29/52

Mal & Allie at the July cookoff, in the rooftop garden af Liang's building. This was technically still in week 28 by my rules, but it's such a lovely moment & I don't have anything good from this week, so I don't mind cheating a little.
If you want to see what happened at our southeast Asian cookoff, you can as always check out the blog.

23/52

Bo & Su being adorable at our barbecue. Jeff & I decided that with the free case of wine we won, we just had an outrageously large amount of wine, so we had some friends over to eat food and help us through some. Between 12 of us we managed to polish off 10 bottles! Not bad, friends, not bad.

11 August 13

Jeff & I stayed in the Billy Barker hotel while we were in Quesnel, because with Joanne moved into Tony's now, there's not really enough room for us to stay there. Not complaining though — it meant we got to sleep in a bed that's not a twin and watch tv naked.
Couple photos from the drive home here.

01 March 13

30 January 13

Jeff and I went to Jake & Tesney's new place, just a few blocks away, to have dinner and meet their baby girl Alinka.

31 December 12

It was a fairly quiet NYE, just a smallish party at the house. I didn't even drink much, just a couple of beers and of course the Orofino sparkling we opened at midnight. Mostly we chatted & ate snacks, while watching disaster movies on mute with ambient music in the background (which was surprisingly interesting and epic).

24 December 12

I spent the day baking cookies and wrapping gifts. Tony and Joanne stopped by with presents for Jeff and me, including a chocolate tree from Thomas Haas, a negative scanner, and most extravagantly, a Nikon D600 (I'm trying to actually learn its mysteries before using it regularly, so my recent pictures will still be from the D5000).
In the evening we had dinner at Yvonne's as usual, and it was quite nice and we stayed so late that we didn't make it to my parents' until after 11:30. It was strange, without Alice, but we still managed to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas! with the appropriate amount of questioning its physics, noticing bizarre bits of animation, and quoting our favourite lines.

26 May 12

Hayley and I went with Maddie to June's, where she got her first tattoo as a memorial for Alex. She told me that shortly after Alex died, she had a dream about getting an eagle feather tattoo. According to his grandmother, Alex's spirit guide was the eagle, which represents the messenger between the spirit world and the living world. She had never thought about getting a tattoo before, but she said, "It just seemed too important to ignore."
You can see a few more photos from the session here.

19 April 12

Alex died this Thursday afternoon. Jeff and I went out to see my family in the evening... Jeff made pasta dinner for those that felt hungry enough to eat it. We sat around in the living room, talking, crying, laughing... Maddie curled in front of the fire, underneath a blanket from the hospital, wearing one of his shirts.

Her friend Kayla showed up and didn't say a word, just laid down at Maddie's side. We were so thankful she was there to spend that night with Maddie so she wouldn't have to sleep alone in the bedroom she shared with Alex.

26 November 11

Boy, was I glad to see the end of Movember.