The forgotten work bag

Bobby left his work bag at home today.... Luckily he put it next to Kiwi and I noticed it this morning when I did my daily Kiwi check in.

Here is his bag with a cold brew coffee and chocolate. FYI Bobby, I ate your chocolate as payment for bringing your work stuff and buying you a coffee!!

Bobby's 29th

It was Bobby's 29th birthday on the 10th... so naturally, we celebrated this entire weekend! 

Side note: because I am the crazy hedgehog lady, and not one post can go by without mentioning, Kiwi, the late Chaos, or hedgehogs in general.... I finally picked up this hedgehog doormat at Crate and Barrel!! 

Hedgehog on hedgehog!

Okay, so it was Bobby's birthday on Friday... and on Thursday, I bought him some beers to drink this weekend. It's increasingly difficult to buy beer for Bobby since he wants to try original craft beers... all I can say is, thank god for untappd!!!!

The first stop on the birthday tour was a romantic dinner for two at Orrange. However, because there was a pet store near the restaurant (and because I knew there are hedgehogs there)... this became our first stop.

Go away crazy humans!!

These hedgies are not socialized so they were really hard to pick up...

Such a little cutie!!!! This hedgie is very shy but it didn't bite!

Okay... so after we played with the hogs, we went next door for some food! Orrange is okay, decent food, decent prices.

Birthday boy with his guinness

After dinner, we went to Bobby's favorite store:

After Home Depot, we went home for affogato (on our super awesome espresso maker)....

... and birthday cake (Chocolate Explosion and Tiramisu from Whole Foods)

Too distracted by the affogato/not realizing there is cake in front of him

Kiwi came out to wish Bobby a happy birthday beg for cake

Bobby and his Rogue Voo Doo Donut beer!!

Okay so that was Friday... the real "party" was Saturday at Port Moody Ribfest!!

Now, it has been uncharacteristically hot in Vancouver the entire month of June. It was 30+ degrees for a couple of weeks and there are 100s of forest fires all over BC due to the extremely hot and dry weather.... Basically, we have all be praying for rain... and while I am glad it rained, I wish it did not happen at Port Moody Ribfest while I was standing in line holding my uncovered half rack of ribs!! It seriously poured rain and all I could think was, should I wait in line for corn as well?!?!? But I digress...

Giant pack of baby wipes to help us get through this meal

The food at Ribfest was okay. Maybe the rain dampened the mood a little bit... but the craft beer was definitely underwhelming!!

Sebastian met up with us at Ribfest and then we met up with Brad-Ja-Luca for menchies!

I hope you had a great birthday weekend Bobby!!! Love you :D

Our Wedding!

So we tied the knot last weekend (June 27th)... after months and months of planning! I wasn't sure if I wanted to blog about our wedding.. but I wanted to give a huuuuge shout out to every single person involved in making our special day a reality.... so, here goes!!

We had our ceremony, reception, dinner and post dinner festivities at Shangri-La Vancouver. From the moment we got in touch with Stephanie (Events Manager) to plan our wedding to the second we checked out of the hotel the day after the wedding, the service we received was A+. Seriously, everyone was so accommodating and kind! We truly felt like royalty! Everything went smoothly (minus my brother almost arriving late for the ceremony!!!). The staff did such a wonderful job! The night before our wedding, they sent us some sparkly wine and chocolate covered strawberries to enjoy... and they included craft beer for Bobby (because they knew that Bobby does not just drink any beer!!). I would definitely recommend holding your event at Shangri-La Vancouver :)

Before walking down the aisle...

Back in January, the minute we secured our venue and paid our deposit, the first thing I did was book a hair and make up consult/appointment. I am so terrible at both of these things and knew I would need to recruit some professional help... a quick google search led me to Beauty Calls, a mobile hair and make up service. Here I met Alysia Hamilton (super sweet owner) and Lily Ling (super awesome hair and make up artist). Both Alysia and Lily are so sweet... and Lily is AMAZING!!!! She did such a wonderful job! I looked and felt so great at my wedding! :) Seriously, book Lily now for your hair and make up needs!!! You will not regret it.

Photo credit: Lily Ling

The second appointment I made was cake tasting! This was a no brainer. When we lived in Yaletown, we frequented Ganache Patisserie. We sat down with Peter and he helped us decide on a custom flavor and cake design. Our guests were impressed and there was no cake left at the end of the night!

Single tier hazelnut chocolate with mango filling... with strawberry macarons... mmm

We had a very small ceremony (15 guests total) and my plan was to wear a plain white dress. This upset my mother greatly and I realized that not taking her wedding dress shopping/wearing a "traditional" wedding dress was robbing her of her mother of the bride experience! So we went to The Bridal Gallery and Debbie helped me pick THE dress ;) Bobby custom made his suit from Indochino.

Photo Credit: John Miguel
Dress: Mori Lee 6794
Flowers and pineapple boutonniere: V&J Plantshop

And last, but most certainly not least, photography was done by Dora and Alex from 21 Mpix Photography and they did such a great job! We've only seen a few pictures and cannot wait to see the rest! Random story: I met Dora through Lily (my hair and make up artist!! You can read more about our meeting here). Make sure to contact Dora if you need a photographer for your upcoming event!

Huuuuge thanks to all for making our wedding a reality! Special shout out to Peter and his crew at V&J Plantshop for custom making Bobby's pineapple boutonniere :)

Easter 2015

Had an awesome 4 day weekend! We had great weather on Sunday and on Monday (sunshine and 15 degrees!) – needless to say, I am feeling refreshed this morning ;)

The weekend festivities started on Thursday evening – I told Bobby I would hide Easter eggs around our apartment for him to find over the long weekend. I bought some Ferrero Rocher eggs (looks like Ferrero is jumping on the Easter candy band wagon) and some Caramilk Easter eggs (these are the eggs Bobby requested). Each night (Thursday to Sunday), I hid three eggs for Bobby to find the next day (one giant Caramilk egg, and two smaller Ferrero eggs). Bobby was pro and found all of these eggs no problem. Next year, I think I am going to hide plastic eggs and get Bobby to swap them out for real chocolate so I can hide more than three at a time (I was paranoid that if I hid too many, Bobby might miss some and we would be finding old stale chocolate for the rest of our lives).

Easter egg in Bobby's jar o' nuts...

... and one in his scotch everyday drinking glass

Friday:

It was pouring rain on Friday so we stayed at home. I cleaned, cleaned and cleaned our entire apartment. Our apartment was due for some spring cleaning ;)

Bobby worked on our side tables… and while I was cleaning and watching Friends on Netflix, I dropped my phone. Now, I drop my phone on a daily basis. I have not had a phone that I have not dropped/ruined. Bobby calls me clumsy.. but I mean, how do you even begin to “fix” clumsy? I don’t think you can…. Anyway, so I dropped my phone and the screen shattered… I mean, shards of plastic everywhere… All I can say is thank goodness for Groupon – I bought a deal to get my screen fixed (65$ for a new screen when normally it should be 130$). 

Saturday:

I went to PiYo as per usual – we moved studios as of Saturday, and the new place is great! It’s about 5 minutes from the old studio, but it’s a lot bigger, and the layout is better than the old one.

After PiYo, I raced home to make lunch/eat lunch/shower so we could head out for the day. The first stop was to get my phone screen fixed. I went to iFix in International Village and I am impressed with their service! They did a great job and it only took about 25 minutes (one hour for me because I arrived as they were going for lunch). Anyway, I highly recommend them if you need your phone or tablet screen repaired. While we were waiting for my phone to get fixed, we went to Home Depot so that Bobby could buy some things he needed for the side tables… Then we went back to pick up my phone and then headed to Tiffany so I can pick out a birthday present :)

We hit up Thierry Chocolates since they are pretty much right next to Tiffany on Burrard/Alberni. I wanted to buy some lychee macarons but they were all sold out.. so I left empty handed :(

Wet then had dinner at Memphis Blue’s (Southern bbq place) and then we went to Chapter’s on Broadway to kill some time before watching a movie. The movie we watched was “While We’re Young” and let me just save you some time and money by telling you NOT to watch this movie. It is by far the worst Ben Stiller movie ever. No wonder it didn’t make the “big screens”. We watched it at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, a small theatre on Burrard St, which normally only plays small, independent films. Also, no offense, but this theatre is old people central. Like literally, there were elderly people waiting in line with their walkers and oxygen tanks… etc. I mean, I get that we all get old… but I nowknow which cinema I will be hitting up when I am old and gray ;)

Saturday Random: Just a stack of cars... on a tree trunk... in front of Science World-ish

Sunday:

Bobby worked on our side tables some more, and I chilled out and enjoyed the awesome weather. We had dinner at my parents’ house (small Easter dinner with my parents and my bro and his gf). Good food, great company

Here's Bobby eating his favorite Filipino dish (it's a "milk fish" called bangus)

Kiwi's Easter meal was cheerios - her new favorite treat!

Monday:

I hit the mall for some “browsing”. I am in the market for a new blazer… there are a few I am eyeing in Aritzia… also I went to Sephora to try some new foundation. I am wanting to buy some more “organic” make up and am looking into buying the Tarte Amazonian Clay foundation. I wanted to try it out first though since foundation is so expensive… and sometimes, certain foundations make my skin break out. We are less than three months away from the wedding so I don’t want new acne/acne scars). Anyway, so I tried it out for the day (I think I got to Sephora around 10:15am… literally right after they opened and left it on all day until it was time for PiYo around 8pm) and it provided excellent coverage. I think I will be picking this up later on this week ;)

Anyway... so I didn't get anything at the mall (In fact, I actually returned a couple of things!). I did buy a few necessities at Shopper's though: toothpaste, dish soap, mascara, allergy medicine...

... and my first Archie comic book in YEARS

I was a little bit dismayed at the fact that the double digests are now 5.99$ before tax (they used to be 2$ or something!). Luckily, I no longer have to buy these on my meager weekly allowance... 

Monday was also Kiwi’s bath day so yesterday marked the worst day of Kiwi's life (since her last bath) – but her housekeeper came around to wipe down her floors, scrub her wheel down and refill her food… so she was in good spirits post bath!

And the world's meanest April Fool's Joke goes to...

BOBBY

Okay so before I go on complaining how it was cold in Vancouver yesterday (about 4 degrees in the morning), I fully understand that it was much, MUCH colder in other parts of our home and native land. However, the heater was none functional at work so I spent most of the day FREEZING. And, for the most part, we average double digit temperatures in the Lower Mainland… so I get stressed out for Kiwi when the temperature drops. She starts to freeze her skinny little butt off. Usually, she wakes up during the day to poke around/scratch her butt/eat and I get a notification of her activity on my phone (Thanks Drop Cam/Nest) and yesterday she wasn’t active at all. On the train ride home, I called Bobby to ask him to check on Kiwi (he was almost home when I was just leaving work) and also to let him know I was stopping by Shopper’s on the way home.

30 minutes later, I’m in my car driving from the train station to Shopper’s and I receive a text. I didn’t check it until I parked my car and Bobby texted me “Kiwi didn’t make it”. Instantly, I knew it was a joke, but also in the back of my mind, I was like, OH NO KIWI FROZE TO DEATH (which isn’t even likely since she’s never THAT cold) and BOBBY OBVIOUSLY ISN’T JOKING BECAUSE APRIL FOOL’S JOKES STOP AT NOON (this is COMMON KNOWLEDGE IS IT NOT?!?!). I almost burst into tears at the Shopper’s parking lot. I called Bobby and he admitted it was a joke L

Happy to report the world's cutest hedgehog lives on! And she is as feisty as ever!

Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Woke up to a card, chocolates (which Bobby ate most of) and candy yesterday! Woo hoo!!

Also just wanted to quickly share the card I made for Bobby. Here's where I got the design idea from - I found this card at London Drugs and I thought it was really cute... however... Bobby never eats toast with butter... 

 

So.... I made one with toast and nutella (everyone on this planet who knows Bobby knows he LOVES nutella!!)

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!!!

A Sunday to Remember

Recently, I decided to try out PiYo at BeachYoga (a studio close to my house). I love the place I currently go to (the teacher is AWESOME) but I just crave more and more PiYo each week and it is only offered twice a week at my current studio... so I decided to branch out.

PiYo at Beach Yoga was okay - I sweat A LOT. The teacher said the room was not heated, but it was so hot in the room! The only thing I didn't like was the music - all the tracks were quite slow... so it didn't even get you pumped up. Kim (the instructor from the other studio) uses fun, fast tracks like this one (Side note - "Be Okay" by Oh Honey is my new happy song).

Anyway, so PiYo was at 9:30am so I was home by 10:40 ish or so... I chilled for a bit.. then showered so we could go out for lunch. After lunch, Bobby dropped me off at home because he was on the hunt for a tool chest... I had a lot of things I wanted to get done at home... and shopping for tool chests just didn't sound fun.. so off he went. He came back a couple of hours later with half of the tool chest because it obviously wouldn't all fit in the car (even though he took my car, the hatchback).

So Bobby came back with the lower half of the tool chest (this is the bigger piece of the two pieces). We managed to get it into the apartment just fine. Then Bobby went back to Costco to pick up the top half.

Now, allegedly 4 Costco employees helped Bobby load the car for the bottom part of the tool chest. The bottom piece is probably about 350 pounds (boxed). The top piece is 150 lbs (boxed). After both pieces were in the apartment, Bobby unboxes them... and then looks at me and say he needs help putting the top half on top. Hahahahaha is all I can say. I mean I am very short. I am only 5'3" and the bottom part is 3 and a half feet tall... and Bobby expects me to lift almost 150 lbs over 3.5 feet in the air?!?!?!?!? It was insanity. And the whole time I am panicking that we will drop this and someone will get injured!!

But.. since I am the only other person in the apartment, there was no one else Bobby got tag into this situation. So I put my big girl panties on and brainstormed the plan of how we could get this damn thing where it was supposed to go.

The first step was lifting it about a foot and a half onto our coffee table. Our coffee table is old and metal and I hate it... But its super durable (it used to be Bobby's "workbench" in our old apartment)... so I knew it would hold up. The next problem was getting another 2 feet in the air... At this point, my stress level was at 110. I mean, like wtf. Bobby kept saying, just lift it with your legs. But my legs are tired from PiYo and I didn't trust that they wouldn't buckle from all that pressure and weight!! I mean seriously... 150lb is clearly heavier than me!! Haha... So, I regrouped and devised another plan. We used our couch arm chair as leverage/a spotting location. We pushed the top half of the tool chest completely on the arm of the couch. Then Bobby, lifted one side all the way to the top of the bottom half, while I held the other side down (with lots and lots of spotting from my couch by the way). Then we traded spots. I then held the top of the tool chest in place while Bobby lifted the other side up... insert lots of fixing here... et voila:

All I can say is, I deserve some sort of medal for this.

Blogmas Day 31 - 2014 in review

Okay, another year has gone by. I know this is very cliche, but seriously, where the heck does time go?!?
Just this time last year, we were ringing in the New Year in Manhattan. This year, we are doing a much more low-key new years eve since we just got back from San Francisco (a trip that coincided with a terribly weak Canadian dollar)

So much has happened over 2014 so I thought I would mention some highlights:

January: We bought an apartment!

We were really lucky because we only looked at 8 apartments before moving forward with an offer for our current place. We only went apartment hunting twice. The first time it was probably early December 2013. We looked at 4 places - none of these places screamed "pick me, pick me pick me!!!!" so we decided to take a break until after we got back from Florida/New York. We went apartment hunting again in January - we looked at 4 more apartments (3 in the building we currently live in). To be honest, our current apartment was obviously the one we were going to buy since it has three bedrooms (all of the other apartments were only 2 bedroom apartments) and it was such a great deal! However, there was another apartment in the building that had the BIGGEST patio ever that we kind of considered buying as well.. but we decided to be realistic and get the apartment with the third bedroom. That way, Bobby could get his own space and we still had room to grow so that when we do have a kid, we wouldn't be forced to move. Plus, the third bedroom has been really awesome! Marco lived there for a few months, friends who have visited have stayed there.. and Kiwi is currently chilling in it with her heater on full blast...

February: Valentine's Day in Whistler turns into the most expensive stay anywhere for us!

We went to Whistler for some snowboarding fun on February 14th. Bobby got me lessons years back and I was finally going to use them that weekend. Everything was fine and dandy... except that it snowed a LOT overnight on Saturday.. so much so that everyone headed up to Whistler for some fresh powder on Sunday! Seriously.. it was crazy busy! When we finally left, it was snowing pretty hard. We were all driving 10 km an hour on the Sea to Sky highway. It seriously took forever to get half way to Squamish when we came to a dead stop. There was a multi-car accident just ahead which essentially shut down the highway. We finally decided to go back to Whistler for the night... and since it was Reading Break, the only room left was an 800$+/night suite. How great! The room was amazing. It had two fireplaces, a private balcony with a hot tub.. etc.. lovely things I did not care to enjoy at that time since I was so pissed off/stressed out about the day... and we had to get up REALLY early the next morning since I had to work. Luckily, I made it to work only 20 minutes late.. but it was no fun having to go straight to work from Whistler after that disaster!

March: We say goodbye to life in downtown and move to suburbia

After our offer was accepted in January, we decided to move in mid March to give our former landlord two months notice to find new awesome tenants. With the help of friends, we packed everything up and moved 45 minutes away... and it was seriously the easiest move ever. Our apartment is still a work in progress but it's definitely feeling more cozy and like home every day! We definitely enjoy having a lot more space (I mean, come on! Even Kiwi our HEDGEHOG has her own bedroom ;)) and we live in such a nice area (we are close to parks, hiking trails and shops!).

Another March event was the sudden loss of Chaos, our first hedgehog/Kiwi's mama. We still miss Chaos very much. We even created a geocache last summer, but some stupid punks stole it :( We are re-grouping and thinking of a better and more permanent way to honour her memory.

April: I turn 30

I was 100% okay with saying goodbye to my twenties and turning 30... until it was a few days until my birthday. I got depressed and panicky for no reason... It was the "turning 30 jitters". However, Bobby threw me the most awesome birthday party with all of my closest friends present. Bobby even hired a magician to come by and wow the crowd :)

May: Bobby and I celebrated 4 happy years together

Okay, not every single day of those 4 years was happy because obviously we have had our disagreements and fights.. but we love each other and I can honestly say that Bobby makes me a better person. He helps me achieve my dreams and is so supportive of my decisions (except impulse buying, he hates those ;) ) Also.. he just gets me... I know I can be super annoying and am border line cray cray at times, but Bobby loves me for me :) (well, at least I think he does :P)

June: Najin and Lawrence get married

This seriously was the most awesome friends weekend away ever! Not only did we get to see some awesome friends walk down the aisle and promise to spend the rest of their lives together, but it was such an awesome gathering/party of all of our close friends. Not once have we all gone away for a weekend so it was nice to have everyone there :)
We all stayed at Nita Lake Lodge (highly recommend this as a weekend getaway spot - only downside is that it is quite far from Whistler Village) so no worrying about drinking and driving, especially since the wedding had an open bar!

July: Celebrating Bobby's day of birth

It's Bobby's birthday! Someone bring out the beer.. and nutella... Lots and lots of nutella ;)

August: Lots and lots of summer fun!

As previously mentioned, we created a geocache for Chaos (which lasted for a few days before getting stolen). We also really got to enjoy summer in our new 'hood. Lots of visits to Lafarge Lake and Rocky Point.

September: Whistler Craft Beer Weekend

Need I say more?!

October: Halloween, Bobby's main holiday of the year

Every year, Bobby slaves away making his Halloween costume. Most people buy costumes off the rack at Target, or Value Village.. But not Bobby. His costume has to be 100% custom made... and he also has to go to Home Depot 23 times during the costume making process.. and he also has to buy at least 4 new tools... wait, what are we talking about again? Oh yea, so this year, we joined in on the Halloweeen Convention festivities in downtown. Hands down, Bobby had the best costume there. Everyone wanted to take a picture of him. Everywhere we went, we had to stop for at least 15-20 minutes so that people could take pics... Here are some bonus pics of Kiwi in her costume.

November: Fun times decorating our much larger apartment for Christmas

In our old apartment in downtown, we had ZERO space for a Christmas tree... so much so that Bobby got the Charlie Brown tree (the one branch, one red ornament kind) for us... but even then, we had no space to put THAT tree on. Well, not anymore at this apartment! As soon as it was "okay" to put up a tree (eg: not too early - Bobby needs time to unwind post Halloween fun), we went to Target to pick one out. In the US, I guess most families put their decorations up after Thanksgiving... well our Thanksgiving is in October... and the only holiday we have in November is Remembrance Day... so I have started using the day after Remembrance Day as the day it is okay to start decorating! Must also mention, November is when we start counting down to Christmas... and Bobby starts counting down to when he can open his advent calendar

December: Family vacation in San Francisco

I had so much fun spending Christmas with both my family and Bobby's family. It was also the first time our parents have met... happy to report they got along... now everyone is excited about our wedding... which means the pressure is on my to plan, plan, plan!!

I have so much to look forward to in 2015 (a wedding and honeymoon!!) and I feel so blessed to be where I am in life today. Wishing everyone a very Happy and safe New Year's Eve!! All the best for an even better 2015!!

Merry 2015 from Bobby, Kiwi and me

Blogmas Day 30 - the engagement anniversary

Because people have to celebrate every single anniversary right?!?!

Okay, so a year ago today, Bobby and I got engaged. I can't believe it's been a year!! Just this morning last year, we were waking up in Manhattan, getting ready to go ice skating at Central Park :)
And then Bobby proposed!!

Happy to report that wedding planning is finally moving along. We think we've found our wedding venue. We just need to sign the paperwork and put our deposit in. I can't believe it only took a year to get that ball rolling ;)

Okay so had to pick up my parents (they come home from San Fran today) so festivities to be postponed until this weekend. 

PS: A year later, I would still say yes ;)

PPS: It's minus 4 today in Vancouver. I'm pretty sure it was warmer in Manhattan this day last year... Seriously, no joke. We touched down in the big apple at the perfect time when it was uncharacteristically warm, there was no snow on the ground... the day we flew out (January 2) the, the temperature dropped. Our flight was delayed over an hour since every plane had to get de-iced... and there was a blizzard in the forecast

PPPS: I got Bobby a couple of beers for our anny. It's getting increasingly hard to buy Bobby beers because he's had so many different kinds. Every time I go to the liquor store, I have to pull out Untappd to see if Bobby has tried the beer before and of the beer is getting good reviews.

I never know what to get Bobby anymore.. I know he has not tried these two beers before... the peanut butter one should be interesting at least ;)

PPPPS: Bobby got me flowers and made me a card! Love it!!

PPPPPS: little miss kiwi finally got her Christmas present.... And she loved it!!

Vacation over

Unfortunately, it is back to work tomorrow. Ughhh... It's hard enough having to get back to work mode after a regular weekend.. so it's especially hard to get back at it after a four day weekend...

Anyway, so last night we had my parents' joint birthday party. It has been soooo cold in Vancouver over the past few days (cold in Vancouver is -6 degrees) and it actually snowed (a whole centimetre!!) and it was icy everywhere... I hope it warms up soon!

Today, we had plans to meet a few friends at Craft Beer Market for a late lunch.

They didn't have the Stiegl Radler Zitrone :( I had to settle for a fruli.

After Craft, (and a quick pit stop at Legacy), we hit up Home Depot so Bobby could pick up a new table saw he needs for the project he is currently working on. Be sure to follow Bobby to get project updates!

Bobby's black Friday haul.

After Home Depot, we went home. Bobby went to our storage locker to get the rest of the Christmas decorations. I found Kiwi's mini stocking (Chaos has one also, and I plan to put both up!). I put a treat in it and Kiwi refused to get it.. she was kind of scared of the stocking! Maybe it smelled weird.. I dunno. I've been congested since Wednesday night - nothing beats being sick on your vacation by the way.

       

She finally got her treat after a while. Here's Kiwi looking weird while eating her treat!

I can't believe tomorrow is December already!! I have so many review blogs to post (Mac Matchmaster foundation and Mineralize lipglass... and of curse, the Longchamp Le Pliage bag) as well as a Black Friday haul post. I plan to get these all done in December before I go on vacation... again!! I'll try to blog everyday in December (blogmas - kind of like Youtubers' vlogmas videos) :)

Bobby's Nutella

For Bobby's birthday this past summer, I got him this giant tub of nutella.

Well, it took him just over 4 months to go through the entire tub. We had a crepe party with some friends so Bobby didn't eat the entire tub himself.. but I am pretty sure he ate 90% of the nutella in this 3kg tub ;)

For more about Bobby's birthday festivities, click here.

The Christmas Beer Advent Calendar

So it's that time of the year again! When Bobby and I pick up not one, but TWO (one for Bobby, one for my brother), Craft Beer Advent Calendars. I first heard about these calendars two years ago, and I was almost too late to jump on board, but Bobby's coworker very kindly picked up two calendars at a liquor in Mission (for those not from the area, Mission is pretty much at the edge of the world, in the middle of nowhere). Ever since that mishap, I've liked their Facebook page so that I get notifications on when the calendars are available and in which liquor stores in the lower mainland.

This year, we picked it up at Roo's , which has kind of been Bobby's go-to liquor store since we no longer live close to Legacy. Anyway, we walked in, and they still had quite a few (so go NOW if you really want one!). They also have the 49th Parallel collaboration advent calendar. That one is only 94$ ("only"... shocking I know). The ones we got are 156$.. which is a steep price increase.. I remember them only being 110$ or so when I first got them! Oh well.. these are Christmas presents for Bobby and my brother :)

And now that we have a bigger apartment, we have a TON of space for these to just hang out at until Bobby can open it (and my brother comes to pick his up)

The 2014 edition is world-wide so Bobby is really excited. 2013 was "North American" and Bobby was pretty disappointed with a lot of the beers. 2012 was European and Bobby was pretty impressed ;)

Be sure to follow Bobby's blog. I'm sure he will be mentioning some beers while work on projects ;)

Halloween convention

So today was Vancouver's (first annual?) Halloween Convention at the Sheraton Wall Centre in downtown. I bought us a couple of tickets on Groupon (2 tickets for 20$) - normally the tickets are 30$ each, so we saved a lot of money... But I think we are going to skip buying tickets next year, and just participate in the festivities outside! The indoor event itself was not too exciting, it was a lot of booths set up selling stuff. I don't know about you, but when you are already IN costume, why the heck would you need to buy MORE wigs, or masks, etc? And, since you are in costume, that likely means that you don't want to hold anything that you just recently purchased! But I digress, so, let's just recap the days events in pictures:

We left home around 10:45am and traffic in downtown was BRUTAL since the event also included a parade, so lots of road closures. We made it to the Sheraton and just parked at the hotel (parking was 17$ for 3.5 hours!!!) and hit up the indoor event. We hung out for like 5 minutes. Everyone wanted a pic with Bobby. The room was pretty small so we decided to go outside and check out the parade.

Bobby was a huuuuuge hit. Everyone wanted a picture of him, and with him! So everywhere we went we were our own party.

Spiderman and Dr. Octopus meet again.. This time in the heart of downtown (Nelson and Howe)

The parade went from east on Davie, then north on Granville, then west on Smithe and south on Howe. I think it circled a few times over a few hours. We hung out on Howe first (a little less busy), then ventured out to Granville (super busy!!)

Everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE, we went, someone wanted a picture. Each block we had to stop for at least 15-20 minutes while everyone got a picture of/with Bobby.

Super cute Spiderman and Superman!!!

After the parade was finished, we walked over to the Starbucks on Davie and Seymour. Bobby got hounded by more people wanting pics. I snuck inside and got us some coffee and food. Starbucks was packed so we sat at the park just next to it to eat and relax and wait for my brother to come meet us.

Caffeine break!

Even at the park, people were coming up to Bobby for pictures. One kid stopped by to chat. He and Bobby had a conversation for about 5 minutes. It was really cute, because after a while, the kid was like "I'm Sebastian by the way". Lol, so grown up and proper with the introduction. After a while, the kid left to go play, but on his way home, he stopped by again and said "Bye Bobby!!" Haha, so adorable. 

So my brother and his gf and the dog came to meet up with us. We walked on the Seawall:

It was actually really warm today (20 degrees) so we were starting to get hot from all the walking (especially Bobby since he had to carry an extra 4 arms and wear a heavy coat and gloves and a hat!). We we went back to the Sheraton Wall Centre and the party was going strong since the parade was over. So again, Bobby got hounded by EVERYONE:

Breaking news: newspaper is Dr. Octopus's kryptonite?

So Bobby was really friendly, always stopping to take pictures with everyone. Especially little kids in cute costumes. 

Not pictured: little kids in cute costumes

There was only one other person Bobby wanted to take a picture with, the Piranha from Super Mario. However, every time we tried to get to this guy, Bobby would get swarmed for pictures.... However, after 30 minutes or so, Mr. Piranha man made it to us because he wanted a picture with Bobby!! 

Dr. O in front of the fountain

Creepy witch lady

After a very long time of pictures, we sat down at the bar for drinks. Even Dr. O gets thirsty after all!

Mandatory elevator picture

The costume Bobby-less

All in all, we had a great time today! The kids were so adorable! And lots of people put lots of effort into their costumes!