I have a new car!

Well, not new, and not yet, but I did come to my decision. My new car will be a 2005 Silver Camry with 37,000 km on it. It is pretty :) and it is in good condition. I should be able to pick it up on Thursday or Friday. Yay!

Wedding stuff is coming along well. We had a party for co-workers on Saturday that can't come/weren't invited to the wedding. All day saturday I spent preparing food. there was a lot of it. Fruits, veggies, nacho dip, cheese straws, lemon bars (I had memories of making them in Quinn's Appartment that one year at christmas!), chocolate chip muffins, nut burgers, scotch eggs, and deviled eggs. Oh my. Now we have all the leftovers... some items were more popular than others though, but I guess you expect that kind of thing.

All of the big stuff is taken care of for the wedding now, I've even confirmed with most of the vendors. There are still a few small details that we still have to figure out though. like wedding vows, and order of speeches and that sort of thing.

On the weekend we got our honeymoon all booked. before, we just had the flights.

Our itenerary.

Arrive in Calgary 8:30 MT on Oct. 5.
Oct. 6 - Either see calgary or drumhellar - I think Arash would like it - and then drive to edmonton, hopefully stopping for a visit with a certain awesome family in blackfalds
Oct. 7 - Drive from Edmonton to Jasper where we are camping. Do some hiking
Oct. 9 - Drive from Jasper to Banff where we are staying at THE BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL!!!!!!!! (Expedia had rooms for super cheap! more than $100 off the regular price!)
October 12 drive back to Calgary in the evening for the Red eye flight home.

We plan on doing quite a bit of hiking when we are out there and seeing the sights and what not. I'm getting really excited. This is my first vacation in well over a year, and I definitely need it. Now I just have to make it through 4.5 days of work... I'm almost at the point of counting down working hours left!!!

Two updates in one week. Oh my!

I’m actually sitting here today at work, and I’m a little light on work. Yay! This is the first time this has happened since, I don’t know, February? I don’t think I’ve had to ask anyone for work since Christmas. I’m going to relish in it for a bit. I’m sure there is stuff I can do (like clean out the equipment room and order stuff, and what not, since I’m supposed to be in charge of it, and haven’t done anything since July really. Ooopsies! I just compile one of my Huge @ss reports that we have to do every year. The report itself is 70 pages with all the figures, tables, and appendices, it is two three inch binders! Anywho, sent it off this morning to Mississauga for senior review. The other report I had to do for this project that has been hanging over my shoulders has been cancelled. Yay! We had to do interim and annual reports, and the interim got cancelled because the landfill has officially been closed and cover is complete.

Sure, there is stuff I could do, write PDFs for the appendices (boring! This would take like 2-3 hours, of printing files to a PDF writer – Last year I had a tech do it), Coordinate the fall sampling of a landfill that I’m apparently now in charge of, and work some magic in the equipment room, but I’m going to relax a minute instead. Bad employee ;). I was actually out at a site in Woodstock this morning and they didn’t have enough holding tank capacity to dewater the excavation to continue excavating and sampling, so I had work to do, just not anymore.

So Christine was asking how the car shopping is going? Truth – too many options. I think it is much harder to buy a used car than it is to buy a new car. Not only do you have to narrow down on which model you want, but you also have to decide between a dozen different cars with different mileage, different years, and different price tags. On top of that, do I buy a car in Woodstock? In London? In Kitchener?

We decided we wanted an ’04 to ’06 Camry with lowish mileage, but even then, there are half a dozen options. I went to Kitchener Monday night, Woodstock Tuesday night, and London Wednesday night. I have driven 5 camrys, 1 used matrix and the 09 corolla (I don’t want to buy it since it will cost more to get the things that I had on it last time and I don’t want to be paying for that for another 60 months… It did drive nicer than my 08 corolla, but still no comparison to a camry).

I have my top favourite at each dealership. There is an 06 Camry in London with 45 Ks, it is gold coloured though and I think it is kind of ugly. The interior is immaculate, but the exterior have a few chips in the paint, and the front bumper looks like of like it is was in a fender bender and wasn’t properly fixed which has me nervous. In Woodstock there is an 06 camry with 113 Ks, but is 3000 cheaper. Not as immaculate inside, but better outside and a nicer colour (grey). In Kitchener there is a 05 with 30 Ks, cheaper than London, more expensive than Woodstock. It is silver. We haven’t had a chance to look on the inside/outside yet though, so I’m not sure the condition it is in. We are going to see it tonight after work, so I have to leave a little early. Right now this one is the front runner, but that could all turn upside down tonight.

What a week.

So I guess the last time I updated was September 4… A lot has happened since then.

That weekend we went to Toronto to visit A’s mum. We took care of some wedding things and did some shopping. I got new contacts (not sure that I like them), and a new jacket (white trench, in hindsight, not the best option for me), and make-up for the wedding. Expensive make up. I shouldn’t have spent that much. Oh well, I never spend money on make-up, so once every three years, splurging isn’t a big deal.

On Monday morning I was driving in to work to do my timesheet and take care of a couple of loose ends before I went up north again for the week. I went around a bend in the road just 500 metres from my house, and the light blinded me. I haven’t driven that way in about 2 weeks, so I didn’t realize it was the time of year that the sun is blinding on the drive into work, so I was driving faster than I normally would. (40 in a 40 zone, but when the sun is blinding (about two weeks in September and two in April), I would normally drive around that bend at no more than 30). I got into the shade and all the sudden I see a parked truck about 5 metres in front of me. I tried to veer, but I didn’t have time. I hit it with the front passenger side of my car. The truck was a 1984 truck, in sustained not too much damage. Solid steel construction at what not. My car on the other hand was totalled. No worries about me though. I am relatively okay. Very shooken up, with a sore hand – my thumb got stretch back by the steering wheel, but no serious injuries. I got the call from the insurance person last week. $18,000 to fix it. Nice. So now I’m in the market for another car. I have to sort it out before Thursday or pay extra for a rental car. Boo.

I still ended up going north, but much later than planned. I wanted to leave Woodstock at 10:30 and didn’t end up leaving until almost 4! They sent another girl up with me to drive though, so that was nice.

I took last Friday off to get some wedding stuff taken care of. I did my trial hair run on Friday and then went for my second dress fitting (it still fits!). Made some head way with ceremony music and went bridesmaid dress shopping with D&M on Friday evening. We didn’t find anything, but D assures me she will find one this week. On Saturday I went to meet with the DJ, got presents for people in the wedding and picked up A from the train station. My sis came over that evening and got us all organized for the wedding. I now have a list of all the things I have to do before the wedding. Hopefully I can manage to get everything on it done!!! On Sunday we met with our officient for the second time and I have a digital copy of the ceremony. After that, we drove to Toronto and picked up a CD with our engagement photos on them on the way through Trenton. They are AWESOME! I’m going to post them (at least some of them ) on facebook when I get a chance. I’m so happy with they way they turned out. Last night we took my dad to see Spamalot for Father’s Day. It was actually his birthday yesterday too! He really enjoyed the show. I think A did as well. He was laughing quite a bit, but I think he missed some of the humor in the songs due to the language.

Le Sigh

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. I'm busy. I have no time for wedding stuff, life, whatever. That is my life.

The weekend of the 23rd my sister came down from thunder bay. It was nice to get to visit with her. We also had a family picnic at my aunts and uncles in winterbourne. it was nice to see (almost) everyone. two of my cousins on Dad's side will be missing the wedding, so it was nice to get the chance to see them.

Last week there was a tanker roll over on the 402 in Sarnia and I got called out to it. 28.5 hours in 2 days. FUN. Insert eye roll here. It was definitely a morale low point to say the least.

Last weekend was pretty awesome. I got a good chance to relax. Saturday we went to kitchener and went shopping and finished our registry. We then went to a party at A's coworkers. It was an okay time. Not stellar because I didn't really know anyone there. The coworkers that A is close with didn't end up going.

Sunday we went to the beach. Long Point. It was great. Beautiful sunny day. Nice an hot, but not humid. The water was nice too. we took a bunch of photos, perhaps I'll post some if I get a chance. Monday was okay. we did a lot of house cleaning. Boo. I really want to hire a cleaning person. We make enough money for it. when I'm at home on the weekends, I want to be enjoying myself and relaxing not working. I do enough of that Monday to Friday!!!

Tuesday I found out that I have to go up to Mattawa again on Monday. So now I'm scrambling to get stuff done this week. Not fun. Particularily since I was out in the field on Tuesday and yesterday. Oh well, I can only get done so much.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention. Our photographer has posted a few pictures from our engagement session on her blog. Ignore the error in my name!!! I particularly like the last one. I have it as my desk top at work now, though I can't figure out what is on A's knee.