Many artists and poets write about being away and coming back home. But the words don't always mean as much until you've been away or the one you love has been away and finally returns back home. That's our situation. Finally after months and months of being in Portland, Burnaby, Houston, and Mexico -- Katie is back in Calgary - Home - to stay!
She's finished the major aspects of her project that has kept her on the road and returned back to Calgary last night to go back to her Calgary office this morning.
Welcome Home Katie!! Now the 5-week countdown is on for Tahiti! xo
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Summer Time Fun
With only a few weeks left in August, we're wondering what one thing you still really want to do this Summer that you haven't done yet?
Maybe it's getting the tan you've wanted, or hitting a trail or visiting that special place. Whatever it is we'd like to hear about it. And, if you've left no stone unturned already this summer - let us know the cool thing that you're most happy about.
Still making the most of the sun & fun . . .
K&S
Maybe it's getting the tan you've wanted, or hitting a trail or visiting that special place. Whatever it is we'd like to hear about it. And, if you've left no stone unturned already this summer - let us know the cool thing that you're most happy about.
Still making the most of the sun & fun . . .
K&S
Friday, August 17, 2007
Boys Bike Trip
Since we raced TransRockies as a team together in '05, Schwartzee and I have made a point of doing a boys bike trip -- last year's theme was 'Bears, Biking and Booze' in Spokane and this year we'll call 'Bikes, Skis & Sun' in Salmon Arm/Wasa Lake. We left Monday evening after my return from visiting Katie in Mexico and we made it to Salmon Arm in time for Nachos & Beer @ the Pub attached to our Hotel.
We rode our Mountain Bikes on Tuesday morning in the area surrounding Shuswap Lake -- too many trails, not enough time! Then we rented Jet skis for the afternoon -- great fun! Huge machines (they seated 3 people) with tons of power - with full throttle we reached speeds of +90km/hour -- really fast to help us explore all the great locations the lakes in the areas had to offer. After being on the water for the afternoon, we still managed to find some energy to explore the Shuswap nightlife but dragged our tired butts back to the Hotel before any arrests were made. ; )
Wednesday turned out to be a "rest" day as we drove from the Shuswap to some property Mark's family has @ Wasa Lake. Thursday we got up early and got on our road bikes and did a 100km round trip from Wasa to Kimberly to Cranbrook back to Wasa. What's interesting about this ride is that Kimberly boasts the title as Canada's highest City and Wasa Lake is not the 2nd highest City, if you know what I'm saying -- a 'hill' of an interesting fact! Regardless, we were up for the challenge and made the trip in 3h45m of riding time -- of course we took some time to sample from some of the amazing Bavarian bakeries and cafes along the way!Friday we had the morning at the lake and then came back to Calgary. A wicked trip as usual & we're taking suggestions for where next year's boys biking adventure should take us -- feel free to submit your ideas!
The week ahead will see work for us both (yeah it's Katie's last week in Mexico!) And then it's our Stag/Stagette weekend. Katie is meeting a bunch of women in Vegas and the details of mine have been left up to Schwartzee, Bulmer and Oggie (the 3 Marks) so Katie has kindly hidden my passport to try and limit the damage to any other country the fellas may attempt to leave me in - haha! But rest assured, I'm sure there will not be a blog about either event.
Enjoy your week!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Mexico City In A Weekend
Scott went to Mexico on Thursday to visit Katie and give her a break from the long travel days that she's experienced for the past year. Plus it was a great opportunity/excuse to explore Mexico City together! Katie took the weekend off and we were energized by just getting to be together. Here are some of our highlights!
On Friday we got a ride to the 'floating gardens' -- there is a real Mexican name for it, but we're too lazy to Google it right now. They are cool decorated wooden boats that float down a canal-like system -- very much an European influence, as they are powered by a guy on the end of the boat using a large stick to both push and direct where and how fast the boat travels. Out on the canal were hundreds of these boats and smaller boats with people trying to sell you food, flowers, trinkets and songs -- yes, there were travelling mariachi bands!! -- 1 song for 70 pesos ($7.00) There were, of course, many types of amazing flowers as the name floating gardens was well earned.
On Saturday, we explored downtown Mexico City. As we have found with most of our travel, you can't go wrong with taking the 'city tour' -- and so we boarded the Double Decker 'Touri-Buso' and had a blast exploring this city which is home to more than 22 Million people! Massive city squares that house their most valued government, religious and cultural buildings. Having both explored Europe, we were transported to the same look & feel of city centres there and were impressed with the Spanish influence which was very apparent. We have pictures of a very impressive dance-type show we saw (but we forgot our download cable -- have to wait till home) But it's a group of five people at the top of this pole who are only attached by a rope around their waist and they spin around and around as the rope brings them to the ground in a controlled 3 minute spinning frenzy -- very cool!
The weather has been amazing, despite being the rainy-season -- however, at the end of our bus tour, we did experience a downpour while on-top of the open-aired bus....hmmm...refreashing!?! Scott was in total "cop" mode on the ride home, as we just flagged down a taxi to take us back to the Hotel. Let's just say the driver took us to parts of Mexico that weren't on the 'official city tour!' It was great fun watching his expressions as we rolled through some of true Mexico!
On Sunday we went to the pyramids. Wow. The massive space is only 25% discovered/excavated -- but no more excavation is being done by the Mexican Government. Still the area to explore is huge and climbing both the Piramide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon) and Piramide de Soleil (Pyramid of the Sun) gave some impressive views of the area. We hired a great guide from the hotel for both this trip and the floating gardens trip. It was interesting riding with him (much safer!) and seeing the great poverty on the streets and shanty-towns that Mexico is famous for. It appears that all 22 Million people work in Mexico (give or take a few million) -- never were we asked just for $$ -- always trying to sell something in return. perhaps the exploding homeless population in Calgary could take a lesson from their employment rate.
We had an amazing weekend together, as you can read! Only two more weeks in Mexico for Katie and then her time being away is finished -- yeah! Scott goes back to Calgary on a 6am flight and then is away for a boys biking trip -- I'm sure we'll see photos and stories from their adventure!
On Friday we got a ride to the 'floating gardens' -- there is a real Mexican name for it, but we're too lazy to Google it right now. They are cool decorated wooden boats that float down a canal-like system -- very much an European influence, as they are powered by a guy on the end of the boat using a large stick to both push and direct where and how fast the boat travels. Out on the canal were hundreds of these boats and smaller boats with people trying to sell you food, flowers, trinkets and songs -- yes, there were travelling mariachi bands!! -- 1 song for 70 pesos ($7.00) There were, of course, many types of amazing flowers as the name floating gardens was well earned.
On Saturday, we explored downtown Mexico City. As we have found with most of our travel, you can't go wrong with taking the 'city tour' -- and so we boarded the Double Decker 'Touri-Buso' and had a blast exploring this city which is home to more than 22 Million people! Massive city squares that house their most valued government, religious and cultural buildings. Having both explored Europe, we were transported to the same look & feel of city centres there and were impressed with the Spanish influence which was very apparent. We have pictures of a very impressive dance-type show we saw (but we forgot our download cable -- have to wait till home) But it's a group of five people at the top of this pole who are only attached by a rope around their waist and they spin around and around as the rope brings them to the ground in a controlled 3 minute spinning frenzy -- very cool!
The weather has been amazing, despite being the rainy-season -- however, at the end of our bus tour, we did experience a downpour while on-top of the open-aired bus....hmmm...refreashing!?! Scott was in total "cop" mode on the ride home, as we just flagged down a taxi to take us back to the Hotel. Let's just say the driver took us to parts of Mexico that weren't on the 'official city tour!' It was great fun watching his expressions as we rolled through some of true Mexico!
On Sunday we went to the pyramids. Wow. The massive space is only 25% discovered/excavated -- but no more excavation is being done by the Mexican Government. Still the area to explore is huge and climbing both the Piramide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon) and Piramide de Soleil (Pyramid of the Sun) gave some impressive views of the area. We hired a great guide from the hotel for both this trip and the floating gardens trip. It was interesting riding with him (much safer!) and seeing the great poverty on the streets and shanty-towns that Mexico is famous for. It appears that all 22 Million people work in Mexico (give or take a few million) -- never were we asked just for $$ -- always trying to sell something in return. perhaps the exploding homeless population in Calgary could take a lesson from their employment rate.We had an amazing weekend together, as you can read! Only two more weeks in Mexico for Katie and then her time being away is finished -- yeah! Scott goes back to Calgary on a 6am flight and then is away for a boys biking trip -- I'm sure we'll see photos and stories from their adventure!
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Very Cool!
With the launch of the Simpsons Movie -- the Simpson creators went to Inside Edition and "simpsonized" the IE Anchors as part of the movie hype.
So know we can now see what Brother Boyd would look like if he was ever a guest star on the Simpsons -- very cool!
We just need to develop a script as to why Paul may be on the Simpsons and then let the voiceovers begin!
Friday, August 3, 2007
Bike Ride With Silver Medalist
My friend, Tanya called me up this week to arrange a bike ride on our day off -- today! Now Tanya and I were in recruit classes together and we both worked in a District together - so I've known her a long time. But this year she won the Silver Medal in mountain biking at the World Police & Fire Games in Australia (yeah!)We've ridden our rode bikes together, but never mountain bikes -- So you can imagine my excitement to get to ride with the Silver medalist! Anyway, it was great fun - we rode Elbow loop first thing this morning before it got too hot. To be fair she wasn't riding the bike that she won Silver with -- but I raced her back to the truck and I beat her (of course I didn't let her know that it was a race!) So guess who, in my mind, won Gold...hee-hee!
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