As clearly demonstrated in that photo, Emily can barely contain her excitement. Also, not as demonstrated in that photo, you did not have to be blonde to participate. I get comments on this a lot, but it is just a coincidence. I think there was something in the water where we grew up.

Anyway, Blue Mountain is a ski resort, and kind of like Ontario’s version of Whistler (only nowhere near as awesome as Whistler). I have stayed there quite a few times for work, as my old organization’s alpine skiing championships took place there (I blogged about it a couple of times). In the summer the skiing conditions look like this…

It’s more of a giant hill than a mountain, but since we are mountainless in Ontario we have to get creative. Blue Mountain has a ton of summer activities in addition to winter skiing stuff, and it also has a really cute village with a bunch of restaurants, shops, bars, etc.

The gorgeous chalet Emily had rented was about a two minute walk from the village, so we arrived early Saturday afternoon, got all settled in, and headed over there to check it out.

The village was hopping! A live band was playing that was actually pretty good, and tons of people were out enjoying the sunshine. The people-watching was fantastic.

Our friend Leon is pregnant (yay baby!), so we hit up an Irish pub for lunch so she could feed her ginger fetus.

Em and I

Julie, Dawn, and Sara

I love beer on a sunny patio so, so much. One of my favourite summer activities.

I had a bagel on the way up so my hunger monster was not in danger of making an appearance and actually I wasn’t really hungry at all. I can always eat though, so Em and I ordered nachos to share with our table. They were ridiculously cheesy and delicious.

As nachos should be. Nobody else really had a great experience here though. The service wasn’t the best and a couple of the salads had brown lettuce. It’s hard to mess up nachos though, and I loved them, so my only complaint was that our server never came back so I could order more beer.

Since the day was beautiful, the rest of the afternoon was spent at the spa/pool area. The pool is indoors, but there were several different outdoor hottubs on various levels.

It was nice and leisurely.

The restaurants in the village are a bit more expensive than what’d you’d find for the same thing elsewhere (typical with touristy spots), so rather than eat out twice we decided to have a big family dinner, Jersey Shore style.

Can’t go wrong with frozen pizza!

Cheap and it hit the spot. And Leanne’s pasta salad was ridiculous and sounded really easy to make. I will have to recreate.

After dinner we played some games (toss the rings on the blow-up birthday cake), and did some shots…

And we also celebrated Dawn’s sister Melon’s birthday. Her cake was beautiful.

And very appropriate.

As is customary around here, we had some props for the bar. I’m pretty sure Dawn brought the entire contents of her Tickle Trunk, and we had some new additions also. Like this trumpet.

To replace the saxophone. The trumpet was actually more fitting for Emily, as she played the trumpet in high school.

And we also had the baby.

To replace Troy.

Dawn got Melon one of those random Dollar Store  surprise bags for her birthday, which came with a colouring book complete with markers, so we brought those along as well. One of my favourite moments of the evening was when Melon coloured the lips of a random man with the red marker like lipstick.

This picture demonstrates it quite well also.

I was worried about the trumpet because when we had the saxophone we would put drinks in the bell of the saxophone and make people drink out of it, but I didn’t see how that was going to happen with the trumpet. When I brought up my concern to Dawn she said “Oh but we can just funnel a drink straight through the trumpet into someone’s mouth.”

So that’s what we did.

And then the bouncer came over and said he needed to confiscate the trumpet and here is how that conversation went:

Bouncer – I am going to have to take that trumpet.
Me – Why?
Bouncer – Because you just used it to pour a drink down someone’s throat.
Me – Oh, that’s true. We did do that.
Bouncer – We feel like that could happen again.
Me – Probably. It did work out really well the first time.

So the trumpet got taken away for a while. But we were able to get our “property” back as we were leaving to go to another bar.

We looooved that man’s soft leopard vest. Lucky Emily got to wear it.

Ohh it was a great night. 

Dawn had a couple of great recaps of our adventures as well if you want to check them out:

• Blue Mountain Birthday Babes – Part 1
• Blue Mountain Birthday Babes – Part 2

(This picture is from Emily’s amazing birthday party last year.)

Em’s birthday was on Saturday, and she and her lover Corey hosted a big barbecue at their love shack for all of their family and friends. Evan and I skipped out on the evening painting activities (oh darn!) to attend this, so we quickly went from painty slob-fest…

To apropos barbecue attire.

I originally wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to make it to the party because it is about an hour and a half drive to Em and Cork’s from Evan’s cottage (and for some reason it took us two hours to get home), but Evan is beautiful and when I brought up my concern about this he immediately offered to drive. I was so happy. Emily is the greatest, most thoughtful friend (remember the stocking she got me for Christmas?!) and I would have been so sad to miss her big day. I still remember playing velcro catch in Emily’s backyard on her 10th birthday, so I had to see her turn 30!

And it was great to see all our old pals.

Friends since Grade 9!

I wouldn’t have thought Emily and Corey could outdo their free pony rides (but not actually) soiree for Emily’s birthday last year, but I was wrong. Those two sure know how to throw a party.

They had the typical BBQ fare of burgers and hotdogs, so I scored a burger and also some of everything on this table.

And maybe this table also…

I was especially excited for that cherry cheesecake. Homemade and delicious.

The birthday girl accidentally burned her finger while attempting to blow out her sparklers, but she is a trooper and didn’t let her finger burn damper her evening.

She was still quite happy.

We played some fun games outside for a while, like frisbee cup.

It’s a drinking game. You are supposed to throw a frisbee at the other team’s sticks and if the cup flies off the other team has to drink (we also played this at my friend Leah’s bachelorette on the beach last summer). No one should have ever put Dawn and I on a team together because we were both not the greatest at the frisbee throwing.

I am going to say I was distracted by Dawn’s amazing mustache glasses. We both seemed to get better the more we drank though, and Emily and her sister Sara (in the picture beside Dawn) were quite good. They were able to redeem us so we could get these guys over here to drink.

Also in attendance were all the parents who chaperoned us at Dawn and Mark’s wedding in Jamaica in January.

Well I say chaperoned, but in reality they drank more than we did. Aren’t they the cutest, happiest grown-ups of all time? They had quite the reunion. Dawn and I were explaining to Julie’s dad Kenny that in Jamaica we each had a day when we were the most intoxicated (catamaran for Dawn, Negril for me), and we asked Kenny what his day was. His response was “I guess pretty much the entire time,” which made us laugh hard.

I also told Kenny that I didn’t recognize him without his sunglasses on.

Because in Jamaica he wore them the entire time. Even indoors.

Kenny enjoys us quite a lot, and us him.

We also convinced Kenny that he should drink a beer out of the Oktoberfest boot. He said okay.

He had to wear the birthday cape for this.

And not to be outdone, Leanne’s dad Bobby did the boot thing as well.

And since those are our examples of how to be a proper adult, the birthday girl and I mayyyy have gotten in on this boot action also. And I may have been wearing the birthday cape…

Oh it was a fun time.

So happy dirty 30 to my little Emilio! Thank you for hosting the best party!

And thank you for the beautiful photobomb Joel!

I said at the end of my post for Emily’s birthday last year that 29 years from then I hoped we would be throwing parties just like that one, and I am happy that at least one year later nothing has changed!

Dawn had a really great post about Emily’s birthday also if you want to check it out.

Yep, we paint with beer. It makes it way more fun, like a painting party. We were happy painters.

Just happy painters all around.

Oh wait.

Evan and I actually had to leave  around 4pm on Saturday because we had my good friend Emily’s 30th birthday barbecue to attend. So we got all cleaned up and headed over to that, and it was the most fun break of all time. More on that later though, because it needs a separate post.

On Sunday morning we were back at the cottage for more leisurely shenanigans. And it was actually a nice day! Surprise! We also had a couple of things to celebrate, Brotherman and Kelly’s impending nuptials (yayyyy lovers!), and also Kelly’s birthday.

So we all headed to the Victoria Inn in Gores Landing to get our celebration brunch on.

It was so nice. Just the cutest little inn ever. The eight of us sat on the gorgeous back patio, which had a very nice view of the lake.

Well, if that tree wasn’t in the way it would.

It was a big party of lovers. We had Kelly and Michael (Brotherman), the guests of honour…

Evan’s cousin Barb and her husband Brian…

Don’t Barb and Evan look alike? I think they do!

Evan and I…

With our mimosas.

And the ultimate lovers, Evan’s Uncle Gino and Auntie Eedie.

Who are great. Uncle Gino makes me laugh hard.

Nearly all of us ordered the sweet potato soup and the pan-fried Cajun pickerel.

No regrets here. Both were delicious. My dad used to make the most amazing pickerel ever (breaded with Cornflakes!) and it didn’t quite compare to that, but it was still really good and I enjoyed it.

Kelly’s vegetarian plate looked pretty great as well.

I had apple crisp with ice cream for dessert, but I accidentally deleted my picture of it, so here’s Barb’s blue cheese dessert plate with ice wine.

I thought that blue cheese was the only kind of cheese I didn’t like but oh boy was I wrong. I think I just don’t like it in sauce form, because I loved that blue cheese!

It was a really great brunch, with lots of toasting to Brotherman and Kelly.

I should mention that almost Evan’s entire family (and his friends) call him The Porpoise, or Porpy, or Porp because he was such a graceful swimmer when he was younger. Aww, haha. It is a funny nickname, and I am pretty much the only one who calls him Evan. It’s also funny because my parents used to call me Mermaid because I liked swimming so much (no one said I was graceful).

Anyway, after brunch we headed back to the cottage for some leisuring. It’s so beautiful!

It looks like a movie cottage.

I immediately set up shop in that hammock, right by the lake.

So super comfy. Uncle Gino brought over a second hammock and set it up so I had some company…

And this was my view as I drifted off to sleep.

Perfect. It may have been the best nap of my life.

It was just an excellent weekend all around. And I’m hoping the nicer weather is finally here to stay.

They had some pretty amazing speakers lined up: Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine; Seth Godin, author, blogger, and overall marketing genius; Charles Duhigg, a New York Times reporter and author; Jonah Berger, professor and viral marketing expert; and David Usher, musician, frontman of Moist (terrible word/name for a band, just saying), and he also did his solo thing for a while.

David Usher was up first, and to be honest he was the speaker I was most looking forward to.

Because I used to really like Moist. I saw them in concert a few times. I immediately tweeted about this…

(I got it back, not to worry. This was my first big concert and before I learned that maybe flip flops weren’t appropriate mosh pit attire.)

David Usher actually saw this tweet and read it out loud to the entire. audience. (about 2,000 people) during his presentation. I nearly fell off my chair when I realized it was mine. I was so excited.

Anyway, fangirl comments aside, his presentation was great. He spoke about creativity and how everyone is creative, even if they think they are not. There are many different ways to be creative, as I’m sure we all know. I actually have a lot to say about this so I think I am going to do a separate post about it.

He also performed a bit at the Art of Marketing.

Which was pretty awesome. Probably the most exciting conference speaker I have witnessed.

But they were all good. I took something away from all of them. From David Usher I took away that everyone can be creative, and creativity is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it is.

From Jonah Berger I took away the notion that you can engineer your content to be more viral, you just need to use the right tools. I think the biggest tool he covered that stuck with me was to find the “inner remarkability” of things. If something isn’t remarkable, make it exciting. He used Blendtec (a blender company) as an example of this:

How hilarious is that boring blender now?

I mean, my life isn’t all that exciting, but I blog about it anyway.

He also said, basically, tell stories. People like stories. They will share them.

From Seth Godin I took away that bald is beautiful.

And that you should do something that might not work. Something that matters, something original, but something that might fail. And that if failure is not an option, neither is success.

From Charles Duhigg I learned that there is a science in habits. Cue, routine, reward. He also was talking about how it’s been proven that people who make exercise a habit are better at life in general, and he had a bunch of examples for this. It really inspired me to run regularly again (umm, haven’t ran since…but I will!)

And from the man Biz (who, by the way, is really funny), I took away that you can take away something from everything, coincidentally. Everything is a life lesson. And also that you can rave on about anything if you are important enough. Everyone will hang onto your every word.

He also talked about philanthropy being the future of marketing, because people are attracted to meaning. I really like this idea, and that is the world I want to live in. I can’t get behind just wanting to make money. That is not something that will ever drive me. I like to feel like I am doing something that has a purpose, you know?

So anyway, the conference was great. My only complaint would be that they didn’t have lunch. I might actually fill out the online survey and for the question that says “What would you like to see at the Art of Marketing 2014?” I will probably write “Lunch. Snacks.”

I didn’t starve though, I found a friend!

I randomly bumped into my fave Canadian blog pal Stephanie Fusco and we had a triple lunch date with her friend Shannon (who recognized me from my piggyback fail video, ooooh). We went to Lonestar Texas Grill across the street for fajitas and margaritas.

Texas-sized margaritas. Just living the dream.

Lonestar used to be my favourite chain restaurant. I cannot get enough of their fajitas.

They have gone down in quality a bit I think since I have last been there. But they make their own wraps themselves and those are amazing.

Anyway, it was a fun day, I learned a ton, and I’m so glad I ran into Steph! Good times all around.

Have a great weekend! Back to paint-fest for me!

Laura and I

I had such a fun time that when my team asked if I wanted to play with them in the spring league I was all over it. So for the past five weeks, every Tuesday, I’ve been at Ashbridges Bay for some sweet volleyball action.

My team members Ryan (he is not usually quite that hardcore looking), Laura and Matt. Our team has nine people in total, mostly from my old work building. You may remember Matt from my the day I tried rowing.

That was an adventure and a half.

My friend Hannah (<- remember the time we went to a cat show?) is on my team also, but sadly she couldn’t make it last night because she was reffing soccer. She is very athletic and is good at pretty much every sport. I am so in awe of people who are sporty.

The spring league is definitely not as busy as the summer, but there are still quite a lot of teams. And we are still exactly average in the rec league. The standings were posted last night and we are 12th out of 29. Actually, I think that’s better than last year.

Last night we sucked pretty hard though. Volleyball is the only sport with a ball I am moderately good at (as in, I can usually get the ball over the net, with a lot of enthusiasm!) but last night I had a couple superstar moves and I have no idea where they came from. I was feeling very proud of myself and I was thinking maybe it was going to be a turning point for me and I was suddenly going to be a volleyball prostar. And then I got hit directly in the face with the ball. And that was the end of that. My newfound skills were suddenly gone and I was back to average. Ho hum. Oh well, everyone said it looked hilarious, so at least I was still entertaining.

It is a ton of fun though, even when we lose (or get hit in the face), and I am grateful for any activity that gets me on the beach in the sunshine.

It’s gorgeous down there. That whole area is really nice, and there is a huge boardwalk that runs beside the beach.

It is a lot less fun when it rains though, which we have encountered more times this spring than in the summer. It’s cold, and the ball gets caked with sand so when you hit it you get sand all in your face. Fun times.

So that’s what’s been up on the volleyball front.

We stopped at a Tim Hortons on the way up, which also had a Cold Stone Creamery in it, and when I saw this I couldn’t say no…

That would be cake batter ice cream with sprinkles sandwiched between two Tim Hortons chocolate chip cookies. So it was basically my dream. It is a very good thing there aren’t any Cold Stone Creameries located close to me because I could easily eat that every day.

We also stopped at the Golden Beach Resort on Rice Lake, which is near their cottage and a frequent hangout for those lads.

Evan is quite a catch, I cannot lie (also, who painted this picture? Why does my hand just disappear into my hip?)

We went to the little restaurant there for dinner, and I was excited about it as Evan and Brotherman have been raaaaaving on about this place to me for months.

It was very cute and rustic, and it definitely had a cottagey vibe. This amazing sign was apparently in the men’s bathroom.

I didn’t actually see it (because I’m not allowed in there), but Brotherman took a picture on his phone to show me. I was very disappointed to find zero signs in the women’s washroom. There was just a boring poster for some shopping event. Does being a lady mean I can’t enjoy a clever beer sign?! No it does not.

We ate on the patio, which was nice until it started to get dark and the mosquitos were all up in my grill. I grew up in a forest though, so I am used to those annoying little bastards. I like it when they bite my eye.

I lied. I do not (this picture is not from this weekend. I avoided getting bit on the eye).

Anyway, I liked the patio. It will full of interesting characters, like an intoxicated father yelling at everyone and talking about his nether regions very loudly, and a male chef in oversized red stilettos. Definitely a frequent sight in the city, but a pleasant surprise in cottage country.

I started my cottage weekend off right with a big ol’ pint.

And the haddock and chips were the Friday night special, so that’s what we all ordered.

That was actually the small, and it was huge. And really delicious.

We finally arrived at the cottage and were greeted by most of Evan’s family on his dad’s side: his aunt and uncle, and cousins and families, none of whom I had met before. They were all very nice and welcoming, and they had a cheese platter laid out with about 10 different kinds of cheese, so of course I liked them all immediately.

Evan’s cottage is gorgeous.

This is the view from their deck. Their property is very secluded, and it’s probably the biggest cottage I have been to. It has two floors and a walkout basement with five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a living/dining room. Which is awesome, but bigger is not exactly better when you are painting every single one of those rooms and laying down new floor in almost all of them. That was what our Saturday activities consisted of.

Here is the family room before the new floor…

And this is it after (but not painted yet).

The floor is beautiful! I cannot take any credit for that, it was all Evan and his cousin’s husband. Evan was the official saw handler.

Note the protective glasses and ear muffs. Safety first, friends.

We are not quite done and will be returning this weekend to finish, but with 10 people working we accomplished quite a lot!

I was absolutely covered in paint afterwards. I had it everywhere.

I can’t paint and not have it all over me. I don’t know how it is possible. But I told everyone that I purposely got paint all over myself so it looked like I was working hard. Oh I know the tricks.

But I did work very hard. I will basically do whatever you want if you pay me in food, which Evan’s family must have known, because they paid me quite well.

Dinner Plate #1

Yeah I get down with fake cheese sometimes.

Dinner Plate #2

I actually didn’t mind working at all, and I feel like that is a very good environment to get to know people. It was a good first family meeting, and I definitely feel pretty comfortable around them all now (painting for 8 hours will make you a little loopy and say weird things). Plus a lot of the weekend looked like this:

So I wasn’t exactly rushing outside to be in the sunshine. I didn’t even go swimming!

But I did get out for a bit on Sunday to read my book on the deck.

It was overcast for a lot of the day so I didn’t put on sunscreen, and of course I managed to get a bit of a sunburn. I NEVER used to burn EVER, my entire childhood. Stupid sun. It does not like me anymore.

Anyway, it was a good weekend and I was really sore yesterday. I drank a lot of beer also. Oh, and Evan’s Uncle Gino is my new favourite. That is all.

Sounds like weird lunch meat was the least of my worries. I probably ate congealed blood and pig’s knuckles. There were a lot of weird mystery items in that soup. When I read this comment to Evan he said “Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember you struggling with some kind of cartilage-type thing.” Welp. Pig knuckles! A hoof, basically. I may have eaten a hoof.

I feel like if you are going to include weird ingredients in your menu items, those weird ingredients need to be listed on your menu. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. Normally if I am at a restaurant that is outside of my culinary boundaries culturally, I just eat without asking questions because I am afraid of the answer. What’s in that sushi? Oh, octopus testicles? Fabulous. Didn’t need to know that.

I think those days may be over for me now. Now I feel like I need to know. If there’s blood in my soup (congealed  blood), I’d like to know. Ah well, all good, just a life experience.

Anyway, moving onto more delicious things. I went to Evan’s house after work on Wednesday and when I got there he was roasting a chicken for dinner.

So for dinner we had an entire chicken, stuffing (stove top but I’ll take it), gravy, and Brotherman’s slaw. What is this, Thanksgiving?!

Nope, just another day at their pad. This is not even for my benefit, I promise. They are constantly cooking these elaborate dinners. And breakfasts. This is what they made me for breakfast yesterday.

A frittata with a bunch of vegetables, ham, and a chocolate chip waffle.

No lie, this is an every day thing. Here are two other breakfasts I have enjoyed there lately:

STEAK and eggs.

PEROGIES and eggs.

No one has ever cooked for me like this before. I don’t even know how to express my gratitude. I guess blog about it.

They also just got a juicer, so my breakfast yesterday was followed by juice with mango, orange, and grapefruit.

It tasted like Florida!

On Wednesday evening I was talking to Dawn on the phone for a while in another room, and Evan came in and surprised me with a glass of carrot, apple, orange, and ginger juice, instructed me to take a giant sip of it, and then poured wine into it to top it off. I can’t even explain my reaction to that. I thought I was dreaming.

So anyway, don’t blame me if I move in there. Winnie cooks me jack squat over here.

Yeah, but your love isn’t edible Winnie.

I am going away for the weekend, and though I am excited about leaving the city, I am a little bit sad because it’s a huge food weekend in Toronto and I am going to miss it.

First of all there’s the first annual Halal Food Festival at the International Centre, which according to the website is two days of food in seven festival areas and 60 food sampling stations. Oh, and there’s a cheese seminar. I’m really sad to miss that especially.

And Sunday is Burger Day. All-you-can-eat sliders, various kinds, from 67 restaurants, for $30. It’s at Artscape Wychwood Barns.

It’s a good weekend to be a Torontonian. If you go to either of those events, please tell me how they are. I want details!

Have a great weekend! Eat lots! But stay away from the pig knuckles. The congealed blood also.

The first time I went there with him was the day before we left for Florida, and I cannot lie, I didn’t have the best experience.

Evan told me he always gets the same noodle dish and never strays from it because the menu is extensive and kind of hard to decipher so sometimes you just don’t know what you’re going to get. Brotherman told me that one time he went there and ordered something random off the menu, and his soup came out with an entire pig’s foot on top of it. Evan suggested that I let him order for me as he knows the safe, pig’s foot-free dishes that are delicious, but I was stubborn and didn’t listen and I ordered the bun bo hue dac biet, a soup with pork, for myself.

Evan was very skeptical of my selection and was all “don’t say I didn’t warn you…” before my soup arrived. Probably I should have listened to him.

It’s not that the flavour wasn’t good… But I was surprised to see lunch meat in it. And not just any lunch meat, the lunch meat that includes other meat and vegetables.

You know the kind I mean.

Ughhhh no. I don’t get weird about food very often, but that stuff really creeps me out. I don’t know what it was doing in my soup, but I didn’t want Evan to be all “I told you so” gloaty-pants so I ate a piece of it anyway and said it was delicious. It wasn’t. So I ended up eating most of Evan’s noodle dish, which was much better.

This weekend Evan brought me back there to turn my experience around. With the promise that I would listen to his recommendation.

We started with sweet tea and beer.

Pretty good combination right there.

And for an appetizer we got the shrimp tempura, which you really can’t go wrong with ever.

And here is what Evan ordered for me.

The bun cha gio, thit nuong, chao tom. Or grilled pork, shrimp, spring rolls and vegetables on top of rice noodles. Big improvement over my weird lunch meat soup!

It’s served with fish sauce on the side, so you add that to the dish and mix it all up.

I went to smell the fish sauce before adding it to the dish (because I like to smell things) and Evan stopped me and said no, don’t smell it, just pour it on top. This time I listened to him, as maybe he knows what he’s talking about…

Anyway, I really, really liked this dish. The pork and the spring rolls were my favourite, but the shrimp was really interesting. It was kind of like ground shrimp and it was wrapped around a stick of sugar cane.

Much, much better experience this time, and my opinion of this place changed right around. I still do want to go back here and try different things, because a lot of the dishes on their menu do look really good. I think I will just need to ask more questions so I don’t end up with intestines or (shudder) tripe. No thanks.

What’s the weirdest dish you’ve ever gotten in a restaurant?

I don’t think I have been to the school since I graduated in 2002 (it’s far from me now), but it hasn’t changed at all.

I arrived a bit earlier than the rest of my pals to help Mr. B and his wife Jan set up the decade rooms. Inside the school there are five classrooms, and each had a slideshow and various pictures and paraphernalia detailing different decades, from the 1940s to the 2000s.

Ah, the old science lab.

The main part of the school is very, very small.

That is the view as soon as you walk in. There is the office and three classrooms on the main floor, and two more classrooms (one is also a library), teacher’s lounge and the attic on the second floor. The basement is where the locker rooms and washrooms are.

So the entire student body doesn’t exactly fit inside the school, and I don’t think I have ever seen it as crowded in there as it was on Friday with all the people touring through it. There’s a bunch of portables in the back for the other classrooms.

And a double portable (which we called the lunch portable) that is used as the cafeteria and gym (and apparently now a weights room). I heard there was food being served in there, so after everything was set up that’s where I headed. Just to check it out, you know.

The desserts in there were dynamite.

When Dawn arrived and asked where I was someone said “In the lunch portable,” and she told me she was like “Hmm, this sounds familiar…”

Dawn, Emily, and Joanna arrived around the same time so the four of us got our tour on. It felt like old times!

I found a pretty good picture of Mr. B in the 1990s – 2000s decade room (which had a recording of our band playing in there on a stereo).

If there’s at least one thing I’ve learned since high school it’s definitely how to take a better picture…

Unimpressed.

I also found our graduation pictures in our decade room.

We had some Grade 12′s who graduated with us when we were in OAC (Grade 13), so our actual class was smaller than that. Here it is in all its glory.

Pretty huge.

After looking around the decade rooms, the four of us went on an adventure in the rest of the school and visited our old hangouts.

Like the attic, which I don’t think students are supposed to be in unless they need something…

Like pinnies. There are so many random items to be found in there.

And we had big time nostalgia in our old locker room.

I felt like I had never even left. I still felt like I was a student there.

I had so many warm and familiar feelings, and it was so good to see everyone.

Almost all of our old teachers were in attendance, so we decided we wanted to get a group picture with all of them. We asked the current principal if he could help us make an announcement about it over the PA, which we were banned from for a little while in Grade 12 because one time we got inappropriate on there. So he brought us to the office and we started making a list of all our teachers and we maybe got a little rowdy, and the principal said to us “I can see why you girls were banned…”

He liked us though.

Much more than our principal did. We told him our Grade 12 year would have been a dream if he had been our principal. I hope current students are not taking him for granted. They don’t know how good they have it.

Anyway, our announcement was funny and it worked. We rallied up all our old teachers.

You can probably spot Mr. B and Marni in that photo, who we still see now. And our friends Beth (right, with her little baby!) and Allison (next to me on the left) made it for our group shot also.

I was really surprised at the number of teachers in attendance who don’t actually teach there anymore. Two are missing from this photo who were there earlier and had to leave, including my Grade 9 teacher Mrs. Ellis. I really remember her because she gave me 98% in Grade 9 English. Yes yes.

It’s such an amazing school and I have nothing but happy memories of my time there. I saw so many people who I haven’t seen in years, and it was great to hear everyone’s unique memories of our little school. I am very sad to see the school close. It will always hold a special place in my heart.

Although there is a public meeting this Wednesday (May 29 at 7pm at CCPS) to determine if the board followed the proper process for closing the school, and the decision could actually be reversed. More info on that here. So it’s possible we’ll all be meeting again in a few years and doing a big re-goodbye. But, any excuse for a party.

Anyway, it was a really good time and I am so glad I went. I love that little school!

(Edit: Dawn had a really great post about this as well if you want to check it out)

But nope, plans were foiled. The balconies in my building are being redone, so at 7:32 this morning I was woken abruptly to the sweet sound of a jackhammer outside my window. An actual jackhammer, and yes, at 7:30. Are you even allowed to start work before 9 on weekdays? I thought there was a rule about that. Normally this wouldn’t matter and I’d already be awake for work, but this morning I was not a happy camper about it. I feel sorry for people who do not work during the day. This is going to put a damper on a lot of leisuring in my building.

So I can’t use my balcony now for probably the whole summer. My door is nailed in from the outside as I might wander out there and fall to my death.

But I’m sad. I very much like my balcony. At least it will look nice for the winter.

In other news it was my dad’s 62nd birthday on Wednesday, so after work Evan and I drove over to their place for a barbecue. It took us almost two hours to get there because of the beautiful Toronto traffic. That shouldn’t be news to me as I used to commute from around there to Toronto every day for work, and each way took me at least an hour because of traffic. But now that I am in the city that is soo farrrrrrrr. I now understand why people who live in Toronto don’t leave the city. Vair annoying.

Anyway, barbecue. We had burgers and my stepmom Mona had every condiment imaginable laid out and ready for us.

I think I love burgers for the condiments. I loaded them all on there.

First barbecued burger of the year and it was fabulous.

And there was also cake for Bobby’s birthday.

62 years young!

The cake was vanilla and strawberry with whipped cream and it was delicious.

Mona always finds the best cakes!

I know what my dad likes and that is the Montreal Canadians, so my gifts to him are usually of that nature. I got him a very nice Montreal Canadians clock that he can add to his collection. But I think his favourite present was this leather fanny pack:

Or maybe the beer. But when he opened the fanny pack and realized what it was he exclaimed “AlRIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!” very excitedly. I am looking forward to my retirement and the days where I get ridiculously excited over a fanny pack. Mona said it was necessary because his keys and wallet keep falling out of his sweatpants (again, to be retired…) so he needed somewhere to keep them. Bam, fanny pack. Very handy and practical.

I also need to take a moment to address my dad’s shirt, because it has a story behind it. My dad plays the keyboards, quite well actually (just ask Dawn her favourite song), and a couple years ago Roland was having a contest where you could create your own digital song and send it in. If your song was chosen as the best digital song, you would win a keyboard, and also tickets to some rave party in Montreal, where they would play your song. Of course my dad entered. He wanted that keyboard. He recorded his song and I helped him make it into an mp3 and sent it in for him. He did not win, sadly, but he did get that sweet shirt out of it.

It makes me laugh very hard thinking about if he did win, because my 60-year-old father would be attending a rave.

I’m sure he would have enjoyed himself.

I guess this is nothing new, because my dad used to store this old trailer we had at Trudeau Park in Tweed where the World Electronic Music Festival took place, and one day he was there during it so he just went to the festival on his own. He said he made friends. Bobby’s a fun guy.

Anyway, that’s all I got today. Have a great weekend!