Showing posts with label bucketlist. Show all posts

Once a Week for 52 Weeks

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Its 2017! What better way to start the year than to set something new for myself. For this year, I decided to do something that my friend. I am going to TRY and do something new each week for the year. That means 52 weeks of doing something I've never done before. 


For the first week (last week) in 2017, one of the biggest and newest things that I've done, (it's on my bucketlist!) is that I put down a deposit for a home! My own place! I couldn't be more excited. Its a two bedroom and two bathroom condo that has a open concept living area. 1049 sqft that includes the balcony and 2 parking stalls. The only downside to it is that it won't be built until 2019. Until then, more time to save up.






Annual "Lets Torture Myself Day"

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It's been a while since a post. This year was not a great year in terms of hiking. With weddings and other things, I got caught up and before I even realized, the season just flew by. Originally set for late August, but changed at the last minute, We conquered the Lions on September 10 2016. 

It was a huge battle, physically and mentally. Just imagine 1200 meters of elevation change over 8 km route. Add another 2 km for the distance it took to walk from where our car was parked to the trail head. At the top, there is more hiking to be done as the trail extends further and we just went with it. That day I hiked a total of 43 thousand steps or roughly 29 kms. 

The planned hike had ended up on a day that a roller coaster of ups and downs. I had gotten cramps that morning and didn't want to have to postpone the hike once again. I pushed through and met up with my hiking friend. On the way to Lions Bay, we got caught in traffic due to a bike race from Vancouver to Whistler and got detoured. We didn't end up arriving until 10:30 am. We were already behind by 1.5 hours. As previously mentioned we parked over 1 km away because there was no parking available at the trail head. Good warm up I guess. Once we hit the trail head the trail was a gravel uphill climb for the first hour or so. This for me was the most difficult portion of the entire hike. I had to fight myself not to turn back and just keep telling myself to take a couple more steps. The trail eventually leveled out and was easy going. This didn't last long because as soon as that was over, the hard steep decent followed shortly thereafter. We made our way up slowly. When we finally made it through a section of landslide area into a clearing and finally saw the majestic lions towering over us for the first time, we were in awe. Excitement and Relief were a couple of the emotions. We continued thinking we must be almost there. We weren't. Far from it. Along the way we ran into a lot of hikers heading back down. Asking each of them, everyone would say how hard the actual summit was and how far we were from it. We had to traverse over a rock slide until we reached a plateau before the lions. By this time it was already close to 3 in the afternoon. We were cutting it pretty close in terms of time. We decided that since we had come all this way, we wanted to take a stab at summiting the actual lions. Sadly it wasn't meant to be as we ended up getting lost and going the wrong way, continuing along the Howe Crest Trail getting to the portion between the East and West Lions. We decided to turn back as we were now battling against time to head down the mountain before nightfall. I didn't want to be the one that Search and Rescue send out a team for. 

The descent was a lot worse than I expected. The jagged rocks and fallen trees added to the difficulty and as we were in a rush, we put our knees and body through a beating. We made it back to the gravelly sloped section of the hike near the beginning when we were enveloped in complete darkness. This made me glad I was totally prepared for this hike. So many firsts on this trip included making sure I had my headlamp, more than enough water and food, extra layers for warmth, spare battery, whistle and actual hiking shoes! We made it through the last hour in complete darkness with the help of my headlamp.

I was never as sore as I was after this hike. It took an entire week for my body to fully recover. But the views and the feeling of accomplishment for getting as far as I have far exceeded the pain and suffering.

My Own Business: Blessings Weddings and Events

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It has been a dream to own my own business. That dream was recently realized. It was almost 3 to 4 years in the making.  I remember thinking that events is the way I want to go. Weddings would be interesting and could be fun. I was blessed to find opportunities in the industry that allowed me to see hands on what its like and how busy the day can be. I went to school for Wedding and Event Management at VCC and came out of it more knowledgeable than when I went in. However it was the experiences that really built my confidence and skills.

After coming together with a few classmates a few month back, we finally managed to get to where we are today. Website and Business Card at the ready. Our company, Blessings Weddings and Events, is founded on the idea that we treat each wedding as a blessing and do everything in our power to make the bride and groom feel that way as well. I look forward to the growth and opportunities to come that will allow us to create unforgettable memories for each couple that comes to us.

Check us out at: www.weddingsbyblessings.com

Joining Mudder Legion!

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Ever since I saw my friends back in Ontario participate in the Tough Mudder, I've had my heart set on doing the same. Two things have always stood in my way. Timing and Team. It was harder than I thought to convince people to throw themselves in the mud with me. I also had to be in town for the actual event.


This year, finally, it happened! We booked quite last minute because it took that long to finally decide we would go ahead and do it, but we managed to use a 25% discount code.


Were we prepared for the Tough Mudder? NOPE! The extent of my training consisted of my many hikes that I did and that was about it! To make matters worse, The day before the race, I had to work a wedding and turns out, the shoes I wore were NOT feet friendly. I ended up with 4 blisters on my toes, one of which tore open and hurt with every step I took. But nothing was going to hold me back! I ran the Tough Mudder with bandages. 


Even now I can't believe I made it through. The course is 17.6 km in length and 18 obstacles to overcome. My run became a limp along to ease the pressure off of my left foot. The obstacles were more fun than challenging because of the camaraderie involved. I am happy to say I attempted all of them and never gave up once. My biggest obstacle was the Funkey Monkey 2.0, which was an inclined monkey bar with a parallel bar at the end. I made it halfway up before I lost my grip. 


But what does it matter! We finished! We passed the finish line as a team! And that was the most rewarding feeling. I can now proudly say I completed the Tough Mudder and I have the t-shirt/headband and bruises to show for it! LOL

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