Vanessa

I have been thinking a lot about my cousin Vanessa. She is amazing- when she knows what she wants to do- she sets out and does it (what I try to do most of the time). When she was younger (around 12), she was a president of this environmentalist club with David Suzuki's daughter (crazy I know...). She went to a conference in Brazil I think for it (I'll have to ask her about it). When she was in her early 20's she went off to Thailand, Malasia and southeast asian countries for a year and travelled, saw the world, tried to discover who she was, ect. Then she came home and found out her parents (my aunt and uncle) had separated and were getting a divorce (tough blow, she seemed to have handled it well, but my other cousin (her brother) I think never got over it (it's been a few years now). Next, she set off to Quebec to brush up on her french so she could work for a big Canadian airline as a flight attendant. She seemed to flourish there, got better at her french, and made friends along the way (like she always does- It's a Suttie thing:) She ended up not getting the flight attendent job she wanted- but continued to work at a the hotel restaurant she'd worked at since she was a teenager and lived at home.
Next, she found an opportunity with Jazz airlines, but had to relocate to Toronto to do it. She trained, worked hard and has now been working as a flight attendent for 14 months! Good job girl! This job is not so famous and fabulous as she hoped- but it has it's perks: flying for super cheap to any country she wants on stand-by, and seeing more of the world (which is something she has done and continues to do). Too bad she ended up spending christmas in Detroit and some hotel with the flight crew- searching for an open restaurant on christmas day to eat at (I think they found a dive of a place open), so we didn't get to see her for christmas. But she did call in between flights. I always think of that Gwenith Paltrow flick about being a flight attendent - the comedy one- what it called...? can't remember. Anyways she will get threre- working on international flights. And to top it off she met an amazing guy who is a sportcaster for CNN on location (he's been covering the canadian junior hockey stuff) his name I do not recall but at chrismas- we all turned on CNN and there he was reporting- so we all watch him do his interviewing stuff (only showed his face for 1 second though..). They both live in Toronto (and both travel quite a bit). Oh another interesting fact about her: she dated Joshua Jackson (pre-Dawson's Creek era) when she was a teenager- I have seen the pictures it's true:)

Photo left to right: Rachel, Vanessa, Jennica and I