Premiere Lake

We went out to O's lake cabin(s) for 6 days. It's such a beautiful lake that is pretty much untouched, pristine nature at its finest. 

 On the boat ride to the cabin....I like this picture because it's the cleanest my hair looked for the next 6 days. There's no electricity and so no hot shower. I tried to wash my hair in the lake but couldn't get all the shampoo out which resulted in dreadlocks by the time we left. 

 Mini pony! 

 I don't know why, but this picture makes me laugh aloud. 

 The kayaks were so much fun and such a good workout. 

 Rocky effin' mountains. 

The cabins are so cute! 

Pretty! 

We hiked up to Cat's Eye Lake on one of the sunny days. 

The Girl Who Set Her Wedding Dress on Fire.

Accidentally, of course. The Wedding Dress Saga continues. To make a long story short, well, who needs to make it short? I've got all day to write this. The dress has already been to more countries than most people have in their lifetime. We get it all the way to Canada to end up torching it. Apparently, silk is very flammable, in case you were unaware of this little known fact. We hung it up in the cabin and it happened to be leaning up against a lamp. (The most common question, I've gotten about this story is "What kind of lamp was it?" My response: The kind that makes fire? I have no idea, it's a hot lamp, the dress is silk, yada yada the dress caught fire and melted). We came back from a few drinks at Miss Tweedle's place. (By the way, I saw your apartment's renovation in that magazine article, how cool is that?!) So we came home, brushed our teeth, I turned on a reading lamp wondering why there wasn't enough light in the room. What is covering the light? Oh, that damn dress, and I push it out of the way. As soon as I touched the dress, I knew. That would also explain the burning smell. At first I couldn't even breathe or touch it. I flipped the dress over and threw it on the bed and just stared at it. I ran to get O and he thought I had seen a bear (That's a real thing here in Canada). I had lost all ability to talk and just mimed what had happened. O calmed me down and reminded me that "it's just a thing" which didn't help and "we can afford a new one" which made me feel better. We call Miss Tweedle, since she knows everything "wedding" and I put the dress on to see how bad it is. It's bad. It's scorched through 2 layers of the dress. Feeling panicked, we ran through ideas of what to do. We were assured that it could be fixed. Needing another drink or 2 and the hot tub, we hang the dress in the garage. Out of sight, out of mind. The next day, we ran through names of seamstresses in town. Finding my fairy godmother, she was able to cut the piece out and gather it, move the lace on top and sew it all up in 2 days with the help of tiny mice and magic. Now you would never know where it is, and I'm not going to tell you or that's where you'll be looking in all the photos. Also, she made me promise to NOT point it out at the wedding or then people will notice and I will turn into a pumpkin. 

We've just got to keep this dress safe for 22 more days. Still quite a bit more to go, 1 more plane ride, dry cleaned and transported through 2 more houses. Fingers crossed. 

summer of love.

Our summer has started here in Canada..... Oh, beautiful Canada. Do not be fooled by these pictures. The current temperature at 3pm is 3C or 38F for the Americans or as I like to call it F$CK*NG COLD. I was ready for a change from the heat of Singapore which is a warm 32C or 90F or as O likes to call it "living on the sun". We've had several rainy/cloudy days here, but when the sun comes out, it's really pretty. 

 It stopped raining long enough to get this picture. 

 Rainbow!

 Can you see the deer in the picture?

 I get really excited when I see these. I don't know why, but I always want to push these over. I guess it's like seeing a bunch of dominoes set up, you just gotta knock them over. It wouldn't be a nice thing to do, so I just have to fight the urge. Also, I bet some are glued together. 

It's a slower pace of life. We have to stretch the days out and not do everything all at once or we won't have anything else to do. Sometimes it seems like we hold on to conversations a lot longer than they need to be. Like we might contemplate the population of a certain city for a solid 25 minutes when we could just google the answer in about 25 seconds. 

decisions are hard.

Apparently, most parts of your wedding are supposed to be a surprise for everyone. Unfortunately, I have trouble deciding on things and like sharing what is happening as it's happening. Here's the decision of the week: which earrings for the bridesmaids?

It's really not that difficult these days. I started with a simple google search "What type of jewelry should I have for Jcrew Spiced Wine dresses?" And this popped up:

 I've looked at about a million earrings and still can't decide. Cast your vote for your fave. PLEASE!
Here are the finalists:

 Choice #1

  I've recently become obsessed with rose gold. I love love love it. But not sure if it's the best choice for the dress colors.

 Choice #2

Choice #3

 Choice #4

Choice # 5

Choice #6

Choice #7

books....

 Alright, so I caved in and read the books. I've read Suzanne Collins' first series Gregor the Overlander. It's a series for upper Elementary kids and I loved that so I thought I'd give The Hunger Games a chance. They are very addictive. She's really good with suspense and cliff hangers throughout each book. There's never really a point in the story to just put the book down. I read these when we were on the Gili Islands  for a week. You'll need several days to devote to these books because they are really difficult to put down.

 This is so interesting. If you are even slightly interested in US History or better yet, teaching US history, this is for you. It's pretty shocking how incorrect and egocentric the textbooks really are. Having a US education and then living overseas, I definitely agree with everything the author writes. The US hasn't always had such a "nice" history and it does sound a lot better if the founders of the US are portrayed as the heroes in all circumstances. We've got to be proud to be Americans, right? There's so much I had no idea about, like Helen Keller. It's really amazing how the textbooks are written to glorify certain people but not share important details about their lives.  It's written almost like a textbook so it's a slow read, but worth it.

I've read some of her other books which are pretty funny. I like this one because she takes the piss out of being a Southern Belle. There's a fine line between being a Southern belle and being totally white trash. It reminds me a lot of this lady, Karen Ross, who I used to work with. I can totally picture her narrating this book. I love the Southern sayings and traditions. It's a good, light read.

If you haven't seen this show, you are missing out. It's so freaking hilarious. We've seen Season 1 and 2 and I read that they are working on Season 3. This is Karl's journal as he filmed the show. It's pretty much just like the show with a few more details of behind the scenes. There's something so hilarious about putting someone who hates to travel in amazing locations and he just complains about it the entire time. Really great British humor. Love it.

it's been awhile...

It's been a busy past few weeks with the end of the school year. Lots of good-byes which means lots of parties and farewell dinners. It really hasn't hit me that 3 of my good friends are leaving. We eat lunch together every day at work and have had so many good laughs together. I can't imagine them not being here. We've had about a million goodbye parties/dinners, I guess we just can't say goodbye!

Lady Gaga was in town and was AMAZING! Great concert! To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect and just knew a few songs. Since then, we've been playing her songs nonstop. She talked a lot during the concert and reminded us to all chase our dreams and be yourself. What are your dreams? Do we still have dreams as adults? Don't we have everything we could ever hope for? I really thought about it awhile and here's what I came up with.
1. Own a house on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.
2. Travel to Antarctica, Nepal, Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Paris (yeah, I know it's weird I haven't been there), New Zealand. Just a short list.
3. Have another job other than teaching that uses lots of creativity.
4. Run a B&B. (This could be linked with dream #1.)
5. Adopt a baby from Cambodia or Ethiopia. (Yes, I know Americans can't adopt from Cambodia, but it's still my dream)

What are your dreams???