What a Weekend!

Last weekend was super busy! Sarah arrived from Hong Kong on Saturday around noon and we celebrated with some champagne!

Then we were off on Saturday afternoon to the wedding of one of my best friends from highschool, Karen Wood, who married Russell Hudson.

It was a gorgeous wedding (as you can see!) at Newslands Golf & Country Club in Langley. It was really fun to catch up with some of the girls from high school that I hadn't seen in years (crazy how time flies!!) Karen & Russ also have a little one on the way, due in October, which is very exciting!

One of the highlights of the evening was when Sara accidentally lit her purse on fire. Bad candles!! Fortunately Darren noticed it, as we just sat there chatting away oblivious to the fact that flames where forming on our table.

The open bar at the wedding led me to take numerous pictures of my adorable shoes to pass the time in the car ride home....I'm sure Darren was impressed!!

Sunday was a big Greek Easter celebration at Popi & George's house. Easter is an even bigger holiday than Christmas in the Greek culture so George was up at the crack of dawn roasting a lamb.

Despite a mild hangover from the wedding and having already had quick sushi session with Sarah & Hilary for Hil's b-day, I managed to eat my weight in roasty potatoes. The food was so good I had to take pictures so that I could brag! We didn't even have room for the amazing desserts which included baklava and cream puff cake.

If you ever want excellent Greek make sure you check out their restaurant, Pyrgos Taverna, on Lougheed Hwy in Maple Ridge!!

It was like a high school reunion all weekend cause while we were there I got to see 2 more of my closest friends from highschool, Popi (who will be having a baby girl in June) and Melissa (who I have been friends with since we were 3 years old) and finally meet her boyfriend Eric. That reminds me, our 10 year reunion is this year. How scary is that?!

Another Year Closer to the End!

Friday was my birthday....I turned 25 yet again! It was an awesome day and I got spoiled wrotten by Darren and my family. My favorite present, of course, was the Bengay. Thanks honey!

Mom and Pat took us for dinner at this really cool Brazilian steakhouse downtown called Samba where they have live music and dancers and they walk around with different kinds of meat on big swords and cut off whatever you like at your table.

Oh my god, by the end of it we were so full we could barely move!

Pick Up Lines To Cross Off Your List

This guy came by the BCCOM office today and was quite flirty and as I was in the
middle of telling him a story that involved the use of the word "fuck" (pardon my French) all of a sudden he stops me in mid sentence and says, "I love girls who use the word "fuck" especially when they have cute little vampire teeth." How weird of a thing to say is that??? And more importantly do I really have vampire teeth??

Easter Kitty

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good picture of a cat with bunny ears on??? Definitely not a task for amateurs. I was up in the laundry room the other day and all of a sudden Cinnamon comes wandering up the stairs with these ears on (Darren's handy work) and I just about peed my pants laughing! Her belly is so big that they didn't even fall off her.

Mamma Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

Today on my way to work I got a call from Adele telling me not to bother hopping on the skytrain to get to work, but to meet her at the big Army & Navy Shoe Sale instead cause she wanted to buy me some shoes for my birthday. How cool is that? Best boss ever!!!

Here are the new additions to my closet.....who am I kidding, I don't even have a closet in my room! Here are the new additions to the big pile of shoes sitting in my room wishing for a closet. As you can see Godzilla has taken a shine to them. I also got some really cute earings. Adele bought SIX pairs of shoes and I think she was restraining herself. For all 8 pairs it was only $130.00, which is pretty sweet.

Support Your Local Bands!

BAD NEWS: Unfortunately, Viv Savage did not get enough audience votes at Richard’s on Richards last week to make it to the Emergenza (huge battle of the bands) finals due to a really lame hand-counting voting system.

REALLY GOOD NEWS: Phil received a phone call from the event organizer. She thought they should, in fact, be in the finals after all, and put them in as a wild card entry.

This will be the third and final Vancouver round (14 bands left out of 150 that started). The 7 most popular bands (as voted by the audience -hopefully not a crappy hand count again!!!) get judged by a panel of industry people, who then select a band to play in the Western Canadian finals in Calgary. From there, bands can advance to Montreal, then Germany. So this is super exciting news for them and they could really use some new groupies there to help them kick butt. Not sure yet if Darren and I can make it cause I have to fly to Medicine Hat the next day for the CMDRA drags (lucky me). Here are the details:

What: Emergenza Finals
Where: The Plaza Club (881 Granville Street, Vancouver)
When: Thursday, June 1st. They will be on some time in between 7-8:30 (will not know the exact time until the day of).
Why: The question should really be WHY NOT???

You can check out some of their songs at http://myspace.com/vivsavage - but they sound even better live!!!

Swimmer's What??

Last weekend Darren and I decided to check out the dike at Boundary Bay (an embankment of earth and rock built to prevent floods, not a lesbian.) The tide was way out, so we decided to take off our shoes and go for a nice long walk through the tidal pools. We were amazed at the number of little sea snails laying all over the place....we are talking millions of these little suckers!

When we were done, we hopped in the car and headed over to Crescent Beach, which is not very far from there and is soooooo unbelievably beautiful. If you have never been there before (I hadn't) then you should definitely go. So we walk down to the beach where there is a huge sign telling you how to avoid Swimmer's Itch!!! One of the tips was "Avoid areas with high concentrations of snails". I, of course, was instantly itchy and we headed home shortly after so that I could wash my poor feet with boiling water and bleach. Yuck!!

HAPPY EASTER!

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter and gets lots of treats from the Easter bunny! But watch out for those Mini Eggs because as Hilary says, they "are the equivalent of Crystal Meth- once you try it you'll do anything to get more!" This is so true!

Darren and I are going to my Mom's for a yummy turkey dinner on Saturday and then we are heading up to Princeton to visit his Dad & Carol on Sunday. Today Taralyn and I are going to visit Barb & the fam, so that should be fun! They are taking Jacob and Otto on the Easter Train today, so I'm sure Jacob will be very excited.


Next weekend we are heading to Popi's on Sunday for a Greek Easter feast where the food is always unbelievable. Popi is a really good cook and her husband George owns a Greek restaurant in Maple Ridge called Pyrgos Taverna. I am so psyched! I am going steal the tray of roasty potatoes and hide in a corner somewhere until they are all gone. Okay, I have problems, but they are seriously that good!

Gastown Motorcycle Show n' Shine - August 20, 2006!

2nd ANNUAL GASTOWN MOTORCYCLE SHOW N' SHINE COMING SOON!

It's time to mark your calendars for the biggest motorcycle event the streets of Vancouver have ever seen! On Sunday, August 20, 2006, the B.C. Coalition of Motorcyclists, in conjunction with the Gastown Business Improvement Society, will be closing down Water Street once again to put on the 2nd Annual Gastown Motorcycle Show n' Shine in the heart of Vancouver!

This exciting event is free to the public to attend.

There will be a fashion show, a live band and there are tons of unique shops, restaurants and pubs in Gastown for spectators to enjoy. And, of course, there will be hundreds of bikes in every make and model lined up along the cobble stone streets and everyone's favorite manufacturers displaying the best of their best. This will be an exciting celebration of motorcycling that you do not want to miss!

With an estimated 20,000 people showing up in the pouring rain at the 1st Annual Gastown Show n' Shine in 2005 we are convinced that a date in August will bring out a crowd that we can not even imagine.


Please contact the B.C. Coalition of Motorcyclists at (604) 580-0111 or 1-877-580-0111 for more information or visit our website at www.bccom-bc.com.


Special thanks to Efford Photography and Greg Descantes for the photos.

Westcoast Custom Motorcycle Show

Finally, here are some pictures of the Westcoast Custom Motorcycle Show that we put on March 25-26th at the Tradex Centre in Abbotsford. It was a big success for a first time show and we ended up with over 7,000 people through the doors. There were some truly incredible bikes that showed up. It was almost like taking a trip to the art gallery.

We will definitely be doing it again next year and I will let everyone know when we secure the date. I will expect to see all of you who didn't make it out this year to be there with bells on to redeem yourselves. Hopefully guilt is an effective motivator!!


Here is the line up on Sunday morning to get in. We were so excited to see a line up on both mornings!!!



This bike was on our poster.


This bike won "People's Choice"......not quite sure why, but it did!

This bike won the "Best Bike" award, which included $1000 in cash and a big ass bottle of Baby Canadian.

Another crowd shot, just to prove that lots of people were actually there:)


B.C. is the undisputed home to some of the world's top custom builders including professional bike builder Roger Goldammer of Kelowna, BC, who had these 2 bikes in the bottom picture on display. Goldammer's amazing work won him 1st Place at the AMD/Custom Chrome World Championship in 2004 and 2005.


We do already have a date for the 2nd Annual Gastown Motorcycle Show n' Shine. It will be on August 20, 2006 (Happy Anniversary Sarah & Suds! Maybe you can celebrate by flying to Vancouver and hanging out with a bunch of bikers...ha ha!). Last year was our first year, and of course it was an absolute torrential downpour, but we still had over 20,000 brave people show up to check it out. So we will be shutting down Water Street in Vancouver once again. It is free to come and check it out so hopefully we will see you all there!

Thanks to Larry Pfister of Horsepowerheaven.com for the pictures!

Baby Fever!

Our friends Polo and Kelly welcomed their new daughter Juliana Jennifer Aguado into their lives on February 14th. Here are some pictures of when Darren and I went to the island to visit them and their new addition.

She is such a little sweetheart! My favorite is the picture of her with her big sister Miranda and her big brother Braiden. Have you ever seen smiles so big?

What the #@$%?

So I decide that I am going to write a little ditty about our recent experience with raccoons ripping the crap out of our back roof, making our ceiling their home and the drama that ensued.

Then I realize that I will definitely need a cool picture to go with this story, so I do a google search on "raccoon pictures" and to my surprise, guess what came up?? Not just your everyday raccoon shots like this first one here, but straight up kinky raccoon porn! You've got to love the internet!

This just makes the rest of the story, which involved Kevin accidentally boarding up a family of raccoons into our ceiling, them raging to get out, Darren on the roof in the middle of the night with a flashlight trying to release them while Tiffany and I stood guard with fire pokers and pots & pans ready to kick some raccoon ass if needed, and today's tearing down the roof party which involved a lot of beer and illegal shingle burning in the back yard, seem so blase.

Otto Has Arrived!

Last month my friends Barb & Francis had a new baby boy named Otto. Well, actually Barb had a baby boy while Francis watched. Here is a picture of him with his big brother Jacob. Isn't he so cute???

It seems like there is a pregnancy epidemic right now! Everyone I know either just had a baby, will be having one in the next 6 months or is busy practicing to have one! It's crazy!

To Toll or NOT to Toll

I just got back from a meeting with the Ministry of Transportation regarding the new Gateway Program, which is a transportation plan designed to reduce the growing congestion in the GVRD. For more info please check out www.gatewayprogram.bc.ca

They are proposing a $2.50 toll on the Port Mann Bridge, which I am sure will impact many of you in a negative way. They are asking for the public's feedback on this before it goes through. If you don't want to see this happen then go to: www.th.gov.bc.ca/gateway/consultation/
_form_PortMannFeb7.htm
and fill out their on-line feed back form. They must receive your input by MAY 7th.

This is taken from their website: "What influence can individuals and communities have on the project? Community and stakeholder input will be recorded throughout the consultation process, and summarized in a consultation summary report for consideration by the Ministry of Transportation.

Community input will be considered with technical and financial information as the Gateway Program proceeds through various design stages.

We are committed to a comprehensive consultation process to ensure municipalities, communities, businesses, transportation users and other interested parties have an opportunity to share their views prior to making a decision on how to proceed."

Viv Savage - Coolest Band Ever

Darren & I are probably going to go check out my friend Phil's band Viv Savage this Friday at Richards on Richards where they are playing in the semi-finals of the Emergenza Music Festival. They are really good and we are starting to become groupies! If anyone wants to come join us that would be cool.

You can check out some of the tracks from their EP here: www.myspace.com/vivsavage. There's also a cool article about them in a recent Surrey Newsleader: www.vivsavage.com/pics/LeaderArticle.pdf

Hopefully we'll see you there! Here's the lowdown on the show:

What: Viv Savage at Richards on Richards
When: April 7th (they're on at 10pm)
Cost $15 for presale tix or $20 at the door
Where: Richards on Richards (1036 Richards St., Vancouver)
Why: The new EP will be out, and as always, to have a great time, all the time.

Welcome to my Nightmare!

I have finally joined the masses and created my own blog. Yeeha! The funny part is that I cannot think of anything of importance to write at this particular moment in time, so here is a picture of a chihuahua that knows how to party to celebrate this momentous occasion.