Fall is upon us

Well the wedding season is over - and so for 2006, that means that my summer has also drawn to a close. Congratulations to Lisa and Alistair, Sarah and Todd, and last but not least Bekki and Anthony for declaring their love for one another and putting on great celebrations! :P

I on the other hand, am enjoying my last week of holidays in the gorgeous Vancouver sunshine (I need to enjoy it while I can!) before heading back to work! Yes, that does deserve an exclamation mark as I'm pretty stoked to be working back with KPMG - but this time in Vancouver. The last 18 months or so have been awesome, but I feel it's time for me to get this here idle brain of mine going again and I'm looking forward to it.

Another sign that fall has come is that I got possession of my new cross bike yesterday! Also rather stoked about this - it's such a pretty Giant! :) Get to test it out in true form this weekend with a pair of races - the first in Seattle at Star Crossed (super cool - the course actually goes through a beer garden) and then closer to home (and a personal favourite) on the Surrey course. Not sure how the "intensity" thing is going to treat me, but it'll be nice to get out there all the same.

I think that covers the "what's new" category. Oh yeah - come out and visit us - my lastest Bday present (from Daddy and Di) was a blow up bed for visitors - so now we can be good hosts! ;)

Beer, Pizza, Wedding Chapel

Yesterday Chris, Sandra and I went to ride Mount Baker. I don't think we really knew what we were in for - but the epic ride called our names. We headed out to Abbotsford for 9am (it only takes an hour to get out there that early in the morning!) and crossed the border and commenced the 150km ride. From what I had read, I believed that we would be doing 40km to Glacier (the base of Mt. Baker), 40km up, 40km down and 40km home - the is some math missing somewhere in there...but that was all we needed to start our adventure ride.

Now what would an epic ride be without a good detour. Apparently I should have looked at the map (or the roadside signs) more closely, as we ended up taking about a 15km detour. But much to our luck with came upon a building advertising Beer, Pizza and a Wedding Chapel. Definately picture worthy - unfortunately for both you and me - I forgot my camera (not that I would have had room for all the extra clothing I had jammed in my pockets!) We got turned around soon enough and headed towards Baker. The ride itself was quite pleasant - it wasn't until we hit the 4 hour make that we had any inclement weather. Unfortunately, at 4 hours, we were still going up...making for a LONG day! The rain wasn't hard, and we knew we were near the top - so we pushed on. Good thing that we did too cause we were within a few kms and we would have been kicking ourselves if we had turned around.

Once at the top, we were greeted by hail. Yes, the mountain weather prevailed and we were in the middle of quite a bit of precipitation - not really what you're looking to have around when you have to descent for 40km! We had to stop twice on the trip down to try to regain feeling in our fingers as to be able to change gears and, more importantly break...man I MISS AUSTRALIA! We even ended up riding uphill a little - I resorted to singing out loud to take my mind off the pain...it is only September! Winter is going to be a LONG battle. Anyways, we made it out of the rain and continued down to the town of Glacier. I had lost the ability to shift into my big chain ring because of my frozen left hand and we were all expressing knee discomfort after riding for 2 hours at 50RPM before turning around and subjecting our joints to freezing temperatures!

At the end of the day it was a 6.5 hour ride - and the whole thing was amazing! The road is beautiful, the pavement smooth and the scenery picturesque. Definately a ride I would recommend to anyone just watch out for the mountain weather :P!

YIKES! I'm a quarter of a century...

So I'm kinda conflicted about this Bday! Last year I was soaking up rays on a beach in Fiji - today I'm in Vancouver wearing a nice big, electric blue Lulu sweatshirt (courtesy of Christopher) and still not entirely warm. I'm in the middle of a bit of a quarter of a century crisis...I mean by 25 aren't you supposed to know where you want to go with your life? I know I want to be a cyclist...outside of that I just don't know - accounting, finance, or something completely unrelated??? I thought that I would have at least been in an industry for a few years before I start questioning my direction. I've spent the week at job interviews and applying for every position I come across that I qualify for - it's definately hard to convince full-time positions that they want to employ me - only give me 30ish hours a week and unlimited (unpaid) holidays. I am too demanding aren't I?

Okay, enough of the deep thoughts - I started my day with a run and a cinnamon bun and a pumpkin latte - what could be better???? I'm hoping to go for a ride later today and then a nice dinner (and cake of course!) Bithdays are GREAT! I'm still educating Chris that one's birthday is the MOST important day of the year - it's the only day that you get all to yourself (although I knowingly share it with Jenny Sweeney, Tricia Milner and Adam from elementary school) - but I'm loving it. I can't find any appropriate Bday pics, so I'm going to settle for Chris and I on our Heart Mountain hike - it killed me, but running has been easy ever since!

I Have a Home!

So after being somewhat transient for the last 16 months, I'm happy to say that last weekend Chris and I settled into our place in Vancouver. We're living on the border of Kits and West Pointe Grey - apparently that's a froofy location for those of you who are curious...it's super close to the Eatery which is a funky Japanese restaurant - oddly enough it was one of the first places I knew in Vancouver and now I live about a block away - and we've eaten there twice since our arrival.
This week has been pretty chill - Chris started school and I've been trying to sort out the last bits of our house like getting internet (which we don't have yet, I'm currently at a wireless cafe), and waiting for our couch to be delivered...not to mention job hunting - but it's been really nice. The weather is absolutely gorgeous and we've been enjoying morning runs down to Jericho park - definately no complaints! Anyhoo, nothing too interesting - cross races are going to start up soon, but for now, I just wanted to include a few pics of my new abode. (You'll note that I strategically left out a pic of the living room as it's a great open void at the moment - but I just got a call to inform me that we're having the couch delivered on Monday!!!)