Some pictures from my recent visit to see Mr. H, and some other ramblings
On June 20 (Mr. H's 36th birthday) I flew to visit him. He spent the whole month of June living and working in a cottage on an island near Vancouver, so after I landed I took a tour bus through Vancouver, onto a ferry, and about a thirty-minute drive after landing, and my love picked me up from the bus stop there. And then I got to stay with him in this cottage for a few days! I was there until the evening of the 25th, when Mr. H dropped me off at the ferry and his mother picked me up in Vancouver and drove me to the airport. And then I took an overnight flight back to Chicago, puffy eyes and all cause it's so hard to leave and I cried a bit on that last day.
It was sooooo beautiful there, and both Mr. H and I kept saying over and over again that we could stare at the water for forever and never get tired of it. It's always changing - the color of the water, the color of the sky, the presence of clouds - it's just so intriguing to look at and it's never the same. Staying at the cottage with Mr. H, looking at the water, playing with his dogs, taking pictures - it was so peaceful, so slow and relaxing and refreshing, and I was so happy being there.
Mr. H is coming here in about a month - as I write I'm not sure of the exact date because last night we decided to change it from him arriving on July 20 or 21 to him arriving on July 28 and staying through my birthday on the 31st. But because we're planning on spending the weekend with my parents at their cottage, and after realizing that there are other guests at the cottage that weekend, we can either go then with the other guests or he can come a week later. But so anyway though, I'll be seeing him in a month and I'm so happy!! And he's going to drive here from Vancouver so he can bring his dogs, so James and Emma can meet the dogs on their home turf for the first time and hopefully it will be a positive start - I'll have to reread all the articles I've saved on introducing dogs and cats and I know I'll have to remain calm myself so James and Emma don't sense my anxiety. I think Emma will probably hide most of the time, but I'm hoping to help James not be afraid. I'll have all their stuff in my bedroom and I'll have the bedroom blocked off with a gate of some kind so James and Emma feel safe from the dogs. Well, I have a month to plan for all that! And to keep my hopes very modest about their first meeting. :)
Also, in the next month I hope that Mr. H and I will make a decision regarding the immigration route we'll take. I've read up so much and made a whole spreadsheet of our options and the pros and cons of each way, and I also have a list of questions that I can't find certain answers for. So Mr. H will meet with an immigration consultant and show him or her the spreadsheet and go over these questions and ask for his or her recommendations, and then we'll make a decision and have a plan. I'll feel good having a plan and better knowing the whens and hows.
Okay - well that was the quick update. Here are some pictures now from my wonderful trip!
I made a few panoramas from my pictures, click on these pictures to view them bigger - this was the view from the cottage, it was so beautiful!!!
A dramatic evening panorama
I loved the wildlife there! Here was such a beautiful heron!
The heron and a tugboat with its logs in the background
Beautiful shell on the rock beach
In an inland bay, the reflections of these water planes were so pretty!
Mr. H's hand!! :)
The flowers were so beautiful and I took so many pictures of them in all kinds of light - this was in the morning with some dew or old raindrops still there
Rosebuds
Another picture of the rosebuds - I keep going back and forth on which picture I like better
Paint-splattered rose, which I actually really liked!
We saw so many eagles, and it was my first time of seeing an eagle in real life! They are so incredibly regal when they're just sitting there.
The eagle taking flight (I didn't have my zoom lens with me at the time but I was still happy to be able to capture some of the coolness!)
An eagle in silhouette landing in a tree
Mr. H got a new truck, it's our first vehicle together! I drove it a few times and he got this one because I can move the pedals towards me without having to move the seat so far forward!
A cruise ship leaving Vancouver and heading to Alaska
I loved the beauty of this lonely little boat
I love the reflections, the clouds, the everything! If you enlarge this photo you can see one of the cruise ships lit up by the sun in the distance, so cool!
At a little resort a short distance away, this was the view from a tent (identical to the one at the bottom of the picture) - and Mr. H and I so want to stay in one of those tents sometime now! I wish I could post more pictures of what the tent looked like inside but he and I are posing in most of them.
This is a bit of a funny picture! We went to the local dump to get rid of some materials, and this was the dumping spot there for unwanted toilets, poor things! :)
I love seeing and documenting little things like this - it's not just a McDonald's, it's a Canadian McDonald's!!
This was my little souvenir from this trip! He's so cute!!! I always get something at the airport when I'm leaving and I'd seen these little guys before, and this time it was finally time to get one! We named him Skooky, short for the Skookumchuck Narrows (we didn't go there yet but it's near the cottage where we stayed and during high tide it's a huge rapids of a few different inlets all meeting, or something like that)!
That's it for now! The album I actually sent out to everyone had around 250 pictures in it, so it was hard to choose just a few here!
Mr. H is so busy with so many things since getting back to Vancouver, which is understandable since he was gone for a month. We just talked on the phone for a few minutes and tonight he's going to do his quarterly taxes and do a quote for a big job and also return the calls of a couple of clients - so we aren't going to have our normal skype talk so he can get all this stuff done. I completely understand and yet I'm a little sad now, feeling sorry for myself, because I love our nightly skype talks and I love being able to see his face on the webcam. So now I have to try to lift myself up out of feeling down and I'm not so good at doing that, unfortunately.
I'm trying to think now what I should do to get my mind off of it. I guess I can go shower now so I don't have to in the morning, and I can do the whole feel-beautiful-routine in the shower so I'll feel new and fresh when I get out. I don't feel like watching any kind of movie or TV cause I'd thought of seeing what movies I could order on Comcast but it holds no real interest and I really don't feel like just watching anything. My place is relatively clean so I don't need to do any kind of cleaning spree to take my mind off things, although after I clean I do feel so empowered so maybe I'll just clean my bathroom cause that's the one room I didn't clean over the weekend. Last night I read a couple magazines to lessen the stack but I was really annoyed by the time I was forcing myself to finish with the second one so I'm not wanting to pick another magazine up quite yet. I started reading The Te of Piglet a couple nights ago and I read it last night before going to sleep as well, and it actually relaxed me and made me feel kinda good - both good because I love that kind of stuff and feel like I'm improving myself and expanding my mind when I read those kind of books, and also happy just because I was reading a book and I haven't read a book in so long now and am a little frustrated by it. I'm feeling kind of cabin-feverish - nothing seems right and everything I think of doing is somehow not right either. I hate when I'm in one of these moods!
Okay, I'm going to put on happy music, go wash my face and then shower and exfoliate and all that good stuff in the shower, and then I'll read my Piglet book for a bit and see how it goes. There are some people letting off fireworks a little ways away and my brave babies don't even seem to mind!
Oh yes - Happy Fourth of July! And I know today is also CeeCi's one-year anniversary of sobriety so congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, CeeCi!!!
