Hi this Brianna, guest updating the blog this week. Well we squeaked by again this month with all our bills paid as well as a mostly full fridge, shiny new tortilla press for me, and an economy-sized jar of peanut butter. Things are looking up all the time with this next week full of work for both of us as well as sunny weather!

Most of the week consisted of job training and meetings for Dan and working and studying for me. Also this may come as a shock to some of you but we are still sharing my cell phone, Dan finally purchased a used iphone! Hopefully it'll be up and running this week. Another feat is that I accomplished my goal o f reading the scriptures everyday for an hour!

On Thursday we had our friends Alex, Lauren, and their baby Bonnie over for dinner. I made Mexican food and the evening ended sort of awkwardly as Lauren brought a Tiramisu cake for dessert which is essentially a cake soaked in coffee and liquor. Luckily we just laughed it off and then they left with their sin cake. I couldn't help thinking: Poor vegans, they must make people feel this way every single gathering.

Dan worked an overnight shift on Friday at the youth home, in which he bought fresh cherries and lemonade at the local gardeners market. Meanwhile, at home,the people upstairs threw a very large party from midnight to 4 am, I think their speakers must be right above our bedroom because it was very loud. I was very grumpy at work the next day.

 I suspect our landlords are out of town and their kids are enjoying the freedom because it happened again Saturday night. When they turned the music up around 10 pm, I threw myself on the bed sobbing in despair from lack of sleep and burning the brownies for Dan's Sunday School class the next day. Dan, being the good husband that he is, put on his shoes and marched upstairs to take care of the problem. Here's the dialogue of what happened:

Dan: "ENOUGH! Turn down that music or I'm calling the cops!"

College- aged partier: "Come up and make us."

Dan: "Listen, my wife didn't sleep at all last night and we're not doing this again." And without another word he ripped the cord out of the wall and grabbed a bag of Doritos a consolation prize as well as the stunned partiers stand shocked.

Actually, nah, that didn't happen. Here's probably what happened really.

Dan: "Ah excuse me mates, it's a little loud for us downstairs would you mind. .. . moving the speakers somewhere else?"

College-aged partier: "Yup no worries." (Moves speakers outside) "How's that?"

Dan: "So much better, thanks heaps!"

College-aged partier: "No problem, care to join us?"

Dan: "Nah, I'm going to have an early night, (signature phrase) thanks anyways."

So Dan saved the day and I was able to save the brownies by cutting off the burnt bit and covering it with powdered sugar. Until next week!

On Mon Daniel had a job interview for a research assistant job with UBC that was in the dodgiest part of town. Think King's Cross in Sydney or Ogden in Utah (jk it didn't really remind him of Ogden). It was with a six-member panel and they gave him a seat at the head of the table, so he feels like they must have been impressed.

The missionaries also came over on Mon to share a message so Brianna was able to serve them some MANGO STICKY RICE which she MADE! 

On Tue Brianna worked and then she and Dan went to the temple. Everyone there was very nice.

On Wed Dan went to a regional meeting for a behavioural interventionist company he's going to start doing some work for. They liked the way he spoke, and the next day he got an email from his Regional Manager that made reference to his 'English' accent. Brianna actually worked.

On Thu we were going to have some friends over for dinner and Brianna was really nervous for some reason but they didn't end up coming so it was ok. 

On Fri and Sat Dan worked at a youth group home and had lots of fun. One of the children commented that Dan said "no" a lot. Dan pointed out that the child tended to ask the same question ten times in a row and so it seemed like a lot of "no"'s but was really only 2 or 3. 

On Sun Bri and Dan both spoke in church and were glad when it was finished.

Two momentous things happened this week, which both merit some attention here. Overall we have been very happy and blessed while living here in Burnaby, but two things have cast a shadow over an otherwise blissful time; a broken oven element, and an inability of Dan's computer to connect to the internet. Over the past seven days our landlord bought a new element, and we worked out that Dan could access the internet through Brianna's phone. 

We are now living in paradise.

View of North Vancouver from just north of Gastown (King's Cross).

For some reason here in Vancouver all the electrical safety signage is a bit disturbing. Here's an example.

Mossy tree.

Tall tree(s)

Pool/waterfall at Lynn canyon

Bridge going over the pool

Brianna and Dan started trying to exercise more this week, ran up a bunch of stairs, and are hoping to star in a Nike commercial soon.

They also visited The University of British Columbia (UBC) which is the largest and some (especially those who attend it) would say most reputable university in BC.

Another thing that happened is that while Dan was working at a youth residential home, Brianna got to visit, make and have dinner, and win a game of Sorry.

Here are some photos:

Just ran up like 1000 stairs - no sweat. Well, a little sweat.

Rose garden at UBC

The loveliest rose of all

Apparently there's a beach a ways down behind here where people aren't required to wear clothes.  

White, plastic, blobby things which must have a nickname that we didn't find out.

Mathemattex Annex. Best annex on campus.

We can't really remember too many things that happened this week, but some of them are these:

1. Brianna worked at Rona (hardware store) every day this week. According to a cashier there the yard guys like her. Too bad she's married, suckers.

2. Dan was commissioned by his boss at the legal firm to buy some things for an evening's festivities and get some furniture moved in, and did a great job.

3. With incomings being larger that outgoings for the first time since moving to Canada, Dan and Brianna celebrated their move from abject poverty to straight poverty by buying some meat - a pork roast - that will be carefully rationed.

The pork roast

4. Dan missed the last bus going home from the Northeast side of town by about 3 hours, and had to take an alternate route that turned out to be a bit creepy.

Creepy statue behind the bus stop along the creepy alternate route home

5. Brianna directed the planting of the Burnaby Ward RS garden. There was a good turnout.

6. Brianna realized she's not a bad baker, but the bottom element of our oven has compound fracture.

Till next week.

This week these are some things that happened:

Brianna took a big test for her international studies course.

Dan tried to be nice by bringing four donuts with him to our renovating couple-friends' house (one for each of them plus Bri and himself) , but found out they had a family visitor and so the donuts would have to be cut up. Very disappointing.

Brianna's been made responsible for organizing the maintenance of a church women's organisation garden near the chapel. It's a box with dirt in it right now but come back soon and it will be awesome.

Dan got some temporary work as a casual legal assistant. Despite only being there for a couple of days he's left his umbrella in just about every office in the building.

Brianna made sticky rice!!! With mangoes and ice cream!!!

Dan did a day's worth of manual labour involving digging a 2-3ft deep trench along one edge of a seafood salesman's house so he could install some new drainage pipes. It was a very rainy day (as many of them are in Vancouver), and the $1.99 plastic poncho that  Dan had bought wasn't up to the challenge. Dan came home with a sore back, deeply stained clothes, and the discouraging realization that if he were consigned to one of those labour camps during the war he probably wouldn't have made it.

We went for a walk to Central Park - a big woody park near our place with a golf course, pond, and lots of nice trails. Here are some things that we saw there:

Pond with mallards and geese

Geese and goslings

Circle of life - tree growing out of a tree stump

The largest horseshoe pitching stadium in the Northern hemisphere

...from a different angle

This guy came up to us because he thought we'd give him an acorn. Brianna tried to grab him and he ran away.

Gazebo