Spring, not as exciting as you'd expect

In what feels like forever, the most exciting things in my life have been Boogie, our amazing Anzac Day/Farewell party and the Blazers made it to the final round of the playoffs (only to be ousted by jerky Portland).

I'd love to post more photos from the party, but I'm 90% sure we'd be fired

So, Boogie the Bridge is an annual run held downtown Kamloops last weekend. I did my first fun run in about a zillion years! Well tried. I still can't run 5k, I'm sure that's supposed to be a really easy distance! There is a 5k, 10k and 21k and this year 2400 people ran/walked. All for charity, it was a lot of fun. There's a bunch of people cheering and playing music along the way. I was told that would make it really easy to run, but those people lied to me.

I've always wanted to bite a medal!

Aside from that, Spring has been SLOW. The weather seems to be hit and miss (no smugness), Kamloops is dry as hell (dryer than Cobar, imagine that!!) so there's no lovely flowers and not a lot is really going on. Hence why my blog posts have been about zero. Luckily, life is looking up!

It's playoffs time in the NHL, Alexis and Hal got us tickets and we're going to see the Canucks play! Excited is an understatement. Lets go Canucks!

Next weekend it's a spa getaway, next it's camping with the bears and after that it's LA. So. Pumped! Also beach volleyball has started, we're playing softball and boot camp is outside. Vitamin D levels are on the up and my body thanks me.

Look forward to some way more exciting stories!

Birthday Beer Weekend in Penticton

Do you know what the best part about celebrating holidays/birthdays in Canada? Because we are so far behind (time wise) we generally get to celebrate twice. This works particularly well for birthdays, as you technically age the required number of years the day before your actual birth date. I worked it hard over those two days!

So on Friday in Canada, it was my birthday in Australia and my lovely colleagues bought me cake and sung to me. I also got a huge smiley balloon that is still sitting in my office.

So happy. My balloon and I match!

Unfortunately O'Hara had to work the weekend of my birthday (sometimes a 7/7 schedule blows!), but luckily for me Alexis and Hal invited me to Penticton for the weekend for Fest of Ale. They also took me out for brunch, bought me brilliant "birthday princess" attire and Alexis' parents cooked me an awesome BBQ for birthday dinner.

Now you're probably starting to judge me, as this is the third "alcohol tasting" event I've been to in 3 months, but don't. Fest of Ale is a beer tasting festival that is held every year. They include international beers but the majority are from breweries in BC. Tastings were $2 each, but tickets to the event were only $20. I think in the end I paid about the same as a wine festival. Apparently tastings used to be free, but it turned into such right off that they had to start charging.

There was a kilt... and a princess

Fest of Ale was a bunch of fun. I've decided it's much harder to drink beer for 6 hours than wine. I was suffering from a 6pm hangover for sure.

Again lucky me, I got a THIRD birthday celebration last weekend. We had chocolate raspberry cheesecake. I'm just going to let that one sink in... I really am so spoilt!

Easter at Revelstoke

One hill that we'd heard so much about was Revelstoke. I know a lot of people who say it's their favourite ski hill. Something about having a lot of snow and awesome backcountry runs. They didn't lie.

Some Australian friends from Vancouver had organised a giant house, and invited us to stay for the weekend. Thanks guys! So nice :) I think we counted 17 people all up, with people from Australia (mostly), Canada, Wales, Persia (??) and Norway.

Snowman and sun, there's nothing better

Now Easter weather in Australia, could learn something from the weather in Canada. It was ridiculously nice. T-shirt and shorts in the sun good, though I know a lot of you won't believe me. This was only 2 weeks into Spring, so I am hanging out for an incredible summer. You guys in the southern hemisphere got one, it's now our turn. So some really fantastic weather over the previous few weeks meant there wasn't a huge amount of snow on the hill, luckily a fantastic season prior ensured there was good snow out there it was just a little harder to find.

It's snowing!

Our snowboarding skills seemed to experience exponential growth in the last few weeks of the season. I am hoping that it's like riding a bike, and the start of next season won't be like the start of this one. We went up for a day during the week before Easter with one of O'Hara's friends from work. He had us doing double black diamonds (steep as F), and showed us some amazing runs that we hadn't been able to take advantage of before then.

Standard jump shot

So when our new friends told us about an amazing run at the back of Revelstoke where you had to hike up a small hill and drop off a mini-cliff, we were slightly nervous (for me mostly about walking up a hill) but agreed. As you can probably tell, we survived and had a fabulous time. I fell over a stack, probably only managed about 5 turns, got ran into, experienced a deep burn in my thighs and failed significantly at a jump.

Your snowboard should be under your legs...

It was really nice hanging out with a big group of Australians again, it kinda made me homesick as there seems to be a certain vibe with a group like that. Our drive back was lovely and we found some cool places to enjoy the sun and Greg's birthday. I can't wait for summer!

Grraaww

Spring Time is Tax Time

We've been keeping a low profile recently, when O'Hara has had days off we've just been going up to Sun Peaks and chilling in Kamloops. We've been meaning to head to Banff for about 2 months but are terrible friends and haven't made it. The one positive, we've doubled the days needed to pay off our seasons pass. You'd think we'd be epic snowboarders by now, but sadly no.

One thing that has been nice about hanging around Kamloops has been the weather. I think I've acclimatised to some extent as I'm not nearly as cold as I was when I arrived last year. I haven't needed gloves or a beanie for at least a month. We've also seen double digits over the last few days which has been awesome. I'm starting to get super smug about the fact we're going into summer (suckers). While Australians were posting their wonderful sunshine photos, here it was cold and dark and I was homesick. Now that daylight savings has started, payback is about to commence. Be prepared southern hemisphere, it's going to be brutal!

Here comes Spring suckers!

Sadly, this means it's tax time here for us. As we only submitted our Australian one about a month ago I'm feeling a little ripped off. ALL tax returns are due here on the 30th of April, so no slacking off for us unfortunately.

Taxes here are confusing for us. As far as I can find on the internet, Canada and the US are the only countries that have completely separate taxes in each province/state. This also means (as far as I can find) these are the two countries where taxes aren't included in any sales prices. I think everyone has that awkward moment when they first travel to the US or Canada when they have the cash for their purchase, only to be told at the register they're 5-15% short. It's almost impossible to get rid of small change.

I've learnt to appreciate that paying Employee Insurance (in case you can't get a job or go on mat leave) and Canadian Pension Plan (forced payment but not like super) could benefit us. If I get pregnant here I can claim maternity leave even though I'm not a permanent resident or citizen. It's dead money for O'Hara and any expats on a work permit, as you are required to be working at the place specified on you visa. Luckily we opted for me to be a spouse visa rather than my own work permit, WIN!

While I find it pretty annoying that EI and CPP are separated out and Canada claims it has really low "taxes", in Australia you pay for the same things in the overall tax rate but expats on a 457 visa are not entitled to any of the same things you are here. Canada, you win this round. We've just got to get pregnant and have a baby while we're here and get our EI back!

One thing that is a total scam however, is the fact that everything that the company pays for as a "benefit" (gym, healthcare etc.) gets added to your taxable income. So you pay nearly 50% anyway. BUT when your claiming deductions, you only get 10% back.... shady!

This is not a pregnancy announcement. Repeat, this is NOT a pregnancy announcement!