Foul Play, Family and Festivities!

Well, again it has been too long since we have last updated! I am now done school until the fall. Hopefully I passed (I find out next week). We have had a very exciting June. Plenty of crazy things have happened from the awful to the wonderful!

We woke up a few weeks ago to our landlord banging on our door at 6 AM. He kindly informed me that while retrieving his paper he noticed someone had damaged our vehicle. Well, needless to say I was very awake, very quickly!

It turns out there is a very kind person out there giving away free boulders. Unfortunately he didn't bother opening the door to our car before depositing it on our front seat. Now we are left with a thoroughly smashed windshield, a damaged dash/ passenger airbag system, and center console. Total loss.

Not much else to do but smile at the thought that someone wanted to give us a boulder!

It's a real beauty no?

I tried to convince Cass that this might be a suitable replacement. Still working on it!

This all turned out to be a great blessing. See, we were trying to sell this vehicle (halfheartedly) and now the kind insurance company would buy it from us. They even gave us what we would have sold it for. So again we are down to one car, but up some money. I feel a little like Jerry Seinfeld "Everything evens out! I'm Even Steven".

The week improved as my Uncle Paul and Aunt Janine came to visit. We had a wonderful time showing them around the island and going to various restaurants! Food is a big thing in our family. We enjoy it. Especially good food! We did everything from showing them our humble abode to taking them to feed the seals. We really did enjoy ourselves with them.

Sidney by the Pier.

At the Oak bay Marina.

Alaskan King Crab and seafood platter for two. Mmmm my mouth is watering just looking at this picture!

Two kinds of amazing sushi! We will treat the next people to come out here and visit us! Act now!!

Seafood linguini.

Dessert!

Paul went broke from this last trip to Canada. He spent his last pennies on some cheap wine and decided to sit down for the evening.

It just so happened that they were here the same weekend as Cassie's Birthday. Being the man I am, I found myself ill prepared for the big day. I thought I had everything... I was wrong. I forgot the candles. So we improvised a little. In the end we had a great little party. We had Dairy Queen cake. Need I say more?

Notice the two 2s from last year. Then we just added a one. 22 plus 1. Ingenious no? (If you said no Cassie agrees)

June really did turn into a month of excitement. At the end we had a little of everything. The foul play (while it was awful) didn't slow us down from enjoying family, nor the thrill of another Birthday feast!

Jamaica 2010!!

We went to Jamaica for our 2010 reading break. We lucked out, as Cassie and I both had time off together.
Our resort was amazing. The rooms were nothing special, but the food and service were out of this world! Location was also perfect! We were right on the beach. The water was crystal clear!

We had the chance to do so many things. Including taking out a Catamaran.

The view from our room looking out over the water and the waterslides!

There were at least three weddings that took place when we were there. They all happened here!

We had one really windy day were water sports were out. Cass got a great shot of the waves coming in here!

That is the tower (one of two) that we stayed in.

We took an excursion to Dunn's River Falls. What a blast!! It is a series of small waterfalls that you can climb.

A Valentine's Day gift from the housekeeper!

Fruit display at the Buffet.

Cassie and I on the beach.

Sunset at the resort!

One of the many pools at the resort. All in all we had a great time on this trip. We have never done an all inclusive before, but we will definitely do one again!

The Joostens visit the Joostens

So I have been horrible with this blog. The lack of updates are my fault. My parents visited last September. We had a blast!! Here are some pictures from their trip.
We went to eat at the Blue Crab. Amazing meal!!

My Dad and I shared a huge feast consisting of crab, prawns, steak, scallops, clams, mussels, a baked potato and some vegetables!

Out at Ogden Point

Looking out over Butchart Gardens

Mmmm... Fish and chips! This was sooo good!

Mom and Dad Joosten at a lookout over the water

The Empress lit up at night!

The house where my mom was born!

I realized I left a picture out from our trip to holland... infact I left many out, but this one has significance to my Mom, and my Grandparents Mimi and Bupa. This is the house they lived in when my Mother was born. It is the dark house on the left hand side (at least I hope that's right... number 1037).

Holland!!! (Part 5 the last)

Paul and Janine rented a boat for an afternoon and we took a tour of Amsterdam. It was such a fun time! Here is Paul acting well... like Paul.

We were sitting upfront to make sure it all went okay. We didn't hit anything, and I consider that a success in itself.

If you are in Holland, then nothing screams cool like a boat shaped like a wooden shoe! I can't imagine this would be very practical.

We had a BBQ at Paul and Janine's. They invited Hans and Mrs. van der Sluis. We don't have a good picture of her to put up though... if we get one we will post it!
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The Nieuwe Kerk (The New Church). We went inside, it was really cool!

Paul reading from the book of John (Jokes... I think he was reading the pamphlet).

Me in front of a huge brass facade. The church was huge inside!

The Palace. The Royal Family uses this when they visit the City.

Paul and Digna at Sushi.

Sorry Marja. This was the best picture we had. Sushi was really enjoyable. It was the kind where you sit in front of a conveyor and the sushi rolls by and you pick what you want.

We went to eat at a restaurant called Praq. Sooo good. Cassie said this was where she had the best cream puffs in her whole life. It was really fun to sit outside, in fact I think we had dinner more outside then in for the whole trip!

My personal little piece of art from the trip. I call it "Paul in the Knife". This is cutting edge photography. Okay, enough of the jokes. I do like the picture though!

Central Station in Amsterdam. This is one massive train station! And of course everyone takes their bike to the train, so there were a lot of bikes out front!

This is a Bicycle parkade. A lot of bikes!!!

Parking in Amsterdam is incredibly expensive. 55 Euros a day. That's roughly 80 Dollars Canadian... a day. WHAT???

On the whole this trip was a blast! We had such a great time seeing everyone. The family we saw was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was wonderful for Cassie to get to meet everyone. There was so much to do and see. It was an amazing vacation!

Holland!!! (Part 4)

These Sheep were all walking in a row along the top of the Dyke. It was a really cool site, there were a lot!

Paling (eel). These won't be available much longer, so we had to have some while we still could.

Bupa enjoying himself with his portion. We bought 5... can you guess who got the extra one?

Cassie is awesome! She tried everything. Though the appearance was a little hard to get over, she did enjoy it.

Us on the little island of Schiermonnikoog. There are only a handful of cars, so everyone is on the bike. We rented a tandem. It resulted in a lot of laughing. We had a great day here and would recommend it to everyone!

We were lucky enough to take in a temple session while we were there. It was wonderful to do that with Mimi and Bupa.

Paul and Mary Van't Schip (spelling??) also joined us. It was cool because The session was in French. Apparently the Dutch Temple is the only official Bilingual temple in the world (French and Dutch). This is because the Temple also serves people that come up from Belgium.

The front door and the panel above it are bronze. The plan was to let it turn green, but unfortunately they used an improper cleaner on it and the chemical reaction turned it all dark brown. The door is 5 inches thick though!

The Fokkerlaan. This is were my family lived when I was born. It was in pretty good shape, and looked nicely decorated inside.

The Grift. This was the last house we lived in before we moved to Canada not counting Mimi and Bupa's apartment. Unfortunately it looked pretty run down. The whole neighborhood did, but it was fun to see it again.