Pandora's Box of Fun Times

Hi Troopers. Seems like I just wrote my last blog, but it’s actually been a while, so I’ll crank out another. This one covers several topics, ranging from Halloween to quay adventures to Christmas feasts to a rousing rendition of “To Hell with the Devil” by the metal band Stryper. Oh baht deetchlaunt (or “haaa-lauw!” as my Mother would say). Such fun.

Let’s start with fall.


That was nice. Moving along…

At work each year we do a department theme and half-heartedly attempt to get into the spirit of Halloween by putting a bucket of candy at the reception desk. This year, in familiar cop-out style, we opted to dress as Secret Service/CIA/Men in Black/Blues Brothers/whatever else anyone thought we were.


My coworker/neighbour Sara, lookin’ all pro and whatnot.


Ms. Thang herself, reporting for bidness.

Our office neighbourhood neighbours, Employee Services, dressed up as a bees and decked out their office in hives.


This is (in my opinion) the Queen B(ee), my friend, Ms. Nancy V. (Hi Friend! Come back to work soon…)

The day after Halloween, our department went on our annual retreat into Vancouver for some development of the professional style. You may recall my blog last year titled, The Penthouse Suite in which we stayed at the Granville Island Hotel and certain shenanigans ensued. This year, we stayed at the Lonsdale Quay Hotel and while fewer shenanigans were caught on film, there were many shenanigans nonetheless.




This is Regina and Julie, in our pre-developing Starbucks break.


Sara O.

We got there early and decided to do a bit of exploring around the markets and then check into our hotel rooms.









Having been spoiled with the most awesome-est room last year, I was hoping for the African Junior Suite at the least. Well, I got stuck with a regular, boring, two queen-bed room. With a hideously-patterned window valance. Blah.



With a view of the tugboats.





Once the training session began, we did one of those (useless) team-building exercises that are supposed to get us to start the love-fest. I say useless because once the exercise is done, they tell you it was all for naught and you’ve won nothing. Boo. Our goal was to build a hotel. I was the architect. This was the result.



This was pretty hot business considering we only had five or ten minutes to build it. No big deal.

After our session, we had free time to mill about until dinner. I wandered through the shops with Regina and then headed back to my room to prep for dinner in the atrium.






This is the hotel/market from the waterfront.

The hotel gave us all rooms down this one long hallway in alphabetical order, so when we stuck our heads out the window, we could talk to each other. Here is Nicole and I giving it a test.





Dinner was in the atrium which had a great view of the skyline and the food was fantastic. From here, the party escalated and the wobbly-pops consumed became more apparent in certain characters.









As for me, I didn’t drink very much since the wine was in limited quantities (not to mention that this was a work function.) After some chats with my coworkers and some eavesdropping sessions on the people the next room, I was left to my own devices and desperately tried to make the best of my two-queen room – I designated one of the beds as the jumping bed, and one as the sleeping bed.






And nearly face-planted in the process. Fun.

The next day was breakfast and wrap-up, arriving home at lunch, on Friday. I did what any normal person who partied the night before would do, and slept…(End of department retreat.)

Fast forward two weeks and that brings me to Jean’s house, on a Thursday. She was wanting to decorate the Christmas tree already (a girl after my own heart!) so she was willing to feed and fund a swell pre-Christmas evening of fun.


Chili, nachos and cornbread! Yum!


The party crew: Jean, our new Japanese friend Maya, and Eric.



After the tree was, by and large, decorated, we started on the gingerbread house, of which I was, again, the designated architect.





The house above looks fairly close to the hottest gingerbread house I have seen this year, with one invisible problem in the roofing that I didn’t forsee…



And so, down it came. Poop sandwich. So the world has been spared several (if not many) crappy buildings since I became an accountant rather than an engineer. Let’s all thank the good Lord.

The next day, I rallied up my good old pals Jen and Rachel and we headed out for a night on the town, Japanese-style.


Okonomiyaki


Rachel + udon


Jen + temaki +nigiri

Next came the only logical thing…the most crazy-insane karaoke night of singing I had yet to experience in my 24 short years.









The pictures don’t show even a fraction of the debauchery that ensued. It is strange how certain songs make you…embarrass yourself? Anyways, it was a good time. Heart, Abba, Pussycat Dolls, and…Stryper? Yes. ‘To Hell With the Devil’ indeed.



Next week is the Spice Girls concert which I (unfortunately) committed to attend. Boo. After that is Christmas in MB, February in London, England, and wayyyy after that (next September), is my newest excursion (now confirmed) – a month in Tokyo, Japan. Sheesh, but yay! Come along, okay??

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