Not lost

Well hello out there! It has been awhile since our last post; we haven't forgotten about blogging, but we've been busy.. just not so busy traveling! Some of the girls have gone on trips (Karen to Mexico, Erika to Vegas and Velvet spent a month traipsing through Australia) but we haven't been able to beg guest posts from them. Jill and I have had to put travel plans on hold for now. We've alluded to the fact that our job contracts were ending at the end of March (we are both food safety consultants for the provincial government), and have now decided our next course of action. We will be opening our own consulting and auditing business, and are just in the initial stages now. This is requiring that we spend a lot more time close to home and a lot less money is going into the travel purse than the company one right now. So we're still here, and we'll try to update a little more frequently!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009! Those girls celebrated the eve of the new year in many ways, both together and apart. Karen spent a cozy night at home with her boyfriend in their new house, Velvet spent the evening in BC with her boyfriends family and many many martinis, Erika was out and about in Asheville and Danni and Jill hosted a Fairy Tale themed party in Calgary.

Some new resolutions have been made, with many of them involving travel plans for the upcoming year. We'll keep ya posted when the plans are less tentative!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

Step by Step...

I've gotten made fun of quite a bit since I first let on that I really wanted tickets to the New Kids On the Block concert. Many of my friends are either younger than me or (very slightly) older than me so I think they missed the boat on the NKOTB first time around. I remember being 11 years old and singing Step By Step in my BFF Jamie's attic; band posters surrounding us and our Jordan dolls in hand..

Tonight I was simultaneously 12 and 28 years old. The concert KICKED ASS you guys! My mom wouldn't let me go to the NKOTB concert the first time they came to Calgary 15 years ago (I was too young!) and it was a little surreal standing there screaming my lungs out to Hanging Tough.

When I first found out the band was coming to Calgary I immediately cajoled Jill and Velvet (fellow Those Girls) to get tickets with me. They were doubtful, but something about my "come on guys, JORDAN KNIGHT!? convinced them. We started off tonight at Velvet's and my house, drinking cider, getting geared up 80's style and watching old NKOTB videos. We were especially excited to get fashion tips and dance move ideas from the videos.

Off we headed to the show, with Velvet and Jill relieved to see that other people had also dressed up for the concert in vintage band t-shirts and 80's gear. Our hero of the night was this girl in her spandex ensemble:

Natasha Beddingfield opened, and she was ok. I like some of her songs, but she just didn't really have the stage presence for a venue as large as the Saddledome. And then came the boys!! It was AMAZING!! I can't remember the last time I have screamed, sang and danced so much at a show! (And this is including the last couple shows I saw of my very favorite band!). Damn those Old New Kids are hot! Much hotter than in the 1988 I have to say! Jill and I even stooped to the level of yelling "take off your shirt!" when Donnie was talking to Calgary about how amazing we were. There was just the right mix of old stuff and new stuff. I actually like quite a few songs off the new album (yes, dorky I know..) so I was singing all the tunes. I made Jill and Velvet cd's of a mix of the new and old stuff to prepare for the concert, so they were up on their feet as well. I was a little worried before hand that they wouldn't have a good time, but we were all crazy and screaming and dancing.

Highlights of the show included when the band sang Dirty Dancing (from the new album) on top of a baby grand piano (I love the corny Swayze lyrics!), almost peeing my pants with excitement when Joey sang Cover Girl, and being almost too hoarse to scream the words to Step by Step during the encore. Good times ladies, good times.

"Those girls 3/4 reunion at Calgary Stampede 2007"

After our unbelievably fun trip to Barbados was over, all 4 of "those girls" went through, what we like to call "PVD" or post vacation distress. We tried numerous times to drink VIP's with bajan fish cakes and special sauce to recreate the island and luckily, we all had each other to reminisce with and share photo's on facebook with. The best of all for Danni and Jill was the "van-dance-party". Since both of them drive the hiway's for a living, they would call each other on the cellphones with bajan music on cd and practice their bootie boot camp moves in their vans! good times, good times! About a month after returning to the real world, those girls 3/4, planned a do-over party reunion at the Calgary Stampede. It was like being at the beach without the ocean. They still had sun, dancing, drinks galore and most of all music and fun!

Meanwhile, back on the boat..

I figured this blog could use a little spicing up, and also that I could use a little practice with posting photos and such. Last year after we went to Barbados, Those Girls wrote up the story of our adventure in a joint effort. The result is a somewhat disjointed, not very flowing, but extremely humorous tale! So I thought I'd post the story of "A day in the life of those girls on their favorite island" for ya'll. We refer to this day as "Boat Day 4" or "Best Boat Day Ever".

May 28, 2007

Back on the boat today. Kickass boat day. Best Boat Day Ever. Before the boat even left the dock, "those girls" demanded that Kenny serve all drinks topless. Kenny and Wayne were our personal bartenders for the day since it was a bank holiday they didn’t have to work. FedEx delivery girls we became that day. The HeatWave boat ran outta rum, so Chris, their skipper, swam to the our boat, the Rubaiyat to get some. Danni’s keen eye saw that it would be very difficult for one guy to swim 3 magnums of rum back to his boat, so she volunteered "those girls". Our payback of course was the best pina coladas ever, made by Sean (the hot Aussie bartender). At some point, Danni decided we needed one for the road. Sean was busy, so Captain Andrew made us pina coladas and we were on our way back to the Rubaiyat. With the pina colodas of course. Chris swam beside us to make sure we didn’t drown with one hand in the air with the drinks.

We then discovered Douglas’ pina colodas when we got back to the Rubaiyat. Had them served to us in the water at the second snorkeling stop. Can’t quite remember but I think Velvet was hoping to "wash glasses" on this day. Then Those Girls got a power boat ride from Kerwin at the Sandy Beach stop. Shit Kerwin was the man that day after we told all his other water sports friends that we only wanted Kerwin! Picking up four girls. I think this is when we finally realized just how brave Danni has now become, she is no longer afraid to talk to ANYONE, let alone say whatever the hells pops into her head!

Boating us up the west coast past the tetra pack inventor and then realizing we needed to get back to the Rubaiyat before it took off, but we stopped at Tiami to get a drink before we got to the Rubaiyat of course, we were parched. We had a grand entrance onto the Rubaiyat. It was fun and this was the best use of the term "those girls". Sooo drunk when we got off the boat. We met "that guy" on the bus (who wanted to party with us but never showed up) and Velvet forgot her towel on the bus, Jill’s had blown off the boat earlier in the day. Karen ran home cuz she had to pee. We stopped at the airc conditioned Shell for salt and vinegar chips. And rum? Perhaps more rum. They don’t have S and V chips, we were sad. Had veggie burgers for supper – last romantic dinner for 4.

Harbor Lights bar that night, Velvets last night. It was all you can drink and for some reason we weren’t thinking you could order doubles and then all of a sudden we did. This caught the eye of Andrew the bartender. While Danni and Jill were off dancing, Velvet caught our attention so we could watch her with Andrew having the notorious topless body shots. Who else was there? Eddie (and Miranda from California), Wayne, Kenny (who was very sad cuz Velvet was with Wayne and not him the night before). When we got there though, Kenny was sitting at the end of the bar with some old sugar momma. I think it really was then that we realized his bling came from her or someone like her. Kenny was all about brushing it off but we knew better. Velvet sat down in the chair at the end of the bar, which became the "sugar momma chair" as some black ice with his hat tied to his pants came to chat her up within seconds of sitting there. Hawaii – 5-0; A group of older white guys thinking they were "all that" with there hula shirts. Turned out to be super creepy, thank god we had the Bajan boys to save us! We danced a bit but the music sucked. And we had to avoid the sketchy drink boys. Oh yeah, Kerwin was there and gave us his MP3 cause we were sick of our music in the condo. Also tried to find out where "the line" was for Danni and Karen. No such luck! Took a cab home and tried to order pizza, but no such things as Pizz@ 73 in Barbados!).

Another one bites the dust

Alright, while I don't necessarily have any new adventures to talk about right now, I do have to report that Velvet has decided to contribute to the new blog! Seeing how she has just come back from three weeks in South Africa, I'm sure she'll have plenty of stories to share...! Now we're just waiting on Karen...