THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - February Edition
Updated: Jun 18, 2021
February 1st! The first month of 2016 is already in the books! I made the cover photo a giant one of my face, because that’s my new 34 year old face. Feast your eyes upon it!
January started off while I was still in Regina. We were there until the 7th. It was a great start to the year and I loved spending time with my Regina ladies who were around!
Once back home, it was my birthday! Tim had a really nice day planned for me. He took me to the Scandinave Spa baths in Old Montreal followed by a fancy dinner out at Toqué!, chef Normand Laprise’s restaurant. It’s supposedly the best restaurant in Canada. We got the tasting menu and it was heaven.
We went out for brunch on my actual birthday day.
Unfortunately at this time I was dealing with a major toothache infection in one of my wisdom teeth (I still have all of my wisdom teeth), which I ended up having to go on antibiotics for. I was seriously popping the pain killers. Ha ha! But you wouldn’t know it, because I was gonna have me a birthday and that’s it!!! By now, I had actually almost completely forgotten about that entire incident.
For my birthday present, Tim got me a Lenovo YOGA 3 Pro laptop computer.
I was totally okay with my old 2010 Dell...
...But Tim hated it (not that he ever used it!) and decided that it needed replacing.
I have to admit, the new computer is pretty awesome and suits me perfectly. It’s neat that it can fold into a tablet and has a touch screen.
So now I type to you from my fancy new digs.
Lastly, my new tattoo is now completely healed and looks pretty adorable.
Tim went back to Vancouver for a week for work.
I have spent the month doing two things: Busting my ass extra hard at yoga (when I got back home from the holidays my stomach was nothing but turkey dinners) and planning the sabbatical. Planning the sabbatical has been like a full-time job.
So let me tell you some more about that.
After having worked at BioWare for seven years, Tim was awarded a seven week paid sabbatical. He still gets his usual five weeks of paid vacation time per year on top of this as well. Tim had reached his seven years in July of 2014 and we wanted to take the sabbatical in the spring of 2015, but we just didn’t have the money. (In fact, you might recall, we were the most broke then.) The sabbatical also expires after two years, so we had to get this thing to happen or lose it forever! So we postponed it until the spring of 2016. (This also effectively postponed our plans to start having kids, which we would have started to do a year earlier as well.) Taking the sabbatical that we want is a very important priority for us. Thankfully, Tim got a really great bonus in 2015 and we have been able to finance everything that we want to do!
Another annoyance in our plans is that it’s supposed to be seven weeks. But because Tim has reached a crucial point in his current project at work, they don’t want him to be gone for that long. They’re willing to give him four weeks in a row. I was pretty angry about this. He still gets to use the remaining three weeks, just at a different time. (We have no specific plans for them, and will probably just use them all willy-nilly.) Because of our time being shortened, we removed our plans to go to New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. We’ll just have to go another time.
However, I obviously cannot complain about having a whole month to go off travelling! So here’s what we ARE doing!:
We leave on March 12th. We fly to Thailand first and have two nights in Bangkok. Then we take an overnight sleeper train up to Chiang Mai, where we’re staying for three nights. Then we fly down to Krabi, and are doing a sleep-aboard boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands. We fly to Indonesia second and have six nights in Bali, specifically the town of Ubud. We fly to Philippines third, to the island of Palawan, and have five nights in the town of El Nido. Lastly, we fly to Japan fourth and have one night in Osaka. Followed by two nights in Kyoto. And ending with four nights in Tokyo. We return home on April 10th.
All of the flights and accommodations are BOOKED! So it’s really, really real. I’m so relieved that it’s finally happening, and that we’ll finally be rid of this looming “what are we going to do about the sabbatical?” over us.
Tim gets another one after the next seven years (2021), if he stays with the company.
BABY WATCH 2016:
Originally, our plan all along was to try and conceive on this vacation. We thought it would be fun to be able to say that we conceived our baby in some exotic country. But now we have some second thoughts about that. First of all: I don’t want the trip to be ruined for me by having to worry about not drinking alcohol or watching what I eat. I promise you that I will be eating sushi in Japan. Second of all: Zika virus. I’m well aware that the countries that we are visiting are not the ones that are experiencing the outbreak. And I am definitely not the sort of person that allows fear-mongering and worry to control my life. But if it spreads to where we’re going by March, then that’s a thing to consider.
So I dunno. It might make more sense to start trying in April instead.
BUT! We still have to get through February first before any of this!
Crystal is now in Rigaud, Quebec (about 45 minutes from where I live) doing her Officer Induction Training Program at the CBSA College. So I get to see her this weekend! We’re going to show her the Montreal sights! She’s in the program for 18 weeks, so I hope to get to see her many more times as well, depending on how busy she is.
The following weekend, Emily and Matt, my Sister-in-Law and her fiancé, are visiting from Kitchener, Ontario. They haven’t been to our place yet since we moved here, so it will be fun to have them.
And I think that Tim’s friend Dave is visiting at the end of the month from London, Ontario.
So lots of people this month! I need to clean my house...
THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:
February 9th is Laura Young’s 30th birthday!
The DIRTY THIRTY!!! (Jake is gonna have a heyday with that one.) I’m so excited that you’re in Ottawa now which means that we’ll have SO MANY opportunities to see each other! Let me know when you guys are settled, because we will definitely pop down for a weekend. It’s so close! And you guys are welcome to come and stay with us in Montreal ANY TIME! I hope that Matt spoils you a lot for your special day! LOVE YOU!!!! ♥
February 18th is Candice Weingartner’s 4th wedding anniversary!
Time sure is flying! I hope that you and Ryan get to escape to celebrate your special day! Prettiest winter wedding ever!!
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