A visit from Mom & Dad

In August, Mom & Dad came out to help out with Keira, the move & the house renovations. It wasn't much of a vacation for them, but we certainly appreciated all the help!

On the upside we did make some time for fun. We played a lot of Wii (Mom & Dad's favourite new pastime), including Rockband; and we visited the Richmond night market.

Of course the highlight for Mom & Dad was spending time with Keira, which they will do much more of when they come to visit at Christmas. We'll have to buy the Beatles Rockband game before they and my sister arrive.

Click on the image below to see more photos:

Mom & Dad's Trip - Aug 09

We got our house today....

Today we got possession of our first house and we are very excited to get in and make it our own. With Katie being 8.75 months pregnant, it means the task of sanding, cleaning, wallpaper removal, and painting is up to me. Luckily Kerri has offer to help out this weekend and I'm hoping to recruit some others as well.... any takers.

The house will take a bit of work to update, but on the whole we are really happy with our purchase. It's a great house and we are looking forward to all the little projects (that's again Katie talk for James' list of to do's).

Thank god Katie's parents are coming out to help us in a couple of weeks, we already have the hardwood and shingles ready ;-) just joking (sorta)

Click on image to see pics of the house:

Our New House !!!

Crazy Weather in Vancouver

This has been a crazy summer in Vancouver in terms of weather. We're just getting over an extreme heat wave, where we broke records dating back to the 1800s. I think I jinxed us when I told everyone that I wasn't worried about being pregnant in August, because Vancouver NEVER really gets that hot...LOL.

But the silver lining to the crazy heat is that it resulted in a wild thunderstorm last weekend. You might be thinking "so what", but Vancouver only has a thunderstorm approximately once a decade. So this was a huge deal for me who LOVES thunderstorms and hasn't experienced one since we moved here almost 3 years ago. We had all the windows open, and we just sat back and enjoyed the show. James managed to get a few good shots of the lightning, and the incredible sunset afterwards.

Click on the image below to check out the photo gallery:

BC's Crazy Weather

Richmond Oval & Night Market

On Friday night James and I went to the Richmond Olympic Oval, which will be home to the long-track speed skating events during the 2010 winter olympics. James had his very rusty skates sharpened, and then timed himself on the track in hopes of matching the current world records :) He was quite sad when he realized that the world's best are twice as fast as he is.

At the Oval, we met up with our friend Andrew, and his buddies from the gym. Andrew was brave enough to rent speed skates, and really give the Oval a try. He did remarkably well.

Since I'm 8.5 months pregnant, I did not join in the skating festivities, but I had a lot of fun playing photographer/videographer.

Next we headed to the night market, which runs every Saturday throughout the summer. I had heard about the market before, but I had never bothered to go. But since we were already in Richmond on a Saturday night, we thought why not check it out; and we were very happy we did. It was just like the night markets that we've been to in various asian countries. With lots of great asian food stalls, a stage with performers (that we didn't understand, but enjoyed nonetheless), a Muay Thai Boxing ring, stalls selling every type of trinket imaginable, and a little midway with games. We enjoyed just meandering around the market sampling food, and taking in the atmosphere.

Click on the image below to go to the photo gallery:

Richmond Olympic Oval + Night Market

Baby Bump Update

We've been adding photos of my growing baby bump over the past few weeks. And just recently we met with a professional photographer to capture this time of the pregnancy. So we've added our favourite professional photos to the baby bump page too.

Also, James and I made a belly cast last weekend, which we will decorate after the baby is born. We've included one photo of the belly cast process. This project was a lot of fun, and I'm sure that the final product is a memento that we'll cherish for years to come.

Click on the image below to go to the photo gallery:

Baby Bump

New Bikes

After my last adventure race I decided to look into retiring my hardtail mountain bike and find a newer west cost cross-country bike with full suspension. A friend of ours lead me to Brodie Bikes, where I picked up a 2008 Rite model. I'm very excited about the purchase, but have yet to get out on the trails with it.




I have also been in the market for a road bike for some time and recently managed to find a used one that fit my criteria (my size and price!). It's a 2005 KHS upgraded to 105 shimano components. It's very light and very fast. I've clocked 50+km in 5 days of owning it and enjoying every minute. It really puts into perspective how easy the tour de france riders make riding look, especially the climbs.

Trip Home to Ontario

James and I took an impromtu week of vacation and headed back East to visit family and friends. It was a whirlwind tour, but it was great to see everyone and spend a bit of time enjoying the Ontario summer.

The first stop was Toronto, where we met up with my family for the annual birthday party. It was the first time that all my family including Aunts, Uncles and cousins have been together since James and I moved out west. So we had a great time catching up with everyone. All my aunties gave me their baby gifts. We got all sorts of knit blankets and sweaters, and a homemade quilt. It was quite lovely.

On Sunday we stopped by my sister's new home to check it out before heading out to lunch with her and her new beau. Then it was on to Kingston for some rest & relaxation....sort of.

On Monday night, we went to Rockport to have dinner with James' family and enjoy the river. And unbeknownst to us, James' mom had arranged a surprise baby shower for us. It was a very pleasant surprise!!! We got loads of great baby stuff and best of all, I got to catch up with all the Huck ladies, which I haven't done in a few years.

On Tuesday we headed back to Rockport to celebrate our nephew's 4th birthday. It was a lot of fun to hang out with our neice and nephew whom we hadn't seen since Christmas. But the highlight of the day had to be flying the little motorized plane that we got for our nephew. It didn't seem to matter where James aimed that thing, it always ended up either stuck in a tree, or sinking to the bottome of the pond. We all found this quite hysterical.

Wednesday was Canada day, so James, Mom, Dad & I headed to Ottawa for the best Canada Day celebration that I know of. We decided to stop for breakfast at a diner that we used to frequent when we lived in Ottawa. And much to my surprise, when we arrived we were greeted by all our university friends who threw a surprise baby shower for me (James was in on this one). It was so great to see everyone, and I was so pleased and honoured to have such a large turn out, especially on Canada Day when everyone already has plans. And of course we got lots of great baby stuff; which we are very grateful for. I was also grateful that I brought an extra bag home, because we filled that sucker right up with all the baby stuff we got :)

That evening we went on James' family boat line for a Canada day cruise. It was nice to finally get to see the family business in action. And I don't think that there was a better place in the city to watch the fireworks than from the deck of the boat. During the cruise I even got to see storm clouds and lightning, both of which I miss terribly living in Vancouver. But happily the clouds rolled away from parliment hill, so the fireworks were a go!

On Thursday we hung around Ottawa for awhile, killing time unitl James' flight. We went to Kettlemen's bagels for breakfast, which is a real treat since we haven't been able to find Montreal bagels in Vancouver. After enjoying a coffee at Starbucks, and once James met up with his brother, Mom, Dad & I headed back to Kingston.

Friday was my rest day, I didn't have any plans whatsoever, and I just enjoyed relaxing. We went to 2 of my favourite Kingston eateries that night: the Brewpub for the best nachos I've ever had, and then of course to White Mountain for ice cream. No trip to K-town is complete without a visit to both of those fine establishments. Although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit sad to have to order a root beer instead of the delicious cranberry cider that I normally enjoy :)

Then on Saturday it was back to Vancouver. As always, it's good to get back home, but it's sad to leave Ontario and all my family and friends. But at least I got to see almost everyone on this trip home.

As always, click on the image below for a link to a photo gallery:

July Ontario Trip

Another year, Another MOMAR

Since moving out to BC almost 3 years ago, Kerri and I have raced the MOMAR (Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race) in Squamish.

For those new to the concept of Adventure racing, you are given a map of the local area that include check point locations you need to get to and stamp your sheet, the 1st team to do so wins. Included in the MOMAR races is mountain biking, trail running, orienteering, and usually either rappelling or kayaking.

Kerri and I have usually compete in the 50km course, but this year due to my UK travels and here final exams, we decided to jump down to the new short course (30km).

The race started out ok, with a simple 3km jog up and down the mountain side. Following this we jumped onto our bikes and started climbing out of the Alice lake area to some fun and simple single track corners.

The day was beautiful for the end of May, but it was a little hot. As such, Kerri wasn't feeling that well and decided to pull herself out of the race. I know it was a very tough decision for her, but overall it was the right decision and the best as she had exams coming up.

She told me to continue on and finish for team "Huck 'n' Eh." Race rules are that teams are required to start and finish together so we knew we would be disqualified, but hey, we paid for the race so I continued to see how well we could do.

Going solo, I started to realize that Kerri was an excellent pacer for me. Without her it was like having my accelerator stuck at 100%. This also lead me to realize that our team pace was great, which allowed me time to navigate and judge the proper turns we needed to make. Without this I made the wrong decision right at the start of the navigation section. This let me astray for about 1km. Figuring out my mistake and losing some time I made a quick decision to shortcut through the dense, unmarked, trail-less forest. It worked and got me back on track (read - I was lucky!!).

After the quick 5km run on navigation, I picked the bike back up for another climb to the start of the downhill mountain biking section. Fortunately I have ridden this trail in the last 2 races and was use to the terrain, until the last section. This is where things got interesting.

The race marshals at this location were trying to motivate me by saying that the 3rd place team was only 2 mins ahead and if I picked up the pace slightly I would be able to catch them. This worked, until I turned the next corner. All I remember thinking is "WoW... This is steep and Fast, I can't believe I'm riding thisssssssssss......" My bike ended up at the bottom of a 10 foot embankment and I supermaned down the trail with a nice soft landing on a mixture of limestone and shale. This clearly slowed me down for a minute or two. I ended up brusing my left thumb bad enough that I couldn't mountain bike and leaving 2 holes in my right elbow, but my helmet didn't have a scratch on it!

I pick up the bike and with a couple of curses I started into a slow jog through the rest of the 7km of mountain biking. The were about 2 or 3 times following this where I almost quit the race, but knew that Kerri would be disappointed that the team didn't finish, so I kept telling myself just a couple more steps.... After those couple of steps my legs fully seized, not just one but both. Man did that hurt, I quickly massaged them and chewed back a couple of liquid painkillers.

The raced ended in Squamish, which provided some paved areas where I could hop back on the bike one handed. At this point I assumed I was maybe in 5th or 6th. Just then I spotted another team ahead. They saw me as well and we all raced to find the finish line through the back streets of Squamish. I managed to pass them just as we reached the bike drop and were told to race to the finish line 100m away. The adrenalin was kickin and I pushed it all the way to the line.

Kerri and Adam were there to cheer me on and also to my suprise let me know I finished 2nd!! Overall it was a great day, it was too bad Kerri had to stop, but we'll kick it next year. It took me a couple of weeks to heal each day finding new cuts and bruises.

Have I convinced you to try Adventure Racing yet? It is an amazing time and the squamish race is by far one of the best as the scenery is stunning.

Here are some pics:

MOMAR Squamish 2009

Home Owners at Last

After years of trying to get into the real estate market, James and I finally managed to purchase our first home.

We very excited (and a little terrified) with our new purchase, and we're looking forward to moving in and making it our own. It's a heritage house in Vancouver, with a basement suite which we plan on renting out to help us cover the mortgage.

The only downside is that our closing date is just one week before the baby is due. Needless to say, August is going to be a very hectic month for us, so we're thrilled that my parents are coming out to help us with setting up the house and taking care of the baby.

Road Tripp'n to Calgary

On the May long weekend, James and I took the Friday off work and did a road trip to Calgary to visit Peter, Mo and their two kids. We left Vancouver on Thursday night and drove to Salmon Arm where we stayed the night. We found a fantastic restaurant called Shuswap Chefs (try saying that 3 times fast), where we had the best meal either of has had in a long time.

On Friday we enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in before heading for Calgary. We passed through a number of towns such as Golden and Revelstoke, that we'd like to go back to in the winter for skiing. But we didn't have much time to look around as we needed to get to Calgary in the early evening because we had tickets to the National Lacrosse League champion's cup game.

We made it to Calgary with enough time for a quick dinner and visit with the kids before heading the Saddledome with Peter and Mo. The Calgary roughnecks were playing the New York Titans in the final game of the season, and the Calgary fans were all geared up to bring home the cup. It was the loudest sporting event that I've ever been to, and James and I got right into it and even joined in the mayhem with our very own thunder sticks. I guess all the cheering gave the roughnecks a lift, because it was a close game, but in the end the good guys brought the cup to Calgary and everyone went home happy; except the NY titans I suppose.

On Saturday we had a relaxing breakfast and played with the kids before heading out to a local park for a picnic. The weather was fantastic, and we all enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the sunshine. I even enjoyed a little cat nap in the grass while James, Peter & Mo played with the kids. In the evening we had a BBQ and went for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Then on Sunday morning we said our goodbyes and packed up the car with our baby gift from Peter and Mo....a ton of baby stuff that they are done with. I felt like we had won the lottery......thanks Pete & Mo!!!!!! And I was especially happy when it actually all fit into our little Toyota Matrix, seemingly defying all the laws of physics.

We had two days to make the trip back to Vancouver, so we took a meandering route down to Radium Hot Springs; this is definitely a place that we'd like to come back to because it's quite beautiful nestled in valley and it's home to natural hot springs which I would love to visit once I'm not pregnant:) But instead, we just stopped and had lunch on a patio. It truly felt like the first weekend of summer because it was 26 degrees and gloriously sunny. Then we headed up the Columbia valley past the bugaboo mountains back towards Golden and then down through the Okanagan through Vernon and eventually on to Kelowna where we stopped for the night. It was so warm, that we didn't even need a sweater when we had dinner on the patio at 9:30 pm, it was a very nice change from the relative cool Vancouver nights.

Then on Monday, we headed back to Vancouver after a leisurely breakfast. We knew that we were getting close when the rain started.....actually Vancouver had very nice weather up until Monday, but it seemed very apropos.

Not surprisingly, we were sad that the weekend was over, but we had a great long weekend, and we're already looking forward to the next one.

As always here's some pics:

Calgary Road Trip

Baby Bump

I've had a few requests to share some photos of my growing belly. So I've set up a photo album and every week or so I'll add a new photo of my baby bump.

In related news, I had a midwife appointment today and all is well with both baby and mom :)

Baby Bump

Spring Time in Vancouver

Spring is my favourite time in Vancouver. There are always a few weeks when the cherry blossoms and magnolias are in bloom, and there is still snow in the north shore mountains; in my opinion there is simply no better time to view Vancouver.

This past weekend we took advantage of the sunny weather to get out side to fly our kite. Then we headed to our favourite Italian delicatessan, and picked up all the fixins for a picnic. Our first plan was to head to Deep Cove to sit by the water, but apparently everyone else in Vancouver had the same idea and there was no parking to be found. So instead we headed up Seymour mountain where we stopped at the Deep Cove lookout and had a mountain-top picnic.

As always, here are a few pictures/videos:

Spring Time in Vancouver

James and Kerri's 1st Adventure Race 2009

On Saturday April 25th, James completed his first adventure race of the 2009 season with his sister Kerri. They finished the 30 km course of running, biking and navigation in a stellar time of 3 hours and 8 minutes, which was well under their goal of three and a half hours. But even more impressive was the fact that they placed 14th out of 34 teams in their category (co-ed pairs), and 69th out of the total of 140 teams. This is an excellent start to their season, considering they both had been quite busy in the weeks leading up to the race, and had not trained nearly as much as they had planned :)

Kerri's boyfriend, Adam, and I were their personal paparazzi and cheering squad. We saw them off at the start line, met them at check point four to cheer them on, and greeted them at the finish line. In between we checked out the shops in Port Moody, and sat in the sunshine at a local cafe.

Here's some Pics:

Adventure Race - April 25

More from London

Thursday night Wency, a work colleague, and I went to the Apollo theater to see the musical called "Wicked." It is based on the booked also called wicked, which is a story about the witches from The Wizard of Oz. It follows the friendship of the 2 witches from Sorcery school through to the melting of the wicked witch of the west.

I would recommend this play to all, it was fun, humourous, and enjoyable.

Royal Albert Hall

I've been back in London for work this week. As such, I've tried to continue making the most of the opportunity being in London to see as much as I can. Last night I got tickets to see the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring movie with a slight difference, the music was played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

I was really interesting, at times I was watching the movie and would forget that the orchestra was playing. The night was great fun and the building was quite amazing to see as well.

Photo Gallery Updates

For those of you interested, I have and will continue to upload past pics. Please check back to the photo gallery for the updated. Also, if you like a certain picture or caption, please add a comment to let me know, the same can be done on the blog as well.

Here are some of the recent gallery additions:

Xmas 2007

BlackTusk

Whistler Spring Skiing

On Sunday, I drove up to Whistler to meet up with some work friend that were vacationing from Toronto. The forecast had nothing but sun and double digits!!

On Sunday, we ended up skiing Blackcomb. Mainly cause I wanted to try out the snowcross race course, yet the course was under construction. So instead we ventured over to 7th Heaven and skied on cloud nine for a couple of runs.

After a quick lunch at the top of 7th Heaven, I took Chris and Paul over the experience the Blackcomb Glacier, it was a bit of a hike for chris but worth it (right Chris?).

I decided to crash overnight and take a day off in Monday, as it was my last day being 30 so I thought I would make the most of it.

Monday we headed up Whistler and did a warm up run on the Saddle, it turned out to be not so much a warm up run, but a indicator of how sore we were from the previous day. After this we headed over to the Harmony Bowl for a bunch of runs, then off to Symphony Bowl.

Overall, the 2 days were amazing. Spring stlye skiing at it's best. I also happened to get a massive sunburn, including the racoon look from my sun glasses.

Here are some Pics and Vids:

Whistler - Apr

Vancouver Gaints Game

The Vancouver Giants are the local WHL team that play just around the corner from us. On Friday night they opened their 2nd round series in this year's memorial cup playoffs. Katie and I managed to get some last minute tickets ($20 each) just off the blue line.

Vancouver ended up winning the game and out shooting the Spokane Chiefs something like 53 to 30. It was an enjoyable game.

Sorry, no pics

Baby Huckford Tminus 147 days +/-

Katie and I went to visit the BC Woman's Hospital today, as our midwife made us a referral appointment with a doctor there. To our surprise, this visit included the detailed ultrasound that we were schedule to do on Wednesday.

At first I was not to impressed, since this was similar to the quick ultrasound we did a month ago to find the heartbeat. The technician said things like... "there's the stomach, the kidneys, ..." and to me it look like I was back in High school looking through the microscope into a petri dish of full of ameba's.

Yet after a couple of minutes of the technician rotating and scanning further, I started to get the orientation of the screen and how the image was rendered (some cool CAD/CAM software working here!!). It was then pretty clear, where you could see the heart, including all 4 chamers, the spine, ribs, legs, feet, toes.

Overall, the outcome is that all is well with baby Huckford and mom. Everything is normal, though at times it looks like you're watching scenes from Aliens, and as expected.

Here are some pics:

Our kid is the cutest!!
It even has the z-z-z-z coming out of its mouth when it sleeps


That's a foot and leg.
Our kid is currently a bigfoot! Its Foot is 27mm long and its femur is 29mm.
They said this was normal (I hope so!)

Kurt's Visit

As I am travelling for work more and getting more aeroplan points than we can use, we decided to invite Kurt out for a visit to Vancouver.

He arrived on Thursday night after a layover in Montreal. On Friday Kurt visited some of the tour operators in Vancouver to promote our tour boat operation, Capital Cruises.

After we were all done work, we headed up to Whistler for the weekend. We awoke Saturday morning to 16cm of fresh powder and headed up Blackcomb. It was decent skiing, but after a couple hours Kurt was weak in the knees (not sure if it was the view or muscle fatigue). We had some great runs down 7th heaven and then took the peak2peak over to Whistler.

Sunday, we decided not to ski, instead had a nice brunch and walked around the village. Afterwards we drove back to Vancouver.

Kurt and I managed to get last minute tickets to the Vancouver Canucks vs Colorado Avalanche. Good game with the Canucks winning 4-2.

Last night we had dinner with Kerri and Adam. Kurt and Kerri met up earlier at a pub for some St. Paddys day celebrations, needless to say the were totally sober when they showed up for dinner.

Overall a great visit, we enjoyed having Kurt and look forward to the next visit.

London Trip - February

I was sent to London for 2 weeks at the end of Feb for work in my new role on the Integration team. I am enjoying the new role, as it is allowing me to learn more about our product. For the past 5 years I have mainly learned about the design side, where as this new role is more about delivery of the system.

The 2 weeks went well, had some good meetings and site visits. We managed to get out a do some touristy things as well. Highlights include:

• Walks through Portobello Market, Little Venice canals, Hyde Park
• Visits to the Natural History and Science Museums
• Threatre Show at the Hippodrome - La Clique

Here are some pics:

Working in London

We're Blogging again

Katie and I have finally started blogging again. It's been a little while since our last couple of blogs (about a year I think!!). We've been quite busy over the last year and will upload some post-dated blogs of the big events from last year.

We'll be attempting to blog weekly with updates on what we've been up to and more.

Whistler Getaway

Prior to my upcoming business trip to London for 2 weeks, Katie and I decided to head up to Whistler for a couple of days. It hadn't snowed in a couple of weeks, so the conditions were not amazing (but still better than Ontario!!).

Both Friday and Saturday we bluebird days, which only happens a handful of days in the Whistler area. As such, Katie and I enjoyed all the sun we could get, and skied a little bit as well.
I tried my hand at the Jump/Trick Park and have the bruises to prove it. I fared much better on the Snow Cross course (Yes like the XGames version only smaller).

On the Friday, we managed to get some last minute tickets to the sold out Luge event. It was really cool, yet hard to see as the sleds fly by you any where between 120-140km/hr.

Overall, a great weekend.

Here are some pics:

Whistler Getaway