Cathy & Max here! Both originally from Texas, we graduated from The University of Tulsa in the spring of 2014. We're now newlyweds! But first, we moved north! Max is starting at the Vancouver Film School in the fall, so we've packed everything up and are heading to Vancouver, Canada! This is the telling of our journey, stories, mishaps and adventures!
Looking for a specific section of our adventures? Check out the pages below!
Right after Candytown! Candytown, hailed as a holiday festival, was somewhat less than that. We wanted to go as it was largely the first "Christmas event" of the season. I was picturing elves and candy and Santa and reindeer and peppermint all around. I was greeted by food trucks and tent for a community college and one for bicycles. There was a Santa. We could not see him as he was swarmed by the line, hoard, of folks hoping to get a picture of their child on his lap. There were a few candy canes. All of them fake. There was popcorn. All of it fake. There was a sleigh. Made of ice. Hrm. We still had fun. It was really nice to get out. We hadn't explored Yaletown much, and it's definitely somewhere we'll visit again. Candytown, not as much.
Also this hilarious sign.
And this gorgeous little park
But then there was Pokemon to be played!!! They released two new games yesterday. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Ruby and Sapphire were both originally released in 2003, but they have redone them for the Nintendo 3DS. Quite exciting! So once we returned from the adventured in Yaletown (via Starbucks), we snuggled up on the couch to play some video games. Quite a great day.
What a great weekend! The miraculously beautiful weather prompted us to stretch our legs and spend some time outside. I had also stumbled across the Passion Planner earlier this week! They have a free layout of the weekly pages that you can download for free. I wanted to give it a shot, but didn't want to wait for the backlog to eventually get one in 2015. So I Excel-jigged a spread of the months and printed a whole calendar! Yesterday I took the copies for Max and I up to Staples to have them spiral-bound. I also found a really cool drawn map of Vancouver at Granville Island. It has our actual building on it! I took that to Staples as well to have it laminated. On the way back we stopped at the food trucks by the Vancouver Art Gallery. I have had my eye on Mom's Grilled Cheese Truck for a while now and finally got a sandwich! They also make a mean tomato soup. You can get a cup, or if you just want it for dipping as I usually do, you can get a shot of soup! I took my grilled cheese and we went to Chipotle. At least we're trying to eat locally. I snagged a couple of seats while Max got in line. A couple sat down next to us, and they were speaking Spanish! They asked if I'd gotten my grilled cheese sandwich from Chipotle. That's my in! No, from Mom's. Would you mind me asking where you're from? The one gentleman was born and raised Vancouver, but his husband was from Mexico. I'm from Texas!!! They've been here about 14 years, and were trying Chipotle for the first time (it is rather new to the area) and weren't so impressed. I asked where they frequented for good Mexican food. They recommended La Taqueria and The Mexican. My goodness. I told them that Mexican food here is like Asian food in Texas, there's just something a little wrong about it. I went back to Staples today to pick up our calendars. The laminating was going to take a little longer and won't be ready until Tuesday. I grabbed them and headed toward the Marketplace IGA for a few groceries. It's really a gorgeous weekend out! There hasn't been rain for several days!! That's crazy here! I made it into the building to find both elevators working!! WHAATT?!!!? YAYYY!!! Put away all the groceries and finally sat down to look at my beautiful Passion Planner. And Staples put some of the pages in backward. **UGH** They apparently take small sections at a time off of my perfectly in order calendar to punch the holes for the spiral. They punched one of these sections on the wrong side. This meant January was followed by March and then February. No. Nope. Wrong. I spent an hour pacing around the apartment trying to figure out how much of it I could live with or what I could do about it. I am aware that this is the epitome of a first world problem. However, it was also something I was going to change. I un-spiraled the spiral binding and removed the pages that were in the wrong spot. I then proceeded to reprint said pages. I took this with me and went back to Staples, hoping they could just punch the holes in them so I could rebind everything. They punched the wrong holes in it. -_- The nice man kindly said he would make a copy of all the pages and re-punch them. No, that's what I had already done. Alright. HE COPIED THEM ON TO A HIGH GLOSS PAPER. THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE REST OF THE PAGES. I will survive this. Surely, I will survive this.
Mom and I went to the aquarium today! We walked there, of course. Took about an hour and a half. It was a nice walk though. Over to Canada Place and then along the sea wall until we hit Stanley Park. I was oddly surprised by how many joggers and bikers there were at 11 am on a Wednesday, by themselves, just doing their thing. It was a gorgeous and very peaceful walk. Then the aquarium!!! It was amazing!! It was the two of us surrounded by nannies and moms and toddlers. Until around 4, when the post-school rush hit! We were a little surprised when we arrived to learn that half of the exhibits are outdoors! The animals are naturally use to the colder temperatures, so they just built outdoor habitats. A little chilly, but fun to see. There were belugas that did tricks. A couple of port dolphins, some adorable sea otters, a pair of seals and sea lions! Pretty much every one of them knew a couple of orders. The team doing the shows were having the animals do body presents to check them for injuries. Mom bought memberships for Max and I as an early Christmas present! We're excited to take Michael when he comes up in a while. Mom wanted to walk home. I wasn't as convinced. It would have been a good 45 minutes, plus the sun had set and it was getting pretty cold out. Max driving up to get us was a much better option. Only about 5 minutes instead! We stayed in for the rest of the evening watching Downton Abbey. I got mom absolutely hooked on it!! We watched most of the first season! Then I talked her in to letting me drive her to the airport the next morning since we would be heading out before the sun rose! That meant we got to watch one more episode of Downton!
Mom's plane came in yesterday around 2! I met her at the airport and we took the train back to the apartment. Well, first to the gorgeous Waterfront Station, where we switched to the train line that runs by the apartment. Then up to the apartment! Thankfully there was one working elevator, so we didn't have to climb any stairs. She and I stayed in last night, made some grilled chicken and pasta for dinner, and looked through my wedding albums. It was a pretty perfect evening. Max had an evening class, so it was our ladies night of her visit. This morning started much earlier for her than it did for Max and I. She usually wakes up around 5:30 am Dallas time, which is 3:30 am Vancouver time, which is four hours before the sun rises. She says she stayed in bed until about 6:30, which I found to be very impressive. Max and I, on the other hand, got up around 9. We went to Ricky's for some breakfast. It was beautifully sunny outside, but a little too cold to sit on the patio. From there we wandered over to Victory Square for the Remembrance Day Ceremony and Parade. Today marks 100 years since the end of World War I. The War to End All Wars. Sadly, this was not true. Yet the members of the Commonwealth of Nations still pause every year to remember those who lost their lives in the war, and those who have dedicated their service and lives to the armed forces since then. In the States the day still holds meaning. We don't wear poppies or sing the songs of the fallen. We don't consider the day a holiday, giving everyone the day off work to gather round war memorials across the country. We remember every person who has worn the uniform. Max, mom, and I honored Matthew. We honored grandpa, my dad's dad. We honored those we knew, those we never would. There were poems, songs, flyovers, and 21-gun salutes. It was spectacular and elegant. From there we went down into Chinatown so that Max could show us his campus! I'd seen a very small part of it when we went to Jake's graduation back in July. Max gave us the whole grand tour though! Then we wandered back down Pender to stare at the outside of my office building because I didn't want to deal with unsetting and resetting the alarm. So that was nice. The day was still young and there was much to see, so we decided to head over to Granville Island. Miraculously, Max and I had yet to make it there. We decided to take the Aquabus to get a nice tour of False Creek. Only, the closest Aqaubus stop to us was at Plaza of the Nations, down behind the casino. What an adventure. We took a wrong turn and wound up at some other docks that were not the correct docks. Back up and around the front of the casino and then we could see the plaza. Of the Nations. With tons of flagpoles. All flying the Canadian flag. They tried. Our Aquabus took us to another Aquabus that took us to Granville Island. It was really cool! I can imagine it would be buckets and buckets of tourists in the summer. On this gorgeous Vancouver day that was still very cold, there were not as many tourists. Adorable children with their parents because everyone has the day off? Check. Adorable couples grocery shopping for their dinner? Check. We wondered all over the island. Through the market, past all the stores, all through the amazing toy store, by the concrete factory who paints all of their trucks and their massive silos, and around the nifty art University. The sun started to set and it was only getting colder. We hailed an Aquabus back to the casino and traipsed back up the hill to the apartment, via the Abbott St. Starbucks of course. We warmed up our toes and then went out for dinner. Max and I had never eaten inside of Back Forty's before. It's shocking that we hadn't been since it was nice out! But it was a perfect atmosphere. Even on a game night, the place was spirited but not overcrowded or unreasonably noisy. A great ending to a great day.
I'm 23 years old now!! Hurray!! The weekend wasn't quite what I'd imagined, but it was still spectacular. My Maxwell was also feeling a little under the weather, so we largely stayed indoors. Friday night we were crumbled on the couch and didn't want to travel the 20 feet into the bedroom. That's when Max said we should bring the bed to the living room. This sounds amazing. We made space in the middle of the floor and pulled the spare mattress in. This is so snuggly, the grown up version of a blanket fort. Saturday we went outside!! We drove to the grocery store and shuffled through as quickly as possible. For the first time in our lives, we didn't buy anything NOT on the grocery list! Feeling crummy, wanting to be home quickly, and having no appetite can do that to you. We spent the rest of the day baking muffins and watching movies from our blanket fort. Quite splendid. Sunday was my birthday!! I made it out of the office as far as the mailboxes downstairs. However, I did watch two seasons of Downton Abbey! So, you know, trade-offs. We had leftover chocolate chip muffins for brunch and Max made me dinner. Really, a perfect day.
Max met me for dinner after I got off work. :) There's an amazingly delicious restaurant, White Spot, one block down from where I work, on the way back to the apartment. I'd heard great things about it from folks at work and wanted us to try it. They have a great menu! Burgers, shakes, rice dishes, turkey dinners, everything scrumptious. Max's first term finished on Wednesday, so he had the whole day off! It was particularly nice for him to take some of his time off to make my day! Then we both started playing Hearth Stone, an online card collecting game Max has had his eye on for a while. A little bit of both of us for an evening together!
Last Friday was Matthew's 24th birthday. I went to the Springs on the 10th and flew back on the 14th. My parents drove up on the 11th and we spent tons of time together until Sunday when we all left. Really the point of this post is this: My parents can not and never will be able to function proficiently with technology. As an example, here is this:
I got oodles and oodles of wedding pictures from the amazing and incredible Christy Archibald (Facebook here) over the weekend. In fact, we were watching the second Cloud 9 vs. Curse game at PAX when I got the email with the link!!! Max was very tolerant of my non-participation while I poured over our pictures! She set them up in four albums, and I loved it so much I kept them when I made my own hard copy books! That is what I'll be sharing here! When you click on the link, you'll be taken to Picaboo's website to view a preview of the book I made. I've set them to open a new window this time since it's sort of an exhibition. Tab through the pages for the full experience :) I know I put some in here, but for the full experience, check out the books!!!! The first is Getting Ready. I've added a couple of my favorites from there. Then we had the Ceremony! There's also some of that below. Portraits were taken before and after the ceremony, but they fit well all in their own book. I even added some of these. Our Reception was the best party we could have ever imagined! TONS of reception photos (we got almost 1000 from Christy in that album!). Ok, for these you HAVE to go look at the book! I'm sorry! I just can't pick out any to share over all the others!!!
