Chinese New Year Dimsum

Chinese New Year dimsum, originally uploaded by ardenstreet.

Carpiquet

Carpiquet, Dieppe, Arnham, Cassino, Ortona, Normandy ..... all Canadian battles in WWII and all streets in our new nieghbourhood! Whitehorse is set up that way - each neighbourhood has a theme: Porter Creek is trees (elm, spruce etc); Copper Ridge is minerals/gems and you guessed it Riverdale has streets named after Yukon rivers.

But back to Carpiquet - it is a new road in Takhini North, which is a short walk to work. And we are buying a house on it! It is a half of a duplex and will be ready for us by the end of April.

The Yukon has a very crazy real estate market - there is a huge shortage and places get snapped up incredibility fast. The recession didn’t seem to affect the market here at all. So we feel extremely happy to get a place that is: in the neighbourhood we want, within our budget and is a quality new build.

It 1000 square feet - so close to the same size as our apartment and on such a beautiful lot. Here is the view out the living room window of the backyard and beyond!!!


(umm nevermind the construction debris)

It has been all very exciting and scary. As you can see it is a new build, so we got to choose our paint colours, granite counter tops, floor tiles (for the bathroom). Below is the bamboo floor sample, maple kitchen cabinets and paint chips (rosy peach is feature wall in bedroom, the blue spruce type colour is for one long wall that stretches from the kitchen to the living room, and the beige is for everything else).

Hello World!

Welcome Aboard! originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Welcome to our new shared blog... Right now it's just Mary and I blogging here but maybe, possibly, we can convince Andrea to also start blogging.. (about her rowing.. maybe?...hint, hint).

Anyways, all our old posts are here so look around and I'll try to get a page set up soon for our trip posts that has proper links... soon

Washing DC... for a day

Rally for Sanity/Fear, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Mary, my sister, came east for a meeting and had a four day window to visit me.
We took the opportunity to hop on a bus down to Washington DC to attend Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

Early in the Morining - Rally for Sanity/Fear, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The bus trip, organized by the good people at the Torontoist and sponsored by Bud Lite, was a 36 hour whirlwind trip. The coverage by the Torontoist is here. 
The rally was crazy.. so many people.. so many stars (I saw Cat Stevens perform Peace Train!)
But the best part, oddly enough, was visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of the Native American. That weekend they had Día de los Muertos celebrations, exhibits and activities. It was a lot of fun.

Nuit Blanche

Nuit Blanche -Gladstone Hotel, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I must admit I found this years Nuit Blanche a little underwhelming.

I don't know if it was the poor use of space or the weariness of traveling across town to get to most of the main exhibits.
Still it is nice to see the streets filled with so many people wandering about at 1 am appreciating art and the city.

Nuit Blanche - Later That Night At The Drive-In - Daniel Lanois, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Cottage Weekend

Cottage Weekend, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I didn't travel much this summer (actually I have only been out of the country for a day and a half this year!) so it was really lovely to be invited to my pal Katie's family's cottage on the Ottawa River (Quebec side).
It was a wonderful, relaxing girls weekend away.

Birthday Macarons

My pal Ayalah has her birthday in the summer which was the perfect timing for a picnic!
Because she has a serious sweet tooth and also loves France I made her some macarons.

I picked up the cutest book (I heart macarons) at a cooking store in St. Johns and was itching to use it.
I made yellow with chocolate ganache filling and a cinnamon with cardamon milk tea filling. TASTY!