Flames 1 - Sharks 0

One down...three to go. Flames 4-3 in overtime. Must admit I was a little scared in overtime...it really did look like the Sharks had it.

I am sad...

vs
I'm rather sad. Tickets for the San Jose-Flames playoff game went on sale at 10:00am this morning, and were soldout by 10:03. Needless to say, I didn't get the pair I wanted for game 2 on Tuesday night. I remember the good old days when only geeks knew about getting tickets via www.ticketmaster.com. Now I guess I'll have to go stand in line with all the "common" folk :). HP Pavillion is just across the street from Adobe, so it shouldn't be too tough to get tickets. Here's hoping the Flames win it in 5 so they can have 1 more game in San Jose.

Puerto Vallarta

As I write I am looking out at beautiful Bandaras Bay. We are quite high so we have a fabulous view. Many mornings we see a cruise ship or two come into port. We have watched dolphins swimming. Don and I have been here for two weeks. During this time, we have begun to settle in--mostly taking care of the essential business details that moving involves. We are still waiting for our shipment to arrive from Saudi. It is in Manzanillo at present but getting it through customs there has been a 'cultural experience'. Wish us luck as we return to Manzanillo for the second attempt on Friday. We are working on our Spanish as it will be essential to our survival. We are trying to spend some time each day studying--and then trying to be brave enough to use it. We have a monumental task ahead of us once our shipment does arrive. In way too few days, we will have to try to find spots for most of our stuff--and storage for the rest. On May 14 we return to Canada for the summer. So much is happening that it makes our heads spin, but we are having fun and enjoying our new home. Every day we remember that we are relieved to be out of Saudi.

Home Sweet Home

I made it back to Canada and am very very slowly settling in. Now that I've been here for 2 weeks, I can hardly say that I am still jet-lagged... but these long evenings still really have me confused as to what the time of day is. It doesn't get dark until about 8:45pm.

After I arrived in Vancouver, I immediately started house-hunting and found an apartment 3 blocks from the school that I'll be attending. I couldn't move in until the first of May, so yesterday was The Big Move. Next on the agenda was finding a car-- so the brother of a friend of my sister in law (get that one... took me awhile to make the connection. Didn't know him before.) took me car shopping and we landed an awesome VW Passat-- it's in amazing condition and has a 10-CD stacker and bum-warming seats. I love it.

The new website

Welcome to the new improved maclachlans.net!

I spent most of the day working on the new website. I hope everybody likes it. Now I just have to convince you all to contribute to it :)

I've sent you all an email covering most of the new features. Please be sure to try out the new calendar functions, and take a look around. You may even want to post something if you are really feeling wild and crazy. (Please!!!) Since we're all on broadband now, you can even try posting more pictures. This is a public page, so invite your friends to take a look. I retrofitted a couple of Jen's postings from her weblog, so you can see what you can do.

Happily, I didn't spend all day at the computer. My buddies Eric, Ritz and I went for a quick hike up El-Toro to grab a new geo-cache that's just been put there. Luckily we did it early in the morning, because it got close to 40 degrees here today, and it's a real hike up the side of the mountain. It's finally starting to cool down now at 20:00, so I think I'll go for my run.

If you have any questions, be sure to let me know.

YEAH! We are applying for our EAD

Finally, the last phase of the visa application has begun. We are able to apply for our EAD (it stands for Employment Authorization Declaration I think). This is not easy process as it requires us obtaining our long form birth certificates (I finally found out how much I weighed when I was born), and a full physical including chest x-rays and vaccinations. We also need to get new passports before June so we have to do that at the same time.

I am trying not to get my hopes up, but if all goes well I may be able to start job hunting in May!!

The holidays are over

We had a great Christmas here in California. My Dad was with us from the 18th of December through to January the 1st. We did a little touring around while he was here to see some of the local sites including Alcatraz, Pebble Beach and the Carmel Valley (which would not be complete without a visit to The Cheese Shop), and Santa Cruz. We also went to Napa Valley to do some wine tasting. This is one place we had not been previously and we enjoyed in a great deal (one of the reasons we love having visitors because it gets us out to see the Californian sites.)

We hope everyone was as spoiled this Christmas as we were, and wish all the best to everyone for a safe and prosperous 2004! Remember, if you are a planning a vacation this year, we love to have company...