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Darryl and Carly's
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2006
Year in Review
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Well folks, Canada got the boot in Italy and did not win
gold at the Olympics. The Seahawks couldn’t fire on all cylinders in the
Motor City, David Beckham’s hair was not discussed at the World Cup (they
only discussed the good players on successful teams!). Gas prices got
higher, making it more expensive for Courtney Love to do the same. Jessica
Simpson leaves Nick to start her chicken ranch in the Pacific Ocean. The BC
Lions prove that steroids are just as good in the CFL as they not only win
the Grey Cup – they break it while celebrating. The foundation for the
greatest “Behind the Music” is set by Britney Spears, as she wishes to raise
her children on her own, after getting KFed-ex’d – I guess they’ll have to
send back all the wedding gifts back to Target (including the porcelain,
diamond encrusted, Elvis decanter). As 2006 draws to a close I realize it’s
time to do two things; write a journal of 2006, and renew my subscription to
US weekly.
Starting off the year, we were lacking in any snowfall. We visited two
mountains to determine if alcohol actually has greater effects in higher
elevation. We went up to Mt. Seymour to test the coefficient of drag on
plastic. That is, we went tubing down the mountain. Calling this a
controlled environment is like calling Chernobyl a slight fluctuation in
safety. Essentially, one lies on top of an inflated tube, and “chooses” to
go head first down the hill, and is abruptly stopped by large crash mats.
Unfortunately, it was more geared towards 100 lb children as opposed to
adults flying down, crashing a-la Ricky Bobby into said mats, forcing
clothing to spread out like a yard sale. Of course this is all monitored by
the seasonal staff, apparently on leave from their summer jobs of working
the till at Wal-Mart, or washing your windows at red lights. All this in
efforts to afford their next piercing. |
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| After visiting Seymour, we wanted to see what kind of ski’s
Versace and Gucci were making, so we visited our friend Agi in Whistler.
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| Ben Roethlisberger showed that you don’t need a brain to win
a super bowl, and one certainly doesn’t need to protect it while on a
motorbike. Too bad the accident wasn’t earlier, as Pittsburgh beat our
beloved Seahawks in Superbowl Xl in February. Being the fans we are, when
unable to get tickets to the first playoff game, we drove to Seattle to
watch the game in a pub. The experience went so well we decided to make the
trip again for the Superbowl. |
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In attempts to bring greater interest (and beauty) to the
field of Biotech, Carly attended the BIO International Conference in Chicago
last April. Although she avoided the bratwurst and other Chicago favourites,
she still managed to get quite ill on this trip. It is fair to mention
though that it was her 24th birthday.
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| The actual celebration of Carly’s birthday was a classy,
upscale, catered, private party. Oh wait, it was actually at a pub that
featured karaoke. Carly and Shannon celebrated their 24th birthday, and ran
the room like they were Wayne Newton, except they didn’t suck. |
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Notice the guy in the bottom left of this picture. If you see no evil,
do you not hear it either? |
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For those of you who have yet to see a concert at the
Commodore, what the heck are you waiting for? Yes I know your pirated
download of Michael Bolton sounds great on your Curtis headphones, while you
enjoy your wine-in-a-box. However, there may be a bit more to enjoying music
than that. Carly bought us tickets to see Default at the Commodore. Albeit,
I am not really a fan, yet the environment was very conducive to turning
down the suck knob and making this band clutch our collective attention and
energy. This night also exposed me to a great band, Idle Sons, who were the
opening act that night, and will probably headline the next time they are in
the 604. Now race to your bomb shelter to download this band and fondle your
Star Wars figurines.
If you are currently in a relationship, and you have never heard the
question, “When are you two getting married” – go to a wedding. This summer
we were peppered with the same question when we attended our friends Hillary
and Adam’s wedding. The wedding was the usually affair with food and
dancing. I am sure Hillary chose the locale as no man would pick a place to
get married with the title “Queens Park”. Of course this was better than the
first option of Hitler dance hall. To say the least, it was entertaining. We
lit up the dance floor much in the way a ball lights up a pachinko machine. |
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| After eating so much at the wedding, we needed to make
ourselves feel better. We decided a trip to a gathering of America’s fattest
families would do wonders for our esteem. That is, unlike Matt Hasselback,
we went to Disneyland! We had actually planned this trip for some time, and
decided to drive there, and stay with my sister Terri, her husband James and
their son Andre. For those of you who already read our travel journal, we
will spare you the regurgitation of that. Needless to say, we had a great
time at all the theme parks, at Terri’s, and on the roundtrip car ride
itself. |
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| Not yet sick of each other, we decided to do a
mini-road trip to Kelowna for the Canada Day long weekend. At this point I’d
like to remind people that I have English blood, and yet we chase the sun
like that idiot Ikarus, not to mention we were in the middle of a heat wave
in Kelowna. Not that our goal is Freddy Kruger-esque skin, we just love the
fact that we actually were blessed by the sun this year. Although we booked
our campsite a weekend before the busiest weekend of the year, we lucked out
and got a great spot (we are currently looking for people who would like to
join us this year on the same trip). We made sure to stop at Blasted Church
Vineyard on the way home and purchased a case of The Dam Flood, it is damn
good to get blasted off of (should cheesy puns be allowed?). |
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| We really enjoyed how sunny it was this summer, nice change
for BC. Usually our weather makes people run to find the line up of
two-of-each animal, so we can find the arc and get the heck out of dodge.
However, this year we were able to enjoy our own backyard. Aside from our
trip to Kelowna, we spent a lot of time at White-Pine Beach in Port Moody,
Crescent Beach in White Rock, as well as English Bay, Kits and Jericho. |
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I started my job with Konica Minolta in late June. It is
always a goal in sales to make enough money to buy a new car or something
along those lines. To add to the incentive, I totalled my Civic in early
July. Since Carly had recently sold her car, we both bought new cars on the
same day. Hey, at least they’re different colours. We will be getting fitted
for our matching embroidered track suits soon. |
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We spent the Labour Day long weekend moving me
to my new place in White Rock. We had intended on spending the Monday
putting most of the stuff away, but then we received an invite to go on our
friend’s (Andy) boat for the day. We had already decided on spending the
last day of summer unpacking and cleaning in some of the hottest heat, and
then after that we were planning on going to the local church to bathe the
homeless. However, before any of that happened, we avoided all that work for
the day and went on Andy’s boat. It was absolutely fantastic! Both Carly and
I got a chance to go tubing. Andy really wanted to go wakeboarding, but had
no one to drive the boat. I suppose Andy wanted to make the sport a bit more
extreme, as he allowed me to drive the boat hoping I’d be better than Joseph
Hazelwood (Captain of the Exxon Valdez). All went well, and officials tell
us that the dock was to be demolished soon anyway. I am kidding; Andy was
smart enough to keep me in the middle of the water, away from anything.
Aside from all the fun outings we had some shearing to do, down on the farm.
I mean, along with all the fun and exciting times, we had extravagant
shearing parties where some of the craziest times happened. We spend a great
deal of time in summer shearing the llamas and alpacas on Carly’s parent’s
farm. So if your idea of a crazy party is fighting a strange animal and
getting spit on, then shearing is for you, and you should seek help. There
were a number of babies born this year, which you can check out on this link
below:
http://www.xanadufarms.com/the_babies_2006.htm
This farm is now guarded by two large dogs, as Trudy bought two royal
standard poodles this summer. To make the dogs feel more welcome, the Handel
farm is going through renovations. Construction started this summer on
additions and improvements to the house. Apparently the contractor was a
relative of Andrea Bocelli, not that he sung songs that make the Oprah crowd
swoon, it was his ability to blindly dig that I make this comparison. He dug
up the gas, electric, sewer and water lines, which is fine if you believe
that bad things happen in 3’s. However, there have been a few other
“misjudgements” causing some stress with this project.
We were able to see a lot of Halloween type exhibits this year. We did the
Stanley Park and Bear Creek trains, as well as the haunted house at Potters
Nursery in Surrey. The only thing that was really scary was that one of the
actors in the haunted house used his costume as an excuse to get a little
Kobe Bryant on them (or Charlie Sheen). These volunteers are your typical
high-school waif, vegetarian, usually Goth, artsy, rainbow haired,
non-athletic, drama students who can’t wait to find any excuse to do some
sort of performance, because reality is that no one will voluntarily watch
anything they do unless they are related. May I remind people that I am a
big dumb jock? Anyway, although we had great intentions of dressing up for
Halloween, we let the excuses get in our way and opted for costumes from the
store of Lame. Perhaps you’ve heard of this store, it’s on the corner of
Pathetic and Ill-Planned?
Currently everyone here is dealing with the Monsoon. Chilliwack was flooded
causing major home damage, but unfortunately Kanye West hasn’t been able to
bring much publicity to it yet. So, this year is quickly drawing to a close.
We would like to thank those of you who participated with us on one of our
many outings, and for not suing us for endangering your life. We are
planning more activities for the coming months and we always encourage all
to join us in our adventures. Carly and I are looking forward to spending
Christmas over at my parents, as my sister, James and Andre will be
attending this year – I am sure you will all receive pictures.
So I do hope you enjoyed this rather long update, but one has to find
something to do when is at work. We hope to hear how everyone else is doing,
and plan some gatherings, especially with those we haven’t seen in quite
some time. I am actually surprised if you are still reading this, I am sure
you are aware that you are almost finished, but I would like to leave you
with one last thought. If you are still reading this, you probably have
either a very boring job, or you are crazy. For the crazy people, shearing
begins in May and we’ll see you on the farm!
I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the
friend who for me does not consult his calendar. -Robert Brault
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Love, Merry Christmas, See you all soon!
Darryl Wethersett and Carly Handel
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