dear grandma

i'm so sad that you left us, but i hope that you and grandpa have been reunited in heaven and you're happy again. you lived an amazing 95 years as a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, and i'm honoured to have been part of it for 30 years. the past few days i've been thinking back to my childhood, and i'm so glad to have lots of happy (and funny) memories:

• eating popsicles on your driveway after family bike rides around steveston
• picking all the fruits and vegetables from your garden
• looking for frogs in your ditches
• finding (and eating) marshmallow bars (and various other items) that you'd hidden in your chest-of-drawers
• you're the only person i know who bakes cookies while watching exercise shows on tv
• finding your dentures in totally random locations :)
• when i was a pre-teen i had a crush on one of the workmen doing repairs to your house, and you told me to give him a popsicle, but i was way too shy so you did it for me :)
• the pink wall-mounted rotary phone in the front hallway always fascinated me, as did the rice-bag of eggshells at your back door
• the new year's day family gatherings at your house...always so much food to be eaten!
• watching japanese beta videos while you sewed
• seeing you scoot around in your custom-made walking wheelchair

yesterday was emotionally draining for everyone, and i'm sad for the days ahead. don't worry about aunt billie...mom and aunt miki are looking after her...she's in good hands :) the hardest part of you being gone is finding something to keep me busy on sunday afternoons now. for 9 years, it's been a routine and all of a sudden, i have nothing to do. i spent my first sunday at mom & dad's so that kept me pre-occupied...but what to do this sunday?

first i lose you, and next week i'm losing nugget...2008 has been pretty rough so far. i'm looking for the sunshine again somewhere on the horizon.

i love you grandma and miss you lots.
love, tracey

a wickaninnish weekend!

on friday afternoon chris, nugget, and i made the journey out to The Wickaninnish Inn in tofino. i wouldn't recommend driving the pacific rim highway at night...the road winds alot, and the conditions weren't the greatest...lots of potholes :P but during the day, the drive is definitely more pleasant, especially in the cathedral grove area near port alberni.

view from our 2nd floor room

chris and i both enjoyed our spa treatments at the ancient cedars spa, and nugget definitely enjoyed his time on the beach. here are a few pix...

view of the sunset from the hotel lobby and our room

um, there goes the window!

wow, talk about an exciting end to my day! in case you missed it, our office building (terasen gas) made the headline news on most of the tv stations. one of the windows on our 19th floor had cracked back in december (possibly due to debris from shangri-la; it was due to be repaired any day) but today's windstorm was the last straw, and it just blew right out! fortunately it was held in place by the caulking on one side, but that's about it. the 4 x 3 ft sheet of tinted glass was flapping about...back & forth, back & forth...a few times it was pretty scary...we thought it would crash right through onto our floor! uh yah, did i mention that particular window is like 6 feet from my desk?!

i'm not sure how to describe the windowpane, but we're lucky that it was a dual-layer (?) and the inside part of the window is still intact...so no, our office doesn't have a new air conditioning unit :-) you can view the newsclip here. within minutes of the incident, georgia street was shut down and traffic (vehicle and pedestrian) was diverted.

on a happy note, none of us were hurt during the incident, asides from having the bejeezus scared outta us. anyhoo, shortly after the incident i shut down my computer and nugget and i kept well away from the window! i've never seen any windows shake and rattle so much before! for once, i had a front-row seat of the action!

when i finally left my office an hour late, i had my 15 seconds of anonymous fame on news1130...if you heard the 2 different clips i apologize...i'm not the most elloquent speaker, nor do i know any big descriptive words :P and now i'm looking forward to work tomorrow...i am absolutely fascinated and i desperately want to know what the next step is! the 4 of us sitting right beside the window might need to be temporarily relocated tomorrow...yikes!

h&r update

here we are one week after the new year's hit & run incident. in the past week, i've dealt w/the rcmp, icbc and cdi. i finally saw my claims adjuster this morning at icbc, and was informed they have started an investigation into the h&r. they've taken the partial plate along with the make and model of the car and are hoping to narrow it down to a handful of vehicles and find the person responsible for the damage. i also received an estimate on the damage...less than $2,000 (give or take...depends on the labour charges) and i'm hoping to get it into a repair shop by the end of the month.

on another update front...nugget had his first puppyclass of 2008, and i was pleased to get positive feedback from several observers. everyone thought nugget had improved greatly over the holidays...some of his obedience commands were stellar! but of course, he still picked on the weakest dog during his solo off-leash time. poor trixie didn't know what was happening to her! and alas, the end is near...nugget is being turned in to PADS on february 5. at our class next week, we'll be informed of the "procedures" for that fateful day :( in the meantime, we'll enjoy our last month together with our boy...we still have a few more adventures to get through!

(un)happy new year

2008 started off with a bang. literally.

after a drum-tastic NYE party @ vic's, chris and i were 5 feet away from our condo driveway when a car pulled out of it's parking spot and hit my car. as if hitting us weren't bad enough, after i made eye-contact w/the male driver, he totally took off! yes, that's right...we are another hit & run statistic :P

at the ungodly time of 3:40 a.m., it's absolutely amazing that there was a (sober!) witness who came forward, after attempting to chase the male driver to get his licence plate. lucky for us, we got the make & model of the car, and the witness got a partial licence plate.

chris and i were shaken up, me more so...suffering minor back stiffness and neck pain, and harbouring a lot of anger at the driver especially after seeing the damage to my car...there's a significant dent, crack and scratching along the passenger door and body of my car. thankfully nugget wasn't hurt either! poor guy was startled from his deep-sleep and couldn't understand what was going on :-(

needless to say, my hopes of making custard cookies on new years day were crumbled. instead, chris and i had to go to the rcmp detachment to complete our police report, followed by a conversation w/icbc dial-a-claim, and then canadian direct insurance.

i truly hope that we were able to provide enough evidence for a thorough and complete investigation into this accident. after the holidays, who can afford to pay for car repairs/deductible, etc.?