Tuesday, October 9, 2007

How many bears???

We are now back from our weekend away at Whistler. It was mix of sun and rain (at times heavy) and very cold up there.







The cabin we stayed in was very lovely and comfortable. We had the furnace turned on and the fireplace going - it even had floor heating in the tiled areas!



We ate out a lot (even tried Fondue one night),



shopped (I got a new bathingsuit),



hiked (got lost in the pouring rain!) below is a photo of us after we took off our rain jackets,





soaked in the backyard hot tub,









and had a really nice home cooked Turkey dinner on the Sunday. Home cooked by my hubby that is!



But I have to say that the highlight of the trip was seeing the BEARS!! We thought there might be some bears around because we kept seeing little piles like this:





Another big clue was all the WARNING SIGNS!



But we did NOT expect to see any up close - But OH YES - we saw 3 bears on 3 separate occasions.



This first bear was eating berries in a tree at the corner of a busy street. Directly below him is a walkway and people were just walking by nonchalantly - that is until they noticed the bear!




The second bear we saw was right in the backyard! My daughter and I were sitting by the glass sliders when I saw the bear meandering by the backyard so I yelled BEAR! My daughter screamed in shock and wouldn't you know the bear turned around and looked at us!





The third bear was just strolling through the backyard again checking out what the last bear left. Yes there were lots of bear droppings - in the backyard!








The amazing thing is that there are paved walkways right beside where these bears were just strolling by. A lot of cars stopped to look at the bears but most of the hikers and especially those with dogs turned around and just avoided the bears.









And for those of who who have been reading my blog for a while I just want to say that I did NOT bring home any baby bears!









All in all it was a very relaxing weekend - No time for stamping but I've got a few classes coming up and I'll be stamping some samples up this week.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Going Away....

I'm working today and then we're off for a long weekend getaway so I won't be posting anything over the next few days.

Have a great weekend and if you're Canadian - Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

You know you're getting OLD when...

...you FORGET things like birthdays!

I know we all forget birthdays but when you forget your own birthday - you know you're in trouble!!!

Yes, I totally forgot that it was my birthday this weekend!

I knew it was coming up but it kind of snuck up on me....I've been busy this week with the kids' activities, finishing up a swap, swapping out and mailing a swap, preparing for classes, and getting ready to go away for our 4 day Thanksgiving weekend up at Whistler. You guessed I've been doing laundry!

To top it off my husband decided that we should get new tires on our 4x4 BEFORE we go away. So I've had to squeeze in a few tire quotes and an installation too. I guess this would be my RUBBER birthday. Reminds me of the WOOD birthday I had a few years ago when we needed a new roof!

Seriously, it's not that bad - he asked me what I wanted and I said more COPICS. So he's giving me a gift certificate to the art store. He really is a great guy!

It's easy to see with all the running around that I've been doing how I could forget that my birthday is THIS Sunday.

However, yesterday I was pleasantly reminded of that fact when I received a couple of great birthday cards in the mail from people I don't even kow. How sweet is that? I must be on some US RAK lilst but not only did these ladies send me beautiful handmade cards, they got them mailed to me on time AND they wrote the sweetest messages inside.

BUT wait! My birthday is this weekend! My driver's licence expires and I'll be up at Whistler for a long weekend - a HOLIDAY weekend!!!

As luck would have it I just so happened to be driving by the Driver's Centre when I realized that I needed to get my drivier's licence renewed. Our BC driver's licences are good for 5 years so it's easy to forget when they need to be renewed but the government tries to make this easier by having them expire your birthday.

Happy Birthday to me!!!! I am soooo excited to be getting a new licence photo. You see my old one is HIDEOUS!!! I know lots of people say that their licence photo is bad but mine really was sooooo bad.

Unlike Posh Spice I did not have my hair and makeup people on hand the last time I had my driver's licence photo taken. I was sick with a cold, my eyes were droopy and watering, my hair (much shorter than it is now) was all curly and stuck to my head in places and to top it off it was raining that day and my makeup was running. Why did I go that day you might ask? Well I tried to wait but I wasn't feeling any better and I was already driving on an expired licence.

It was so bad that I was constantly apologizing to people that asked for it as ID. Can you imagine being stuck with that photo for 5 YEARS??? No one believed it was me - that's how bad it was. I always won the "my driver's licence photo is worse than yours" game. That's how bad it was. You get the picture?

So I popped into the Driver's Centre, took a number and had the whole thing done in 10 minutes. The man even offered to let me look at the photo and have a re-take if I wanted. I told him that even though it wasn't a "glamour shot" it was light years better than the one I had before.

He agreed... I told you it was bad!