Canuck is missing!

I'm on vacation this week, and spending a lot of time in the backyard, on the new deck, just reading, surfing the internet, and watching the world go by. One thing that's happened online -- Canuck the crow is missing! He's been missing since the weekend, and now there is a $10k reward for his return. I hope he is found soon, and I hate to think that someone may have taken him.

Time to go home

We left Grand Forks first thing this morning, and didn’t stop for breakfast until we got to Osoyoos.
We had an uneventful trip, with sunny/cloudy weather most of the trip, and just a few short lived downpours of rain. We saw lots of wildlife, and even saw a Bigfoot (ok, not a real Bigfoot)

On the way home, we stopped at Krause Berry Farms, and got a berry pie to enjoy!

Grand Forks

This morning we got up and decided to check out a little Bistro in downtown Grand Forks for breakfast. Called the Wooden Spoon, it is located in a heritage building downtown. And breakfast was really really good!

 

After breakfast, we drove around town a bit. Grand Forks was hit with some major flooding last year at this time, and it was disheartening to see that there was still so many damaged homes and businesses not yet fully recovered from the flooding. Most, we found out, are still waiting for insurance payouts. 
That afternoon, we headed to a cousin’s house for the Celebration of Life get together. It was a lot of fun. Hubby got to reconnect with a lot of his cousins that he hasn’t seen in a long time. And I got to meet a lot of people! Some I’ve met in the past, but it’s been quite some time since we’ve been up here that I didn’t hardly recognize a lot of them.

On The Road!

One of hubby’s cousins passed away earlier this year. So, the family decided to have a memorial for him, up in Grand Forks, on the weekend. So today, we both took off of work, and drove up to Grand Forks.

 

Of course, whenever we go anywhere, we always stop off at Rolly’s in Hope for breakfast! They have the best french toast around!

The weather was good. The trip was uneventful. The hotel was clean and nice, albeit the room was a little small.

And then we had an excellent homemade dinner with family that night.

On vacation!

I'm officially on vacation now until after the Easter long weekend! 4 days of vacation time used, but 10 days away from the office!!

good intentions

I took a day off of work. I booked a vacation day. I filled out the form in our new payroll system, and submitted it for approval. I feel lucky that we get a few extra vacation days this year (because of the transition at work, everyone got an extra 3 days off this year to compensate for the changes made to our benefits). So, I wanted to use my day off to take a long weekend, go shopping, and do a few little things that I usually don't have time for during the week or on the weekends. And then it started snowing.
Long story short, I didn't go anywhere on my day off. I stayed home. The snow just kept coming! I got snowed in. That was yesterday. This is what the yard looks like today...

I'm at home again today. I called in for a snow day. I planned on taking another vacation day, but when I logged into work to set my out of office, I found a few mistakes made in the weekly forecast. So, I set about fixing it. I ended up working most of the day.

Vacation

Officially, this is my first day of vacation. I didn't work yesterday, because of the Victoria Day holiday, and I also took the US Memorial Day off too, and all the days in between. So far, it's been a great vacation, with very little time thinking or worrying about work.

Monday Holidays

I've been using up my vacation time for the past 2 months, by taking every Monday off of work. Most days, I've planned to go Christmas shopping, planned to do chores and errands, and basically filled my day. Today is the first day off that I don't have a long laundry list of things to do. I slept in, I will drink more tea than normal, and will watch all kinds of Christmas movies and specials on TV.

Day off

To use up my vacation time this year, I have booked every Monday off from now until Christmas. The first of these days is for this coming Monday, and I'm planning to go Christmas shopping with my mother-in-law, and then go out for lunch. The weather has been downright wet all week, so imagine my surprise when I saw the weather forecast for next week. In amongst all that rain, is a wee bit of sunshine, and it just happens to be on my vacation day. *yeah*

The first day of vacation

I'm officially on vacation for 2 weeks!
But, what do I do for my first day off? I spend almost 4 hours getting my passport and Driver's License renewed. I had to get them both done, so I packed up a thermos of tea, my kobo e-reader, and off I went. I decided no matter how long it took, I would simply sit and read, and pretend I was at home instead.

It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would. The 4 hours I was gone included driving to/from each place. And the chairs at the passport office, despite being metal, were surprisingly comfortable!

Victoria Day Long Weekend

This weekend was the long weekend, and we spent most of this weekend planting. The garden is all planted, and the flowers have all been purchased and planted.

Serendipitous

I need to use up a couple days of vacation time. So, I am going to take a 4 day weekend this weekend, with Friday and Monday off. Good thing too. It's supposed to snow a lot starting tonight, and all into the weekend. I might be housebound for a few days, so I decided to stop and pick up lots of eggnog before coming home. Just to be safe.

2 weeks + 1 hour

Tomorrow, I go back to work. I've been off on vacation for 2 weeks. And because we turned our clocks back last night, technically, I've been off for 2 weeks and 1 hour.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Vacation

I'm officially on vacation as of 5:00pm tonight!!
I don't go back to work until November 7th!
*woohoo*

Our room and the view

More pics of our time away...
Our view from the hotel room...

included a view of the Empress Hotel - which was recently sold, and renovated. As part of the renovations, the ivy that was growing over the façade of the hotel was removed....

It just doesn't look the same...

Our Anniversary trip

We just got back from a few days over in Victoria. We took off for a couple of days to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary. Here are just a few pics of our time...
The day we arrived...
Someone had a wedding at the hotel the day we arrived, and they gave away their flowers to everyone. I got this...

Dessert isn't dessert unless it's served on a piece of slate (???)...

Then, the next day... the day of our anniversary...
We can't go to a good restaurant without ordering fresh oysters...

Martinis and Wine -- and a glimpse of the new anniversary ring....

2 words -- Free Dessert!

The view of the marina where we had our anniversary dinner

Time off!

I'm officially on vacation. For a couple of days.
Monday is the Family Day holiday here. But, we don't officially get it as a stat holiday. That's ok. I traded in my Easter Monday holiday so I could take Family Day off. Then I took another day off (Tuesday). I've been working a lot of OT lately, so I banked it and took another day off.
Bottom line -- I don't have to go back to work for 4 days! Bonus = hubby took some time off too, so he's off with me.

Over

So, my vacation time is now coming to a close. Today is my last day. I go back to work tomorrow. And while I got sick at the beginning of my time off, I certainly didn't let it stop me from doing too much. I did have to take it easy for a couple of days, but that was probably a good thing. It's been a load of fun the last 19 days, and I really did relax and forgot about work for the most part. I even tried to login to get my emails a couple of days ago, but I forgot my password! I guess that's the best sign that I had a good vacation. I hope I get to do this again next year! I can't wait!

Vacation update

So far, I haven't done a lot on my vacation.
Monday - I went grocery shopping and started getting sick.
Tuesday - I had planned to go to lunch with my sister, but cancelled out on her because I was sick.
Wednesday - I did go out for lunch with my Mother-in-law, but didn't do much else because I was sick.
Thursday - I went shopping in the morning, but grew tired after a couple of hours, and came home.

The rest of the time I watched TV, surfed the internet, watched James Bond movies (I've watched the first 3 now), but not much of anything else. Being sick on vacation totally sucks! I hope I feel better soon!

Sick!

OMG! I'm sick!
I can't believe it!
After waiting for sooooo long to have some time off of work, I can't believe I got the flu on my first official day off!
I hate being sick!