Oh hi… I have returned.

Yayyyy!!!!! I’m  back in the blogging world. I’ve been tweeting throughout my whole vacation in case anyone didn’t/doesn’t follow me.

When the alarm went off on my dresser this morning, I had forgotten that I was home in Ontario so it spooked me a bit.  Today was my first day back at work and it was so incredibly busy. A good type of busy where the day flew by and I almost forgot to take lunch and I decided to finally eat at 2pm!!

I can’t get over how many blogs I haven’t read in the 12 days that I was gone. My Google RSS feed says I have 1000+, so I don’t know the exact number. But I think I’ll skim through most blogs and of course not read all of them. So anyway, I will have a full re-cap and photo post coming up later this week. But for now I need to unpack all the groceries that I just went out and purchased and then make supper. After — perhaps I’ll make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Until then…I leave you with some pictures to gawk at.

Jasper, Alberta

On top of a mountain taking the Tramway in Jasper Alberta, 1304 metres (4279 ft) above sea level. It was bitter cold, and snowing on top. I mean, look how high up I was!

At the base of Mount Edith Cavell just two days ago!

Walking to the base of Edith Cavell.

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Ironman Canada “vacation” – we have arrived!

Ironman + Vacation doesn’t really go together. Does it. Luckily I am not the one doing the race, so it’s technically my vacation and the Boyf will be on vacay too after race day.

We made it! Hello BC!

So it’s our second day here in British Columbia and the boyf has pre-registered for his THIRD Ironman Canada in 2011. Single women and men should be careful driving on the highways in their fancy rental cars like ours (seen below). Cops will pull ya over unless you have one of the radar detectors to spot cops, because whether or not you’re here on vacay or not they’ll getcha! Not that we’re speedy or anything, because we certainly aren’t. Just sayin’

Oh MM Gee. It’s okay – it’s a beautiful spot here in Penticton, and I don’t mind coming here for another year. The weather is great and the place looks like a resort town. Mind you the hotels and motels gauge you like nothing else with a minimum of 5 night stay and we’re paying a fortune. In fact, we’re paying more at this motel that has stucco on the walls AND ceiling, than we are for the West Edmonton Mall hotel.

Stucco walls….lol


I have been updating my twitter a million and more times than I have been on here, clearly. So if you want to see what I’m up to all day long on my vacation, check that out – there’s always photo updates of random silly quirky things, for instance: Butt Road, Kelowna.

Our rental car is pretty intense. An eye oggling muscle car, Dodge Challenger which gets a lot of older men giving us thumbs up on the side of the road. It’s a little ridiculous looking!! We can’t stop laughing at it anytime we are about to get in it for a ride.

Sitting inside the enourmous car with so many blind spots. It’s a helluva time to park this beast too!

It’s also not very comfortable to rest your arm out the window. It’s so high up. Not this high, it’s a bit exaggerated, but it’s definitely high..

Yesterday I conked out pretty hard and nearly immediately after supper. It was such a long day going on 5 hours of sleep, an hour drive to the airport followed by the 5 hour plane ride and another hour to our destination. But we did end up going to the beach for a while since it was a gorg hot day out. We were relaxed all day yesterday walking the streets and checking out the sights.

While walking along the sidewalk something hit my head, I didn’t know what it was and I looked up and noticed an acorn tree above me. I took one right off the tree as souviner. Isn’t it cute and super tiny??

Today we encountered a few minute torrential true mountain area downpour.


It didn’t last long, but I made Boyf go get the car while I waited under a bike shop’s door way.


We’re trying to eat out as little as possible to save some money so I brought some schnackin’s with me. Healthy eating on the go! Except it’s a tad annoying to cook while you’re on vacation. Know what I mean?

Late lunch.

Stuffing face.

That’s all I have for now. I’m off to read a couple of blogs while boyf sets up his bike!

Aren’t picture posts the best?

Wave bye!!

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Saving money on vacation

Last year the boyfriend and I went on a “vacation” together. I put it in quotes because he completed his very first Ironman Canada in British Columbia last year. So it wasn’t exactly a vacation for him in the beginning. You can see the post re-caps here (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6)! Yes I wrote a whole six posts about the BC and Alberta excursion from August 2009. This was our very first getaway together as we usually fly back home each year to where we are from, Newfoundland. Which isn’t really an exciting one since we’re actually from the place. You know?

We booked out flights again for this year, and after the Ironman Canada race we’ll be flying to Edmonton. This gets me a little giddy inside, as West Edmonton Mall is notorious for its monstrous shopping mall. It has a water park inside the damn place. Even a hotel! I know I’m going to go wild if left alone for a few hours, and I already viewed the shops that I want to visit on West Edmonton Mall’s website. Level 2 — Anthropologie.

Last year we ended up spending about $2,400 each on the vacation. Which included hotels, air fare, car rental, gas, food and not much shopping since we were there to see the mountains. But we paid to go up on the gondola rides in Banff, and paid to enter the parks, and all that other expensive stuff.

I know this year may end up being more expensive due to the fact we’ll be flying to Edmonton (well, it was only fifty bucks with the seat sale) and I wanted to try and make things cheaper. But I don’t know how to go about this.

When we were staying in the hotel when Ironman Canada was on, we stayed at a place with a kitchenette so we made our meals instead of going out most nights. But I need to save a lot of money to go on this extravagant vacation of ours coming up again towards the end of summer. So I’m wondering if you have any suggestions on how to save more dollahhhs? I guess I’ll first start by saying I need to book hotels in advance to get the best bang for my buck. Right? See if there’s a continental  breakfast, and when I arrive as for a free upgrade? lol. I’ve heard that works. Pretty safe to say that I need to do one or two “no buy months” prior to my vacation. Huh!?

Suggest away please!

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