How Hard is it to buy a Vacuum Cleaner?

Denise and I just moved into a new 2 bedroom apartment yesterday and we were very happy with the turnout of friends who helped us move. Some of the highlights of the day was renting a 16ft cube van that drove like a bus (I even did the big sweeping motions on the horizontal steering wheel when I turned corners), semi-professional mover in Chris L, who turned up with proper outdoor gear to move and was super efficient with a dolly.

Of course, the first thing we needed to do after moving our stuff (mostly HER stuff), was to vacuum our carpeted floors. Denise's existing vacuum cleaner from her university days didn't have the correct bags and was in need of retirement anyway. Denise and I set out to buy a vacuum cleaner; we even had a particular model in mind, so we figured, "How hard can it be to buy a vacuum cleaner?"

Well, let me tell you, it can be quite the task! We were in search of the vacuum cleaner on our registry, the Dyson Stowaway. After spending the greater half of a day driving around to all the Bay stores in Ottawa, we were still empty handed!!! Every store was either out of stock, or had used (demoed) vacuums that we did not want. It wasn't until we left our last Bay store at the Rideau Centre, that our luck had changed. It wasn't because the Bay had it in stock. Actually, we had parked in a lot that had free parking with purchase validation at Sears. This was a good enough a reason for us to check out Sears, so off we went. Within 20 minutes, we had our new Dyson Stowaway, our parking validated, and to our suprise, a complimentary kit of accessories for our new vacuum. To top it all off, this vacuum is never on sale, so it wouldn't have made a difference on cost if we had bought it at the Bay (where we would have gotten a registry discount).

Now, welcoming our newest addition, Dyson:

A Preview of our Invitations

For those of you who are curious, here is a first look at our wedding invitations:

On Kamdo's website, this is invitation style #CD0127 but in the colour of invitation style #CD0129. Colin and I had been going back and forth for a while, trying to decide what we wanted our invitations to look like. He preferred the traditional Chinese-looking red invitations whereas I was leaning towards more "modern" invitations. After much debate between Colin and I, we finally reached a compromise. We decided on a burgandy colour with a "modern- looking" Double Happiness Chinese symbol embossed in silver. As you can see, the invitation itself is quite simple. We were looking for a style that would be easy to add an additional insert for the wedding ceremony, as not everyone will be invited to the ceremony. Most importantly, the invitations were relatively cheap due to the strength of our Canadian dollar.

Canada is my Home

For those who have not heard, I will be the one making the sacrifice and moving to Ottawa. My company has been very accomodating and is willing to experiment with telecommuting.

This all begins on February 18, 2008!!!

As the title suggests though, Canada is my home, and at least for the near future, I will be travelling quite a bit between Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa.

Invitations are Back, along with my Parents!

My parents have arrived home from their month long visit in Singapore and Hong Kong, just in time for Chinese New Year. What does this have to do with our wedding preperations? Well, they've helped process our invitations at Kamdo and have brought them back with them.

I can't wait to get home from Calgary to see them!

For those of you who haven't sent Denise or I your contact information (either through email, phone conversations, or online), please do so soon!!!

Hmmm what else is on the to-do list?