I have said it before and I'll say it again. We are very lucky in the friend department. Before we left for London, one of my best mates, Chaz, who lives in Edinburgh said we could stay with him while we visited. He then trumped his own offer by arranging for us to spend two weeks in his sister Joan's flat, while she was away in Abu Dhabi. Chaz is a cop in Edinburgh, so not only did we get the local tourist info, we also got the tour of where not to go, which was just as interesting. We lucked out and got to spend two weekends with Chaz as well as a few odd days here and there. We also met Chaz and Joan's good friend Susan, who was a blast to hang out ... read more

Mission: Get to London and reacquaint ourselves with the city and all of our old contacts. We arrive in London, iPad still NFG (for those wondering NFG = NO FUDGING GOOD, because we are keeping this PG and cannot afford the swear jar anymore). As if set up like a comical stereotype to reinforce how much the Brits love queuing for things, the first thing every visitor encounters is a very lengthy immigration queue, however, I am pretty sure comedy in the immigration queue will get you the rubber glove treatment. We head for the tube hoping our old Oyster cards still work. They did and we were off. Our first hang up was waiting to meet our guesthouse host, an old friend from years gone by. We stood on the corner, Canadian phone in hand, ... read more

We decided that given all of the capital cities in the world we've been to, it was a bit strange that we had never been to our own. So on our way back from Montreal we stopped in Ottawa for three nights and had a great mini holiday being proper tourists for the first time so far on this trip. We stayed at the Albert at Bay Hotel right downtown, booked through Ottawa Tourism in a promo they had where if you book two nights in a hotel, the third night is free (thanks to Mr. Munn for the tip!). Perfect! Best part was the full kitchen, which meant we got to make our own yummy breakfasts every morning. Shane and I wandered around all of the main sights in town and managed to get in ... read more

In early July we headed to Oakville, Ontario, to visit with our best friends Sonia & Kevin, and their son Owen. We spent a couple of weeks having fun with them and visiting other friends in and around Toronto. This time really just flew by and we spent many days swimming, finding the good grocery stores, cooking, playing games, shopping for our trip, researching flights abroad, exploring Oakville, etc. A few highlights and observations: We had a fun day in Burlington at the splash pad Lovely dinners with old friends A day can pass really quickly when you're just hanging by the pool at home No one has as many games as the Munns do Shane likes to set up Owie's toys at night so they're all stacked high for him to knock over in the ... read more

The day was a perfectly lovely summer day on Burnaby Mountain… OK I cannot start the blog with a LIE! Graduation day was cold with driving rain, however, I did manage to make it across the stage without tripping. Following grad Kim and I jumped into my Aunt Joyce and Uncle David’s car and we headed to the airport. I feel compelled to mention (mainly because I am sure it will be blamed on me anyway) that we were there 3 hours early. We had a nice drink and relatively uneventful flight to Toronto, where we were to stay at the Toronto airport hotel before travelling to London Ontario for my sister's wedding. Funny story! We are checking in for the two rooms I booked several months ago (at 12:30 am the day of the wedding), ... read more