For some reason I get highly annoyed when there is a ‘holiday’ Monday and people park in the curb lane, thinking that no one actually goes to work on Holiday Mondays, even though a lot of people do, and the sign says NO PARKING 7am – 9am MONDAY TO FRIDAY. It doesn’t say anything about excluding holidays Mister. I hate having to constantly change lanes because asshats can’t read signs. I like the curb lane. It gets me places faster.

Speaking of Holiday Mondays, clearly I got screwed because I am at work, and yea, no one is here. I think one other person is coming in at 11, other then that it’s dead. This whole Easter Weekend having to work Monday business really bugs me. I know a lot of people work the Monday, but I find it so cheap and lame. It’s MY religious holiday, not some day I sit around and eat chocolate, so give me the fair share of time off please. Le sigh.

Last weekend we spent the majority of it doing things around the house. Chad was going crazy thinking about the small nicks and stuff in the walls, that he finally put his foot down and patched, sanded, and painted everything. I went around and cleaned and touched up all the moldings, though, I just realized I forgot about the bedroom, but I’ll do that another day.

I planted some Spring flowers on the deck, but it’s not warm enough out to actually pull out the patio furniture and clean everything yet. Ever since I planted the flowers it’s been nothing but rain and wind and rain and wind. I guess it’s ‘technically’ very Spring like, but you can’t really enjoy flowers when you fear they are going to be ripped to shreds.

We had a bunch of candy left over from the movies Friday night, so Chad and I basically lived off of it all day Saturday while working. Not the smartest idea. By dinner time we were coming down from our sugar high and making dinner was soooo hard. Not to mention that after cleaning out the liquor cabinet, we found a bottle of gin with very little gin left, so I got Chad to make us drinks to use it up so we could get rid of the bottle. Only problem was we had no mixers, and I wasn’t about to shoot it straight.

Anyways, I found this recipe for a White Lady, which uses Gin, Cointreau, egg white, and lemon juice. You could substitute grenadine for cointreau, which we had so we did that. Only problem was, Chad didn’t read the recipe right and used the same amount of grenadine as he would have cointreau, which was equivalent to 2 shots. So we basically got 2 shots of pure sugar with a hint of gin. Hello sugar high number two.

After dinner I passed out on the couch before even attempting to clean up from the day and Chad sat there in a Gin, Wine, and Sugar coma. I’ve never seen him so out of it. It was the grossest feeling ever. Never eating that much sugar again.

This weekend was less busy during the day and more crazy at night. It was a big weekend for us, partially because of Easter, and partially because Chad decided that he wanted to become a Catholic, and Easter is when all the hoopla goes down. We’ve been taking classes at my Uncles church every week because Chad had questions and wanted to learn more, and through it all he made the decision to get baptised.

Thursday night was when we celebrate the Last Supper and there were 3 ladies who had been baptised in the Anglican Church who were received into the Catholic Church.

Friday was of course Good Friday and we celebrate the Passion and then had a big Fish n’ Chips dinner with family.

Saturday we celebrate Easter Vigil, which is a very special mass done after dark. This is the mass where those who want to become Catholic get baptised and receive the other sacraments. There was Chad, and one other girl who was 10 who were getting baptised. It was a pretty special night. I was Chads Godmother, which was fun. I got to practice being the Godmother of Gold before I’m actually a Godparent to someones kids.

After the mass we all went over to my Uncle house and drank scotch to celebrate. Everyone was pretty excited for Chad.

Sunday was amazing because we basically spent it sleeping and watching TV and being lazy until it was time to head over to my Moms for dinner. She had invited 20 people to dinner including our family, Chads family, and some friends. It had been a while since the house was the full of people!

Now we can relax a little after the busy weekend. I don’t even know where the time goes sometimes. I’ve got all my appointments lined up for my Body Scan at the Cancer Clinic, so I guess that is the next big thing to look towards.

I can’t wait until May and my little Birthday Getaway.

For now, rain and work!

I can’t remember when the last time I talked about Italy was, so if I am repeating myself then I apologize.

We’ve booked the trip!

I think I mentioned all the drama going back and forth with work, or maybe I didn’t mention the most recent drama, but it made me really upset, so it’s probably good I don’t go back and talk about it. But, that is old news because everything was worked out and I ended up getting the dates I originally wanted back when we first discussed it. A small saving grace.

We officially booked the trip back in January, but I’ve been so busy with everything else that I haven’t had a moment to think about it, or talk about it, or research it.

We leave September 16th and arrive back in Vancouver October 16th. One month exactly! My parents will be joining us for the full month as well, with Chads parents only doing 3 weeks. I can not express my excitement in words.

Our plan for Italy was to fly into Venice, do some touring up north, then make our way south to Rome, do touring there and end the trip with a tour of Southern Italy. We planned to do everything ourselves, since we know the top half of the country pretty well, but were going to take a guided tour of Southern Italy, since everyone was clueless about that. So we looked up some tours, found the perfect one, based all our dates and everything around this trip, only to realized that all the prices had been given to us were in the wrong currency, meaning the trip was double what we were budgeting for. Well, out the window that went. We looked for another tour to replace it, but none of them were as extensive as this one and they were all pretty expensive. So after much discussion, we decided, we would take all the stops on our ‘Perfect Tour of Southern Italy’ and just drive it ourselves. We would book bed and breakfasts along the way and would have the freedom to stay longer, or cut short, different sites on the tour.

So, our trip to Italy now looks like this…

• Arrive in Rome
• Spend 3-4 days checking things out
• Spend about 7 days driving south, stopping in at all the cities on our list
• Once we are done Southern Italy we drive back up to Rome
• Drop Mom and Dad off at the train station where they take a direct train to Venice so they can spend extra time with family, while Chad, his parents, and I take our time touring up to Florence, Pisa, and Tuscany.
• Meet in Venice and spend a week touring Northern Italy
• Chads parents fly home
• Spend the last week doing mini trips around the city. Go to the beach, maybe a trip to Milan, tour the East Coast, or whatever we want
• Fly back home!

I think the layout of the trip works much better then when we originally planned it. It gives us more time up north with our family, and it will be much easier for us to travel with the north being our home base.

The parentals have been doing most of the reseach for the trip so far, but I finally had some time this past weekend to start looking at stuff. I love researching trips and printing out maps and organizing everything. I’m totally obsessed right now. I want to spend every waking moment organizing this trip!

Looking at all the place we will be seeing and staying make me want to leave RIGHT NOW! Only 6 short months left!

I can’t wait to show Chad Italy. He is going to freak out.

More Olympic Pictures, More Olympic Pictures!!!

Saturday, while Chad was at work (whata good boy) I headed downtown with the Famiglia.

PHOTO EXPLOSION

Cristina and I got ID’d at Germany House. It was 11am, pretty sure I’m not about to get wasted!

Ma, Pa, and Cristina

Cooking up some German Meat.

A Brat for Breakfast. I even got sauerkraut. I have never been a fan of it, but I figured, if I was going to be German for an hour I was going to be FULLY German.

Inside the actual house. Already packed watching the days events.

German signed car.

Walking towards the torch.

March forward.

The flame from far away.

Probably a little creepy that I took a picture of someones kid, but it was too cute not to. He made his own torch. Omg, *sniff* adorable.

Thar she blows.

Speaking of blowing, you would not believe how many Russians were downtown on Saturday. There were tons of young Navy guys as well. It was nuts.

Everyone’s in Red. Do we look related!?

The view of the torch from downtown.

Shangra La

CTV

My buddies.

A floral VAG.

The Rossis

Melbourne and Cortina d’Ampezzo, where both sides of my family live!

MUKMUK <3

QUATCHI <3

Oh look! Another picture of the damn lanterns!

So apparently my Mother discovered that not only was there Casa Italia represented at the Olympics, but there was also Casa Calabria! Weird, yet interesting. Considering we will be travelling around Calabria in 7 months it only made sense to check it out.

Hand Made Glass Art

Damn Southerners!

Cheese and coffee and things.

Made it to Casa Italia, yet again. This time they were actually serving CHEESE! Hahah Mom and Dad got handfuls.

Cheese please.

Pappa Rossi

I could be a Skier.

I had this discussion with my Mom that Casa Italia would have been 10 times better if they decided to serve Pasta and Wine. Umm hello, talk about making a killing if you did that. At all our Italian events we serve a plate of pasta and wine for 8 bucks and we always sell out. People go nuts for that kind of thing and it is so cheap to do. I’m going to have to speak to the Casa Italia Organizing Committee. Clearly they were not very organized. Or they just like being snobs and only serving that kind of thing to the VIPs. Oh those Italians.

The Sea Wall in Yaletown.

Yes, this is why we live here.

Sunnies and a Toque.

After Eight. The biggest friggin Yacht I have ever seen!

Waiting in line for the Sea Bus, which, for some reason, we all thought was FREE.

GROUP SHOT.

SEA BUS

Checkin out the city

Love this building

Swiss House on Granville Island

Leaving the ‘Island’

Walking some where. Check out the Cherry Blossoms!

Yacht Club.

Sea Wall Fashion.

PIRATE SHIP

What a beautiful day!

Dreamy

Shadows

RCMP Boat

Us Italians

CANADA LINE SQUISH.

Our plan was to do many things, many things that all had very long line ups, so we just did a lot of walking around the city. All transit was packed so we had to squish.

By the time I got home I was so tired I actually thought I was going to die. I passed out for two hours and felt like crap for the rest of the evening.

That is what you get for never exercising!

Just another beautiful Olympic day in Vancouver!

So Friday night Chad had this great plan. He would stay up really late so that he could sleep all day Saturday in preparation for his night shift Saturday Night. The plan included going out to dinner in Surrey, with whomever wanted to join us, then head out to Dublins Crossing for drinks, where at some point the girls would leave to do girly things and the boys would go back to Ryans house to drink more, play games, and stay up all night.

And so, Ryan & Elise, Dario & Mike, Chad & I, along with Sarah Rose, all met up at Browns Social House in Walnut Grove for dinner. Turned out that my cousin Laura is now a waitress there, so we had a mini dinner family reunion.

Once dinner was over we headed out to Dublins Crossing, where Colin and Shazzi joined us.

We finally got the fancy cornor of the pub where Mike tried to close all the curtains around it and Dario played King for the evening.

Mike & Ryan have this on going joke with me, that all started when we went camping back in the Summer. Because I never had my flash on my camera I took hundreds of pictures with out their knowing, and subsequently, in every photo, they look totally spaced out. So now, they always make a point of commenting on me taking horrible photos of them when they aren’t paying attention. Above is a picture of Ryan trying to avoid such a photo, and Mike giving us an example of what he looked like in all those camping photos.

Boys.

Chad & Colin were shirt twins.

So here is the story. The boys ordered Jager Bombs for themselves, and the waitress brought them a tray with all the drinks. Mike was in charge of handing them all out, but while doing so he just happened to knock over a shot of Jager. So what did Dario do? Well, he poured the Jager right back into the shot glass! Not one drop was missed. Of course, Mike had to drink the dirty shot because he was the one who knocked it over.

Colin and Mike were harassing me via txt message, so I shot back with creepy thoughts.

Attempting to spin a felt.

Not getting caught staring into space.

Despite all the pictures of the boys, there WERE girls there.

Elise taking over the King Chair.

Captain Dario signing out.

At about 11:30 everyone hit the road. I went over to Elises house to sleep over since Saturday we had to go out shopping all day. We went back to her house and ended up watching ‘The Man in the Moon”, which is the first movie Reese Witherspoon ever did. It was pretty good, but somewhat depressing. SPOILER ALERT, it is not a happy ending. It also taught us a lesson. Appartenly pre marital sex in the 50s in the ‘Deep South’ leads to death by tractor.

Mental, Noted.

So before this year of CRAP is over, I figured I should pump out some Christmas pictures! I mean Christmas does come before New Years after all.

Christmas eve was spent at the parentals with my Moms side of the family (since we usually see my Dads side a few days after). We had dinner and opened presents and then all hung out until it was time for Midnight Mass.

Little Cousin Zoey

Mom is excited for presents!

Chad setting up my new laptop.

I bought Steven NHL 10 for PS3 so you know the boys were obsessed.

After dinner and presents we headed to my uncles for Midnight Mass, and then off to bed for a little amount of sleep.

We spent Christmas Morning at home this year. We were late risers, which meant we were late arrived at Casa Ciavarro for breakfast, but oh well, it’s Christmas Morning!

Chad and I opened our stockings and our gifts to each other. A lot of DVDs and books and kitchen things. You know, the usual.

The epic amount of presents.

Jonas and Emily playing with their new things.

Emily had a glass of White Wine for breakfast.

Spoiled again. Chad and I came away with a boat load of gifts. Olympic merch, Computer games, Body Shop gear, just tons of stuff.

After breakfast and opening presents, everyone took their stuff and scattered. Chad and I headed upstairs for some relaxation and nap time. Chad passed out, but I didn’t of course. Instead, I got cat fur in my eye and attempted to suffer the consequences for the next three hours. I don’t know how people live with cats even when they are allergic. I would seriously go mental.

After nap time and hanging out all afternoon, we headed over to Grandma Heagles for dinner and more family time.

Molly was all dressed up in her Christmas outfit.

Nice hat their buddy.

A shinny pen from the Christmas Cracker that I forgot to bring home to me. I also love how out of focus and crappy the one picture of me at Christmas is. I really need to get Chad to participate in photographing me more often.

Can we please take a look at how much grease Chads crown absorbed. OMG so gross.

A little Creme Brule and Butane for dessert!

The musical act for the evening. Connor got a new guitar and Eric was showing us how its done!

Twins.

Tex and Rex got wasted when no one was looking.

You can’t go to Grandma Heagles and not have 100 pictures of puppies. You know how obsessed we are with them.

Over all Christmas was a success. I really was not expecting to get a lot of gifts considering I was asking for some pretty pricy items, but I lucked out. I took pictures of everything and will post them to flickr soon. Chad actually got more clothes then me, but I really don’t need any.

Christmas was a pretty good end to a pretty crappy year, the only thing that sucked was kissing too many Italians and then getting this cold. I love how 2009 decided to jab me one last time on its way out!

Tonight we are off to a little house party tucked away in the suburbs of Surrey. Tomorrow will be the first day of 2010 and hopefully the first day to a much better year.

Sunday was the traditional Heagle Craft Day over at Grandmas house. This year though, instead of crafts we decorated cookies. Nom nom nom.

It seems like everyone was baking this weekend.

Mom was taking lessons on how to Pipe stuff. I finally got the hang of it this year.

This is me in Cookie form. Pretty but radioactive, hence the eyes. Chads mom thought it was amazing. Hahaha.

The cookies Mom and I did.

Emily & Stevie

Once I finished my share of cookies, I moved onto Christmas Origami. The box was the only thing I could figure out. Usually I’m pretty good at Origami, but for some reason I just could not figure out the instructions.

They are such nuts. Stevie asked me if I was pregnant because she said Emily wants a cousin, and I’m her only hope. Ha. Not yet Stevie, not yet.

Stevie also thought my Mom was in her 20s.

Emily is pulling out her true Asian face here.

Grandma Heagles shirt said ORLY in big sparkly letters. No one noticed it except me. When I pointed it out to Chad he almost lost it.

ORLY Grandma!?

The girls went crazy with their colours and sparkles and everything. Their cookies were almost glowing Neon. I love watching kids decorate cookies.

I just realized that our Moms almost have the exact same hair cut.

Mom was getting her Dog fix that day, considering its been a while. She was baby talking Ebony like nobodies business.

I think she almost stole her on the way out.

Chad shows up and the kisses continue.

Abby was getting some lovin’ as well.

After decorating cookies and making boxes we all ordered pizza and scarffed it down.

Then Chad and I headed over to Steves to catch the Canucks game.

It was pouring rain like I had never seen before. You actually had to pass through a waterfall just to get to Steves front door.

Thankfully the game was a bore because it allowed me to pass out on Steves couch.  Car rides home when all you want to do is sleep are so damn crappy.

So one more day of work ahead of us and then a little bit of a Christmas break. If only that were actually true. Chad is stressed out to the max thanks to work and stupid tenants. He still hasn’t bought my Christmas gifts which I believe is adding to the stress even more. Each day he has planned to take off to go shopping he has been called into work. Even this past Saturday they called him in. It’s getting to be a bit much. He was also told that he will be on call all through his Christmas holidays and if they call him he NEEDS to come in. I can’t wait for numerous dinners and activities to be ruined. Woohoo!

I really need to get off the negative train! Hopefully everything will work out this week. I just wish there was something I could do to relieve Chads stress. Le sigh.

I don’t have my Halloween pictures on hand, so lets go back in time shall we?

Last week we went to Grandma Heagles for Aunt Jills Birthday. There we encountered a multitude of indoor animals. Now, Grandma Heagle is known for having a million pets, and during this particular visit we discovered quite a few hanging out in random corners and rooms. On top of that, we discovered a new little black puppy which Chad fell head over heels for.

I don’t know any of their names. There are too many cats to keep track of. Their shed in the back yard is actually dedicated to housing the majority of them, and every night Gramdpa Heagle grabs all the blankets, puts them in the dryer and then lays them out in the shed so the kitties have something warm to snuggle up to. SO FRIGGIN CUTE!

Chad is basically a cat whisperer.

Oddly enough, the night before Chad had a dream that I was a cat. Now, it wasn’t that we met and got married and I turned into a cat, no no, I was always a cat. Chad being HUMAN married me, a CAT.

He said I was the most loving animal he ever had and our personalities matched to a tee. But years after we got married he began to have doubts, because, well, I was a cat. He started to think, ‘I married a Cat, what was I thinking?’, but he loved me none the less. We were perfect for each other, I just happened to be furry and meowed.

Then he said one morning he had to get up early to go to work, and I was still sleeping, so he wrapped me up in a blanket and carried me in his arms to work, and I slept, all snuggled up. OMG my heart melted when I heard that.

*meow*

So after our visit with the cats, we discovered little Ebony, so black that you can’t even see where her face is. Chad went nuts for her, as you can tell…

I have never seen him react to anything quite like he reacted to Ebony. Look at his eyes!

She was eating his hair here.

And then giving his ear some kisses.

I see a face! Green Eyes!

I was starting to get jealous of all the attention Ebony was getting. LOOK AT ME! I’M FUZZY AND CUTE TOO!!!

SNUGGLING HEADS!!! MY HEART!!!

Poor Abby wasn’t getting much attention. Ebony stole it ALL.

Goodbye Kisses!

If these two pictures do not show just how in love with this dog he was, I don’t know what will.

All signs point towards us desperately needing a pet, clearly. Only problem is, its not happening. A dog would be way too much work right now, not to mention our space issue, and I am way to allergic to cats to go that route even though that would probably be the only option we could do. So I guess that just leaves us with visiting Grandma Heagle a lot more!