EPIC Event for an Epic Adventure?

It's always great meeting up with family when you're nowhere near 'home'. We met up with our cousin Kevin on Saturday night, after hiking, in downtown Vancouver. While waiting for him on Robson Street, we were sure we were witnessing some escort service going down next to us. lol. You never know what you're going to see...


We headed down Robson to Earl's which is a very modern, cool place. Kinda like Moxie's back home. Martini's and beers and some damn good food. Mmm, I can still remember how good that steak was. Perfection... :) But beside the point...it was great to hang out and catch up with family when you're least expecting it. And it was great to watch the hockey game! We have no TV where we are and we were a little lost on the standings. Unfortunatley Vancouver lost that night, but it was fun being around some Canuck fans, they're pretty hardcore!

Kevin was in town for the EPIC event at the convention centre in Vancouver. It's basically a consumer show for products that are 'green' or eco-friendly. Kevin's product is Kiju. It's an organic juice and its sooooooooooo good!!! I wish we had juice boxes like this when we were kids! They're actually realllllly good!

After dinner with Kevin we walked over to Granville St to grab a pint with an old friend of mine, Megan. Well she's not old, but I swear we've known each other for centuries! It was nice catching up and seeing what was new and exciting in her life! Can't wait to get together again. PS. How's the book?

So on Sunday we headed to the event. (Thx for the tix Kev! We loved it) We sampled lots of food, juice, watched a fashion show and even got our hair straightened and curled! lol. It was a random day. Send positive energy for us because we entered to win lots of stuff...a GPS (that might come in handy!), $10,000 from Toyota (that might come in handy too!) and a car full of 'green' products from who I cannot remember. Fingers crossed. They had so much cool stuff at that show. Gave us lots of ideas too!

Kevin sent us off with some souvenier juiceboxes...lots of them. They'd be great for camping, which we were going to use them for, but we drank them all already! They're just too good!

Big Bear...Big Bear Chase Me...

If you have no idea what that's from you were deprived...No just joking, you just need to go rent 'The Great Outdoors' with John Candy and Dan Akroyd!

Anyways, so while in Vancouver I wasn't really expecting to see anyone except maybe the handful of friends that said they wanted to come out West and visit. Cool! Out of the blue my wonderful friend Yulan said she was heading out here for a week away from home. ( I don't blame her!) And I was so happy!! lol. So Kel and I headed to Kitsilano to meet her and her brother Michael for some lunch. After a good Mexican lunch in Kitsilano we made plans to do the 'Grouse Grind' the next day.
The Grouse Grind is a hike up Grouse Mountain. They call it the grind because it's basically like being on a stair master up the entire thing. (ooo that'd be good for my butt!) I have no idea how far it is, or how long it typically takes, but my understanding is that you need to give yourself a good few hours. Yaaaa, I'm pretty sure it'll porbably take us about 4 hours. We headed to Grouse ready to climb only to be told that the mountain wasn't open for hiking yet so Yulan, Katie and I admired the timbrewolves for a little bit while Henry, Marvin and Kim waited for us to get going.

We headed to Lynn Canyon Park. The main attraction was the suspension bridge and the fact that it was FREE! :) We arrived, parked and headed towards the suspension bridge. Right before the trail for the bridge starts there is a little cafe and seating area. As we're walking towards the trail entrance a guy is yelling really loudly to all of us there (meaning the collective of everyone that was there). It took us a little while to figure out what he was yelling about because he wasn't moving quickly and his Asian accent made it difficult to understand clearly what he was yelling.

Well it didn't take long before we SAW what he was yelling about as a BIG black bear came barrelling up the road and headed right for the trail head. It seems a bit like a blur, just as it did that day, but that bear was huge and it was moving fast! I wasn't so much scared of the bear as I was worried about how it would react to all the people running from it!

We waited a little bit before heading onto the bridge.


We crossed the bridge, which was really cool. This was the first time I've been that high and realized that my fear of heights really doesn't exist anymore. I guess all those camps last summer did the trick!! Thank you Warrior! :) We hiked up or maybe down to Twin Falls where some dude was on the rocks taking everyone's 'wish' money. Still undecided about how I feel about that... I see both sides. But after that we continued along the trail along the river and stopped to make some Innukshuks. It was a wonderful afternoon spent playing in nature.

We ended up hiking all the way up to the road, which was in the wrong direction, but we were needed there. Who knew we'd be breaking into a car that day too! A lady had locked her dog and her keys in the car with no windows open. Leave it to Windsor and Leamington peeps to bust it open! But we got the dog out and everyone was happy!

Random Things We Forgot to Tell You...Part 1

You can expect to get a few of these over the course of our trip as sometimes, we just forget to write about stuff. It sounds a little like this, "We should write about...!" or "We forgot to write about...!" So here's the stuff, the little random tidbits, we forgot to tell you!

This goes way back to Denver...
So at home after a good night on the town, you're usually looking for something to eat to kill those spins you're already dreading when you get into bed. There's usually street meat (hot dogs) or pizza or something closeby. Well in Colorado it was different.

We got out of the bar and there was a guy holding a cooler. He asked me something that I couldn't understand and I thought he was prolly just weird or something, so I said no. Then he asks Aaron...and this time I heard, he asked if he wanted a wrap. What?! lol. Apparently these guys make wraps at home and then bring a cooler full and stand outside the bars at night and sell them for like a buck or two. He got tons of business and they weren't too bad! I just thought it was so random...And I don't recall seeing anyone with a cooler, I just remember a wrap appearing out of nowhere in Aaron's hands.

Another thing they do in Colorado that I thought was odd was instead of asking for the bill at the end of a meal they call it a ticket. So if you're in CO and out to eat and they ask you if you want the ticket just say yes...or no, but that prolly won't turn out well.

And then in California...
Katie, Levi and I stopped off at a small store outside of Santa Cruz. As I was walking into the bakery to grab some bread two guys that I said hello to asked if they could hitch a ride with us up the coast for 5 mins. I thought about it and said, "If you don't mind being completely squished...sure!" I saw Kelly walking to the car with a big smile on her face and knew something was up. And then I was thinking how the hell are we all gonna fit!?!

So for 5-10 min there was me, Katie, Levi and the other two guys (names I don't remember... maybe Mike and Adam?) and a giant backpack in the car. On top of our roof bag was another backpack. I don't know how we did it, but it worked.

San Francisco...
We were going for a walk with Keith and Mari and walked past a lady walking her dog. He came up to us looking for some attention, but we just kept walking. Apparently this was a big thing, he's a fairly anti-social dog because of his previous owners so when he approaches people, his new owner asks them to pet him. We got asked to pet a dog for a change! Usually it's the other way around.

He was a sweet dog and he even did tricks. If you said ''paw'' he would shake a paw. lol. So the lady was like ''Put out your hand and say P-A-W.'' Now, I didn't realize she was doing the whole i'm-spelling-paw-right-now-so-he-doesn't-hear-it-and-get-excited thing. So I bent down, put out my hand and said ''P-A-W!'' I friggin spelt paw!! LOL I am peeing my pants laughing right now! Then everyone started laughing and the lady was like ''No...you have to actually say it.'' haha Needless to say I felt like an ass cuz I just spelled out the word paw to a dog to get a shake from him. That was a very ditzy moment! haha P-A-W

Another thing about San Fran is that there is little to no chain fast food joints in the city. It's all little privately owned cafes and restaurants. The closest Wendy's was 7 miles away I think...I looked it up! I wanted a Frosty! But that is actually a blessing because it opens up your palatte to new things. Now instead of us craving McD's or Wendy's we usually crave mexican food...greasy tacos! Can you say 'El Mattate'? mmmm...

Calgary Millionaire Mind Intensive

Where do I start with such an eventful weekend?


First of all, the drive out to Calgary was absolutely beautiful. It didn't matter that we had already been on that stretch of road twice, it looked completely new and astonishing all over again. Katie slept for pretty much the entire first half of the drive until I pulled over for some food at the historical "Last Spike" monument. It's literally the place where they drilled the last spike into the railway that connected the entirety of Canada. I remember learning about it in history class at some point in my educational career, but to actually be there and think that over 100years ago, trains were first coming to life. It was very cool for me at least...that historian being awed by the smallest of historical snippets.


Once we got into Calgary we were reunited with Gregory. We headed out to Brewster's, the local brewery for some dins and drinks. In my opinion this brewery was my least favourite, but it was still good, just not great! After catching up after a whole 2 weeks of being away from eachother we pretty much passed out and got lots of sleep to be ready for the long weekend ahead!

The Millionaire Mind Intensive is a course that Katie and I have both done. This was my second time volunteering at it and Katie's first. To be honest, words will not be able to explain what this experience was...still. Greg asked us to explain it to him and we couldn't really even do that because it's an 'experience' not something you just go to or do. What you learn and how you grow over the course of that weekend is unbelievable until you actually experience it for yourself.

But being on the other side of it, helping to run the event, rather than participate, afforded us a different perspective. We learned a lot about ourselves as leaders and as followers. We had rock star volunteers on our Karma Krew and we just gelled! Everything...to us at least...went really well! Howard said it best, "When you're doing something that is in line with your purpose, it is effortless and your natural talents and skills just do the work for you." Or something like that :) But it was soooo true. Katie and I were doing something in line with our purpose, whether that was just 'being' whoever, whatever, wherever we needed to be or whether there was something we haven't quite become aware of, it felt right and it felt goooood!






At the end of the day, it wasn't about how good we felt, but how good we made everyone else feel. 300+ people's lives have been forever shifted into a new energy because of our little team of peeps. It is unreal what small groups of people can accomplish for a something greater than themselves...what one person's idea has done for millions of people.

What can you do for just one person? How can you help shift someone's energy from down in the dumps to closer to the clouds?

Side Trip To Seattle

Seattle, again! The main purpose for our trip to Seattle was to pick up my one shoe that I left there, lol, and to pick up my computer that Miss Chantelle Tibbs got for me! So we made a weekend of it. It just felt right. Trust your gut and it will all work out...always does!

The first day we got there we went to see the Troll under the bridge. lol. Now, when someone tells you there's a troll under a bridge your mind sort of wonders. I heard a story once of a troll that lived under a bridge and would come out and take you and you'd disappear forever. So ya, wasn't sure what to expect. I really shouldn't have watched Tales From the Crypt Keeper when I was younger....I envisioned this big ogar like man with a toll booth and a very large cane charging people to view him and his home. I'm not sure why I thought it was a real live being, but I've been surpised before. But anyways, it's actually a huge clay/cement sculpture of a troll holding a VW Bug. It's cool! And apparantly a very popular tourist attraction.

After meeting with the troll we headed to Jessica's again. Not easily may I add. We had a little trouble finding the place, but thanks to RedHook we figured it out pretty quickly after that. The term Lost On Purpose is resonating with me a little more frequently. At first it was a quirky title for our blog, but the more I venture around, the more I realize that I intentionally try to find my way around with out maps and such. There's a BIG lesson in that one! Although it does confirm that trusting your gut does get you where you need to be....eventually. Without having any plans upon arrival we made some real quick. Michael, who we house sat for the last time we were in Seattle, was making dinner. We wanted to visit the animals again, and he invited us over to eat! It was delicious! Kel and I ended up playing Candy Land, Barbie Fashion Show computer game, and American Idol karaoke, again! Olivia, Michael's daughter had lots of fun stuff for us to do! And I think she was happy to have someone to hang out with.

The next day we headed to Pike's Place Market. VERY COOL!!! If ever in Seattle it's a must! Lots of interesting people! And when you're there be sure to see the 'fish throwers'. Mar, if it weren't for Buzek and that Fortune 500 video of Pike's Place I would have never known! It's way cooler seeing it live rather than on the video in the office!

We were hoping to do the underground city tour but unfortunatley they only took cash. And Kel and I didn't have any American money on us. And we weren't gonna be charged $10 to take some out. So hopefully we'll do that some other time! After that we just sort of walked around and toured the city. I love Seattle. Especially the area near Pike's Place and the harbour. A lot of the buildings are original and beautiful. And Seattle is actually very well kept. It was nice to be in a clean city!

Our drive back to Vancouver was much quicker than the drive there and we had some eye candy along the way. A truck with 4 surfers played the passing game with us for a long time. And then we parted ways. We took a quick drive through the city through Kitsalano and then Stanley Park, mostly so Katie could get a quick peek of it and a feel for what's going on in Van. Very good weekend indeed!

Earl's Birthday

Earl's birthday was the day after mine, April 24. Michael, Kelly and I filled his bedroom with balloons, 100 at least! It was wonderful! lol. And Michael seemed to be happy that his plan worked. Although Earl was suspicious because he saw a balloon in his window on the walk home, he didn't expect so many! We also wrote little message in some of them so he had to find the ones that had them because it told him where his present was! lol. It was quite funny watching him find them!

After the balloon incident Kel, Earl and I went to Central park and played some frisbee. Earl, an ultimate frisbee player tried to teach us some tricks which we failed at, but it was fun none the less. I AM getting better. I have shown remarkable improvement in my 'skills' since the last time someone got suckered into playing frisbee with me. We later headed to Boston Pizza for some bday dinner. FYI don't go to BP for your bday. They don't sing, or clap, or even celebrate customer bdays there. Not even a free cake or brownie..or ice cream! Although WE know, from inside sources, that you are supposed to do that!

But bowling made up for all that! We ended the night with some friendly competition and rocked out to 80's rock music at Rock n' Bowl! Bowling never disappoints! Apparently neither do I when I attempt to bowl with out bowling shoes and forget I can't slide, therefore landing square on my knees with everyone watching...or at least just Katie who nearly peed her pants laughing at me.

A Vancouver Birthday

April 23, 1986. Yes, I turned 23..on the 23rd. I think that means something but I'm not sure. Hopefully it means this is going to be the best year of my life!! It sure started out that way....I woke up that morning earlier than usual, 10 am, haha. Because obviously it was my big day and everyone gets up early on their big day, even if they're not doing anything! Well I woke up to Kelly, acting very strange, telling me to go back to bed. That NEVER happens, so I knew something was up. She also locked me out of the computer so that was a sure sign that she was scheming. Once I got her permission to use the computer again, I realized she made me an awesome birthday video filled with random birthday wishes form random people! haha It was fabulous! And surprising! And a perfect way to kick off my day.

After I blew out the candles on my birthday Tim Horton's donuts, and made a wish to meet the cast of Twilight, Kel and I headed out for a walk in Central Park. B-E-A-UTIFUL! I foresee me taking lots of naps and having multiple picnics there this summer! Or possibly picking up a couple games of horseshoes...Anyways, the real reason we went there is because we found out the set of New Moon was being filmed there. And the park is right next door to us so we went to creep it out. And we found it!!! No cast in sight unfortunately, but we saw a green screen set up and some posts and such. Pretty cool none the less. Kel and I are confident though that we'll see the cast downtown Van somewhere, and we'll spend the night laughing and drinking, and become great friends! :D

After our park stroll we got haircuts! A new look for a new city! Sure! It was well needed,...shaggy was taking over and I was feeling sluggish. A good clean up fixed that right up! And a new style. I now have bangs....strange at first cuz I felt like I was in grade 3 again singing in the school play, and then I looked identical to my mother. A weird feeling I must say. But it all worked out. We were ready for a night out!

First stop - Steamworks Brewery...let's just say that was the starting point. Good food, good beer, good 'tradition' shots of SoCo. The Horvath-Staudt tradition that probably put us past the point of clarity,..it was just nonesense from then on. Pretty sure the one waiter had a crush on Katie. With her hand all the way to the bottom of her beer glass to pull out the lemon, he walks by and asks, "Do you want another lemon or are you happy fishing that one out?" And then he brought her another lemon. He was super sweet. We also thought we saw Al Borlin (Richard Karn) from Home Improvement sitting at a table near us. BUT we were disappointed when he got up and looked nothing like him at all.

Of course that wasn't enough so we wandered around and happened to stuble upon Ceili's (Kay-lee's), an Irish pub with dualing pianos! DULEING PIANOS PEOPLE!!! It's the same chain that Greg told us about in Calgary. Talk about a blast! Those guys rocked! They were very entertaining and they sang happy birthday to me!! Yay! Looking forward to another Thursday downtown soon. We also made friends with some cools peeps who (I think it was more of a warning) told us they were in the 'film industry'. I'm not sure if that was supposed to scare me or not, but it didn't. They were awesome. Yes, Mase who resembled the lead singer of The Darkness (big curly long afro hair) with a mix of the Beatles with a jacket similar to that of the Sgt. Pepper Band attire. And Chad who was sweet and liked to be dipped while dancing with a woman,....he
quizzed us on the song 'Piano Man', wondering how we knew all the words.

So, to all you Billy Joel fans:

It's 9 o'clock on a ...
What's the old man making love to ...
What is Davy still in ...

In the midst of all our fun we failed to keep track of time and ended up running 6 blocks...Katie in closed toed shoes, me in my Jesus sandals...to catch the train back to Burnaby. It would have been a $30 cab ride home...running seemed appropriate! The next day we realized we really only needed to run 2 if we had paid attention to where the stops actually were...lol. Oops! So I guess we need to learn the train system a little better. But there will be lots of time to do that now! There will be lots more adventures, more random people and definitely a lot more fun timez ahead!

Brian and The Arrow

Katie and I are sitting in a cafe in Burnaby, BC working on a blog post. One of us is researching what to do in BC as the other writes their part of the blog.

Then comes along Brian who throws down a book about 'The Arrow'. Here's the wikipedia description..."

The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft, designed and built by Avro Aircraft Limited (Canada) in Milton, Ontario, Canada, as the culmination of a design study that began in 1953. Considered to be both an advanced technical and aerodynamic achievement for the Canadian aviation industry, the CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding 50 000 ft (15 000 m), and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's primary interceptor in the 1960s and beyond.
Not long after the 1958 start of its flight test program, the development of the Arrow (including its Orenda Iroquois jet engines) was abruptly and controversially halted,[1][2] sparking a long and bitter political debate."

Who knew? Certainly not I! It turns out that Brian was in the Canadian Airforce for many years. After chatting for a bit about the contraversies surrounding the superiority of The Arrow we found out a bit more about Brian.

When Brian was 17, he left Ontario for the first time and joined the Airforce. He says that the discipline saved his life; he's not sure where he'd be with out that opportunity. He didn't enjoy it at the time, but it was what it was and like so many things, they are a part of our journey, lessons to be learned to help us grow.

He seemed very approving of our little journey and when I asked him if he had any advice for kids our age and younger he said this, "Don't be afraid to try things, you only come this way once."

After talking with Brian for a while it was clear that he understood the concept of one life; one chance to get it done.

We are very greatful that he crossed our path and was willing to share his story. Brian, if you're reading this, which I'm sure you are, hope you're having an awesome day! Thanks for your contribution to our journey!

The States Ain't So Bad!

Being in Canada has made us realize that there are some things that we miss about the good ol' U. S. of A.. Now some of you are probably saying "Are you for real?" And I bet your Canadian, lol. But once you've travelled the great country for 2 months straight you gain an appreciation for it and find beauty in the least likely of places.

Things we miss...

-the breweries in Colorado
-the Arizona sun
-cactuses
-thinking you may see a celebrity on every corner of LA...or any city for that matter
-the creative energy...they've always got ideas for something
-Mexicans that don't whistle at you...with the exception of the Mission in San Fran
-Mexican food at every corner
-the diversity of landscapes and climates even within one state alone (aka Arizona, Cali)
-being in the mecca of the entertainment industry and knowing that you'll never be bored
-being in the midst of another culture that is not your own

Being away made us appreciate Canada more and now being out of the USA we have a better appreciation for what we experienced there. I'm sure they are out there, but 'like attracts like' so we didn't run into anyone that was anymore rude, loud or crazy than ourselves. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.

April's Awesome!

Shout out to all the awesome peeps that let us crash and play with them last month.

Thank you for your patience with our 'yet to be determined' planning and our last minute decisions at Easter.

Your understanding allowed us the space we needed to recollect and reorganize our lives, our car and our thoughts! April was a month filled with randomness at it's best. From lawn darts and pet fashion shows to birthdays, easter celebrations and friends from home in far off places.

Thank you for opening your doors to two crazy gals on a crazy journey, your trust and willingness to help us out is greatly appreciated!

We're Twitterific!

Recently in the news Twitter has recieved a lot of coverage. Partly because Ashton Kutcher said that if he beat CNN to get 1 million followers first he'd 'Ding Dong Ditch' Ted Turner's house. Katie just had to tell me that that means it's like a 'Nicky Nine Door', ring the bell and run. Katie also said she's not sure if there's a bag of flaming dog shit involved, but hopefully not! But that would be entertaining... hmm.

We decided to get Twitter for our blog about a month ago after some of our friends told us we had to. I believe the conversation went like this.

KK- "What's this Twitter thing?"

Martell Bros. - "Just get it."

KK- "Well what is it?"

MarBros- "How do you have a blog and not have Twitter?!?! It's like better than a blog!"

KK- "Ya ok...maybe we'll check it out"

And then they went on to talk about how many followers they have, how many people they are following and how many times a day they are 'tweeting'. All of this was like listening to someone talk with marshmellows in their mouth. And then of course one of the presenters talked about it at GBS and then in San Fran, Chantelle and Hoan raved about it.

So we got it. And we didn't know how to use it for about 2 weeks! Katie called Dan a 'twitter slut' for the first little bit because we were hardly following anyone, but she takes that back...there are bigger twitter sluts than Dan. But it's actually REALLY easy and you can follow pretty much anyone!

For example...we are following A.C. Slater (real name Mario Lopez)- his most recent 'update'
MarioLopezExtraMaria Shriver and I are going to start taking salsa lessons together! Hope Arnold is cool with it... She loves to dance
jimmyfallonRode the elevator with David Letterman just now. How cool is that? Shout out to Eddie Brill....
JonathanRKnightFor Earth Day some of these Hollywood woman should give up their lip injections! Just saw the craziest lips on this woman QUACK! QUACK!

Even though we're following some of the biggest names in Hollywood, we do love to see what they're up to, but it's less about following 'them' and more about learning what they do, where they get their information and who they are affecting.

We're all human, we're all on the same level, same planet, why shouldn't we be able to communicate?

And I wanna see Ashton 'Ding Dong Ditch' Ted Turner in Atlanta....we'll keep you posted!

In the meantime, get a Twitter account to add to your already growing list of Social Networking Sites and follow us @Lost_On_Purpose :)

Happy Tweeting!