Quite Simply

Vancouver is beautiful.

It pours rain and takes about a day to adjust to having an umbrella as an extra limb, but it’s beautiful.

We walked through a forest of tall trees, strolled along the sea wall, shielded our food from the hungry seagulls on Granville Island, and recharged our weary bodies with some relaxing spa massages. We ate Malaysian food, drank terrific local wine, played with hand puppets, dodged falling maple leaves and didn’t meet one rude person.

No strains, no pains, just rains.

Wait For It

Neither Chris nor I had any plans of leaving the country this last weekend. But Friday morning we found ourselves clearing Canadian immigration.

Last Thursday Chris and I went to DFW International airport to try to catch a flight to Portland, Oregon.
Instead, Chris had his toothpaste taken away and then loaned his cell phone to a random stranger who had just dropped his phone in his coffee.
10pm, flight full, we took our bags and headed back home.

Friday morning Chris and I visited 76 of the 165 gates at DFW International airport.
We cleared the security checkpoints 4 times, visited all 5 terminals, were issued 5 boarding passes each, had our “airport approved” liquids bag confiscated, and rode the Skylink 6 times.

After 9 hours and 7 failed attempts to catch a flight to Portland we were left with two options: continue to change terminals for another 3 hours or board the only available flight out of Dallas: DFW to Vancouver.

Knowing nothing about the city, having no guide book or hotel, we took our seats on the 5:00 to Vancouver, British Columbia.

At 9:00pm Friday evening we arrived in Canada.

The rest is a story of umbrellas, $9 butter, massages, exiquisite cuisine, forests, seas and mountains.

But those stories will have to wait.

Patience my friends.

Patience is a major component of this adventure.

Our Trip to Portland

Reunited and It Feels So Good

When it's only 7:30pm and your date is in the parking lot in nothing but his socks and his underwear, you know it's going to be a great night.

Chris and I went to our 10 year high school reunion last weekend.

We spent the first night having drinks with 80 of our closest classmates at Life's a Beach in Flower Mound.
Two guys looked to be having a bad acid trip, one mom of two was stoned, and everyone else was happily drunk.
It's a nerve-racking thing to walk into a room full of nearly 100 people that you haven't seen in nearly 100 years.
I myself had 3 margaritas.

Everyone looked great. Everyone was nice. Chris and I had fun surprising old friends with news of our engagement.

We spent the better part of Saturday morning trying to process everything. Who was where and doing what, and who probably went home with whom.

We did some last minute shopping for clothes Saturday and Chris picked up his dry cleaning. I got my fake tan sprayed on and had my favorite stylist James do my hair.

In honor of the 1997-ishness of the whole weekend we opted to play some Super Mario Bros. 3 in lieu of watching Tivo or doing anything even somewhat related to 2007.

Taking our time to get ready and chatting about who we were anxious to see and who we wanted to avoid, Chris realized the dry cleaner had given him the wrong pair of pants. Instead of the grey slacks he had bought the day before, the dry cleaner had given him some black khaki's he had bought 9 years before.
In the spirit of the evening he put them on and tried to make them work.
Unfortunately for Chris, the pants landed right above his ankles.

The dry cleaners was then, of course, closed and our only options were to go buy even more pants, wear 1998 pants, or dress in jeans.

Feeling the pressure of the evening, we jumped in the car and started searching for someone who would sell us men's pants at 8pm on a Saturday.

For anyone counting, Kohl's is open until 10.

We ran inside, located the grey slacks, paid and left.
At this point I had on my fancy dress and Reef flip-flops. No way was I running through a Kohl's in my high heels.

Chris proceeded to undress in the parking lot, and get ready using the rear view mirror of the Pontiac Sunfire parked next to us.

And we were off.

The night went off without a hitch.

The small talk didn't feel small. The mood was happy and excited. The graduates looked great, and no one threw any punches or passed out on the dance floor.
Everything felt very natural and sincere. Everyone was proud to tell the truth about what they're doing and who they're with.

But then again, who knows?

How many other people were in flip flops and a fancy dress or half-naked in a Kohl's parking lot 20 min. before arriving?

These are the things I want to know at the 20 year.