The Married Life

Well, I didn’t quite achieve my goal of watching all the movies nominated for the big 5 Oscar awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay (adapted/original)), but I came close. I’m missing out on War Horse, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and My Week with Marilyn, but these are also the movies I have the least interest in. Here are my predictions for who is going to win (and who I think should win) Oscar awards this year. Best Picture Who I [...]

March 2007 I was in the third year of my Psychology undergrad at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario; by this time I had made the decision to leave school and move back to Vancouver, a move that was long overdue. Alan was in fourth year of his International Relations undergrad at UBC in Vancouver, and living on-campus as a Residence Advisor. We met through Facebook and started chatting. After a few weeks I was hooked, and regularly stayed up until [...]

As we travelled around Europe last year, we collected a fair amount of souvenirs. From ticket stubs, to maps, to coasters, to tacky tourist toys, we ended up filling an entire pocket of our suitcase with memories from our travels. These tiny momentos were important to us. Sure, we could be satisfied with our hundreds of photos taken of our travels. Yet, no matter how many photos we took and no matter how many blog posts we wrote, a ticket [...]

After having such an amazing time celebrating New Years in Scotland last year, we decided to try to one up ourselves this year in our attempt to continually make each year better than the last. Unfortunately we don’t have enough room in our apartment, so we needed to get a bigger venue. Luckily, Tim’s parents were out of town and have more than enough room for what we had planned. After weeks of preparation, and many hours of decorating, it [...]

2012 has arrived, and with it has come time to start thinking about what will certainly be a year of change. Rather than follow the often-futile tradition of creating new years resolutions, we are starting the new year by creating long-term plans. Here is our current list of plans for 2012, I’m sure we will expand greatly on each point in the near future. Buy a House By house we of course mean tiny Kitsilano apartment. Nonetheless, we are looking [...]

Another year, another great set of memories. Four years after we first met, and one year after our wedding, we have made big decisions and made giant leaps in our life together. Our experiences last year have shown us that the most memorable moments in life are not necessarily those that you spend the most money on, nor are they the ones you look forward to the most, they are the moments that happen when you just let life happen. [...]

As Tim and I travel around the world we make our mark on the landscape by taking  jumping photos. Our jumping shots add an element of fun and continuity to our photos and give us a goal for each new place we visit: To capture the perfect air-born pose in front of a new location. Here is a review of just some of our 2011 jumping shots. The Couple Shots Since it is usually just the two of us who [...]

What’s inside a present is just half the gift. What you wrap a present in adds value and sentiment to what is inside. Investing in how you wrap your present shows you care more about the person you are giving your present to than the gift itself. However, retail stores have caught on to this and charge the big bucks for high-quality wrapping paper. This holiday, we decided to add a personal touch to our wrapping paper to give it [...]

This Christmas we are spending the holidays with my parents in Penticton. While we are out of town, we plan on trimming the tree, decking the halls, and generally filling the house with the maximum amount of over-the-top merriment possible. Since we left the city so early before Christmas, buying a tree, lugging it home on our 4-seat hatch-back, and then setting up the remaining decorations would hardly be worth it for the short time they would be enjoyed. But [...]

If you are going to do anything, do it big. Tim and I were looking for a project this holiday leading up to Christmas. While we originally planned on building a gingerbread hobbit house, our plans changed when we found out we had a little extra time on our hands. So, instead of hobbits, we decided to build a gingerbread house for wizards. First Step: Inspiration. We were looking for an iconic building from Harry Potter. Hogwarts seemed just a [...]

We have finally completed the first step to buying a home and officially becoming grown-ups: We saved up enough money for a down payment. Now, all we need to do is figure out how to buy a house. This is a process that neither of us know anything about, but are confident that, with time, we will slowly acquire all the information there is to know about buying our first home. The only problem: We want to live in Vancouver. [...]

It’s been a long time since this blog has seen some love, but hopefully the New Year will provide opportunities to show themarriedlife some well deserved TLC! Over 5 months ago, we ended our time in the UK to return to our home in Vancouver. After touch down we were quickly reunited with the ocean, the mountains, the food, and of course our friends, who were all at Tim’s old family house ready to surprise us when we arrived. The [...]

One of the deals Tim and I made when we decided to move back to Vancouver earlier than we planned was to not sacrifice the trip we planned to the Amalfi Coast in Italy. So instead of playing just a few hundred dollars for tickets to the Amalfi Coast we spent a few thousand, and traveled back over the ocean for Europe just a few weeks after returning to Vancouver and just a few days before I officially started my [...]

This is the first of a new topic that we are calling “The Good Things in Life.” We live a truly privileged life, in having great friends, loving family and the will to experience life to its fullest potential. This new series in our blog will celebrate everything that is great in life. Let’s begin with something that is near and dear to our heart: our family summer cabin on Gambier Island. This is a place that has been in [...]

It’s hard to believe that 9 months have past and that we’re now on our way back to Canada. There have been many ups and downs living in the UK, but luckily there were substantially more ups than downs. Of all the things that we’re going to miss about living in the UK, here is a list of the things we’re going to miss the most: The friends we’ve made, and the friends we’ve grown closer to. Being so close [...]