Guinevere.ca

One Great Summer

// September 1st, 2008 // 4 Comments » // life

Photo: Canadian Beach Volleyball Nationals at Ashbridges yesterday.

It’s September 1st and to me that marks the end of long days with warm weather and the start of fall. Allen insists that summers are longer down here in T.O. than what I’m used to up north and that there’s still a full month of warm days. But who knows if that will be true with the weather we’ve had this year, plus I can’t shake the association of September with long pants & sweaters. Anyway, today’s date has me thinking back over the summer and I have to say it’s been one of the best yet. Some highlights:

• Getting married to my sweetie of 13 1/2 years.
• The wedding also meant a lot of visits from family including my parents who were here just over 1/2 month(!) family from Dryden and lots of fun activities and vacation at that time.
• Celebrating my dad’s 80th birthday. Okay, technically this was spring, but… 80th birthday!
• Going up to Dryden again in early August and seeing my family that lives there plus family visiting from England.
• Going kiteboarding every chance we got. Allen learned to kiteboard this summer so now we enjoy it together.
• Spending lots of weekends outside of the city, exploring various places to kiteboard & relax in Southern Ontario.
• Beach volleyball! Okay so maybe we lost most of our games this summer, but I love our beach volleyball crew. I miss the twin towers & Heung though.
• So much visiting/dining/partying with fun-loving friends.

This last long weekend of the summer was good too. There was no wind for kiteboarding, but we still had a great time watching the air show, having family visit, getting Cary Jr. back in S. Ontario, seeing the best beach volleyball I’ve ever seen played in person, and attending one awesome house party.

I’m crossing my fingers that Allen is right on this whole September warm weather thing, but if not — we took every advantage and enjoyed one great summer.

We’re Married!

// July 7th, 2008 // 11 Comments » // life

Allen and I are now officially married! We had a wonderful wedding day (Saturday July 5th) with family & friends in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was a simple wedding, outdoors in the gazebo in Queen’s Royal Park. It felt like a family picnic, which was great — it was very much our style. My only wish is that more of my siblings, nieces & nephews got to attend. I’ll visit you all later this summer and we’ll have a toast then.

I kept laughing through the ceremony. I had read the vows before, but they sounded so funny out loud and with everyone watching and all the cameras taking photos of us, it just hit me in the funny bone. So, while some of our guests shed tears, I was giggling the whole way through. Allen was smiling and occasionally laughing at me laughing at everything.

Our photographer took a few hundred photos and I’ll get them on Thursday, so I’ll post them then to Flickr, Facebook and here.

Also, special thanks to Tayiah for being our ring girl!

The day after the wedding we spent the morning shopping in the village with our family & friend Christie (who helped SO much with the wedding — thank you Christie!) and after lunch, Allen and I took my parents and sister to Niagara Falls as it was my mom’s birthday and that’s how she wanted to celebrate. After the falls, we came back to Toronto and we have a few more days vacation before going back to work.

Thanks to everybody who attending our wedding or sent us messages of congratulations! We had a great day and we’ll never forget it. Pics soon…

Having Fun Doin’ Nothin’

// June 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // life

Allen & Guinevere walk on the lake front. Photo by Christie Jaggi.

Three weekends ago, I was supposed to go kiteboarding, but instead I found myself in bed for 5 days in-a-row battling a nasty cold/flu. I worked last weekend, so the plan was to kiteboard this weekend instead. But as of Friday night, I was still having bad coughing fits that was making breathing difficult. That forced me to spend another weekend out of the water, but it was a good decision. I normally don’t have the patience to rest and let myself get better, but this weekend I forced myself to and I’m happy to say that after three weeks, I am finally starting to feel better. I still have a cough, but it’s much less frequent. I can stand for more than a few minutes without feeling tired and I’m in much better shape for kiteboarding next weekend.

Yesterday after resting most of the day, I invited my friend Christie over for a visit. When she asked what the plan was, my response was a bland, “nothing”. As it turns out, doing nothing can be pretty fun.

After dinner, the three of us went for a walk by the lake. Toronto has some beautifully developed sections on the waterfront and I enjoy spending time down there. Fortunately, I live just a five minute walk from the water.

Some things we got to do include checking out glass blowing at Harbourfront Centre, visiting the International Marketplace and get greasy hands from handling swords, pose for photos, watch sailboats come & go, check out canoes for Christie’s lessons in July and spend some time with my sweetie Allen and good friend Christie.

It was just a bit of a walk, not far from my apartment, but that bit of “doing nothing” was the highlight of my weekend and more than just my lungs feel better for it.