Has been a little while since we last blogged. A lot has happened since the last blog and me thinks this may be a long one.
I want to start with the best news ever :) My little brother, friend and proprietor of awesomeness is engaged to his Mary, my friend and soon to be sister-in-law. I cannot adequately tell you how happy I am for them! I really wish that I could be there with you both to celebrate. Mary, you've been a part of our family for a long time but it'll be nice to make it official. You guys are fantapantastic!
Hopefully the Dermans will be in Canada this December and we can all celebrate together then.
One place that both our families would definitely enjoy is Vancouver.
One of the many perks of working in Canada is that there is an allowance for medical courses and conferences. The annual amount is 2500 dollars and can be used for all sorts of things including computers and courses.
So the four of us decided to travel to Vancouver for a dermatology conference and make a weekend of it ( essentially a free weekend with us getting a lot of really good practical knowledge for our practice. Yay!).
Vancouver, I feel, might just be my number one favorite city ever. To me it's a mix of Cape Town and New York but the people are a lot friendlier. So friendly in fact that whenever we were confused for more than a second a friendly Canadian was at hand to direct and guide us (I love these people). At one point one of the uniformed workers for the sky train told us how to spend 3 dollars on the train rather than 8 dollar ticket price - where else does that happen.
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| Views from revolving restaurant |
Anyway I'm gushing again. It's just an awesome place. Very green and very vibey. It has a nice combination of new and old with clean, interesting streets and treed, green spaces with seaside walks and mountain views.
Mountains and culture and sea and interesting shops and wonderful people equals overwhelming awesomeness (yes, probably abusing the word, awesome, but Vancouver really deserves the superlatives ).
Some of the highlights of the weekend included drinks in a revolving restaurants with beautiful panoramas, long walks daily, walking around Stanley island in the rain, the clock in Gastown, watching the Canucks in Vancouver and spending time with the wife and friends.
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| Our hotel |
To be honest though I thought everything was awesome and I can't wait to come back.
One of the benefits of going to Vancouver was that we got to spend an hour in the Calgary Ikea the day before our flight. (Love Ikea)
I've been looking for a chair to sit and read in. We have a really nice couch downstairs but it's right in front of the TV and I always find myself watching TV instead of other activities. I really wanted a chair to read and play guitar in. So we scoured Lethbridge and had not really found anything that we really liked. Eventually after much deliberation we decided to get 2 wooden and canvas chairs from Ikea.
Now we each have our chair upstairs placed in front of our bay windows so we can read, watch birds on our bird feeder and spy on the neighbours.
Adele thinks that it's a bit creepy to sit there and watch as our neighbours go up and down. I usually ignore her and say she's being silly, usually while hiding behind the curtain so the neighbors can't see me watching them. Not creepy at all!
Bagel started training as I mentioned in previous post. Sorry Kim, Cobus and Frederik but the dog trainer (we call her the dog whisperer) says that Bagel is in fact a prodigy and that he should be entered into competitive agility training. That's my boy.
Bagel has done really well and through a process of essentially stuffing him full of treats he can now (almost) sit, stay, lie down and come when called. Adeles says that the stay command gets better at the end of the lesson because he's so full of treats that "stay' requires the least amount of effort.
Before the first lesson the dog whisperer asked us to cook a few hot dogs to reward Bagel. It took all my power not to wet myself as the trainer then proceeded to throw pieces of wiener on our carpet. Some of the drills required bagel resisting the urge to lunge for food and if he did she would cover the food with her foot and push the Vienna into the carpet. Why so funny? Adeles face was priceless! Evey time a piece of wiener was squelched and juiced into the carpet Adeles eyes got bigger and bigger. The whisperer went into the kitchen to get something at one stage and Adele lent over to ask me, "is this was really happening" - was too funny!
Bagel has become so good at lying down that when I pull out a treat, open a cupboard door or glance in his direction he automatically hits the ground, tail a wagging. Silly prodige!
On other news I am trying yet again to lose some weight. I know you've heard this before but this is the year that I birth my boopensie. So far with a combination of weights and cardio I've managed to lose a few blocks of butter. Hopefully in a few weeks I might be in sufficiently good shape to post picture of my washboard ab. (yes ab and not abs, baby steps people).
Tomorrow we are doing a Kayaking lesson. Other than that we have no major plans and plan to catch up on some admin this weekend. We are going to start the process of permanent residence this weekend. This was if we do decide to stay for a while we can maybe get our hands on that blue passport.
Next week is our 2 year wedding anniversary and we are going to Victoria on Vancouver island (not the mainland like the last weekend.).
It is supposed to be magic in Spring and we're both really looking forward to it. Hopefully we will get in some whale watching and we may even Kayak with killer whales. (That sounds like less of a good idea when written out). Adele has been kind enough to buy me a seal suite and has splashed out on some extra life insurance for me. What a good wife she is!
On a final note I was the subject of an April fools joke the other day. When Duncan arrived at work I thought I'd be funny and told him that the computer system was down. Probably not as effective when my computer was logged in just behind me.
Some of us had a good laugh at my expense and then we carried on with work as usual. About half an hour later I was sitting with a patient and heard Duncan yell," help, help, resusc, Ryan help!". I almost tripped over my feet to get out the door to help. All the while I was stressing about our first Canadian emergency and all the possible negative scenarios. I was hopped up on adrenaline and didn't really notice Dorothy or Duncan smiling at me. I just saw a patient on the floor lying against the bed with very poor access and seemingly unconscious. I tried to get in next to the patient but there wasn't enough space so I pushed the bed in the room out of the way.
It was at this point that the patient chose to open his eyes and smile at me. Duncan then shouted April fools and looked very pleased with himself.
He got me. He did a really good job and I say Bravo Duncan, Bravo! Do not close your eyes or sleep easy my friend, I am plotting my revenge mwahhahah hhahahh mwahhh hahah!!!!
Thanks to my wonderful wife for 2 awesome years. Congrats Neal and Mary and I wish you so much happiness during this wonderful time.
Again, we miss you all and can't wait for you to come visit.
Oh and I almost forgot. We have a new friend. Adele and I went to a park in search of owls the other day. Instead of finding an owl we found Bartholomeu. Bartholomeu is a porcupine. But he is unlike his South African cousin and climbs trees. This is one of the strangest and most wonderful animals that I have ever seen. We have been back many times to visit our friend always with that warm feeling of recognition and happiness when we find him.
Below are a few snaps of our sharp witted fried, Bartholomeu.
Hugs and kisses and lots of good wishes.
Ryan and Adele
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