Pics from my trip to surrey

Ya. I know it has been a few weeks since I got back, but I finally have found some spare time to put up a few pictures from my trip to BC.



I made the drive to Kamloops on my own. This picture is taken with my camera timer, as it rests on the roof of my car, propped up by random items from my bag. It was a sweet drive and I loved being able to stop and go as I wanted to.























The first wedding we attended was in Surrey. The groom was room-mates with one of my brothers, and most of my family was involved in the two of them meeting. It was also really neat because we knew 5/6 groomsmen. Sure is fun to see them all groomed and done up! And of course, the Bride was absolutely beautiful.

Hanging out at the beach. We took a gazillion pictures and it was alot of fun. It was so awesome to spend some time with Ashley outside of the walls of the tower. This is me touching the ocean. It was the first time in over a decade that I had touched the ocean in the Northern Hemisphere. (Yes I played in the Ocean in Chile, but that was the Southern Hemisphere. Hard to believe that it is technically the same body of water!)

This is later that night. We went to a beach with Ashley's brother and Mikey. In this picture we are waiting for a train to come and squash some pennies. Have you ever actually tried that? It is very exciting and I highly recommend it. We spend the night collecting shells, taking pictures, and just hanging out. It was a really good time!

There are the other two. We took pictures with everything from this sundial to totem poles to sitting on steps to some random car. It was super fun cause sometimes the boys got into it to, as you can see. Thanks for taking the pictures for us Justin and Mikey!

This is the last one I'll post from my time in Surrey. We had a super duper good time and I would do the trip again in a second. I spent two nights in Surrey and honestly, if that had been my whole holiday, it would have been worth the long drive there on its own! Can't wait to go back again!

the drudgery we call work

Sometimes it amazes me how we can drag ourselves through the day. Not that I am complaining per say, but wow can work be an interesting experience.
For those of you who don't know, I am waiting tables at a truck stop less than 15 minutes from my house. Sounds exciting, I know, but I love it. Once you get used to creepy, large, and old men hitting on you (and most are all three of those) and actually being surprised that their marriage proposals and requests for affairs wont work on you (or invites to their showers *shudder*), once that is old news, it is a pretty neat job. Some of the truckers have seen alot in their travels and they sure do have alot of opinions on everything. The locals that come in are quite laid back most times, and there are alot of construction workers and tourists making an interesting mix. After a bit of time passes you start getting regulars, those people who are in a couple times a month, a few times a week, heck, we have some people who are in multiple times a day! This is fun because they get to know about your life, they ask how your holidays were, or how that car you had trouble with last summer is running, or what your plans are after graduating with that English degree. It is like an extended family... a old, large, creepy extended family.
However, once you look past the customers (and I'll be honest, as the busiest store in a chain of over 175 restaurants, we have more than just truckers), it is the staff that causes alot of the struggles. My restaurant is going through a management change over. From our General Manager right through all of our lower management positions, right now we are trianing managers for our store and others and have something like 9 managers. Considering the last few months we had 3 at the most, this is a big change. Then add in that we don't like alot of them for various reasons, well it makes work an interesting place to be.
Since it is a truck stop, and I am on days, I work with alot of older ladies and wow do they like to b*tch. Thing is, they only b*tch to the other servers, and we all know that does nothing. It gets old fast hearing a 50 year old complain about something and not do anything about it but threaten, to other servers, that they are going to walk out. Useless is what it is...
So I suppose my complaint with work is in regards to managers who really have no idea what is going on and shouldn't be allowed to run a macdonalds, let alone a busy, full menu and more restaurant, and servers and staff who b*tch about everything, but make no move to change anything "it's not my problem" =news flash, if you are b*tching about it, its your problem!... Thats all I have for the topic.
For the servers out there, imagine my headache when at the end of my shift I discovered there was an error somewhere and a $422 bill had not been cleared. While I don't have to pay it, it still meant alot of questions and harrassment from these hated managers... What a way to end a shift, I was definitely relieved to leave that building!


What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in the water?

Bob

What do you call a man with no arms and no legs on the floor?

Matt

What do you call a man with no arms and no legs on the wall?

Art

ok. so its a terrible joke. I laughed... have a good one!

lets go dancing

Ok. So I know I just wrote something, but thats besides the point. Either I have alot to say to an empty technological void or I really need to start working on my social life. Please, for the sake of my confidence lets say it is the first reason.

Met up with an old pal yesterday, had a blast. We are definitely going to start hanging out some more, she is onto the 'lets go dancing' list. Then today I went to a pig roast(I got there after the pig was gone, so I don't know how it tasted) hosted by the parents of a guy I graduated with. It was the 'third annual pig roast' and it is attended by a bunch of the high school football boys that I cheered so loudly for back in the day. So essentially it was like a mini reunion to go and see people that I graduated with but havn't seen in two years. It was interesting. A little weird at first, but hey, no problem, I am tough! Gonna add one or two of them to my 'lets go dancing' list (that I guess I am starting as of this weekend). So then it was off to Kareoke to meet my fellow MC for my sisters wedding next month. Kareoke was fun, talked with a girlfriend that I see around alot, but we never really sit and talk alot, and guess who is know on that list we keep hearing about? Thats right. I really need to go dancing.

So here is the fun thing about my life. My sister is getting married next month. And it could be that I am more stressed about it than she is. I am now a bridesmaid(maybe a maid of honor, not sure); I am singing with 2 others, in spanish, while they sign the wedding thingy; then family pics; then wedding pics; then I am the MC; and tonight I learnt that I get to do the toast to the bride! Frick. Gonna be a long day! Can't wait!

So here I am with just over a month left till U starts up again, and I am finally growing a social life. Can't wait to actually go dancing, and it sounds like Aug long weekend is a for sure weekend for it, if not sooner. My cousin is coming to visit, so that weekend will rock! Get to use my new list... But otherwise it is time to start figure out moving stuff, and wedding stuff, and learn a spanish song, and write a toast, and plan a stagette and so much more. Yay for summer!



Said with a Russian style accent "I am Sam Sanchez. Don't Bother Me." (It's a joke to me. Even if you don't get it. Plorky might!)
Hey, anyone want to go dancing?!

death

A man from my church died unexpectedly yesterday. He was in his early 50s. His daughter used to date the son of a good family friend. The man and his wife have been at my house for new years eve, and were members of my parents small group. It is a shock to our church family who, on the day of his death, buried another early 50s member who had been ill for some time. I guess he woke up in the middle of the night with pain in his left shoulder. He wrote his wife a note, and left for the drive to the hospital. He never made it. As he left 75st to turn onto the Whitemud, he was in a single car accident, believed by most to have been caused by a heart attack.
I wont claim that I knew him very well. Although almost exactly one year ago I was at his home as my then boyfriends sister had her wedding photos taken. But it is a shock on other levels. It scares the bejeebers out of me because his age is similar to that of my dads. Because it is a surprise and shows that death can present itself at any time. Because there is no a young family, mourning the sudden loss of their father, and because of its unexpected appearence, this death is hard to grasp.
I don't fear death. Not to be all religious and stuff, but I know there are better things waiting for me after I die, but by no means do I embrace it. Or wait for it. Or welcome it. At least, not in this case. (I say in this case because patients of long time illnesses sometimes do welcome the finality fo death and the end of pain that a family suffers as they watch a loved one hurt).
So. I suppose I write this in mourning of the death of a man. In mourning of; A close to home hit. A man not expecting death. A family suffering an unexpected and great loss. And the brush with reality that it brings. No one in ever safe from the clutches of what is and what was. No one can live with certainty that death is a distant future.
It is here. It is now. It is the future. It is present in all things.
Death. A cold, but unexscapeable outcome.


No joke today. Hard to write one after that subject. Sorry if it was random.