The Rest of the Summer Roundup!

I'm determined to finish off our summer adventures before November starts...so here it is, one last mad dash through July and August!

When we got home from our BC holiday, our friend Jennifer was at our house. She'd been feeding the cats while we were away, and working on recording her second album at a studio here in town. She asked us to join her and a couple of other people to sing background 'alleluias' for one of her songs! Of course, we couldn't say no to a request like that! :) But I was terrified of single-handedly wrecking her CD! Luckily, by the time the producer had us sing the melody and the harmony, and then run it through whatever computer magic, our little group sounded like a huge choir and my voice was indistinguishable from the rest.

One of my least favourite things about living in Calgary is (after the weather) Stampede. I could rant about it, but suffice to say that I don't enjoy it much. But this year we decided to get up earl and go on the morning where you can get in free if you go before a certain time. One of the big things this year was a figure skating show with Salle and Pelletier, of whom I'm a big fan. I was a bit underwhelmed, although that's probably because I'd gotten up early, and had to battle crowds, which is one of the reasons why I generally avoid Stampede. We went on the Ferris wheel, and I 'won' a stuffed minion (from Despicable Me) on the midway. We had fresh squeezed lemonade and mini doughnuts and hot dogs. We checked out the critters and watched the sheep shearing.

And of course we checked out the vendors, where I managed to get away without buying much of anything except some Tupperware, which I'd been looking for anyway. We were getting to our limit of interest, but we took a quick stroll through the crafting displays, and I found this gem of a Harry Potter cake. Pictures cannot do it justice - it was a masterpiece, and clearly created by someone with an abiding love for all things Potter. The detail is incredible!

Later in July we went up to Drumheller to the Passion Play. They have it there every year, and this is the third or fourth time I've been. They change the script up a bit - drawing on different Gospels - and this year was fabulous as always. We took a couple of youth from our church, and camped nearby. It was lots of fun, and we're hoping to do some youth camping again next year.

My post-road trip highlight was attending When Words Collide, a reader-con here in NW Calgary. A friend and I went together, and enjoyed meeting people, people-watching, hanging out with mutual acquaintances, attending panels, and generally being inspired in our literary ambitions. We're definitely planning to go back next year - it was SUCH a fun time.

And rounding off August, we spontaneously decided to go to Global Fest when we were offered the use of a pass. Global Fest happens in Calgary every year - it's about a week long, and each afternoon/evening there's a festival hosted by a different country, including fireworks. The night we went was hosted by the Philippines, and the fireworks were spectacular. They must have gone on for 20 minutes, and they kept getting better and better. If you've never been, I do recommend it!

Now that summer is over and I'm full-swing into midterms, planning a youth retreat that's happening next weekend, co-chair for the district youth gathering happening in July, trying to launch a business, working on an additional project for a conference, and trying to keep the house from falling apart and attempting on top of that to have something of a social life...things are pretty hectic! Good, but hectic. :)

Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park

This is one of my favourite places on the planet. When I lived on the island, our church would go camping here every summer, and I have some really special memories of the place. I was really excited to take Trevor there. Again, the weather wasn't all I could have hoped, but the scenery and the beach combing were amazing.

I swear that stump has been in that exact same spot for 15 or 20 years...

Bed of sand dollars at low tide

Up Island - Caving Day!

The definite highlight of our holiday was, for me at least, the opportunity to go caving at the Horne Lake Caves. They're about a 45 minute drive from where we were camping in Qualicum Beach, but not that far as the crow flies. Most of the drive was on sketchy back roads into a provincial park. The caving operation is run by a company that works in conjunction with the provincial park to take people into a cave that's locked up to prevent vandalism.

If you ever go caving, I HIGHLY recommend tough nylon MEC pants. Trevor's jeans were incredibly muddy, but after a quick dusting off, my pants were totally clean. Also, no matter how warm it is outside, it will be REALLY cold underground. And since you have to wear the helmets they provide, I recommend having your own hat to wear under said helmet if you're squeamish about things like germs and bugs. :) Also, take water and a few snacks in a very small backpack - you will absolutely need your hands free.

It was quite stiff uphill hike from the parking lot to the actual entrance of the cave. When we got to the cave, the guide unlocked the gate, and we scrambled down a long metal ladder like you'd find on a ship. I was surprised by the cave itself - I had expected something you could stand up in an walk around, but it was more like a long sloping tunnel. I expected to hear mysterious drumming from the depths any second....

Cool mineral formation

Some people see a buddha, some people see Jabba the Hutt...and you can see a perfect reflection!

Emerging from the underground

After all of the hiking, scrambling, and hiking, not to mention the long drive, I was STARVING. So we headed to Coombs to see what we could find to eat.

We found goats on the roof, and an amazingly delicious Italian restaurant called Cuckoos, where I had the most incredibly divine bowl of homemade pasta I've ever eaten. And Trevor had a panini that knocked his (dirty) socks off...he actually talked about mingling flavours. It was a perfect culinary experience! Then we had ice cream, watched the goats, and bought some tasty treats in the shop. I wanted island-made blackberry jam, and I also found some imported Cherry Coke, which was the cherry on top of a perfect day. :)

Victoria - Royal Roads

Well, I can't get into Pottermore at the moment, and since my cold is too bad to focus on Canadian history, I may as well update my blog. :)

One of the big things I had planned for our holiday was a sort of pilgrimage to the suburban area where I lived from 13 to 18. We started with breakfast with a couple of friends at the My-Chosen Cafe, which has been there since before I lived there, and consistently turns out quality meals. It's a great place any time of day - I highly recommend it.

Then we went for a walk on the beach. I love the beach. That beach in particular, Taylor Beach, has my dream house overlooking it. I've never been inside the house, but from the outside it's everything I want, and it's located in a picturesque field studded with sheep and overlooking the ocean. Dream house right there!

This is Hatley Castle at Royal Roads. Royal Roads has a long and complicated history...however, it's main attractions are peacocks that roam wild, incredible gardens, a view of the ocean...and Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. If you watch the X-Men movies that came out around 8 or so years ago, the scenes set inside the castle, with the incredible wood paneling - that's Hatley Castle. It's also Lex Luthor's home from the tv show Smallville as well, but I was more tickled over the fact that last time I was there, I got to stand RIGHT where Patrick Stewart did. We didn't go into the castle itself this time. There was a wedding in progress so part of everything was shut down, but we got into the parts of the garden that weren't for a discount, so that was a good deal!

After that, we went to a pizza place that's been the same spot for as long as I can remember, and had a picnic at the lagoon overlooking downtown Victoria. Then it started to rain; fortunately, by the time we got back to where we were camping, we'd moved away from the rain and we didn't have to camp in the damp. :P

Sunday was actually a day of rest, and on Monday we headed up island to one of my favourite places in the whole world...Rathtrevor Provincial Park. Stay tuned...if you still are... :)

More Victoria

One of my favourite culinary experiences ever is any sort of 'high tea'. It's a veddy, veddy mahhvellous invention, dahling. We went to the White Heather Tea Room in Oak Bay, as it's a local place, a quarter of the cost of high tea at the Empress, and there were other things on the menu for Trevor to try.

It was most excellent! If you're ever in Victoria, I highly recommend the White Heather!

We did go an park underneath the Empress, partly because it's handy, but largely because I wanted to go to the gift shop and stock up on Empress blend tea, which is actually pretty comparable to grocery store tea, at least in price. In flavour...amazing! Then we set out to walk all around the main downtown core.

"Darth Fiddler", a random busker downtown on the waterfront....Victoria's waterfront is populated with interesting and random things to look at at.

Urban decay

The inner harbour is dominated by the Empress (above) and the provincial legislature buildings. We visited Murchie's Tea room and shop, Roger's Chocolates, and many random and interesting stores. My favourite Chinese restaurant is still beside Fan Tan Alley (is it just my imagination, or does every city with a Chinatown have a Fan Tan Alley?)but we didn't eat there, because we were meeting Trevor's friend Dana for dinner at Fisherman's Wharf. We walked for about four hours - I really wish I'd had a pedometer so I could count how many kilometers it was - I was bagged!

I had NO idea that Victoria had a Fisherman's Wharf! Or a houseboat community! It was quite the revelation. :) Dana also took us on a scenic tour around some viewpoints and to a local market, which was really nice, partly because it was a great break from trying to navigate for Trevor. My memories of how the roads were laid out was a bit faulty, and lots of things have changed since I lived there, so we had a few hairy moments. It was nice to just be a passenger for a while.

Something else I didn't know is that Victoria still pumps raw sewage into the ocean. Ewww! How gross is that? I didn't actually realize that any North American cities still did that - I thought Halifax had been the last holdout, and they fixed that a couple of years ago. How, in this day and age, with all of our technology, and all the things we know about the planet and pollution and the circle of life, are cities still getting away with doing that? SO GROSS!

More to come...slowly but surely! My goal is to get through our very eventful summer before Thanksgiving comes. :)

Holiday - Victora area

Having lived in Victoria from when I was 13 to when I was 18, I thought I know most of what there is to know about the area. Well, not only has it changed quite a bit in the intervening years, there were some things that I didn't know about!

We camped just outside Sidney, which is an area that I didn't know well to begin with. The campground was beautiful, and a very short walk from a secluded beach. Oh, beach...woe, landlocked Alberta!

One of the new additions since I lived there is the Shaw Ocean Discovery Center, an amazing museum/aquarium, staffed mostly by volunteers. All of the marine life in the aquarium comes from the waters around the island, and I had no idea that there was such exotic variety in our cold Canadian waters.

Trevor washing dishes at our swanky campground:

One of my must-see sights in Victoria is Craigdarroch Castle. Not really a castle by European standards, but certainly by Hudson's Bay outpost standards! It's a beautiful sandstone mansion on a hill overlooking the Victoria harbour, and it's been restored to the state it was in when the family built it, as opposed to the state it was in after it was a school.

In the lobby, looking up:

On the top floor, looking down:

After spending a couple of hours there, it was time for tea, so we headed to Oak Bay...

Westward, ho!

Our summer days off technically started with the comic expo, but our holiday didn't really kick into gear until we left Calgary on the Sunday afternoon. We went as far as Golden that day, and took an overnight break in a motel there. Normally we'd at least go as far as Revelstoke in one day, but we'd also normally be leaving first thing in the morning, not late in the day after a weekend of geeking out. And we were planning to have a long visit with friends in Vernon, but still had to be in Penticton by the check in deadline at our campground.

We were blessed with smooth travel, and arrived in Vernon a couple of hours ahead of schedule. We managed to connect with my aunt and uncle from Revelstoke, who were in Vernon with my cousin, and we had lunch with them at Red Robins. I don't think we have any of those in Alberta - they're a great burger joint with probably every combination of burgers and toppings you can imagine. Oh yah - it was HOT in Vernon, which was glorious after suffering through an uncharacteristically soggy Calgary spring!

We spent the afternoon hanging out with our good friends Chris and Kelsey, and their new baby. We were lucky to catch them, as the left Vernon permanently later that week! They took a break from packing to take us to their favourite lake-side patio for some EXCELLENT calamari.

Boys on the patio, waiting to be fed!

Too quickly we had to hit the road for Penticton, as rush hour highway traffic through Kelowna can be terrible. Again we were blessed with smooth sailing, and we made it to Penticton about an hour before it would have been too late to check in. The campground was practically deserted, as we were just ahead of the main tourist weekend. Our site backed onto a lagoon, home to assorted friendly ducks.

It also had an excellent view of the sunset!

On Tuesday we met up with our good friends Scott and Sam, and their two super-cute little girls for some time at the beach. The weather was hot hot and the sky was as blue as it gets. I tried my hand at kayaking on the lake - it's quite a bit of work! My right arm is much stronger then my left, so of course my strokes weren't even and I spent a lot of time trying to stop veering, and to go in a straight line. :)

It was getting on nap time for little girls, so the family went home, and Trevor and I picked up lunch, and headed to the beach on the other lake, at the north side of Penticton. It was quite windy there, and not nearly as hot. There were lots of ducks and geese to watch, as well as some entertaining tourists.

At the far end of the waterfront promenade, past the beached paddle-wheeler, is a beautiful rose garden. Some of the bushes hadn't even bloomed yet, but most of them were at their peak, and it was lovely. They all had incredible aroma, and I had a lot of fun stopping to smell the roses, and take a million photos, while Trevor humoured me!

We headed over to Scott and Sam's for dinner, and I was entertained to discover that they have the exact same Ikea dining room table as us - great friends think alike :)

Wednesday was quite the adventure. It was the first day I was able to register for my university classes, and being the highly organized person that I am (some say OCD, but that's another story :) I already had a timetable mapped out and I was ready to go first thing. Alas, I discovered that not only was the Spanish class I wanted full already, meaning I had to chose a different language option and fit it it, I couldn't actually register until after 12 noon! And we had to leave Penticton ASAP because we had a booking on the ferry that evening. But I was at least able to put the classes I wanted in a 'shopping cart' to hopefully save a bit of hassle later.

So we packed up camp (and it's a good thing we bought a larger car last winter, because otherwise we wouldn't have had enough room - I don't pack light!) and made tracks for Vancouver. The last time I was on a trip in that direction, I was about 13, so not remembering how to get to the ferry, we relied quite heavily on old-school paper maps, the GPS on Trevor's BlackBerry (I LOVE having my own personal computer geek!) and printed Google maps.

I decided that we should head south out of Penticton and take the Crowsnest route, because I'm a big fan of scenic trips, and I'm pretty sure I've never been that way before. I had an anxious half an hour when we got stuck in construction, but we made good time after that. We stopped in Hope for lunch, but sadly got turned around in the ridiculous labyrinth of highways that surround that area, and ended up going BACK THE WAY WE CAME! I JUST about had a heart attack. Fortunately Trevor isn't nearly as excitable, and we only lost a few minutes before we were able to head in the right direction again. Whew!

We made it to Chilliwack by mid-afternoon, and drove through town until we found a coffee shop with free wi-fi for customers. I got tea and something...I don't even remember what...to go along with the wireless password. I was able to quickly register for my classes, and then we were back on the road again, and this time my goal was to make our ferry sailing.

Thankfully we avoided construction and getting lost in Vancouver, and were perfectly on time to check in and get in line for the ferry. We even had a few minutes to check out the shops and get some supper. I don't know if words can adequately express my relief at being safely registered for school, and not missing our boat.

We were even the first car on to the ferry!

I don't ever remember such a windy crossing before, but I loved every second of it. It's been FAR too long since I pilgrimaged to the island!

Dashing Dishes - April and May

I'm still just LOVING Dashing Dishes. We went for our August session, and we were a well-trained, efficient team: to the community centre, assembled, and home with everything in the freezer in HALF AN HOUR, people! It doesn't get much faster then that. We have a really good system - we get our bag of meat from the girl, go to the station, and one of us works the ingredients from left to right, and the other from right two left. If it's a two-bag dish, we split up and do a bag each. Then Trevor closes everything up while I get the instruction label, and then he takes it out to the cooler while I go get the meat for our next dish. We are an impressive example of teamwork, if I do say so myself. :)

In April we had two dishes with pesto - cavatappi with mushrooms, and scallops. I must just not be a pesto fan, because I didn't like either of them at all. The cavatappi is fun though - a twisty, spiralled type of pasta that I did like. We had Chinese BBQ Pork, cooked in the crockpot that we weren't a fan of, because the meat was too dry. I'm finding that common theme with most of their crockpot pork dishes, so we're going to try to stay away from those, as well as from the Pineapple Chicken, which was simply uninspiring.

We did enjoy the Greek Shrimp, although we left out the cheese sauce that came with it, and the Pizzaiola Pork. My only complaint about the Pizzaiola Pork is that it didn't re-heat well, although it was quite tasty the night we made it.

The big hits in April were the Hong Kong Chicken Drumsticks and the Smothered Roast Beef - both were excellent, and we'd definitely make them again.

In May we had really good results, except for the Maple Glazed Pork, which wasn't a favourite, although doing it in the oven made it turn out better then some of the other pork ones we've tried.

We really liked the Honey and Garlic Beef Stir Fry, the Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops, the Savory Chicken Drumsticks, the Slow Cooker Beef Roast, and the Thai Chicken with Basil.

However, we loved the Zesty Sauced Ribs. Meaty, saucy ribs stewed in the crockpot all day...they were divine. We could have eaten them every day that week!

We didn't do a session in June, because it fell while we were on holidays, and we actually still have one of the July dishes left, which is right now thawing in the fridge for dinner tomorrow. It needs to be baked in the oven for an hour, which made it not such an idea candidate for a work night dinner. So stay tuned for another Dashing Dishes post in a month or so, when we're done with the August dinners we just made!

Calgary Comic Expo

I picked up a new expression this weekend: "info dump". I've had such a busy summer that my blog updates are way behind, and this is probably going to be a bit of an info dump. :)

Our holiday really got started with our trip to the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo the weekend of June 17, here in Calgary.

Friday was sneak preview day, and I went down early to help my friends from Edge Publishing, Brian and Anita, to set up their vendor booth. Trevor came down after work, and we checked out the vendor booths, and then we went to a comedy show put on by a local geek troupe called the 404s. As with all comedy, it was a bit hit and miss, but we had a lot of fun.

They had a game where the audience could submit a line on a piece of paper, and as the actors played out a scene, they would randomly have to grab a piece of paper and work in the line on it. As the MC was explaining this, he pulled out a slip of paper and started to read. We knew right away it was the one we submitted, as it began: "Soft kitty". One of the girls in the troupe was literally beside herself with excitement, grabbed the slip of paper from him, and began to sing the unofficial theme song of the tv show the Big Bang Theory. And in a moment that made this geek girl's weekend, the whole theater began to sing along. :)

Saturday we got there early enough to check out the vendors again, and then get in line for my photo op with William Shatner. I had a noon appointment time, and I was supposed to be in line about 45 minutes before that. Well, it was a GONG show. They had more people lining up then they had room for, so they ushered us all out to sit in the bleachers in the corral. This was appreciated, because at least we got to sit down and watch the Summer Glau panel, which was interesting, because I haven't yet watched any of the shows she's been in, other than her guest spot on the Big Bang Theory. Then it was Christopher Judge's panel, which was the one panel that day that I had REALLY wanted to see.

For those who don't know, Christopher Judge was on Stargate SG 1, which I really like. Unfortunately, it was only about half way through when they took a batch of people out for their photo op, including me! Woe!

The photo op was quite disappointing - literally only a few seconds long, and I wasn't even allowed to touch William Shatner - I thought I'd at least get a handshake out of it. I'm glad that I did it, but I don't think I'd spend the money for a photo op with a big celebrity like that again. His 'performance' later in the day was really entertaining, and when he was listing all the projects that he's got on the go, I could only hope that I'll be that spry when I'm 80!

On Sunday we went to the Tia Carrere panel, which was interesting. She was in Relic Hunter and Lilo & Stitch, so I'm a bit of a fan. But by that point I was REALLY sick of all of this white hat business and this supposed 'vow' that goes along with it. We didn't actually stay for the whole thing because I wanted to go get good seats for the next event.

Jonathan Frakes is very entertaining. He was quite taken with the couch set up for him to sit on, and decided to take the most advantage of it.

The people-watching is always fun - some of the costumes are amazing.

There was a zombie flash-mob, dancing to Thriller.

My costume was one of the less elaborate.

Overall, I didn't find this Comic Expo as fulfilling as my first, which was last year. There weren't as many panels I was interested in, and I felt like there was too much emphasis on shopping rather then geeking out, and I was quite disappointed with the way the Shatner photo ops were organized. But that said the corral was a better, larger venue, and the crowd control was generally much better then last year. I'm not sure if I'll go again next year or not - maybe I'll see about volunteering instead of paying for admission.

Links Update

I spent some time this weekend updating all of the links down the left side of my blog - general links to stuff I like, some blogs I follow, and some of my favourite authors. Check them out!

VulCON and an essay on Star Trek Voyager

Disclaimer: If you have a low tolerance for Star Trek and/or extreme geeking out, you might want to stop reading now and wait for me to post another Dashing Dishes review. :)

After living in Alberta for 12 years, and being a Star Trek fan for all that time, I FINALLY made my Trek to Vulcan today! Many thanks to my sweet husband who puts up with my geekiness. :)

Every year since 1993, the town of Vulcan puts on 'Galaxy Days', and this year's special guest was Garrett Wang, who played Ensign Harry Kim on Star Trek Voyager. Voyager is my favourite of the series for two reasons - it's the one that was currently airing when I started watching Star Trek, and Captain Janeway was one of my major heroes as a teenager. Not only was she a female captain, she was strong and decisive but also remained (for the most part) a nurturing and decidedly female character, and stayed feminine and content with her life despite the fact that she didn't have an ongoing love interest. Oh, and did I mention she carried a big gun and was handy in combat with a big knife, as well? She was SUCH a fabulous character.

I love the rest of the crew as well - with a couple of exceptions! When I met Garrett Wang today, he asked me if I'd had a crush on Tom Paris as a teenager, and of course I had a bit of one (note that I married a blond goofball, so clearly Paris was my type :) but when I stared watching Voyager partway through the third season, Paris was already in love with B'Elannah, so as far as I was concerned he was taken! And of course, B'Elanna is a great character - another woman leader (chief engineer)/first female in that role - and I really enjoyed her.

The Doctor is fabulous - as I found out today from Garrett Wang - largely due to Robert Picardo's input into the development of his character. And a fantastic character is it! Robert Picardo is also SUPER funny in person - he and John de Lanice (Q - best Voyager cameos!) narrated a Star Trek concert I went to last year, and they were worth the price of admission. :) I'm not super fond of Neelix - he was pretty annoying in the first couple of seasons, and I'm afraid I've never gotten over that, even when the character developed. I think he was played for some cheap laughs from which I never recovered. Kess, who was only in the first few seasons, was ok, and there were things I liked about her and things I didn't. Jennifer Lien was a great actress - I just never got attached to the character.

Seven of Nine replaced Kess, and I quite like her. I'm furious about the producer's blatant attempt to add sex appeal to the show, but that aside, Jerri Ryan did a great job with the material, and Seven added a lot to the show. I'm not at all happy with the way they settled her love life - in fact, the only love life that I think the show did right was Tom and B'Elanna, so...

Chakotay, Captain Janeway's first officer, was an awesome character in the first few seasons, but in the last season or two he's been relegated to background roles, so I hope that picks up in the 6th and 7th seasons - some of my favourite moments from the first few seasons are his. Tuvok is a great character - I like him so much better then Spock. Somehow he seems a bit more 'human' or accessible, then Spock did, despite the fact that Spock was of course half-human. Tim Russ did some tremendous acting - there's one episode where Tuvok has participated in a mind-meld gone wrong, and he grins just this EVIL grin that gave me the uber-creeps.

Which of course leaves only Ensign Harry Kim...poor Harry, who remained an Ensign for seven long years, and who never got the girl, or at least not for more then an episode! He had some really great Harry-focused episodes, but for the most part, he was the sidekick to everyone else's hero - even in the holodeck. Today, after I'd confessed to Garrett Wang that yes, I'd had a bit of a crush on Tom Paris, he said that I was supposed to have said that no, I'd had a crush on Harry Kim. lol... and I did laugh. But it made me think...why DIDN'T I? Well, the producers had Harry portrayed as everybody's little brother - cute, dependable, never in trouble, always on alert when duty called - but always the sidekick. His character when through several episodes that would have made any normal person's character grow and develop, but at the end of the seven years, except for being more reliable and a bit more assertive, he was pretty much the same. There's one time-warping episode where he's old and bitter, and it made me so sad! But Garrett said that was one of his favourites because he actually got to 'act'. It's definitely interesting to hear about my beloved Voyager from one of the actor's point of view!

The side of the town pharmacy has a mural of all the Star Trek doctors. These are my two favourites, although I love The Doctor and Doctor Bashir as well - I just didn't feel like the mural did them justice. And Doctor Phlox is ok - but not one of my favourite characters ever.

Garrett Wang, riding in a blue Mustang in the parade. Loooove the Mustang!

In Vulcan Alberta, even the cars have Vulcan ears...

Me and the Vulcan Starship

They served cupcakes at the Q&A with Garrett...chocolate with cream in the center...yum!

Garrett Wang signing my vintage 1997 Star Trek Voyager poster...I have the whole crew I collected from the Star Trek magazine!

Garrett's session was worth the price of admission and the long drive - so funny and entertaining - exactly what I was hoping for. I was pretty disappointed with the vendor booths - there were only a couple and there was nothing exciting, and the event didn't have as many people as I was expecting - but I don't think there was a lot of advertising for it. All the people we encountered were friendly, and the people in the autograph queue were more polite then the people at the church concert we were at last week. :P All in all, the day was a blast, and the rain held off until we were back in Calgary!

Dashing Dishes

Starting in January, I signed up for a monthly sort of cooking club called Dashing Dishes. They have locations in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal, Regina, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto. And as it happens, one of the Calgary locations is in the Silver Springs Community Center, about 30 seconds from our house.

I had to book online ahead of time, and selected 8 different dishes I wanted to make. It was $175 for 8 dishes which have 4 servings each. We left home, drove down, assembled our food, and were home again with everything in the freezer in just over an hour. They do all the grocery shopping, the prep work and the planning - we just had to show up, check in, and assemble each dish into the Ziploc bags provided. Participants are required to wear hair coverings and large aprons, and there are plenty of staff on hand to keep an eye on things. I can't rave enough about how efficient the whole setup is!

They come to Silver Springs once per month, and 8 dishes is about the right amount to take a lot of the stress of meals off my shoulders. With there being 4 generous servings, we usually get a dinner for the two of us, a lunch each, and maybe even one more lunch. What we get from them is a main dish, so by the time we add rice or pasta and a salad or other veggie, it's a really hearty meal. They have a good selection of stovetop, oven and crockpot dishes as well. The first month I had issues, because I kept forgetting that you need to let the food thaw completely in the fridge before cooking, and I never planned ahead far enough. Things seem to take about 48 hours to thaw in the fridge, and I've got the hang of it now.

Some of the dishes have been better then others. There have only been a couple in the last few months that we would rate as a total fail, but the benefits of the program still outweigh the issue of a couple of recipes we didn't like. It's really nice to experiment with some things I wouldn't try normally, without the commitment of having to buy a whole jar of exotic spices or sauces that I then might not want to use.

In January, we had Shrimp Italiano (which was really good), black bean linguine (which was good, but had some different flavours we weren't sold on), Bruschetta Chicken (which was amazing), pot roast with gravy (alas, too onion-y for me!), Korean beef with noodles (we loved this one so much I did actually go out and buy Oyster sauce for future use), Mandarin chicken (just ok), red currant braised pork (sounds better then it was - wasn't currant-y enough), and roasted chicken with artichokes and veg (this one was a fail - watery and flavourless, sadly).

In February, we had beef dippers (very yum!), hoisin shrimp (loved!), honey curry chicken (ok), pork spareribs (I can't tell you how good this one was - we could have eaten them for leftovers all week without getting tired of them, if there'd been enough), sesame chicken stir fry (ok - not a ton of flavour), beef stroganoff (not bad, but I like it better the way I make it), slow roasted pork (this one was not a hit - the meat was tender, but the sauce wasn't very saucy or flavourful), and sweet coconut chicken (we loved this one - I would have never thought of searing a crust of coconut onto chicken before baking it).

In March we had cheesy pasta with peas and sausage (tasty - nice light sauce), crockpot chicken chili (good and hearty - a bit too spicy for my ulcer though, even with me scaling back the amount of spices they recommended), Dijon and herb beef roast (big hit!), honey pecan pork chops (tasty sauce, but the chops themselves weren't that great - a different cut of meat would have been more tender), Hungarian beef (not quite what I was expecting - it was ok), lemon and ginger shrimp (bland sauce), oyster beef (love it!) and pasta with pepperoni and tomato (a bit weird - would classify this one as a fail).

We're working our way through the April batch slowly - I've had a bit more free time to cook from scratch, but I need to get moving with these meals, because I think we have about 6 unused dishes, and only about a week until our next cooking session. We don't have a ton of room in our freezer, otherwise it wouldn't be a big deal, as the dishes will keep for several months in the freezer.

I highly recommend checking them out: www.dashingdishes.com. If you do sign up, be sure to let them know that I referred you! If I refer enough people, I get a deal. :)

Much Excitement

Well, it's been an embarrassingly long time since I blogged last. Ooops! I got through my first semester of university with decent grades, and am enjoying some part-time off while I look for a second part-time job to fill in the days where I had been taking classes.

Some of the other excitement in our lives over the past few months has been becoming godparents to Jack, going to the ballet, buying a new vacuum cleaner (a Dyson!), joining a sort of cooking club (I'll post separately about that), battling a virulent case of a chin infection in one of the cats, a Ukrainian folk show at the CPO, an old Gilbert and Sullivan musical at the Pumphouse Theatre, Easter and my favourite hymns, loosing a filling and a trip to the dentist, catching Royal Wedding Fever, and writing final exams with a chest infection.

I was on the Call Committee for our church to find a new pastor after our seniour pastor moved to a church in BC, and actually, the first one we asked accepted, which was just amazing. There have been some good visits with friends, and I'm trekking my way through all seven seasons of Voyager, which a very thoughtful friend gave me for my birthday. I'm making amazing time - part way through season five already, which is fun, but kind of sad, because I didn't enjoy the series ending years ago when it was on TV - I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy it any more this time! We took some youth to play laser tag, and I, Skywalker, annihilated the competition on the first round. :) I didn't do so well on the second, but winning one round was enough to make me feel not quite so old!

And of course, my excitement of the last 24 hours has been that we FINALLY have a majority government, so maybe they can get some work done! My mom and my brother worked their tails off for their candidate in NS, but he didn't get in, sadly. And a former coworker was running on the Island, and sadly he didn't get in either.

I am totally upset that only 58% of Canadians voted - so sad that our society takes democracy so for granted! When we went to our polling station, we were the only people there at the time - I'd been expecting a lineup. Sadness! If you didn't vote, I'd be really interested to know why....?