My parents came over for our first Thanksgiving in our new house. We had it a week early since both Theresa and my dad were going to be away during the Thanksgiving weekend. Theresa was very excited to use China from her great aunt Totsie, crystal from her grandparents, and silverware from my grandparents.
 |
| From thanksgiving 2009 |
As one of our training rides, we went to Fort Langley and cycled to Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and back. (Map)
You’d think that the cycling would be a highlight, but Brad wanted to take pictures of roadkill.
As we made our way through the farmland, we were told to “Geeett ‘Eeerrr Dooone!”, saw a lot of Sunday morning church services, had ice cream and picked a fight with a driver (well, I, Theresa, picked a fight - he was too close to my beloved!).
See our entire bike ride, including Brad floating on air (watch for it!).
Chris and I have lived in the South Slope of Burnaby for six years. I decided I wanted to live on one of two streets: Clinton or Portland. And on those two streets, I only wanted to live on two specific blocks. Why? Because they were pretty and they were still a 10 minute walk to the skytrain. As for the names, I liked Clinton because I thought he was a good president and I’m all for Hillary. Portland because my best friend grew up in Portland, OR. I figured both streets had good juju for me.
We looked around at houses casually for several years, stepping up our efforts to “a bit more than casual” in the last six months. Our townhouse landscaping was so nice in the spring and our interior was well done, so it was easy to continue to live there and difficult to buy a fixer-upper.
We had a specific price range, specific two blocks, wanted a south facing back yard. Good luck finding it! In our price range we saw a lot of junk, stuff that made me so made that someone else wanted me to give them how-much-money-for-that-piece-of-sh**? As a consumer, I felt disrespected (yeah, it was a tough search). Chris made me stay focused on the 10 minute walk to the skytrain because we have one car and don’t want another. He drives to work, but I’m a regular transit user.
We finally found a house on the street we wanted with a south facing backyard. The upstairs had been nicely renovated and the downstairs was still unfinished. An unfinished basement was good because we had seen a lot of finished ones with terrible workmanship and we didn’t want to pay for that only to have to tear it out later. When I walked into the house, I knew I wanted to buy it. I kept my mouth shut until we left and I said to Chris and the realtor in a whisper, “I think we should buy this house.”
We made an offer and they countered at what we thought was too high, so we didn’t counter. We waited two weeks, made the same offer, their counter was better, so we countered and they countered and we accepted. After that ensued one of the busiest work and personal times for both me and Chris.
Since we were soooo busy, we had to put Chris’ parents to work. We enslaved them at very little cost to ourselves, barely fed and watered them, and forced them to do back-to-back late night and early morning shifts. I comfort myself with the fact that they liked it.
In the end, we managed to move.
First bike ride of the year for Sharon and Dad. We went over the Lions Gate bridge and into Stanley park. It was a bit cold, but nice and sunny for most of the ride. The dark clouds came in and it actually started snowing right at the end. Fortunately we were inside with our hot chocolate when the heavy snow started falling.
 |
| From bikeRide_march8_2009 |
Theresa’s first ever bike race. She put her training to the test on a technical course. Stephane was racing at the same time in the open beginner category, and Steven had his Men’s B race right after.
Click on the picture to see the album.
We had MDA’s annual golf tournament on Friday. Jose was working(?!) in Hawaii, and Colin was working in Vancouver, so we had to pull in a ringer: Christine’s mom Josephine. We actually did really well, finishing 2 under par. I also won the men’s closest to the tee (despite the cheating of stewart austin).
A few pictures are up here.
So after reading a review that the patio furniture we were going to get for $400 rusted immediately, we started considering teak stuff. Everything we heard was that it was very durable and really didn’t need any maintenance, so we decided to go for it. We ended up buying very similar stuff to my parents from the same shop in West Van. They helped us bring it home, and we had a good BBQ up on the deck to test it out.
Since then, it’s rained the past couple of days, so we’ll get a quick indicator of how it’s holding up.
After our mother’s day brunch prepared by SS Herbert, we went for a hike around lighthouse park. We explored the west side, hitting all 4 official lookouts…despite it’s treacherous nature.
Another weekend, another bike ride. This time Theresa and I went by ourselves. We went along the north (burnaby) side of the river to the Knight st. bridge, and then back along river road to the queensburough. We stopped for a picnic at a small park at No. 7 rd and River road, where we’ve been before.
See the map here.
