Fondulicious!

A few weeks ago Darren & I cooked dinner for Mom, Pat & Sarah and for dessert Mom whipped out the fondue pot!! Here's Sarah & I sporting our chocolate hockey teeth. HOT!

For dinner we had chicken wrapped in proscuitto, artichoke fritters, green bean & potato dijon salad and some yummy yam & mint couscous (a la Sarah). Luckily there's always enough room for CHOCOLATE!

Mom's favorite are the marshmallows.

Notice the large bottle of champagne in the background. No fondue is complete without a bottle of Baby Canadian.

Warding Off the Evil Eye

I went to visit Popi and her new baby girl, Nektaria, the other day and, of course, the first thing I said when I saw her was how adorable the she was. I mean look at her!!!


As soon as I said that a conversation similar to the following ensued....Popi was like, "Spit on my baby" and I was like, "Pardon?" Then something distracted us and I figured I had just misheard what she had said until a little while later when I was oooing and awing over the baby again. "You need to spit on the baby." "What? Why do you want me to spit on your kid???" "Well, don't hork on her, just a light 'ftou'." "Um....okay....ftou. What's the deal with that?" "To keep away the Evil Eye. You do it when you say someone's pretty."

I had heard of the Evil Eye before, but I hadn't heard of this particular "spit on my child" tradition. I was so intrigued by it that when I got home I felt the need to investigate further so I googled "Greek evil eye spit on baby" (I'm totally not joking) and surprisingly it came up with several sites and the following information.

Amongst Greek superstitions, the Evil Eye is one of the oldest and widely believed myths. According to superstition, a glance of the Evil Eye is believed to have the ability to cause injury or death on those who it falls. Some Greeks, especially in villages, believe that someone can catch the evil eye, or "matiasma", from someone else's compliment or envy. A person who has caught the evil eye is usually feeling bad physically and psychologically.

To ward off the Evil Eye several things can be done. An eye is painted into the middle of a blue charm, this charm is then worn as a necklace or as a bracelet. Blue beads can also be worn instead of the eye charm in the form of a necklace or bracelet.

In Greece you will see children wearing pins with the “eye” and if you do compliment a baby, don’t be surprised if they will ask you to spit towards them. Maybe three times, a symbolism of the Holy Trinity to defend against the eye. Some Greeks believe that spitting chases the devil and the misfortune away. That is why when someone talks about bad news (death, accident, etc.) the others slightly spit three time saying "ftou, ftou, ftou".

There's my little cultural lesson for the week. So remember, if a Greek spits on you, consider it a compliment....if a Canadian spits on you, you might want to kick their ass!

World Cup Celebrations!

A few weeks ago Darren, Sarah & I met Whitney down on Commercial to watch Italy & France in the World Cup Final.

We found a great little pub down the street a ways from the total chaos and waited in a humungous line up for our chance at a seat.

Whitney and Darren scored us a wicked spot upstairs with a great view of the tv from both sides of the booth.

A few Irish coffees, beers and mimosas later we were primed to hit the streets to celebrate Italy's victory in what I am convinced must be the most Italian place on earth other than Italy.

There were a few sad French faces, but mostly excited Italy fans EVERYWHERE!!


Chants of "Italia! Italia!" echoed through the streets.


At one point I was walking along and I looked over at Darren and had to do a double take because he was carrying a hair dryer. I've now learned that my boyfriend likes to pick up random items off the street and bring them home with him.

Even stranger than that though is the person that leaves their hair dryer on the side walk of a crazy busy street! I'm still not sure what he plans on using it for with such short hair and 3 other hair dryers already in the house, but it does work!

It's a good thing Italy won or this car would have really depreciated in value!!

The drive was a sea of red, white and green flags.....and people!

Viva Italia!

Merritt Mountain Madness

A couple of weekends ago Darren & I headed up to the Merritt Mountain Music Festival. Neither one of us are big fans of country music, but it's quite the party!

Here's Jason mixing up some margaritas with his blender!!! This will now be a neccessity on all future camping trips, just need to invest in an inverter! Jason has got to be the closest I have met to a male version of Sarah. He even brought pickled asparagus for the Caesars and he made a mean breakfast hash!!! It was awesome.


This poor guy (no one we knew) fell asleep in Campground C.....clearly, a DON'T in Merritt!!!

Here is "happy drunk Darren", followed shortly by "time to pass out Darren"!

Hanging out in the river was the only way to beat the heat (besides those margaritas). It was pretty entertaining too.


Check out the sweet sandles I had to borrow from Darren to float down the river cause mine would have just fallen off and floated away. I was just waiting for people to start chanting "big foot" as we floated down the river, but they were too busy squirting us with water guns to notice my gigantic man feet.....you know what they say about girls with big feet.....

On our last trip down, poor Jason scared a big dog on the river bank that took a nasty chunk out of his queen sized air mattress. It was pretty hilarious!! All I saw was CHOMP and then Jason slowly sinking into the river. Good thing it was on the last day....otherwise he would have had a really crappy sleep that night!

Here are the boys back from one of their adventures down the river.

Here's Neil trying to fix Jason's BBQ. He has lived in Hong Kong for 10 years and is a pilot with Cathay Pacific. He didn't know Suds, but maybe they will run into each other one day....being that Hong Kong is such a small city and all....ha ha. It's funny cause he reminded me so much of Suds.

The only concert we really checked out was Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. I ,of course, had to call my dad when they played "Freakers Ball" One of the classic songs he used to sing to us as kids. He sounded surprised to hear me so intoxicated in mid afternoon until I mentioned where I was!

Here is Jason having just returned from delivering some shooters down the way to Keeley's stagette party.

Here's Keeley and her cousin who could have been a Scarlet Johanson lookalike!


And here's Steve, who I know through work and funnily enough Adele dated him when she was too young to know any better....ha ha just kidding! It's funny cause Jason got there first and his buddy suggested that he camp with these guys and I ended up knowing one of them. They had an awesome set up right beside the river. I am going to start saving my pennies for a motorhome....I don't think that I can handle another tent with all different sized poles. Last year we left our pathetic excuse for a tent in Merritt after it did the lean and we ended up with a river running through it in the middle of the night!

I think we're so happy cause we just got lei'd! Not too long after this Darren had to put me to bed because I was no longer fit for human consumption!

Everyone's getting juiced up for the Travis Tritt concert.


Here's me wishing for death on Sunday morning. Why do they have to have this thing in a place that hits 4o degrees at 6am???

Here's Darren eating the breakfast of champions....apple pie. Apparently it was the only thing that didn't require making a mess and dirtying dishes to eat....how convenient!

Back from the End of the Earth

Just got back from Fort St. John yesterday....as if going there wasn't bad enough, I got to spend my entire weekend in the hotel room bent over the toilet with the stomach flu.....not the 24 ounce flu, as Adele first thought. Man did it suck!!! And now, to top it all off I have a head cold. Guess I'm just lucky.

Now that I have my whining out of the way, I will try and post some pictures from Merritt, Sarah's visit, etc soon. Not enough time in a day lately!!

Putting the F U Back In FUEL!

Adele and I will be off again to good old Fort St. John next week for the drag races after having two much needed races off.

For those of you who have never come to the track to see the drags, here is a really cool clip that you should check out of some of our races last year. Just cut and paste this link into your browser: http://videos.streetfire.net/search/drag%2Bbike/0/D322C946-A0FF-451E-B814-32B9087905FA.htm

We will be having our season finale at Mission Raceway on September 16-17. You should definitely come check it out. The Top Fuel Nitro Harley's burn up the 1/4 mile in 6 seconds at over 200 mph! It's pretty wild!!!

Cirque du Soleil

Tiffany got front row tickets to the Cirque du Soleil for her birthday and invited me to go last Friday. Score!






It was really amazing. I still can't believe some of the stuff I saw there.

I didn't know it was humanly possible for people to move their bodies in certain ways. It was wild!






These twin hotties were me and Tiff's favorite act!

Busy Weekend

Last Saturday we checked out the NHL Draft at GM Place.....quite possibly the most boring sports related event I have ever been to in my life. Thank god for beer. Darren really enjoyed it....the sports reporter in him still shining through!

It was a neat experience nontheless and it was very cool to see the Stanley Cup!


When Garry Bettman "The Man Who Killed Hockey" came on stage it was crazy how much he got booed! I almost felt sorry for the little weasel.




If you look REALLY close you can see Wayne Gretzky in the middle row of tables second table from the top. Get your magnifying glass ready!


Darren's cousins Paul & Keith came to check it out and his friends Ryan & Jill.



We hung around long enough to see the Canucks first round pick, Michael Grabner, and that was long enough so we went for dinner & drinks with Ryan & Jill.


Then back to Ryan & Jill's place for a few more drinks.....as you can see by the empties in this picture. Yikes! Then over to Jim's Pub for yet a few more drinks, which was clearly a bad idea because at this point I don't think we were fit for public consumption. Poor Jill was the sober one (still recovering from the night before) and I can just imagine how much fun she was having with us drunks.


Sunday we went and checked out the Jazz Festival in Gastown and then met up with Hilary & Whitney to see Helen's film at the IMAGeNation Aboriginal Film & Video Festival. It was an excellent film. Very raw and very emotional.


After that we hit the Milestons patio in Yaletown to enjoy the sunshine and some sangria and appies. When Whitney and I opened our menus there was nothing inside.....is that some kind of hint???