I've been here four months WOAH!!!!

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I've been pretty slack with my next blog, I know, but not alot has been happening.

I've a little bit converted to country music. Kathy and Ken took Heidi, Elbie, Jen and I to a concert playing Dustin Bentall. He was amazing, I think it was classed as new country. We had a great time though, we our photo taken with him and Kendall Carson, another country artist who was playing violin for him. They were playing in a packing house at Spencer's Bridge, it was small, but everyone had an awesome view.

Brian and Tara got married. What a beautiful day they had for the wedding. While they were getting ready and married, little did Brian know that instead of four tour buses coming, we actually had six and constantly had people coing in right up until 5pm lol. Thanks Brian, at least I had Deb to help me out thank god. After work, Chris took a car full to the reception in Hope. Tara look amazing. Brian actually wore trousers intead of his well known shorts, apparently it because of his funny tan line lol. We stayed for a couple of hours to celebrate a little bit, we had a group photo with him, so hopefully I'll try and get a copy of it.

It was a normal week at work. It's getting busier everyday and hotter too, I hope I'm actually getting a tan, although with my shin, I doubt it, I am getting colour gradually, so keep your fingers crossed. We said our first goodbye on Saturday. Chris has left us to go back to England, so we had a few drinks to see him off. I drank a bottle of wine to myself again, then we all decided to climb to the top of one of the tunnells, somewhere I'd never been before. We now call it the Simon Fraser Climb. It was pretty scary doing it in the dark and with having a bottle of wine in me too, didn't really help things. However, we all made it and we sat on the tunnell waving to cars, hoping they'd honk their horns, but not one of them did. How rude!!! We spent about half an hour sitting there until we decided to come back down, I told myself, I'd never do it again. So, Sunday night, Heidi and I watched a movie then went to join everyone having a drink in the other house along with Ken and Kathy. Oh, and I didn't drink this night, although, everyone wanted to take Ken and Kathy to the top of the tunnell, so again I went. I got so far and then couldn't go any further, their was no way I could do it, so I turned around and come back, Ken and Kathy didn't do it either so they walked back with me.

Most of our night have consisted of watching movies, relaxing and drinking. I haven't drank every night though. Heidi and I were watching a movie one night while everyone else was in the other house when all of a sudden, I saw a mouse run across the floor and behind the sofa, Heidi then saw it too running running the tv cabinet. We didn't think too much of it, but then when we had a fruit bat fly into the room, you couldn't stop us from screaming and laughing at the same time. It then flew further into the house so I ran up and got some of the guys to come and get it out for us. After about half an hour, it had flown into Elbie's room and was captured by Andy with a box.

We had a little get together called Sinco to August. It was Mexican themed so we made lots of mexican food which was really nice. We also had Tequilla which is soooo disgusting, but I joined in to have one shot. The rest of the time I drank Melon Liquor and Cranberry Juice and got quite intoxicated, good thing I didn't have the work the next day. Elbie, Heidi and Jenn all got quite drunk too, we all had the day off. Elbie is so funny when she's drunk, all she does is giggle all the time, you can't help but laugh at her. Heidi was quite funny too, her and Jenn ended up with blueberry stains all over there pants as the kept throwing them at each other. Ken and Kathy joined us for a little while, but quietly slipped away. The next day, we woke up feeling pretty good, but just relaxed for the day, hangin out and watching movies, oh and cleaning up, there was a huge mess.

I went to Vancouver to do my voting on Thursday. Brian let me stay at his place in Hope with Nate so we could catch the first bus out to Vancouver. We got pizza and beer for dinner, Gord came around for a couple of drinks, we listened to music, drank, ate pizza, drank, watched lots of youtube footage about Hells Gate and the rambo bridge, then passed out. Nate and I went to Rolly's for breakfast then caught the ten past nine bus to Vancouver. Their was alot of traffic and it took even longer to get to the city. By the time we got there in was around one and Nate had run to get the ferry to go to Gibsons. I made my was to my hostel, checked in, dumped my things and headed for the Australian Embassy. When I got there, it only took about five minutes and I was out of there again. I then headed for Future Shop to try and get my computer fixed as it had a virus in it. Thankfully they were able to fix it over night. When I got back to the hostel, I saw that they were organising a bowling and pool night, so I put my name down to go so I could meet more people and have some fun. When I got to the meeting spot, there was only two girls waiting, then one more guy turned up. The girls, Claudia and Micha were both from Germany, and Warren was from South Africa. When we got to the bowling alley, we were joined by another guy from Germany, Joey. Warren went to get a pitcher of beer while the guy running the place expained how to play and score for five pin bowling. That's right, I said five pin bowling. Five pins and a smaller than normal ball. It was so much harder to play than ten pins. After the first game, Warren and I went and had a game of pool while the others had another game of bowling. After our two hours were up, we head to the Roxy night club. Once we were in, it was still kind of early, so we got a drink and sat talking for a while til the band came on. After that, all of us except for Claudia were up dancing. I was a great night, right up until it was time to go, I shoud've got a taxi, but I walked and ended up with blisters on my feet. By the time I got back to the hostel, I had taken my shoes off and it was around 2am.

The next day, I had breakfast with Claudia and Micha, then left to go shopping, pick up my computer and have a pedicure. I had a good day, all except having to put up with the bliters on my feet, by the end of the day, I must've looked like an old lady walking around, slow pace and all. When it came to going to the bus station to head back, I accidently got on the wrong train, so I was ending in the direction of the airport instead of the bus. Once I'd worked it out, I found the right one and got to the bus station with ten minutes to spare. However, when I got the gate where to bus was, there wasn't enough room for everyone on the bus, so they had to organise another bus. An hour and forty minutes later, I was finally on my way back to Hope where again I was staying at Brian's place.

Staff Party. We were taken to a place called Camp Squeah about twenty minutes away, where we could participate in some Archery. The last time I've tried archery was when I was in year five at school camp. So after a bit of intructions, we got going. My first go, I got just outside the target, my second go, I hurt myself lol. I didn't bend my elbow enough and the archery string got my arm and it burned as it flung back. I missed the target. After we all had a few goes each, we headed back to the BBQ pit where Gina's husband, Ron and Ken were cooking up steaks and Kathy was cooking a heap of corn cobs. When we got back, it was all ready, steaks, corn cobs, baked potato and vege's, yum. The corn cobs were the best I'd ever tasted, juicy, tasty, oooohhhh, I want one now lol. When we had all finished, we heaed into a spare room for a presentation, a dvd and the winner of the People's Choice Award. Not everyone was there, but it was a good night. Ken put together a dvd of our summer at Hell's Gate which was pretty cool, then Deb announced the winner, the People's Choice Award goes to Nathaniel, woohoo. He wasn't even there to collect his prize. Everyone was then given a parcel which contained a Hell's Gate T-Shirt, a shot glass of fudge and a dvd each. After the staff party, we all headed back to res. Kathy and Ken were going away for the weekend and Debbie was staying at res, so she joined us at our after party, which basically consisted of everyone from res and Deb sitting in a circle in the common room drinking. When Nate arrived home, he joined us, as he come in, we all cheered and gave him a standing ovation (not sure if I spelt that right), he had no idea what was going on, he just stood looking at all of us, Danny handed him a shot of Whiskey that he downed straight away. We then started yelling, 'People's Choice, People's Choice...' He realised that he won and cheered aswell. I bought out a cowbell that I got from the Stampede and made a drinking game. Everytime the bell rang, you had to drink. I drank a bottle of wine and two glases of vodka and juice, that was enough for me. Hiedi just kept drinking though, she was so funny.

Such a big night last night with the staff party and all, I seemed to attract the most annoying people ever which made my day at work so long, all I wanted to do was go home. Nate took everyone into Chilliwack for dinner, I decided to stay at home though and just relax. Although, I missed out on Nate shouting everyone dinner with his $50 that he got from his People's Choice Award prize.

When Nate came back from a weekend at his grandparents, they leant him a car for the rest of his time here, so after work we went into Chilliwack so Jenn could buy an ipod. We spent a couple of hours there getting lost, we went to Future Shop the to Walmart and Super Store. Nate's a good driver but damn heavy on the gas and brake when it come to stopping and starting.

Our Tuesday night shopping has slowly turned into just going out. This week, we just went into Hope to the Gold Gush Pub and had dinner and a few drinks for Jenn and Danny's last week. On the way home, we stopped in at Brenda's place to say hi, headed to Lake of the Woods which is a clean swimming lake just outside of Hope. We didn't have our swimmers on, so we just went in fully clothed, the boys were able to strip off. After Kathy, Danny, Jenn and Elbie dived in and I was half way in, Danny yelled out something that made everyone get out of the water, I though he said body lol, apparently he said bear. After a little bit of talking about it, Danny wanted to investigate, and Nate said he'd go with him while the rest of us just paddled near the shore. When they came back, Danny was freaked out, he said it looked up at him. We stayed for a little while longer before we got out and headed home soaking wet in our clothes. All the way home, we were laughing about what had just happened, but we won't 100% sure if it was a bear or not. The next morning, Elbie and I got in the car with Kathy to go to work and she told us that Ken laughed at her when she told him about our swim and he laughed. Apparently, alot of bears have been sighted in the lake of the woods which Kathy forgot about. So, we're all pretty certain that we were swimming with a bear. Note to self, 'don't go swimming in the Lake of the Woods at night'. lol.

Danny second last night, it was very depressing, the last night is gonna be even worse. He made all of us watch his favourate movie Blow. It was good movie, but 2 hours long, it didn't finish till after midnight, luckily I didn't have to work the next day.

Danny's last night, we had a farewell party for him with a corn roast. We started off at the point for drinks. I opened a bottle of sparkling wine and had two glasses, but it tasted like crap, so I didn't finish it. Instead, Heidi, Jenn and I made a margarita. Tequilla, strawberry & pomegranite margarita mix, orange juice and cranberry juice. Then Heidi, Jenn, Ashley and I all drank it through straws from a saucepan. When the corn was ready, we carried everything back down to the point, again the corn was delicious, I had three cobs and about half of the margarita. We all talked and reminised about our summer together. We all sat around a picnic table, me, Heidi, Elbie, Jenn, Ashley, Kelsey, Danny, Britney, Brenda, Kim and Andy. We had some good talks and laughs. After about two hours, we headed back to the house as it was getting cold outside, so again, we sat in a big circle drinking. Brenda, Kelsey and Ashley all left and we were still waiting on Ken and Kathy to come home. We ended up staying up till about 2am, we eventually said our goodbyes to Danny, so sad. Elbie was giggly again from drinking Tequilla. It was good night.

After our big night Elbie, Andy, Ashley and I went white water rafting on the Thompson River. It was so much fun, we were able to swim through one of the rapids which was cool and we even saw a bear on the bank and I got a bit sunburnt. The most important thing was, I didn't fall out lol. When we got home, Andy and Kim went to White Rock down near Vancouver, Nate went to Vancouver to see his Dad and Jenn, Heidi and Elbie went into down with Ken and Kathy, I had the whole of res to myself. I took an hour long bath and watched some tv, I even got a tour of Deb and Norm's place under the cafe. I can't believe how much Elvis stuff they have, unbelievable.

Jenn left today. As soon as she saw Heidi, she broke down in tears, those two got so close. Ken and Kathy took her to the airport while Heidi, Elbie, Nate and I sat in the common room wondering what to do. It was so weird that both Jenn and Danny weren't there. We watched a movie called Jumper which was pretty good then had an early night to make up for all the late nights we'd had over the last week or so.

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Photos

Heidi & Jenn
At our Mexican Party

Playing pool
Micha, Claudia & Joey

Gina, Lyle, Andy, Danny & Brittany
At the Staff Party

Me trying to do archery
And without hurting myself lol

Me, Jenn, Elbie and Ashley
Drinking out home made margarita