8 months.. wow.

It's been 8 months since our last post - can you believe it? That time has just disappeared! After coming back from Canada, I think we felt like we needed a little break from it but decided this morning to jump back on the blogwagon. So here we are!

To catch up on the last 8 months, here's a quick list of what we've been up to:

We bought a house

We renovated a house

Shan got a promotion

Zanne did a copywriting course and got accepted into AWARD School

We have a new nephew

We have a new pseudo-niece

We're in our first lesbian bridal party next month

Our website, My Big Gay Wedding, went live

Shan's tattoo sleeve is almost completed

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary with anniversary tattoos

Zanne's in a band (we rock HARD! ;)

That's all the big stuff I think. I'll do a post about the house after this one, since it's a pretty huge deal for us.

Back to day to day stuff - Shan is training for the Bridge to Brisbane, a 10km fun run that takes place in September. She's currently running about 4.5km in 30 minutes and is working up to the full 10km. She has 6 months to get ready. I'll be walking with the babies and old ladies.

We've also been trying to get out and enjoy our own backyard a little more with camping trips and bushwalking. This morning we went bushwalking with our friend Ange and her 6 week old baby girl Audra. She was lovely and slept the whole 9km/2 hours.

Exciting news! While we were walking this morning, Shan's mum called and Shan's brother's wife is in labour! So we're now eagerly awaiting the arrival of their little guy. Hopefully he'll come sometime this afternoon so we can see him before the weekend is over.

So that's us kinda up to date. I'll do a quick post after this about our new house. Chat soon!

house full of estrogen

So, we haven't talked about her much, but our puppy Nacho is 8 months old now and she has suffered with separation anxiety ever since we first took her home. This has been pretty hard to deal with sometimes, especially when her anxiety has caused her to:

* cry non-stop for no apparent reason for hours on end

* cry so much during the night that she ended up sleeping in our bedroom

* get so upset when we'd leave for work it sounded like she was being stabbed

* rip up the newspaper we'd left down for her 'mess' while we were at work resulting in 'mess' all over the laundry

* scratch a huge hole in our couch

After talking with every semi-expert friend we could, the feedback we kept getting was, "she's a companion dog, she needs a companion". We really didn't want another dog, thinking it could end up being double the trouble, but after trying everything else we figured we needed to give it a go. After doing our research we decided to adopt an adult Golden Retriever. We figured Nacho needed guidance on how to be a big girl and a bigger dog would offer her a sense of protection.

On Saturday we picked up the new addition to our family, the lovely Bailey. She's 7 years old and is a purebred Goldie whose owner died 6 months ago leaving her with her daughter, who could no longer take care of her. They were really lovely people and we've committed to keeping them informed of how Bailey is doing in our home.

Bailey is just gorgeous! She's beautiful looking and has a really awesome, relaxed personality. We're both in love with her and so far she and Nacho are getting along well. Nacho is still a bit nuts but we're hoping time and Bailey will help her settle down.

Shan and Bailey on the day she came home with us.

Chillin in the backyard

Nap time

And, just cos she's so damn cute - our little Nacho trying to eat a bone that's bigger than she is.

they call her 'the painted woman'

A few months ago, my lovely wife decided she wanted to get her half sleeve tattoo extended to a 3/4 or full sleeve. She got in contact with her cool tattooist, Tim, and yesterday we went in for the first session.

Seriously, Shan is wayyyyy tougher than she looks!! She sat for 3.5 hours and had all of the outline and some of the shading on her forearm done, including the inside and outside of her ELBOW - the most painful spots to get a tattoo. She'll need another 1 or 2 sessions to complete it but it looks incredible so far. Tim is a genuis. Oh, and when we mentioned we'd seen him at the Tegan & Sara concert, he said he was there at their request and was asked backstage by them because they want him to tattoo them next time they're in town. Yuh, as if we didn't already think he was super cool.

blood...

did you miss us?

hey peeps! we're back! Well we never really left but we did give blogging a break for a little while. Between moving house and having no internets at home and having jobs that didnt really allow for blogging, we decided to take a break.

But now, we're in our new lovely house complete with internets and we are back into blogging! I gotta keep this one brief as I need to take Nacho for a walk so maybe she'll stop crying for 10 minutes, but we'll write more soon.

Zanne

a case of the hair

Shan is going to love this post - a whole post about my hair. And by love I mean hate and by hate I mean she might just divorce me unless I stop talking about it. But I can't! I'm one of those girls whose hair is more than just hair, it's part of who I am. And I like talking about it and I like talking to other people about it. Shan isn't one of those girls though. She generally keeps the same kinda hairstyle and doesn't really understand how changes to my hair can be so awesome and traumatic at the same time. She just says that my hair looks good in all styles and that I should just do what I want (which is why I love her so damn much!). But I don't know what I want. This has come up because I'm getting a haircut today, for the first time in several months and it's long enough to be cut into several different styles and I can't settle on one. So I'll give you a brief history of my hair and you can help me decide!

When I was a kid, I thought I was a boy for quite a long time. I had short hair, wore the boys school uniform and I asked my parents to change my name to Fred or Steve. At about 11 I got boobs and the boys started seeing me as a girl instead of their mate so I grew my hair out to look more like a girl and it stayed long for the next 14 years. When I came out, I seriously considered chopping it all off so I would look more 'gay' but I didn't, and I just became one of those lesbians with long hair who likes to wear heels and make-up. That's all well and good, until I realised I was being hit on because I had long hair and that the girls who said they liked me probably wouldn't like me so much if I cut my hair off. How do I know that? Because I asked them, and that's what they told me. After more than a few comments along those lines I seriously began considering cutting it all off again, feeling like it would be a very real kind of freedom. But I'd had long hair for so long now, and had let it be part of how I knew myself, so I was really hesitant.

Two years ago, at a Christmas party, this is how I looked.

6 months later, I met Shan and this photo was taken on our first proper date.

My hair stayed the same for a couple of months into our relationship. Anyone with long hair knows that when it's hot, your hair always just ends up in a ponytail. Living in Queensland, my hair was ALWAYS in a ponytail.


One day, Shan and I were discussing getting haircuts and I mentioned that I wanted to do soemthing different, really different, but I didn't know what. We talked through all different styles, looked at many many websites and finally I decided that if I was going to cut it shorter, then I was going to have to go the whole way and just cut it really short, the way I had wanted for years. Shan, of course, was totally supportive and said that if I wanted to, I should just do it. I did want to, but I was scared. I was actually scared Shan could stop loving me if she didn't like my haircut. Sounds stupid now, but if you've ever dated someone who comments on the way you look every single day, pointing out your flaws (even if you now realise you don't have any ;) ), then you can understand how I could feel like that. But she promised to say I look awesome, so I did it!

And I LOVED it! Not only was it awesome to have hair that could be washed, dried and styled in 10 minutes, I did actually love looking more gay AND I noticed guys stopped hitting on me - a totally unexpected plus!

So my hair was short for quite a while and it looked all sorts of different ways, depending on how long I'd spent on it.

I liked it liked this... I won a lifetime membership to our local gay bar, The Beat, in this outfit.

Long, long sideburns.

mo-hawk!

THEN, I decided, after a not-so-good haircut, that I would grow my hair out again. So 'The Zefron' started happening. But I couldn't handle it, so before we left for Canada, I cut it all off again and was really stoked with the cut. I arrived in Vancouver feeling cool with my 'do.

BUT again, I decided to grow it out and figured that Vancouver is good place to do it as it's much cooler and that makes it much easier to deal with long hair. So the growing out began again...

See my little pony?!

So long!

By the time of our wedding, I had long hair. Well, I think it's long, Shan just laughs when I say it.

And now, 2 months later, this is where we're at. When my hair gets long, my two cowlicks prevent my hair from parting anywhere but in the middle. I also have curls at the sides of my head which show up when I have long hair. So it gets all kinky and middle-parted.
Which is fine when it's really long, but this in-between sucks.

And this is how it looks this morning. Long on one side.

short on the other.

and just all in my face.

Shan has picked out one hairstyle I am going to try, which we think my assist in the growing out more stylishly than it is. But then do I even want to grow it out? I don't know! Maybe I should just shave it and buy a bunch of wigs? If anyone has any suggestions for haircuts that would suit me, please write. I need help!!!

seriously, Shan is going to love this post...

It's Christmas!!

well... it's almost Christmas! And as of today, both Shan and I are on Christmas holidays. I know we only just had 3 months off, but damn it feels good to have another 2.5 weeks to do nothing but hang out with friends and work on all our little projects!

This is my project for the next couple of weeks:


cool eh? I found it at Milena's folks place last weekend, in amongst some long grass and pieces of wire fencing. The rims were too rusted to save, but the rest is still ok and I plan to retore it to its former gloriousness! I'm thinking bottle green for the frame, black for the handle bars and brown leather for the seat and grips. Now where do I find a sandblaster...?

i do!

We're getting married today. In 8.5 hours to be exact. And I am surprisingly calm. Maybe it's because we're having such a small get together and there aren't any last minute arrangements to be made? Or maybe it's because I love Shan so much that this just feels like the most perfect thing we've ever done? I think it's the latter.

Sorry for not posting more about our arrangements for the wedding! We literally pulled it together in less than a week, and since there isn't much to it, we wanted to keep it a bit of a surprise. We've actually put together 1/3 of our wedding video already and will insert a bunch of pictures from today and post it as soon as we can.

It's raining in Vancouver today. It was supposed to be clear but it's raining and isn't supposed to clear up until tonight. But that's ok, we bought umbrellas and wouldn't let a little thing like rain stop us from having fun. Our plan for the day is breakfast here at home with Shan and Noah, then we'll get ready and our photographer will be here at midday. We're going to do a bunch of photos in our 'hood, then we'll go into the city and take some more before meeting everyone at the chinese gardens at 3pm. Our nuptials need to be all over by 4pm as the gardens close then and we can head over to the mexican restaurant for dinner and sangria.

I'm really excited to be married, and I'm not even one of those people who always wanted to be married. I never imagined I'd have a white wedding, and always thought that if I found 'the one', I wouldn't care if we got married or not. I just always wanted to be in love. I used to dream about what it would feel like to really fall in love and I'd wonder if I would ever find the person who I knew I wanted to be with forever and they would feel the same. With Shan, for the first time in my whole life, I know what it is to be loved unconditionally. To have someone know everything about me and still love me. I found the person who I know will always stand beside me, support me, encourage me, defend me, humour me, and love me and I don't know if she'll ever realise how much that really means to me. And now, having found that, I want to marry Shan so we can always know we're stuck together ("like magnets," shan said. "Like liquid nails," I countered). and I'm going to love her 'til my heart, or the world, explodes.

fruitcup

Oh the JOY! Shan and Noah arrived today and brought the BEST gift a girl in a foreign country could ask for: Fruit Cup Cordial!!! (Read about me and cordial here). I'm rationing it so it lasts until the day we leave. Oh how I love it! And how I love my lovely soon-to-be wife who asked Shan to bring it over. This is why I'm marrying her! x

if we were water we'd be ice right now

We're in the Okanagan for the weekend and right now it is 10am, sunny and -1c. That's below freezing. What the heck?!

do you wanna do me with this hair? you can call me Russell...

'Holy crap!' said Shan when she saw that I'd actually opened our blog to write something. I've been wanting to blog, I really have! But the last few weeks have pretty much been spent sitting on the couch and applying for jobs and doing assignments etc etc (and maybe watching Kath & Kim etc etc), and that's not really interesting enough to blog about - I don't think so anyway. But then Shan reminded me that we have had a few things happening and I need to update everyone.

On the job front - Shan had another job interview this week, which she finds out about tomorrow. It would be a great job (good money, 6 month contract, possibility of a permanent position after contract) and we're both hoping she gets it, but we're not holding our breathe. We don't want to get our hopes up but we're still thinking positive. If it doesn't happen, she'll start talking to a few more recruitment agencies and see what comes of that.

For me, it's still very quiet. I managed to pick up some freelance work, which is good and it could become an ongoing thing, but I'm still definitely looking for fulltime work. We both need to be employed fulltime if we want to apply for permanent residency in a couple of years. I applied for one position I'd really really like, so fingers and toes.. again. I'm also catching up with a PR manager of a big agency on Wednesday, thanks to a hook-up from the lovely MC. In the meantime I'm keeping busy with various online projects and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do them, so most of the time I'm secretly happy we have all day at home.

It was also great when we had Peta and Martin visit this week. They were wonderful guests and we had a good time showing them the few cool places we know in Vancouver. Peta and I actually know each other from forever ago. I went to primary school with Peta's younger brother and I used to have sleepovers at their house when Mitch and I were like 8 years old. I always remembered her as Mitch's older, much more mature sister. When we were 10 and talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, she was 15 and listening to Nirvana. It was nice to catch up and chat about old times, even if Shan and Martin had no idea what we were talking about.


On Saturday we went to the Qmunity Volunteer BBQ and met some cool peeps. We're both looking forward to getting involved with the GBLT community here. It was a beautiful sunny day that was bitterly cold! We both committed to wearing many layers and carrying gloves with us everywhere we go from now on.

This weekend we're heading out to Mumsie's for a Thanksgiving dinner, before going to the Okanagan for a wine festival with Fan and Trav. Fan, in all her brilliance, managed to snag us a really great deal on an apartment for the weekend so that means more mullah for wine and cheese!

We're missing our friends and family and hope you're all doing good. We talk about everyone all the time and about all the fun stuff we did before we left. As much as we hope to make great friends while we're here, we also hope to pick right up where we left of with the friends we have at home when we eventually make it back there.

under the influence

We just ate dinner and were sitting here watching a bad TV movie and an ad for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups came on. We looked at each other, then at the TV, then at each other. Then I went to 7/11 and bought 2 packets of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

As we enjoyed our Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, another ad for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups came on. Shan commented that we're too influenced by TV. The she said.. "I love you... Peanut Butter Cup". And she wasn't talking to me.

I love you!... but...

As much as we love Vancouver, there are a few things we're still getting used to:

There's no cordial. Anywhere. I know! Anyone who knows me, knows of my addiction to fruit cup cordial. I don't do tea or coffee and only have the odd energy drink because I always had my cordial and thermo. It was the first thing I drank in the morning, and drank it all through my work day. It's my thing and I loved it. But apparently Canada, and all of the US, doesn't stock cordial. When I asked people about it they'd give me a very questioning look and ask if I was after Lime cordial, the only type anyone has. I've requested cordial for Christmas, birthdays, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day and Halloween. If you'd like to send me some cordial, let me know and I'll send you our address. And then I'll kiss you.
There's no standy-up toothpaste in Canada. I've looked in every supermarket we've been to in Vancouver. I know this isn't a huge thing, but it's one of those little things we liked to use, to pay a little extra for the convenience and tidiness. This crisis was averted during our trip to Seattle were I managed to find some and bought three. Woooo!Walking on the right side of the street. After a month we're getting used to it now, but it's scary stepping onto the street and being surprised to see a car coming at you on the wrong side! I've been trying to pay particular attention to getting my right and wrong sides in order since we'll be driving sometime in the next couple of months (thanks to Mumsie and her offer of the use of one of her cars for the next year!).

French and English on every product. From baked beans to conditioner and bus schedules, every label in Vancouver is dual-language. Which is awesome for learning the language, but confusing when you're trying to work out if it's a french word or just an english word we're not familiar with.

Tipping. We love tipping for a job well done, but it's expected here that you tip 15% for almost every service. So it feels like an obligation instead of a reward. The compulsory tipping also means you have to make sure you include it in your calculations for every meal, so you always have to be aware of how much money you've got and how much it's really going to cost you. And if you don't tip at least 10% for every meal etc, you get dirty looks, which I think is quite a bit shit cos it means we end up over-tipping just to avoid anyone spitting in our next meal. We get that the minimum wage here is low ($8/hr), but staff shouldn't have to rely on us paying tips to be able to pay their rent. I might take this whole wage thing up with the B.C. government...

And in addition to the above, we're also still getting used to all the add-ons on every bill or receipt. For example, we bought our new camera recently and the price tag said $789. But when we took it to the till they added PST (provincial service tax) and GST and we ended up paying more than $850. And it's the same with groceries and clothes and take-out. Tax is always added at the end, so the price you see isn't actually the price you're going to pay and you never really know what you're going to pay until you get the bill. Why can't they just add the tax into the price they list?? Surely that would be way easier?

The homeless and the crazies. We knew to expect this, Shan had warned me, but there really are a lot of homeless people in Vancouver. For the most part they're harmless and they just get about with their trollies, collecting cans and bottles for recycling, but it's been a bit scary at times. Like the time we were in a bathroom in a mall and a lady started yelling - "F*ck you! F*ck you! I'm gonna STAB you next time Wendy, you f*king sl*t!" She just mumbled to herself and left but seriously, she could have easily have stabbed anyone right then she was so off her face. And then there was the time we were walking in East Van and this lady walking towards us started screaming at the air around her, telling her invisible friend to "f*ck off you f*ckin' faggot and leave me alone!" That was nice... In Brisbane, the worst you come across are drunks asking for cash. It's the drugged up ones that scare me cos you know they're not seeing or thinking clearly. And unfortunately, there's quite a few of those here.

The positives still outweigh the negatives massively, and we're totally loving being here. Everyday we wake up excited about what the day might bring. We've got plans to go to a Wine Festival in the Okanagan in the next few weeks and we're busy applying for jobs so we can relax and start planning for fun things like our wedding and the babies. So if anyone knows anyone in Vancouver who can offer me a PR job and Shan something great in a law office, that would be super. Call me! *call me signal with right hand*

Lost in translation

I had my first ever accent-related conversation confusion over the weekend. We were at the softball tournament and Trav's friend was telling us about a 4 day camping trip he was going on with his family. The conversation went like this:

Me: so how long will it take you to get there?
Derek: oh about 4 hours or so.
Me: that's not too bad. Will there be bears?
Derek: oh yeah... I'm sure we'll have some beers...
Trav and Fan (at the same time): Not beers, beaRs!
Derek: What?
Trav and Fan: BeaRs! GRRRR (with two hand claw motion)
Derek: Oh BeaRs!
Me: (red face)
Everyone else: (in hysterics)

Let me count the ways

Vancouver, will you marry me? For here are the things we love about thee:

Coffee - for as long as I've known Shan she's been crazy for coffee and she always talked about how much she loved the coffee in Canada. It is different here. You just ask for a coffee and they give you an almost-filled cup of drip coffee and you put in the cream or milk and sugar yourself. It has become a daily ritual for Shan to pick up a coffee every morning from Blenz on our way to anywhere. Luckily for Shan, Vancouver has about 76 coffee shops on each block.

Our apartment - thanks to Chris and Lisa, we get to spend our first 6 months in Vancouver in an awesome apartment, in an awesome part of town with fantastic views and bikes we can use to explore the city! We both agreed that anything after this is going to be a let down..

The city - before we moved here, everytime we mentioned Vancouver to someone who had been here had the same remark - that it was the most beautiful city they'd ever been to. It really is beautiful! The north American architecture of the homes is really cool, the city is really pretty and well kept, the water is clean and clear and the mountains behind the city just make everything perfect. We're lucky enough to enjoy views of the mountain and city from our perfect apartment.

Food - just this week we've managed to find a reasonably priced supermarket, an awesome $2.99 all day breakfast joynt and you can get a $1.50 slice of pizza anytime of the day or night, anywhere around the city. And they're a big slice too. New York Slice in the Valley is ripping everyone off!

Everything is easy - transport is simple and cheap (lots of buses, new train line near our house, you pay $2.50 and you get a pass you can use on any public transport for 1.5 hours), the people are really friendly (the girl at the bank apologised for taking so long, saying she didn't want to give us a bad impression of Canadian banks, even though she was staying behind after close to get our travellers cheque processed!), and the whole process of coming here has been straightforward and easy.

Clothing - As with London, it's much easier to be trendy in a cooler climate. So the fashion is different here. Less singlets and flip-flops and more jackets and sneakers. It's cool. We're enjoying layering and picking up cool clothes fairly cheap. I've been lucky enough to buy two new pairs of shoes (on top of the two pairs I bought just before we left), and Shan bought one new pair for work. I'll be blogging about my new shoes later :)

Dogs - Dogs can go anywhere in Vancouver. Everyone seems more relaxed about dogs here and you can find them everywhere - in the bank, at the employment office, at every park. And they're not just there, they're walking around freely. When we went to get our Social Insurance Number (like our tax file number) yesterday, this girl had a little maltese terrier there and he was just wandering around through all the people and I got to pat him. He was SOOOOOO cute!

Love - Shan and I are honestly more in love here. I think all of the above has made our life happy, made us happy and we can't stop smiling at each other. And because all of Canada has equal rights, we can walk around holding hands and no one cares and we can talk about our wedding and everyone gets excited. See Mr Prime Minister, this country allows gay marriage and society isn't falling apart and the horses aren't eating each other either.

It's only been a week, but...

... I think I'm in love!

Ok, so again, sorry about the lack of posts! Between breakfasts, sightseeing, shopping, assignments and getting sunburnt, we've hardly had any time to just sit and write. But it's Monday morning and I'm up early to update ya'll on our new life and adventures so far. Since I've left it so long between posts, I'm going to try to do some catch up blogs starting with this one, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll actually be back to blogging about the day that just happened!

We left Australia last Sunday morning with our entourage to see us off. There were tears and smiles and lots of photos and it really was a case of mixed emotions. We were so sad to leave everyone but just so excited about finally getting to Vancouver and doing all the things we'd talked about for so long.

After saying our goodbyes and going through immigration we finally boarded our plane at about 11am. We were stoked to hear that our flight to LA was only 12 hours, not the 16 hours we had thought (I don't know why we thought that...) and as soon as we sat down we started going through the inflight entertainment, which was totally awesome! They had full seasons of a bunch of tv shows (Family Guy, CSI etc), documentaries and about 40 movies to choose from - we were loving it. The whole V Australia experience was fantastic. The staff were really nice and happy and the food was great. The only complaint we can make is that we called the day before our flight to see if we could book in online and the girl said no, that all people on flights to the US had to have their visas checked so you had to wait until you got to the airport. I even said "So there's nothing we can do before we get to the airport?" and she said no. So we got to the airport early and ended up being about 6th in line and when we asked for a window seat, we were told they were all taken and we had to sit in the middle row of the plane. So I don't know what happened there or if there's some other way to reserve seats before the flight but we were pretty annoyed that we didn't get to sit by a window. On the upside, the seat next to us was free so we were able to stretch out a bit.

We didn't really get any sleep on the plane and arrived in LA at 7am local time, 11pm for us. We stood in line at immigration and just as we were getting to the front of the line, the drug-sniffing beagle came by, sniffed around my bag and then sat down next to it. I almost died! Not because I was worried about them finding 4 kilos of marijuana in my duffle, but because we had a piece of Aunty Robyn's banana bread in my bag and I was stressing that it was about to cost us an extra 2 hours as they took us into one of those smalls rooms to check all our bags and possibly a conduct a full body cavity search. I quickly told the lady attached to the dog that we just had a piece of cake in the bag and she said it was ok, that he was still learning and really just wanted to eat whatever we had. And they continued on their way.. PHEW! The rest of customs and immgration was fine, except we were asked by every US customs/immigration person we encountered why we had the tourist visa that we had... seriously?! Shouldn't they be aware of why we needed that visa? We had to explain it at every step of the way.

We arrived at the LA domestic airport and found we were too early to put our bags through so we went back to the main airport terminal and had some McDonald's hashbrowns for breaky. We headed back to the other terminal and stood in line to check in for our next flight to Vancouver on Alaskan Air. As we got towards the front, a lady from the customer service desk said she could check us in so we moved over to her area. She was super friendly and said the flight was really empty so she moved us up the plane and put one of us in the window seat and one in the aisle so there was a seat between us so we could have the extra space. We were really happy with that as we were super tired and were both looking forward to sleeping on the 3 hour flight. We made our way to the departure lounge and and spent the next 3 hours trying to nap (me), sending quick emails to family and drinking coffee (shan).

So we finally board the plane around 1pm local time (5am for us) and as we walk to our seat we find a young guy sitting in the seat between ours. Awesome. He kindly offered to change seats so shan and I had the window and middle seats. When we'd booked the flight we'd selected seats towards the back of the plane so we could have a clear view. But the lady had moved us so we could have extra space and now we were right over the wing, and with no extra space at all. We were too tired to care too much and promptly tried to get some sleep. About 15 minutes into the flight the big, unhealthy-looking guy behind us started feeling crook. He stood in the aisle, doubled over, and the flight attendants asked if there was a doctor on the flight. There was, and he came to see the guy, asked him how he was feeling etc. The guy told the doctor he was a diabetic and so the nurse got him some juice and the doctor gave him a lolly and that seemed to calm things down. The flight attendant put him on oxygen and he sat there for about 30 minutes on that. So after like an hour of drama things calmed down and everyone went back to their seats. Then, when everyone was feeling sorry for him and hoping he'd be alright, he started joking around with his buddies about how he shouldnt have drunk all those beers before the flight. Sympathy evaporated in 0.5 seconds.

We arrived in Vancouver at about 4pm local time and were prepared for the 2 hour customs and immgration process, which was how long it had taken Shan to get through last time she'd come through Vancouver airport. We went through customs and and the lady told us to go to immigration so I could get my visa. So we went to immigration expecting a long wait and when we went into the room, it was completely empty except for one other guy and we went straight to a booth and were out of there in about 10 minutes. It was awesome! Oh and the other guy who was in there was denied entry to Canada because of a drink driving charge in the US and was being sent back immediately. He was gutted as he had to start a class the next morning. It was just like an episode of Border Control.

Fannie met us at the airport and took us to her house to see Trav and Weston and they made us some really delicious nachos! She then drove us to our new house, our new home, and we absolutely loved it, right from the beginning. The views are amazing and Chris and Lisa left us instructions for everything. We enjoyed being in our new home for abour 30 minutes before the sleep deprivation finally took over and we went to bed, totally crashing for about 10 hours.

So that was our trip over! I'll post more later today about what we've been up to this week :)

Zanne

if heaven were on earth it would be in Vancouver

Ok, so we love it here! totally! And we're sorry for the lack of posts! we've just been hella busy and have been having minor computer issues so havent been able to write much yet. but we will tomorrow, promise! in the meantime, you can check out our first bunch of photos here -

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=299756&id=674160441

as if we needed another reason...

It was eleventy billion degrees in Brisbane today. Ok, maybe it was only 30 degrees, but seriously - we still have 1.3 weeks of WINTER left! So as if we needed yet another reason to know we are making the best decision when we board our flight to Canada tomorrow, we'll now be looking forward to escaping this scorching Queensland winter and enjoying the mild summer of Vancouver. Bring it on we say!

As of 15 minutes ago (10.30pm, Saturday 22 August), we are packed, weighed and ready to go. We've been wearing the same clothes for 3 days to avoid anymore washing, we've written explanations to all things computerish for Shan's folks, and the internet is finally working again so we're posting our final blog from this little island we call home.

We're both really excited and keep saying things like "i'm so over packing! i'm so over saving! i just want to be there already!" so tomorrow can't come soon enough. t-minus 12 hours to take off!

As a little goodbye to Australia, we put together this video:

See ya in Canada aye!

It's 3am and I can't sleep. Of course I'm thinking about the move and today, about how much I'm going to miss Australia.

In June 2006 I moved to London. I was 23 at the time and had always wanted to go and so one day decided the time was right, I took out a loan (bad choice!), booked a flight and flew out 6 weeks later. About 4 weeks into my trip I got homesick really badly. I missed my mum and dad, I missed my best friend, I was missing out on seeing my nephews grow up and I was struggling with money and my relationship at the time and just wasn't happy. It wasn't the UK trip I had always dreamed of and a big part of me just wanted to come home. I remember one time sitting in the shower and crying because I didn't want anyone to see me and feeling more alone and sad and so far away than I'd ever felt before.

Of course, that feeling passed and I made some really awesome friends and had some of the best times I've ever had, but when I came home 15 months later I was ready. I was ready to settle down for a while and just enjoy being in one place, to get to know all my old friends again and to be close to my family and to meet my 6 month old nephew who had been born while I was away.

But anyone who has travelled understands that the bug soon bites again and I started dreaming of where to go next. When I was in London, the best friends I made were Canadian (and South African and Australian, but mostly Canadian!) and they had said that Canada was a lot like Australia - similar people, similar way of life. Since I love Australia, I knew that if I was to go anywhere else, it would have to be Canada. Then along came the lovely Shan, who had actual concrete plans of moving to Vancouver, and after a short while we decided that we would go together and started the many months of planning.

And that brings us to today - 6 days away from our big move. Our paperwork is in order, the first few weeks of our Vancouver life are planned, parties have been had, goodbyes have been said and the only thing left to do is pack our bags and leave on a jet plane. And of course it's only when the time is so close that you really start to think about everything and everyone you have in your life and how much you're going to miss it all. Having travelled before I know that no matter how prepared you are, and how happy and excited you are to go, you still get homesick.

I know this time around, my experience is going to be completely different. Shan and I have paid off all of our debt and we have all of our paperwork firmly in order so we won't have any stresses back here that we're worrying about. Plus, I love her madly both as a friend and as my fiance, and I can't wait to travel with her, knowing we always have fun no matter where we are or what we're doing. I guess it's just because I have loved our life in Brisbane so much that I'm a little scared of what we're walking away from, especially when I have no idea what to expect in Canada. I have no doubt we're going to have the time of our lives, but I know that there's always that period of adjustment before a new country and city feels like home.

Anyway, I've been rambling for an hour and a half (between checking facebook and reading the news) and I should try to get back to sleep. We're babysitting Noah today and it's Shan's first official day off so I should probably try to get through the day without napping!

Zanne.

trippy

We're moving to canada next week. next. week.

In 4 days it will be 'this week'.

As my best friend Michael always says.. I'm trippin'.

Zanne

more Giselle, because I can

We're finally meeting our new little neice tomorrow and I'm super excited. We bought her lots of essentials (nappies, towels, wet wipes, onesies etc) so we'll travel to the coast tomorrow and hang out with my sis and the baby for the morning. Then hopefully we'll get in for new haircuts. We're both in dire need of a haircut.

Here's a new piccie of little GiselleAnd here's a new piccie of the happy little family!