New Hair & Jack Johnson Concert

I know this isn't big news to most of you, but my hair was driving me CRAZY over the last few weeks, so I finally had it cut and done all nice.  I always let it go crazy over the summer b/c I'm in and out of lakes and pools and don't want to bother styling it in between.  Also, I know if I've done my hair all nice that morning, I'm gonna be a whole lot LESS likely to go swimming and get my head wet, and I LOVE swimming, so I just don't go there.  But there comes a point where it's just TOO MUCH and I need it nice again.  Here's a picture:

Last night Andrew and I went to the Jack Johnson concert here in Vancouver at Thunderbird Stadium at UBC.  It's funny b/c we always say how happy we are to live in Vancouver b/c there are so many great concerts and stuff that come thru here.  But when it really comes down to it, every time there's a great concert coming we check the price and then decide to just stay home and listen to the cd b/c it's so pricey (especially when you add all the taxes, ticketmaster fees, service fees, etc).  But Jack Johnson is our favorite guy to listen to together... probably every single day almost, so we figured this one was worth it.  We bought the tix way back in Feb and have been looking forward to it all the way to August and it was SO worth it.  The stadium was PACKED... people standing crowded together like sardines all over the grass and crowded into the bleachers.  We sat in the bleachers which was good but it was kind of sideways to the main stage, and Jack was the size of an ant b/c he was so far away, but at least they had big screens we could see everything on, and the music was incredible.  Here's a pic of Jack and one of us in the bleachers:

My favorite guy in the band is called Zack Gill... he's the piano player and he's SO funny... whenever he's not playing piano he's off dancing like a monkey in the corner, hamming it up.  You kind of have to see him to know what I mean.  I took a video but it's not working to post it on this blog.  Anyways, here's a pic of Zach:

Another pic of Jack, the crowd, and the stage:

If you look really closely at the above picture you can see Jack in a red t-shirt on the stage... very tiny!

And finally, Andrew's good friend Eric from Seattle is up here for part of the weekend right now to hang out with us before we leave.  We made homemade pizza tonight, all 3 of us in the kitchen and had a great dinner out on the deck... lovin' it!

Only 5 days till we leave for the year... we are super busy packing now and have a big list we're checking stuff off on every day as we go along.  Sat night we are going to Abby to have dinner and say bye to my family, on Sunday we're having an open house for our friends at our place, Mon night we're having dinner with Andrew's family to say bye, and then we're keeping Tues night open to finish packing and get a good night's sleep before flying out on Wed.  Stay tuned for more updates...

One more thing: we got a Voice Over IP phone line that we'll be having in China.  That means we have a (604) Vancouver number that you can call us at for FREE (if you're calling from the Vancouver area).  Just remember that we're 15 hours ahead of Vancouver, so try not to wake us up at our 3am please!!  The # is 604.248.5191 and will be hooked up as soon as we get our internet connection sorted out at our new place.  It could be a week or two after arriving, so just keep trying if you want to call and we'll answer it as soon as we can hear it ringing!    

Leaving Sooner Than We Thought

We just got word that we'll actually be flying out on Wed Aug 27th instead.  What happened is that apparently in China the date for the first day of school isn't really nailed down until shortly before it starts.  I guess the Chinese just kinda know when to turn up for school.  Even our boss didn't know when school starts when we asked him yesterday.  He figured it would be around Sept 5th, which would make an Aug 29th departure perfect.  Now that it's on Sept 1st, we need to leave a bit earlier, thus the 27th.  Yikes, we're definitely on a time crunch now!!  Gotta go find my big pink suitcases and start packing... think they're in Abby still.

~Corinna

Summer Fun!

Hi Everyone,

Here's a little update on things lately.  First of all, we successfully finished teaching summer school- YAHOO!!  We were both teaching 2 courses (Andrew was doing Math 10 & 11 and I was doing Socials 10 & 11).  It was good but also SO much work, time, effort, lack of sleep, etc.  Also in there we had to clean up our place and look for renters, so that took time too.  Needless to say, we were quite pleased when it was all over.  My kids were good in both classes, but the morning group was def more fun b/c they had way more personality.  The afternoon group was just kinda stale and didn't have much to say or much interest in making class a little less dry.  Anyways, it's all in the past and we're done now!

My SS10 class in Burnaby- lots of kids dropped out before it ended- thus the small class size.  They were all great except for one bad boy (the one next to me in the red hat).  I shall not go into detail...

After finishing up with summer school we took off with my family for 5 days to Camp Barnabas, which is a family camp on Keats Island, right across from Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast.  We'd been looking forward to this for months, and it paid off as we had the best time ever!!  Everything was wonderful: the food, the speaker, waterskiing and wakeboarding, the weather, the view, the people we met, and most of all the loads of family time that we got out of it.  It feels like every time we go to Abby to visit my family for the afternoon there's never enough time to feel like it was a thorough visit- there are always a few people we don't get around to talking to as much as we'd like... so camp was great for that.  Plus we played LOADS of Dutch Blitz together.  If you've never played it before, it's the best game in the world... Google it, then buy it... Gauranteed to be endless hours of family fun for everyone!!  

We woke up at 5:30am on the first morning (I had to pee) and this was the view from our tent at camp... we decided to "display" it!)

While we waited for the camp ferry in Gibsons, my mom, sisters, and I went perusing in this little lingerie shop... Andrew opted to wait outside (see the little sign behind him?)

The "Barnabob"... thingy where you go in this basket and make the post go from side to side until you're touching the water- this is my dad and Nicy doing it.

Emily with a garder snake... the little boys who found it insisted it was a "boa"- so cute!

View from the camp... tre beautiful!

Ferry ride back to Horseshoe Bay... the front of the boat was a touch windy as you can tell by everyone's hair!

Also, the last long weekend we had we went up to Osoyoos with Andrew's family and my family too.  Lots of good times there as well.  It's always nice to be able to have both families together.  The weather was amazing, as was the food and company!

Gill (Andrew's mum), Andrew, and my mom before another amazing dinner in Osoyoos.  

In terms of China plans, things are coming along well.  It's looking like we'll be leaving on the 29th of August now.  The reason it's taken so long to figure out exact dates is b/c of the visa process.  Usually it's not too severe, but with the Olympics this year security is WAY tighter and our application has had to pass thru 3 offices instead of just the usual 1 office.  Tomorrow Andrew and I have to complete the final step of getting the visas and then we're good to go.  

We're in a funny place right now of kind of feeling like we're on holidays (compared to teaching summer school), but also kind of feeling a bit of pressure b/c of packing, taking care of tons of little moving details, and organizing dates for when we'll see everyone "for the last time" and having a good-bye party.

Sooooo, that's where we're at right now... things are good- we're loving the weather and having free time to hang out with each other... 

Hope you're all doing well!