2019: The End of a Decade - A once a year update

Posted by MELISSACARR24onDECEMBER 23, 2019

As usual, instead of sending out actual cards, I’ve donated to some of my favourite (yup, all animal) charities:

Marine Mammal Rescue Centre
Fur-bearer Defenders
BCSPCA

Not to worry, I’m donating to human charities via my work–Beauty Night, New Hope Community Services Society, and Greater Vancouver Food Bank.

You know it’s going to be an interesting year when your husband loves the joke Christmas present you got him so much that he wears it out to walk the dogs.

I don’t think the dogs minded and he said it was super warm!

We look forward every year to the Nikkei Shinnenkai (New Year’s dinner)! The best parts are always the food and the time spent with family and friends.

One of our favourite winter activities remains snowshoeing, and though we never seem to be able to get out enough, we did get a few good chances.

Any chance to get outside and enjoy our beautiful province with our friends! We love this walk to see the eagles at Brackendale, outside of Squamish. Looks like it was a good year for the eagles too.

I usually agree to head to Ottawa once a year to help with the TCM national exam writing, and it’s always a great opportunity for me to visit with my university friends. Amy and her family are always great hosts for me, and this time Tracy was able to join us! It was a short, but wonderful visit that included a chance to skate/walk on the Rideau Canal.

For our yearly Canucks game that we get gifted to us, Sean was doubly sad he missed it. Not only was it a fun hockey game (though we lost), but it was also a Star Wars themed one (3rd pic has Kylo and Boba Fett in it)! Luckily my friend and colleague Sara was able to join me!

Nana turned 99!

A slew of Keanu pictures in his 3rd year!

Easter egg hunting!

Hunting for eggs by colour at Van Dusen garden

Once spring hit, it was time to break out our bikes for some longer rides.

Including waterbikes!

Mother’s Day celebration high tea

Haha! Best we could do for a pic of the 4 of us.

I took Mom to see Stars on Ice, where we saw Patrick Chan, Elvis Stojko, Kirk Browning, Kaetlyn Osmond, and more. 🙂

For my birthday this year, Sean paid for me to go to Camp Yoga with my friend, Jenn. I went to camp once as a kid and this felt much like that. I brought too much stuff, but we stayed in bunk beds in cabins, learned archery, climbed a wall, got down in the dirt and covered in sap doing an obstacle course, kayaked, played on the grass, made bracelets, saw deers and orcas (didn’t get a good picture of them), enjoyed a campfire, had a glow dance party, and, oh, did some yoga. I took home some great memories, as well as some bruises, as souvenir.

My friend Kelly invited me to attend her dad’s big gala event to present the awards and celebrate the young people his foundation funds and supports with mentors for post secondary education and career building. What an inspiration!

Father’s Day celebration was dinner at my friend Susan’s Korean BBQ restaurant, Kook. What a feast! Not a good picture of the group of us, but we were just too busy eating and enjoying. 🙂

Our friends Tom and Mike couldn’t make it to the Whitecaps game, so they yielded their tickets to us and we got to enjoy the game with Bill! We had a blast!

Our dogs don’t get to be outside and off leash much (except in Mom and Dad’s yard), so going to Buntzen Lake and letting them run free was wonderful for them. Though Hana preferred to chill under the bench, Kendo loved the freedom to roam.

One of the perks of living in the city, is the chance to easily jump on our bikes and explore the busy events downtown without having to fight car traffic and parking. We got patriotic and Canada Day’d it up with a whole lot of others.

Nearly every month, Ana Bela hosts our book club gathering. I have to admit, I don’t always get a chance to read the books, but I do love the company. And the food everyone brings–mostly chefs in our group!

To add to our outdoor fun, we decided to get an inflatable kayak. We don’t have the space to store a regular one and we were unsure if a blow up one would really work out well, but it is fantastic! Takes about 15 minutes to inflate and prep and we’re off!

We’ve both been working on books that always get sidelined. Mine is a TCM nutrition book. Sean’s is a mystery fiction. So, we decided to go on our First Inaugural Writing Writer’s Retreat Getaway (redundancy intended). We even almost got t-shirts printed for it. We wanted to make sure we could take Hana and Kendo with us, so we rented a cottage on Salt Spring Island for a week, where we could spend every morning writing and every afternoon exploring the art and scenery of the island. We even got to use our new inflatable kayak with Hana aboard. We knew Kendo wouldn’t like it, but Hana loved it! We also played cribbage, chilled out while taking in the views, checked out the Saturday Market (where I ran into a friend from years ago!–she makes wonderful masks and more), saw Raffi (the singer), and counted the bunnies on the property. We even had a family come for a visit–a family of deer.

We celebrated with our besties, David’s movie, “Thicker Than Water” on Crave tv!

Mom has been to China on a couple of occasions to lecture to nurses, and her main translator was a young woman named Xiaolan. This year Xiaolan came to Vancouver for 8 months for her own nursing studies, and for a number of months of that stay, she lived at Mom and Dad’s, so we had many opportunities to show her around the city and spend time with her. One of the things she wanted to do was the Grouse Grind, so though I hadn’t been up at all this year (I tore my left knee meniscus early in summer), I agreed to bring her up with me and we both really enjoyed (is that the right word for the Grind? Probably not) it. As a reward, I got us Beavertails and we checked out the bears and the beautiful view.

Once again we were fortunate to be invited to check out the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre. It was not an ideal weather day for us, as it was raining, but the seals didn’t mind! The most amazing thing is that we had our first opportunity to be involved in the release of a number of the rehabbed and recovered seals. Amazing!

Doing work for my regulatory college, I had to fly to Victoria. On the return trip, I got to be co-pilot. Not that I did anything other than sit up front and take pictures and video. But I was wearing the headset to instruct the pilot if he hadn’t done such a good job. 😉

She might be just a spec in this picture, but Margaret Atwood is no small personality! We got to see her talk at the Chan Centre at UBC, and oh what a great inspiration she is.

“Unite behind the science.” The young people leading the Climate Strikes were numerous and highly supported when they assembled en masse at City Hall in Vancouver and walked down Cambie street to downtown. It was astonishing how quickly it grew because this major traffic artery was open when we arrived and shut down by massive numbers of people in short order. Yes, it was inconvenient for people trying to drive through. But it’s more inconvenient that we are destroying our planet, and these folks are speaking up.

In October, my family flew to California for a 2-week holiday, including Disneyland. Because we didn’t want to leave our dogs (and Hana’s medication requirements) here, we decided to take a road trip and meet them at Disney instead of flying out. I know that we could have technically bee-lined it there in about 21 hours, but…no. Still, it was very long days on the road.

Our first stop was Portland. We love Portland! On our list of must-do’s was Powell’s Books, Voodoo Donuts, and stay at a cool hotel. Check. Check. Check. But, en route we stopped at Funko in Everett, Washington. Fun!

Next day we were in California. It was sooooooo dry there. We had a brief stop in Redding overnight and we made it just in time for a beautiful sunset.

We had been alternating driving duties, so Sean had the wheel at the start of our drive toward L.A. and Anaheim. When we stopped before that for a switch over, I was simply walking across the walk toward the gas station–just walking–and my knee just decided to send signals of shooting pain and I couldn’t walk. It seems my torn meniscus was not as well resolved as I had thought. My knee swelled up huge, so I got a big bag of ice, wrapped it around my knee, tied my scarf around that to hold it in place, and got in the driver’s seat to take my turn. Sean of course offered to drive still, but it was my left knee and I preferred to drive rather than be a passenger simply focusing on my pain. Thankfully the ice helped and I could eventually weight bear again that night, but I couldn’t turn my foot or walk for too long. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about that as I drove through L.A. The traffic is as bad as people say it is.

That evening, when we arrived in Anaheim, we grabbed our little manual scooters (I don’t have pics) and wheel pushed our way to my family’s hotel to meet them for a character dinner. When my mom saw my knee and what I was doing, she insisted she would rent me a motorized scooter for the next 2 days.

We had 2 days together in the Disneyland park. The highlight/most exciting part was getting to see the new Star Wars land, Galaxy’s Edge. I bought a Kowakian monkey lizard named Salacious Crumb and we had even had space drinks and snacks at the Cantina!

Keanu had a great time, though he a bit too ambitiously decided to go on a roller coaster ride that was way too scary for him. Still, he can say he did it!

On day 2 we went to California Land for the Oogie Boogie Bash for Halloween. Some people went all out for costumes!

We would have liked to have driven the California coast (and the Oregon one too, for that matter), but we were limited for time, so we mostly had to take the I-5. However, I wanted to spend at least one night on the California coast, so I chose Santa Cruz. It wasn’t until shortly before we went on our trip that I found out that this was where Lost Boys was filmed! It’s a beautiful, quirky-seeming town, but none of the young locals seemed to know our fave vampire film. Sad.

Next stop was Springfield, Oregon. As in the real Springfield of The Simpsons. Matt Groening was born in Portland and used Springfield as an example of many American towns, but eventually did come clean that this is the one. We looked up landmarks online and found out that the mayor’s office has an official signed by Matt Groening picture of the Simpsons. Everyone was in a meeting when we arrived, but one of the wonderful workers there came running to let us into the office to take pictures. She even gave us a Springfield town pin.

Amy came to visit in November and we had an awesome time! Shortly after she arrived we drove up to Whistler. Amy used to live there, so it was a bit of a travel back down memory lane. Then we went to relax at the Scandinave Spa. It’s an outdoor spa with hot and cold pools that you alternate between, along with places to relax like hammocks, sauna, fireside, and recliners. I don’t have any pictures of any of that though, as you aren’t allowed to bring in your phone and you aren’t supposed to talk. In fact, there are silence “police” that walk around to make sure people stay respectful. I love it!

Good thing Amy’s not bothered by the weather, as it was Vancouver rainy. Still, we went for walks along the water, hike in Lynn Valley North Vancouver, and for a bike ride downtown to check out the Cindy Sherman exhibit at the Art Gallery.

Amy even learned how to needle felt, making a cat for her daughter and a Santa to help me with my 35 ornaments I needed to complete to sell at a local store, Bird on a Wire.

Oh, and did I mention I moved my clinic? Connect Health, my main location, changed their structure, focusing on MD and ND services, so I had to find a new spot. I decided to also leave my other location at Fit to Train, only to consolidate my practice. I’m now renting space at a clinic in a cool neighbourhood.