Zucchini Boats

Zucchini boats with chicken-turkey sausage & onion stuffing, marinara sauce, cheese.

Spanish Banks Pt 2

Another bike ride and a picnic at Spanish Banks. I brought the blanket and most of the food this time so I had to ask Peter for rope so I could strap my backpack to my rear rack!

Baby Raiden

"Linus tricked me into naming our son after a Mortal Kombat character." HAH!

3 month old Raiden is a cutie pie. Too bad I don't have the maternal instinct. Every time I picked him up, he would go from happy baby to crying baby. I don't think I'm meant to be a mother!

Empty Fridge

I've become one of those people who doesn't keep anything in their fridge....as you can see, all I have right now are a chocolate bunny, a block of cheese, half an onion, and some eggs. My mother would be ashamed.

Italian Fireworks

Wine and Cheese Party

I hosted my first party at my new place, and it was a success! All the wine and most of the food was gone by the end of the night.  We started off indoors but it got so hot that we all migrated to the patio. I'm glad I had bought my patio furniture because it ended up being perfect. I had so much fun. I was a bit worried about awkwardness because a lot of people didn't know each other, but it ended up being a good mix with good conversation.

James brought a very dense four pound loaf of bread. It was like a baby.

The J corner. Someone looking a bit gangsta.

My favourite part was when Giosy made a toast..to ME! That's why I look so happy in my picture.

I have the best friends ever who help me clean up. I barely had to do anything :)

We finished five bottles of wine and one bottle of champagne altogether. I was actually contemplating running down to the liquor down the street from my place to get another one, but it was closed by that time, so we had to make do with just six!

Climbing Like a Beast

I am glad my technique has improved so that I can finally climb overhangs like these, even though I don't actually have a lot of upper arm strength. I really impressed the guys I was climbing with that day!

Food and Fireworks

Lunch: potatoes, zucchini, turkey-chicken sausage, and onions. 

Dinner: Hotdog with avocado, onions, and potato chips. Correction: VEGGIE dog. Noel likes to trick me into eating veggie meat.

After dinner: B52 shots, after two glasses of wine at dinner. I just realized I have gone from very rarely drinking (maybe once every few months) into drinking three times a week! I think it's because of the people I've been hanging out with more recently. I have to say that my tolerance is building up quite nicely though!

Fireworks: at Vanier Park. It is so nice not having to deal with the hassle of going downtown. Instead I I took a leisurely 15 minute stroll down to the park and plopped myself down on the grass!

After fireworks: walking through Granville Island

Sailing the RS 500

Peter had been promising to take me sailing ever since I met him. We've had very many attempts to do it, but our plans kept getting foiled by weather/work/time restraints. Today I ended up getting home from work two hours earlier than planned, so he decided last minute to go home early and to take me sailing. It was the perfect day to do it. Light winds meant that he could teach me what I needed to do easily.

He originally planned on taking me on a catamaran, which is a more stable boat, but when I asked him what his favourite and most fun boat to sail was, he pointed at the RS500. He said it was fun but there was a very high chance of us capsizing, because it requires a lot of balance. I was all for it. I mean, I had a life vest and a wet suit anyway. I got to control the spinnaker and the jib, and constantly had to shift my weight as the boat tipped from one side to another. He freaked me out when he told me he had gotten the ropes crossed and needed to do an "emergency procedure". "You have to be in charge of steering now as I fix this. Make sure you steer it correctly, because if you don't, the sails will billow out and we will capsize," he warned me. So I tried steering, and we kept going the wrong way, and I heard him muttering, "This isn't a good idea. I don't think this will work." I was so tense as he fixed the ropes because I was so worried I would cause the boat to tip over! But it was alright in the end. He fixed it, and I had a ton of fun. Now I want to go out with high winds! Apparently it's much much more exciting when it's a windy day.

Making Animal Treats

I spent the past two days taking a vet compounding course. It was really fun. I got to make all sorts of pet treats! There were beef flavoured treats, peanut butter treats, raisin treats, sweet potato treats...

It was like cooking. This was a beef bouillion cube mixed with corn syrup and metronidazole.

Raisins are really hard to make a treat out of, because their skin is hard to crush. This one was tough!