New Years Eve

Today is New Years Eve, and we have no plans...being new to a city, and really not knowing anyone makes it hard to find something todo. We might just go to the movie store and rent a bunch of Bond movies and have a Bond-a-thon. I know, pretty low key, but that's ok. I'm not a huge fan of being around a lot of people I don't know. I was looking forward to going to the Parliament Buildings for fire works, but there aren't any this year :(
We had a wonderful Christmas with our families and friends. It was busy, but I think we got to visit with almost everyone we wanted to. We both got hair cuts, I got a much needed massage, and we got to eat yummy breakfast bagels at Castello, Todd's coffee shop. It was so fun to celebrate with both our families, first in Victoria and then in Lethbridge. I was sorry that we missed having Christmas with Jenna, Bill and the kids. We sure had fun with the kids in my family though. On Christmas Eve, Mom and Dad rented the YMCA for the afternoon, and we had lunch, pool time and fun in the gym. Some of the highlights of the afternoon included watching Rod, Michelle, and Mom swing from the rope, watching the two youngest boys in the hot tub, just jumping away. The two on two basketbal game (Rod and Michelle ie the Tower of Power vs. the Raines') was fun, but slightly mismatched. We got royally spoiled by everyone, and I just wanted to thank everyone again, especially Mom and Dad Raines and Mom and Dad Kornelsen for their hospitality. Happy New Years everyone, and we'll talk to you in the new year!

Learning to love a new city

It has been over a month since we have been in Ottawa, and even though I miss Victoria terribly, I am learning to love Ottawa, or aspects of Ottawa. Firstly, I love our house. We have worked hard to make it "ours", and though there are still things that need to be done, it is a wonderful and, I hope, welcoming home. We have yet to entertain, but we will in the not too distant future. Here are a few pictures of our home.

Here is our bedroom:


Here is our guest room (aka our shark room, due to the colour:

Another view of our guest room:


In the staircase between the main floor and upstairs, we have our paddling wall, and the two massive paintings that Chris's friend James created.
I also love the river right at our door step. We have enjoyed several walks at various times of day. It is a busy path, with joggers, cyclists, rollerbladers, families and people walking theirs dogs (my favorite). The park is over run with squirrels, both black and grey. There are a few intrepid ducks still swimming in the river. I have been told by our neighbour Sue that they stay because they are fed by passer-bys. We have met all our neighbours, and I am very excited about one couple, Mike and Sue in particular, not only because they have two great dogs (a boxer Sadie and a corgi-cross named Jack) but also because they seem very cool. They had us up for a visit, and I have gone for a walk with Sue and the dogs. On our walk I discovered that they enjoy boardgames (HURRAY!), the outdoors and that we share an embarrassing propensity for celebrity gossip. They are kindly looking after Jazz when we are away.
Another nice thing in Ottawa is Hogs Back Falls, a man-made lock dam only 9 kilometers away. According to the Parks Canada Agency "This is where the artificial channel of the Rideau Canal in Ottawa departs from the natural channel of the Rideau River. The canal from here to the Ottawa River is man-made. The river continues to flow as it always has, to the Rideau Falls and into the Ottawa River.
The top lock at Hogs Back is a "guard lock" - it isn't used for lifting, but rather was put in place as protection, particularly from spring flooding of the main lift lock. Although several were planned, this was the only guard lock built on the canal." We went to visit it yesterday, and Chris took some amazing pictures.

All around the falls, there were signs warning you not to do something. We weren't sure what they were at first, but then we decided they were "No Vogue-ing" signs. You be the judge!

Well, that is all for now. I might post tomorrow, but if I don't , Merry Christmas all!

December in Ottawa

We just got back from a nice walk. It's December in Ottawa, and I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, an athletic jacket and a puffy vest....no winter boots, no scarf, no big jacket. We walked along the river a ways, past some really nice houses (similar to the ones on the edge of the Uplands). It started to get a little chilly, plus Jazzy was outside, so we decided to return home. We are both looking forward to when it is really covered in snow, and for spring, when everything will be green and in bloom. We really do live in a glorious location, right on the river with a bike/walking path practically at our front door. It's almost like we live on the Selkirk.
In other news, Jazzy has discovered the hole in our fence that leads to our neighbours yard. They in turn have a hole in their fence, or rather, their gate doesn't close completely. Jazzy went on her first exploration today. She had me worried that she wouldn't return, or that she would get into a fight with some other cat or dog. To be honest, I still think she might! But right now, she is sitting beside me, purring and kneading the blanket. Ahh, winter nights with a cat are a delight!

A Christmas blog

It is less than a week until we head home for Christmas. We are going to Victoria for a few days and then on to Lethbridge. This is our first Christmas as a married couple, and I am so grateful that we are able to spend time with both our families.
We have been shopping for Christmas presents for our families and for each other. It's a lot harder to shop for Chris when he is with me all the time. We have had to take solo shopping trips, and now there are places in the house that are restricted for both of us. He is not allowed in the storage closet and I am not allowed in his closet. It reminds me of when we were kids. Around the beginning of December, parts of the house slowly became out of bounds for us kids. I remember hearing "You aren't allowed to go into our closet". In later years, as the gifts or surprises got more elaborate Mom and Dad had resort to hiding presents at friends and neighbours houses. I wonder how often our neighbours knew what we were getting before we did?
Tomorrow I hope to wrap Chris's presents and place them under our tree. Right now, the only thing we have under the tree is, well....you'll see :)

Bad bloggers are we

As you can see by the date, we haven't blogged in a month. There is a reason for this, although not a completely acceptable excuse. Since we last posted, we packed up Chris's house, drove across Canada and the United States to our new home in Ottawa. We arrived early November, and since then have been working to get our new house in order. There was (and still is) a lot to do. We have repainted the office, bedroom, guest room, living room and dining room. Our boxes arrived almost a week after we did, due to some incliment weather that we managed to avoid by going south after Winnipeg, MB. As of today, we still have a few boxes to unpack, mostly my bathroom stuff.
We will post a more indepth email, with photos from our trek across the country at a later date.
Love Heather and Chris
Check our what our house looked like when the boxes first arrived!

929B North River Road

Wondering about the address above? Well, that is the address of our new place in Ottawa (check out MLS647619). We finally have a place to live, which is such a relief. I (Heather) ended up going to Ottawa last week to search out a place to rent for the two of us. My mom ended up coming with me, because the prospect of going by myself was a little intimidating. Well, after seeing a bunch of really disappointing places (disappointing = crappy) we found a great place...to buy! The conditions came off today, we just have to wait for the lien/title search and then it's ours, legally! Mom and Dad ended up buying now and then once we are more settled, we will buy it from them, renting from them in the meantime. It's an amazing opportunity, and we are so thankful that we were able to do this, because the idea of renting a place that was less than ideal was a little depressing.
In other, but similar news, we go to Victoria this weekend for our final going away shindig. We have invited both of our dragonboat teams, and all our other friends. It should be a lot of fun, and we are really looking forward to seeing everyone. I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to everyone :(

Saying goodbye

Yesterday marked the beginning of our goodbyes; we took Chris's car to a wrecking yard for its final resting place. Considering the life it had had, it was time to say goodbye. It is getting to the point where we are seriously starting to purge in anticipation of our big move. We have a moving date now, which means the crunch is on! Between now and October 26th, we have to find a place to live in Ottawa, which is more difficult when a) you don't know Ottawa b) you don't have a visual of most of the places you are looking for. We are figuring things out, and I am sure something will come up that will be fabulous.
We hope to be in Ottawa by the first week of November, and be all settled in by the time school starts in January. At that time everyone is welcome to come and visit us (for those West Coast-ers, come and see snow, skate on the Rideau with me and remember how lucky you are to be paddling throughout the "winter").

The ongoing adventures of the Raines'

Yesterday was an interesting day at the Raines household. In true Langley manner, Chris had his car window broken. The clincher of the whole deal is two-fold: first, there was nothing in the car worth stealing, even the map book had been moved to the other car. The second is that the punks that broke into the car didn't even realize that the car was unlocked! So basically, it was just a bunch of idiots out joyriding and causing mischief. As it turns out, Chris' car was the third or fourth car on our street that has been broken into in the past few weeks.
Chris took the other car to work, which shouldn't have been a big deal. The problem arose when I decided to feed Jazz. They should make those pull-tab cans with warnings. I ended up cutting my finger open, and bleeding all over the house. I was a wee bit hysterical when I called Chris at work to ask him where the closest medical clinic was. Like my knight in shining armour, he took me to the clinic. It turns out that I had to get one freezing needle and two stitches.

I have to say that I am quite proud of the fact that it has been over one year since my last hospital/clinic visit (which resulted in TWO feezing needles and two stitches. My next goal is a year and half.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of the Raines adventure!

Empty house, full house

Yesterday was the day we moved everything out of my condo and brought it over to Langley. It was quite the ordeal; when we reserved our truck, we were told my Uhaul that they would call us by 5pm the day we needed the truck to tell us where to pick it up. I never thought that we would pick up the truck anywhere other than Victoria. My mistake! We had to drive to Duncan to pick up the truck. For those not from the island, Duncan is about a 45 minute drive from Victoria. On the flip side, we were able to pick it up on Sunday instead of Sunday like we had planned.
Everyone who has ever moved knows that packing always ends up taking more time and effort than originally thought. The same was true this weekend, and without the help of some great people, the packing, moving and loading wouldn't have happened. So a special shout-out to Denise Mason, Jacqueline Quesnel and her man, Derrick, Lisa Freeman (for packing AND offering to clean my place after we left)and Lindsay Raines, who were cheerful and so very helpful. Also deserving a honourable mention is Gareth Gaudin (of Perogy cat fame, check out Legend Comics on Johnson St) for supplying me with the best boxes EVER to pack with.
It was a good thing we got the truck when we did, otherwise we would have never made it over to Langley in time to get our stuff unloaded into our storage locker and return the truck in time. I have to say that Chris was amazing this weekend. He did most of the loading and unloading himself...what a man!
So now I have left my condo empty, and Chris's is full of boxes and miscellaneous stuff that I should be unpacking and putting away. I'll say goodbye for now!

Hollywoodland

Last night we decided to take in a movie at the Colossus in Langley. Having narrowed it down to 3 movies, we finally chose to see Hollywoodland. The movie is about the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on the old TV series, and the mystery surrounding it. Focusing mostly on the private detective trying to uncover the truth about the shooting, the film provides a few possible scenarios as to what may have actually happened, but eventually leaves you questioning the outcome as the murder/suicide is still unsolved. Good performances from Adrien Brody as the detective, and Ben Affleck as George Reeves highlight the movie. I think we both liked it, but it really was a so so movie in the end. Heather may have more to say later, but for now that's all from me.

New glasses for Chris

It's been about 8 years since my last new pair of glasses, so I guess it's about time I got a new pair. After shopping around in Victoria a couple weeks ago, we found a set of frames that worked. On Friday I picked up my new pair of glasses. They are very light and very comfortable, and apparently I look pretty good in them. Enjoy the photo. Chris.

Yoga and the Raines'

We tried something new today. Since I got home too late from shopping in Vancouver with Kim to go to the gym, we decided to try a yoga video. Well, let me tell you, it was not as easy as I thought it would be. We seem to think that maybe this video wasn't for beginners. Chris did much better than I did, as I am not very bendy. Both of our favorite poses was the relaxation pose. It's basically lying on the ground, breathing deeply. Finally, an exercise I can get behind! We are not deterred, however, and look forward to joining a beginners yoga class!

Below is NOT a photo of us....yet :)

Day at the Zoo

This is our first weekend together in Langley and so we went to the Zoo in Aldergrove. It was a lot of fun seeing all the animals, while not in their natural habitat, at least in something other than a photo. I think the highlight for both of us was the big cat feeding that took place at 1pm. There were 3 female lions and one male, as well as two tigers. The size of those animals is amazing...it makes me want one! I enjoyed the lizards and snakes for Chris and he enjoyed the tarantulas for me.


There are a few other things we want to do while we are in Langley, including going to the drive-in theatre, going to see the endagered wild cat conservation (who knew that Langley would have something like that?) and perhaps check out the classic cars at the annual Langley Cruise In. We are also looking into joining a gym to get in shape for next summer's dragonboating season!

Life in Langley

Well, we have started to settle into our life in Langley. We made our way over from Victoria on Sunday. That journey was an adventure unto itself. Let me paint the picture: It started with me trying to sedate my cat with crushed up Gravol. After tasting it she started foaming at the mouth and then proceeded to run outside and be sick. After a frantic call to a vet friend, we determined that it was just the bitter taste of the crushed up drug. After donning my old leather riding jacket and my thick neoprene paddling gloves (quite the look!), Chris and I managed to shove the cat into her carrier, get the carrier into the car and get on the road to the ferry. At the ferry, we ended up waiting for almost 2 hours until we got onto the 9pm ferry. Ahh, life on the island! We got into Langley around midnight, let the cat out of the carrier, which she had peed in in her distress at moving and got ready for bed. Since then, we have slowly been getting into a sort of schedule. Chris is back at work and I am busy writing thank you notes, cleaning and attempting to be a good wife. Chris says I should eliminate "attempting" and just put "being a good wife", but that seems a bit ego-centric.
We have just had a few friends email us pictures from the wedding....here are a few favorites.

Gibsons for a little "honeymoon"...

We arrived in Gibsons on Tuesday around 2:30 after a leisurely drive from Langley, a nice walk around Horseshoe Bay and a very pleasant ferry ride to Langdale. The place we stayed at was beautiful. It featured a private deck with a BBQ and hot tub all of which overlooked Howe Sound.















The bed was large, soft and extremely comfortable; it too overlooked Howe Sound. There was also a very large TV there, but it was barely used as we had many other things to do to keep us busy. We did a little beachcombing, where all we really found were little crabs, visited the local shops and galleries and enjoyed some good food.














Dinner on Wednesday was at the local restaurant Opa, which may be the only Japanese/Cajun restaurant in Canada. It was much better than our dinner Tuesday night, which was a self-barbequed affair that I almost destroyed completely by turning our chorizo sausages into charcoal briquettes.














Upon wandering down the steep stairs to the beach, we discovered nothing but full and luscious blackberry bushes surrounding the staircase. Heather did all the picking, but we both enjoyed nature's sweet treats.
















Overall, it was a very relaxing time and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We would certainly recommend anyone visiting if they have the chance.

We're Married!!! Oh Yeah

Apparently my first official post here is to announce that we are in fact a married couple now. Thanks again to all who made it out to Lethbridge to attend the ceremony and reception. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, and everything was perfect. Pictures from that day will arrive later as I did not use my camera at all that day, so we'll have to wait to get some from other people.

We've made it back to Langley (Monday night) after driving through a couple of memorable locations. We stopped in Vulcan for dinner on Sunday night at the Enterprise Family Restaurant, and then drove through Banff on our way to Golden where we stopped for the night, exhausted, and slept on a most uncomfortable bed. Monday's drive took us through Vernon and Kelowna, down to Hope and then finishing off in Langley. We stopped along the way at the Log Barn fruit stand and picked up some tasty treats and some photos with the goats. Tonight we went out for a super Greek dinner at a local place and are now ready to collapse again before heading off to Gibsons tomorrow for a couple of nights at our little cabin that we found online. Haven't had much time to relax actually, so we're looking forward to doing next to nothing when we get there. Pictures above are from the roadtrip. Love everyone. Chris.

Good things

Say good bye to my house! As of today, it has officially sold. The final condition came off today. It took longer to sell than I thought it would, but it is done now. So long, first house. Please feel free to post some favorite memories, if you have any.
In other good news, only 9 days left (hurray for single digits!) Then it is on to a new city, new place, new husband and a time to create new memories.

Monday, July 31st (aka 20 more days)

Well, there are just 20 more days until we get married. I am getting very excited about the whole thing. Mostly I am just excited to be living in the same city as Chris. That hasn't happened for over a year.
I figure if it is going to be "our" post, I should put a picture of Chris on the site too. Here is one taken at Dave and Lyn's wedding in Merritt last summer.
I am hoping to get some more recent photos of us, maybe after the wedding.

My family

This is my family, or portions there of.
Top: Rod, Denise and Nate Kornelsen
2nd row: Michelle, Ron and Joshua Zieber
3rd row left:Taya, Ella and new baby Joshua Zieber.
3rd row right: Caleb Rayne Kornelsen
4th row left: Nate Kornelsen
4th row right: Mom, Dad, Michelle and Joshua James Zieber
Bottom: Rod and Dad in plane

Simms Family at Mark and Crystal's wedding July 2006

This is me. At least, it's the back view of me, taken from the perspective of my paddling partner (and friend extraordinaire) Jacq. Here we are in an double outrigger canoe on a gorgeous Victoria July 1st morning. Life doesn't get much better!

First time

This is my first entry ever, and I'm not too sure what to write. I guess I'm looking at this blog as a way to let our friends and family know what is going on in our lives, as there are going to be numerous changes in the next year. Between getting married (23 days and counting) to me moving to Langley and then the both of us moving to Ottawa, there is going to be a lot of adjusting on our part. It is all very exciting (and a wee bit scary too, to be honest), and I hope to share that excitment with everyone!