Category: Canada

We were excited to meet our Austin, Texas friends Blake and Jessa for a weekend of camping in Waterton National Park.  They are the first of our friends from Guyana to come visit us in Canada (no pressure)!  We caught up around the campfire and hiked the famous Crypt Lake Trail.  Of course, dill pickle chips and Canadian beers were shared.  We hope they enjoyed the visit as much as we did.

Panoramic view of Crypt Hike

Sweaty Olsons

Blake and Jess at Crypt Lake

Real Canadian Snow

RobO gave me the best birthday present this year… a weekend backcountry camping trip!  We had a beautifully cold 2 nights at Ribbon Lake in Kananaskis, complete with campfires, snow sliding off of our tent in the night, and the promise we can do it again next year.  My heart grew three sizes that day.

Fresh start

The peak (campsite lake in background)

Defrosting on a dayhike

“Whadda you mean next year?!”

Ribbon Lake

Our last day in Vancouver and it’s the first day the sun isn’t shining. In fact, it’s been like spring for our whole time here (to the extent of tulips and daffodils in bloom). It’s been wonderful.

Our last day we did a lot of the ‘should do’ Olympic experiences, which involved a lot of line standing. We went to Sochi house, which is the introduction to where the Russian Olympics will be held in 2014.

Our event last night was women’s hockey – team Russia versus team Switzerland. The Swiss won in a shootout, which was extra exciting because they were the underdogs. 3 out of our 4 events were watching team Switzerland, so our red and white fit in well. A definite highlight of the game was sitting beside a banana. Weird.

I think my favorite thing about the city were these amazing spotlights that made geometric patterns in the sky. It reminded me a bit of the Bellagio fountains in Vegas. Very cool. We took an evening walk down to Kits beach to check them out close up.

Next stop – London!

We’re almost at the end of our Olympic trip.  So far we’ve been to the Men’s Hockey game (see last blog), a women’s hockey game (RUS vs SVK) and men’s curling where we got to see the Norwegian pants up close and personal.  We’ve been in the downtown crowds and are on our way to some of the pavilions today before we wrap it up at another women’s hockey game tonight where the Swiss take on Russia.

one week exactly until we’ll be boarding our plane for our next big adventure.
that’s right, it’s off to vancouver for the 2010 winter olympics! robO and i are excited to attend a men’s hockey game, 2 women’s hockey games, and an afternoon of men’s curling.

on feb 23, i will be on my way to london, while robO comes back to work for a few weeks (booo hissss). after a refreshing night with our london friends i head to india for a month of yoga in mysore (southern india). i’ll be at the same yoga center that madonna trained at.

robO will meet me march 23, and from there we’ve got a skeleton plan to travel around india, nepal, thailand, vietnam, cambodia, and laos. on june 30 we’ll fly to egypt for a couple of weeks, then london for a couple of days, chicago for a couple of days, and finish with gusto – a seattle to alaska cruise with the baker family!

you’re probably asking how we’re managing all of this?! we’ve been saving for a couple of years and i got a 6 month leave of absence from my job. this means that 3 (!) days after we’re home i’ll be back to work. robO has a quasi leave as well. so we’ll lock up the condo door (seen in photo above), pack a backpack, and grab our passports for our latest adventure!

we’ve fallen off of the blog wagon for the past couple of years but have a renewed purpose for keeping it up to date. the goal is once per week (or so) blogging. so, mark us as a favorite (mom) and follow us along the way.

What an incredible year it’s been.
As most of you know, we spent the first quarter of 2007 volunteering in Guyana, South America. It was a challenging but amazing time for us, and we were able to grow and learn from the Guyanese, other volunteers, and each other.
In April, we said a tearful goodbye to the friends that we met and started on our travels, which took us to Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela (where we met both sets of our parents – what an adventure!!), Peru, Ecuador, and a final weekend in Chicago.

On day three of returning home, we jumped back into Canadian life by purchasing our first home! Our new condo is very small, but perfect for us. We’ve enjoyed decorating and making it our own.

I spent a month in the summer learning to be a yoga instructor, which has been a dream of mine. I’m now teaching two classes per week and enjoy sharing my passion with my students. My mom is my number one student in my Saturday morning class!

Rob is working as a transportation technician at the Medicine Hat School District. He does his fair share of fielding phone calls from parents who are angry about bus routes (who knew there was a job for this), but also is involved with computerized route planning.

The bulk of my week is spent working at the hospital, where I have been learning how to treat people with hand injuries. I also get to travel to a small community one day per week, which I find refreshing.

Other than that, we’ve settled into the community with a variety of extra curricular activities: hockey, ball hockey, volleyball, running, film nights, and game nights.
So far the winter has been a bit of a shock to our systems so hopefully the groundhog pulls through for an early spring!

We’re getting the travel bug again, so maybe we’ll make it to your neck of the woods in the coming year.

Hope you have a safe and happy holiday season.
Love DawnO and RobO

Hey everyone,

It has been a long time since we blogged… It’s not because there’s nothing to blog about, but more because things are just now starting to settle down. Not only did we buy a condo (more pictures coming soon), but we also have a brand new niece! Danica Capri Seitz was born on July 31st and is absolutely beautiful…

But this blog is not about either of those exciting things. This blog is about our time spent in British Columbia.

At the end of July I spent a few days in the Vancouver area, to celebrate a wedding. My good friend Rob Kew got married in Mexico and had a reception in Point Roberts, USA, which is technically Canada as far as I’m concerned. I just about didn’t make it though because I forgot my passport and birth certificate in Medicine Hat. You would think travelling for nine months would have taught me something. Anyway, I got across the border with a only warning and had a great time visiting with friends.

I then met up with DawnO and my family in Kelowna. My dad has a sail boat on the Okanogan Lake and my uncle has a time share at this amazing house so we had a really great set up. I should mention that our next door neighbour was Jarome Iginla and perhaps I took a paparazzi shot of him. Oh the shame.

We had a great time visiting the O clan and got to spend some quality time with my GrandmaO and GrandpaO who are faithful blog followers.

We also got to meet up with our fellow Canadian volunteers who were in Guyana with us. Mick and Jackie mirrored our entire journey in a way. We took the same flight to Guyana together, we left Guyana at the same time, and we even toured the same countries after we were done our volunteer work. It was great catching up with them and comparing our trips.

It was a great holiday, but the real world has finally caught up to us and it’s time to get back to working. In the meantime, I’ll update the blog as our condo comes together.

It has been too long since our last blog. We apologize but we’ve had a pretty busy past couple of weeks.

We returned home to Canada on the 24th of June and by the 28th, we had bought ourselves a condo. On the 29th, we had a welcome home BBQ, and on the 30th we drove to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan for a wedding/family reunion. DawnO then flew to Calgary the next day to begin her Yoga Teacher Training course while I returned to Medicine Hat to tend to the mortgage and job hunt.

I will be working at putting some more videos up from our travels. I’m not exactly sure how exciting our blog is going to be now that we’re not travelling anymore, but I’ll try to keep things up-to-date and interesting.

Last night we hosted our going away party in our apartment. Thanks to Duster Dan for all the lovely decorations and tiki bar.

One by one our guests showed up wearing their South American-esque clothing and in some cases, props. The music of Seu Jorge was singing in the background as the cheesey Guyana eco-toursim video was playing on TV.

After few Mojitos it was time for the tart packing contest. Our reigning champion Steve managed to stuff 5 tarts at once into his food hole at our Christmas party last year. The challenger, Patience, was a new comer to the competition. You can watch the result, here.

Next up? Prize draw. Among the prizes were a Super Nintendo, an assortment of various alcohols, a rice cooker, and one voucher to shave my head. Brandon won first place and decided he was going to wield the clippers.

I was confident in Brandon’s abilities as a hair dresser. His limp wristed technique boasted experience. Unfortunately other would-be hair stylists got involved, and eventually mistakes were made.



Finally, Chandra had to step in to apply the finishing touches.

After I was done, Patience and Dave decided to shave their heads too… Leo needed some convincing but eventually succumbed to peer pressure.