Gerry’s 40th Birthday …

I had such a busy summer this year with the Vegan festival, moving Sarah’s Place, doing renovations and we were practically out every night visiting with friends who were in town. It was a very chaotic and fun summer.

I was actually looking forward to fall/winter so things would slow down and I could do some hibernating but I seem to still be crazy busy.  πŸ™‚

Besides running the day to day stuff at the store and getting mail orders ready all the online shopping

Sarah’s Place has also been hosting Crochet Workshops in the evenings …

and doing fundraiser bakesales outside the store …

And in between all that I went to see my friend Maury play bass with Colin James …

And the next night we went to Metric …

So when Gerry’s 40th birthday rolled around and I asked him what he wanted to do and he said “Nothing. Just lay around the house and watch a movie.” … I almost did just that.

But then I was like… WAIT. My man is turning 40. This is a milestone birthday. F-that. We are going to do something special and create a fun memory.

So I secretly packed a bag for Gerry (actually I packed right in front of him while he was playing World of Warcraft and he didn’t even notice) and on day of his birthday I kept giving him “secret birthday surprise hints” to throw him off what I had planned.

At one point I said “I have a surprise for you so don’t go back into the house today.” but there was no surprise in the house. hee hee.

Then I dropped off Mr.Fergus at my friend Larissa’s house and went downtown and picked up Gerry and told him we had to drive to Sidney to pick up his secret birthday surprise.

“Sidney? What’s in Sidney?” I told him not to ask me any questions because I might spoil the surprise. I am SO BAD at keeping secrets. Especially from Gerry. πŸ™‚

We drove up the highway to Sidney all the while I bit my hand trying not to spoil the surprise … I was just like that Surprise Party Sue.

We got to Sidney and just we were about to turn off the highway when I SUDDENLY and dramatically took the turnoff to the ferry terminal.

“SURPRISE! We are going to Vancouver!!”

In my haste I forgot to pack food for the ferry so I had french-fries in the cafeteria and Gerry ate one of the veggie burgers.

We were under the impression that the veggie burgers were vegan. We checked the ingredients a few years ago and they were just Yves vegan veggie patties. Well I guess they’ve changed burgers because it now contains cheese. WTF? Why can’t you just make a vegan burger and then if someone wants cheese you can add it later?? Harumph.

Poor Gerry had to turn his vegan-o-meter back to zero. πŸ™

We checked into the River Rock Casino. It’s not a great hotel … but the BEDS are the best bed I’ve ever slept on so we love to stay there whenever we can. Oh god. The beds.

The hotel has a casino so we went down and promptly lost $40 in about 30 seconds. It was hilarious. Slots are for suckers …

So we drowned our sorrows in the bar …

We had a great nights sleep and a very lazy morning laying around. Then we met up with our beloved friend Chris…

And went for lunch at Saravana Bhavan for lunch. I accidentally ordered us the wrong kind of dosa and this one was was SO SPICY! It was delicious but spicy.

We said our goodbyes to Chris and then headed out to The Harley Davidson store for Gerry. Attached to the Harley store was a motorcycle museum and I think Gerry just about exploded with joy.  πŸ™‚

After the Harley Store it was my turn for a little fun so we hit up Nice Shoes and I bought myself a pair of these sexy boots. Nice Shoes is such an awesome store with a great selection of vegan shoes. I highly recommend them (they do mailorder too).

If you go to Nice Shoes – you also gotta go next door to Fairy Cakes for vegan cupcakes.

We had a little bit of time to kill before we were to meet my parents for Gerry’s Birthday Dinner Extravaganza so we headed to Granville Island and wandered around.

The plan was to go to Acorn for a fancy birthday dinner … but in my hasty planning of Gerry’s birthday weekend surprise I forgot to check and see if they were open. Closed on Monday. Shit! What a bummer.  πŸ™

I called my Dad and told him our plans were thwarted and he suggested we go to Nuba. YES NUBA!! My folks wanted to go to the Waldorf location (which is my favourite spot because the hotel it’s located in is a Mid-Century wet-dream). So we drove there … and guess what?

CLOSED ON MONDAY!!

Luckily the Nuba downtown location was open so the birthday celebration was only briefly sidelined and we had a wonderful dinner with my parents.

When Gerry and I got back to the hotel we decided to go for a swim … The Riverrock has a terrible floor plan and the rooms are a mile away from the pool area. They provide you with robes but no slippers or flip-flops so I had to make due and wore my rubbers for the long walk to the pool.  πŸ™‚

We had so much fun on the water-slide. I brought my waterproof camera and we tried in vain to get some good photos of us going down the slide but the lighting was so low so every photo was just blurry water. I also shot video of me going down the water slide but that will never see the light of day.  πŸ™‚

I told Gerry we had ONE more secret birthday surprise planned for our last day in Van but I didn’t know when it was happening so we had to keep our day loosey-goosey.

We had a nice lazy morning and then we headed downtown to Gorilla Food for some sustenance. I was so happy to see my friend Aaron was at work.

Aaron will be at Sarah’s Place on Dec 1st to promote his new cookbook Gorilla Food! Mark your calenders. His pumpkin pie is to die for …

Then I got “THE CALL” … it was time for the last but bestest birthday surprise.

The call was from my friend Jason (who does the special effects on Fringe) and it was time to meet him and go visit Walter’s Lab!

Remember a few weeks ago when Anna Torv came into Sarah’s Place and I almost died from excitement? Imagine that excitement x 1000!!

We met Jason at his office where all the special effects are made and he gave us a tour of the warehouse. It was so cool seeing all the things they make there … this bust of Broyles (with a gunshot in the side of his head) was SO COOL. Every single eyelash, stubble, freckle … all done by hand. The detail is exquisite.

Jason also pulled out my Dad’s arm!!! πŸ™‚

He was on Masters of Sci Fi and J found his alien arm!! πŸ™‚

We got to see all kinds of things being made (that I can’t post here). I saw a bust of Joshua Jackson (squeeeal), a giant animatronic bear puppet (for a different show) plus we briefly got to watch everyone working on their projects. There was lots of hair, and fake blood and guts. It was awesome!

Then we headed over to the studio to check out Walter’s Lab. Walking onto the set was THE CRAZIEST FEELING! There I was standing in Walter’s Lab looking at all the things he looks at. I felt like I was out of my body.

I took a ton of photos but can’t post anything until the show ends. I’m pretty sure I saw something written on a chalkboard that is a serious spoiler …  πŸ™‚

But I will post this photo of me and Gerry in the lab. I cropped it severely (so not to give away any set secrets) but just to prove that we were in the lab. You can see the amber behind us.  πŸ˜‰

Luckily nobody from the show was there or I would have fainted. Seriously… It was crazy enough standing in Walter’s lab … if Josh Jackson had sauntered over I would have died.  πŸ™‚

The set was really cool. The attention to detail is nuts. We saw a stack of cheques on Walters desk that were written out perfectly. They could have easily just scribbled on the cheques .. it’s not like you’re going to notice when you watch it on TV but they were perfectly written out, dated, etc.

The funniest part was Jason was walking around like it was no big deal – cause to him it’s just work. But to me … I was dying. DYING!!   πŸ™‚

We said our good-byes to J and headed back home to the island. What a fun whirlwind trip!!

As for Fergus?? He didn’t even miss us …

Thanks for doggie sitting Larissa!

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted in Go Vegan!. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Gerry’s 40th Birthday …

  1. Carrie says:

    I know the update posts about your life take flipping ages to do and are really fiddly with all the photos and everything. But I just wanted to say I absolutely love them and I appreciate all the effort you put into doing them. Thank you Sarah xx

  2. Carrie says:

    No ways Ladybird-that’s MY line (Sarah Kramer=Awesome)xx

  3. Pingback: You are my favourite thing … | GoVegan.net

Leave a Reply to Carrie Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *