In the last 3 months, I had a bachelorette party, helped plan and traveled to Ottawa for my friend Val’s bachelorette party, went to my cousin’s wedding in Campbellton, went to Val’s wedding in Ottawa, drove to Toronto for Chris’ cousin’s wedding (a week before our wedding), hosted lots of our friends over (including Sinéad and Peter from Ireland!) the week before our wedding, got married and went on my honeymoon (California!), all this while working, traveling to Miramichi about 8 times and pretty much planning my whole wedding. It was exhausting, fun, frustrating, stressful and annoying.

I knew I had a super packed summer. I knew I should have been doing more for our wedding earlier on in the year. But I didn’t. I had no excuse – it’s just not in my nature to be prepared. I’m a procrastinator and I can only work under tight deadlines and lots of pressure. I suck.

The thing that was the hardest in the last minute super busy wedding planning process was balancing my perfectionist nature with my procrastination. I wanted everything to be perfect, but had no time to make it happen. Well in the end everything ended up being perfect and the only thing that took a bit of a beating was my sanity and sleep schedule. No biggie!

Our wedding day was perfect, fun and simply memorable. Everything went off without a hitch, the weather cooperated and everybody had a great time. We’ve since received our photos from James, our photographer, and we love them. Since I’m about 3 years behind on uploading picture to Flickr, here is a slideshow of our pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Our honeymoon in California was really great as well. We pretty much just ate like pigs and did nothing for 2 weeks. *thumbs up* Photos to be uploaded on Flickr in the next 3-5 years.

Now we’ve been back home for a few weeks, settling back into the rhythm of “normal life”. Work, cooking, grocery shopping, knitting. It’s nice!

Married life is no different than living-together-for-the-last-six-years life. Still, it’s nice to be married and for things to be “more official” now. Having a husband is so much more credible than a boyfriend. Oh, and I’m Mrs. Taylor now!

I love tattoos, and I’ve wanted to get one since I was about 19. Well I always wanted to get one before then, but I knew better. Who knew what type of person I might become as an adult? What if I regretted the butterfly on my hip? (I would have.) I was always really good about tattoos as a teen. Piercings are another story, but I was good about tattoos.

So when I “became an adult” (whatever that means), I decided that I wanted tattoo of a tree on my arm. That was about four years ago. Chris is the one that suggested that I wait. Since I’m so indecisive, he told me to wait and see if I still wanted the same thing one, two, even three years down the road. And I did.

So a little over a month ago, after a wait of about four years, I got my very first tattoo! I’m feeling quite rebellious in a very stable-job-knitter-home-owner type of way. You know… Anyway! Here it is – my new tattoo. It’s inside my right arm underneath the crease of my elbow.

It was done by Shaun Martinson at White Lotus in Fredericton. I love it so much and am so glad that I waited to get this done.

When we were kids, my mom would tell my sister and I to think about what we would look like in a wedding dress before getting a tattoo. Well I’m now glad that next summer I’ll have a beautiful tattoo to complement my wedding dress on our wedding day.

Well about a month ago I caught wind (on Twitter, obviously) of a Twestival event being organized in Fredericton – and they were looking for volunteers.

I figured the following: I love Twitter, I’m pretty new here, and volunteering is always something I’m looking to do more of.

Oh yeah, and raising money for charity = good.

So I signed up to help Susan and Tim, the organizers. A little over a week, a super generous outpouring of prize donations from the Fredericton community, and some super speedy event planning later, we had the first-ever Fredericton Twestival on Thursday September 10th.

Over 20 people came out (keep in mind that the Fredericton metropolitan area has only 85,000 residents), we had Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6 come talk to the crowd about social media, and raised over $500 for the Fredericton Food Bank. Pretty successful if you ask this gal.

As always, I have some photos of the event up on Flickr. Check ‘em out!

We were camping at Dolly Copp campground in the White Mountain National Forest near Gorham, New Hampshire. Chris’ parents have been going to this campground every year for the last twenty years. It’s a really gorgeous spot with lots of swimming spots, hiking trails, and a whole lot of peace and quiet.

The week was mostly spent reading, swimming and eating. Just the way vacation should be.

On Tuesday Chris’ dad took Rachel (Chris’ sister) and I to the Kangamagus swimming spot where I witnessed a child almost drowning and almost lost my bikini bottom under a strong waterfall current. Good times!

On Wednesday the whole gang drove down to Salem and Manchester for some shopping and some fun times at the amusement park. For shopping, we went to the Mall of New Hampshire, Target and the Ham Radio Outlet (HECK YES! [Chris' dad is a Ham]). The day’s notable purchase was most definitely my new beautiful Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. They are so much cheaper in the States, and New Hampshire has no sales tax, so I kept bugging Chris to let me buy one, and he kept saying no. Turns out he had bought me the 90th Anniversary Edition mixer at home for Xmas. Anyway, I bugged him enough that he had to tell me, and we decided to buy the one at Best Buy in New Hampshire because it was so much cheaper and return the one he had bought at Sears in Fredericton, but now he has to buy me a new Xmas present. Go me! Way to ruin Xmas!

That evening, Chris, Rachel and I went to Canobie Lake Park – which was pretty fun! I don’t remember the last time I had been to an amusement park.

On Thursday Chris, his dad and I went for a short hike on the Tama Falls trail. The weather was pretty hot the whole time we were there – so we were lazy and didn’t really attempt any long hikes this year.

The rest of the time was mostly spent lounging around, reading and sleeping. A great vacation! Thanks again to Chris’ family for letting us tag along! And here are the rest of my vacation pictures, for your viewing pleasure.

On the way back we stopped in Bangor, Maine to buy a dehumidifier at Best Buy. Since we’ve been back, my new obsession is emptying it and marvelling at the amount of water taken out of our basement air. I lead such an exciting life.

- You actually live in a country with a stable form of government in which you can have your say. And to the people who feel that democracy isn’t fair in Canada and that none of the parties represent your views, I say spoil your ballot. Sure, Elections Canada will tell you it’s illegal and that they discourage it, but if enough people are dissatisfied and do the same as you, I can tell you it won’t be long before the results of the elections are called into question and the way in which we elect our Members of Parliament is revisited.
- If you’re a woman, you owe your privilege to vote to the suffragettes.
- Voting is sexy.
- By voting you make sure that the government is not elected solely by senior citizens, who always vote in frighteningly high numbers. They even get dressed up to vote (I plan on voting in jogging pants tonight)!
- I will think less of you if you don’t vote (seriously… aren’t you like, totally concerned about what I think of you?). Where are all of your WWVT bracelets (What would Véronique think)?
- The act of voting itself is pretty darn exciting (ok maybe I’m alone on this one). I mean, you get to visit your local church basement/community center and line up with a little piece of paper, maybe finally talk to that neighbour you’ve been stalking for over two years.

- 3 words and an acronym: CBC election night coverage.
- 3 words and an acronym again: Peter Mansbridge in HD.
- If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the government. Four years (well, it technically should be four years) without complaining about the government in power? That’s a long time… think about it! I won’t even let you complain about how loud John Baird is!
- Get some exercise! For the Debbie Downers who will tell me that traffic accidents are always higher on election days, I say walk to your polling station and get some exercise!

Well as much as I wish I could, I can’t make you go vote today. But please do? Merci!

A bit over a year ago, James started to really (and I mean really ) get into boardgames. So James, Fiona, our other coworker and friend Catherine, her boyfriend Jon, Chris and myself started getting together every once in a while to play boardgames for an evening/afternoon. We still get together every few months to play.

Last November, James and Fiona got engaged. They finally officially tied the knot a little over a week ago, on Saturday April 26 2008. I know many will say this about a lot of couples they know, but I am 100% serious when I say that James and Fiona are the nicest people you will ever meet in your life. I am proud to call these guys my friends and wish them nothing but the best.

James and Fiona outside of the church after their wedding ceremony. Photo by my friend Catherine.


More pictures from James’ and Fiona’s wedding can be found in my “James and Fiona tie the knot” Flickr album.

Their wedding was lovely. The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church in Ottawa and the reception was at the National Arts Center , which was really lovely. It was wonderful for me to be able to meet their families and friends and share in on their celebration. Both James and Fiona have big loving families and great friends, which is probably part of the reason why they are such great people.

All and all, it was a great day and I couldn’t be happier for my friends.