More Chaos stuff!

Day 356

Less than ten days to go until the end of the year of blogging project! I have the day off today so I posted some cute Chaos videos on youtube to share :)

Happy Friday!

Here's me teaching Chaos to use her door:

Here's Chaos using the door on her own (plus this video shows her love of hiding underneath towels)

(Side note, these two videos were filmed while watching Cheaper by the Dozen... the music happened to fit the videos perfectly tho!)

Something blue (but not borrowed)

Day 355

In keeping with attempting to plan my wedding... I bought my something blue. I knew immediately that my something blue was going to be blue nail polish. I finally found the perfect blue!!!! It's "Hide & Go Chic" by Essie. 

New faux grass love

Day 354

After her mama passed away, we wanted to buy Kiwi something new.. I wasn't sure if she would get depressed since she's never lived alone in her entire existence. Kiwi is a hoarder... and her favorite thing to hoard? Fake grass! She loves sleeping beside it. And its kind of cute because the fake grass is kind of spiky like her.. Anyway, so we bought her some new fake grass and she LOVES it. She's been sleeping beside it ever since she got it :)

For more on Kiwi and fake grass cuteness, click here

Happy first of April

Day 353 (part two)

Hope no one was pranked too harshly today :)

Ode to Kay Kay

Day 353

I wanted to write another blog dedicated to Chaos, because the first one was rushed and I don't think it showed just how much we loved her...

Over two years ago, on February 13, 2012, Bobby decided that he was going to buy a hedgehog. After scouring the current hedgehog market on Craigslist he contacted a seller that had two hedgehogs (one male, and one female, potentially pregnant, and the one they were selling). I was nervous acquiring a pregnant hedgehog (ummm... birthing spike balls cannot be easy?!), but Bobby bought her anyway!

So Bobby brings home this adorable fat spike ball! I was scared of her to begin with because we weren't sure if she was pregnant, and I didn't want to mishandle her (spiky babies inside of her!). But she was soo adorable to watch. Chaos is such a Chaos. She had a somewhat chaotic personality - you give her a bowl of food, she would dig through it and make a mess. I nicknamed her "Kay Kay" because Chaos sounded like a guy name ;) Side note: her full name is Chaos Chaos (Bobby invented a rule that a hedgehog's last name is her mom's first name... but since we didn't know Chaos' mom's name, she is Chaos Chaos... Kiwi is Kiwi Chaos - we are very strange hedgehog people!)

First pic of Chaos! That was the "Ariel/Little Mermaid" towel I gave her. She looooves towels.

She absolutely LOVED hiding under towels. We had a towel mat in the kitchen and she like to hide underneath it. When we let her wander the apartment alone, you would almost certainly find her under there taking a nap. It was adorable :)

So anyway, Kay Kay was potentially pregnant. A potential cue: If you took her out to play with her, she would sometimes fall asleep almost mid walk. I guess that's a cue for being pregnant? But we still weren't sure because hedgehogs are pretty much nocturnal. Maybe she was just tired? But, we decided to treat her like she was pregnant. I wanted to make sure her bones were nice and strong for a potential birth... hedgehogs are lactose intolerant, but I read on the internet that they could have cottage cheese. And so cottage cheese my little miss Kay Kay was treated to. She loved it!! It was adorable how she would just eat it up! Oddly enough, after the birth of her babies, she stopped liking cottage cheese. I guess it was a pregnancy craving ;)

Kay Kay after a cottage cheese snack

We spent quite a bit of money trying to buy Chaos toys she would enjoy. To sum up, she didn't like anything but towels and rocks. The rocks she had fun flipping over with her nose (she was a bully like that! ;)) and the towels to bite the hell out of (she's destroyed numerous towels), and to hide under.

Attempting to teach Chaos organic chemistry - she was not interested

After Chaos gave birth, she lost all of her "baby weight" and she was tiny! We could not believe her previous owners "weren't sure" if she was pregnant since she was so huge pregnant! At times, she got cold (lack of body fat), so apart from special heaters, and lots of blankets, at times, we got creative in how to keep her warm:

Kay Kay chilling in Bobby's sweater pocket

One of Chaos' most adorable traits is that she would eat anything! She loves fruits (mangos!!) and wet cat food. I wouldn't let her have wet cat food often since it wasn't good for her (only on holidays!) but when I let her eat it she would go to town until I took it away. Oddly enough, Kiwi never followed suit... Kiwi is a picky eater like me (her adoptive mom!)

Chaos was a silly nilly. I would always find her chilling in her coco hut, like in the next two pics:

To sum up, Chaos was such an adorable hedgehog who we loved so much! In honour of her memory, we are going to be creating a new geocache in our new 'hood. Location to be announced!

Chaos and Kiwi (in purple), October 31, 2013. Can you guess what their costumes are? ;)

I love you Kay Kay! We (even Kiwi!) all miss you very much!

Lunch with my love

Day 352

Firstly, only 13 days until the end of a year of blogging!!!

Anyway.... so Bobby has today and tomorrow off so that he can study for his final exam tomorrow. He was in Vancouver for an appointment though, so we met up for lunch at Caffe Citadella.

My food came first. I got an apple crostata (which is kind of like an apple strudel, but fancier), and a mocha

I had to take another picture when Bobby's americano came... with a small bowl of ice cubes.. 

Remember: A is for "Americano with icecubes" :)

On the menu tonight

Day 351

Pulled pork. Slow cooked to perfection ;)

New chair!!

Day 350

Picked up this super awesome chair at HomeSense on Robson today! It's . Perfect for my make up desk! It's pretty comfy too :)

Can't wait to really get my space organized

Goodbye little miss Cakey-Cakes

Day 349

Today, when we got home from work, I found Chaos in her cage kind of cold, and lethargic. I thought she was just cold and attempting to hibernate (hedgehogs are very temperamental with temperature... they need to be warm AT ALL TIMES), but she was also very... collapsed... It was so sad to see...

She passed away :(

I am so sad. Chaos was seriously the sweeeeeetest hedgehog ever. Never once did she bite me, and she never really got "angry" (eg: spiking out for no reason). She was very easy going. She was also a very amazing hedgie momma. While we had her (we got her pregnant), she had three babies (Bowser, Kiwi and Purdy) and she was so good to the babies :) Words cannot express how amazing she was.

Random Chaos memories:
- Bobby got her on February 13, 2012 (and we celebrated her "anniversary" on this day)
- She LOVED hiding under towels. Seriously. In our old place, we gave her a hedgie door (think: "doggy door") and I taught her how to use it. When she got confident enough to use the door on her own (without me luring her out with food), she would explore the apartment at night (I once ran into her in the kitchen at 5am)... one time, Bobby found her sleeping the next morning in a pile of laundry. Another time, we found her sleeping underneath a tea towel that fell on the floor. The cutest was when she fell asleep in my purse!! I used to leave a tote bag under my desk and Chaos would find her way there nightly and fall asleep. She was like camping or something ;)
- Her favorite food were mangoes, wet cat food, cat treats, vector cereal and graham crackers

Here are a few pics I found... there are so many more of course... but here are a few:

Kiwi snuggling with her mama

Chaos post bath

Treat time!

Chaos finding her way into a Trader Joe's bag of popcorn... and eating them

We are going to miss you so much Chaos!! Thank you for 26 months of awesomeness, three wonderful babies and a lifetime of memories.

Morning view

Day 349

It's Friday finally! As usual, I am early for work. I'm chilling at the Starbucks on Broadway and Cambie... looks the the sun is trying to peak out but those dark clouds are preventing it from doing so!

Make up area update

Day 348

I've got my space laid out the way I want it... the desk contains all my make up inside the drawer. This is the Ikea Malm dressing table I got second hand (my company had a classified ad website where we can sell each other stuff. Slightly more reliable than Craigslist). I love this desk!!

Bobby is going to make some shelves so I can store things properly... and I've got a different lamp (Currently being used in the living room) and a mirror I want to put up. But for now, the space is pretty functional. I also want to upgrade to a better chair. I'm debating on whether I want a computer chair, or a dining "style" chair. The two I am eyeing are: this one from best buy. Its super pricey though! 200$ for a chair I won't be sitting in a lot is not worth it. Or, something like this one from restoration hardware, which is also pricey, but I'm sure I can find a similar chair at Winners... hmmm....

Cask Night!

Day 347

A while ago, I found out that The Pint was having a casked beer night... and since Bobby is a beer aficionado, I told him about it... and so we marked it on our calendars.. and I even offered to be the DD since we would be living in suburbia by the event.

Well... Cask Night was a bit of a left down. The brewery who won kind of forced their beer on others (by pre pouring glasses and offering them to people... as opposed to waiting for people to actually come by and ask for a beer!!). And according to Bobby and Marco, their beer "tasted like diapers" and "made you feel like you were dumpster diving". Haha!! What a winner!

First day on the commute

Day 346

Now that we live in suburbia, I have two options to get to work. The first option is to take the West Coast Express (the commuter train that runs from Mission to Downtown). The second option is to catch a ride with Bobby.

Now, it may seem that the obvious choice is to carpool... however, I start work at 830 and Bobby starts work at 7... I checked the train schedules and I would have to take the 710 so as to not be late to work and in order to catch that train, I would need to leave my house around 640 to catch a bus to the train station... Well Bobby leaves home at 630. So leaving just 10 minutes earlier means I can get a ride and save money since I won't need to buy a train pass. The only issue is that I would be an hour early for work. Which isn't a huge deal. I can eat breakfast... and go on the internet... and blog ;) if I can get organized enough maybe I can find a Pilates class nearby or something....

Anyway, good morning and happy Tuesday!! :)

MAC haul

Day 345 part three

Bobby got home around 430 today so I borrowed his car to go to the mall. I had another deal at the bay (this time for cosmetics). So I hit the MAC counter :)

I got the Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in medium plus. I already own this powder in medium dark. I bought it last summer when I was more tanned... so now I look weird wearing it ;)

I also got the 187 powder brush. It got rave reviews online and I need a new powder brush. My current one is probably 8 years old!

Finally I got the Mineralize lip gloss in modern romance.

So the deal I had was save 20$ on a 100$ purchase. I also had a 10$ giftcard to use. The total purchase was 124.89$ but with my 30$ off, I only paid 94.89$ :)

My little snuggle-a-paguses part two

Day 345 part two

I went to check in on Kiwi and Chaos... Chaos is a chameleon. She adjusts to new places well.. she does okay on car rides, etc.. Kiwi... is a mess. Ever since we moved in, she has been acting kind of strange. She spikes out for no reason. The princess is having a hard time adjusting to her new surroundings ;)

Anyway, so it looks like little miss Kiwi decided to sleep beside her mama last night/this morning. And because Chaos is the best mom ever (she never sleeps in Kiwi's house), she doesn't mind that Kiwi sleeps over.. even if it means she has to sleep like this:

For My little snuggle-a-paguses part one click here
For more on how Chaos is an awesome mama, click here

Update:
8pm: Kiwi has returned to her normal self :D

Some progress...

Day 345

Good morning! I took the day off today because I figured I would need an extra day to unpack and organize.. and I do. Yesterday, I unpacked all of our kitchen dishes and cooking stuff and small appliances, etc. Today's agenda was to organize my desk/make up area, my closet and more kitchen stuff (this time tackling the pantry).

I couldn't sleep last night. I have not been eating very well (read: on schedule) because we have been busy unpacking and finding things so I was quite nauseous last night. I think I fell asleep around 1:00am.. Then I woke up at 4:30am or so because my nose was super runny. I have really bad allergies.. and I forgot to take an antihistamine yesterday... Ugh...

Anyway, so I got out of bed around 5:30. I figured I would just unpack while I had the energy and then I would take a nap when I got tired hehe.

So I organized my make up area (still a work in progress) and my closet (also a work in progress because Bobby is going to build me a custom walk in closet for my 30th birthday). Here's some pics of how the place is looking now:

I have clothes to pick through again. I actually had to fold a lot of tops and put them in the drawers because I don't have enough hangers...

Shoes not being in used and some accessories on top of the dresser

Extra purses in the basket and an empty round bin... 

A kitchen one can finally cook in!

Of course the empty boxes had to go somewhere... so here they are in the neon green room. They will be moved to our storage unit soon because we have friends moving soon and I offered to store these boxes until they do

Bobby's been busy too!

He got his computer set up and his room sort of sorted through and cleaned out

And he got the TV up and the internet going! 

My plan today is to meet our building manager to get a bike room key so we can move our bikes.. and to maybe hit up the mall to return something.. to do some laundry... and to nap ;)

Ready, set, unpack, organise, clean!

Day 344

Today was semi rough to begin with. I really just wanted to shower but it took forever to find my shower curtain... Then my shampoo... Then my still missing loofah. #firstworldproblems

Anyway, we managed to unpack quite a bit and sort through lots of boxes. We then met with with our landlord around 130 to return the keys to the old place. Well, technically Bobby met with our landlord while I went to Pacific Centre to pick up that vase I mentioned in Friday's post. I'll blog about that another time.

We got back home around 3pm and we had our first guests come over post move: Janice, Brad and Luca!!! Luca is as adorable as ever and it was nice to have people over and have tons of space (even though there are boxes everywhere and a lack of furniture...). Luca had a blast running around and checking out the new place :)

Another day has come to an end. Still unpacking... thankfully, I took tomorrow off... so I have one extra day to organize the kitchen, and my closet and my desk!

Pooped

Day 343

So moving today was such a breeze. We woke up at 6 am and packed up a bit more. Then we went to Port Moody to pick up the truck and headed back to downtown. I hit up Starbucks for some breakfast sandwiches and Caffe Artigiano for coffee (for our moving crew of 6).

Everything went smoothly. Seriously. It was laughable how quickly we got the truck loaded (an hour and twenty minutes) and unloaded (about an hour? I missed this part due to miscommunication with my mom and picking up pizza).

We were done eating lunch by one. No joke. Bobby and I then had to pick up a bed we're borrowing from my mom for the guest room and then we headed back to downtown to clean out the old place. Again it was a breeze. I cleaned the bathroom and wiped the surfaces down and emptied the fridge, etc while Bobby spackled the walls and threw out the garbage.

Back to the new place now and really exhausted. Just wanted to share the one pic I took today...

I hate moving

Day 342

So tomorrow is moving day and we've rented a truck and somehow convinced a few friends to help us move. Did I ever mention I hate moving? It's seriously the worst thing in the world. First you have to pack and purge all of your belongings. Then you have to clean up your new place. Then you have to transport all said belongings x number of kilometres over to your new place. Then you have to unpack all of your belongings and reorganize everything. Then you have to clean out your old place. All while not losing your mind... there really needs to be a support group for people who hate moving. Then the entire world can just get together and complain about our grievances with moving.

I wish we could move like the Sims. Every time they move, they manage to sell all of their furniture at a reasonable price and just buy all new furniture that is more suited to the new place ;)

Anyway, I'm on a time crunch. I've a facial appointment at 1030 and a lunch date with a friend at noon. Then I gotta go home and pack and seal boxes and clean up before dinner with some high school friends at 630. Somewhere in between I would like to run to the mall and pick up a vase I've been eyeing....

A new place to call home

Day 341

Back in January, we bought a place in Coquitlam because we were sick of our tiny rental in downtown. While I love the location of our current place, we knew we had to move on and because places in downtown are super expensive, we decided to move to suburbia. I kind of hinted about the move back in this post, but I never actually got around to talking about it... I did talk lots about shopping for our new place though ;)

Anyway, so we bought an almost 1000 square foot, 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment in Westwood Plateau. I grew up around the area and it really is a great community for families. There are lots of good schools nearby for future kids and its also close to grocery store and Coquitlam Centre, etc.

Today, we picked up the keys from our realtor. It was so awesome! We literally bought this place almost two months ago, and even though we took lots of pictures, you almost forget what the place actually looks like. It was nice to see it again ;)

We met our realtor around 2pm, and they left around 2:30. We hit up Target to buy a few things we forgot to bring to clean the house. We had planned to spend a good few hours to clean the place since it was a great time to do so - there was no furniture in this place whatsoever. We also decided to move Kiwi and Chaos in today because I didn't want to have to bring them during the what is likely going to be a stressful move on Saturday. For now, they are chilling out in the master bedroom walk in closet (it'll be nice and cozy in there for them!)

I gave the fridge and bathrooms a good scrubbing down. Bobby mopped all of the floors and cleaned the windows. We were smart and brought some dishes and glasses, so while we were cleaning, I ran the dishwasher twice to wash those... and now they are spic and span for Saturday ;)

Below are pics for the new place... a place that is going to be a work in progress until we truly make this new apartment our home :)

Bobby brought Kiwi and Chaos in to work today... He came and got me around 1pm at my work and we drove to Coquitlam. When we got to the new place, I decided to give Kiwi a "driving lesson" while we waited for our realtor ;)

Bobby in our new kitchen. YES! Finally lots of counter space and cupboards (this kitchen is huge compared to downtown, Vancouver standards ;)

Dining room and living area (sorry the pic is dark!) The neon green room is a bedroom (more below)

This is the smallest bedroom and will be Bobby's future work area. He has lots of plans for this room 

This is the second biggest room and will be a future kid's room. For now, it will be Marco's domain

This is Bobby's bathroom/the main bathroom

Master bedroom. I love that nook area!

This is the master bathroom... Finally! We will no longer have to share a bathroom ;)

Kiwi exploring Marco's room... she was super excited!!

Now, we are back in downtown, exhausted from all of the cleaning. There is still some packing left to do! But I need to relax and rest (and blog!) first!