. I just never before had a garden. But, last week, to celebrate my five year wedding anniversary and one year of living in Dawson Creek, Mike and I had about 40 people in our backyard for a party. It was a lot of work, but a huge success. We had perfect Dawson Creek weather, as it was sunny without a single cloud and no wind, which meant that my shady backyard stayed warm until about 9:30 when it started to get dark out. We had little lanterns, tables with white tablecloths and candles, and little spots to eat set up throughout the garden. I got many compliments on the flowers and shrubs that I worked so hard on and it really paid off!

I spent most of the time running around being hostess, as usual, and then being surprised when people started to leave and I had barely sat down yet, but hey, that's what exhorters do at parties. Especially ones they organize themselves!

I had so many people tell me what a great time they had though, and it was nice to celebrate our anniversary with our new friends. We got some lovely cards and the coolest thing was that every time I was going to introduce two people to each other, I would see them already talking! The joys of a small town--everyone is connected somehow.

But, now it's two weeks of relaxation and no set plans until our trip to California. I've been writing a lot, and am planning on sending out two packets of poems today. I'm also trying to convince Mike to take me on a hike to Tumbler Ridge. There are apparently about 35 different hiking trails, most of them ending in a waterfall. I really want to do this one to Kinuseo Falls, which is actually taller than Niagara, just not as wide.

Well, it's time to stop procrastinating and type up those poems. Fingers crossed for me!

Here are some garden party pics:



Delicious food brought by my friends...




The backyard...








Friends, and their children!




The lights come on at the end of the night.