Life in Richmond

Life in Richmond is going ok ... not as much fun as Kelowna! I coach most evenings and mornings with our local swim team - the Richmond Kigoos - which is lots of fun!! It's my first year coaching, but I'm finally getting the handle of it. Swim meets take up the entire weekend - each week we head to another city for a meet. This past weekend we drove to Vancouver (Vancouver Aquatic Centre) for a meet, next weekend its over to Surrey (Bear Creek Park). Coaching takes up a lot of time - having to write weekly blogs, make sets, doing entries for meets ... and much more, but its a fun time. As a coach we have weekly coaches meetings - nothing like our Sorority meetings! They're long, but not fun at all! I've been unofficially named the secretary (I take minutes and email them out), as well as I've been named social chair with my friend Sean and we plan upcoming social events for the club. If you want to see any of this its all at www.kigoos.com.

Next week I start my other job at the community centre. I'll be teaching cooking and science camps each week to kids aged 3-12 (3 different classes each week). I'm in the process of coming up with outlines and lesson plans .... school work seems easier!

My brother just had back surgery where they inserted metal rods last Monday - he was released from Children's hospital Friday, so he's been home a few days. Still in a lot of pain and extremely stiff. He can't lift over 5 pounds (which I find ridiculous!) It means we have to do everything for him - he was told he couldn't even lift a plate that had food on it! Before that he just won two gold medals at the Canadian National Rowing Competition in St. Catherine's, Ontario -- at least he was able to end his rowing career with two gold medals!!

I'm sad I won't be able to come up for the car wash :( I am hoping to come up 2 or 3 times between Sept and Dec - and hopefully once near the end of August (when I'm no longer working every day). Swim meets end second weekend in August - so maybe even a weekend trip up to visit!

Basically life is the same routine here ... not that exciting :(

Hope every one's summer is going wonderfully!

Miss you all so much,
lots of love,
-Jenn <3

Camping Trip!!!

So last weekend a few of us went camping out at Mable Lake as a late birthday bash for Mega. Despite the 2 hour drive and the crazy long spiral along the dirt road to get to the camping spot it was definitely worth it (but this is coming from the mouth of the girl who wasn't actually in the driver's seat). Maegan lined the whole road with balloons so that we wouldn't get lost which was lovely.

We got to the camp site and immediately cracked a drink. Pretty much a set up for the whole weekend haha. We sat around the campfire, drinking and chatting waiting for some more people to show up. Emma brought her adorable little dog Murphy and one of their nursing friends Chelsea brought her dog Keira who was equally cute. The two of them running around was fun and we all started putting up our tents before it got dark. Jaki and I had quite the nice set up with some foamy and our blankets, it was very comfy and cozy.

And then there's Bear! Haha, he was the guy in charge of the campground and he really seemed to like our group. He came by all the freaking time to just chat and "remind us of rules". Not to mention to warn us against TIMBERWOLVES! Lol, he was quite the character.

We built the fire up a little better, and started roasting WEINERS!!! Many, many "ask me about my weiner" comments followed as the drinking progressed. Some more friends showed up and we set up chairs around the fire and started playing a good old fashioned game of sociables. Jake quickly regretted this when he got to make up a rule and decided we all ought to talk in British accents. Little did he know we really dedicate ourselves to that role and damn we made our British names proud. Although, Jake was begging us to stop 3 minutes into the 20 minute laughter-fest. We got to follow up that role with Jake talking Canadian for the next 15 minutes. His take on it was pretty interesting.

The next day was HOT! So we decided we ought to change into our bathing suits and walk down to the beach. The lake water was super cold but that didn't stop a bunch of us from jumping in. Murphy decided to be even more adorable and dig a hole at the beach. It turned out to be almost as big as him, and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen. He was jumping around to actually get into the hole to keep digging, and he even fell over once. After that we had a couple spurts of rain drops but the temperature never really changed so it was actually kind of nice. We roasted some more weiners and continued on drinking. And more drinking, and more and more lol. We busted out another game of sociables and all kinda passed out pretty early since we started drinking almost as soon as we woke up.

The next morning we had to wake up super early and pack up as fast as possible which we did. Somehow we managed to stuff four people, 1 dog, 3 tents, 2 coolers, 1 dog kennel plus all our clothes and blankets into Maegan's little echo. Go echo!

Well to all you ladies who were there, let me know if I missed anything, and to everyone who wasn't there I hope you now feel like you were!

Love you guys

-Vicky