It's 3:15pm and we're all just waiting for the boss' green signal that we can go home already. Can't wait to get my 4-day weekend started!! Can't wait to sleep in til my cats start biting cos they're hungry. Can't wait to pig out on turkey and eggnog cakes and sugar cookies and all other calorie-filled goodies that only Christmas brings!!

Come on, boss, let us go already dammit!

Finally! A semi-busy weekend. I was starting to get restless over the past couple weekends as I was mostly hibernating due to the cold, rainy weather. So I'm glad that this weekend I actually dragged my ass out to have a bit of fun.

Friday: The night before's storm knocked down a bunch of trees, damaged buildings, and caused a power outage for most of 3 cities plus their traffic lights. On my way to work, I could see that a lot of businesses had to close due to no power, including restaurants and gas stations. As I got near the office, left and right the buildings were dark, so I was getting my hopes up. It's been super slow at work lately, so it would be nice if we just got sent home rather than twiddle our thumbs for 8 hours! But our street actually had power! Of all the bad luck...!!! The whole city is out including just down the street but of course we had to continue working...grumble...

That day dragged on extra slow, and finally, when 4:30 rolled around, we all made a mad dash to go home, but traffic was horrible! Traffic lights were still out, so every intersection was a 4-way stop. The one good thing that came out of going to work was that the boss finally gave us our Christmas cards with the little gift inside. $200 Safeway gift card for each employee whohoo!!!

After that painfully slow work day, I just could not wait to get my weekend started. We went to Safeway and prompty made use of that card, filling our fridge with a shitload of groceries. Then I met up with some girlfriends for late dinner at Wings Tap n Grill. I have not seen Romela in almost a year, and we haven't seen Anna in almost 2 years, so it was awesome to catch up and reminisce about our hellish Bell call center days. The food was pretty good too, as well as their bellinis...yum!

Saturday: Daytime we just bummed around at home in our pajamas and ate chips and cookies while watching TV. Superstation usually showed older movies on the weekends. Groundhog Day was on, so I saw the bottom half of it. Funny I've never actually seen that whole movie from start to finish, just bits and pieces. It snowed the night before, but thank God it was only about 2 inches, so the roads are clear. Then for dinner we went to Stan and Glenda's house for dinner in Maple Ridge. It was the first time we've seen them since we left the resort. Glenda made honey ham and mashed potatoes...yum! The caesar salad was also good. Then we watched the hockey game, where we won against Minnesota YAY! I spent most of that night playing with their chihuahua Belle, while trying to prevent her from licking every inch of my face. I also tried to play with their 2 cats, but they seemed to escape my every attempt at capturing them.

Sunday: This was just relax and recover day. Cleaned the house a bit, took the garbage out, sorted the recyclables. Went to the library to borrow some books. It's gonna be a slow week at the office, so I'll just read to make the time go faster. Most of our suppliers and even our customers shut down operations during the holidays, so there is almost absolutely nothing to do. People usually just take it off as holidays, but I've already used up mine for the year.
There wasn't much on TV that night as most shows seem to be on hiatus til early next year. But CSI Miami marathon was on Spike TV Yes!!!

Mmmm...it's Monday now, and as I predicted, everyone here is bored and just waiting for the 4-day long weekend coming up. At least it's almost noon. I'm gonna start on 'The Golden Compass' on my lunchbreak.

Highlight pics of our trip

Me, Cheryl and her mom, waiting for the little train to take us to the beach! We find out later that it's much faster to just walk there. Altho I miss that train, with the radio blasting Spanish songs, ay! yayayay! I'm pretty sure the singer was wasted while wailing out that chorus.

One of the 3 pools they had. Close to here you can find a local who will climb up one of the coconut trees to get a fresh coconut, hack the outer husk away and top it off with a straw for you

Dave and Cheryl working on their tan. We slow-roasted like rotisserie!

Beach babes -- Amanda, Me and Cheryl

We miss those banana mamas! Now we want all our drinks to come with umbrellas!

Such a perfect day for a wedding! If we could do it again, we'd do it this way!

A Toast! To the newly married couple, Phil and Cheryl. Also, to many more vacations to come!

Cheryl and Me and at reception

Chillin by the poolside with Mirela and Kathrin, yes I have my drink with me wherever I go!

Yeah, this is the best vacation ever!The rest of our bajillion pics are here, don't forget to check them out!!!

I left my heart in Punta Cana

Our trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic was AWESOME!!! It was 7 days of tropical paradise in an all-inclusive resort. This trip was for our friends' wedding, and also served as our belated honeymoon. It was my first time going on an all-inclusive package, and it was quite a wonderful experience. So far my travels before were a bit different. The itinerary would always be packed full, there would be a schedule of waking up early for breakfast, going sight-seeing, making sure we get on the bus on time for the tour of the day, etc. Exciting? Yes. But also a bit tiring, as when do we fit in the time to just sit back and chillax?

This time our itinerary, for the most part, was to wake up whenever we felt like it. Some days we were early enough to catch the breakfast buffet, some days not. Altho it wasn't a big priority as a big buffet lunch always awaited us at the International Restaurant just off the beach. We'd stroll along down to the beach, where we proceeded to alternate between rolling around in the waves and slow-cooking ourselves into our nice deep tans. It was a nice mix of ppl there, families, older couples, a lot of Canadians, not a whole lot of Americans, and a shitload of Europeans. Them and their speedos! I vote to ban the speedo!

When it got a bit too hot, we'd move to one of the 3 pools in the resort. We'd cool down by the shaded huts, or sit in the swim-up bar, and that would usually start our boozing for the day. An entertainment team would usually round up ppl at the pool for activities like water polo, water aerobics and latin dancing lessons. That was probably the extent of my exercising the whole time I was there. There was a gym in the resort somewhere, although I never saw the exterior or interior of it =)

Then usually we'd go shower and get ready for dinner. There were a bunch of ala carte restaurants around the resort: Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, Seafood, etc... if we felt like it we'd make our reservations to one of them, but most of the time we'd just end up at the buffet restaurant, where they had a little bit of everything. Yes, pigging out was the norm of our everyday there, food food food! Then we'd chill at the lobby where there would be a live band performing while we downed glass after glass of alcohol-filled drinks! Some nights we'd head over to the theater where the entertainment team had different shows like a horror show, magic show, and one time they had karaoke night. And after that, we'd walk to the disco (yes that's what they called it =) and dance and drink the night away. It felt weird at first to go up to the bartender for drinks and not have to dish out $7-10 per drink. Now it'll be strange going to clubs in Vancouver and HAVE to pay for drinks!

After the disco, we would usually go to the open 24/7 sports bar to chow on greasy food to absorb the alcohol. I miss their nachos!!! We'd play foozeball and pool for a little bit. Funny but everyone was bad at pool. Not sure if it was the alcohol or maybe their pool table is crooked? And depending on how ppl are feeling, sometimes we'd stumble to the beach and/or the pool and goof around til they closed the lights on us. Then we'd stumble back to our rooms.

The wedding itself was beautiful. It was on our 4th day of being there, so we'd had some time to unwind and get nice tans. There were about 30 of us there, family, relatives and friends of the bride and groom. It was right on the beach, and it got a bit cloudy and breezy, which worked better so we didn't melt in the scorching heat. The reception followed later on in one of the restaurants. It was fun riding in the little train to the reception, with the newly married couple and the whole group.

We walked to the end of the beach one day to the little shops, but that was kinda scary as the vendors there were super pushy, dragging us into their stores and making us buy their wares. Just got a couple souvenirs and quickly went back to the safety of our resort. The locals out there were also giving us dirty looks. That was when I came to the realization that the resort employees were super friendly, but the locals were quite hostile towards us. You'd think they'd be happy that tourists bring money into their country, but I guess their govt officials see and pocket that money, not the townsppl. So sad.

And one morning all the guys went deep-sea fishing. But an hour and a half into trolling on the high seas, half of the guys realized their love of land and starting puking their guts out the side of the fishing boat, so they had to be brought back via speedboat. Heehee =) But that was the extent of life outside the resort for me and Dave. Mostly we were just relaxing, recharging our batteries and partying it up inside the resort.

We were sad to leave on our last day. We definitely want to go somewhere warm now every winter. Also, the bar has been raised as far as all-inclusive resorts go. We were pretty spoiled and pampered, the employees went all-out, and service was top notch. Food was excellent and all the drinks were served with so much rum! I definitely recommend this place.