Alright, I know I have no been the best blogger as of late, however I do have an excuse: Life has been busy! I promise I will get back to talk about my wedding, which was amazingly perfect by the way, but I just wanted to take a minute and update my life.

The big news.. We bought a house! Yep. We sure did! It happened pretty quickly. We had been planning on purchasing a house in June 2012 some time. However, we just got really excited and started looking at houses online. We knew we wanted to live in Cochrane (10 minutes outside Calgary) where we can get the small town living as well as the big city jobs. It’s also a perk that my mom lives there. So on our way out to my mom’s cabin for thanks giving we decided to stop and look at some listings. At this point we were thinking a townhouse or something of the sort. Well, we didn’t really like what we saw and headed back on to the highway. Only to find ourselves veering off the highway into a new development with brand new houses. We wandered into a show home, where this totally awesome sales guy got talking to us. We found out we could in fact buy a house sooner than June! Every excuse we came up with he could fix. "Oure lease isn't up until June".... "we'll pay for the lease break penalty;" "We don't have the whole down payment until December".... "you can pay half now, and we can push the move in date until January and pay the other half then." Plus they were in the last stage of this development and wanted to get rid of these houses so they were taking money off the purchase price, and throwing all sorts of perks our way. So we looked at a few places, and found the PERFECT place. Like seriously perfect. We didn’t want to jump into anything, so on our way back from my moms cabin we spent the day looking at more places but our minds kept going back to one in particular. And BAM not even a week later we were in the process of being approved for a mortgage and buying a house! We move January 12th! I can hardly believe it. So after christmas and new years we'll be packing up and moving.. again! for the 3rd time in 2 years! But this time.. for good!

So now we’ve been excitedly furniture shopping for our new place and needless to say Ben is very excited for our new 51 inch plasma TV that we got for half price; and my mother in law should be very excited for the new bed that we bought for the spare room; so that when they come to visit they don’t have to sleep on an inflatable in the living room. The universe just seems to be liking us these days.

Actually, my brother was so excited about the idea of buying a new house, he and his girlfriend just bought a new house for their little family. It’s being built and they’ll be moving in the summer! All these exciting changes on the horizon for our family.

Craziness

The last week has been very busy. Like SERIOUSLY very busy, even by our standards. I mean our normal life is busy by most people's standards, so this could be classified as insanely busy. It involved getting settled into our new place, babysitting my nephew for 4 days, the rundle's revenge trail run, and visiting with family and friends.

Last Sunday, my dad had 24 fresh lobsters. So, Ben and I headed over for a feast! It was delicious... that is until I had another one of my "episodes." I have had over a dozen of these now, and we're not entirely sure what causes it. Basically an episode as we call it is when my stomach goes hard as rock, I am violently ill, and the pain in unbelieveable. We used to go to the hospital for it, but they don't do much except give me a shot and usually by that point we have waited for 8 hours and it is feeling better anyways. This has happened after eating shell fish maybe 5 times, but it has happened without eating shellfish, and I have eaten shellfish and have been fine. So we're not entirely sure what the trigger is, but it is awful. Poor Ben, he feels so helpless. It only lasts a few hours and usually by the time I wake up I'm way better. So, that was our Sunday night, it was not fun.

Monday, wednesday, thursday and friday I had my nephew Jack. Who is adorable, but is oh so busy. He definitely tuckered aunt Jen out. We took him to the splash park, to visit my mom, to get a new tire, and for some walks.

Ben started his new job on Thursday, and it looks like it it going to be really awesome for him! He said it feels weird going to work and not physically working, like he did in construction. He said the people there are really nice and that the company really values their employees so that is awesome for him!

Saterday we met up with my friend jacque and went for a 3.5 hour bike ride, then Ben and I topped it off with a swim, and then some grocery shopping. It was a busy day, and I was asleep by 8:30 pm since we had to be up early on Sunday.

Sunday morning was the Rundle's revenge trail tun. Ben decided that he wanted to do the 50 km race, and I last minute decided to sign up for the 25 km. We woke up at 5:30 am to pouring rain. Not very encouraging. The race started at 8 am, and we were off. There was 400 m of elevation change per lap and each lap was 12.5 kms. That first loop I was very up and down. I would have stretches where I felt great, then I would slide down the hill since I did not have trial shoes, or I would roll my ankle. I did the first loop in just over 1 hr 35 minutes, and started the second loop. BY the time I made it to km 14, I decided to call it quits. My hip was bothering me, I had already rolled my ankle twice, and I didn't want to push my luck with Ironman Canada only 2 months away. So I walked back down the trail and pulled out of the race. I saw Ben after lap 2 and he was looking good, but wasn't sure he'd do the whole 50. But he did! He finished in 5 hours and 39 minutes! He was pretty pumped but he finished the race.

We drove home, lounged for a bit, then I went to the gym to make up for quitting the race early and biked for a while. I felt good, and I was happy I didn't push during the race and risk getting injured. Perhaps I am finally maturing and listening to my body.

Have a great week. I'm not babysitting my nephew today so I'm job hunting, then training, and maybe some shopping since I have a gift card to use up!

-jen

ps, my sister comes home tomorrow! woot!

Our Adventurous Saturday...

Well, it has been pretty crazy around here the past couple of days, moving and getting all settled into our new place. We had a very crazy day on Saterday:

We started the morning in Revelstoke and ended it in our new place in Calgary. Saturday morning it was pouring rain, we didn't sleep well, and we were pretty grumpy. We went out for a big breakfast to hold us over for a while and then we set off with a Uhaul packed to the brim with the contents of our apartment. It was a baby Uhaul, but we managed to get everything in.

We said goodbye to our home for the last year, and drove away from the house. Only to go a couple of feet because we forgot to close the back of the Uhaul and some of the boxes went flying out. Whoops! Thankfully nothing broke!

We stopped in Canmore for a bite to eat, and we got to Calgary around 3. With the help of my brother and his girlfriend we had the car and Uhaul unpacked within an hour! It was speed moving! My older brother and my newphew aldo stopped by for a bit and helped unpack a bit, well jack "helped.". And by the way we LOVE our new place! It is fantastic! We are finally not in a basement. Everything is clean and new. We are so Happy. But I'll tell you more about that later.

We took my brother and his girlfriend out for dinner as a thank you for helping us, and met up with my dad. After dinner Ben and I hit up Superstore quick to get some necessities while Sam and his girlfriend went home to change since we decided to head out that night! We reconvened back at our house and had a couple of drinks.

Then we hit the road to head to the Blues Can to meet back up with my dad again who had scoped out the place with the best music. However, once again we didn't make it very far. We were driving along, it was pouring rain, and the next thing I know what I thought was a puddle was in fact a MASSIVE pot hole. Seriously MASSIVE. I didn't have time to get around it, and BAM.. we hit it square on. A couple minutes later the car was driving really funny, so we pulled over. We had a flat. So Sammy and Ben were out there in the pouring rain changing our tire. Don't they look happy.

It totally reminded me of a christmas story. Angie and I found it pretty amusing. They had it changed pretty quick, and we eventually made it to the Blues Can. Where we enjoyed great music, great company, and had a great time. Ben and I have missed the live blues music. We love going out and dancing.

It was a busy, but great day. We are so happy to be back in Calgary.

This is it, Goodbye Revelstoke

Well, this is it. The last night in Revelstoke. I have no idea where the last 5 weeks have gone. They have just flown by. It really hit me that we were actually leaving when I came home last night. The place is in shambles, we have little food left in the fridge, and the stress level started creeping up. We were supposed to go to the gym, but I stayed behind and got some more stuff in boxes. By 6:30 my stomach was in knots, and I realized I needed to go for a run to get rid of some of these nerves. So I went for a hard 30 minutes. I came home soaking wet and out of breath, but feeling much better. Then we headed out for a date. There is one restaurant in revelstoke that we have never tried becasue it is pretty pricy. The other day I noticed a promotion they had going on which was "two can dine for 59." It included a 3 course meal, and a half liter of wine. I thought it was a pretty good deal and a great way to celebrate our last couple nights in revelstoke so we went! Salad, steak, and desert! It was a great evening, a good way to catch up before the craziness began. We were there for a couple hours and really enjoyed our night out. We cheered our year in revelstoke, Ben's last day of construction, and new beginings.

Today I'm am trying to tie up any loose ends at my work. My boss is in Boston, so I will not be seeing him before I leave so I want to make sure he isn't left high and dry with anything. We just got back from picking up the Uhaul, and Ben will be packing that up this afternoon. We plan on having everything packed tonight, sleep on our blow up matress, and then hit the road after a run tomorrow morning! Ben doesn't start his new job until the 23rd, so we'll have a few days to get settled and get ben some work clothes!

Take care!
Jen

Wednesday Wishes

I'm linking up again with Brooke for her weekly wednesday wishes. I have seemed to have pretty good luck the last few weeks with getting my wishes as I finished the race, Ben got the job, and we got the great apartment that we wanted. So this week, I thought I'd throw in some big wishes and see what happens!

1) A smoooth move back to Calgary. We're doing the Uhaul thing, and its a little stressful but I think we'll be fine.

2) This duvet cover... we need new sheets since we have worn through ours.. literally, there is a gaping hole in our sheets. We're not even going to pack em, just toss them come saturday morning. So while looking for new sheets I stumbled apon this duvet and I love it.

at bed, bath, and beyond


3)During my race, there was this guy who I named "Yellow" as he was on a yellow bike and wearing a yellow shirt (he called me blue for the same reason). I would pass him going up the hills, but he would fly by me on the downhills. We played leapfrog like that for the majority of the race. At one point he turned to me and said "You are a way better biker than me... I just have a better bike. If you had a bike like mine you'd be way ahead of me." so with that... I would LOVE a cervelo p3.. although I would settle for a p2 :). Maybe one day.

4) A honeymoon somewhere tropical and all inclusive where we don't have to worry about anything... or any honeymoon. With getting new jobs we're not even sure we will get time off for a honeymoon right after our wedding. If not, I'm sure we'll go on one eventually. Perhaps for Ironman Florida in 2012?.. although that is the oposit of an all inclusive relaxing vacation ha!

via

5)The athletes plate cookbook! and time to cook from it! Ben and I eat, for the most part, super healthy. However, we're often eating the same things every week. Also, with our busy training/work schedules we often rely on frozen/quick foods (although of the healthy variety.. low fat, low sodium) or leftovers during the week. With some planning, and an aresnal of healthy recipes geared towards atheltes I think we may be able to change out habits!

from amazon

Weekend Blurr

We spent our last weekend before we moved, in Revelstoke. We had three whole days off together (something we treasure.. the more time together the better!), and I honestly cannot recall what exactly we did each day. They days all seemed to flow into eachother. Friday morning, Ben and I went running. Although not together. We have tried to run together and it is just too hard. We are just completely different abilities. Ben runs a 3-3.5 hour marathon... where as I'm part of the 4 hour group. So we end up at a pace that is too fast for me and too slow for Ben and I just end up getting frustrated. I had a great hour run though, and it was a great start to the day. The rest of the day was spent packing, hanging out, and we walked into town and visited a friend who works at a coffee shop; all while trying to avoid my boss because I was supposed to be in Calgary hence the day off. That night we ordered indian food as a treat and watched the hockey game.

Saturday morning, we got up, squeeeezed into our wetsuits and swam in williamson lake. The water was a little chilly to begin with but we managed an hour open water swim. I was pretty impressed since that is the longest open water swim we have ever done. It was funny though because there is a campground right on the lake and everyone was watching us go baaack and forrth, they must have thought we were crazy! It's a fairly small lake so we managed to get in 4 to the end and back in an hour. The rest of saturday was spent packing, lounging, ect. Actually we watched a canadian movie called "Saint Ralph" about a 14 year old boy back in the 50s who decides that he is going to win the boston marathon, We found it pretty entertaining. We got our grocery shopping in, a walk, and had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner mmm! (Whenever we have spaghetti and meatballs now it reminds me of the night we got engaged!) Then we headed to the hot tub at the pool to streth out our muscles, and wound up playing a pretty intense game of pool basketball... which, ahem, I won 14-5 although Ben will dispute this. It totally felt like a Sunday since we already had 2 days off together, but it wasn't!

Sunday morning, Ben got up early and headed out on his bike. I got up at a more decent hour for the weekend (7 am) and relaxed letting breakfast settle. I finally hit the road at 9 am and headed down hwy 23 S, aiming to make it to the ferry and back (100km). Now this highway is CRAZY! It is just massive hills and sometimes you don't even realize you're going up a hill except that you're only peddaling at 5 kms/hr and can't figure out why until you're on your way home and you're flying! The sky started clouding over, and I started getting cold. So once I made it to the highest point on the highway at the mountain lake I turned back and my 3.5 hour ride turned into a just over 2. But that was enough. I was pumped, and grumpy because I didn't make it to the ferry. I think I pushed my luck so soon after the half ironman. I proceeded to spend the next 3 hours on the couch, in a state of semi-consciousness; sleeping, watching tv, staring at the wall. Then it was time to make dinner! We had a delicious stir fry, packed a little more, I FINALLY watched tangled (which is awesome), and then it was bed time! And that was the end of our last weekend in Revelstoke.

I have a feeling this week is going to be pretty busy. Although we have packed alot, there is ALOT of stuff we can't pack yet because we are using it. So we will be in a packing and cleaning frenzie, along with training, before heading out on Saturday morning. We have rented a U Haul since we have more stuff then we came out with, which we're picking up and packing on Friday. That alone will be an adventure!

Recovery week

This week I have been totally taking it easy. Although my muscles are no longer sore, they feel fatigued, as though there is no energy left in them. So I don't want to push it and get burnt out.

Monday was my birthday! My dad had stayed sunday night before heading back to calgary, so we went out for a birthday breakfast and we had some yummy eggs benedicts! We packed up his truck with a load of stuff, and he hit the road by 10 am. I had the day off, I was super tired and sore so I laid on the couch pretty much all day. I napped and watched half a movie until the power went out.... for over 3 hours! It was super hot outside, and after being in the sun all day on sunday during the race i did not feel like going outside and enjoying it. So what did I do for those powerless 3 hours? I have absalutly no idea! At one point I unpacked the car which took maybe 20 minites. Other than that, I just laid exhausted on the couch. By the time I picked ben up from work at 5:30 the power had JUST come on. I picked ben up from work and we had tacos for dinner with strawberry rhubarb pie topped with cool whip for desert mmm! Followed by a nice walk outside to start moving my legs. All in all it was a great birthday despite being so exhausted and sore.

By tuesday I was feeling much better, so after work I went to the gym for a super light bike for 30 minutes and then a good stretch. Yesterday, I went for an easy 750m swim, and today I am taking off before I gear up to get back to training this weekend.

My Boss is heading to boston this weekend and isn't going to be back until the sunday after Ben and I leave, so he took me and my coworker out for lunch yesterday which was super awesome. I am so excited for his trip (perhaps even more excited then he is) since I LOVE Boston! I think it is my favorite city. I have been rhyming off all the different places that they have to visit. Ben and I would love to go back there someday. Perhaps when I qualify for Boston? ha! That will take some serious speed training since running is not my strong suit.

I have tomorow off and we were going to go to calgary this weekend because of a career fair, but it turns out the career fair was on wed/thurs so I missed it (I thought it was thurs/fri). We were also going to borrow my dad's truck but we decided to rent a U-haul instead. So we are not going to Calgary anymore and we are just going to enjoy our last weekend in Revelstoke. It will mostly involve training, relaxing, and packing. I can't believe it only 9 more sleeps!

We also FINALLY got our wedding invitations out despite the postal strike, which is awesome. For the most part everyone should have recieved them so that takes a stress off. I can't blieve that it's already less than 3 months away! I haven't really been in wedding planning mode lately with everything else going on, but I guess I'll be getting back into it soon. I think the next 3 months are going to fly by!

Whirlwind Weekend

Ben and I headed to Calgary this weekend for 2 main reasons: 1) to find a place to live and 2) for Ben to run the Calgary marathon for a 5th time in a row! and both of those were a sucess but boy was it ever busy. We were up early saterday and hit the ground running and didn't stop until our heads hit our pillows at 11pm that evening. We went to the gym, and by the time we got home we were already running behing schedule as it was 10:15 and we had an appointment to meet a landlord at 11 (and we were in cochrane at my mom's house). So we had a quick shower, shoved some breakfast in our mouths and hit the road. We were late meeting the first landlord, which then had a ripple effect and we were late meeting every one after that. But in the end, we found a place! Actually the place that I wished for!.. well kinda. It turns out the exact one we were supposed to see was rented out but they had another one that would be available on June 15th (when we need it), and it is AWESOME! There is a dishwasher AND laundry in the suite! ALso a huge balcony for our bbq! We are so excited! We grabbed some pho for lunch (mmmm jsut like I hoped) and then drove across town to get our race packages for Sunday morning. It was super busy, but we got our race bibs, then remembered that my goggles are broken and I have the oliver half ironman next weekend! To top it off we only had an hour to get back across the city to get a new pair, so back in the car we went. I found some great ones, so hopefully there won't be any issues next weekend. By this point we had been driving around with a car pack to the roof with stuff so we then had to head to my dad's house who is graciously letting us store some stuff there until we move in to our new place in a couple of weeks. After unloading the car we headed to the jewlery store to purchase our wedding bands. We had picked them out the weekend before in Kelowna, but decided to wait till we were in calgary to buy them because of the difference in taxes, which saved us a pile of money. We then had an hour to get downtown and meet my dad, sammy, angie, jenny and baby jack for some pre race pasta.. mm.. But Ben and I decided that after 8 hours of running around looked like bums so we stopped in at winners on the way and walked out with some new clothes to wear for dinner! We had a great dinner with my family, then headed back to cochrane for a good night sleep, although short!

Sunday morning we woke up to frost on the windshield and 0 degree weather!It was chilly! Ben's race started at 7, so we left the house around 6am and had to be up at 5! It was early, and we were tired and cold. We met up with Jacque and wished Ben good luck and he was off. We started a half hour later. It was a good race, we had fun and got across that line without stopping. Infact, I have not been able to run 10 kms since I got pneumonia a month ago, so it was a good confidence booster for my race next weekend. When we crossed the finish line my dad was there with my little nephew Jack. We had a couple hours to kill until Ben would be coming by, so we let jack run around the park. Ben hadn't trained specifically for this marathon, and thought he would take maybe 4 hours. But we went up to wait for him around 3 hours 20 minutes and thank goodness we did because he came by 9 minutes later with a time of 3 hours 29 minutes! We passed Jack off to Ben, and Ben carried Jack across the finish line, it was pretty cool. Infact, the Calgary herald snapped this picture and they got on their website!

Ben's Mom and Bill even made just in time! We then went to my mom's for a birthday lunch since my birthday is in a week, had a nap, then hit the road! It was a crazy weekend, but all in all a sucess!

Revelstoke Review

Well, we are headed to Calgary this weekend to find a place to live! It is crazy that in 3 weeks we will be moving... again! I love that I have this blog, because I have been able to look back to some of our older posts before moving to Revelstoke last July, such as this one. It has made me realize how much Ben and I have grown. We have learned so much about ourselves and what is important in our life. So we will be ending the Revelstoke chapter, and moving on to something better. We have had a great year here and I think we will look back fondly on our time here.

The summer was amazing, filled with awesome weather and great times. One of my favorite things to do after work was to bike up past the revelstoke dam and jump into the lake. It's a steep hill, and the sun beats right on the road so you're really hot and sweaty by the time you get to the lake. But then jumping in the lake is just that much better.. and man it was awesome! Then after a quick dip I would hop on my bike and ride home. Followed by a nice BBQ, mmmm and some serious champ time. We even managed some awesome hikes this summer despite my broken foot, including the disasterous interesting trip up mount begbie.

Then there was this winter. Filled with amazing powder days, I think Ben got over 40 days in this year, including one day catskiing. We had people coming out to enjoy the awesome skiing nearly every weekend and we loved the company.

So after another great year together, this one in the mountains, we are excited about starting yet another chapter in our life, back in Calgary. I have learned that sometime dreams don't turn out exactly like you imagined, in which case you have to dream up new ones. So that is what we are going to do.

-Jen


ps. It is rainy and miserable here today, so guess what Ben did. He left work at his lunch and brought me a hot chocolate. It was such a treat seeing him in the middle of the day :). Should make the afternoon go that much faster! I have the best fiance ever.

pps.. 93 days until Ironman and 100 days until we get married!

Looks like wishes do come true!

Well, it looks like my wishing yesterday paid off! We found out yesterday afternoon that Ben got the job!

So lets rewind. Ben and I have been discussing moving out of Revelstoke for some time now. Although we love the mountains, in the last year we have learned alot about us and what we want in our life and Revelstoke just doesn't seem to be able to provide it. So, we have both haphazardly applied to a handful of jobs in the last few months. After not hearing back from anything, we didn't really think about the possibility of moving and accepted that we were going to stay the summer and move in the fall. But then, Ben got a call last tuesday for an interview with the WCB (workers compensation board). Since he has fridays off he drove to Calgary friday morning, nailed the interview, and then drove back to revelstoke. That's 8 hours of driving for an hour interview! He definitely could have stayed over night at one of my parents house but he wanted to come home to hang out with me (isn't he awesome!). So this is for a job as an adjucator with the WCB, as in he reads claims and decides if they get benefits. It will actually combine all of his experience with construction, safety, customer sercice, and his kineisiolody degree. It has a great wage, good benefits, and great work environment that really supports health and wellness (compared to construction which supports the local pub and strip bar).

Anyways on Sunday they emailed him to let him know they were contacting his references and yesterday they phoned to let him know he had the job! There was no doubt in my mind that he would get it, I mean he is awesome as long as someone gave him a chance with an interview he'd be a shoe in.

So, Ben will be trading in his karharts for polos, and his tools for a computer. Looks like we're going to have to go shopping! He starts on June 23rd, so we'll have to be back in calgary before then. Yep, that is 5 weeks from today. So, now comes the crazy moving back to calgary part. Luckily we're going to be in calgary next weekend so we can have a look at a couple of places. We will also bring as much stuff back with us each time we head to calgary to make sure the move is smooth.

Then I'll have to get looking for a job. There is an oil and gas career fair on June 10th, so I'm hoping to go to that. So it looks like we'll be in and out of calgary a few times in the next 5! we're pretty excited! Happy Thursday!