Nightmare Before...

So it’s finally Christmas! Ha ha…ha? After spending last year’s Christmas in BC with my family, we once again made the trek out to Manitoba on snowy Christmas Eve (snow in MB…not here.) I hadn’t been back to Manitoba in nearly two years, since my Granny died in early 2008. When it came down to it, I was actually quite excited to be jetting down into Winnipeg’s decrepit airport.

After work on Christmas Eve, my Aunt drove us into Vancouver airport for the evening flight out. To our surprise, the airport was mostly deserted – I suppose the Christmas rush had already passed. We took our time eating dinner before making our way to the gate.






Ramen! It tasted awful. This place is no Ichiran.



The flight was dark and cold – as to be expected. I listened to some K8 while Marty snoozed…typical. We pulled in on time and were pleased to find Tracy and Morgan waiting for us…in thick winter apparel. I prepared for the worst.




Tracy is really giving her side of the story here, it would appear.

Tracy and Morgan were kind enough to let us sleep in Tori and Cole’s beds at their apartment to avoid the long commute to Altona in the threatening snowstorm raging outside. The temperature wasn’t actually too deathly – I was surprised, but it’s amazing what a steely will can do.

After a glorious sleep, my parents came into the city to pick us up from Tracy and Morgan’s and then it was back to the airport to pick up B. Too much decrepit airport in 24 hours. But it was very nice to see the parents and chow on lunch waiting for B’s plane to arrive.





Oh yeah, ps – MERRY CHRISTMAS! I’ve totally forgotten already as this day has been anything but opening presents and holiday cheer. I just ate lunch in the airport, for Pete’s sake.

B arrived and we all jammled into the truck for the trek home. The next few days were filled with food, family, and frigid weather. I didn’t have much time to breathe, much less take any relevant photos about the whole schmozz. (It was over three months ago anyway – like you care! Ahem…) So yeah. On the 28th, I finally got around to whipping out the camera to show you a bit of my snowy holiday.






Nothing like pyjamas and mukluks in -30 degrees.



More lazy days went by at the speed of light…Sis arrived on December 31, just in time for Christmas(?). Well, our Christmas, anyway. B and I and picked her up at the airport and then headed to Mongo’s to devour a few bowls of Mongolian BBQ – YUMMMO. That night was, for all intents and purposes, Christmas Eve. It was a very Holt Renfrew Christmas for me.


That’s it – a bunch of gift cards and pair of socks – but it’s what I asked for!



After the gifts came the many rounds of eating. It was like, eat, break for half an hour or so, then eat again, repeat. B escaped to some lame dood’s party in Winnipeg, so Sis and I were left up to our own devices.



After digging through some boxes, I found the most entertaining piece of our evening – my old journals/diaries. Oh my gosh…this was some priceless stuff.



Sis and I nearly died laughing. Pretty much if I had anything at all to do with you throughout my formative years (grades 4 to 10), there’s an entry (or ten) in these books about you. Oh, and it is priceless stuff. I was so serious…and teenage. Perhaps I’ll do a short series of excerpts in the future so we can all have a laugh. I’ll try to not be too embarrassed.

And then it was midnight. Happy New Year.

A few days later, some friends had an impromptu get-together with foods. It’s been only what, two years? Too long mates…too long.




There can be only one.






Oi! I get the stink eye. It must have been something I said. I say a lot of things.

This meeting also revealed some absolutely fantastical old photos – kudos to Suzy for keeping us forever young (cue Rob Stewart song). As you will see, I wasn’t always such a fashion-focused individual:






Oh 20” hem circumference Randy River jeans…I don’t miss you.


This is a classic Erin-circa-1998-2000 look.


OI OI OI OI! This is dreadful. I remember this night though – grade 12 Christmas banquet. Marty and I had already broken up yet he decided to go with me anyway. As you can see, there was no place else he’d rather be.


A Panic Button classic, plus Lora D, minus Lori F. After a gig and sleepover in Landmark. Damn, my memory is clear!


Token action shot. What I’m holding is a Wagon Wheel. Lunch hour tradition dictated that we hurl that thing against the wall until it was crumbs, and then Jen would finally get to eat it. HA HA HA HA HA it makes me laugh even now. I guess you’d have had to have been there.

And finally, the present-day version of a few of us…sometime soon we’ll all have to congregate!



The drive home was a bit of a cold one:


Sister-time doesn’t happen very often…but when it does, things can get a bit ridiculous, as evidenced by New Year’s Day, 2010.










They just might kill me for that one. In fact, this picture may have been deleted by the time you even read this. Let me know Sisses!


Oh no! B is getting mauled by Stitch and a caveman! Poor thing.

A busy trip was made yet busier by the wedding of Tracy and Morgan in Winnipeg during our last weekend out. I didn’t take any pictures of the wedding (I’ll leave that to the pros), but I did manage to snap a few shots of our ghetto-fab Travelodge room. No windows to the outside here…only a great view of the pool area. I didn’t even know rooms like that still existed! But they do, dear readers, they do!





The ride back to town from Winnipeg is so beauteous in the winter cold.



We now go to the last full day in the sub-arctic of MB which was also our last family gathering. I really love my extended family (which is great, btw), so it was a really nice way to wrap up the Christmas festivities. Before they arrived, I braved the outdoors once more to run up and down the driveway a few times. Sis cheered me on from inside the house.




















…and welcomed me back inside with open arms. I was so freaking cold. My Gramps thought I was nuts.

After consuming copious amounts of delicious foods, we kicked back and chatted, joked, and even horsed around a bit (well, the younger ones, anyway.)










Can you tell we are sisters? SISTERS!




Al and Martha, in Christmas-y matchy-match shirts.


He’s too proud of his heater remote control and needed to show it to me.


Oi! No makeup. Me sitting on and squishing Snacks.


Aw! Cousinly-love abounds.



After gatherings, one must always consume excess snacks. This is how we all end up fat after the holidays.







The next day we zipped on back to our homeland. There was no one available to pick us up, so did the best we could with public transit. I’m not gonna lie – it was a bit of an inconvenience lugging our massive sacks of dirty clothes and Christmas goods onto the rush hour train home. But…the scenery was nice and the temperatures milder.





Hello to the new-ish year and all it brings. I have a feeling this will be a good one. --> \(^_^)/

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Old

Another birthday came by my way. Urk! I suppose I should be embracing the onset of middle age, but in my mind I still look the same way I did when I was ten…funny how creepy that sounds. Also, my birthdays never tend to be big blow-out occasions, so I can pretty much get by with ignoring it all together. When did I get so jaded? It must have been on one of those many birthdays that seem to pass me by. Anyway, it was here whether I liked it or not, so Janelle and I made a day of going into Vancouver shopping – we usually do this regardless of a birthday, so I kept forgetting. But I did manage to get a new haircut on the occasion.



Birthday lunch was held at Benkei, my go-to ramen shop in the city. There’s nothing like ramen to power one’s afternoon of shopping.



Apparently I didn’t take any pictures of the afternoon. Well, really…you don’t need to see Janelle and I wandering through a mall and Holt Renfrew for hours on end. That brings us to dinner. Unoriginality prevailed again as we hit up a restaurant we’ve been previously, Ciao Bella on Denman. I took another picture of my new hair.


I’m digging it.

The place seems to be run by real Italians. Italians, that are, of course, a million times nicer than the ones in Italy, which made the experience pleasant. Janelle doesn’t seem to be impressed with her food at all today – what’s with the pained expression?



After that, we headed home for some family togetherness time. People probably wonder why I didn’t spend my birthday with my husband, so I figured he should be featured in here somewhere. We went to our main haunt, ABC family restaurant and did the usual dessert. And for that, Janelle always smiles.



I do believe that my birthday concluded with a trip to see Avatar (for the first time). For some odd reason, Avatar-fever hadn’t caught yet and the theatre wasn’t even full. But I was so thrilled to see a 3-D movie that I didn’t even notice another soul in the room. As you can guess by now, the movie was awesome.


At least these 3-D glasses are more stylish than their forebearers.

So there was my birthday for another year…the blog is nothing monumental, but it will help me in future years to remember what I did on my 27th birth day on earth. Earthlings, rejoice! I was born.

Let me conclude with a random picture of some Japanese curry I made. It wasn’t even for my birthday, but since I love curry, it should be mentioned in a blog that is all about me. YAY!

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An Arresting Experience

I really missed Jean…I hadn’t seen her, in all actuality, throughout most of 2009. That’s why we finally set aside some time at the beginning of December to head off on one of our legendary Vancouver day trips, partaking in touristy activities, courtesy of her tourism passport. Today’s destination was the grisly Vancouver Police Museum, which we had attempted to visit earlier back in 2008, but they were closed. We parked Jean’s jalopy (which I love) downtown and boarded the “Big” Bus which would take us down into the seedy corridor of the Downtown Eastside, where the museum is located.


Apparently we are the only tourists today.







The museum was pretty quiet even though it was a Saturday. The displays started off harmless enough…some regalia, old motorcycles, different articles…you know, kid stuff.




BEST BIKE COP EVER!


The bathrooms kind of felt like drafty old church bathrooms. Creepy.

As we kept on moving through the museum, eventually it turned more violent: a wall display case filled with homemade weapons – brass knuckles, flails, maces, spiked shin-pads, etc. To think people made these items to use just makes me uneasy. Then we got to the rooms with graphic content advisories – these are the actual rooms of the old city morgue. They still had the body shelving units in the wall, a la CSI. There were body-type objects inside but I was too creeped out to look closer.





Some of the articles they had on the wall were downright disturbing – they had photographs taken of murder victims, still lying in their own pools of blood, and photos of homes after a murder spree. Gak! I’m too young to see these things. I didn’t take any pictures of those, don’t worry. They also had a boy who accidentally shot an arrow through his eye and into his head…and then the arrow was on display! Not even enclosed in a display case! I could have touched it if I wanted. Gross. They had the original autopsy beds still out…with the original tubing. It was dirty. Me and Jean eventually felt so ill we had to leave.

Outside the museum was a different kind of uncomfortable feeling…we were waiting for the trolley car to come take us back downtown, but as it was off-season, it didn’t come around very often, so we had to wait. And we waited. And waited more. Eventually a prostitute came by and started to solicit on our block. She had a long blonde wig and a bright pink dress on. There were potential customers…that’s all I’ll say without grossing you out anymore than you already are. Eventually the trolley came…and I couldn’t climb on fast enough.



After a bit of shopping and picking up a smoothie, we headed home. I think that was enough for one day…and who is hungry after all that? YIKES!

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