Welcome to the old Apartment...

This is where we used to live...

I'm really going to miss our little condo. 

I mean, it'll be so great to have a place to put everything, and have room to move and grow - but I will always have a special place in my heart for our little place.

It was April 20th 2009 that we signed the papers for it, a mere day after I moved up to Edmonton (I came up a couple weeks before so we could go house hunting, but only officially packed up the Uhaul and moved up on the 19th).  We got the keys on May 7th, and on May 8th Ben's mom and I got to work painting.  On the 2009 May long weekend Ben and I moved box after box in our little Toyota Corolla from his old apartment to our new condo.  We could only take 4-6 boxes at a time, and carried everything by hand.  By the monday we were aching and exhusted, and we hadn't even moved the furniture yet. 

On Tuesday May 19th Ben and I took off work early, and with the help of our friend Christine, and Ben's parents we moved the rest of our furniture into the Condo, and slept our first full night with all our stuff on a mattress on the floor. 

The Sunday following moving day, Ben proposed to me, and we began a new chapter in our lives together, in our new home. 

Last night was our last sleep in the condo.  We slept on a mattress on the floor, on May 19th 2011.  Exactly 2 years from that first night. 

2011 seems to be the "Year of the House" for many people!  Graham and Ashton just bought their first house together, Lisa and Lee are building a new house, and sold their old one, Shawna one of my employees, just signed the papers on her first house the other day, Dave and Abby rented out their Condo, and bought a house together, and Jeff and Gina just listed their townhouse for sale!

Man.  I can't believe it's been two years already...

In that time, we bought a brand new car, saved for and planned our wedding in Mexico, got married, threw receptions, did photo shoots, attended Calgary plays, had numerous game nights, made new friends, went for long walks in the river valley, celebrated birthdays, and anniversaries, launched a company, learned photography skills, and so many more things!

This first chapters of our lives is closed, and Ben and I are both very excited to start our next chapter in our house together, but we will still talk about our Condo for years to come :)

Farewell Suite #1502, may you be as wonderful a home for the next owner as you were to us :)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The answer to that question has changed numerous times throughout my life.  In fact I can't really name anyone who started out with one idea and stayed on track as they grew up.  I think there's such a great sense of innocence to just picking something at random and telling the fates that you have decided.  Once it comes down to schooling, talent and experiences the road gets a little muddy, and that's usually when bumps and turns appear that can change your course.

When I was 9 or 10 I wanted to be an artist.  My Mom was always finding little drawings around the house of my doodles, rainbows, horses, people - you name it.  As I got a little older it was Artist or Hairdresser (I was really shooting for the stars).  I think my dad was a little dismayed in my choices, especially compared to my brother who wanted to be a paleontologist as soon as he was old enough to say the word, and then that morphed into a video game designer (he was fixing my parents computers from age 10 and on).  I recall my dad once asking me if I was going to live in a cardboard box too - since a Hairdresser and Artist don't exactly bring home big pay cheques.

Once I got to high school I took an interest in a different kind of art - Theatre.  I love acting, I loved directing, I loved the tech side, I loved everything about the stage.  Actress wasn't really that much higher on the pay scale from Artist, and I think my choices remained a sorce of frustration for my father, who only ever wanted my brother and I to have the best.  At one parent teacher interview with my Drama teacher my parents asked Mr. Jack point blank if he thought that I could be successful as an Actress, and Mr. Jack responded by saying "she is talented, and if she works hard I'm sure she can achieve what she puts her mind to".  Excellent response Mr. Jack.


In 2002 I graduated from High school, and not only had a "best student" award in Drama for the highest mark 3 years running, I also had an educational video for the Calgary Board of Education under my belt, and I had been asked to audition for a teen version of "Inside Entertainment" (which never even got to the pilot stage before the idea was scrapped).  I was feeling pretty good about my acting career, and decided that I wanted to further my knowledge with Post Secondary.

I auditioned for Mount Royal College with both a contemporary monologue and a Classical, but my shyness got in the way and I shook and stuttered through my whole audition, forgetting most of my classical monologue.  When I had finished and I was standing there fighting back the tears, one of the judges softly said "well, you are hands down the most nervous person we have ever had audition for us".  Needless to say, I didn't get a call back, and I walked out of the room and burst into tears. 

I ended up in the U of C Drama Program primarily because the first year didn't require an entrance audition, and I knew that I wasn't at a place where I could comfortably audition for Mount Royal again.

During this time frame, I started seriously considering other lines of work, and in the back of my mind Interior Design started popping into my thoughts more and more.  To this day I always say "If I had never gone into theatre I would have done Interior Design" - but more on that later. 

So within the first month that I was at University, I had one of the techs for the lunch time theatre program ask me to stage manage for them.  I told him that I had never done it before, but that I was willing to learn, and just like that I was a stage manager.  The first show I stage managed was 3 one act plays that all tied together called Perennials - Roses are Red, Violets are Blue and Lillies are Pale.  The show had a cast of 7, with 3 directors, sets plans, sets of props, and costumes - and some how it went off without a hitch!

It ended up being an awesome show, and was later submitted to the One-Act-Festival at the Pumphouse, and later won Best Technical, Best Male Lead, and Best Original Script. (fun fact, my old high school drama teacher, Mr. Jack, also had a show at the One Act, and yelled out when I went up to get the Tech award "I taught her at Forest Lawn!"  and then came up to me in the lobby and asked "is there anything you can't do?"  Which made me feel pretty God Damn Awesome!)

That was all I needed and I was in love with Stage Managing!  I signed up to take the Stage Managers course the following year, as well as the Stage Make-up Course.  At the same time as my confidence grew throughout the year, so did my acting and auditioning abilities, and at the end of my first year I auditioned for the Drama 300 acting class, and got in!

As well I called Anna to wish her a happy birthday on May 5th, and she asked me if I wanted to be in a play that summer that was going to tour through Winnipeg and Edmonton with the Fringe Circuit.  Of course I said yes, and the next thing I knew I was dialing the number of the director (Dan) to set up an audition.  Now at the time I'm writing this, I've known Dan for just over 7 years, and I know that he is fun, friendly, witty, kind and gentle, and I have no problem giving him a call to hang out or catch dinner together - but when I was 19, and still battling shyness, it took me a hell of a long time to get up the nerve to call him - and several times I had to talk myself out of just forgetting about the whole thing and throwing away his number all together.  But man am I ever glad I called!

Does this man look scary to you?

With that phone call, I booked myself an audition, which later resulted in a roll in my favorite Scorpio show to date, traveling to Winnipeg and Edmonton, having a great summer, and making long lasting friendships with some of the best people I have ever had the privilege of meeting.

Not at all!  He's one of my favorite people!

I really owe so much to Scorpio, and all the wonderful people in it, as they helped me get through one of the toughest summers in my life.  You see on June 17th at 1:05am my father suffered a fatal heart attack which turned my whole world upside down.


Those tours, and those people gave me the distraction, and love that I desperately needed at the time, and I'm so very thankful for them.  But that's for another story.


Back to the "life Path" storyline.


So in September 2004, I entered into my second year in a daze.  I don't really remember much about the first few months of school, just little snippets.  Like hearing my dad's song on the radio and sitting in the parkade crying and missing my 9am class.  Or staying up until 4am talking to my mom trying to make sense of the new hole in our lives, and then arriving late for acting class in the morning.  Truth be told I was a horrible student at that time - it probably would have been a good idea to take some time off at that stage, but I didn't, and as a result, I screwed some things up for myself.  I pulled away from people, didn't want to be hugged, or touched.  I broke up with my boyfriend after steadily pulling away from him and finding his small gestures "clingy".  And I destroyed my University acting career.


I was late every day, I was flustered, and emotional.  I couldn't concentrate, I let down my partners, and over all I just pulled away.  I felt like I didn't have anyone I could talk to.  No one could understand what I was going through, and I didn't want to be on the center of any stage right then.  At one point we were preforming monologues that we had rehearsed, and one of my class mates did a monologue about talking at his son's funeral, and I cried through the whole thing.  By the time it was my turn to preform my cheeks were tear stained and my voice was shaky.


I pulled away from acting, and spent more time on the tech side of things.  It was easier for me to be backstage, I had my binder and my notes, and sat silently for most of the rehearsal process.  I organized things, scheduled costume fittings, prop meetings, filled out rehearsal reports and over all just stayed out of the spot light.  Overall, I just dove into being super organized as a way to distract myself and deal and as it turns out - I'm an awesome stage manager.

Assistant Stage Manager for Newhouse 2005

As well I took on Scene Painting, and did some Stage Make-up for shows.  I was on the stage less and less and I was okay with that, and by the end of my second year I decided that I wasn't going to audition for the next acting class, and that I was just going to concentrate on tech.


Fast forward to now, and I'm still a stage manager, I'm a make-up artist, I'm sometimes an actress, and I am even a little bit of an interior designer too! (I completely re-designed my parent-in-law's kitchen, and I've been going crazy designing our new house too!)


And the end result with my father?  Well months after he died my mom told me that he came home from giving me a ride one night, and he said he wasn't worried about me anymore, that a conversation we had had showed him that I had a good head on my shoulders and that I knew what I was doing, and that he was really proud of the person I've become.  It's nice to hear, and it would have been better coming from him - but that's for another post too... 


I remember that conversation exactly.  Dad asked me "so what's a Drama degree going to do for you?" and I laughed and said "not a damn thing - It's a piece of paper I'm going to put on the wall to make you happy!  It's not about the degree, it's about the experience I'm getting!  I'm not just studying acting, I'm studying stage management, directing, make-up, scene painting, and whatever else I can learn.  And I'm being taught by some of Canada's best in the business.  Actor's are a dime a dozen, but techs are worth more, and a good tech is hard to find.  I will always have work as a tech."


These days I'm more into the Make-up Artist side of things, but that's mainly because I am still a little nervous to take the leap into the Edmonton Theatre Community (I don't know anyone here, and it's nerve racking to just walk into a theatre and say "Hi, I'm Heather, I'm a stage manager"), but I'll work up to it.  It's definitely a love of mine, and I will be back :)


So what did I want to be when I was little?  An Artist.  What am I?  A Make-up Artist.   Same title, different medium - Go me, I guess I did end up staying on the same path!  I just got a little distracted along the way!

Growing Pains

I was browsing a friends blog this afternoon when I came across a post she made in regards to how far she has come in battling shyness, and it made me realize how much I have in common with her.

People who know me these days often say they find it hard to believe that I was ever shy, but it's true - I was, and AM quite shy, I've just learned to cope (and hide it).

Vegas Heather is not Shy...

High school Heather, however - not so much.

Grade 12 Heather

I was very quiet in high school, I only had two friends, and often they would ditch me and go out for lunch together without telling me, and I would eat my sandwich alone at my lockers.  In Grade 10 I was hit by a car and broke both my arms, and people knew me as "the girl with two broken arms"  but no one knew my name, and once I got my casts off, people still knew there had been a girl with two casts, but very few realized that it had been me.  I was a wall flower at best.  In English class some people discovered that I could understand Shakespeare, and I overheard a couple conversations where one classmate was trying to get their friend to ask me the answer to some of our Shakespeare questions, but neither of them could remember my name.  My grade 12 Math teacher never learned my name either, twice I brought in a parent signature on a mid term grade, and he kept scanning the wrong class list for my name.  Years later I would run into people from High school who would introduce themselves to me, and I would respond "I know, we had English together" or something of the like, and not once would they remember me.  

Theatre and Dance however, was another story though.  I was the most comfortable on the stage.  I actually owe my coming out of my shell to the stage, I lived for the high I got from it, so I pushed myself in order to get that feeling.  I threw caution to the wind and auditioned for the school play in my first year of high school and got a small singing roll, but my nerves got the best of me and my voice cracked every time I went to hit the high note each night we performed.  As well, only one person in the cast took the time to come talk to me and learn my name.  I avoided the wrap up party, because I knew I would be sitting by myself the whole time and would be miserable anyway.  The second year I avoided the play, but I took the theatre class and pushed myself to be comfortable with Improv.  At the start of the year I would dread being called up, but by the end I was the first to jump up on stage - even though I still chewed my nails down to nubs the whole time I was waiting to go up.  In  grade 12 not only did I audition for the school play, and get one of the leading roles, but I was captain of my own Improv team, and held the highest mark in both Theatre and Dance 3 years running.

"Delayed Reaction" My Improv Team

As a result of my love for the stage, I went into the U of C Drama program and decided going in, that I would force myself to talk to people and make friends because I felt like I had been missing out on so much.

And I did.

The Drama Undergraduate Program had a lounge in the basement of Craigie hall where all the Theatre majors hung out between classes, and I made myself go in on the first day.  My stomach was doing flip flops and I felt like I wanted to throw up, but luckily, if you are meeting new people, the best one's to meet are Drama people, as the group is generally made up of people who never really fit in as it was, so they are all very accepting of new people.  I made fast friends, people who learned my name, and wanted to know things about me - not just the answers to my homework.  I even auditioned for the lunch time Improv group and made the team!  And it was signing next to my name on the call board that I met my best friend Anna.  She had also made the team and was standing with a few others on the team trying to figure out who Heather was when I walked up with my pen in hand.  When they saw me sign my name Anna exclaimed "Oh You're Heather!" And scooped me up into a big bear hug as a congrats for making the team!

Years later Anna would fly to Mexico with me and stand by my side as my Maid of Honor at my wedding.

From Left to Right: Dee, Busty, Anna and I

Out of all of the experiences that have shaped who I am today, I would say the time frame in which I was in University is probably one of the most valuable.  I did so much growing up within that time, and those walls, and learned so much about myself.  In my 3.5 years, I had my first long term boyfriend, lost my father to a heart attack, stayed up till 7am with friends, went for drives to Canmore just to blow off steam at 3am, moved out with room mates, suffered heart break, spiraled dangerously toward chronic fatigue, made friends, lost friends, got A's, got an F, bought my first car, fought with room mates - the list goes on.

These days I have no problem asking for directions, or chatting up someone new, but I still battle with social situations, and often I automatically want to resort back into my shy self just to escape dealing with things.  It's a constant battle but I'm very proud of how far I've come, and the person that my experiences have made me.


And just a side note of a cute "shy story"....
I met Ben online, and after several months of talking a few online friends had decided we would meet up for dinner and a party one night when a mutual friend was in town, so Ben came down from Edmonton.  When I walked into the restaurant, there were hugs all around and a met a couple people in person that I hadn't yet met, and then out stepped Ben.  He flashed me his bright smile, and gave me a big hug and I immediately turned 3 shades of red and stared at my feet!  My thoughts raced but mostly they were saying "Holy shit!  He's really cute!  His pictures don't do him justice!"  For the whole dinner, I resorted back into my shy self and couldn't make eye contact with him.  I talked a mile a minute, and kept my hands in my lap to keep anyone from seeing that I was shaking.  It took me the better part of the night to look him in the eye, and it wasn't until late evening when the rest of the party guests had turned in for the night that I could even carry out a conversation with him.  We ended up talking all night, and when I left at 9am the next morning, I was smitten.

The night we met, can you believe I was having a small heart attack while this photo was being taken?

My Sleep Talkin' Man

My Ben makes me laugh more in a day than I ever though possible - even when he's sleeping he can entertain me like no one I've ever known!

My Ben is a sleep talking man.  It doesn't happen every night (that I'm aware of) but now and then I just happen to be awake enough to catch the hilarity, and at times I'm even the cause of some of his sleepy banter, which was the case the other night.

Ben can fall asleep at the drop of a hat - where as it takes me a good 15-45 minutes to fall asleep.  Part of the reason for this, is Ben's unfortunate ability to wake up at 6:40am every single morning, no matter where we are, and how late we stayed up the night before - where as, until something wakes me, I will sleep solid.  So on weekends when Ben gets up to play video games at 7am I snooze until 9am - thus making it easier for him to sleep in the evening, and me, not so much.  So on those "falling asleep" occasions I often bring my lap top to bed with me to kill some time before I start feeling sleepy, while Ben snoozes beside me.  This often means I also have my bedside table lamp on - which can interupt Ben's sleep patterns.

The other night I was on my lap top, and Ben had been fast asleep on his side facing away from me for a good 20 minutes when suddenly he started trying to get up and wildly reaching at something - I watched him for a minute, and heard him say "I can't reach it"  "I can't grasp it, it's too far"  "I can't get my hand around it"  in which he then turned over to find another solution, and saw me, and instantly realized he had been talking in his sleep and added "I'm not making any sense, I'm sleeping - Don't laugh at me"  Which made me erupt into a fit of giggles.  And then I promptly re-told the scenario in my Facebook Status update - I'm a such a good wife!

 In my old phone I actually had a note called "Things Ben says in his sleep".  Unfortunately my old phone is no where near me, but I'll see if I can try to remember some of the gems.

B: "You win pooper!"
H: "What?"
B: "You win!  You win the prize!"
H: "uh... are you sleeping?"
B *deep breathing*

B: "You are a fabo wife!"

B: "mumble....  YEP.... OKAY.... CHEVY!"
H:  hahahahahaha
B: (wakes up) Don't laugh at me, I know what I said... I said Chevy"

... that's all I can remember right now, But I'm going to dig out my old phone, and add to this list later on.  

One Hell of a weekend!

Okay, so let's recap shall we? 

Ben and I sold our Condo, and were now in the process of trying to find a home for us to move into.  On Wednesday we met up with our Realtor, Steve, and went to see 5 houses:

House #1 - Decent looking - Tiny Kitchen (I'm talking one person stands in the middle, and has countertops all around them - I think they would have to back out of the kitchen to open the oven door), Tiny Closets, Large Yard, nice Solarium.  It was a nice looking house, but not what we're looking for. 

House #2 - Very nice, Hardwood floors, brand new kitchen, large bedrooms with large closets, basement needs a little work, yard is decent but on the smaller side, garage is small, and the price for this one is a little on the high side.  All in all though, the best one we saw that day. 

House #3 - I dont even want to talk about it...   It was a decent size, on a gigantic pie shaped yard, furnished by the 50-60's and reminded me of my Baba and Gideo's farm house.  Not a thing was done to the inside of the house since the day it was built, which was evident by the large cracks in the walls and across the ceiling.  Within seconds I was done looking, and wanted to leave.  It was also WAY too expensive for what they were showing.... and it was an estate house, which means there was a very good chance the previous owner passed away there.  .... yeah, no thanks, I'm good.

House #4 - Seemed promising at first - you walk in to a large living room, with engineered hardwood with a large fireplace on one end.  and a decent sized kitchen on the other.  Unfortunately, there was no dining room nook - and the light hanging from the ceiling suggesting where to put the table put it directly in front of your front door.  The basement was decent, but we weren't feeling it - especially because the house had clearly shifted, and there were large cracks running along the floor of the basement, and the sidewalk was so broken up in the backyard there was a good six inches height difference between chunks of cement sticking up. 

House #5 - Not great.  This house seemed to be put together by a contestant on Canada's Worst Handyman.  Now I don't want to toot my own horn, but I worked in flooring for years, and taught tile and laminate seminars - the guy who put down the flooring probably could have stood to attend one or two.  The tile running through-out the main floor was put down badly - it was clear they laid it directly over vinyl rather than putting down a plywood sub floor.  And since the mortar can't cure properly on vinyl, the tiles didn't have a firm foundation - causing rocking back and forth, and cracking.  As well on the stairs, they did not finish the edges with any sort of stair nosing, so on each stair there was a thin piece of vinyl, a blob of mortar sticking out, and then the jagged edge of the tile.  In the basement it wasn't much better as the laminate was laid without using proper spacing and was being pulled apart in several parts.  The owners were throwing in $1000 for a flooring allowance, but that was a $20,000 flooring job.  No thank you. 

At the end of the day, Ben and I were a little down, and since seeing all that crap, we couldn't stop thinking about House #2, and requested a second showing for Thursday. 

But after waking up to a huge snow storm Thursday morning, which resulted in car accidents everywhere you look, we canceled the viewing, and resolved to take a look on Sunday when we did another 5 viewings.

With canceling all our plans on Thursday, Ben and I had time to think, and decided that we needed to be more agressive about viewing these properties - Each time we make a list, by the time we see the houses two days later, half of our list is either sold or pending.  So we talked to Steve (our realtor) and came up with a better system of going right at the time houses were listed so we could be some of the first people to see the property, the thus get some better options.

Which brings us to Friday.  We were enjoying a Beer Friday (now and then on Friday's our boss gets a six pack and a bottle of wine, and we get together in a board room, and de-stress from the week), I left the room to set up one of my call center employee's.  Before returning to the board room, I checked my email, and noticed we were sent a new listing from MLS.  It was nice, a large lot, relatively open concept, finished basement, large bedrooms, deck, garage - the whole bit.  So I went to the board room, and got Ben.  Who agreed that we needed to see this house, and called Steve right away to see if we could go tonight. 

There was only one problem, the possession date was July 15th 2011.  JULY?!?  Why would you list your place now, if you don't want to move for 3 months?  We talked to Steve about it, and asked if there was anyway that was negotiable.  He called up the Realtor representing the property, who then talked to the owners, and went back to Steve saying "If you bring me an offer for the asking price, we can give you a possession of 30 days"  Awesome!  So we drove right over and saw it - unfortunately pulling Steve away from a dinner party he and his girl friend were hosting (luckily most of their friends are Realtors, so they understood).  

The House was beautiful!  When you first walk it, there is laminate running through out, and big new windows everywhere.  The living room is large, and connects with the kitchen with a sort of open peek-a-boo window.  In the kitchen they have more large windows, and a large cooking area.  Heading down the hallway from the living room there was 3 bedrooms - the two smaller bedrooms they knocked down the wall between, and made it a huge master bedroom, and the original master bedroom was now converted into a large office.  There was also a large bathroom off the main hallway. 

Heading downstairs from the kitchen there is the back door that leads to a deck.  Continuing down the stairs you are in a completely finished basement with a large TV area on one side, and a bar set up on the other, as well there are two more bedrooms - one very large room with a walk in closet, and the other room -smaller - but still a decent size. 

Across from the TV area there is a large bathroom with a shower stall, a bright laundry "room" (it's more of a walk in closet, but with plenty of space to move around and empty and fill the washer and dryer), and a storage room with furnace and hot water tank. 

In the back yard you step out the back door onto a very large deck complete with a hot tub.  The yard itself is large and rectangular with a brick path to the double garage, and landscaped flower beds lined with brick work.  The garage is even a little bigger than a standard double garage. 

All in all it was perfect.  Ben and I both agreed that this was the one, so we wrote an offer.  One of the best parts of this place, was the fact that they priced it to sell - which means it was under valued.  So even though they wanted the asking price to give us 30 days notice, the asking price was still a good $20,000 lower than we would have valued the place, so we had no issues with giving them what they wanted.  (plus the house was about $50,000 less than what we were aiming at spending anyway!)

As we drove home, we excitedly called both sets of parents and told them the good news!  Then we heard back from Steve who said he talked to their realtor, and they both agreed that they wanted to just get this done tonight, and that he would give us a call when he heard the final word. 

We then headed off to Ashton and Graham's place for some sweets and board games with Erik and Ashton.  We were pretty distracted for the first little bit as we waited for Steve to call us, when finally we couldn't wait any longer and gave him a call.  There was a problem. 

It turns out, when Steve called their Realtor to ask about the possession date, and the realtor called the owners, he talked to the wife, who gave him the go-ahead, but apparently she didn't check with her husband, who was lamenting over where they were going to live (they were in the process of building a new home, which is why they originally had the July possession date).  Then they mentioned that if we were so willing to pay the asking price within a couple hours of it being listed, maybe we would pay more...   Steve told the realtor straight up "that's Bull Shit!  I asked you what it would take, you told me, we gave it to you, and now you are wanting more money?  Bull Shit".  By the end of the conversation Steve had told us that the owners were in contact with a friend of theirs who had rental properties, and they were going to see if they could get a rental property for 3 months, but wouldn't know until the next morning. 

Luckily Ben and I were with friends, because before long our mood was lifted, and we were laughing and playing games with them - and had completely forgot about the house.  Until we left, that is. 

Neither of us slept that well that night, we both kept thinking about the house, and woke up with knots in our stomachs.  Ben actually woke up at twenty to seven (as usual), and told me that he was going to go have coffee with his parents and get some things of his mind, and would be back at 9am.  I struggled to go back to sleep, and tossed and turned some more. 

By 10 Ben called Steve to tell him that if that was the deciding factor, to let the other realtor know that we would agree to the July possesion date.  We would just be living with Ben's parents for a couple months.  It wasn't an ideal situation - but if it was the difference between getting the house, and not - than that was what we had to do.  At 10:30 Steve called us, and said the Realtor was meeting with the owners at 2pm, and said "it looks good".  So we waited. 

In the meantime we decided to head over to Ben's parents place early for Easter Dinner, just so we weren't just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring.  Just before 2, as we were pulling into Ben's parents driveway, Steve called "Congratulations guys!  They accepted!"  FINALLY!!! 

Steve told us that even the owners were getting to their own Realtor, and had mentioned to Steve "if this woman doesn't sign this offer I'm going to punch her"  we said that if they came back and asked for more money we were going to request that Steve fax in a picture of his middle finger, he had a pretty good laugh about that.  Oh - and they threw in the hot tub.  Ben and I noticed it wasn't on the original offer, and we were fine with it, we didn't want the hot tub.  We figured they were leaving it out as a bargaining chip, but when we didn't ask for it, they just threw it in because they didn't want it either! 


When we got off the phone I squealed, which brought Mom out of the house, so we shared the good news with Mom and Dad.  And after Hugs came Tequila shots (I love his parents), and then a day filled with lots of family and love.  By the time 7:30 rolled around, I was dead tired, and ready for bed.  We ended up falling asleep by 10:30pm and slept like babies!  Talk about an emotional roller coaster!


The new owner of our Condo takes possession on May 25th, and we take possession of our house on May 27th - it couldn't work out more awesome than that! We pack our condo into the spare office at work, move in with mom and dad for a couple days, and then move into our new home.  Enjoy a summer of BBQ's and Hot Tub nights, and then in the fall haul the hot tub out and sell it (we don't want the maintenance), and then build in a covered sitting area on our deck :)

First Wedding Anniversary

It's been a year already!  ... okay not quite.

May 14th 2010 was our wedding day.  We chose the 14th because the 12th is my mom's birthday, and the 13th is my grandmother's birthday and we wanted a day that was ours alone, and didn't conflict with anyone else's special days.  However, when you celebrate a special day with other people, sometimes the celebration has to be scheduled on a weekend - which is what happened this year.

My mom is turning 65 on Thursday May 12th, and we are celebrating with her on Saturday, May 14th - our anniversary.

So not to have our own special day forgotten, we decided to celebrate a month early!  And luckily I had just the thing for it!

Back in October I found a deal on Living Social Escapes for a 2 night stay in the Banff Caribou Lodge and Spa that comes complete with a bottle of wine in your room.  I bought it thinking we could take off some weekend and have a nice little get away, but since it needed to be used by April 15th, we booked it for this last weekend, and then since our anniversary was going to be spent celebrating my mom's birthday, we decided we would make Banff our wedding anniversary celebration.

We left work on Friday at 4:30pm, swung by Ben's grandma's place to pick up Emmy (she had been cat-sitting while we had viewing's at our place) and headed to Calgary.  We arrived there about 8pm and spent a nice evening visiting with my mom and brother before turning in early (party animals on a Friday night we are not).

The next morning, I went to see my old Chiropractor who re-aligned my back and neck, and got rid of the headache that had been plaguing me for the previous 3 days (one of the joys of car accidents, you get instant notification in the form of a headache when some thing needs aligning).  Then Ben and I bid our freaked out cat goodbye, and headed to Banff.  (Emmy will be staying with Mom and her dog Sadie until we move - Sadie is the first dog Emmy has met, so he's terrified and curious all at once)

Banff was amazing.  Our room was cute, and was decorated with antlers everywhere you looked, from the light fixtures, to the headboards, everything had antlers - not my personal style preference, but it worked for what they were going for.

After we got settled in, we went for a walk into town, and settled on dinner at Athena pizza and Spaghetti, and then headed back to our Hotel room to watch several hours of Home and Garden television and share two bottles of wine (We typically don't drink, and we don't have cable, so as odd as this sounds we are actually doing two things we don't get to do back at home).

Then Ben was asleep by 10:30, and I followed soon after at 11pm... okay, maybe we're not party animals on a Saturday night either...

Sunday morning I was awoken at 6:40am by Ben crawling back into bed from using the bathroom - and then in an effort to pull the covers up over my shoulder I successfully punched myself in the eye (my grip was just a little too sleepy, and the blanket slipped out of my grasp).  I actually saw stars - I understand why cartoons have stars now.  I was suddenly wide awake- we both were, so we flipped on a little more HGTV.  By 8:30 we were hungry and decided to venture out to find a place to eat breakfast.  (Luckily my eye neither turned black, nor swelled that badly, it was slightly noticeable in a picture that night, but not too bad).

Just so you know - there are only 2 places to eat breakfast outside of the hotel restaurants in Banff- a place called Timbers a block back from the main strip, and a Phil's heading out of the downtown area and going toward the Banff Springs Hotel, in the residential area.  It took us 40 minutes to find Timbers, and we were starting to feel our search was futile.  After a delicious breakfast, we hit up starbucks to get our caffeine fix before heading to my surprise for Ben - a 1 hour couples massage.

For those of you who don't know - Banff is filled with Aussies!  And Aussies clearly know their stuff when it comes to massage - my masseur, (is that the correct term?)  was a tiny blond Aussie with a delightful accent in lulu's and flip flops - and she worked my back so hard I have bruises!  At the moment I'm writing this, I'm wearing a strapless bra to avoid the pain from my bra straps sitting on the large bruises this cute little blond left on my shoulders.  At the beginning of the massage I let her know that I had been involved in several car accidents and had lots of scar tissue through my back, neck and shoulders - and I think she made it her personal mission to break apart all of that scar tissue!  It hurt, a lot - but I also felt amazing afterward!

Ben had a similar situation, he has a condition where his ligaments are super stretchy, so his joints are loose and can easily slide in and out of joint, which can cause a whole host of other issues, so in order to keep his shoulders in proper working order, he needs to keep the muscle around the joint strong to hold his limbs in place where the ligament normally would - which puts a lot of stress on the muscles in his back and shoulders.  So he requested just a full work over on his back shoulders and neck - he too left with bruises.  He said at one point he kept hearing a weird shhhhh sound so he opened his eyes, and saw it was the feet of his masseuse sliding on the floor as she pushed on his back with all her weight.

We're talking elbows and thumbs here - but we were both jello when we left.  Hands down, the BEST massage either of us has ever received. If you are ever in Banff, and want to get a great massage, visit the Mountain Spa on the second floor of the Harmony Lane mall - you won't be disappointed (plus it's one of the better priced spa's in Banff). 

Then we headed back to the Hotel to soak in the Hot Tub, and enjoy the steam room.  Much to our dismay the promise of towels in the pool area was a lie, and we ended up toweling off with paper town found in the bathroom.  (classy - I know).

Then we headed back to our room to hang out there for a bit before heading to the Keg in our hotel to split an appetizer and then take a drive around Banff for a bit.  Then we went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for Ben's surprise - a 5 star meal at a swank restaurant a block down from our hotel.

This place was unbelievable, and made me feel both classy and elegant, and awkward as hell all at once!  I'm not used to the 5 star service, and almost made a couple "fancy dinner mistakes" (ie - refilling your own wine glass, stacking plates - etc).

To start our dinner, we ordered a bottle of wine, which was amazing, it was from Chili, and it was called Cono Sur 20 Barrels Pinot Noir.  So good!

Then while we waited for our starter, we were given warm pieces of bread and a delicious olive sun dried tomato spread.

Then we started with the Chef's sample platter for two for appetizers, it had braised tuna, marinated artichoke hearts with olives, grilled mozzarella on vine ripe tomatoes, prosciutto, shrimp and avocado on a pastry that's name escapes me at the moment, and a couple things more that I can't remember the names of - all in all, super good!

Then we were given a pallet cleanser between our appie and dinner (that's how fancy this restaurant was), which consisted of an iced white wine/cinnamon concoction which was awesome! 

For Dinner we ordered the Chef's Game Platter - which was three of the best wild game dishes - Roast Duck, Quebec Quail, and Elk, complete with all the sides that come with the individual dinner too - mashes potato, roasted veggies, mushroom risotto and a couple other things that were delicious but I couldn't exactly put my finger on the name of.  The meal was amazing, my personal favorite was the Duck which melted in my mouth - with Ben passing his hunting course, I require more duck in my immediate future.

For dessert we each ordered the Orange Cardamom Crem Brulee, which was amazing!  More things need to have cardamom in them!  And combined with the orange, I just couldn't get enough of this dessert!

Even with the bill they brought us another little plate with two little chewy cookie like things with a triangle of chocolate filled with a light orange filling sitting on top.  I just couldn't get enough of this restaurant!

We then waddled back to our room where within minutes were stripped of our dressy clothes, and back in our comfy comfy sweats.  Then we went for a nice walk where we picked up some cigars and celebrated an almost year married :)

When we got back to our room, there was more wine, and more HGTV (we freakin' love home improvement shows! Plus the House Hunter shows are right up our alley these days).  This time I was out shortly after 11, and I think Ben followed not long after because when I woke up at 12:30 he was fast asleep and the TV and all the lights were still on. I choose to believe it's the refreshing mountain air - not the "old married couple"  that put us to bed so early each night. 

Monday morning we managed to sleep in until 9am - which is a feat for us these days it seems.  Then we packed up, checked out, and headed to the Phil's for breakfast.  Then we went for a drive in and around Banff before starting our journey back home.

All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend.  Everything we did echo'd our happy and in love attitude, and we laughed constantly the whole time.  I'm so very lucky to have found Ben, we have fun in everything we do, and our personalities are so perfectly matched I couldn't have asked for a better partner.  If I had known relationships could be this fun and easy, I would have moved to Edmonton and found Ben years sooner!

I love you Ben.  I choose you, today, tomorrow, a month from now, ten years from now - as long as you will have me, I pick you.  You are my everything, my life is better with you in it.  <3

House #2

House #2 another day, another viewing:

http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=10537029&PidKey=284820014

Ben and I just came back from viewing another potential property.  It looked really good on paper - 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, large house, huge lot, over sized double garage - but wait, that's not all!... no, that was about it...

This house was really poorly designed.  Like the owners just put up a wall to make a bedroom whenever they needed one, but there wasn't much rhyme or reason to it.  Let me take you on a tour.

When you arrive at the house, as you can see from the pictures in the posting, there is a long driveway on the side, and a very cute house, with a front deck.  It looks great from the outside, and you can tell the house is fairly new and well maintained.

When you step into the front door you are in a large room with vaulted ceilings - the living room is on your left, and the kitchen your right - just like that, you step into the kitchen from the front door.  There are no walls put up to break up the space, you just have one large room with counter tops and cabinets on one side, and couches on the other.  The kitchen itself was nice, with lots of storage and new cabinets and bright colors.

When you walk forward into the hallway the first door on your left is the main floor bath, which joins to another door which ends up being your walk in closet, which then joins to your master bedroom.  That's right - right in the middle of the house is your bedroom, and guests can waltz right into your closet after going pee.

On the right side of the hallway was a tiny little room plenty big enough for an office, but not much else - perhaps a nursery?  Then ahead of you was a staircase going upstairs, and around the corner from that stair case was the back door, and the stairs going downstairs.  We went up first.

The stairs were very nice, with a bright window over looking the backyard halfway up.  Once you reach the top there are two large bedrooms.  When you walk into one, it's a room much bigger than the master bedroom, and off of that is a bathroom with tub, and off of that is the walk in closet for the next room, and off of that is the next room (they really like their combined rooms hey?).  The second bedroom is also big, and they have a train that runs around the track near the ceiling between both rooms. 

Heading to the basement is where things get really weird, up until there we could see potential.

When you reach the bottom of the stairs, to your right there is a small cold room under the stairs used for storage, the next room is a little "bedroom" no more than 8 x 8.  Next to that is the furnace room with a large storage cabinet.  across the hall is the laundry/bathroom (all in one room) and then at the end of the hall the floor slopes upward toward the last too rooms (and when I say slopes upward, I mean by about a foot - it's like a ramp for some odd reason).  The room on the left was another small box, maybe 10 x 10, and the room on the right was a little bigger, maybe 12 X 10 - and I'm assuming was the "rec room" the listing spoke about.  It's the room with the swing in the pictures.

The backyard was decent, the back door takes you outside on the right of the house at the back and a path leads you to a beautiful over sized double garage.  To the right of the back door the concrete pad from the front extends almost to the garage (what a waste of grass!) but the grass on left side of the yard was decently sized.

All in all, another fixer upper.  It was very oddly put together, and the basement calls for a "do-over"  I dont understand why people don't have a Den/Man Cave in their basement?  Where do you snuggle up and watch movies?  Where do you put up your surround sound?  Where do you put the wet bar?

Ben and I watch a lot of movies, and are very excited about having a corner of the house where we can put a big comfy sectional and curl up to watch movies with a mug of hot tea - not to mention, when we get the house, we are getting cable, which mean I can finally watch my team, and I need a place to do it damn it!

We're not discouraged, it just means we're one house closer to finding "the one"!