MOVED IN!

WHOOT! Dan and I are all moved in to our new condo downtown! We're loving it so much! We finally went hard all day Saturday to clean and organize the place (i.e., finally make it look like we don't live out of boxes!)

Dan invited a few of his friends from work, and a few of my friends I know from karate for a poker night, and Kelly brought over her Nintendo Wii- which was unbelivably amazing fun (thanks so much Kel!!!). Everyone was pretty impressed with our place, and the lovely color we picked out for our walls - which is called "urban putty" - it's like a really nice modern brown color that goes with just about anything. Dan actually used this paint color in his last condo. Unfortunately, we still can't find my darn battery recharger for my camera, so we're/you're SOL on the viewing of our place.

My fave part about living downtown so far so that I'm only a 5 minute walk away from my private practice (so I don't get the panicky feeling of being late for my appointments) and it's a 10 minute walk away from the gym (although I still much prefer the south side Clubfit). I also like the fact that we're pretty central, since I drive to all parts of the city to see my autistic clients. Dan loves the fact that it is only a 5 minute drive to his work (about 25 minute walk to work). When the weather gets nicer, we'll be pumped to go for runs in our beautiful river valley.

My parents just came back from a week of vacationing in Victoria, which probably was a nice thing to help them transition into the empty nest/launching phase. I called mom today (and had just seen her yesterday as I had to pick them up at the airport last night), and she seemed overly happy to hear from me. How cute! She did mention it's too quiet in the house (that definitely is a sign she misses us already!) Chinese people don't really like quiet. Dan and I will be cooking/hosting dinner for my parents and his sister's family this coming weekend. They all still haven't seen our place yet, and are dying to!

Today, Dan and I took Amanda, our niece, swimming for her belated birthday present. She turned 5 on Feb 28 - and boy, is she getting even prettier everyday! I remember her when she was just 3 months old- which was when D and I started dating.

I just want to take a serious moment to reflect on how fortunate and how utterly content I am with my life right now. About once a month, I conduct a workshop on Communication to couples in a marriage preperation course with my good therapist friend Linda. Last Friday was one of those times, and as usual, b/c most of the couples are in the same age range as me, I usually know at least one or two of the people attending. This time, I bumped into a girl I had met in my first year University French class. She couldn't believe that it was me who was running the workshop, and she said, "Oh my God! You're actually doing what you said you wanted to do ever since I met you!!!!" Although I knew this already, it was a really nice experience to bump into someone who realized I am living out my ambitious dream.

I'm so happy with my new job as a contract psychologist working with autistic children - it's such a great balance in my work life (I like to call it play). And it is because of this job, I'm able to afford my own free time to counsel inmates on Wednesdays, and work with traumatized children on Friday mornings. I'm fortunate to have such an amazing supervisor who is such a great mentor and supporter of my life. In addition, my private practice has grown pretty fast in the last couple months and I'm so thankful for that. I also couldn't have done all this without the love and support of my parents, who put up with all my mood swings over these years. I definitely couldn't have gotten this far without my friends (including my best friend and especially my therapist friends) - who truly understand what I go through on a daily basis. Most of all, I'm very thankful for such a wonderful husband who can support and share my dreams with me.

In this very moment, I can truly, sincerely say I love every single aspect of my life. This is only the beginning - I cannot wait to see how the next 2 years of my life unfold before me. What is most rewarding is that I know I've worked hard to get to where I am today and it's a bonus that it's been recognized. I cannot describe in words how good it feels to be where I am right now. Honestly, although I know I have much more life experience to gain as I age, my life truly feels as fulfilled as it can be at the age I am at. I don't know what else I could ask for (ok, if I really had to, I would ask to have an incredibly amazing metabolism - in which I could eat as much peanut butter as I please w/o gaining an once of fat- for the rest of my life)- but in all seriousness, I think that given the limits of life experience due to my age, I honestly think I could not ask for more.

Moving Day

It's moving day! Dan and I are finally moving out of my parents' home and into our new condo downtown! Yippee!! We're very excited. About an hourish to go before we're officially out of here. I'm actually feeling pretty emotional about this...as it's my very first move out of this home - the home I grew up in for 20 years. It's a big deal to me! (Insert sobbing). Of course Dan is overjoyed and eager to be out of my parents' home and into our own!

I know my mom is taking this launching thing pretty hard, since my younger brother moved out a few weeks earlier. So the empty nest syndrome is hitting her pretty hard. She's scared of feeling alone and having the house so quiet. I bet once we're out, she'll probably feel lonely for 3 days and then start to celebrate, once she realizes that the house is actually clean for more than a day!

Ok, time to pack the rest of my room (yuck!) The worst part are my clothes- there is so much, it's overwhelming! I'll have to work out a system - ugh. Not looking forward to lugging it out of the house, into my car, and into our condo either. Blech. This afternoon, when Dan and I were moving some smaller items, the realtor told us that we needed to pick up our own elevator keys (across town!) in order to use the elevator. If that wasn't enough, she told us that we have to book the elevator to reserve it. Like, thank you for telling us now! We ended up carrying some boxes up the 5 flights of stairs, but then I had to go to work for a couple hours, so Dan ended up doing it on his own. What a trooper! He did end up sharing the elevator with the construction workers for a bit (but had to do some waiting time). So hopefully tonight, when we go back, the elevator will be free and hopefully, we won't need a key (we didn't end up getting one).

But I guess sitting here on my ass isn't going to make the move any faster...so see you in our new condo!

PS: Dan and I still couldn't find our camera battery recharger - grrr! So I'm really missing my camera right now! I hope to have pix up of our new place soon (I'll have to borrow a friend's camera or something in the mean time!)

Wow! Long time no post! Sorry for such a huge delay...I still wonder if anyone checks back here! Apparently, they do b/c I've been getting nagged at for not updating the site! Thanks guys! Didn't think it was still popular! We sort of fell off the blogging thing for awhile, and didn't even blog about our last week of our honeymoon, in Hong Kong. We have been so extremely busy since getting back that we haven't had time to update. We'll try to post the rest of the pix and stories up soon!

Dan and I have been extremely busy with our work life. Since getting back from our honeymoon, I've quit the shady agency I was working for. I was a psychologist providing behavioral management to autistic children and their families. I'm now working for a competing agency as a contractor doing the same work, but without the office BS politics, much more therapy hours (i was doing 90% admin at the old job- nothing psych related!), and getting paid quite decently. It's so amazing, I am really happy and it is such a rewarding job. I never thought I'd like it as much as counselling, but I truly do. Meeting these families leaves me in such amazement and awe - there are some families that I work with that have two to three children with autism. Their whole life revolves around their children's needs. I really admire their strengths and resiliency.

The other things I have been doing are counselling inmates at a jail (again) in exchange for supervision from my supervisor (I'm a registered provisional psychologist, which means I am in the process of getting the official title of "registered psychologist"). I'm also volunteering my time working with a group of traumatized children with attachment issues every Friday morning. It is incredibly rewarding to be in the field I am in, and passionate about. On top of all this, I'm also building my private practice in counselling, which is slowly coming along. And I try to make time to study for my EPPP exam (part of becoming a registered psychologist), but it's been somewhat challenging :o)

Dan is also very busy with his work life, so we pretty much only see each other when it's bedtime! That's okay though, we're making it work! He's doing really well. The other good news is that Dan and I will be moving into our new condo downtown (FINALLY!!!!!! After almost 9 months of waiting!!!) by mid Feb! We're still living at home with my parents right now, which is tolerable, but we'd much rather be on our own. We also bought a house in Summerside, and it is being built right now. It will be ready in June-July, so we will only get to live in our condo for about 4 months. We're really excited about all these moves!

That is pretty much life in a nutshell! Hopefully more postings to come! My biggest goal right now (besides building my private practice and working on requirements for registering as a psychologist), is trying to fit back into my pants! I've gained a good 10-15 lbs on my honeymoon (boo! but the food was soooo worth it!) that I can hardly fit into my pants. I've just started fitting into jeans again (yay!) but I'd like to at least lose a few more inches and trim back down to my previous fitter figure. Boy, it's damn hard work I tell ya! I can do it, just have to stay busy (which isn't hard) and away from my parents' pantry (which is hard!)

The journey begins!!!!

Hi all, posting from Bangkok this evening...

After our 2 day trekking tour, the next day, we were back in Chiang Mai, taking a full day traditional thai massage course. Traditional thai massages are not your normal kind of oil massages you get at spas...they are basically a work out for both the client and the masseuse! Lots of bending body parts, hitting the body (yes we pay ppl to beat us- it's the stimulate the muscle) and rough elbows. It's awesome- we really like getting them done. We only learned how to massage the legs, as the course is a full week. It honestly takes 7 days to learn all the body parts...so I'm sure I'll be practicing when I get home, if anyone wants to be a free massage! hehe.

That evening, Dan and I took a 14 hour overnight bus to Pattaya to meet a cousin of Dan's. His name is Tim and he works at an orphanage. Tim is about 60 years old, and it was our first time meeting him. We arrived at the orphange early in the morning, and Tim greeted us at the admin office doors. He didn't know what we looked like, but he was expecting us. The orphanage was alot bigger and nicer than we expected! There were many children of all ages (preschool and up) there, some healthy, some deaf, and some handicapped physically. Tim introduced us to the staff in the admin, and then he took us around to the different buildings to play with the kids. OmG! They were so amazingly cute!!!!!!!! Their faces lite up when they saw us (they love foreigners) and by the way they were so trustworthy with us (adult strangers), we knew that they were treated well by the staff there. We were impressed by the services they provided to these children.

The absolute cutest moment was when we went to visit the deaf children, who seemed the most happy out of all the kids we met, when we arrived. Dan started to pick them up and swing them in the air one by one, and they all were amazed at how muscly and hairy his arms were. One boy took us hand and tried to wrap it around Dan's biceps, to measure the size of his muscle. He then took his measurement and flexed his own biceps and compared Dan's measurement to his own. It was TOO CUTE - I wish I got a picture of that!!!! The kids kept lining up to get a ride from Dan. Dan thought it was funny that the girl that was the heaviest out of all the kids, wanted a ride from Dan the most. That was so cute too!!!

Tim then took us to his beautiful huge home in a private residential wealthy area. He introduced us to his Thai wife, Taiole and her Thai friend who was visiting from Australia, Tipwana. They also introduced us to their maid, who happens to be Taiole's aunt.

We went to the beach with Taiole and Tip for most of the day. It's very very touristy in Pataya. We didn't like it that much, as there really isn't much to do there unless you're looking for Thai prostitutes. We were disgusted at how many white (old) men had a Thai girl with him...ew ew ew!

Later that evening, we went back to Tim's home and met his daugher, Kate (16 years old). The ladies cooked up a yummy simple Thai dinner and we chatted about the family and life for awhile. The family was so hospitable, they had us stay there for the night.

We left early (5:15am) for the airport to Bangkok, where we shopped all day at the Chatuchak market. IT was so overwhelmingly big, and all the "stores" are jammed packed together in the hot humidity. We spent about $100 US today on: wooden funky dinner plates (for sushi or salad); 2 watches for me (knock offs DKNY) - one is sophisticated and the other one has a barcode for a face (SO COOL!!!!); a funky lamp for our new home; and a shirt for D.

Now we're just hanging out in Bangkok, taking advantage of all the street vendors and food stalls. Last night in Thailand!!!! We're both very excited to go to Hong Kong though! Tomorrow, we will shop at MBK mall for knock off Diesel jeans, and then head to the airport.

Until then...

Dan and i just came back from a 2 day trekking tour. It was pretty fun - god I still feel like i'm on the awful "bus" ride - it's basically a truck with seats built in the back of it, with a canopy covering us - and the roads are bumpy as hell- can't fall asleep!!!! Got to hang on for life!

There were only 4 of us on the tour - Dan and I, and a guy named Matt (from Pennsylvania) and another guy from Australia, Anthony. On the trek, we drove an hour away from town (Chiang Mai) and hiked up and down a mountain for about 2 hours. It was a great workout! Then we arrived at a village, where it is very primitive.

We got to live like these villagers live - it was amazing. The village consisted of about 10 families, and maybe 8 huts made from bamboo. There were many roosters, hens, chickadees, few pigs, and many dogs around. The poor dogs all looked starved and unhealthy. They always itched themselves, and they had patches of skin showing. Awww.

It was a neat experience seeing how these families lived. They basically collect, hunt and gather food for themselves and for the urban cities (eg. such as Chiang Mai). Our tour guide cooked up an amazing thai dinner for us, and afterwards, we all paid the village women to give us thai massages. Afterwards, we walked around the small village talking to other tourists and watching the cute thai kids play. One of the older thai kids came and sat with us, and played tunes on his guitar. He was amazingly talented, as he is able to pick up tunes on his guitar by ear. He learned english from all the tourists that come and visit his home - and he's 17! We also star gazed. I have never ever in my life seen so many stars- it was a blanket of stars - so amazing! I'm sorry we couldn't get pictures of that, the camera doesn't work that far!

We slept in a hut that was attached to the home. Our room, I assume, was only for tourists. It consisted of about 10 mats, with misquito nets above them. They were hard, but Dan says he slept awesome...and I slept ok...until the darn roosters woke us up at 5:30AM. Ugh!

At 8am, we woke up and our tour guide, SuTim, made us breakfast (toast, eggs, hot chocolate and tea). They are big on processed carbs (white rice, white bread) and high fat foods here - I think I'm gaining a bit of a tummy!!! It's hard to NOT eat the food here though, it's amazing!!!! Wait until we get to Hong Kong- oh man, the food there is going to be incredible!!!

After breaky, we went on an elephant ride. Anthony and Matt rode on the first elephant, and we rode on the 2nd one, which was the mother of the first elephant. Her name was Jon, which means Moon in Thai. The ride was okay...the most exciting part was when a water buffalo came into town, and the dogs started surrounding him and freaked out at him. Then the villager women came and threw rocks at it, and the elephants started to freak out as well. They started vibrating/purring (whatever elephants do to intimidate)...I was freaked out b/c I wasn't sure what the elephants would do next- Charge?! The poor unwelcomed buffalo went on it's way, and swam up the river. After that, things were peaceful again. We have pictures of this...just you wait and see! After the ride, we got to feed the elephants bananas - so cute!

After the feeding, we then went on a Bamboo Raft ride for about 1.5 hours. It's so smart. The villagers gather bamboo, make them into a raft, and have us tourists ship it down the river - so they are making money for sending bamboo AND get paid by the tourists to do so! Smart!!! Today was not as physically eventful, but yet I was so hungry!!! I ate so much, I'm going for a run pretty soon around here, in Chiang Mai.

3 days ago (Monday), Dan and I took a 2 hour Muay Thai (Thai boxing) class for 400 baht each. It was AMAZING!!!! Omg, we have not had a workout that intense since forever. The instructor got us to "warm up" by skipping rope (since we didn't have our runners we couldn't run laps), do lots of ab workouts, bounce on loose car tires (to help us with stance) and taught us basic techniques. It is so different from karate- everything seems almost opposite. It was hard for me at first. For example, in karate, the stances are low and stable, but in muay thai, you have to be up on the balls of your feet- always! Even when kicking! Dan and I trained for about 2.5 hours (we definitely got our money's worth!), while the instructor yelled commands at us. He is a 56 year old man, in good shape! There were other muay thai regular students there- including cute kids. We have pictures of this as well. Dan and I are still sore from the workout today...no wonder those muay thai fighters get in shape so fast!!!!! They are amazingly fit - even the little kids. You can see every single definition of muscle - it's insane!

Anyways, better go - will upload pictures once our camera starts to get full again.

Love Roz and Dan

Hey guys, it's both Roz and Dan posting here...with pictures!!!! Dan is uploading the pictures on the computer next to me right now. I'll link it at the end of this post

I'm (Roz) feeling much better after 5 horrible days of bathroom issues. Without grossing anyone out and getting into too much detail, we both got Travellor's Diarrhrreoa (or however you spell it!) - except that mine was much more severe. At first, we thought it was heat exhaustion, but after coming upon a blurb about Travellor's Diarr. in our Thailand Lonely Planet guide book, we realized our symptoms matched the description. I was in bed for almost 2 days (with the WORSE cramps ever!!!) and running to the bathroom very often. Let's just say that we had to work our schedule around my bathroom schedule...which actually turned out ok because the weather was crappy and rainy in Ko Samui, where we stayed this week.

On Thursday night, Dan and I walked around Ko Samui's little shops. We ended up watching a caberet show put on by drag queens and lady boys. It was actually a good show- very entertaining. There were men who pretended to be ladies, but they over did it on purpose. You'll know what I mean when you see the pictures.

On Friday, Dan and I rented a scooter for $8/day. I was hesitant at first, but once we got the hang of it, it was really fun. We went to different parts/towns on Ko Samui. We specifically went to go see the Na Muang Waterfall - which was not that pretty (the water was brown), but the hike up was fun. It was quite a challenging climb, which we didn't expect - and we only wore our flip flops - so it was even more challenging.

Then on Friday night, Dan and I went to watch a Muai Thai (thai boxing) match. There were 8 fights, and all of them were men (darn, I wanted to see some of the women). A couple of fighters were in their teens (15-17), and there were 2 fighters from different countries (Australia, and not sure about the other guy but he had red hair, so I'm assuming Scotland or Ireland). They start with lower level/rank fighters (so it was a bit slow), and work the way up to more advanced. The last few fights were pretty crazy - one knock out in the first round (they have up to 5 rounds, 3 minutes each round)- and other fights involved some blood. The red hair guy was out of control, and didn't seem to know proper techniques -so even though he dominated his fight, he got disqualified. They didn't say why, but we would assume it was a control factor.

Yesterday, Dan and I went on a kayaking/snorkeling tour, which took us by speedboat to some Marine National Park just off Ko Samui. The snorkeling was definitely not as awesome as when we went with Kelly's family. The water was pretty hazy and there didn't seem to be as much fish or things to see. The kayaking was fun though - it was my first time. It was easy though...but my arms hurt today! I met a young Isrealian guy named Leo on the speed boat - and we dialogued about differences in Isreal and Canada. He was a pretty nice guy, and he invited us to this club by our hotel called Green Mango. Dan and I had to get up pretty early (4am) to get to the airport by 5am to fly to Chiang Mai (where we are right now)...so we were going to take a nap and then meet Leo. But we felt too tired to go, so we ended up sleeping through the night.

Now we're in Chiang Mai, which is where I've saved most of my shopping for. Things here are much cheaper than other places we've been to, including hotels. We practically jumped out of our shorts when the taxi driver said that it would only cost us 120 baht (about $4) to get to our hotel...whereas in other cities, it's been at least about $10. The city here so far is nice, less touristy (which is partly why it's cheaper)- which is good. We plan to do some trekking (hiking) here, and maybe take some thai cooking, and thai massage courses. Whoot! They even offer muai thai (thai boxing) lessons here.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THAILAND PICTURES. The pictures are in descending order, starting with most recent.

*WARNING: Few pictures with adult matter; may be offensive to some- view at your own discretion.

Roz and I are currently in Koh Lanta, a bit further South and East than Phuket. Quite a bit more laid back here and relaxed, but beautiful scenery none the less. We had planed to rent a scooter today and visit a waterfall and cave on this island, but my beautiful wife is currently not feeling too beautiful at the moment...probably too much sun.

Despite this, we still love the bathing suit weather. (he he!!!). After our snorkleing trip on Phi-Phi, we headed over to Krabi and Railay, where we both did a half day of rock climbing. After Roz got overly tired, I decided to continue on for another few climbs. Despite the fact that I've managed to scrape the skin off of a few parts of my fingers, the climbs were well worth it. The bus ride from Krabi to Lanta was quite interesting. Just imagine a twin lane highway, but with scooters on both shoulders, large trucks in the lanes, and smaller vehicles swerving in and out whenever they get an opportunity to jump ahead.

Sometimes it's best that you close your eyes and pretend it's not happening. While waiting for the bus to take us to Lanta, we spent about 20 minutes watching a guy wash his vehicles, then his two dogs (who were not too pleased with the situation). One thing that we've discovered is that the multi-waitress system does not work.

In theory, you would think that having multiple servers per table would be advantageous; however, this has proven to be quite the opposite. On many occasions, orders have been mixed up or too many or too few place settings have been prepared, etc. .... Yes, I am typing this as I sit on the beach ... this is my biggest complaint.Next off we're heading to the popular tourist island of ko Samui for some more snorkeling and sea kyaking (sp?). See ya'll in a few weeks!

Dan And Roz