Eurotrip photobooks (2006/2007)

Seeing as I never did finish putting trip pics up here (from our trip to Europe in May/June), if you're interested, check out the photobook I made:

2007 pics - click on image

And while I'm at it, I might as well post the link to the book I just made of last year's trip pics too!

2006 pics - click on image

Las Vegas!

On our last trip to Europe I got it in my head that, at some point, I want to take my mom on a little vacation. She's had a shitty life, and has never been anywhere - and she deserves something special. So ... after thinking on it for a couple of months I decided it was time to make it happen. I thought about where she might appreciate going .... and there was only one place I could think of - Las Vegas. Yep, good ol' Vegas - she's always wanted to go there, and I think that it's one of the few places that she'd actually enjoy herself. Oh, another factor was the flight time - my mom is a hardcore smoker, so she can't go for too long without having a cigarette (terrible, but true).

So - to make a long story short, I'm treating Dan and my mom both to a little Vegas getaway next month. We fly there on September 12 and will be there for 4 nights, staying at the Las Vegas Hilton (errr ... can you tell that I'm a bit of a Hilton girl now?! Tee hee!)

When I first told my mom about it, I think she almost fell off her chair. She's unbelievably excited. It's cute. :) She came out to Vancouver (she lives in Nanaimo) this week and I took her to apply for a passport - her first passport ever.

It was quite the ordeal trying to get the time off of work for the trip. Dan was only able to get very specific dates off from work, so I had to work with those ... I put in my vacation request at work, and it was approved - so I booked the flight and hotel - and then, get this ... my boss then sent me an email, a couple weeks after giving approval, and told me that my vacation request was denied!!!!! Can you even believe it?! Anyways, to make another long story short - this dragged on for awhile, and I was prepared to hand in my 2 week's notice this week - but then at the last moment the request was switched back to "approved". I wonder if my work knows just how close they came to losing me?! Anyways, the whole ordeal was insanely stressful for me ... but it has all worked out in the end.

To top it all off, I bought a sweet new bag for the trip (for our Europe trips, we backpack - but it just doesn't seem right backpacking to Vegas - ha!). Check it out ... isn't it purdy? :)

I really wanted the baby pink one ... but this was the only one in stock. Who knows, maybe I can still find the baby pink one before we go!

Whistler getaway

This is a tad late, but oh well ... better late than never. :)

For the August long weekend we decided we'd have a little getaway. We didn't want to go too far though, so we figured we'd just to go Whistler for a couple of nights. One of my clients works for the Hilton hotel chain, so she was kind enough to hook us up with the "friends and family" rate for the Whistler Hilton. We booked a couple of nights, with the hopes that we'd be able to wrangle some peeps to come with us. No such luck! We couldn't get people to go to Whistler that weekend, so we decided we'd just have some quality alone time (we don't get much of that anymore, with me working all the time). Soon after booking I had more clients sign on with me, so I decided that I really couldn't afford to take 2 full days off from work, so we cut our stay short (only 1 night).

So off to Whistler we went. It was perfect weather for the most part - warm, but not hot. We did get a little bit of rain, but that was alright with us - it gave us the perfect excuse to duck into the Amsterdam Cafe and drink beer. :P

The stay at the Hilton wasn't quite as fantastic as stays at Hilton hotels usually are - the folks in Whistler just weren't on the ball. But the room was quite nice, and the double jacuzzi soaker tub was pretty sweet!

We took our sock monkeys and CPK with us for the getaway - tee hee!

The scenery on the drive to/from Whistler is GORGEOUS.

Allan, chillin' at the Hilton. :D

Dan in the jacuzzi tub. That thing really got going - there were some pretty big waves! :P

Dan & the monkeys