Tea Tasting

Abbotsford held a wonderful event this weekend at the Reach Gallery. They had a tea tasting held with teas from around the world. Dan and I spent about an hour wandering around watching tea ceremonies from England and Japan and tasting teas from Iran, China and India. The Japanese tea ceremony lasted 45 minutes, so we didn't watch the whole thing. In fact, we lasted less than 2 minutes. It consisted of a whole lot of bowing and meditation. The highlight for us was being able to taste the teas. China had a Jasmine tea, which turned my stomach, although Dan liked it. Iran had a black tea, which tasted similar to a Red Rose type tea. But they did have a crystal of sugar with a string of saffron (the best in the world they boasted) that you could drop in your tea. It made the tea quite nice, until the crystal started to dissolve. Then the tea got sweeter and sweeter until it was almost unbearable. But by far the best tea was the chai tea from India. It was just the right flavour and blend of spices, which they mixed right in front of us. Plus, they also had a sample of their gourmet food. I can't remember the name, but its basically potato, onion and spinach deep fryed. Deliciouso!

Revelation of the Morning

I (Dan) had a revelation this morning, and without going into the story of how it came about here it is: There is no such thing as a dumb question. There are however dumb people who ask questions.

Time to let the barf out of the bag

For those of you who haven't been able to tell from all my mad dashes to the bathroom or the nearest bush; its time we let the barf out of the bag. I have the 9 month flu. That's right!
WE'RE PREGNANT!

Our little baby is 4.2cm long and about 11 weeks old. To save you all from having to make the calculations yourself, that puts our due date at December 10th.

We don't know the gender of our baby (not that you can tell yet anyway but looking at the above picture, our baby does look well endowed!) but we will NOT be finding out until the baby emerges into the world. So save yourself the trouble of asking, cuz we're not telling since we won't know!

Yes, its true. I do suffer from the 9 month flu. Let's hope that the "morning" sickness doesn't last much longer because I am tired of being sick morning, noon and night. And for the record, I'm sick of being tired. Oh the joys of being pregnant. Who knew that such a small little thing could wreak such tremendous havoc on my body? Dan has been super fantastic while I am sick. He loves to ask while I am in mid-puke, "Are you okay?"
Gee, honey! Come a little closer and I'll give you the answer right on your shoes! He also loves to ask, "Is there anything I can do for you?" I respond with a gag and then my wish that we were seahorses (since the males carry the babies). Seriously though, Dan is super fantastic while I'm sick. He has picked up the slack around the house, makes meals that I get to puke up later and cleans up after me. It makes me love him so much more!

Virgin Bed

Dan and I have this term that we use for when our bed is freshly made with clean sheets. We call it a "Virgin Bed." The best virgin bed is made with sheets that have been hung outside on the line and have that "fresh air" smell.

We often fight to get into the Virgin bed first. We trick each other, promise to wait and jump in. Then we spend the next few minutes sniffing the fresh air out of the sheets. (okay, lame! But it just smells sooooo good!)

One day, I caught Dan sniffing a line out of the bed. It was like a cocaine high, except with a fresh virgin bed.

He got quite a high out of it and had a slightly crazed look to him. Folks! This is what fresh air does to a man! Inhale at your own risk. You've been warned!

Amy please don't kill us!

This is Amy, slightly bummed, after losing another game of tug of war with her husband Dan. Not much else to say, this picture says a thousand words.

PS. Amy, please don't kill us....we really mean it.

Viking Festival: Picture Edition

Viking Festival

Last Saturday, we met up with Dan and Amy at the Viking Festival in Abbotsford. We shared a lovely picnic at Mill Lake before heading over to the Trethewey House for the festivities.

The boys, in true peaceful Mennonite fashion, took to a sword fight and proceeded to beat each other up with foam swords.

They both lost limbs in the battle, as you can tell from the one legged dance that they are performing.

In the end, both succumb to their injuries. Yeah peace!

Grocery Shopping: How we do it without a car.

People often ask us, "How do you do it?" in the context of living without a car. Well, folks! Here's a glimpse into the illusive world of car-free living. It takes a little bit of hard work. A lot of sweat, tears and the odd swear word. But eventually, you make it. Sometimes cursing yourself for buying so many groceries in the first place.
Dan: I mean, who really needs to eat that much?
Amanda: Well, we do, after hauling it all home!
Now you may say to yourself, that cart doesn't look all that full and she's only carrying three bags of groceries! How hard could that be? Well, little do you know that the cart, full of groceries, weighs upwards of 100lbs that we had to haul up two very large hills! And Amanda is carrying another 40lbs divided between three bags! Folks! It gets heavy and cumbersome. But, we continue to do it.
Why?
We are stubbornly bound and determined to make it as long as we can without a vehicle.
Again, Why?
We don't really know. Perhaps, we trauma block these incidents. Okay, really. We rarely do such large trips anymore. We've gotten a bit smarter in our old age and have begun to take weekly trips to the grocery store. This lightens the load a bit....okay, a lot.
So, how do we do it? We put one foot in front of the other with a bag in each hand, and a heave-ho on the cart handle. Somehow we make it home, with a (slight) smile on our face!

Cursed Bike

I (Dan) have a bike that I got from my work a little less than a year ago and in that time it has given me very little trouble.... until this last month. In the last 4 weeks it has been disaster after disaster. It starts with one spoke breaking, then two days later another one gave out and it got bad enough that I had to take the tire off and get it fixed. Then the day after I got the tire fixed I got a flat and a big one at that. So off to get the necessary parts to fix a flat. Okay, so I get the flat fixed and now I lost my front derailleur cable, so this is my next project. All this inside of a month... I'm beginning to think my bike is cursed. Here's hoping that nothing else goes wrong in the next month.

Something to celebrate!

In 6 weeks, we have both lost 12 pounds! We have started to exercise more (good old bike rides), eat smaller portions and stop the night snacking. All in all, we're just trying to embrace a healthier holistic lifestyle. And we certainly are proud (and a little lighter to show for it!)