2012 was a year of new highs for Emily and I.

We got married in March in Banff. We kept the wedding small, inviting 18 of our closest family and friends for a weekend adventure in the Rocky Mountains. In between snowshoeing, cooking, and relaxing in the cabin, we managed to find time to have a small wedding ceremony. We really cherished the quality time we were able to spend with everyone who came to Banff to celebrate with us.

In July, Emily started a new job managing grants for the Vancity Community Foundation. She’s enjoying the challenging but rewarding work that builds on a lot of her past experience.

I’m still working at Pulse Energy – 4 years on, a new record for me. My team is awesome and I like that every day brings new technical challenges and learning experiences. My work in the past year has focused on integrating a Cassandra database to store our massive amounts of data.

Emily celebrated her 30th birthday in December by “Putting a Bird on It“, and I’ll be entering my 4th decade in a few months. Early in the year we decided to push our vegetarian diet one step further and go completely vegan. Our bodies seem to be enjoying the lack of dairy (mine especially). Our transition has been made easier by several new veggie restaurants that have opened in Vancouver in the past year. The Acorn is our new favourite. We also cook a lot and enjoy discovering new vegan recipes and opportunities to use all of the veggies we’re getting from our garden and CSA share.

Travel continues to be a big part of our lives. We started the year surrounded by strangers in sweltering Vietnam and ended it freezing our butts off with family in chilly Manitoba. In between, we found time to visit relatives in Toronto and attended weddings in Seattle and New York. We also drove down the Oregon Coast and enjoyed hiking and camping in British Columbia.

Back in Vancouver, we’ve really settled into our new apartment in the Olympic Village. I’ve taken on the role of community garden coordinator for our building, even though I’m only figuring out how to grow things myself. Luckily, I have generations of gardeners to call on for advice (thanks Mom and Baba). I must have inherited green thumbs, because we had a great harvest this year, with arugula, kale, radishes, beets, carrots, green onions, peas, tomatoes, and a lot more veggies than we could handle on our own. More significantly, the garden has been a great way to meet our neighbours and we now have a great community of friends in our building. We also met a lot of our neighbours from the work Emily did coordinating a composting program for the Olympic Village.

We’re looking forward to more adventures in 2013. I’ve signed up to run my first full marathon in May and we’re planning trips to Hawaii in the spring and Newfoundland in the summer.

Hopefully 2013 is a year of good health and fun adventures for everyone.