Curtis stayed awake until 04:30 and watched Great Britain lose pretty heavily to Czech Republic. Great Britain were tired and it was very obvious.
After waking up this morning, Kim had a chat with her family and Curtis went out to get his haircut.
Curtis’ barber, who has done a great job, is heading back to live in his home country, Australia, so it was the final cut before he leaves.
Kim spoke with her family the entire time Curtis was at his haircut and then once she was done, we went for a walk.
We got Vietnamese coffee and a duck banh mi which was alright.
We had our walk and once we got back home, Curtis watched hockey. The leafs lost, yet again, so they have just the one game remaining to get into the next round of the playoffs.
Kim watched a bit of TV whilst Curtis watched hockey and she did some admin.
We had leftover pasta for dinner an then we went out to get a couple of side tables that Kim found on Facebook. These are much nicer for our living room!
We then went to get a milkshake from McDonald’s and came to to relax for the evening, but then we had a long night walk!
Curtis had meetings pretty much straight through the entire day!
Today, and for the next 2 days as well, it is his team virtual ‘retreat’.
This is where a lot of meetings happen, usually about work things but also random meetings about random fun things as well as people on the team presenting about something they enjoy doing.
Curtis was able to have lunch in the middle of all these meetings and finished his last meeting right at the end of the day.
He was tired from all those meetings but the work related ones were really good and the non work related ones were fun!
Kim’s Day
In the morning Kim went through and sent e-gift vouchers for people to use for the winter party tomorrow. Everyone gets to order some food for the event and its much easier to order gift cards for people than it is have everyone expense it back! She also had a chat with her colleague about the meetings they have during the day.
Kim then played two very quick games of connect four where she didn’t stand a chance! Both games she had no idea what was going on and was very truly outplayed, but both games were so much fun!
From connect four Kim went into the weekly team meeting and it was great. They got a lot of direction and a fair few things sorted out. It overran a lot and even into the HR meeting, so once they had everything sorted the whole team went and joined the HR meeting. In this meeting they went over two new roles that will be going live soon and arranged a catch up for the afternoon to finalise a few of the details of the roles.
From that meeting Kim went straight into the social lunch where she hung out and chatted with a fair few people, it was so lovely!
For the afternoon Kim focused on the quiz which she split into two! So she divided the questions between the two rounds of the quiz and added a couple more questions.
After this Kim joined a meeting to discuss the new position she will be recruiting for. They went over the job posting Kim made and discussed the main focus points for the position. They also covered the final adjustments to another role that another team are hiring for.
Once that meeting ended Kim called the person she is working with to discuss some of the facilities project. They provided updates to one another and made a plan for the next few days. As a result of this meeting Kim did some research and updated information to present to people tomorrow. Then to finish the day Kim added a little more to the quiz.
Evening
Kim went out to get some things from the shop and also got us some A&W burgers.
We ate our food and watched The Queen’s Gambit and then we played some Connect4 as Kim needs to get her practice in!
We watched some more TV and played some games and then headed to bed. Curtis was tired as he had to be up earlier this morning.
We walked to work and it was snowing quite heavy! It was meant to snow yesterday but we didn’t get any at all, though the snow we got today didn’t settle at all.
The weather changed 3 times whilst we walked to work, from heavy snow to rain to sleet!
Curtis’ Day
Curtis got to work at 08:40, which is pretty early for him, but that gave him some more time to get stuff done.
Curtis got some emails back from a company that he was getting support from and had to provide them with some further information and logs, so he did that.
Curtis spent a while doing that as well as some other tickets and then had a long team meeting.
After the meeting, he had to deal with someone’s laptop as they spilled wine on it!
It was well and truly dead, so Curtis had to go and purchase one at the local Apple store as a replacement as they needed it urgently.
That took up Curtis’ afternoon as he also had to setup it and ready for use.
He got that done and then walked home, and was not attacked this time!
Kim’s Day
Kim started her day by finding two of the missing invoices, she had to call the hotel and they sent them across nice and easily. She then called the travel agent to see if she can get information on another card charge.
Just before lunch Kims colleague came in with her 5 week old baby and the whole team had a great catch up. It was so great to see her and she looked amazing and the baby was beautiful too.
Kim then popped out to pick her car up from the garage.
It was a round trip from work, out to the garage, to home and back to work, so when Kim got back she started looking into an invoice for a beverage delivery that she doesn’t believes adds up.
While she was waiting on a response in regards to this Kim went through and saved a few more travel invoices.
Kim spent the final part of her afternoon setting up and placing an order for fruit for the next week and did one final walk around for people if they wanted to sign someones leaving card.
Kim then headed out to a small leaving party where she had a great catch to with some brilliant colleagues.
Return To Hockey
It was Curtis’ first hockey game in 3 weeks, so he was excited and a little nervous!
We drove up to the rink for the first time in a while and got there with plenty of time, despite the dreadful weather of today, which changed to rain, rather than snow.
Curtis’ game was very close, just losing 1-0 with a powerplay goal, but the team played pretty well!
After, the team and some other people from the other team went out for some food and drinks to celebrate Curtis’ teams goalie’s birthday!
Curtis got to work and had to fight with him Outlook just to get it to work, which took up about 15 minutes of his morning!
After that, he started setting up a new user that will be based in Denver. This also included setting up the laptop remotely, so that took quite a bit of the day.
Curtis’ whole team had a meeting with a vendor to get onboarded onto the software which the team are making a switch to.
After that meeting, Curtis was asked a lot of questions regarding the charity laptop auction that started yesterday.
Curtis’ company is allowing people that work at the company to bid on old, unneeded laptops in a silent auction, with the proceeds going to charity. Due to this, Curtis had to answer a whole host of questions about it.
Curtis’ afternoon was filled with the tickets he was unable to get to, as well as helping people with their migration as they hadn’t done it yet, but it’s due tomorrow!
Kim’s Day
Kim started her day by putting together a final fridge clean out of the year, it was a very silly sign and she is very proud of it.
Kim then went to the post office to send a letter quickly, it was great to get out of the office in the morning. When she got back she arranged catering for a colleague to arrive on Friday.
Kim then spent a while fixing up some forms. She took one apart and made it into 2 forms, making each form easier to process and read. She also updated the internal website with these forms so they are nice and easy to find!
It was then suddenly 2pm so Kim nipped out to grab some lunch, as Curtis said he was having mexican Kim decided she wanted tacos too, so she popped to tacofino and had some lunch!
After lunch Kim cut up the melon for slices and also made a fruit salad. She then spent the rest of the afternoon chasing things and adding to the holiday party decorations, they are coming together nicely now!
Helping at Pole & Hockey
Kim went right from work and took the train back home to get the car.
Kim was helping out at pole dancing today, again, so she drove out there to help.
Curtis got his gear ready for hockey and then when Kim was done and got back, we went right to the rink.
Kim went to Winners whilst Curtis got changed and bought herself a dress!
Curtis’ hockey game was another close one, with back and forth goals!
Curtis’ line got the 1-1 equaliser and then his team got the 2-1 goal!
The other team tied it and then scored with 2 minutes remaining to make it 3-2.
Curtis’ team pushed and also pulled the goalie for an extra skater, but were not able to get that extra goal.
Certainly a fun one!
25,000!
Today, we hit 25,000 blog views… 25,000.
What a number. Thank you all. Thank you all so much for sticking around over these 1024 days!
Curtis got to work and had a cold brew that Kim got him and it wasn’t great and actually made Curtis feel a little unwell.
Curtis got a few ticket in the morning and some were a bit more complicated which was excellent for him, making the time go fast.
After lunch, which Curtis ate even though he didn’t feel too good, he was kinda out of things to do, but started doing part of a project which was to write up policies.
The later and later it got in the day, the closer it got to hockey time, so Curtis was getting more and more nervous!
Curtis left and found and umbrella at work, so took that to walk home with!
Kim’s Day
This morning there was no catering, but Kim was in a 2 hour fire safety warden training so that ate up most of her morning. After the course Kim caught up on her emails, mainly with a supplier and the caterers for next week.
Then the weekly pizza came in so Kim sorted that out before jumping on a call with the regular catering company they use to discuss the trail that Kim had used. They talked about a few tweaks Kim wanted to make. It was a really successful call.
Then the fire drill started. Kim grabbed her high vis and ushered everyone out of the building and then spent the time hearding cats to try to get everyone in the same place!
After the fire drill kim and the other new fire wardens had a debrief.
When she got back to the office, Kim took 5 to have a sit down as it was almost 3! Then she rememebrred that she had a 3pm deadline to contact the hotel that she was speaking to yesterday to fully resolve the issue. She sorted all that and then put the remainder of the doughnuts from yesterday out!
Kim then spent most of the rest of her day listening to voicemail messages and picking through the backlog of emails she has.
First Hockey Game In Canada!
Can’t say it went well…
We got back home and had some pizza and then watched some TV. Around 19:15, we left and got into the car, heading to the Richmond Olympic Oval.
The traffic was abysmal and even when we got there, there was a queue to drive into the parking.
The parking is meant to be $2 per hour, but it didn’t give us a ticket so we parked for free!
We got a spot and then as Curtis was walking, he slipped on the wet floor and broke his flip flop, so he had to walk barefoot for the rest of the way.
The arena is huge, but we each finally found our spots.
The changing room was massive, and there is 8 of them, so Curtis had plenty of room!
After a brief changing room discussion, it was warm up time…And then game time!
It started well and Curtis’ team were actually able to get the first goal.
It was a very close game and Curtis had some good chances, but the game ended 6-1 the other way! Technically, it was 9-1, but after a 5 goal lead, the goals stop counting.
Of course, handshakes at the end
After the game, we drove home and were super tired. Now here we are, writing the blog!
When we woke up, the sun was shining through the blind right on us, which was a change from the recent weather! That being said, it was still 0°.
We had breakfast and then left to go to the uptown mall. To do so, we took the bus, which only took about 25 minutes.
Once we got there, the goal was to find a new wall plug adapter and some new jeans for each of us.
We found the plug right away, which was a result, and then we went looking for jeans.
We went to a few shops but couldn’t really find anything great for Kim, but Curtis did get some from H&M.
we then got tired and hungry, so stopped for some noodles at ‘The Noodle Box’. We had thought it would be a snack size, but it was huge!
We ate our ‘snack’ and went for more of a walk and tried to find more clothes shops, which we were unable to, so we went back to H&M and Kim got some jeans from there.
To treat ourselves for succeeding, we went to Starbucks and got a small hot chocolate each.
We caught the bus back to the city and went to the apartment to get a couple of places booked up for future endeavours.
We then walked down you the ice rink for another royals game!
This was a really good game, coming close at the end but the royals unfortunely lost.
Mr & Mrs Hale 