We went camping this past weekend to Uceulet (West coast Vancouver Island) with 2 other couples and all their kids. It was super-fun. I was a little nervous about the group camp thing because I'd never done it before but it worked really well. The largest problem with the whole thing was that I drank too much wine on Saturday night and didn't want to hydrate properly before bed because I didn't want to have to get up to pee in the middle of the night. Especially since there had been an ursine visitor (i.e. black bear) to the camp earlier in the day.

On the Saturday our fabulous host Paul - camp at Surf Junction if you're in the Tofino/Uceulet area! - took us surfing. It was awesome! Totally! Dude! We wore full wetsuits with gloves and booties and I was completely warm. I completely sucked at surfing and drank a fair bit of sea water (as well as the stuff that went up my nose) but I haven't had that much fun in the water since, well, ever. I am totally pumped about trying it again. The advantage of the water at Long beach being so cold in the summer is that it stays the same all year so we could go back and surf some other time over the winter. Yay! Surfing without risk of shark attack. If it wasn't for the necessary ferry ride to get there, I think I'd be heading over once a month or so. Thanks to the ferry ride, maybe twice a year.

The fact that medical helicopters aren't able to land due to armed groups on landing pads and nursing home buses are being held-up at gunpoint is one of the strongest arguments for gun control in the US I've ever heard. I'm not saying there wouldn't be thugs in this kind of emergency in Canada but it certainly wouldn't be this out-of-hand because the majority of us aren't armed.

We had a great time at Jeff and Tea's wedding on Saturday in Chilliwack. The weather was great. The food was great. The company was great. The karaoke was great - well, the neighbours didn't think so and they sent the cops to shut us down at 7:30pm. LAME! I can see that they might not want to be listening to Pantera and Slayer all afternoon sung karaoke style, but come on! It was a freaking wedding, folks. Plus, my "Goodbye, Earl" is always a highlight. Okay, maybe a lowlight, but I like singing it.

You may notice the RCMP officers in the background when Theo and Jeff are singing. Apparently it takes 4 officers to shut down a heavy metal karaoke wedding.

If you'd like to see photos from our Australia trip without any pesky explanations about where we are and what you're looking at, there's a gallery up here http://www.vertigogirl.com/australia_gallery/. I'm still hoping to do a more detailed gallery with explanations but it takes a long time. So, don't lose hope, but don't hold your breath either.

I spent Saturday up in the attic replacing more insulation. Now we just have to get some of those pull-down attic stairs to make access a lot easier. Insulation is gross stuff. Even with a respirator, I was coughing up some scary stuff later. Plus, my butt bones got all bruised from sitting on plywood all day - it's too low to stand up there. I would have thought I had plenty of my own padding, but I guess not.

I crawled around in the attic today trying to redistribute the insulation more effectively, as well as putting some slats of wood across some beams so that we can start using it as a storage area. It is really nasty and dusty up there, though less stifling since we installed the roof vent last summer. Despite wearing a respirator mask, I feel like I inhaled several pounds of cellulose dust. Yick!

I bought a passion fruit plant today. I really hope that it will eventually bear fruit because I got addicted to passion fruit in Australia. It is wonderful with yogurt and especially wonderful made into gelati. Mmmmm.