Welcome to our home

This is what I woke up to this morning:


Since buses are having some difficulty and people tend not to know how to drive in this weather, I'm working from the comfort of my little home today. I'm going to enjoy curling up by the window, soaking in the view while it lasts. It's supposed to stop snowing this afternoon and tomorrow it will all wash away.

But, because I got up early this morning before deciding to stay home and Mark's still sleeping I thought I would take some time to post here instead of waking him up.

I think it's finally time for a tour of our place. I took these pictures a few months ago, so things have changed a little bit, but you'll still get a little glimpse into our home.

This is the floorplan for our compact, 775 sq. ft. 2-bedroom and a den unit:


Then the kitchen, 'dining room' and living room. The curtains you see in the kitchen hide the entrance to the laundry room/pantry/microwave closet. :) And the curtains in the dining room lead to my den.






And our bedroom, with our frameless bed. One of these days we'll go get a frame...


Then a peek into the second bedroom (aka Mark's office) and a corner of my den.




And lastly, our bathroom, which I love because it's actually really big for a small condo, and our deck, which is also really big.




And that's our humble abode. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

beautiful

The view which greeted me this morning:

(hint: click the image for a larger view)

love it.

summing it all up

The Christmas break flew by faster than I wanted it to, but we had a wonderful time relaxing with family and friends. We spent the 21st to the 26th with Mark's family which included celebrating two birthdays, having the traditional Christmas Eve gift exchange, going to a big Christmas Day dinner with the extended family, and then on Boxing Day, a sewing bee where we learned how to make a table runner - below is a picture of the one Mark and I made. All in all, full of people and activities.


Then from the 27th to the 1st, we spent more time with my parents - as well as a low-key evening on Christmas Day. The first few days included some much-needed quiet time where we got a lot of reading in, tackled the giant Christmas crossword that came in the paper, and built a few puzzles. Reuben and Heidi came down on the 29th and stayed until the 3rd. We played several games, including Blokus, Ticket to Ride, Cities & Knights, and Empire Builder, and built another puzzle. The 30th we had our "Christmas Day" meal and then on the 31st was oliebolen before Mark and I headed to join some friends for a New Year's celebration complete with a fondu, a few games, and a movie. Mark headed back to Richmond on the 1st since the poor guy had to return to work on the 2nd. I stayed in Abby and on the 2nd, the rest of us all travelled to the Fort Langley Winery and then drove into Vancouver and walked around False Creek to see some of the preparations for the Olympics. We then headed down to Richmond, showed everyone our apartment and met Mark for dinner before Mom and Dad and Reuben and Heidi headed back to Abby.

I have discovered that as much as I love taking pictures of nature, I don't tend to take out the camera for people shots...sadly, this means that I didn't get too many pictures from this Christmas. Here's a couple from R&H's camera, and then a few I took at False Creek:




The photo below shows the site where the Athlete's Village will stand. They currently have 12 cranes onsite for all the building - we only saw foundations for some of the buildings up, so they've got quite a ways to go and only 2 years left to do it! It'll be interested to watch the progress.