A couple weekends ago I had the privilege of joining Blue Star Nutraceuticals sponsored National level bikini competitor Shayleen Clausen, aptly nicknamed ‘Tink’, at the CBBF (Canadian Bodybuilding Federation) Nationals.
Shay competed in the Bikini A (short people) division and made Top 5!!!!
This was what Shay sent me Friday AM. Ummm YEAH! She’s ready!
NOTE: As my kids are getting older (not me, I’m ageless) I’m realizing the importance of photographing key points during your day/week/year. This enables you to do 2 things 1. share your experiences with those who weren’t there and 2. remind you what you’ve been spending your days (and eventually LIFE) doing. Don’t laugh!!! Sometimes Tim comes home and asks, “So, what’d you guys do today?” and I’m just stunned like “Oh shit. You’re home already? Where’d the hours go??? What the hell HAVE we done today??? That kids are alive… I guess I did that…?”
I could ramble for a couple paragraphs about how forgetful I am and that my memory often resembles more of a sieve than a 2 hemisphere memory bank.
So, without further ado, here’s some photos from my whirlwind trip to Vancouver.
Tim and I are OFF!! On route to Smithers airport with Storm in the back (he’s off to try and make baby Storms with a bitch named Spice lol)
Waiting at the airport… this is only MY luggage. Yeah.. if you know me, you know I over pack for UUUURVRYTHANG! There’s enough clothes here to do 2 weeks in Mexico. I was in Van for 48 hours. Tim on the other hand? He packed a small duffle bag, the size of a gym bag.
While we waited I got a chance to paint my nails with my fun new pastel pink nail polish! (The week we got back, I’m gone to an appointment for an hour and Tim is watching the kids. Claire got ahold of said new polish and proceeds to get it in her hair and then her eye at which point she is blinded by the chemical concoction and flails!!! There was beautiful nail polish all over my black leather couch, Claire, Claire’s hair, Tim and his clothes, one of my favorite dish towels and the floor… so much for the post massage zen I was looking for!)
But back to our trip….
Lazy bones had to have a nappy poo on the way down. I was too excited to sleep!! I got to know Shay through our mutual coach, Caitlyn Bellamy and following each other on My Fitness Pal. We hadn’t met in person, so the thought that we’d be sharing a room for a couple nights after only having known each other in person for a couple hours was 1 part exciting 1 part nervous with a chance of amusing. What ended up happening is me walking into this…
I made it to our room while Shay was at the Athlete’s Meeting. This was the view. HOLY SHIT haha did a bomb go off in here??? Turns out, the head judge really cracked down on the bikini bottom coverage rule and there were a lot of competitors scrambling to get a suit that would be approved! Poor Shay was one of them, but in the end she settled on her hot pink suit she wore at Western Canadians in Kelowna where she took 2nd place. Regardless, I was there, waiting for her… and as I sat there looking around, wondering if we’d get along and hoping I didn’t get a bout of the nervous shits (no one wants to hear that through a paper machè thick wall no matter HOW well you know each other) I realized I felt a little bit like a prostitute. I mean, in what other situation would you go get a key from the front desk and wait in a hotel room for someone..? Thank god she turned out to be cool shit (and not an axe murderer)…. and for those wondering, my tummy remained calm too.
I glanced around and.. JACKPOT!
A not so hidden snack stash for post show treats!
This wasn’t nearly enough so we shopped the next day and added a bunch more to the pile. For example….
Holy crap. HEALHTY Reese style peanut butter cups!!!! I refrained from eating mine but when we hit Popeye’s across the street and discovered these between the prejudging and the evening show I could see this was going to be going down Shay’s hatch when we got home that night lol she was like a kid in a candy store seeing the wide variety of Quest bars in stock.
Back to friday night, Shay and the rest of the Fort St John crew showed up and it was time to get her last coats of spray tan. So we went over to a different room and I do have to say, I had a first. Never before that evening had I ever met someone for the first time and within 15 minutes they were buck ass naked, “smiling” with their ass right in front of me. *Before that day I had no idea what the spray tan lady would’ve wanted from me when I was getting sprayed and she told me to SMILE and I wasn’t even facing her. I am thankful that I’m now armed with that crucial piece of knowledge and won’t be the dumbass standing naked, facing away and grinning like a tool when it’s my turn in November*
I met 2 other girls this same way that night. It was a parade of strong, tanned, stiff limbed, naked chicks coming and going out of a hunting blind. This is all sounding somewhat fictional as I write it..
Once Shay was dry enough we headed back to the room and just lounged around and in an effort not to smudge, smear or tan inanimate objects Shay bundled up and slept at the foot of the bed in her, from home, fitted sheet.. it was mildly awkward since I slept the same direction but beside the pillows and covering the left half of my body with blankets since Shay was passed out on top of the covers.
Saturday Show Day Morning!!
Shay threw on her suit and sent a couple pics to Caitlyn. Here she is texting.. I have like 10 photos of her on one of her 2 phones (or even both sometimes).
She’s a busy lady with her personal cell and her business phone, which she had to answer during her makeup session with Beauty N Bronze. When we walked in I immediately sat down and started cuddling the ADORABLE french bulldog, Bruno (I think his name was) who belonged to the blonde lady who owns Beauty N Bronze. (You can see her below). He soon got bored with me and hid under a table. Boo. Apparently I’m a bad dog pet’er.
Here’s Shay leaving the Best Western in Coquitlam where she got her new face on.
From here we headed to the Massey Theater and they had sponsors advertisements and promotions on a big screen behind the competitors. I saw this and had to get a shot of it, it’ll be my FIRST show!!! 🙂
On the way to the evening show I tried to take a selfie in the back of the cab but the little man behind the wheel was practicing for his inevitable Nascar debut.. so I’m swaying and looking mildly stoned.
After this is where it all gets a little … blurry..
NOT. It was totally tame. We hit up the Catcus Club post show for Shay’s cheat meal…s… to quote William Shakespeare from A Midsummer Night’s Dream “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” The girl can pack away some grub! She started off the evening with 2 pornstar martinis, followed by chicken and cheese quesadillas with sweet potato fries and chipotle dip, interrupted only by another pornstar maritini, followed by a key lime pie and washed down with a final pornstar martini. Why do I know EXACTLY what someone else ate, 2 weeks ago? Because I was drooling over it the whole time!!!!!! I can’t really complain, my Szechuan Chicken Lettuce wraps were quite divine.
This is my hawt selfie the next morning in my lazy Pink hoodie… yeah.. I know…. I didn’t even brush my hair.. WHAT! Not only was it late to bed (2:30am) but we got up at 6AM AGAIN… and anyways, it’d have ruined the lazy bedhead look I was OBVI going for. Pfffff..
Plus my super incognito hood allowed me to creeper stalk Shay’s photoshoot with the hilarious Mark Bradfield who shoots for Training & Fitness. I am not going to lie. I am a huge fan for 3 reasons. Numero Uno (is a number capitalized in Spanish? Whatever, in Claudia Spanish it is) He is hilarious and somewhat of a metrosexual (please don’t take offense Mark, if on the off chance you ever Google yourself and find this…) and in northern BC and the small town of Houston, those are a rare breed so I quite enjoyed getting to spend a couple hours with him. Numero Deuce short, sweet and to the point.. he takes amazing photos!!!! Numero Trés he told me I looked like Olivia Wilde.. ummm HELLOOOOOO she’s a total girl crush of mine!!! (I just proofread this and this last sentence in this context sounds SO vain.. but it stays damn it. She is amazing! And for the record, I don’t think I look like her.. unless you can literally WANT something into happening… in which case, YAY! It’s working!) BUT in case you live even further north than me and don’t have access to the web and don’t know what this beautiful creature looks like.. I give you… the luminous Olivia Wilde. However, if you’re able to see this blog that is online.. then clearly you have internet. This is not a well thought out situation… Carrying on..
Getting the right angle for the shot, CHECK. Getting a random girl to hold your $16,000 camera, CHECK (that was me by the way hehe). Getting your shorts a little wet during a shoot? UNACCEPTABLE! Haha nice pastey white thighs Mr Bradfield (if you’re still reading..)
After a whirlwind of a weekend we both realized we didn’t even get a picture together!! So a low quality selfie on the skytrain back to YVR it is!!! There’s a lot of different skin and hair colors going on here!!! Perhaps another visit will lend itself to a little more foresight and a better pic together.
Well folks, that’s about it! Once we hit the airport we power walked to White Spot to grab some eats and meet up with Tim (my hubby) and his friend Jamie who were 2 sad hungover dogs (they were at a stag the night before). So I ate Tim’s lunch that he couldn’t stomach and had to ditch Shay to eat her food solo because true to form we were late and gonna miss our flight if we didn’t snap our sacks. What! Not only do I come from a family who is perpetually late but I married an indian and everyone knows they run on Indian Time. It’s a real thing. Look it up. Fine. I’ll link to a definition (ish.. kinda made up but could be real!) Here ya go!
Journey from my Couch to the Bikini Competition Stage 