Today is my sister and brother-in-law’s 15th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe really, since I vividly remember being at their wedding years ago and doing the chicken dance over and over. It was a nice little wedding, right up at Cultus Lake, in a tiny little community hall that held around 80 people. In true Ukrainian fashion, the bar was completely open (a definite requirement for when I get married — I’m willing to compromise on everything else, but the bar has to be open). The wedding photos were across the road and on the edge of the lake. So this afternoon I’m going to be heading ...

Years ago I was in the lab at UBC when I got a call telling me that my sister was in labour. A few hours later I was back in Chilliwack, and Jessica, my niece, was welcomed into this world. Over the course of her life, I unfortunately haven’t been around as much as I would have liked. But thankfully now I’m in Chilliwack and I can spend more time with her. One time I was back in Chilliwack visiting and decided I wanted to get a Whopper from Burger King. Jessica asked if she could come with me, so we went together. Here’s a photo of Jessica with her jar of bees and her flower. Happy Birthday ...

One of the best parts about living in Chilliwack is finally being able to hang out with my niece and nephew once and a while. I managed to make it down to Jessica’s gymnastics performance this afternoon, which was cool. I also snagged a pretty cute shot of a little Jelly Bean girl waiting to start rolling her ball. You can check out a few more shots in my Flickr stream. ...

Today (Tuesday) is my niece’s 10th birthday. It seems like just yesterday I was out working at UBC when I got the call telling me that my sister had gone into labour. I left work and made the trek back to Chilliwack, and made it to the hospital just in time to see the first few minute’s of Jessica’s new life. That photo is one of my favourites of my niece. It was probably taken when she was only 5 years old or so, but it was one of the first times I got to spend alone with her (I had been living out in Ottawa for a few years prior to that). I had told my sister that I was going to go to ...

Being that this weekend is the May long weekend, and unofficially (at least in British Columbia circles) the start of summer, I thought I might get in the car and take a little road trip. My sister and the kids are camping near Deception Pass in Washington, State, and I’m seriously considering hopping in the car later tonight and making the trek down to hang out with them. It’s supposed to be 30C, which is rather nice weather to be sitting outside. I have to see what the state of my camping gear is in the back of my car, but assuming it’s all there are prepped to go, I might head out around ...

So yesterday, I met up with Jessica, Brennen, Kaedy, Michele, Jeff, Maya, Margo and Robbie, and the troop of dogs down in Steveston. In the old days, we started this day called “Friends Day”, where we would schedule in a day to hang out with our old high school friends. It sounds a bit lame, but with everyone’s time constraints, we found if we didn’t set aside time to hang out, it never happened. So, even though yesterday wasn’t actually a friend’s day, we still managed to all meet out in Steveston for a few hours of hanging out. Brennen and Jessica recently had baby Kaedy, and Jeff ...

I actually came home with the intention of writing two separate blog entries, but I’m so frickin tired that I’m only gonna be able to get this one out. This is a pretty crazy little time at work right now, and I’m on day two of a pretty hard two week push. Yesterday was a 12 hour day at work, and today was pretty close to 14. By Friday I’m definitely going to be ready for a few drinks (or maybe a long nap). Anyways. I was chatting wtih my brother-in-law on MSN earlier today, and he let me know that their house was broken into in Chilliwack this morning. The guys made away with most of ...