While we were in the UK, Mike worked on the last Harry Potter, which was exciting because it was sort of a dream of his. AND even better, we just found out today that Harry Potter 7 Part 2 is up for an Oscar for visual effects!

Here is the dragon that Mike spent most of his time on. For the sake of full disclosure, something like this is a huge team effort – Mike mostly worked on the chains and the dragon’s muscles and wings.

SO PROUD OF MY GUY!!

Hurray for supportive husbands/fathers!

Dudes!!! IT IS A TIN CAN ROBOT KIT! YOU TAKE SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

AND THEN YOU SCREW THE DOOHICKY TO THE WHATSIT

AND THEN THE WHATSIT GETS SCREWED TO THE THINGY

AND THEN YOU PUT WIRES ON THE THINGY

AND SCREW THE FOFIDDLER TO THE DIDDLEFLANGE

AND THEN LINE UP THE GIZMODOODLE TO THE THINGAMABOB

AND SCREW ON THE FIDDLEFLAMS

DON’T FORGET THE WIZZLENOBS!

AND THEN PUT THE WIRES IN THE SCHMIZMO

And then your husband gets bored of listening to you swear about how you forgot to put in the wingding before screwing on the flodangler and seriously how is this for ages 8 and up what 8 year old (besides Becca‘s Eli) would ever have the patience for this stupid thing and omigod these instructions are pretty stupid. Anyway, he gets bored and makes happy faces with the parts you’re not using yet and takes pictures of the faces even though he has been entrusted with PHOTODOCUMENTING THE ROBOT BUILDING and he totally missed out on the shots where I screwed the clandizzler to the fandangler. Fired, Mr. Mike. FIRED!

AND FINALLY SUCCESS I MADE A ROBOT

AND MY ROBOT WALKS!

Anyway, I got to Mike’s work, and the guy had figured something else out, so Mike and I had a Date Night instead. First stop – a Sushi place in Kitsilano. It wasn’t as yummy as our regular Sushi place, but had way better ambiance. I fully admit that Ro has our heart, so it’s entirely possible that our bias makes us unable to fully appreciate sushi from other restaurants. At any rate, it was really good sushi, even if it wasn’t our beloved Ro. Also, their booths were kind of set up to look like traditional Japanese tables – you know, where you sit on the floor on a cushion? Best of both worlds – looks cool, but is still way comfier than sitting on the floor.

After dinner, Mike surprised me with a stop at Special Spot.

Special Spot is a patch of beach along the sea wall where Mike asked me out 2.5 years ago. That night, we went out for dinner at Sammy J Pepper’s, then drove to the spot and got out. We sat on a log overlooking downtown Vancouver and North Vancouver and said nice things to each other, and then he asked me to be his girlfriend. I (duh) said yes, and we toasted it with champagne he’d snuck along in his backpack, then cuddled on the log and talked some more. Shortly after, a cute couple of ducks waddled by, and we made up a little story about how they were also on a duck date and we were killing their duck game by hanging out on their special beach. I am pretty sure they were both male because they both had a fair bit of colour to them, but it’s Vancouver, so same-sex duck couples are no big deal.

No adorable gay couple ducks tonight, but we sat on the same log that we’d sat on 2.5 years ago and discussed all the neat stuff that had happened since we’d last been there. More cuddling. Then we got cold and headed home.

Mike makes good dates. <3

Me: Gawd, I am getting to be as big as a house

Mike: Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re not even pregnant and it’s all pies

Me: …I did a pretty good job faking the fetal heartbeat and ultrasound, didn’t it? Have you figured out how I did it?

Mike: I haven’t figured out the heartbeat bit, but I’m pretty sure for the ultrasound, you just swallowed a G.I. Joe.

I don’t know why I miss him when he goes, with conversations like that, but I do. Mike is back in Vegas for the stag of a friend whose wedding is 2 weeks after ours. I am sure he’s having a great time, but it sure is stupid quiet here without him. It’s not like I sit at home cutting myself and writing sad poetry about how incredibly alone I am – I’m going to a pub tonight with Leslie and Tyler and Claire and probably some other people, then out for Claire’s birthday tomorrow night, then out for brunch with Mike’s mom and cousins on Sunday – but it’s definitely weird and quiet here without him.

A combination of him being EVIL and there not being much left for plane tickets and hotels left on a long weekend led to him booking tickets to Dublin. Staying in the Temple Bar area. So basically, exploring the drinkiest area of the drunkest city in the drunkest country on the world…WHEN I CAN’T DRINK.

I still posed with a pint of Mike’s Guinness though. I think the “Baby on Board” badge is an added bit of class.

I also made Mike pose with the Guinness. I mean, we were in Ireland after all. The first of many pints of Guinness for him in Ireland.

We spent most of Saturday walking around Temple Bar, checking out various pubs and whatnot. LOTS of drunk, friendly people, and live music everywhere. Very fun!

We found a mirror. Why am I the drunk-looking one in this picture when Mike is about 4 in and I’ve had none? I DON’T GET IT.

We wandered down to Dublin Castle, but they were only doing guided tours, and we weren’t into waiting, so we took off and wrote a whole bunch of postcards for people.

I’m not sure that the sidewalk is the comfiest bed, but you have to admire this gentleman’s dedication to protecting his pint.

Anyway, we went and crashed in our hotel early – my back hurt and Mike’s head hurt. Kind of a lame night, but I’m pregnant, people. I don’t exactly make a rocking drinking buddy these days. The next day was more of the same – walking around and stopping in pubs as we pleased. We walked by an advertisement for dinner and watching Irish dancers, and I was IN. I talked Mike into it (easily… he is pretty much game for any bit of fun). We went back to the hotel and got cleaned up, then killed a bit of time in pubs. Unfortunately, we’d both left our phones in the hotel because they were dead, so we were depending on our camera as our clock. Many, many photos like this were taken, just to see the time.

We also saw the bartender tell off a patron for waving cash rudely in his face. “But I was waiting for half an hour!” “Good! Ye can wait for another hour!” For the record, he was only waiting for about 2 minutes, and the bartender was BUSY – he didn’t stop the whole time we were there. Then it was time to go to the dinner show.

It was pretty awesome. First of all, we met (and exchange emails with) a really nice American couple living in Rome. Good conversation and banter until the opening band came out. Irish folk music, including a marvelous rendition of 7 Drunken Nights

Then the Irish dancers came out. They were awesome. The calves on those girls…amazing. Energetic dancing and it looked like hard work.

And the male dancer looked like Clay Aiken.

It was closing in on midnight by the time we were out, so we went back to the hotel, crashed, then got up EARLY for the flight (the bad side of buying tickets last minute!) Now we’re home enjoying our bank holiday.

We had a Friday the 13th this month, which means anniversary for Mike and I (yay!). He asked me out on a Friday the 13th, so we celebrate every Friday the 13th instead of the yearly anniversary.

This time, we didn’t know what Mike’s work schedule was going to be, so we weren’t able to book anything out of country. Instead, we went to Windsor!

We left Friday night and walked around for a while. The restaurant we were most interested in was all booked up, so we went for noodles instead. Only although noodles sounded fantastic when we walked it, I developed a sudden irritating aversion to them when we sat down, so I had edamame and calamari instead. YUM! Mike had a chicken and rice dish.

After dinner, we checked into our super posh hotel and *ahem* then crashed for the night.

Saturday morning, we went across the street to the crooked house for breakfast!

Then we walked around and went shopping for a while.

We found a place selling old maps of counties in England. We found maps of where Mike’s parents were from, as well as one from where my mom is born, and we plan to frame them as decoration. Walked down to Eton College, then back up to Windsor Castle to go exploring. Mostly, I just wanted to see Queen Mary’s dollhouse again.

After we were done in the castle, we sat in a pub and had dinner and wrote postcards to friends at home. I also had Eton mess (hey, when in Rome!)

Sadly, after that it was time to head home and back to reality!

We met in Soho with Shaun and Roseanna, and basically sat inside the Glasshouse. Everyone else drank beer. I had orange juice and water. Discussed babies and pregnancy and baking and other GIRL STUFF with Roseanna (I LOVE having a girl come to these nerd boy meetings) while the boys were all “Render render, sub-surface scattering, rigging, render, voxel, animation, render”. Seriously love having a girl to these things. I mean, I can nerd it up with the best of them, but after the first 3 hours of VFX talk, I’m ready to drop dead of boredom.

I had thought we might remember to take pictures, so I actually used a hair straightener and put on MAKE UP, but we forgot and so my prettiness is not documented. Sad. It was a lot of work and use of time I could have spent napping.

Anyway, we got home and were greeted with a very loud, very drunk houseparty. We knew it was going on but had to give it a pass to meet up with Aussie (no regrets – we love our Canadian visitors). Tried to hang out with them a bit, but roommate Andrew was smoking a cigar, and roommate Michael was very drunkenly concerned about me breathing in cigar fumes. Also, I was sober (of course) and they were very, very drunk… it’s never a lot of fun if the drunk levels are too far off. They were even too drunk for Mike, so we went upstairs and hung out in our room until the party died down around 3am.

Helped the roomies clean up the house (a bit – they did most of the work. I did most of the talking) the next morning. We also decided to slip a note into the letterslot of the nice neighbors (the bad neighbors who let their toddler scream for HOURS at night as well as scream at their kids at top volume at 6:30am on Saturdays can go to hell – we owed them a wake up) apologizing for the loudness.

Mike and I take off to meet Aussie again. Sit on a patio chatting. It was just them (no Roseanna on Sunday ) and I got bored of the nerd talk, so I headed home around six and surfed the internet for a while. Not before forcing the boys to pose for a picture. Boys LOVE posing for pictures. FACT.

Mike is short. Chris is tall. Both are happy.

Later that night, this came in our mailbox from nice neighbors.

Best. Neighbors. Ever. I think they definitely need an invite next time we have a party…

Anyway, the game was good, nice and busy. As always, the real entertainment was in the sidelines. Mike was sitting on the far edge of our group and made pseudo friends with the guy next to him. Dude bought a motorcycle and loved it, except for the part about how riding it made his foreskin peel back uncomfortably. Apparently he’d tried all sorts of things from different pants to different seating positions with no relief. I have no idea why he felt the need to share this with a stranger, but there we have it. Guy at rugby game’s motorcycle is uncomfortable for his foreskin.