Thursday.

Happy Birthday to me. Oh goody, another year older. Yeah.

So I woke up this morning to … nuh-huh … another item of mine being used as a pillow …

.

I spent the day in the office, statisticizing the heck out of that data!
(and that’s a praying mantis on my computer screen … cool)

.

Belinda came and met me at my office after work and we went shopping for a bit. You won’t believe it, but I bought PINK pants. That’s right … pink. I don’t know what came over me, it was like I had an attack of being a girl or something.

.

We made our way down to Gastown and had a yummy dinner and some red wine at a nice indian food place … I haven’t had real indian food in a while, so it was a treat. Mmmmm … garlic naan.

We then made our way to Canada Place and decided to see the Imax 3D underwater movie … narrated by Johnny Depp, which I found funny because I’d told some of you I was going to spend my birthday with Johnny Depp by watching Pirates of the Carribean, and so it was quite amusing that although we decided not to go see that movie, I still ended up spending by birthday with Johnny Depp! … sigh …

So here we are in our incredibly flattering eyewear for the movie …

.

After the movie we walked around Canada Place at night, taking photos because it was so pretty. That’s Belinda in the photo below.

.

These photos all turned out quite well, I may have to get some of them blown up to put in the apartment.

.

They decided that because of the success of the orcas a couple of summers ago, that they’d give the same idea a try with grizzly bears, so Belinda decided to pose with the one with the underwater scenes on it, seeing as we’d just watched the underwater movie …

.

More nice night shots downtown …

.

My office …

.

We made our way through downtown and eventually to Robson Street, where we stopped for a treat, and I had a toffee nut steamed milk to top off the evening, then caught the bus back home. A nice relaxing but fun evening.

Tomorrow (Friday) I have the day off, although the weather is still iffy, it’s been chilly, overcast, and sometimes rainy all week. Thankfully the weekend will be nicer, but I’d be super happy if it cleared up for tomorrow.

Although tonight I went to the art supply store and bought nearly $100 bucks worth of oil paints, supplies and canvases, so even if tomorrows weather sucks, I’ll still have something fun to do.

Thanks for the birthday wishes … but now this old lady needs to get some sleep …

.

thursday.

so dana d FINALLY made it out to this end of the country for a visit. I did the family/friend tradeoff at the airport on a lovely wednesday in august, and the rest is in the photos…

WE HIKED A MOUNTAIN…

(view from the top of the chief)

.

(we rock)

.

hit the aquarium…

(baby beluga in the deep blue … aquarium)

.

(ooooh, jellyfish!)

.

(bc reef tank)

.

went sea kayaking with martin (and the seals)…

(dana’s first time in a sea kayak!)

.

(martin’s first time in a sea kayak!)

.

(me with dana d and martin paddlin in the background)

.

(taking a seal watching break)

.

movie of dana kayaking

(self portrait)

.

(cute seals!)

.

(go dana, go!)

.

watched the celebration of light fireworks with rene and kristen…

(kristen and rene)

.

(dana chillin)

.

(mmmm … ice cream. ummm … I sorta had TWO before the show started…)

.

(yaaaaay, fireworks!)

.

(yaaaaay, more fireworks!)

.

(I have enough of these for their own entry…)

.

ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO TO THE PRIDE PARADE, with kristen…

(hanging out in english bay on the beach)

.

(the man float – woo!)

.

(zoom, zoom. I believe this was part of the dykes on bikes portion)

.

(celebrities nightclub float – where we ended up later that evening)

.

(chicks enjoying the parade)

.

(nice flooofy ta-ta’s!)

.

(dudes in costumes)

.

(work it!)

.

(three hot chicks. god this is a horrible photo of me – ack!)

.

(the lady in beer)

.

(I call this “if you had the misfortune of seeing zz top naked”, nuff said)

.

(there was loads of costumage)

.

(the ladies again)

.

(well what other colour would it be? come on)

.

(more costumage)

.

and had a fun round of pitch and putt with martin…

(dana pitch n putting)

.

movie of dana pitch n putting
(and martin throwing around the f-bomb)

(martin pitch n putting)

.

movie of martin pitch n putting

.

… where upon my first shot of the day I lost my ball and couldn’t find it ANYWHERE. it had landed near the green, but we were damned if we could find it. the baby coyote didn’t even steal it. finally we gave up, and martin threw me a spare ball to putt with from just off the green. just as he was finishing up his shot (and I was still fuming and sour about losing my ball after my first shot of the day) he plucked his ball from the hole, only to discover a second ball in the hole…

WOO!

all that in just a week! there are of course more photos, but this is a helluva long entry already!

.

Wednesday.

Yeah, I know, St. Pattys was last Saturday, so what’s the holdup? I had to snag some of these photos from Kristens camera, so it’s taken a few days, seeing as we’re busy chicks and all.

So I worked all day at the LD on St. Pattys Day, then we got ready and went up to the Queens Cross (of course) for our evening of green and drinkies…

Just three girls, innocently enjoying ourselves and our Irish beverages,

When along comes Corby the Robot,

… and it all goes downhill from there …

But at least we were sporting our GREEN!

And that’s all she wrote for that night. The next day we headed off to the aquarium, which rocked, because well, the aquariumrocks and I love fishies! I have lots of good photos, but I’ll post them next time. For now I’ll include Kate and Kristens shenanagins at Kits beach when we went for a stroll after the aquarium…

We then walked all the way from Kits beach to Granville Island, and hung around in the market for a while before walking back to Kits beach and off to dinner. This photo is for all of you freezing out east … enjoy!

I know I say it all the time, but I love Vancouver!

.

Tuesday.

There is just SO MUCH going on these days!

I’m still running, and we’re up to 55 minutes this week, heading into 75 next week. I find that pretty darn amazing considering when I started I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to run for 3 minutes a few times over. Incredible!

I’m also trying to make it out to bellydancing lessons on Wednesday nights, because it’s SO MUCH FUN and great exercise too. I’ll have to download some indian bellydancing music so I can practice at home – hee hee!

Kristen & I went out for a fancy dinner and a night of dancing last Saturday night, thanks to a lovely giftcard from bobnbev that I got as a valentine’s present! We went to Milestone’s and then Celebrities, the same places we went to for Kristen’s birthday back in January. I of course ordered the “special” bellini, the one that come with an extra shot of pineapple rum to pour on top. Kristen ordered one too and we had fun playing with the little plastic animals that come with the drinks…

.

From work yesterday I took this photo, it’s part of the view from my cube, and I just LOVE the way my building and the marine building reflect in the building across the street on a sunny day.

.

And here’s me pretending to be normal after goofing off (rarely captured in photos … honest) in the living room…

Tonight is “clean the house like maids on speed” night. We’re both looking forward to cleaning the heck out of the place and getting it to look normal again. Tomorrow is bellydancing, and life just continues to be busy after that … Kristen’s friend Kate is arriving on Friday for a crazy girls’ weekend, which just happens to coincide with St. Patty’s day, so this ought to be interesting! She’ll be here until next Tuesday, so I’m sure she’ll end up being featured in the next installment here as well.

Thankfully I only work at LD Saturday during the day again, and have Sunday off. Sweet! That’s been my schedule for the past few weeks and I love it – I’m hoping that will continue for a bit.

I still haven’t heard anything official about my term at EC, so I’ve still got my fingers crossed.

Bobnbev and gorhorr are already planning their flights out here this summer – WOOHOO!!! I managed to convince gorhorr to get her ass out here for a second year in a row, so it’ll be fantastic to have the whole family together here again for at least a couple of weeks.

That’s it for now … over and out!

.