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!

Consider the Rockies Rocked

Erika, Jill and I are lounging in my living room, thoroughly exhausted after a fabulous weekend of Rocking the Rockies.

Friday afternoon we picked up Erika from America at the airport - I'm not sure how we managed to recognize her without her bathing suit, but man she looks good in pants! Our neon pink Welcome to Canada sign set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

That night the rest of the girls from across the province arrived for a slumber party. We ate, drank and partied like rock stars - literally! Kate brought her wii and we played some mean rock band and DDR. We are pretty sure that forming an all girls band is definitely in the cards for us, sadly no video will be released at this time.

Saturday morning we were enticed out of bed with coffee and bailey's and off to the mountains in Hannah Montana, Kate's (not so) trusty work mini-van. We were definitely a force to be reckoned with! Once we surreptitiously crammed all our belongings and extra bodies (11 girls!) into our cushy hotel rooms we donned our amazing 80's winter wear (some of us literally had to squeeze ourselves into our suits... tight was in in the 80's right?) Then it was off to the hot springs for an afternoon of relaxing, with plenty of stops for photo opportunities along the way. Our fashion-forward-ness elicted many a double take and even an occasional "Oh gawd!" from fellow Banff tourists. We got our wish for snow! It was a scene right out of a holiday movie as we sat in the hot water surrounded by mountains as fluffy white flakes fell all around us.

Thoroughly relaxed and ready for some food we returned to the hotel to meet the rest of the crew (Danielle, Anita and Denise). First on the list was decorating our Rock the Rockies t-shirts - we needed four hours for the neon puffy paint to dry! I played stylist and assisted the already lovely ladies in hair and makeup for our night out at the bar. We ensured that we were equipped for the evening with gear from our goodie bags - laser lights, glow band bracelets, nail polish, hair accessories and bubbles! The activities for the evening included some scavenger hunt tasks similar to what you might find at a stagette/hen party. This later caused many people to ask if we actually were at a stagette. We got a little tired of explaining and just started saying yes.. hence Jill and Karen became faux bachelorettes for the night! And no Karen, this doesn't mean that you don't have to have a real stagette when Dan decides to make an honest women out of you.

Danielle won the prize for first person to complete all her tasks - before even arriving at the bar she had convinced a man to strip out of his shirt and jacket in the middle of the street, perform a magic trick and serenade her. This definitely laid out a challenge for the rest of us as we had to step up our game in order to compete! Highlights of the nights activities included:

• Danni and Erika finding cute boys with accents within 5 minutes of arriving at the bar. I got my British accent and Erika got her Aussie!
• Men fighting with each other over who got to buy us rounds of shots
• Convincing some guy that Jill and Karen were not actually marrying each other
• Having Jill and Karen's wedding announced to the bar by the lead singer of the band
• Discovering Kate passed out in the bathroom after some random girl pulled me aside to say "someone wearing the same shirt as you is locked in a bathroom stall"
• Danni pimping out Melissa to some guy in return for his underwear. This was NOT her task, just helping out Karen!
• Melissa sucking face with said underwear guy later in the night
• Excellent dancing by all girls. Erika getting a Canadian dance lesson from Jen to the "Good Old Hockey Game"
• Denise getting condoms from strangers
• Marcia explaining to Danni's British boy that she was only "here for a good time"
• Jill thinking she was sober all night long and then waking up to realize, ok, maybe not so much
• Erika doing not one, but three, tequila body shots with her Aussie boy
• R rated voicemail from British boys played on speakerphone. We were all blushing by the end of it, but also wondering if some of those acts were actually physically possible
• The fact that 11 girls didn't have to pay for a single drink the entire night at the bar
• Only having one girl down after having probably 10 different shots each
• Ensuring that the order taker at the pizza place send us a hot delivery man. Then giving him a lesson on self esteem when he later refused to admit that he was in fact, hot

Sunday morning came a little too early for some of us, but we managed to make it out and about (some earlier than others!). We awoke to a winter wonderland. Erika, Marcia and Karen took advantage of this and went out for a snow fight and snow angels while the rest of us got some beauty sleep-in time. There was time for some sightseeing and waterfall picture taking before heading our tired selves back into the city. Thanks to Kate for navigating the snowy roads back.. even if we did have to get out and push a couple times!

Next year we're going to attempt to make this an even more international event, hope you can make it!

Desperately seeking snow...

We're counting down to our annual Rock the Rockies event. What is this you ask? Well, this is an event that is sure to be notorious famous in years to come. This is our second annual all-girls weekend to Banff, put on by Jill and I, financed by the best hotel reward program ever (still sticking to the budget!).

The Rewards:

Jill and I travel a lot around the province for work, and whenever we can, we stay at the Delta. Delta has its own rewards program that not only gives us our Aeroplan points (free airfare is essential when you work for less-than-stellar government salaries.... I mean, thanks for the tax dollars everyone!), but also gives you additional Delta points for your number of stays. Once you reach certain levels (gold, platinum) you get CASH on your rewards card to be used for free stays, food at hotel restaurants, etc. This year Jill and I together have $500 in Delta money.

The Event:

Last year we decided that we better do something big in honor of Jill's birthday. So we rounded up the gang and headed off to Banff with nine of our girls. The event was such a success that we're doing it again! Only this year we have twelve girls, and we're celebrating both Jill and Karen's birthdays. This year's activities include: copious amounts of drinking, tobogganing (we're desperately hoping for snow!) in our 80's winter wear, partying at the hotel, scavenger hunt-type activities and a night out at the Banff bar where we will undoubtedly end up on stage with the band, flirting with bearded mountain men or involving the entire dance floor in one of our newly created dance routines. Unlike last year however, I personally am going to try and minimize the number of flights of stairs I fall down and stages I fall off of. I'm also going to try and NOT break my record for number of glasses smashed on a single dance floor (I think it was four in one bar last year...).

The Girls!

This year there are girls coming from all over Alberta (Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary and Lethbridge) as well as an international contingent! Erika (yes, that we met sailing in Turkey!) is flying in from North Carolina to play with us!

Sadly Those Girls will be short one vital element - Velvet, an original Those Girl and core member of the all star drinking team, is unable to make it. Our love and thoughts are with you V!

I'll leave you with a couple pictures from last year's fete. Stay tuned...

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.

Family Reunion - Idaho Style

You know you're good friends with someone when, after spending 24/7 with them for 31 days, seeing each other every minute and going to bed with them each night, you would willingly get into a car with them for a 20 hour road trip! That's my girl Jill. She valiantly offered up her car (vs. my gas guzzling SUV), company and road-trip-singing-voice for the whirl-wind trip to Idaho to meet up with my mama and sister.

We passed the 10-hour drive each way by singing, gossiping about boys, planning future Those Girls trips, taking pictures out the window of the car, puppy-walking breaks and, more singing. I think the highlight of the trip down was finding ourselves in the middle of a Friday afternoon Game Day parade in the town of Conrad, Montana. Go Grizzlies! It took us a minute to realize that we were not under attack as the town police, fire engine and ambulance led the parade of honking and shouting vehicles (all sporting GO GRIZ! paraphernelia) down the main street of town.

Once we arrived in the lovely middle-American town of Idaho Falls we settled into our hotel suite with Mama and Kelli. The room was equipped with a full kitchenette, which us girls on a budget proceeded to take full advantage of! Go out to dinner? Nah, we'll stay in and eat cheese and chips and salsa! We had a fabulous, albeit short, visit jammed with a scenic 5km walk of downtown Idaho, the Snake River and what we believe are the Idaho Falls, some shopping (hello Target!) and lots and lots of game playing in the hotel room. We also discovered (and drank quite a few bottles of!) a lovely local cider.

Then we were off, back to Canadia (that's how you say Canada in Canadian, right Jill?). It wouldn't have been a trip to the States without a stop in Montana to eat some Mexican food, sip on a coupe of (strong!) margaritas and plug our last couple (literally) American dollars into a smoky casino slot machine. With no line at the border, and no puppy to have to make frequent dog-walking breaks for, we made pretty good time getting out tired and car-weary butts home.

Despite the short time frame and not-so-tropical destination, we realized that even a teeny road trip is better than no trip at all AND that we can make pretty much any adventure fun! And hey, at least we got to use our passports!

Check out the video of Jill's Rocky Mountain High revelation and rendition..

Road Trippin' it to the Gem State

That's Idaho, in case you didn't know. Just one of many fun facts my sister has sent to Jill and I in preparation for our road trip extravaganza! We're heading off to Idaho, the meet in the middle point for my mom and I. I'm taking my puppy to live with my mama, who has a dog of her own that could use a playmate.

Now, this isn't a month long Mediterranean sailing trip... its not even a relaxing beach vacation. But when you have had to go on the "possible-no-job-Budget" and are no longer allowed to plan your next vacation.. a road trip to Idaho starts sounding pretty good! Plus, I've never been to Idaho.. and the trip does end with some Vicky Secret and Bath n' Body works shopping (umm.. shopping with a budget...).

We're heading out early tomorrow am with our cooler of snacks, puppy gear and the trusty ipod. We also have our Captain Ray-inspired Canadian road trip music. We'll meet up with the Moo and Kelli in the lovely (I hope?) city of Idaho Falls. Off to find my passport!