Thursday, December 26th, 2002: Boxing Day 2002! Dean and I started the day with my family on Saltspring Island and now we're at Heartwood. We watched the Lord of the Rings DVD (one of Kristi's Christmas presents) and saw some great new scenes. Why do they have to edit that stuff out? I'd sit through three and a half hours of Lord of the Rings any day!

Wednesday, December 25th, 2002: A wonderful Christmas Day that included time at 3 family homes, 2 turkey dinners, 1 ferry trip in the pouring rain, 3 gift opening sessions, and about 25 Bounty bars (a gift to Dean from my Mom & Dad)!

We started the day with Christmas bread and stockings at Heartwood, moved on to a wonderful turkey dinner with the Cates family in Mill Bay, and then headed over to Saltspring for another wonderful turkey dinner with the Fuocos! The evening included an energetic game of Cranium that included Russ pretending to be Ally McBeal.

Tuesday, December 24th, 2002: Janet left early, missing out on French toast but also missing the chaos that accompanied various departures to Saltspring and Duncan. We managed to get everything wrapped and packed before heading to Dave & Leslie's home in Victoria for our first turkey dinner of the holidays (foreshadowing!). Dave & Leslie had a very unique Christmas tree, the top of a pine tree that had blown down during the severe storm last week. We saw most of the Broadlands and even spoke to Sarah in Taiwan!

Monday, December 23rd, 2002: Last minute Christmas shopping was the order of the day as we rushed around, doing things we should have taken care of weeks ago. All the stress was forgotten when Janet came down to Victoria for a visit! We introduced her to Scrabble (she had never played a game in her life!) and I made a spicy Thai chicken curry for everyone. We headed off to The Two Towers and hour and a half before the movie started, and we still found ourselves behind one hundred people waiting to see the movie when we arrived at the theatre! The movie was excellent, but I won't go into details for the sake of those who haven't seen it. Ahhhh..... Aragorn!

Sunday, December 22nd, 2002: My dad's birthday and the day of the Fuoco Family Sailpast Party. We spent the morning at Heartwood and took a walk down to the Cowichan River. At 6:00pm, the Stanleys came by to take us to the party, and we headed down island. The party was another success, with good friends, good food, and good boats! Santa's Stinkin' Fish II, made by Trisha, Holly, Kristi, Hayley, and Genni, was especially breathtaking. After the carollers left, Trish, Erik, Holly, Dean and Kristi watched "The Brain That Wouldn't Die." ("Why doesn't he just take his real arm out of his jacket?")

Saturday, December 21st, 2002: A day in Duncan punctuated by a visit to Rachel Blitterswyk at Safeway, the ubiquitous Canucks game, and the holiday classic, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Friday, December 20th, 2002: A much easier day of skiing, the runs had been groomed and the snow was great. The highlight of the day was the dramatic collision between Dean and myself as we came from opposite directions to spray my Mom & Dad. Dean arrived a half second before I did and I proceeded to smack right into him. My knee was badly bruised, but no major harm was done.

Thursday, December 19th, 2002: The first day that the five of us (Star, Russ, Holly, Dean, Kristi) had been skiing together at Mt. Washington in three years. There was lots of snow, but it hadn't been groomed and was a chore to slog through. My quads were killing me at the end of the day!

After skiing, Dad was prepared to return the rental truck, when he locked the keys in it. Arghh! Finally, a tow truck came up and got the keys out and Dad decided to stay up at Mt. Washington and enjoy spaghetti and games with us instead of taking the truck to Courtenay. Marcus and his friend Chris played Cranium with us, I love that game!

Wednesday, December 18th, 2002: Dean and I started our Christmas holiday by meeting my family in Nanaimo en route to Mt. Washington for a ski vacation. Just before we reached Courtenay, the van broke down completely and we had quite the schmozzle trying to get a tow truck, taxi, and rental car. After many hassles, we finally arrived safely at the chalet on Mt. Washington!

Sunday, December 15th, 2002: We took advantage of everyone being together and decorated the tree in the morning. Later, Trish and I drove up to Duncan and I had a chance to see her lovely townhouse. We watched Mitchell, then the power went out and the weather went crazy. It was pouring rain and windy and my promised Rob Stanley dinner had to take a rain check. Despite the rain, we helped Fausta pick her Christmas tree, what troopers we are! The Stanleys took us to Kim Wah's (where they had run out of chicken) and we had a yummy Chinese dinner. Back at Trisha's, the power was back on and we had cookies and watched another movie. Trish makes good cookies!

Saturday, December 14th, 2002: Dean and I had planned to visit my family (including Kristi, who flew in on Friday) this weekend, but Dean was still feeling sick on Saturday morning, so I went over alone. Dean was sorely missed and his name was mentioned every 15 minutes! Trisha came down to visit and was a satisfactory replacement for the missing Deano. We got the doll house all ready for Christmas, had a yummy Greek Chicken dinner and made ribbon candy ornaments.

Saturday, December 7th, 2002: Dean and I are over on the island for the weekend and we have successfully surprised Ken (it's his birthday tomorrow and he didn't know we were coming for a visit!). This is my first journal update written from Heartwood. I wasn't planning on updating, but I heard that I have more fans than I realized, so I thought I'd write something for my public. Crackling fire, apple pie baking, mossy green walk, Canucks game tonight, life is good!

Sunday, November 24th, 2002: Our place is looking so nice today! The kitchen's clean, the bedroom's tidy, the living room is neat and the pile of boxes near the window is smaller than ever! Dean and I did a lot of sorting today and we took a load of boxes down to the storage room, so things are looking great. Yay! Mmmm.... chicken adobo on the stove and a new Simpsons tonight!

Friday, November 22nd, 2002: Our kitchen was a mess, so we went out to dinner at Greens and Gourmet, a local veggie buffet. After a post-dinner walk around the neighbourhood (where I didn't see any Christmas lights, c'mon people!) we headed home to watch Short Circuit 2. Do you remember it? Ben and Fred, locked in a meat freezer and jury-rigging a calculator to phone Ben's girlfriend to leave clues in the form of touch tone melodies. Lucky thing they were locked in the freezer at Doo Wah's Chinese Restaurant!

Thursday, November 21st, 2002: Winter's coming and I wanted to make sure our worms didn't get cold, so I made a house for the worm compost! It's all cosy and it's made of a cardboard box lined with newspaper and covered with plastic. Hope the worms like it, cause they've been eating up our garbage very nicely and I'm quite fond of them.

Wednesday, November 20th, 2002: Today we got more mail for Benny's Bagels. This is so weird, the address is exactly right, but we're not Benny! This mystery has yet to be solved, is Dean running a bagel business under my nose? I'll have to keep an eye on him.

Tuesday, November 19th, 2002: A busy day! I met Rita at Better Environmentally Sound Transportation at 9:30am and she took me on a tour of the office and explained how I could help her with a project she's working on. She's trying to encourage alternative methods of transportation for community groups and she's starting by writing up directions to sports fields to put on the Vancouver Ultimate League's website. So, I'm going to write up instructions for how to bike and bus to ten fields.

After my time at BEST, I volunteered at TLC again, more database checking. In the evening, Dean and I headed off to a financial planning session out in Burnaby. Boy,was it boring! Dean and I were doodling and making jokes and basically being bad students. It felt just like high school!

Monday, November 18th, 2002: We had Jeff over for chow mein and we watched the classic film, "Short Circuit". What a great movie! Rent it again, you'll love it! We actually saved it at our local video store, cause it hadn't been rented for so long that they were about to get rid of it. Save the copy nearest you, rent "Short Circuit"! "Johnny Five is alive!"

Saturday, November 16th, 2002: Dean and I braved the wind and rain to walk to our local voting station and cast our votes for the Vancouver Civic election. What a chore! There were over 100 candidates, so many decisions! It was exciting to see the results being broadcast later in the evening, the COPE party swept the election and kicked out the ruling NPA party.

Thursday, November 14th, 2002: My first real day of volunteering at The Land Conservancy. I continued with my work correcting the database. It's so nice to get out of the house and meet new people.

Wednesday, November 13th, 2002: I called Tamsin at TLC to see what had happened to the volunteer night and she told me that she'd locked her keys in her car and she couldn't make it. Undeterred, I went in to meet Tamsin that afternoon and I started volunteering right away! Boring work, but it felt good to be updating their database and correcting mistakes.

Tuesday, November 12th, 2002: I was all prepared to learn about volunteering with The Land Conservancy of BC at the evening volunteer info session. After a 20 minute walk in the dark, I arrived at the office to find no one there! I waited 15 minutes in the dark outside the locked building without seeing anyone, so I gave up. On my walk home, I stopped by the video store to give myself a treat after the disappointment. When I walked into the store, it wasn't raining, but when I walked out with my video, "Monsoon Wedding", it was pouring! Fortunately, I only had to walk five more minutes in the "monsoon".

Tuesday, November 5th, 2002: It's almost been a month since I updated my journal, so I thought I'd fill in a few of the days that were missing. I don't have much to write for today, I still don't have a job and I haven't called anywhere to ask about volunteering yet. My most exciting news from yesterday was that I finally finished the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Now I'm all set to watch the second movie in December.

Monday, November 4th, 2002: We went to Nat's New York Pizzeria for dinner and we were amazed to learn that they are the pizzeria featured on that Canucks ad! Less than a block away from us is the place where they say, "I don't like the Canucks, I LOVE the Canucks!" We were quite composed in the restaurant, but once we left we were very excited!

Thursday, October 31st, 2002: I visited Dean's work to take a look at his team's first place "Alien" pumpkin complete with a toothpick-fanged alien bursting out of the poor pumpkin's torso. I was also impressed with the geeky way the software department had decorated one of the offices for Halloween. The room was glowing with black light and they had used fluorescent paint to make a grid in the room to give the effect of the wire frame stage of animation. They had also rewritten "The Raven" and dubbed their version "The Software" and they had a tape of their poem playing in the room. Good job geeks!

Dean and I had some Halloween fun of our own and made Star Wars pumpkins while eating all the candy we had bought for the non-existent trick or treaters. Dean made an excellent storm trooper while I carved a scary Darth Vader.

Sunday, October 27th, 2002: Our wonderful friend Janet graced us with her presence on Sunday afternoon and we gave her the grand apartment tour, made yummy sushi and watched a suitably Halloweenish movie "Brotherhood of the Wolf".

Saturday, October 26th, 2002: We had a very grown-up, married-person day and went to dinner at Trish and Jamie's. All three couples who were there were married! We had a great time and got to see Trish and Jamie demonstrate their Sun Hang Do martial arts weapons; a very impressive display!

Tuesday, October 15th, 2002: Aquarium reunion! Andrea and Duda (former aquarium naturalists) came over for dinner and we had a chance to catch up and look at wedding photos.

Monday, October 14th, 2002: Dean and I left Mt. Washington early and headed down to Duncan to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Cates side of the family. We had a delicious Thanksgiving lunch and then took a walk through the beautiful trails.

After a great Thanksgiving weekend we had the obstacle of Thanksgiving weekend crowds to contend with when we reached the Nanaimo ferry terminal. We were worried when we had to wait in a long line outside before buying our tickets but we managed to squeeze on the 7pm sailing. In order to escape the throngs of bus riders all running for the public transit in Horseshoe Bay, we bought PCL tickets and Dean still had to stand all the way to downtown Vancouver! Gotta love holiday travel!

Sunday, October 13th, 2002: We enjoyed a relaxing day in the chalet at Mt. Washington and had a delicious Thanksgiving feast in the evening.

Saturday, October 12th, 2002: The Fuocos, Smiths and Broadlands went for a nine hour hike in Strathcona Park. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we had a great time! Lunch at Kwai Lake, views at Cruickshank Canyon, hearing John's screams as he went swimming in Hairtrigger Lake, what fun!

Wednesday, October 9th, 2002: This was the day that we got our worm compost! 500 red wriggler worms have now joined us out on our balcony and they are happily eating up our orange peels and egg shells. We've started naming the worms, but it's hard to tell them apart.

Tuesday, October 8th, 2002: I'm expecting Alison any minute now and our place looks as decent as can be. The boxes are still taking over the apartment and we can only dream of days when we can walk freely through the living room. Progress has been made in the bookshelf department and I think the shelves will all be full tonight.

Sunday, October 6th, 2002: I had a very fun and busy day, but I can't write down the details because it involves Christmas presents. Tee hee!

Saturday, October 5th, 2002: The highlight of the entire weekend was going to a screening of "Barbie As Rapunzel" with Dean, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Anna. "Barbie As Rapunzel" is the second direct to video Barbie movie animated by Mainframe Entertainment and this time Dean's name was in the credits! It was so exciting to see Dean's name slowly scroll up the big screen, yay Deano! The movie itself was a typical kids' movie and I'm sure it'll make a killing.

Friday, October 4th, 2002: I went to Andrea Rambeau's (Rambo's) housewarming tonight and it was like an Aquarium reunion. Ian, Thomas and Charissa (and of course, Rambo) were there. None of them work at the Aquarium anymore. It was interesting to get a bit of an update. Wish I wasn't so bitter, cause there's an interesting job posted for the good old Aquarium right now. It gives me shivers to think of going back!

Thursday, October 3rd, 2002: Our apartment has never looked worse! I brought up all of the rest of the boxes that were down in storage, so it's back to wading through the boxes again. I've got bruises on my legs from accidentally bumping into all the boxes strewn about this place. We have way too much stuff! On the plus side, I did find my bike lock in one of the enormously heavy boxes that I dragged up from storage. Yay!

Dean and I went out to lunch with Jeff to celebrate his new job at Mainframe. We also went out to dinner at the Acropol Greek restaurant down the street, yum! No progress was made on the bookshelves. Morale is flagging.

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2002: With three new bookcases in our apartment, I felt inspired to unpack and I rounded up all of our books and stacked them in a mini library by the window. Whew! I almost killed myself bringing up a 75 pound box from storage (curse Dean for packing it so heavy!). After a hard day's work, it was great to sit back and relax and sing along to the sappy music that started another excellent episode of Enterprise. Sidenote: I can't find my bike lock and it's driving me crazy!

Tuesday, October 1st, 2002: Being the editor of two email newsletters is a busy job! I successfully sent them both out on time and also had time for a very efficient trip to the new IKEA in Coquitlam. We were practically running through the store, partly because the store was closing in an hour, and partly because Dean likes to limit his time at IKEA. We found 2 huge tall bookcases, a small one for Dean's computer books & cds and a couple storage boxes. Yay, IKEA!

Monday, September 30th, 2002: Today was a fun, email-filled day and the icing on the cake is that Dean has ordered me to work on my webpage while he makes me dinner! My assignment was to create a completely new page, so I decided to make a journal to bore my friends. I'm all inspired right now, so I'm going to write a few entries from the recent past, see below!

Sunday, September 29th, 2002: A very exciting day. Dean and I came up to help Trish & Erik move into their new home in Duncan and found that they had already unpacked everything! We did make ourselves useful, however, and had a grand time catching up with Trish & Erik & Janet and washing cupboards, microwaves, stoves, dishes and the fridge and freezer. Whew!

Saturday, September 28th, 2002: Dean and I attended the wedding of Camilla Towner and Mel Burgess and had a wonderful time! It was so relaxing to be a guest at a wedding instead of the main event! Camilla's brother Simon gave the couple a pair of Team Canada hockey jerseys with their names on the back. Our high school art teacher, Mr. Campbell impressed us with his amazing swing dancing. Weddings are fun, I want to go to another!

Sunday, September 22nd, 2002: The highlight of my day (week?) was going on a bike ride with my husband all the way to Science World. It was a sunny, warm afternoon and every yuppie and their dog was out on the seaside path. One couple was walking their two pipsqueak microscopic dogs when the husband noticed that one dog was walking funny. Instead of bending down to inspect the dog, he hoisted the dog up to eye level by its tiny harness, asking "What's the matter, Firefly?" and pulling a leaf out from under the dog. Dean and I had to leave quickly before we laughed out loud in front of the crazy dog owners. Best thing I saw all week!

Saturday, September 21st, 2002: Dean and I booked a Cooperative Auto Network car and drove to West Vancouver to visit with Doug & Mary & Abbey. Lucky thing I wore my penguin socks because Abbey found them very amusing and carried out a lengthy conversation with my feet. She was under the table for half the dinner! After dinner we were driving home when we came across a road block. Although I hadn't been drinking, I was slightly nervous anyway and I kept repeating "No, sir. No, sir" in my head. When the police officer looked in the window and asked "Any alcohol for the driver tonight?" I calmly replied, "No, thanks!" We were lucky he didn't ask for a breathalyzer test right then! I still think it was a leading question.

Saturday, July 6th, 2002: Got married.