NOTE: I will be out of the country for the next two weeks.
I'm very excited! Tomorrow morning I will be on the airplane to the Dominican Republic. I'm not sure what Internet access I will have but I will try to post updates on my blog as often as I can. Right now I have to go and pack!

Today I had some more very bad news about my car, but I'm not going to go into the details.
In the evening we had a great surprise dinner with a bunch of our friends. Tracy and I are getting married on February 29th in the Dominican Republic and we are leaving next monday on the 18th. Couple of our friends organized a dinner for us in a Vietnamese restaurant and surprised us by inviting many more of our friends. It was great to see everyone, some of them I didn't see for a very long time.
Food was good and we had a great time! We also received a wonderful gift, that I'm sure soon will hold one of our wedding photographs. Thank you very much for everyone who was able to make it, and thank you for the spending money, we will use it not very wisely in the Dominican!

We were planning to drive to the Banff National park with our photo club this weekend but because of the pretty cold weather on Saturday, many people couldn't make it and the trip was postponed.
I'm a little sore this morning. Yesterday evening we had some friends over for supper and after we played some Wii games. The boxing is actually a pretty good work out :)

My baby is back! I finally got my car back from the shop and I gave it a big hug when I first saw it. I have been very frustrated for the last couple of days. Because of the extreme temperatures we been having lately (-48C with the wind) some things got frozen on my car. Air suspension was frozen and my car looked like a lowrider sitting very low on its back tires. Plus PCV valve had frozen and caused oil leaks from PCV system and valve cover gaskets. So I lost 8 liters of oil, most of it in my garage :( Also they found that I had to replace my alternator (very expensive).. Anyway after close to $5000 spent in repairs I have my car back.

During this time I was frustrated and even thought I would have to sell my car and buy something else. After doing all the research I ended up with two other choices that I liked, but probably couldn't afford anyway. After getting back into my car and driving it for a little I remembered how much I loved it and I really hope I won't have to sell it anytime soon!

Two photos above are used from www.carwalls.com, my favorite site for car wallpapers.

Our cat Georgie. He really loves laying with the shooes. You can still see his shaved front leg from having an IV after his surgery. I'm doing another hockey tournament this weekend and I'm starting to get ready tomorrow.

Yesterday couple of my friends and I had a little trip, close to 800 km in total. Early morning we met up at a gas station just outside of Calgary, loaded all our stuff into my car and headed West to the mountains. We decided that it would be nice to go take some photographs and visit some Hot Springs on the way. We ended up not taking many photographs at all. There was not very much snow on the ground and we didn't really see very many things that were worth taking photos of.

When we got to the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, located in the Canadian Rockies in southeast British Columbia, we decided not to pay for the pool and go on a little hike and swim in the natural Hot Springs waterfall. Alex and I jumped right in. The water wasn't very hot but it was nice and warm and I had a blast under the waterfall and running naked through the snow.

On our way home we stopped at Radium Hot Springs. We didn't really anticipate to spend much time there but we stayed for 4 hours :)

PS. For people who were worried about our cat going though the surgery: he is doing much better and he is back home! He is shaved in some places and I'm sure still sore but he is being much more active and I'm sure will be back in shape in no time :)

Tracy's mom made a turkey dinner today and Tracy and I were invited to her house. The food was great and I had a wonderful time. It gave me a chance not to think about my sick cat as much.

You are looking at a $3000.00 cat (after all the veterinary bills so far). One of our cats, Georgie, had to spend a couple of days at a vet hospital. He stopped eating and was feeling sick so we took him in and doctors found out that he swallowed something and it got stuck in his stomach. Last night they had to do an operation to get it out and it turned out to be a 2.5cm long peice of tail from Ikea soft toy rat that he chewed off. He is getting an IV and still not eating anything (for 3 days now) so we had to leave him overnight at the hospital again. Hopefully everything will go well and we will be taking him home tomorrow.
Not the best photo of him, but I guess not every one looks their best at a hospital :)

We went to Costco today and got this beautiful TV stand. I wanted to have something nice, wooden, and at the same time modern in our house and I think this stand is it. I spent about an hour hooking all the wires all over again for all the electronics, but I got it done and now Tracy and I are enjoying "Good Will Hunting" on our Apple TV :)

Tracy and I had a little early Christmas celebration dinner with my parents and Tracy's mom. We had a nice supper, gift exchange, and than plyed some Wii games. We had a great time!