A Dose of Normal

Since August, life has been crazy. Build-up to the wedding kept us busy, followed by prep for our honeymoon, followed by our actual honeymoon. When we returned home, we were back to reality, but by no means back to our regular, everyday, normal life.

When we got home, there were thank you cards to write, wedding registries to close, a sadly neglected house to clean, birthdays to celebrate, turkeys to be eaten, laundry to be washed and errand after errand to be run.

And when we were finally done all that, Tom decided to head to Seattle, and I decided to head to Toronto.

My friend, M, left Calgary over a year ago to start a new career. She wasn't able to make it to our wedding, so I booked a flight out to visit her. It is only for two days, but it was a much needed visit.

Me and M, post-gelato.

Weather in Toronto wasn't anything to rave about last weekend. It was about 15 degrees and overcast. It also rained for most of Saturday night, and part of Sunday morning. However, the trees this time of year are absolutely beautiful! Calgary had a very nice autumn this year. The leaves turned the most vibrant shade of yellow I have ever seen. But because Toronto has a wider variety of trees, the myriad of colours was fantastic!

Now that I am home, I am ready for a little normality. This weekend couldn't come sooner!

Happy Friday!

Back to Reality. Almost.

Sunny days, prime for snorkeling.

Plentiful flowers at the resort.

Lily pads in the koi fish pond.

On the boardwalk between overwater bungalows.

Me on our personal balcony.

Crab hanging out by the kayaks.

Collapsing walls of the extinct volcano.

Tom and I at an outlook point.

A papaya plantation.

A pineapple plant.

Rooster strutting his stuff.

Island views.

Mauruuru (Thank You), Moorea!

Days always pass so quickly when you are enjoying them.

The mornings always seem to be the best part of the day in Moorea. As soon as the sun starts to rise over the horizon, we are very aware of the houses across the lagoon where some of the locals live. Daylight beacons the roosters that live there, and so begins the never-ending shrieking of, "Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!" "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOO!" For the rest of day (and sometimes into the night) we can hear them crowing away. If the air condition is on, or the wind picks up, the noise is drowned out for a little while.

It has been very windy here. We overheard a couple last night telling another couple that it is usually breezy, but has been more so than normal on this visit. It is a continuous wind-- it doesn't seem to gust. But it is moist and humid.

An example of the wind.

Since it is always moist and humid, my hair has reached epic proportions of hugeness. In 2005 when I was in New York with Ashley and Kim, it rained a lot, and it was also humid. Both Ashley and I found our hair getting bigger and bigger. We compared Ashley's gigantic hair (which is much thicker than mine) to a lion's mane. We called her Simba, in honour of the Lion King (and the lion in the Museum of Natural History)! I'm pretty sure my hair has surpassed Ashley's Simba mane.

Tom has another sunburn. I'm happy to report that unlike his Hawaii burn, it is an even, all-encompassing burn this time. No patches from uneven sunscreen application. I'm sure he got it because he spent so much time snorkelling! He is trying to stay out of the sun, but I don't know how long that will last for!

Eating meals out here has been very interesting. Yesterday we ate breakfast at 8:15am, and then didn't eat again until 6:00pm for dinner. I didn't feel particularly hungry in the interm. We has the most amazing crepes for dinner. Crepes are delicious in any country. My savoury crepe was ham, cheese, mushroom and egg. Tom's was seafood in cream sauce. Then we both had a dessert crepe as well. Mine was aptly named "Le Bounty," and was full of chocolate, banana, coconut, and almond, topped with whipped cream and coconut sorbet. Tom's was similar-- chocolate, pineapple and coconut with whipped cream.

Amazing dessert crepe, "Le Bounty."

After dinner it was dark, but the water was very still and clear. Near the crepe bar there were lights over the water, so we watched about a dozen black tipped reef sharks circling underneathe us. They were maybe about 1m to 1.5m in length. They aren't around during the day while we were snorkelling, the just come it at night.

Black-tipped Reef Shark.

Coconut is delicious in all forms. Raw coconut, coconut sorbet, coconut bread, coconut milk... Coconut cookies! It also seems like everything I try is made of papaya. Papaya jam, papaya juice, papaya ice cream! Yum!

Today was our last full day. We went on an auto tour of the island. We stopped at a distillery and sampled some various types of fruit alcohol. We also went to some beautiful vantage points for scenic photos. I'll post those another time though!

Tomorrow we'll be heading to the airport in the evening. We unfortunately have to take a red-eye to get home. I'm glad we have a few days of weekend to get ourselves back to normal in Calgary. The staff at the reception desk says that since we have come here for our honeymoon, we must come back every five years for our anniversary. That doesn't seem like a hardship to me!

Mauruuru, Moorea! It's been lovely!

Chocolate Chip Promise

Steve in Rat's Nest Cave, March 2009

Every time I think about how long I've known someone, it makes me realize how fast time flies.

People are getting married, having babies... And Steve is officially a year older!

Today is Steve's 26th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Like some of my other good friends, I've known Steve for ten years. You'll likely remember him from previous posts-- you can't forget Steve!

Here are some things you might (or might not) know about Steve.

1) Steve is a collector. He has a huge collection of comics, a huge collection of music, a huge collection of TV and movies on DVD and a huge collection of Rock Band songs. Steve does not mind sharing or loaning parts of his collections. Steve is rather generous.

2) Steve is an excellent writer. I'm not sure I would have started blogging if Steve hadn't had his blog all those years ago. Unfortunately for the world, Steve doesn't write too much any more. Boo!

3) Steve considers violence to be the "Neanderthal's way." Steve will cut you down with his words before he'll ever smack you around.

4) Steve is sometimes referred to as Stevie or Steve-o. I'm not sure if I've ever called him either of those names. This is sort of a boring tidbit.

5) For the first 23 years of his life, Steve had never eaten cheesecake. He preferred to stick with desserts he was familiar with. Steve also prefers chocolate chip cookies, and adds extra chocolate chips to his recipe.

Steve, I hope your 26th birthday was awesome. I hope someone made you some chocolate chip cookies with extra chocolate chips! And if someone didn't-- I promise I will make you some when I get back.

Enjoy your day!

Moorea, French Polynesia

View from the overwater bungalow.

Tom and I arrived in Tahiti yesterday without any major problems. Our little overwater bungalow is lovely. We have everything we could want here-- incuding a private balcony and a ladder straight down to the water in the lagoon. Last night the water was so still and clear you could clearly see all the colourful fish swimming around. There is also a glass portion of the floor so we can see the water and fish going by beneathe us.

We sat with a chatty older lady on our flight to LA, and had lots of time before we caught our flight to Papeete, Tahiti. Air Tahiti Nui is a pretty awesome airline! We got a little package as the flight was taking off that contained ear phones, socks, sleeping eye-masks and stickers indicating whether we should be left alone to sleep, or woken up for meals.

The weirdest thing for me was adjusting to hearing French all the time. When the flight took off from LAX, the staff immediately switched to French as their primary language. All around us people were speaking French. I think that is my first time being immersed in a different language. Since I am primarily a visual learner, I've always found learning languages to be difficult. I found it a bit unsettling to hear an unfamiliar conversations going on around us. I soon realized that this wasn't a major problem. All the flight attendants were bilingual, and so far everyone we've encountered has been as well.

During our flight to Tahiti, I looked a little closer at our flight informaion. I realized that our flight home was booked wrong. I blame this entirely on the wedding. If I had not been overwhelmed in wedding planning for the last three months, perhaps I would have noticed that our flight from Papeete to LA leave at 11:30pm on October 8, and arrives in LA at 10:45am on OCTOBER 9th. Perhaps we wouldn't have booked our flight from LA to Calgary on October 8-- a day too early! We've e-mailed our travel agent, so hopefully she'll be able to rectify our bad planning!

You might be wondering why I am blogging on our honeymoon. You know... Don't I have better things to do?

Heh, this is the wonderful thing about relaxing. I can do whatever I want!

This morning we woke up at 6:30am (10:30am home-time, we are four hours behind here). At that time the sun was out so Tom read on the balcony, and I read in bed. Then we went for a swim, ate breakfast at the restaurant, went snorkeling, and have gone back to relaxing. My efforts at snorkeling were short lived. It is overcast, and VERY windy right now. The water was incredibly choppy, and all my inefficient flailing (i.e. attempts to swim) tired me out. In fact, it is so windy right now that every once in a while you can feel the slight swaying of the bungalow.

We will surely have eaten our body weight in pineapple and coconut by the time we leave. I never get tired of how delicious and fresh the fruit is out in the tropics!

Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow. If not, we will make the best of it!

Day 2 of Marriage

Dear Tom,

Today is the second day of our marriage. You are still in bed. You caught a cold (possibly related to your rowdy bachelor party the weekend before), and had improved a bit over the week prior to the wedding. But the activity of the wedding and the contact with all of our relatives made your cold worse. You sound like you have a frog jammed in your throat, and you are trying to hack it up (along with a lung). You called in sick at work today, and I hope a day of rest will leave you much improved. We leave for our honeymoon in four days.

Many people have told me that their wedding day is a blur in their memory. There was so much going on, they don't really remember all of it. This was not the case for me. Having spent so much time organizing and preparing for the big day, I spent very little time worrying about the details, because I knew they were taken care of. So I dedicated the rest of my focus to absorbing everything in.

I have come to one conclusion, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We are a lucky couple to be surrounded by so much love and friendship.

Years from now, when our kids ask us what our wedding was like, I will tell them it was perfect. I will tell them that we wrote our own vows, that I sniffled through them all, and that you dispensed a constant supply of tissue out of your tux pocket for me. I will tell them that you made your groomsmen, Andrew and Jeremy hold on to the used tissues-- which they did without complaint. I will probably not tell them that instead of promising to "compromise for you," I promised to "compromise you." They probably won't understand that until they're older...

There will be a lot of stories to tell, not all good. We will remember how my sister was lucky to avoid major injury when she was rear-ended on her way to the venue. She came to the wedding and MC'd anyway, later realizing that she'd probably had a concussion.

We can tell our nephew, Dylan, how he ran down the aisle to deliver our rings not once, but twice! And how he refused to come near me all night. The big white dress seemed to make him bashful and shy.

We will remember that Jeremy shaved his head into a mohawk. That Ashley and Heather teared up during their speeches. That Andrew had the room in stitches during his toast. We will remember that our candy buffet was a huge hit! The candy was gone before dinner was over. We will remember that your grandma was touched to walk down the aisle with you, and that your cousins Melia and Taylor had a blast on the dance floor. We'll remember how excited our parents were, and how nervous my dad was to give his speech. We'll remember all the work and thought Kelly-Ann and Lisa put into the slideshow they made for us, and the kind words my brother-in-law, Chris, shared with us later in the evening. Of course, we'll also remember how Steve danced himself sober, how Ben kept trying to "kiss" me, and how Jeff kept popping up with his instant camera! And we'll never forgot how much help everyone offered without being asked. Billy and Ashley D., and especially Shauna-- who I've heard kept the "dream team" in line.

We'll remember how many congratulations and good wishes were offered to us from our extended family, friends and colleagues.

But most of all, I will remember how everything about the night felt right. You were so at ease while you were thanking everyone, and so happy. You saw humor in everything-- like when you popped open the back of my dress during a particularly dramatic kiss, or when there were bugs crawling between the layers of my dress after tromping through a field for our photographer.

I love you so much. Our big day was better than I could have imagined. There was no better way to start our life together.

Amanda

Ever Closer

The big day is creeping ever closer!

Things have been so busy, it's hard to believe there are only four more days until we're married.

But first-- there's some business to take care of!

A big congratulations to Amy & Scott! The newest addition to their family, Skogan Matthew, was born at 11:38am on Tuesday, September 14. Skogan was 7 pounds and 4 oz. He is likely the luckiest little newborn around, considering how awesome his parents are!

A belated Happy Birthday to my birthday twin-- Tammy!

An even bigger HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my nephew, Dylan, who turned 2 years old yesterday. His mom and dad had a birthday party for him on Sunday. It was his first time blowing out candles. And was he ever excited when he got the hang of opening up presents!

Rehearsal dinner coming up on Thursday night!

Flowers to pick up on Friday. Family come into town.

Busy, busy!