great ocean road - shauna + nic + juan = love

After what had been a really crappy start to a week, Nic absolutely saved the month by surprising me this weekend. I have to say that the end of the week was much better teaching wise- I was in good schools that were easy to locate and Friday morning I got to Skype with my entire family... even little Anna. It was the perfect way to start the weekend. As I was waiting for the bus after school, I had a mad craving for Pizza Hut and called Nic to inform him of this pressing matter. I was overjoyed when Nic stated that's what he wanted before I had said anything. We must have been brainwashed by a commericial this week. Well- do you know how hard it is to find a sit down Pizza Hut? IMPOSSIBLE! The closest dine in was an hour away. So we bit the bullet and ordered in. We decided to have a quiet night, because all along Nic had planned a mini vacation for the weekend.

He'd rented a car for Saturday morning and booked us a room along the Great Ocean Road. Not only was I happy to leave the city, but I almost peed my pants when Nic told me he got me a spa! I had been a sad panda earlier in the week and he thought it would make me happy. This was possibly the best weekend I've ever had in my life.... and let me tell you, I've had some weekends in my 24 years.

So, naturally, I was awake at 6:15 on Saturday morning. I cleaned up the apartment, packed and got ready. Nic left to get "Juan" our car, at 8. By 9 we were off. Of course I didn't eat breakfast and was starving by 10... so we had to stop at McDonalds. Lunch wasn't served for another half hour, and I really wanted a Big Mac... so we ended up hitting the next one. They even put the straws in the drink here... meaning their grubby hands touch where I drink from.. anyhow, back to business. I was just so excited to 1) be in a car and 2) out of the city. Nic had planned that we'd take a short cut straight to our hotel and investigate the ocean road from the opposite way that we'd drive it when we returned home. Highlights: signs for cows crossing roads, nic learning to drive on the wrong side of the street, and of course, the dead koala- picture attached. I don't hear the radio ever so I wasn't really up to date with popular songs but after this weekend I know Tao Cruz is running the show.

We got to our hotel at around 2 and dropped our stuff off. It was really quaint. A cute, cabiny, country hotel. We had a little verandah. We then went out and ventured along the road. I was actually awe-struck by how beautiful it was. Around 6 we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. I couldn't bear the site of that huge jaquzzi any longer and ended up having a bath before we left (and coincidentally, a bottle of wine). I was feeling pretty great when we got to our restaurant. It was filled with locals as well as travellers. After full bellies, we walked by to our hotel, got some more wine and I sat in the bath until I was a prune. Ever since I can remember, I've loved a bath. It's how I relax. One of my earliest memories of reading was sitting in the tub-- and it was also an opportunity my mom took to teach me. When I was just learning to read, I would sit in the tub (covered in washclothes over my lady parts because I couldn't let the woman who gave birth to me see my nipples) and I'd read the Vocbulary List from Reader's Digest to my mom and she'd have to tell me the definitions. Then, before the next month's edition, I'd have to be able to use the words myself as she'd quiz me... wow I've gotten really off topic, but Mom- I've often been told I use un-necessary words and Nic often asks me to define them-- so your plan worked.

I woke up this morning to the Kookaburra. Absolutely no trains, no cars, no noise... just that damn kookaburra, and it was fantastic. I didn't wake up until 7--- huge sleep in for clark. I had another bath and when I was blowdrying my hair, Nic had surprised me by ordering breakfast. He's such a good kid. We set off at 9 and didn't make it home until 6 tonight. We didn't return Juan tonight, so he's sitting in the car park across the street and one of us needs to return him tomorrow. We travelled on the Great Ocean Road all the way home and I got incredibly motion sick. I thought I was going to puke. The roads were sooo twisty turny and traffic coming the wrong way... ugh, I won't do that again without Gravel. We saw surfers which has only made me want to learn how to do it even more. The scenary was so gorgeous. Nic broke almost every rule about not climbing over gates onto cliffs... I only did twice and got scared immediately and scurried back to safety. We went through quite a few Grand Bendish towns.

Now, we're eating dinner and doing laundry... (I had an incident with insisting that we collect two dogs and return them to safety as they were in the middle of the road) and they covered Juan and myself in dirt. I don't have work tomorrow yet- but I'll probably get a call tomorrow morning. After this weekend, I feel very refreshed and the week of hurried, rushed, rude people being herded like cattle at crossing walks probably won't be as depressing. I can't thank you for this weekend enough Nicholas, it's going to be really hard for me to top it. Guess it's a good thing I let you come along.

I am so very very excited for when we start traveling... and so glad we are doing it now at this age. We saw people our parent's ages battling up huge hills and stairs on the verge of heart attacks as well as young parents chasing their young children who were 15 feet ahead of them. I think it's safe to say, if I don't get employed for next September... we're heading to the U.K. (and by safe to say I mean I want to do this but Nic is a little apprehensive).

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer!

xo

The life and times

Well it's official in my head, we are settled, we payed our rent for the second time, suddenly it feels like we are in a routine. Yep, the rent is paid and back to work we went on monday morning. After a busy weekend full of excitement shopping for baby presents and christmas presents. Yes thats right christmas in august. I don't believe i have started my shopping ever in my life before the 21st of december, so you can imagine the look on my face when shauna said "this would be perfect for a christmas gift, i'm going to get it." I checked the date on my phone just to be sure, and thought to myself better sooner then later. So that was our saturday afternoon, shopping in the busiest shopping district in melbourne, bourke street.

the closest thing to a farm in the middle of melbourne is the queen victoria market which i made a visit to earlier on saturday. This is where i heard the phrase "chicken duck" for the first time in my life. a full grown chinese man was certain he sees a chicken duck. i had to stop and look, i mean i saw a chicken, and i saw a duck, but for some reason i couldn't find the chicken duck. So we have taken farm kid from his rural routes in huron county and stuck him in a city full of people that have never seen a a cow, only heard of them.(or a chicken duck for that matter) It would be safe to say that was the most homesick i have been in quite some time.

Non the less we are figuring things out bit by bit here,somethings easier then other. for example, on friday night we decided to go for something to eat at a restaurant we had seen in the casino, looked like a great place to grab a few drinks and some food. so it's quite busy on a friday night, after a 40 minute wait at the bar we get our seats and menu's given to us. we sit and wait for 10 minutes or so, when one of finally say geez i know there busy but this service really sucks. 5 minutes later," even if were suppose to tip them here i don't think we would." then finally shauna clues into the trend, either everyone is getting the shaft or maybe we are suppose to go up and order. ding! ding! ding!. that's why our service sucks, because we are our own service and we are just sitting there waiting for someone to take care of us. i guess this might have something to do with "no tipping" thing here in australia. no tip for you.

My new work place is working out pretty good so far, we are making some major changes to the house so there's lots of work there. other then the fact that these guys can't get over the fact that i wear gloves when i am doing certain jobs like ripping and tearing, and the canadian/newfie jokes things are pretty good. i mean the joke's were funny the first couple days, but really day 11, come on. there isn't much more to talk about on our site then footy and canadians lately. so i am hoping that some kid shows up from USA or somewhere soon, it would take the heat off of me.

Well if it wasn't for shauna's lack of direction i think she would have been enjoying here days teaching here to a maximum. The other day last week she called me at about 835 telling me she was lost. no idea on how to get to her school, and she was already 5 minutes late. well i felt terrible seeing as that i thought the night before we had hammered things out pretty good. at that moment i remember thinking " i really should have made sure she knew the way." in any event she had called a cab and was waiting for him at the side of real busy road, and i was sure by the sound of her voice she was almost in tears. it all worked out in the end she made it there just as the bell rang, and other then setting the pace for a long day, she made it through it.

Monday morning she was called back to the same school that she lost her way to late last week, at least she knows her way this time. the only thing that can go wrong here is if she misses trian. i guess that's a possibility, what a way to start the week late for the same school again. cab driver to the rescue, since he already knew the way, she was there good and early.

today her class was in a far away school again, a different setting. of course she was a little scared of getting lost again. but she made it safe and sound. that was least of her problems as she had her hands full will a classroom that had 5 special need kids and no aid to assist her. that made for a long excruciating day. some days those kids would be tough enough to handle with here aid there to help her, but i can't imagine how tough it would be in a new school with no help and desperately needing it. so i thought on the way home she deserved some flowers to try and cheer her up. i think it worked. i think she is hoping the phone doesn't ring tomorrow morning and she maybe just has a day off for once. in the mean time they are calling for cool wet windy conditions for the next 24 hours, so i think i am going down to get her a umbrella for the walk tomorrow if needed,cause i kinda of like her,and i would hate for the poor girl to have three bad days in a row. she is all smiles tonight, and i would like to keep it that way for the rest of the week.

anna bananna

G'day Mates. Boy oh boy, so much news and I am not really in the writing mood. But, I am not really in the cooking mood either- soooo, this is where I am.

First off, I am so very happy to announce the birth of the newest addition to the clark family. My sister gave birth to Miss. Anna on Aug. 16. Now, if you know me... you know my childhood fear... ELVIS PRESLEY. It all started in public school when playing at a friend's house and the show "sightings" came on. It was all about how Elvis was still alive. This turned into nightmares with Elvis chasing me. I became obsessed. I wrote a speech on him, my parents took my to Graceland, my cousin paid the Elvis impersonator in Goderich to hug me for a dollar.... he chased me down the hall, my girlfriends spent my 18th birthday in the Elvis booth at JackAstors.. you get the hint. I hate him. At night in the dark, I would imagine him lurking in my bedroom. What the heck does that have to do with Anna you ask? Well my friends, today is the day Elvis died. I am certain this is a sign from the King himself. It's also Madonna's birthday as well as local celebrity Bruce Fisher... so it could also just be the day Anna chose to be born. So my dear niece, your auntie will never ever forget your birthday or what I was doing when you were born... (sleeping.. you woke me up at 4 am). Also, I spoiled the others when I didn't have any money, and now I have my own... you're gonna luck out kid. I haven't told Nic yet, but I cried the whole way home from work... I was feeling a bit emotional I guess. I've never not met one of my nieces or nephews in the first month of their birth and Anna's going to be pretty big when I meet her. I love new baby scent and I try to give my sister's a couple nights rest while I get up with the babies... it's also the absolute best form of birth control around. Either way, congratulations Sue and & Chris, your family is complete and I couldn't be happier for you.

nic made a huge meal and vino, so i need to make this quick. on the weekend, we took a tour to phillip island and it was great. we were on a bus of 24 people, from hong kong, usa, australia, singapore, japan, etc. our tour guide was a woman named di and nic and her became pals right away. he was so excited that morning, she informed him of how to get a tour guiding job- which we all know is nicholas' dream. anyhow.. our first stop was at a winery.. we sampled wine and cheeses and fruits. we ended up buying a reisling and some cheese. yumo! it was so good. After that, we were off to Panny's chocolate factory. This would be any kid's dream. It reminded me of willy wonka's chocolate factory minus the oompa-loompa's and not as cool. i included a picture of the chocolate fountain. There were tons of samples, chocolate shots, make your own chocolate.. which came out of squirt guns... it was good. We then shimmied off to the koala and wallaby conservation. again, the koala's were hugely boring. they sleep 20 hours a day! in the state of victoria, it's illegal to touch them. in the mid 80's a case of chylamidia almost wiped the species out... so touching is a no no. however, in the other states you can, and that is where i will get my hands on one. we didn't need to go to the conservation to see wallaby's- we almost hit them on the road every 20 mins. those things are like a huron county raccoon. next, we were off to the nobbies. no idea what that means. i thought we were going to crash. we were travelling up hills with one lane encountering traffic coming the other way. it was freezing there, but gorgeous. apparently you can see seals and penguins. I only saw penguins and sea gulls.

after this we were off to what philip island is known for... the penguin parade. cutest thing ever. we sat on the beach at dusk and the little penguins (that's there formal name) come out of the water and cross the beach to the vegetation where their spouses, babies and homes are. well, these little guys are TERRIFIED to cross the beach. 600 of them came onto the beach and nic and i were right up close to them. if a seagull flew overhead, they'd all scurry back to the water. here's a fun fact: penguins are afraid of flash, so we couldn't take a picture. even though other people were sneaking them... i was dead against it.. rule breaker i am not. nic says last summer i was 19 and this summer i am 49. after their little parade, you can walk along the boardwalk and watch them "playing" with their spouse, tending to their chicks and so on. They were just like humans.. there were the newlyweds who were all up lovin' eachother, the ones who had been married for 60 years (you know the old couples that go to restaurants and don't speak to each other) and then there were the ones who when they aren't madly in love, they hate each other with a passion. We took off for home after this. It was about a 2 hour drive. I fell asleep while Nic prayed that Di didn't crash the bus (we see it on the news). That Di, she's quite the driver.

In other news, I don't have much of a voice. I'm scared I'll lose it for 2 weeks again if I don't take it easy. Work was easy peasy today- I had a student teacher. I felt useless. I begged they switched me to a class where I can teach tomorrow. Um, the accents are driving Nic a little batty. They don't pronounce the letter R and they add R to a's and o's (some of them, not all).. today he heard Helloer instead of Hello. Poor kid, it's like me when people say seen and saw incorrectly. Actually this would be a great time to address this.. YOU DIDN'T SEEN ANYTHING! I SEEN is not proper. YOU SAW something. If you're saying seen it should be "have you seen the movie" "i've seen him around", it's not I SEEN THAT, I SEEN HIM YESTERDAY. Drives me absolutely nuts.

Okay, now that I got that off my chest. I am going to enjoy a nice glass of wine and think about my family back home and this wonderful addition to our lives. we know she's protected by many angels.

down on grandpa's farm...

Hello Kids! Please enjoy this lovely rendition of Down on Grandpa's farm brought to you by the class I just finished up in. I have a cold, but it certainly does not excuse my singing.

We've learned about farm animals these past 2 weeks, and we made sheep, chickens and cows. The cows were my favourite- hence why we used these for the video. They were a really great group- I had a lot of fun. As a reward today- I let them watch a video "Racing Stripes" and eat popcorn and juice. THEN- the other prep teacher who just returned asked if her kids could come. So, I felt mean when only my kids had snacks. Then the other teacher bailed and it was just me and 40 six year olds. Of course, the day didn't end on a high note for everyone. One of my student's bit another and actually drew blood at recess. When I tried to talk to Dad about Dracula- he just walked out the building. Thanks.

I've been told that the suburb I am teaching in was created for Melbourne to send all drug addicts and low socio-economic families to as to keep the other areas clean. Whether or not this is true, there were about 10 kids in the class who were extremely independent and then 4...not so much, at all. The rest fell somewhere in between. I am back to that same school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week in Year 1/2. The teacher told me today that her student teacher would be teaching those days and I'll be really bored so bring paper and start writing my wedding reception guest list. She also asked me to write comments about the student teacher which I really don't want to. I hated when supply's did it for me because I always thought they don't have their own class so why should they mark me. I've already decided this girl only gets positive feedback- and me, an easy $700.

Last night (Thursday) I went for a massage. I am still in pain. The lady was 40 minutes behind schedule, so when I finally got out I had to race around the city to find a movie store (no one rents unless you have something with your address, which I don't- they wouldn't even let me buy it outright... I wanted the movie Babe for goodness sakes). So I ended up buying Racing Stripes for 7 dolla. Babe would have been better. Anyhow, all of that curfuffle had me missing drinks with the girls. So, until next week. Three of them are really nice and we have more in common than being Canadian teacher's living overseas. One of the girls and I both had prep classes for the past week, so we travelled together and got to know each other pretty well.

Nic is liking his job... I think. It's a much much slower pace. He's actually working on a 2. 3 million dollar job and it's taking a long time. He only hanged (spelling- not hung right?) 3 doors today and his boss has been impressed with him. In Nic's words- Murray Armstrong wouldn't be happy with that. Also, he was called lazy by a fellow employee. They were moving bags of concrete mix and the man carried 2 at a time, Nic put 6 in a wheelbarrel. His co-worker said "You Canadians, all lazy.." Nic's retort- In Canada this is called smart. However, he's making good money and they all packed up at 2 today to go for beers, so it sounds like he likes it.

I got paid today. They automatically add a certain amount to your pension here. So, pretend I made 1000... they would add 150 to my pension that I never actually earned. Essentially on this paycheque I saved 400 dollars because we get everything we put into our pensions back when we leave PLUS all of our tax. It will be a nice little parting gift. Back to my story, so tomorrow we're heading out on a day tour. It's on Phillip's Island. It's well known for the Penguin Parade. At dusk, apparent you see them all come in and eat. Everyone says its really good. We plan on upgrading to tour to see the Koala Conservation and also hit up a winery and chocolatery?? I don't know what the word is, but we stop and go to the winery followed by chocolate. I am not complaining. We've been told to dress like Winter in Canada. Tonight we're being low-key. I have dinner on and didn't fall asleep until 2 last night and we need to be up early tomorrow.

The battle of Nic. vs. The Washing Machine has been gruesome. Washing machine is winning. However, he was successful in the battle against the dishwasher, so that's a plus!

Other than that, we're a boring pair. We're meeting interesting people and my vocab is growing every day. Today I learned a duny (doonie) is a duvet. It rained all week (yea, a week of indoor recesses) so hopefully the sun comes out this weekend.

We're a month in -working, have made friends and have nice little routine for ourselves. In the words of an odd kid I went to highschool with, everything is just "Top Drawer". 10 points if you can name him.

ohhh the good ol' hockey game

Ice Hockey is not as popular here as it is in Canada, as a matter of fact a normal reaction to any mention of it is usually as if it was a rare species of monkeys .... no one knows about hockey. Today I told a 45 year old man that i watched a game on Saturday night and he went on to tell me that "we don't have hockey here."

Non the less, it's here and we went to watch a game between the melbourne ice and the gold coast blue tongues... lol kinda a funny name. The arena maybe fit to hold about 2000 spectators and the crowd was wild.... i mean compared to a retirement home luncheon. (no offense Irene.)

It was a low key environment, except when there were goals. Good chances to score were unrecognized, big saves went unnoticed and the momentum was not like a junior game in good ol' Ontario. It was good to watch some hockey though. Melbourne pulled off a big win so as the game ended, there was more excitement in the air.

The highlight of the night for us was when i was entered in a contest called "chuck the puck." As the spectators entered the arena there was a girl picking ten contestants as we entered by sticking a sticker on our coats. Between periods the ten of us lined up on the bench and each had a puck to toss on to the ice and try to get it as close to one of the players gloves as possible.

My toss ended up about four feet from the glove, and that was the winner....!!!! Yah!! I won a new scarf, all i could think was i wish this was for a truck or 10,000 cash like it might have been in Canada. No complaints though, it was fun.

So the new job has begun, and i like it. It's a pretty relaxed environment with a ton of work to do and so far it doesn't seem as if anyone is in much of a hurry, which is nice. The site is in one of the more expensive parts of the city and is really close to the beach. I was done my work for the day today by 2 and was pretty wet from the rain and the boss said why don't you go home and i will pay you for the day. I thought is this a trick?? Nope it wasn't, home early with pay. gotta love it.

Shauna is still in prep this week and is loving it. She has met a bunch of girls from Canada that she thinks are very nice and she is planning on going out for drinks with on thursday night. She is pretty excited to do this as i know she is missing her friends from home. not that they will replace them, but I think she will enjoy having some girl time. She claims she needs this time, it will help her cope with me. I don't know what that means.

She had the day off monday for a PD day. She had a good chat with her mom, sister and nephews on skype. Kellen is now sporting the uni-bomber look and eleanor has a huge appetite. I guess all she wanted to eat the day before was a chip, allll day...just one, not two, not a hotdog, just a chip. She was quite happy to hear from all of her family on monday, i think she wants every monday off work now so she can catch up on the week events of her nieces and nephews. She misses them all so much, i was glad to hear she had a little catch up time. She was also very excited to finally get her hair done ( i am supposed to say danielle, she didn't cut it- only dyed).

we are settling nice into our new life. we each only wake up about 2 times in the night and take turns making dinner/lunches. usually when one is exhausted, the other one feels pretty good, so this has worked nicely. now that we've got accustomed to the time change, we think we'll be able to do more on weekends with out screwing up our sleep patterns. we have opted to not go on vacation in september. instead, we plan on working as much as we can and then travelling from january to april... but we will see. when i pictured australia- i pictured relaxation, warmth and kangaroos and right now it's practically like downtown toronto in october. it beats being in goderich's hot weather with out her though.

a few steps down from a F-150

Yes, it's a nice bike, but nothing like a 4 wheel drive truck. It is going to have to do. It's for sure not as safe, especially in this city, it sure beats walking though. So i picked this up just the other night. i figured i need something a little quicker then walking and something that will help me keep physical. It is mandatory to wear a helmet in the city limits though, so this morning i am going to pick up a helmet. Don't worry i am sure Shauna will post a picture of this as soon as she can.

As for the Sales job. She was right, i picked it up quickly. You know what else I picked up quickly, the fact that this door knocking thing has been over killed in the Greater Melbourne Area. Monday and Tuesday were a learning experience. I mean, I knew people hated door knockers, but i didn't realize that there were 10 plus people around on average to people's house's in the last 3 months. Non the less, out of 60 houses on Monday, I think only 3 people talked let me talk to them, I had a "i'll release the hounds" threat. I was told "really you have nothing better to do with your life" once, and again something along those lines. Over all Monday sucked. Tuesday well I ended up going with another guy who has been doing this for a while just to get some more tips. His angle was confuse them, if they ask, just keep confusing them...mind you he was very good at this. He made them think that it was normal to switch and that it was quite odd if you didn't. All of his people were young and new to the whole paying bills thing, this is why he had no problem convincing them. They were all international Students. He cleaned up. After watching this they take me over to an area that was the opposite. Older folks that have seen lots of door knockers, and with families and working full time. So I convince two of them its a good deal and sign them up. I also had the chance to see about 6 bills from our company, and after comparing them to a bunch of other companies I realized we really are quite comparable to everyone. Even though I have been trained to tell them this is the best deal in town, and if you don't sign up your life will only worsen once I leave, of course once you sign, the complete opposite effect. As you recall in a post earlier i was certain we had the greatest deals in town. I was sold.

So that night I was really debating this whole walking around selling cheaper energy thing. And i get a call the next morning from a carpenter that I had applied with a week ago or so. Long story short I quit sales and I am working on a $800,000 addition to a home as of Monday morning. He offered me a real good rate to start, and told me some of the perks available if things go well, and assured me he has lots of work on the go right now.

Shauna is really liking the fact that she has work all the time, and yes she was right, a fight over money. I accidentally told here I charged money to our joint account at the Famous Hungry Jacks. This was a bad idea. I mean we bought groceries the night before and I had the nerve to buy a meal at hungry jacks for lunch. Pure laziness on my end. It really is amazing how much she cares about the money now that she is working for it. This is a very positive thing, trust me it really excites me that she is that careful with money. Phil and Joan I think it's going to be alright.

As for the toilet seat, she isn't lying, i am getting better at putting it down for her. I really don't know how the females won the battle on which position is the correct one, but all i know is it's hardly worth getting upset over. I mean it's a very well functioning machine....up, down....up, down. Since we are talking about our bathroom, the thing that Shauna has not been working on, is cleaning up her hair. I mean i understand that she sheds a lot, but i don't see why it cant be cleaned up. i should say she is getting better at it... but that would be a lie. I mean really what can i except, growing up with a household of women. It was likely quite normal.

technical difficulty

so, nic and i have really sucked at updating in the last week. in our defense- nic did try to upload a video blog- but in the end- we saved you 17 mins of your time. it wouldn't upload, so you're stuck having to read- which never killed anybody.

i'll try to recap on what our blog included and it started with nicholas- so imagine this in a deep voice and a girlie chipmunkish laugh (it's my favourite).

nic started working last week and has quickly became the "golden boy". On his observation day- he made a sale because he was bored of sitting in the van with his manager who was rolling a cigarette and reading a porn. no joke. in the end, the manager asked nic to roll the cigarette and nic did so in return to be allowed to go make a sale. which he was successful at. the next day he made 2 sales- this doesn't sound too astonishing BUT nic's manager made 3 sales in his first 3 weeks. so needless to say, they've already put nic on commission and they bumped him to a different "team". he leaves for work at 9- and his work place has story time, gets fast food and talk about life until 12 when they "hit the streets". apparently in nic's van- there is a man who doesn't shower--ever and one who doesn't really speak great english. apparently at nic's company this can be fairly common. so, he is doing very well.

miraculously, he remains quite happy when he gets home (around 7:30) even when numerous people have shut the door in his face. while i am happy that he's enjoying his job- i am back on cooking and cleaning duty. actually, that's a lie. i do the laundry and cook dinner, but nic washes the dishes the next day. AND last night he harassed a man into vacuuming our apartment.

we went out last saturday and it was the first night we've both stayed up late. i didn't fall asleep until two. we went for dinner and ended up being that awkward couple that's all alone in the restaurant. i guess i haven't drank much in awhile because 3 glasses of wine and i was lovin' life. we had a great waiter from scotland. he and his girlfriend are here doing the same thing as us and we exchanged info. He was able to watch hockey in scotland- so he and nic had that in common.... not so much the techno music however. we ended up at the casino after dinner where i am a 100 dollars poorer now. the flashing lights and crowds of people excited me too much to back away- even when i was up 40. after we got home, we skyped nic's parents- who i am pretty sure knew i was inebriated and then i feasted on a chocolate cake that i just HAD to stop and purchase on the way home. sunday was pretty slow goin- in fact, all we did was grocery shop. AND WITHOUT FAIL-- i was in my sweats, no make up, tired and of course, we ran into 2 of the 9 people we know here! it was just like goderich zehrs- the day you look like crap you run into everyone.

i guess i should mention that early on saturday we went shopping. there is a direct factory outlet directly out my front door and stupid me thought it was advertisements but not shops. nope- huge mall. naturally, nic knew about it since we moved here but thought telling me wouldn't be beneficial. On friday I got my first big pay cheque of life. I had never earned more than a 1000 dollars and it was a big big day. i wanted to buy myself someting- but there wasn't anything i really liked. so- i've decided on a tiffany key, which i'll be picking up in the near future. after that we went to target as we needed more towels, a bath mat etc... well, we ended up in a cab with the rudest man in the world and we actually got out of the cab. he was mean. i think the fact that there is no tipping here really affects customer service. anyhow, i was so upset by the man, and the long day of lugging all that crap around that i ended up crying on the way home. i missed having my own car and just driving from point a to b, and the rude guy... and i also think it's because NOT ONE GIRLFRIEND sent me a private message last week. so friends, you made me cry. thanks. also, i missed home. i think i would probably take the jaquzzi over a visit from anyone in the world right now. how i love baths. i'm currently trying to get nic to stay in a hotel this weekend so i can have a bath.

in the end, we had a great saturday night out--- thanks to the wine and chocolate cake.

I am in prep in the far away school for the next 2 weeks. the teacher left me practically everything i need and it's okay. i have a couple of boys that are a handful. i don't have the patience for stories like i used to either. we're talking about farm animals and an hour after recess someone needs to tell me about an incident that happened on the yard. for the most part, they're very cute. i played music today during craft (remixes of old mcdonald among others) and i wish i could tape them dancing. the last hour is always my favourite because it's when we do fun things and everyone is focused.

it's currently 6 pm and i plan to go hit the sauna.... note not the gym, just the sauna. then i have to come back and assume the duty of chef. tonight it's baked potatoes, corn on the cob and salad... really exciting eh?

nic really likes his work friends and i have met a couple people through my job who i really like too. on friday my work has "drinks" and nic's work does the next week. our jobs both promote going out and making us a little community which is nice. through the week, i am pretty focused on staying in... i feel like an old woman. however, i think this may be what responsibility feels like.

Nic and I are getting along just fine. We've had one fight--- which ironically was me coming down on him for spending money. We could probably fight a lot more- but I think it's because Nic is really good at not fighting and if I complain about something- he usually never does it again. Except with the toilet seat but he's really really improving on that. What could I really expect from a guy who grew up with 5 guys in his house?? To be completely honest, I think I've got the better half of this deal.... he's a good kid.

We have a long weekend coming up- and we're looking at a mini-vacation to somewhere warm. Darn, I just realized I should have wrote about my hour long drive back to the city with a 40 year old asian woman... the stereotype was true in this instance.

this girl needs to warm up and get dinner on!

miss you all.