Chryssie's life!

Best job in the world!

2010-06-13T21:38:00.003-07:00

I have been blessed with a pretty incredible job, and not a day goes by that I don't realize and appreciate it!

Job: Auntie

Description:

Love
Hug
Jump on the trampoline

I've loved watching Samantha in her new role as Big Sister!

Make and play with playdough
Play soccer
Make a fool of myself to make them laugh

Nothing but smiles when I get to play with one of my nieces or nephews!

Throw them in the air over and over until my back is screaming at me...and then do it all over again when the next adorable faces asks me to
Share my love of Celtic Thunder :)
Giggle

I got to spend 4 days with Kyra and Jayce over the May long weekend and we all had a blast!

Have a serious conversation about the bad dream that a Barbie doll had
Kiss their owies better
Help remind them that Nana's toys need to be shared

Just a taste of what the summer will bring - fun in the backyard!

Sneak them bites of dessert when I think their parents aren't looking
Be excited about every truck, tractor, and airplane we see
Give fishy kisses and eskimo kisses

Travis, 8 weeks old. I got to spend all afternoon and evening with him last week!

I have loved every minute of being an auntie, and I can't imagine my life without these amazing kids!

My new nephew :)

2010-05-30T15:12:00.004-07:00

I realized that I haven't posted this yet! I was so excited to meet Jared and Lisa's baby boy last month - he's so perfect!

Such a cutie!

Whistler!

2010-05-30T13:35:00.005-07:00

I got to spend a night in Whisler this weekend, and I had an awesome time!

I've been put in charge of planning our annual Sales Conference at work, which is a lot of work. I have to book the venue, organize all the meals, events, speakers, and activities. It'll keep me pretty busy over the next few months, but it ended up also coming with a nice perk!

We had a few location options that we were looking into, and finally chose Whistler. I'd been working with the Conference Sales Manager from Tourism Whistler and she said the best way for me to choose a hotel would be to come up to Whistler and see them for myself. I mentioned it to my boss and he said I should go! So on Friday my co-worker Elyse and I hopped in my car and drove on up!

We had to do site inspections at 4 different hotels, 3 on Friday and 1 on Saturday. When we did our first one, we were both kind of nervous and didn't ask a ton of questions, but as we got used to the process we became more vocal and weren't afraid to express our opinions and ask quesions. We realized that they want our business and will do just about anything to get it :) We had a few laughs as we realized that we're both fairly young looking and don't even have business cards or anything, so they really had no way of knowing if we were actually legit or just scamming them! The people we met with at each hotel treated us like VIPs, which was a lot of fun. We stayed at the Crystal Lodge, right in Whistler Village, and enjoyed having our own King Deluxe suites with fun gifts and goodies :)

We didn't realize how exhausting the whole process would be - each inspecion took pretty close to an hour and we had 3 back to back, so that was 3 hours of walking through hotels looking at an endless number of guestrooms and meeting rooms. We were pretty tired when we finished for the day!

Part of the week long Conference is a fun activity evening, so while we were there we got to test out 2 activities that we thought the group might like - Ziptrek and an ATV tour! I'm pretty scared of heights so the ziplining had me nervous, but it ended up being SO much fun! I screamed every time, which the rest of the group seemed to enjoy :)

Ready to head out on the course

After the first line we were both so pumped! Such a rush!

The course had us flying back and forth over the Fitzsimmons Creek, which seperates Whistler and Blackcomb mountains

This was before the longest line - 1100 feet! We started from this platform and ended up at the platform that you might be able to see behind Elyse.

After ziplining we had about 2 hours before our ATV tour started. I didn't think anything could top the adrenaline rush of the morning, but I was wrong!

Geared up and ready to go! The ATVs we drove are brand new - only 2 weeks old!

This was one of the best parts - driving through the huge splash puddle

We stopped to take pictures of the black bear that was wandering through the bobsled course

We both had an amazing time, and we thoroughly enjoyed being treated like VIPs the whole time - we didn't have to pay for a single thing the entire trip! Even though we have a lot of work to do now to organize all our notes and present them to our senior management team, we had a blast and it was so worth it!

I can't wait to go back and enjoy the conference in September!

Lisa's pregnant!!!

2010-04-08T06:42:00.002-07:00

And I'm SO excited to have a new nephew in the next couple weeks!!

(There you go Vanessa and Lisa, are you happy now?? :) )

2010-01-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

In November I turned 25! I've heard a lot of people say that 25 is a big scary year, but I don't think it's that big a deal! I don't feel too old yet :)

My cousins Kim and Steph came from Saskatchewan for 5 days over my birthday which was so awesome! I had so much fun with them and I'm so glad they came!

While we were eating breakfast on their second morning here, we were trying to think of something fun to do for the day but couldn't come up with anything. Then we were talking about the Olympics and how they had never been to Whistler, and I hadn't been since I was 10...and spontaneously decided to just go!! So we jumped in my car and made the 2 hour drive up. We had to be back for a family dinner at 5 so we only got a few hours in Whistler, but it was so fun to wander around the village and be able to say we went :)

We stopped a couple times on the drive for pictures

We had a Murder Mystery one evening, alway so much fun! This one took place at a hospital called Killem Hall (Kill 'em all) so we were all hospital staff. Tash had a male role, and she never backs down from a costume challenge. It was pretty funny!

On my actual birthday Kim and I went to White Rock. I love the beach and would love nothing more than to spend every birthday on the beach, but unfortunately it's in November so it's not really possible. But we decided to seize the moment and head on out! It was an insanely windy day so I think we only lasted about 15 minutes - long enough to walk the pier and take some pictures :)

A game of Ticket to Ride before dinner

The next day we drove down to Seattle with Yvonne, Tash and Kaeli. My sisters and I had bought tickets earlier in the year for a concert in Seattle, and when I found out that Kim and Steph were coming we invited them along! We had a fun drive down, with a stop at the outlet stores for some shopping. I love Seattle and never hesitate to drive down for a show or concert if there's one I want to see there.

The concert we went to was Celtic Thunder - definitely one of my favourite groups!! We had seen them in concert in Vancouver in May, but their fall tour was US only, so we got to take a little road trip!

The concert was great, so much fun! When I was in line for merchandise I saw a sign that said whoever bought the solo Christmas CD that one of the group members had made, we could get it signed by him after the show. I couldn't pass that up!! I was so excited :)

Me and Paul. He's my 2nd favourite member of the group

When we were looking for parking before concert we saw their tour buses parked behind the building, so after the show I convinced my sisters to go wait for them to come out :) It actually didn't really take that much convincing because they're all really big fans too! I wanted to see Ryan, my favourite, and my sisters wanted to see Keith and Damian, their favourites. I would've been happy to get a picture of him as he walked to the bus, but he actually stopped to take pictures and give autographs! When I went up to get a picture with him Yvonne told him it was my birthday so he gave me a hug :) I was pretty much floating on air the rest of the night :)

We spent the next day exploring Seattle, checking out Pike Place Market and going to the top of the Space Needle. It was a fantastic birthday weekend, full of lots of fun and the people I love :)

2009-06-09T20:19:00.010-07:00

Yes, I know it's been an insanely long time since I've blogged, but I'm hoping we can put that behind us and move on :)

Here's a snapshot of what's been happening around here since I last posted:

May:
-my sisters and I went to see Celtic Thunder in Vancouver! We were all SO excited for it. I first heard of them in December when the receptionist in my office told me about them and lent me the DVD of their first show. I love the music (and the cute Irish men :)) and it didn't take long for my sisters to get to love the music too. It was a lot of fun to have a sisters night. I realized as we were driving there that it was the first time the 4 of us had gone out for an evening together since we saw The Phantom of the Opera right before Tasha went to Australia and Yvonne was still pregnant with Kyra! It was long overdue and we had a great time together. We're going to their concert again when they come to Seattle in November - they day after my birthday! I asked for a couple days off work so I will hopefully have a 5 day weekend for my birthday. It should be a pretty great 25th bday!! -Vanessa are definitely on track to see 1 musical a month for this year. So far we've seen 13, and it's only August!! In May I finally got to see Les Miserables for the first time! I've wanted to see it since I was at CBC. It was my roommate's favourite musical and I loved the music. It was being done in Vancouver and I was so excited to go. The entire cast was phenomenal! They absolutely blew us away! We loved it so much that we went back in July :)

-Also in May, Yvonne, Tasha, Kaeli, Vanessa and I drove down to Seattle to see Grease. It was a really fun day - including a rousing game of Catch Phrase on the drive down. That always makes for good times :) The show was also great, although I could have done without Taylor Hicks reprising his role as Teen Angel. He came back out and did a little concert after the show and we thought it was completely ridiculous so we left. Being some of the probably very few Canadians in the audience, we were less than thrilled with their former American Idol. We heard some people's comment as we left, and they didn't seem to appreciate the fact that we would walk out :)

June:

-Kaeli graduated! I can't believe my baby sister is already finished high school. Sure makes me feel old!

-Rent
I was unbelievably excited to see Rent in Seattle! Broadway Across America was touring, and Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp joined the cast in the roles they originated on Broadway in 1996 - Roger and Mark. I LOVE Adam Pascal as Roger, and Anthony Rapp is great as Mark, so seeing them live was awesome. That was also the day that we packed a whole lot of stuff into. We drove down to Seattle, went for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, did a bit of shopping at Macys, saw Rent, drove home, stopped by Vanessa's brother's house where I met her nephew for the first time, went to a meeting at church, went to a different church gathering, and then ended the day with a movie :)

-We had a company Family Fun Day ! We all went to Castle Fun Park and then to a near-by park for a pizza lunch. Vanessa was our official photographer for the day and took a lot of pictures, many of which were blown up and now hang on the walls of our office. We were allowed to bring kids, and since I don't have any of my own I borrowed one of Yvonne's :) Kyra came along and had fun making friends with another little girl around her age.

July:

-I went to Theatre Under The Stars for the first time! They do 2 musicals every summer, and we went to Thoroughly Modern Millie. I'd heard of a few different companies doing it this year but didn't know what the show was about, so it was great to finally see it

-At the beginning of July Vanessa and I took a weekend trip to Issaquah which is just outside Seattle. We went to see Show Boat, which is a musical that Vanessa saw many years ago and had really wanted to see again. I loved it, even though something Vanessa had said earlier in the day made me giggle through an entire song :)

-We saw Les Mis again, but I think I already mentioned that :)

-...and I saw Rent again! A company in Vancouver is putting on the first Canadian production of the show and one of Vanessa's friends is in it so a bunch of us went. Vanessa was actually on vacation when we went, so I'll be going again with her on Saturday. It was excellent for a small theatre company! I was quite impressed!

-At the end of July Vanessa and I took another weekend trip to Vancouver Island. I'd never been there before, and now I definitely want to go back! It was a lot of fun. We spent a day in Victoria, went to Miniature World, had a picnic on the lawn of the Empress Hotel, went to a couple wineries and saw Oklahoma! There is a theatre festival in Chemainus every year so that's what we went for. I really loved the cast of Oklahoma! It's a great musical.

-In probably the biggest news of my summer, I moved out this month! Vanessa has a townhouse in Langley and her roommates had moved out so she asked me to move in! It was a lot of work to pack up my 24 years worth of stuff to get it all moved, but it was good to go through and purge stuff :) It's been great to be out on my own - completely on my own for a couple weeks. Vanessa's been on holidays for a few weeks so I've been living by myself. Coming from a family of 7 people, being alone for 2 weeks has felt very strange, but it's also been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the fun and crazy times we'll have now that Vanessa's home :)

Upcoming fun:
-In 12 days I get to see Wicked again! It's my 3rd favourite musical and it's coming to Seattle, so I'm making yet another trip down. This time Tasha's coming along which she is so excited about. Vanessa's friend Bethany is also coming to visit from Saskatchewan and is coming too. Should be good times!

Stay tuned for Extreme Makeover: Hot Tub Edition!

Extreme Makeover: Shed Edition

2009-04-11T13:51:00.003-07:00

See the story below before watching the video :)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Take that Ty Pennington!

Demo day!

2009-04-11T13:44:00.003-07:00

My parents decided a couple weeks ago that the old storage shed next to our house needed to come down. I think it's been there since the farm was first built, but I could be wrong. They started the process last week by taking the aluminum roof off in pieces.

Typical men, standing aound on the job :)

They took a chainsaw to the back walls. There was a lot of discussion about the best way to bring this thing down.

I guess they decided the best way was just to push it over! (That's Eric's brother Peter helping Jared while my dad watched)

Victory!

Now I think they're cutting it into pieces and taking it back to burn. Bonfire anyone?

2009-04-03T16:45:00.004-07:00

Winter has finally started to fade away here! We've had a crazy amount of snow this winter, and I'm so ready for it to all be over. We actually had a little bit of snow on April 1, but today is a beautiful, sunny, 12 degree day!! So exciting!

With the end of winter comes the beginning of our production season at work. There are still appointments to be booked for the sales reps, so I have a feeling things are about to get a lot busier. Today was pretty stressful because my supervisor's been getting a lot of pressure from the Regional Managers and General Manager to get more orders in, which means we have to book as many appointments as possible to get the orders taken care of. The problem with that is that by this point, I'm down to about 50 schools left to book for each of the reps I support, and those 50 schools have been called and emailed a lot since we started booking in October. When people don't take my calls, return my voicemail, or reply to email, it gets pretty hard to get an appointment booked!! It's kind of crazy, but at least we know the end is in sight and pretty soon we'll be able to leave this part of the year behind us for the next 4-5 months.

One of my co-workers used this as a candy dish last summer (the head is a bowl), but it broke at the end of summer and he just stowed it in a drawer. Today when he was packing up his stuff to move to where he'll be sitting for the summer he found it again. I volunteered to take it home and hot glue gun it. Hopefully it'll work. Actually, a lot of people in the office might thank me if I 'accidentally' lose it or something... Someone told me I should glue the base onto the top of the head and say "I glued the hat back on for you!"

I had a lot of fun at work on April Fools Day. I've never played pranks before, but this year I had a really good one. My supervisor is almost completely helpless when it comes to computers. She can do what's required for her job, and that's it, so she was the perfect person for it. I told the people in my department what I was planning in case I needed help distracting her or something. When it looked like I would have a few minutes alone, I walked around to her computer and took a screenshot of her background. Then I saved it as the background and closed down all the programs. Finally, I hid the icons from the desktop so it looked like they were there, but it was actually just a picture. When she came back, she had to re-open her programs, but when she double-clicked on the 'icons' nothing happened! Anyone who knows me well knows that I can't keep a straight face if my life depends on it, so I had to make sure she didn't see me. I started giggling before she even sat back down! She sits at the desk across from me, but there's a short wall between us so I ducked down so she couldn't see me. I thought she would ask for help right away because that's what she always does, but then I heard her computer shut down. I guess she thought restarting would fix it! Then she did it again...and again. After the 3rd time I was laughing so hard, trying not to let her hear me. She finally asked one of my co-workers to help her. He was in on it, so kept telling her to click different 'icons' and playing dumb. When she went to talk to another co-worker, I ran over, fixed it, and sat back down. When she came back she passed one of the tech guys and asked him to come look at her computer. She sat down and said "Look, when I click on these nothing happens!" Then she clicked on one, and since I had just fixed it, it worked! He looked at her like she was completely crazy and just laughed. I was going to tell her then, but everyone told me to wait. When she went for her coffee break, I hid the icons again. What does she do when she get back and nothing works? Restarts her computer! After a couple times, I wandered over and volunteered to help. She kept saying she had no idea how something like this could happen. Chad finally casually mentioned "Maybe it only happens on April 1..." When she realized it was a prank she laughed so hard! By the time we told her, most of the office knew what I'd done and had a good laugh. It was so funny!

Then, when the guy who sits next to me went for a break, I flipped the orientation of his screen so he had to tilt his head to the left to see everything, and made his mouse left-handed so when he tried to left click, it actually right-clicked. He knew right away that I had done it and made me fix it, but it was still pretty funny.

I was pretty worried when I went for my lunch break because I though for sure someone would get me back, but they didn't do anything. Time to start thinking of next year's prank!!

Rollkuchen and Nintendo

2009-03-22T10:34:00.003-07:00

Here are the pictures I tried posting the other day!

Kyra got to help Nana make rollkuchen for our family dinner a couple weeks ago. She loved it!

"Squish it!"

Time to cut the dough

All done!

One of her favourite things to do at our house now is to watch me play Nintendo. There aren't a lot of games that I have that would be interesting or appropriate for her to watch, but there is one - Super Mario Galaxy. I tell her it's the Star game because the point is to finish levels to collect all the stars. I also have a container of gum on the table next to the couch that she loves to shake. Lately she's started offering it to everyone she can find. She takes her job so seriously, asking if the person would like gum, and then she'll open it, take out just one piece, and say "here you go!" We had my dad's family over last week and she walked around the house offering a piece to everyone - all 20+ people! I think I'll need to buy a new container soon! So cute :)

Here she is asking me to play. "Coco sit?"

Holding the case while she watches. (See the gum container? She insists on holding it the whole time :) I've always loved playing Nintendo, and maybe some day she'll actually be able to play with me!
It looks like she's absolutely mesmerized by it, and she is for a little bit, but she only ever lasts about 5 minutes before saying "all done" and jumping off the couch to find the next fun activity :)

2009-03-19T20:13:00.002-07:00

I feel like all I ever do here is apologize for not posting very often. Sorry!

Yesterday was Kaeli's 18th birthday. Our family went out to Red Robin for dinner (the original choice was The Olive Garden, but it would have been a 1.5 hr wait for the 13 of us!). We had a lot of fun and got to hear the fabulous Red Robin birthday song! I feel really old now that my baby sister is 18 and almost done high school. Crazy!

I have some pictures from the last couple weeks that I've been meaning to post but I just tried and blogger is being stupid. I'll try tomorrow. I'm off to bed - yay for only one more day of work left this week!

Oh, and speaking of work, I haven't shared the exciting news here - Vanessa has been hired as seasonal staff at Premier! I'm so excited to work with her, which a lot of people can't believe. I keep getting asked if working with my best friend might be too much of a good thing, but I'm pretty sure we can handle it :) Can't wait!

Bahamas!

2009-03-06T21:31:00.006-08:00

I had an absolutely fantastic time in The Bahamas! It was so great to sleep in every day and know I had nothing that needed to be done. We spent the majority of the time relaxing by the pool and going on the Aquaventure. There is a one mile long river ride that has rapids and waves and currents and a converyor belt that all keep you moving. It takes about 15 minutes to go around, and you never have to leave the tube! After a few days Lindie and I decided to be more daring and checked out some of the other slides. I still can't believe that I did the Leap of Faith (see the post below) and a couple scary tube rides. The one that actually scared me most was called The Falls. It starts you at the top of the tower in a tube, carries you up a short conveyor belt and then pushes you down over the edge. Then there are a couple hills to go up and down before it gets completely dark and twists around down to the pool. I honestly almost cried when Vanessa and I did it. After the first hill we were going so fast that I didn't even feel like we were still touching the slide - it felt like we were flying! Totally freaked me out! Once I did that though I knew the other slide that was similar, but with less drops, would be okay. I did that a few times and by the end I was actually able to keep from screaming as I went down the first drop!! :)

This is part of the river ride, and the darker building with the funny looking things on top is the Power Tower

My favourite part was sitting on the beach and listening to the waves. Lindie and I went for a walk one evening along the beach. We decided to walk as far as we could before the beach ended. That's when we discovered this beach, which had the comfiest chairs we'd seen at the resort. It took us 2 hours to walk all the way down to this beach and then go back through the resort. I still can't believe how massive the resort is!

We sat for a while on a ramp/ledge that overlooks the water and just watched the waves. It was a beautiful night and it was so peaceful to just sit and listen.

Lunch and drinks at the Iguana Cafe in Nassau

I put this picture in to show the braids I had done at the end of the trip. I love how low-maintenance it is!

The Royal Towers at the Atlantis Resort. We stayed at the resort, but in the Beach Tower

We went to this restaurant for lunch just because we love the name :)

I love aquariums, so wandering through The Dig was one of the highlights for me. It's all designed to look like the remnants of the lost city of Atlantis, and has a ton of aquariums!!

The eels have got to be the creepiest animals I've ever seen

I could have stood and watched the sharks for hours. I don't know what it is, but I love them!

My first time on a beach in the Caribbean!

Another highlight for me was snorkeling for the first time. I was really nervous because even though I've been swimming my whole life I've never been a super confident swimmer. I almost panicked a little when I first got in the water, but once I started exploring the reef I forgot all about being nervous and just enjoyed every moment! I love snorkeling!

Some of the sharks in a small lagoon right outside our hotel

The sign says "Lagoon must not be entered. Please observe from this safe distance" I guess Vanessa's not very good at obeying signs! :)

The 8 days flew by way too fast and I was not ready to leave at the end of the trip. I was having such a great time relaxing and just having fun with friends. I absolutely fell in love with the Caribbean, and I can't wait to explore some of the other islands someday!

Check out Vanessa's blog for some amazing pictures!

I did it!

2009-02-28T16:01:00.002-08:00

After a long couple days of travelling, I'm home from The Bahamas! I had an amazing 8 days on Paradise Island, and did not want to come home! I'll post pictures and stuff later, but I just had to post this. I spent a lot of time before we left trying to convince myself to do the Leap of Faith slide at Atlantis, because it goes through a shark tank and I think that's so cool! People doubted me because I am so terrified of heights, but I did it! I was so scared, but when I finally did it I was so proud of myself! I'm so glad I found the courage and can say I did it :) I was even told afterward by a family that was standing there watching people go down that I had the best scream of the day!! Hahaha :) More to come...

(That's not me in the picture, I got it from google, but you can imagine me going down instead!)

T minus 3 days!

2009-02-15T20:41:00.003-08:00

I'm sitting here looking at my half packed suitcase trying to think of what else I can pack right now. I did laundry today so a bunch of my shirts are still drying but they'll all get packed tomorrow. I love making lists when I go on trips because it's so fun to check things off. And I'm paranoid that I'll forget something important! I put everything from chapstick to my iPod on the list, even going so far as to list each shirt and pair of pants I plan to take! I'm probably a little crazy, but I like feeling organized!! I already have a lot of it checked off so that feels nice :) I can't believe we're leaving in only a few days!

Our family has been hit with the flu over the last couple weeks. It started with Eric, spread through their house, and then came over here. I think of all the people who got sick (which is everyone but Lisa and my mom), I got the best end of it. I came home early from work on Thursday because I had been feeling nauseous all morning, even before I went to work. I was doing fine until about 8:30 or 9 when I got really achy and just couldn't focus. I finally went home just before 10 and crawled into bed. It's kind of nice to be able to leave work at 10 and still have put in 5 hours for the day! I slept most of the rest of the day, getting out of bed to watch Survivor (sick or not, I have my priorities!), and then went back to bed for the night at 7:30! I woke up on Friday feeling pretty much fine, just a little weak from not eating the day before. When I got off work that day I got an awful headache that hung on until I went to bed (again, 7:30....such a rocking Friday evening!) I've been feeling great all weekend, which is good because I got a lot of errands and packing done. I got to babysit Kyra and Jayce on Saturday too, which is always a lot of fun :)

A couple weeks ago Vanessa and I saw Bye Bye Birdie in Vancouver. It was a smaller production, but still a lot of fun! Our musical for next month is Annie, which is a movie that I love but have never seen live. Should be fun!

At the end of January I went with Yvonne and Kaeli and some friends to the So You Think You Can Dance tour in Vancouver. That's one of my favourite shows, and it was so fun to see some of my favourite dances performed live. Such amazing talent! I walked out of there wishing more than ever that I had even a little bit of skill on the dance floor! :) It was a really really fun evening, and I will definitely go again next year!

I know I have some fellow Survivor and/or Amazing Race fans out there, right? I think we're going to have great seasons of both! I was so excited with who got eliminated on the Amazing Race tonight. I never like those couples, and they always seem to last really long. I'm glad they left first this time :) And Survivor is just always great. You'd think that eventually people would learn to wear more than a little sundress or suit and tie when they know they're being stranded on an island or in the jungle for 39 days!

I slept so much the past few days that I really don't feel tired enough to sleep, but knowing the alarm is going off in just over 6 hours is good motivation to try!

My day with Kyra

2009-01-31T16:55:00.004-08:00

Today I picked up Kyra to come hang out at the farm for a while. It was actually sunny at times, and not too cold, so we got to play outside!

Kyra LOVES this umbrella. She has to take it with her every time we go outside, and sometimes inside too!

We've had this playground set up since last summer. It only took a few times of being helped last year before she got the hang of how to climb up on her own.This game lasts quite a while - I close the shutters and then she pushes them open from the inside to 'surprise' me :)

The swing is always a big hit!

Kyra loves walking to the back of our property to see the neighbour's miniature horses. They don't usually come near the fence though, so she stands there calling them to "Come here ponies!" Today our neighbour was out feeding them so brought one to meet Kyra. This is Lucy.

Then we got to meet a goat named Victoria

There was also a chicken named Pixie, but I didn't take pictures of that because if you've lived on a chicken farm for 22 years they just aren't that exciting :)

No walk would be complete without stopping to drive Opa's tractor!

Yay for boots and puddles!

I have a bucket of foam stickers that Kyra loves to stick on paper. She's surprisingly good at peeling off the back!

Today we coloured with markers and she was excited to discover that she could colour the stickers!

I always have fun with her, and love how excited she can get over some things. Today one of the funniest moments was when I was making her toast and she was so excited to use Nana's peanut butter! I guess she was still really tired when she woke up from her nap, so she cuddled on my lap in the living room for almost half an hour! She almost never sits still, so I just sat and enjoyed every minute. No TV, no books, nothing but me and Kyra :)

Dance, work, and winter

2009-01-26T19:45:00.002-08:00

I feel like I finally had a nice relaxing weekend. I didn't do a whole lot, which was really nice. On Friday night I went to Vanessa's and we played Rock Band with a couple of her friends. I love playing, and think I'm getting pretty good on the drums! :) The rest of the weekend I did some errands and just vegged. I've been fighting a cold since last week so it was nice to rest and get over that. Mostly.

Kaeli and I are watching Center Stage: Turn It Up right now. I love the first Center Stage movie and was excited when I heard this one was coming out. My co-worker saw it on the weekend and told me today that it was even better than the first so I went out and rented it tonight. I have to admit that the dancing was amazing, but the acting left a lot to be desired. We had a lot of fun mocking it and laughing at it. Good times :)

This Friday I'm going to the So You Think You Can Dance tour in Vancouver. I'm so excited!!!! There were some amazing dancers on the show and I'm really looking forward to seeing them perform their routines live.

I think work will be pretty busy this week. I have to organize and put together a huge mailout for the French Catholic schools for one of Sales Reps I support which could be a big job. I will also start helping out the accounting department with the calls they're getting. The 2 girls that work in thath department come into the office every morning and have 60 messages on their phones. They're supposed to return all those calls plus do all the other stuff that goes along with doing the accounting for a large company. There's no way they can keep up, so I'm going to be getting all the calls from Eastern Canada. Hopefully I'll be able to keep making outgoing calls to get the appointment setting done that I need to do.

It's supposed to snow overnight and all day tomorrow, which sucks. I was hoping that Spring was on its way, but I guess we're still in for some more winter weather. I can handle it because in 3 weeks and 2 days I'll be in The Bahamas!! That's what's been getting me through this awful winter.

This and that

2009-01-19T19:42:00.003-08:00

A co-worker of mine got me started listening to scores from movies and TV shows. First I borrowed the Twilight score (I love Twilight!), and was amazed at the memories the music can bring back. During one song, I wasn't looking at the song titles, and I suddenly sat up and realized "this is where Edward enters for the first time!" Any non-Twilight people out there won't really care, but I think it's fun.

I also borrowed the Lost Season 3 score. Amazing music on that show! I watched all 4 seasons in the past 5 months or so, and am so excited for season 5 to start on Wednesday!! I'll be watching it with some people from work who are just as obsessed as I am, or more! That'll be fun, even though it's a 3 hour show starting at 8 and I work at 5 the next morning....

Vanessa and I made it our goal to see a musical every month this year, and we have it almost entirely planned out! I think we only need October and December and we'll have them all! The ones I'm most excited for are Rent in June because it has the original Broadway cast members reprising their roles as Mark and Roger which will be amazing, and Wicked in September because it's such a fantastic musical. I saw both of those during our Chicago/New York trip, and completely fell in love. Some others that we're seeing are Annie, Les Miserables, Showboat (which I know almost nothing about but it's Vanessa's all-time favourite), and The Fiddler on the Roof.

We celebrated Christmas with my dad's family yesterday. A little late, but it's the earliest day that worked for everyone. I always have a lot of fun hanging out with family, and it's getting even more crazy and fun now that 5 kids have been added!

I'm definitely in countdown mode for our Bahamas vacation - 1 month today! The people sitting around me at work are already getting sick of me and my excitement :) I took a Bahamas guide book out from the library today so I'm looking forward to reading through that a bit.

I've been really tired at work lately because I haven't been going to bed at a decent enough hour, so today I'm going to change that. It's 8:00 now and I'm heading off to bed! Yay for more than 5 hours of sleep tonight!

I'm watching Vanessa wash dishes

2009-01-16T23:05:00.002-08:00

I'm hanging out at Vanessa's again tonight because I'm driving her to the airport tomorrow for her long weekend trip to Disneyland! And let's face it, chilling out and watching a movie is a great way to spend a Friday night!

Today was one of my co-worker's last shift at Premier. She and her new husband are heading off to Thailand for 6 weeks to travel there, and then are moving to Smithers in March. We went out for dinner and drinks at Montana's, and now everyone else is at Gabby's Cabaret for some dancing. I'm not a huge fan of country music (okay, I hate it), and I'm not much of a clubber, so I passed on that. Plus I've heard Gabby's is a total dive, so I really didn't feel like going.

This has been a crazy stressful week at work. Last week we were told that all of Canada is behind where they should be in appointments and sales so we (those of us who book appointments for the sales reps to visit schools) really had to step up our game. Our goal for each day has always been 12, but they told us to aim for a minimum of 18. I managed that a couple of the days, but because the territories I have to book in have certain school boards I can't call, I couldn't keep it up the whole week. They even set up the Appointment Setting Olympics, with the person who set the most appts in the 7 day period winning an afternoon at the spa on company time, paid for by the company! It ended today, and I didn't even come close. 2 of my co-workers did amazing, with one of them getting 51 yesterday, a record for the company! So incredible. But with that came a lot of stress and pressure so it was a really long week and I'm so glad it's done. I actually got hung up on twice today by non-clients who didn't want to talk to me. That sure made me feel warm and fuzzy inside!

It's been really cold and foggy for a few days now, which makes me really excited for the Bahamas in 34 days!! I seriously can't wait to escape winter!

My big project

2009-01-10T20:40:00.006-08:00

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the project that took up 4 days of my holidays. I'd been frustrated with my insanely messy room for a while now and finally had the time to actually force myself to clean it. I've posted a bunch of pictures, mostly so I can look back and remember how truly awful it was so I'll have the motivation to keep it up.

The closet. I guess it didn't look too terrible, it was just really unorganized. And stored a LOT of junk that I really didn't need to keep. The Dell box on the top shelf was labeled "Random". Seriously, how is that organization? I also had never looked in this box since I put it up there a year and a half ago so I figured it probably didn't hold anything I would miss.

The main part of my floor. This picture doesn't actually look as bad as I remember it. Had I already started cleaning?

Oh right, a bunch of stuff had moved from the floor to my bed. Imagine everything here added to the stuff on my floor...

Piles of stuff between my bed and the wall. You can't even see my poor stuffed animals buried under there!

This probably bugged me more than anything else. My desk had become a place for me to throw all my random stuff that I didn't want to put away or a home for things that didn't have one. I spend a lot of time on my computer so it was a constant source of irritation.

My dresser also had a lot of odds and ends on it that really didn't need to be there.

This was partway through day 3 I believe. Everything on my bed was stuff from the floor that I couldn't organize or put away right away so it sat there to look through later. All the stuff on the floor came out of the massive computer box that had been in my closet. This was probably about half of what was in there. The yarn from my failed attempts to teach myself to knit, cute little posters that were on my walls at one point in time, a case for my discman (useless now that I have an iPod..) and so much more. The garbage bag peeking out from behind my bed was 1 of 2 that I filled.

I did a huge purge of my closet! I got rid of a good 30 t-shirts, some sweaters, old jeans, and other random stuff. I think I would honestly wear the same clothes forever if I didn't force myself to get rid of them after a while. I was still wearing t-shirts that I wore in high school. I definitely think it was time to say goodbye after 7 or 8 years...

Victory!! I finally finished! There were moments where I really wanted to give up, but I knew it would feel so good to be done so I kept going. And my sheets and duvet cover were in the laundry, so I don't usually sleep with a cute pink blanket! For the last couple months before I did this I had a huge pile of stuff that would sit on my bed every single day. Before I went to bed each night I would transfer it all to my computer chair. And then put it back on my bed when I sat down at my computer the next day...over and over and over...

A small glimpse at my stuffed animal collection. I have a lot more than this. I love teddy bears!

Wow, there was actually a dresser under that mess!

I was so excited to finally have this done! The black organizers that are hanging there are from Ikea. So great! I actually emptied my dresser out into those. And getting that gigantic box out of my closet actually allows me to keep my laundry basket in there instead of taking up space on my floor. It may not look like it, but I really did get rid of a lot of stuff.

People are shocked to see that I had a carpet under the mess! I still want to organize my CDs again. I like having them alphabetical so it's easy to find everything. My DVDs are always alphabetical too. I just moved things around a bit to have the TV series on a seperate shelf.

And a clean computer desk!! Yay!

I don't think these pictures can really show how awful it actually was, or how great it looks now in comparison. I love it!

Casino night!

2009-01-08T18:24:00.004-08:00

On December 29 Kaeli and I spent the night at the River Rock Casino Resort. The family that I nannied for last year wanted to get away for a couple days, and their parents didn't want to be stuck in the hotel room once the boys went to bed at 7:30. So they paid for half the room for the night and we got to hang out!

The rooms were amazing! The nicest hotel I've stayed at

We ate copious amounts of candy...

...and watched one of our favourite movies.

If you've seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang you'll recognize the Child Catcher in this picture. He honestly still totally creeps me out whenever I watch the movie. I can hear his creepy voice tempting Jeremy and Jemima out of their hiding place..."Lollipops, cream puffs, ice cream...and all free today!" Seriously gives me the shivers!

It was a fun night away to just hang out and relax with my baby sister :)

I know curiosity killed the cat, but...

2009-01-08T18:02:00.003-08:00

You may have noticed that I have the Feedjit traffic feed on my blog. I think it's fascinating to see where people are that read my blog, and how they find it. I can see their country, city, where they came from and left to, and other little bits of information. Everything but who they actually are, which leaves me really curious sometimes. It will show when people come from Google, and what they searched for to end up finding it. One of the most recent is someone that Googled "Backstreet Boys Dolls" and ended up on my post titled Guys, Dolls, and the Backstreet Boys.

Anyway, one that definitely caught my attention is a frequent visitor from Appleton, Wisconson. I noticed it because the Corporate Headquarters for School Specialty (the company I work for) is located in Appleton. I thought it was a random visit at first, but now I keep seeing it! So if this is you, I would love to know who you are!

Christmas 2008

2009-01-05T20:12:00.003-08:00

Here's a snapshot of our Christmas!

Isn't that the most adorable smile ever?

The cute outfit I bought for Samantha

Nothing beats a nice mug of hot chocolate on a snowy Christmas! Especially while watching Elmo :)

Yvonne had a different kind of drink to warm her up..... :)

Somehow Sam managed to fall asleep while we were playing Catch Phrase. We were all so loud that I can't imagine how tired she must have been! So precious though!

This was priceless - Jared paid Yvonne $5 to run out and do a faceplant in the snow in her pajamas. Kaeli joined her for free...

Nice and happy while still warm in the house

Kaeli threw snow on Yvonne and took off running
She was so cold, and completely soaked!
They were still smiling afterward :)

I'm watching Vanessa clean

2008-12-28T11:48:00.002-08:00

I feel like I'm making this habit - I sit here on Vanessa's computer while she cleans. Right now she's standing on her bed dusting the ceiling fan. Good times!
I still haven't followed up on my grand plan to clean and organize my room. I think I'll start today though. I've decided I don't really want a dresser anymore, so maybe I'll get rid of that and reorganize things to give myself bit more room. We'll see what I end up doing!

This has been great Christmas season. On the 26th my family came for the day and we hung out, opened gifts, played a lot of Catch Phrase (Team 2 kicked butt!!), and ate a lot of really good food. I always have so much fun with my family, so it was great to have a full day to spend with them.

I'm trying not to think about the fact that there's only one week left of holidays. It's been so nice to have time off work! I am looking forward to seeing everyone again - it's so weird to go so long without seeing people I usually see every day!

I'll upload some pictures from Christmas when I get home. If I remember!!!

Crazy dream! And 200th post!!!

2008-12-27T09:58:00.004-08:00

I had the MOST bizarre dream last night. And I can remember it so clearly, which is strange for me. I was performing at the Grammys because I was nominated for Song of the Year! Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't sing unless I'm alone in my car with the music loud enough that I can't hear myself, so that just makes this even more crazy. The whole thing felt so real though! I walked into the venue with Yvonne (I didn't walk the red carpet for some reason), and she came backstage with me. Which was actually below the stage. Tom Cruise was there (very strange because he's an actor, not a singer...), which made me really excited! I don't think I met him, but I planned on talking to him after the show. Then Yvonne went to sit down and I went to where all the nominated performers were waiting. I talked to the Jonas Brothers (like they would ever be nominated!) and told them that my best friend loves their song "Lovebug". Umm...Taylor Swift was there, and Colby Caillat. Haha, they had us performing alphabetically by first name, but I ended up going 5th or something because whoever made the schedule thought my name was spelled with a 'K'. There were a lot of people performing. I thought the moment when I stepped on stage would freak me out enough to wake me up, but I dreamt the entire performance! I don't remember what song I sang. But there were a LOT of people in the audience. I looked at my family and almost started laughing. I woke up before the results were read, so I have no idea if I won.

I think that has to be the most insane dream I've ever had! It was a lot of fun though :)

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T22:30:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited that we had a white Christmas this year! It's such a rare thing around here. I'm definitely not the type to hide away in my house when we get snow so I've been driving all over the place. I still have the chains on, which definitely came in handy tonight. We aren't doing our family Christmas until tomorrow, so today was pretty low key. We just hung out most of the day, and then Yvonne and Eric and kids, and our Omi, came for dinner and to hang out for a bit. Yvonne, Kaeli and I decided to go to a movie tonight, Marley and Me. The roads were pretty clear getting to the theatre, but the parking lot was a MESS!! It hadn't been plowed at all since the snow started falling last week so it was so hard to park! Some cars pretty much parked right in the middle of where we're supposed to drive because they couldn't get any further. I just plowed right on through and parked, no problem. Thanks to the chains, I didn't get stuck at all! A bunch of other cars did though! We had so much fun in the parking lot that we decided to take a longer route to drive Yvonne home. The neighbourhood they live in hasn't been plowed, so we went on a lot of random streets just to see if we could :) Still didn't get stuck. We had to wait for a bit while a car in front of us tried to get un-stuck though. I was about to offer the shovel from my car when 3 of them managed to push it enough to get it out. Good times :)

Anyway, the movie was really, really good! I wasn't really expecting much, thought it would just be a cute comedy. It was so much more than that! It was funny, but also really real, and I think everyone in the theatre cried. I sure did!!

Today was better than yesterday because it's Christmas! Doesn't get much better than that!

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Random note: during our cruise through Yvonne's neighbourhood we saw a nice big rat running on the snow banks. Fun!

Birthday fun!

2008-12-24T23:51:00.002-08:00

I stayed at Vanessa's after Guys and Dolls last night, and this morning we drank mimosas (champagne and orange juice) to celebrate her champagne birthday! Happy 24th b-day Vanessa!

Then we made the crazy trip back to Abbotsford - there was a good foot of snow on the ground so it was pretty sketchy at times, but her mom followed me in her suburban to make sure it was all good. I got home no problem, but when I tried to leave again 4 hours later it took me 40 minutes to get off the yard! Absolutely insane! I had to get out and shovel the snow away from my tires twice. Once I got going it was all good though.

When I got to Yvonne and Eric's this afternoon Eric proved once again that he is the best brother in law in the world by putting chains on my tires!! I had to go out again later that evening to catch the last part of Vanessa's birthday party, so the chains were a huge help on the hill by her house :) I never realized how fun it could be to drive with chains - I was plowing through the snow like it wasn't there!

Today was better than yesterday because I went to 2 birthday parties, which means 2 birthday cakes!!! Can it get any better? Plus the parties were for two of my favourite people, which only makes it that much more fun :) Happy birthday Kyra and Vanessa!

Um, I'm really tired and can't think. Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy birthday Kyra!

2008-12-24T11:54:00.006-08:00

I can't believe Kyra is 2 today! She is such a blessing to our family, and I love spending time with her. I love that these days, you never know what will come out of her mouth to make us laugh. Always barrels of laughs when she's around! I love:

her hugs (rare and short as they may be)
the way her face lights up when she sees me and yells "coco!" (her name for me) and runs into my arms
cuddling and watching Elmo and Curious George with her
taking her for rides in my car
sharing snacks of Goldfish
hearing her say "I love you" and "Te amo"
when she takes out my ponytail and arranges my hair in some bizarre way, then stands back and says "Coco pretty"
doing whatever I can to make her laugh, even if it makes me look like completely ridiculous
and so much more!

It's been so much fun to watch Kyra grow up over the past 2 years, and I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

I love you Kyra!

Guys, Dolls, and the Backstreet Boys!

2008-12-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

Vanessa and I just got back from seeing Guys and Dolls. So good! It was so funny, and they did a really good job with it. I would definitely see it again.
Vanessa and I made a goal to see a musical/show every month. We've got October to January already, so we need to find one for February. Maybe we'll see one in the Bahamas!! We did miss a few months last year, but we saw 4 in July so I figure we're good.

We went to a really good restaurant before the show, The American Grille in Richmond. Really good food, great service, an all-around good time! The chicken was amazing.

We also made Chocolate Peanut Balls....or something like that. Not totally sure what they're called. They're so good though!

The thing that made today better than yesterday is that I got another amazing Christmas present from Vanessa. Another sneaky one! She got me a Backstreet Boys t-shirt from the concert we went to in September! It's awesome because after the concert I really regretted not getting one. Yay! Thanks Vanessa!!!

2008-12-22T20:06:00.002-08:00

I just discovered that the socks I'm wearing have holes in them. Garbage time for them!

So I didn't get stranded in Langley after all. It took me a good 10 minutes to dig out my car, but once it was out I was good to go! It felt so glorious to sleep in this morning. I had a minor moment of panic when I realized it was Monday and I never get to sleep in on Mondays, but then I remembered I'm on holidays. Yay! Vanessa and I had a wonderful brunch of Mac and Cheese and applesauce this morning. Not mixed together, in case you were wondering.

After watching Vanessa clean out her closet today I am suddenly very inspired to clean and organize my own room and closet. It's been on my list of things to do for a while now, and now that I'm not working I really have no excuse. Especially since my Wii is currently at Vanessa's mom's house so I don't have that as a distraction! I decided that I have to be firm with myself and purge all the junk I've been holding onto for a LOT of years. I hate getting rid of things that I tell myself have sentimental value, but some of it is a little ridiculous. Do I really need to keep a lobster bib that I got in Halifax?

Today is better than yesterday because I got to hang out with Kyra for a couple hours. Yvonne has the flu, which sucks, but I got to take Kyra home with me! Always fun :)

1 more day until Guys and Dolls
2 more days until Kyra and Vanessa's birthdays
3 more days to Christmas
4 more days to our family Christmas
5 days to Lisa's birthday
7 days to my night at the River Rock Casino (don't think I've mentioned this yet, look for it tomorrow!)
12 days to Samantha's birthday
13 days to Beauty and the Beast
39 days to the So You Think You Can Dance tour
about two months-ish until Bahamas!

I feel like I need to schedule something for Dec. 28 so I can have 6 days to something!

Snowed in and loving it!

2008-12-21T23:55:00.002-08:00

I'm currently in Langley at Vanessa's house, and there is a lot of snow out there! When I left Abbotsford there was no snow on the roads and it was all good, but as I drove west there was more and more. I think it's supposed to snow all night still, so maybe I'll be stranded! Could be fun :)

Today is definitely better than yesterday because I got an early Christmas present! Vanessa really wanted to give it to me and couldn't resist any longer. I'm actually surprised she held out this long because she bought it in New York in July. She told me on the plane home that she bought the most amazing Christmas present ever and actually wanted to keep it for herself. She knows how much I hate being kept in suspense, and loves torturing me with it. She even said at one point that if I had seen it, I would have bought it for myself. I kept wracking my brain to figure out where she could have bought it because we were seriously together 24/7 the whole time we were there. I guess she's super sneaky, because she not only bought it without me noticing, but somehow managed to keep me from seeing it in a store and buying it myself!

Look at this amazing bag!! It's no secret that I love musicals, and this seriously is so exciting!! She was so right, if I'd seen it I would have definitely bought it for myself!

My favourite musical ever!

I have seen almost 13 of the musicals on this bag, plus more that aren't on here. I say almost 13 because I have definite plans to see Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables in the next 5 months but haven't seen them yet.

Thanks Vanessa for the amazing Christmas present!! I love it!

5 more days!

2008-12-20T22:50:00.003-08:00

I can't believe it's only 5 days til Christmas!! It looks like we should be getting a white Christmas this year, which would be really exciting!

I have to say that we've been getting very un-Abbotsford around here lately. It's been so cold, and tonight for the second time this week there's a blizzard warning! I can't handle that! Hopefully it ends soon and we go back to our normal, rainy winter/spring!

Today is better than yesterday because it was our Loewen family Christmas dinner. I love turkey dinners, especially when shared with family!
And it's also better because Vanessa comes home today! Actually, I think her flight landed about 10 minutes ago. Yay!

I've been watching Lost for the past while. A couple of my co-workers talked me into starting it, and now I'm so addicted!! I borrowed season 3 from one of my colleagues and when that finished I was desperate to watch season 4. It was only released on DVD last week I think so I couldn't borrow that from him right away becuase he went home to Ontario for the holidays. So I broke down and rented it! I'm so close to finishing, and they tell me the season 4 finale is totally crazy-amazing, so I really want to get to it! Season 5 starts in January so my goal was to completely catch up before than. Only 4 episodes to go!!

I spent a good portion of today fixing my computer. A stupid rogue anti-spyware somehow made it onto my computer the past couple days and kept opening these annoying pop-ups that would tell me my computer's at risk and ask me to download something to fix it. No matter what I tried, I couldn't close them without starting the download....and this happened over and over. And most of the time my internet wasn't opening properly and running really slow. So I finally managed to get rid of it! Yay for fast internet again!

Picture Tag

2008-12-20T22:43:00.003-08:00

I was tagged by Yvonne to do a picture tag. You open up your pictures, go to the fifth folder, click on the 5th picture and explain it. This is Christmas last year, Tasha and Kaeli opening presents. Um, yeah, I think that's about all I can say about it!

I think I'm supposed to tag 5 people so I choose:
Kim
Charlotte
Lisa
Tamara
Vanessa (did you do this already?)

2008-12-18T21:08:00.003-08:00

I just got back from the Christmas Cafe at City Blends. It was a lot of fun to hang out with people, listen to live Christmas music, and drink hot chocolate! :)

Driving to and from work the past couple days has been an adventure and a half! Yesterday morning there was only about an inch of snow so getting to work was no problem, but then it snowed all day and the wind was picking up a lot (there was actually a blizzard warning in effect) so it took me 40 minutes to get home. It normally takes 15! Today was a lot better, and there's not more snow predicted until Sunday so I should be good to go tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for 2 weeks! I'm so excited to have time off and relax. There are going to be some busy days in there with Christmas gatherings and Kyra's and Vanessa's birthdays, but it'll be all good :)

Vanessa and I are going to see Guys and Dolls on Tuesday which I'm so excited about. Hmm..the more I think about it, I think I have a lot more going on than I realize. It could be a very busy 2 weeks!

Anyhoo, it's way past when I should be sleeping. Every day when my alarm goes off at 4 and I have to drag my butt out of bed I tell myself "Tonight I'll go to bed earlier!" But it never happens.... Oh well, c'est la vie!

Today is better than yesterday because I won a raffle prize at the Christmas cafe!

Happy Tuesday the 16th!

2008-12-16T20:52:00.003-08:00

I think I forgot to post yesterday! I'm not going to feel too guilty though because I think I've been doing pretty good at this whole 'post every day' thing after my month long silence.

Work today suddenly got crazy busy. The accounting dept sent out statements of accounts to all the schools that still have outstanding invoices, so now all the schools are calling in to say they already paid, or were told they didn't have to pay, or they never received an invoice to begin with. I barely made any outbound calls for appointments because my phone never stopped ringing! And I have a big project to finish by Friday, so that has me a little stressed.

I'm really tired and can't think of what makes today better than yesterday. Oh, tonight was family dinner night, so I got to play with Kyra, Samantha, and Jayce all evening! That is always the highlight of my week!

I'm off to bed! It's supposed to snow 5-10cm in the next 24 hrs, starting in the next hour or so, so I might have to wake up earlier than usual to get to work on time. Lovely!

Brrr!

2008-12-14T19:57:00.002-08:00

The crazy winds haven't let up at all, and it's so cold outside, but I actually don't mind wind. I love listening to it from the warmth and comfort of my house. There's something soothing about it. That and the ocean are my 2 favourite sounds. I would love to sit by the ocean with a warm wind blowing over me...that would be amazing I think!

Today is better than yesterday because:

I love wind
I am almost finished Christmas shopping! (and one of the gifts I bought I really want to keep for myself!)
I made a mix of all my favourite Christmas songs. O Holy Night ended up on it 6 times because it's my favourite song! So it's on there by 6 different artists :)
I finished a really good book! It was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and it was so good I literally couldn't put it down! I was reading before bed last night, only intending to reading a couple chapters, but I ended up reading until 1:30am! It's the first of 3 books, and the next 2 haven't been written yet so I have to wait a while to see how it all turns out, but I'm sure it'll be worth it!

I haven't done a countdown in a while, so here's a new one!

5 days of work left until 2 weeks off!
6 days until Vanessa comes home
9 days until Guys and Dolls
10 days until Kyra and Vanessa's birthdays
11 days until Christmas
13 days until Lisa's bday
20 days until Samantha's bday
21 days until Beauty and the Beast
47 days until the So You Think You Can Dance Canada tour
66 days until the Bahamas

Happy Saturday the 13th!

2008-12-13T22:59:00.002-08:00

It's snowing! If it didn't accompany a freezing temperature and crazy strong winds I might be more excited about it. I do enjoy the beauty of snow falling though.

Today a powerline near our house fell (probably from those crazy winds), so we lost power for about an hour. Normally we're never more than a few minutes without power because we have a generator, but for some reason it didn't kick in today so that was fun! I actually enjoy power outages :) I had Kyra here for the afternoon and she seemed to like it too! She had fun chasing the light from the flashlight all over the floor and loved the candles :) We've had a few birthdays in the past month, so she's totally into saying "happy birthday" and blowing out candles. She wasn't very impressed that she couldn't blow them all out today! I took her to the mall with me for a bit and she loved the Christmas decorations that were up. She kept stopping in the middle of the crowded mall to say "wow, pretty!" So cute :)

I think the power outage is definitely what makes today better than yesterday! Okay, and I guess the snow is kind of exciting too. Today is also a little sad though because Vanessa left for Hawaii this evening. We're both finally finished exams and now she's gone for a week. That's okay though, she'll be back when my holiday from work starts :)

I think I'll add some pictures tomorrow. I just don't feel like it today! Good night.

Vanessa is wrapping Christmas gifts

2008-12-12T19:56:00.002-08:00

Sorry for the random title. I hate deciding what to name my posts so I asked Vanessa what to call this one. That's what you get! So now I'll blog about it.

Today we had our work Christmas party. Yesterday one of my co-workers decided to bring her Wii so I brought Rock Band! We set it up in the boardroom after lunch and it was a huge hit! Nobody besides me had played it before, so it was pretty funny when we first started. Some of the people that were drumming had absolutely no rhythm!! They failed quite a few songs before they got the hang of it. I left after a bit and went to play Scategories, and when I came back an hour later they were still playing! I joined in again and by the time we finally stopped, it had been 4 hours!! So fun :) That's what makes today better than yesterday!!

After work some of us went to Blueridge for drinks. Always good times when my supervisor and manager come along and totally let loose. I have really fun colleagues :) Now I'm at Vanessa's and she's wrapping Christmas gifts, just like the title says. We're going to watch a movie at some point if we can decide what to watch.

Today may be the first Friday in a long time that I don't go to bed at like 9:30. Yay me! I'm such a party animal :)

Party, passport, planners

2008-12-11T20:26:00.002-08:00

I was just sitting here thinking that I should be in bed by now, but then I realized I get to work later tomorrow so I get to stay up later! Since our Christmas party is tomorrow, the early shift gets to start late so we can maximize our paid party time :) I'm really looking forward to it. I love hanging out with my co-workers!

Today I went to get my passport renewed. I am so glad we have a passport office in Abbotsford now so I don't have to drive to Surrey and wait in the crazy lines. I only waited about 10 minutes! They said it takes maximum 6 weeks, so I should be good to go by the end of January :)
I guess that's what makes today better than yesterday!

I am a huge Survivor fan, but this season I have not been really impressed. Most of the people on the season were really annoying and awful, and I hate not having a good group of people to cheer for. On the other hand, I was super excited with the finale of The Amazing Race on Sunday. I love that show, and was so glad that the team I've liked from the beginning won! (Sorry if I gave it away Fonz, I know you haven't watched all of the season!:)

There's been a rumour going around that we're supposed to get snow tomorrow. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I do enjoy snow, but I HATE being cold! Puts me in quite the conundrum. I would love to have snow for only the week around Christmas each year, but unfortunately we're never that lucky. In my opinion, if there won't be snow for Christmas, I don't want it at all. Anyway, it's not like I can control the weather so I'll stop complaining!

I have to get some stuff ready for the Christmas party now. I sent myself a few emails from work today as I remembered things I needed to bring. I'm such a dork like that. I email myself quite a bit to keep track of things. I work for an agenda company so I have endless planners at my disposal, but have never gotten in the habit of carrying something around with me. I guess email works as well for me!

Too much chocolate?

2008-12-10T14:26:00.003-08:00

At work on Friday we're having our Christmas party! We didn't have the time or budget to plan something at a restaurant or hall or anything, so we're having lunch catered at the office and spending the afternoon playing games and hanging out (and getting paid for it!). I love playing games and have a lot of fun with my co-workers, so I'm really looking forward to that! We're also doing a gift exchange in my department. Any suggestions on what to buy a 21 year old female co-worker that is under $10?

What makes today better than yesterday: Wednesday is Treat Day at the office. We take turns bringing in some sort of snack for everyone to share, and today's treat was really good! Also, one of the Ontario sales reps sent a TON of chocolate for everyone, so that always makes the day wonderful! I would grab a handful of chocolate raisins every time I walked by the filing cabinets (which happens a lot in a day), so I probably ate way too much chocolate, but it was so good!

I've discovered that I run out of things to say when I post every day, so that's it for today!

Cookies and season finales

2008-12-07T12:12:00.002-08:00

Today is one of those days where I just feel like sitting around in my pajamas doing nothing. Yesterday morning when I was sitting at my computer, I suddenly realized that I really could just sit there and not feel guilty for not writing an essay or studying for an exam. It feels so good to be done!
Yesterday Vanessa and I made a bunch of chocolate chip cookies for church. We had already made rolo cookies on thursday and she and her cousin made jam-jams on friday. The saturday night service at church is in the gym instead of the sanctuary, and we all sit around tables or on couches for the evening. They always have cookies and coffee, and it feels like a fun get together rather than a church service. Anyway, they need volunteers each week to set up the gym and make the cookies and coffee. Vanessa and I like baking, so we decided to sign up for cookie and coffee prep for yesterday. When she called the church office to see how many cookies we should make, the secretary sounded shocked that we were making our own. We thought that's what everyone did, but then assumed they must just buy them. Well, when we got to church yesterday and looked at the insructions, we found out that the church has frozen cookie pucks that the volunteers just have to stick in the oven! Haha, so we spent hours baking cookies when we didn't have to. Everyone loved them though! They're trying to sign us up for cookie prep every week! :) We had a pretty good laugh about that.

Today I have to get new passport pictures taken. My current passport expires in January, and I'll need a new one to go to the Bahamas in February. I couldn't believe it when I realized it was expiring already becuase I got it a couple months before I went to Spain, and it doesn't seem like it's been 5 years already!
I have a bunch of errands to run whenever I finally get moving and change out of my pajamas. I really wish weekends would be 3 days instead of 2...I feel like I would get so much done!

Today is better than yesterday because:

tonight is the season finale of the Amazing Race. That's my favourite reality show. If Nick and Starr don't win I'm going to be shocked! And if Andrew and Dan do win, I think I might be tempted to boycott the next season in protest
tonight is also the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. I LOVE that show! The dancers and choreographers are amazing! I also have tickets to see them on tour when they come to Vancouver in Januray, so that's really exciting :)

Random bit of trivia:
Have you seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? It's a bit of a classic around our house. Anyway, the guy who plays Grandpa Potts in the movie (the old guy who lives in the tiny shed in the yard) is actually 6 months younger than Dick Van Dyke, who plays his son in the movie. Crazy!

Oops!

2008-12-06T10:07:00.002-08:00

I just posted and forgot to say what makes today better than yesterday. Today will be better because Vanessa is coming over to make more cookies for church, and Yvonne and the kids might be coming to hang out too! And I got to sleep in! I was totally wiped out yesterday and it feels so good to sleep past 4am!!

Picture time!

2008-12-06T09:26:00.005-08:00

I don't have much to say today, but here are a bunch of pictures from the past month or so. Enjoy!

Eric's bday. Kyra took a big swipe of the icing and shoved it in her mouth. Yay for sugar highs!

Me and my little dude
You can't tell in the picture, but the shirt I'm wearing says "In this moment I am happy" So true when this cutie pie is around!

This is the outfit I bought Jayce. The shirt says "Trading in my trike for a real bike"

Helping Nana make noodles for chicken noodle soup

Kyra's favourite game. She sat and played it with Kaeli and her friends for half an hour yesterday! I love that she opens her mouth wide when trying to catch the fish as if that will keep the fish open longer :)

Wearing Auntie Tasha's boots

She loves trying to stand and sit in the swimming pool of the doll house

My birthday

I love pink and brown on little girls. So cute!

I love his smile!

She's up and walking everywhere these days!

Sam loves playing with dolls and all the accessories we have

What a ham

Bahamas!

2008-12-05T20:30:00.005-08:00

I'm super excited because today I booked my flight to the Bahamas! I'm going with Vanessa and her friend Lindie in February for 8 days. We're staying at the Beach Tower in Atlantis, Paradise Island. I can't wait! This will be my first vacation where I get to lay by the pool or on the beach and just relax since I was 13 and my family went to Palm Springs! So I think this is long overdue, and am definitely looking forward to escaping the wet winter/spring weather we get here :)

The things I'm looking forward to most:

the AMAZING waterparks - there are tube rides where you don't have to get out after going down, they have currents that propel you back up to the top!
seeing sharks. seriously. I love sharks. On at least one of the tube slides you end up floating between huge shark tanks. That'll be a highlight for sure!
seeing sea turtles for the first time
cool tropical fish (how can you tell I love aquatic life?) :)
beautiful beaches

So that's what made today better than yesterday! It'll be hard to top this tomorrow!

Oh, and check out Vanessa's blog for some pics of where we're going! (and leave her a comment. you'd make her day!)

And there are more new posts below this. I was in a blogging mood yesterday! Does this make up for the month of blogger silence?

Done, and the month of fun!

2008-12-05T14:23:00.001-08:00

I wrote my only exam for the semester yesterday morning so now I'm free! It feels so good :) I decided to celebrate by blogging! I have a ton of stuff to post, so maybe I'll spread it all out over a bunch of posts so I feel like a good blogger again.

Vanessa has decided that December is the month of fun and is posting her fun adventures daily. I thought I'd join in. I just have a little bit of catching up to do.

Monday was fun because it was the last day of classes and we had a mini party in our TESL class. Somebody even brought a crock pot of vegetable soup. There was a ton of food and I felt a little bad that I didn't bring anything. However, seeing as there was a 15 pg paper due that class, I also think the people that did go to all the extra work of making something are a little crazy!

Tuesday was more fun because I got to hang out with Vanessa and Jocelyn at Starbucks in comfy chairs while I drank delicious Caramel Apple Cider. Okay, so we studied too, but I like to repress the negative memories and focus on the positive. :)

Wednesday was even more fun because I watched the final performance show of So You Think You Can Dance Canada (while studying of course), and then Vanessa came to study with me after.

Yesterday was one of the best days yet because I'm done school for the semester! And then Vanessa and I went to Costco (I don't have a card so almost never go) and had hot dogs for lunch! I'd never had a Costco hot dog before, and she was appalled because they are supposedly the best ever. I agree! Where else can you get a yummy hot dog and pop all for $2?? Good times all around. Then we came home and made a huge batch of Rolo cookies for church on Saturday. Vanessa loves Rolo cookies and was excited to make them for the first time :)

Then I started my many blog posts while she marked papers and later we went to see Four Christmases. It was so funny! I love Reese Witherspoon. And yay for movie theatre popcorn!! That's honestly one of the reasons we often go to movies :)

The reason that today is better than yesterday deserves its own post :)

Stay tuned for pictures and more posts!

Britney!

2008-12-04T15:03:00.003-08:00

My fun year of concerts and musicals just keeps on going! Britney Spears is coming to Vancouver in April and I'm going!! Haha, some of you might be shaking your head at me, but I think it'll be awesome!! I've always loved pop music, and Briney's early CDs are some of my faves. Sure, she may have hit a rough patch lately, but I still like her music!!

Already this year I've gone to Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion, plus a ton of musicals. I actually don't know how many shows it's been in total, so I'll do a quick count:

Mamma Mia!
Wicked
The Lion King
Rent
Grease
Hairspray
Spamalot
Spamalot again (I got half-price tickets if I went again!)
King Lear
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night again (yes, I like Shakespeare and yes, it was good enough to see twice!)
Cats
Backstreet Boys
Celine Dion

I think that's it. I'll be going to Guys and Dolls in a few weeks, and that'll be that last one for 20o8. I really want to see Beauty and the Beast this year too, so we'll see if that ends up being my first show of 2009!

Surprise birthday weekend

2008-12-04T14:34:00.006-08:00

I know I've been a horrid blogger for the past couple months, but you're about to be blown away by all my posts! There have actually been a lot of moments lately where I really wanted to post, but realized it was only because I really wanted to procrastinate my studying and essay writing. So I resisted for the good of my GPA :)

My birthday was last month, and I didn't really have anything planned and was going to hang out at home and keep it all pretty low key. However, Vanessa had a different idea! I kind of thought something might be up when I walked in while Kaeli was on Facebook and before she closed it down I saw that she was reading a message from Vanessa. I thought that was a bit strange since they really didn't have much to message about (or so I thought!) But I didn't mention anything. Then, a few days later Vanessa kind of mentioned that she needed to ask or tell me something, but didn't really want to. She ended up not telling me, which made me insanely curious! She loves surprises and is the best person I know at keeping secrets. I tried and tried to figure out what was going on but couldn't get it.

She had asked me months before hand to drive her to the airport on Nov. 7 because she was going to North Dakota for the long weekend. I said sure, and guilt-tripped her at every possible opportunity because she was going to be gone for my birthday. When I showed up at her house after work that day, she was all packed and ready to go. When I started driving, she said "Oh, by the way, my flight isn't until a lot later so we're going for dinner for your birthday first!" So that was really exciting! She kept telling me where to drive, and at one point I was wondering why we were going for dinner in Downtown Vancouver when the airport is in Richmond, but didn't really think too much about it. I don't really know Vancouver that well so I figured she had it all worked out. She kept giving me directions, and finally told me to pull into a driveway. I was so focused on traffic that I didn't notice where we were. Even when we had to pull all the way through and go around the block again because I couldn't park the first time I didn't clue in. We ended up being at the Delta Hotel, and when I still didn't really connect the dots, she finally said "We're staying here for the weekend!" I actually still didn't catch on until she said it again. I was completely in shock! She had me 110% convinced that she was going away for the weekend and I definitely didn't consider anything else. She and Kaeli had been coordinating everything, and for the whole week before, Kaeli had been sneaking into my room while I was away and taking things slowly so I wouldn't notice they were missing (my room is a disaster so I doubt I would have noticed even if she took half my wardrobe at once!). When we got to the hotel, Vanessa told me that there was a backpack in the trunk that was all packed, my mom was going to teach Sunday School for me (even the Children's pastor knew about this!), and everything else I could think of was arranged!! It was so awesome!

On the Friday night when we got there we went to Granville Island to the Improv Theatre Sports after dinner at the Keg. The Theatre Sports were so fun! We stayed for all 3 shows and the last one doesn't start until 11:45. I had worked that day so had been up since 4 and was fading a bit by the end, but still had so much fun!! On Saturday we went to the Aquarium becuase I had never been there (!) and had always wanted to. I love aquariums!! Okay, I'm not sure why I loved them so much before since I had never actually been to one, but I love the ocean and dolphins and sharks and stuff, so I figured I would love aquariums. I was right!!! We saw the dolphin show, the cute baby beluga that was born there in June, looked at the fun colourful fish, and just had a ton of fun!

Then we did a bit of shopping on Robson and ate caramel apples from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Yum!! AFter that we rented a couple movies, got pizza and Smirnoffs and hung out at the hotel :) We watched some super fun movies - 13 going on 30 and What Happens in Vegas. The next day was my birthday and we headed home in the morning.

My family bday dinner was that night and that is always a ton of fun :) One of the best parts is my mom's chocolate layer cake - 4 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate icing between them. So good!! So that was my birthday this year. Quite different than the quiet weekend I had been expecting but I'm quite okay with that!

Thank you Vanessa for planning such an amazingly fun weekend, and for being the best friend ever. I love the fun times we always have together, and appreciate your friendship more than I can say. Love you!

Kaeli, thanks for doing your part and keeping me in the dark about it all! As much as I tried to figure it out ahead of time, I really do love being surprised. You're the best youngest sister a girl could have, and I love you so much! :)

My mom the rock star

2008-12-01T17:09:00.003-08:00

Here's what happens when my mom decides she wants to play Rock Band...

(to hear what the song should actually sound like, click here. (it's a pretty cool video too...random, but cool!)

For Vanessa

2008-11-25T15:41:00.003-08:00

Okay, so I guess this post isn't just for Vanessa. I just figured that since she's probably one of the few people who still checks this even though I haven't updated in forever, she deserved a shout-out. Plus, she partially dedicated a recent post to me and she's been nagging me to do this :)

I have a bunch of stuff to post about, but for now I'll keep it short and sweet. The main thing I'm looking forward to is the 2 weeks I get off for Christmas. Since our office deals exclusively with schools, the whole office shuts down for Christmas break. That means it closes on December 19 and reopens on January 2!! All but 4 of those days are paid, which makes it even sweeter. Here's what I'm looking forward to having time to do once I'm on break from school and work:

hanging out with Kyra, Samantha, and Jayce
playing Nintendo
sleeping in
catching up on some TV shows
cleaning my room (which I've been meaning to do for months!)
whatever I feel like doing!

A beautiful fall day

2008-10-26T15:30:00.005-07:00

Today was one of those gorgeous sunny days that we've learned to take full advantage of. We sure don't get enough of those in fall in BC! We had a family brunch today and I had fun playing outside with Kyra and Samantha.

Watching Nana rake some leaves to play in

Samantha loved the leaf pile!
It was Kyra's naptime so she was a little cranky

Enjoying Nana's flowers

Here is a couple pictures that Tash got at Celine Dion's concert. Vanessa has some awesome ones on her blog, make sure you check them out!

In this bottom one if you look at the very left hand side next to the ramp you can see us! Okay, you can't really tell it's us, but that's where we are!

2008-10-22T14:23:00.002-07:00

Balcony tickets to Celine Dion's concert: $75
Dinner before the show: $20
Parking: $15
Getting a free upgrade to 2nd row floor seats: Priceless

3 more days!

2008-10-17T20:08:00.006-07:00

As excited as I am that the weekend is here, I'm even more excited for it to be over because on Monday we're going to Celine Dion! It's crazy to think that the concert is finally just around the corner. We bought the tickets last November, so it's been a loooong wait!

I've had fun the past month bugging one of my co-workers about the concert. He says he's Celine's biggest fan (and I don't doubt it!), but he's not going to the concert. So I've been counting down on Facebook and every day at work just to bug him :) He keeps saying he won't be able to talk to me for a week after the concert because I'll be so excited and make him jealous. I won't feel too bad though, because he did see her in Vegas. And he can't avoid me because his desk is next to mine :)

Work has been stressful this week, there's just a lot to learn. I'm trying to learn the territories of the the Sales Reps that I support, but I really don't know Ontario at all. It's hard to try and book appointments in a logical order when I really don't know the driving distance between towns. Mapquest has been my saviour this week :)

My supervisor keeps stats on our work every day and keeps track of how many calls we make and the number of appts we book. I ended up booking the most of all the assistants on Tuesday and Wednesday! That was a nice surprise since I feel like it's been a slow learning curve. It's good to know I'm doing alright! Yesterday was really frustrating, it seemed like nobody was available and I couldn't get any appts booked. Today I made up for it though with about 16 appts. We're supposed to aim for 12 a day, and my previous high was 9, so that felt good!

I haven't posted pics of the kids lately, so here are some new ones. Check out the video at the end!

Kyra loves her dolls. She kept trying to put these shoes on Baby Elizabeth and then would 'help' her walk like we help Samantha.

Cutie pie Sam. She's so active now, I have so much fun playing with her.

Okay, this picture is frustrating me. No matter what I do it posts sideways. Well, just tip your head sideways - it's worth it to see Jayce in all his cuteness.

I LOVE the outfit Sammi is wearing in this. So cute!

Poor Jayce getting some 'love' from Samantha.

The itsy bitsy spider....

This is one of my new favourite pictures:

This is one of Kyra's new favourite games. It pretty much involves me holding her and running to one end of the hallway, then waiting as Yvonne comes running towards us and tickles Kyra. I take off again almost as soon as Yvonne gets to us, and we pretty much run up and down the hall over and over. Sure gets tiring with a toddler in your arms! I love her laugh though, it makes it all worth it.

Yay!

2008-10-09T16:10:00.004-07:00

I've been officially hired permanently at Premier! I applies a couple months ago when I knew one of my co-workers was leaving, but didn't hear anything until a few weeks ago. It takes forever for them to get approval to hire new staff members because the authorization has to come from one of the highest levels of the company.
Anyway, it's been a 3 week process to finally get to this point, and I was getting a little anxious by the end of it all. They finally told me on Tuesday that I got the position. Almost immediately I moved all my stuff to a new desk, found out which of the Sales Consultants I'll be supporting, and started trainig. My job from now until about April or May (when the busy production season starts up again) will be to set appointments for two of the SCs to visit schools and get orders for the next school year. The 2 that I'm assissting are both in Ontario and are good guys to work with, so that'll be nice. I did more training today and actually set one appointment on my own! The whole process is kind of complicated, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
So I'm really excited about all that. Premier is such a fun place to work, and the people I work with are awesom.e. (There is one more job opening in my department if anyone knows of someone looking for a job)
Other exciting job related news - as of Tuesday, the early shift will be working at 6am instead of 5!! We're all pretty stoked to get an extra hour of sleep. I'll miss seeing the looks on people's faces when I tell them I wake up at 4 for work though! :)

Tomorrow Vanessa and I are going to see Cats. I've never really heard much about it but it should be good! Yay for musicals :)

Happy Friday!

2008-10-03T18:25:00.002-07:00

I'm so glad it's the weekend! It was kind of a long week at work so it's nice that it's done!

I started off my weekend my favourite way, spending the afternoon with Kyra, Samantha and Jayce. They all get cuter every time I see them! I put up new pictures of them at my desk at work today and they always make me smile :)

I don't really have much to post today, just wanted to share a few of my favourite school names from the week. It's been a while since I've had any because I'm not previewing anymore, but here are a few!

Otetiskewin Kiskinwamahtowekamik. Seriously? I would love to call the school just to hear if the secretary says the school name when she answers the phone!

Superior Middle School. A little full of themselves maybe?

And the winner of the week is....

Colonel Sanders Campus of Tradition!

What?! Colonel Sanders is the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy!! I wonder if there's a Ronald McDonald school out there somewhere!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

A bunch of stuff

2008-09-28T09:19:00.002-07:00

I guess I should start with an update on my job situation. I'm still at Premier as seasonal staff along with one other girl. There are 2 job openings for permanent positions that we've both applied for, and I'm pretty sure we'll both get them. One position is for the West and the other is the East, which only means that one is an early shift and the other is a normal 8-4:30. The jobs themselves are the same - appointment setting for 2 of the Sales Reps. We both kind of want the early one more, but I think I'll get that one since the supervisor for that team loves me :) She's been asking me since the day I came back this summer if I would be staying permanently, so she's really excited that it works out with my school schedule to stay on full time.

Last night Kaeli and I saw Twelfth Night at Bard on the Beach. I think I've mentioned it before - it's a 5 month Shakespeare festival that takes place every summer in Vancouver. They set up tents in Vanier Park right on the water and put on 4 plays a year. I'd already seen Twelfth Night this year, and I've also seen King Lear. Twelfth Night was a lot of fun, and really well done. Last night was the festival's closing night, so the founder/Artistic Director announced next years shows. They'll be doing Othello, All's Well that Ends Well, A Comedy of Errors, and Richard II. Should be good! Every year I say I want to see all 4 shows but never get around to it. Maybe next year!

If anyone's looking for a really good movie to see, I definitely recommend Nights in Rodanthe. I saw it on Friday and loved it! I'll leave it at that so I don't give anything away!

I've been looking forward to today for a couple weeks. The Amazing Race starts tonight, and that's one of my favourite shows. So fun!! I'm also going to see Rent this afternoon!!! Rent officially closed on Broadway on September 7 (so sad!), and I was thinking that I really wanted to see it again live. It was such a dream come true to see it when I was in NY in July. Then I found out that the final Broadway performance was filmed and they're showing it in select theaters across North America. I checked it out, and one of the theaters is in Langley! So today I'm going with Yvonne, Tasha, Kaeli, Vanessa, and a couple friends to see it!!
I also found out that Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, the actors who originated the roles of Mark and Roger on Broadway will be touring with the show next year. The closest they'll come to here is Seattle, but it's definitely tempting to drive down and see it.

Speaking of musicals, there are a few coming up that I'm excited about. In a couple weeks Vanessa and I are going to see Cats, Hairspray will be here in November, Beauty and the Beast is coming for the Christmas season again, Les Miserable is playing in May (okay, that one's still a ways away), and probably a couple others that I've forgotten. Fun times!!

I need help finding a Halloween costume for this year. Everyone at the office dresses up and goes all out, so I want to find something really good! I was already done at Premier last halloween but saw the pictures they took. Any suggestions? I've always wanted to be the Phantom of the Opera but would need to rent a costume for that. Something really unique and fun would be awesome so if you have any ideas let me know!!

a new post!

2008-09-11T18:52:00.006-07:00

I can tell it's been a while since I blogged when I have to read my blog to see what I said last time!

I've been really tired lately. I think it must just be the extra stress at work the past few weeks since I've been working the 5am shift for 6 months and this is the first time it's really affected me. Things have definitely slowed down now at work which is really nice. Next week will be a little strange because all the permanent staff from our office, the Quebec office, and all the Sales Reps from across Canada are coming to Abbotsford for a conference. They'll be in training and seminars for 3 days next week, so it'll really only be another summer employee and myself working in the office. The receptionist will be there except for Tuesday morning, so that'll be one less thing for me to take care of. At the height of our production season we have about 40 people in the office, so cutting that down to 3 is going to feel so weird!!!

There are a lot of big changes coming at work in the next few weeks. Premier is a School Specialty Company, which means they own us I guess. There are about 6 or 7 School Specialty (SSC) employees working in the call center which is in our office. They help customers by phone like we do, but it's a completely different type of product. They sell things like sports equipment and school supplies. Anyway, we have a new General Manager and his goal is to see Premier and SSC become more of a cohesive unit. This means that in our office, they'll be coming up with a new floor plan and rearranging where everyone sits to make everything more connected. Right now the office is sort of sectioned off, with the West customer service, East customer service, and SSC having their own sections. It works really well when we need to ask each other questions and know what's going on in our departments. A lot of people are a little worried about this new plan because it's so different, but the powers that be have decided this will be good for the company, so we'll see. Next week all our computers are being switched from Macs to PCs, a first step in blending everyone. In about a year, Premier will have a new database system to learn and use, so I guess this is the first stage in that process. Some people aren't happy about switching computers, but I personally love it! I have never liked using Macs. People always said that once I used one I would be hooked and never go back. Well, in my 10 months with Premier I have used nothing but a Mac and can honestly say I still definitely prefer a PC. So this is one change I'm happy about!

Last Thursday Vanessa and I went to the Backstreet Boys concert in Vancouver. It was so fun!! I'm not afraid to admit that I still love the BSB and was so excited to see them live again. Lisa and I went 3 years ago when they were here and I knew I would go again if I had the chance. This concert was awesome because they sang more of their older songs. Such a great show!!! I could have done without Girlicious opening for them, but whatever. It was a really fun night :)

In a couple weeks Kaeli and I are going to see Twelfth Night at Bard on the Beach. I saw it with Vanessa and her friends a couple months ago and loved it, so this time I'm going with Kaeli. It's one of the best Bard on the Beach I've seen I think. Really funny! It's also the play that She's the Man is based on, which is one of my and Kaeli's favourite movies.

I started school again last week. That really feels strange!! I'm taking Foundations in Teaching English as a Second Language and Human Geography. They're both really interesting, but it's hard taking afternoon/evening classes when I work the early shift. By the time my 4:00 class starts I've been awake for 12 hours and worked a full day. On Mondays I have class until 9:30, which is about an hour past my normal bedtime. Makes for a long day on Tuesdays, but I keep telling myself that it's just for a few months so it's not so bad.

It's been fun to watch 90210 the past couple weeks. I watched the original series back in the day so it's crazy to see this new spin-off. I'm really excited for the Amazing Race to start again in a couple weeks. It's my favourite reality TV show. Speaking of reality tv, does anyone besides Tamara and Yvonne watch Big Brother? It's almost the end of the season, and I have to say that I'm pretty ticked that Keesha was voted out and Jerry made it to the final 3. Seriously, a 75 year old man who left his wife at home when she has Parkinsons so he can play on a reality tv show did not deserve to make it that far. Now I'm cheering for Memphis I think. Dan's played smart, but I don't like his ego. Memphis has a better attitude and has still played a good game. Sorry for those of you that don't watch or like reality tv. That's my rant for the day!!

Kyra hung out at the farm on Saturday and since it was a nice day and the Apple Barn is open again, my mom and I took her there. She had fun seeing the goats, bunnies, pigs, sheep, and horses. The donkey totally freaked her out though. It was kind of funny. I think he was just so much bigger than the other animals in the petting zoo so she wasn't really expecting that. Here are some pics from the day!

The first time through she was a little unsure about being close to strange animals, but she did pretty good.

She got to go inside the enclosure that had about 6 bunnies in it.

Up close and personal with a goat

another goat

Taking a break from the animals to play in the playground

Kyra and I on the hayride

She wanted to sit by herself like a big girl and loved it!

Helping Nana pick apples in the U-pick orchard

She loves to help!

Second time through the petting zoo while Nana was paying for the apples. She had more fun the second time. Here she is saying hi to the pigs.

The bunnies were definitely her favourite

Work, blog, and Big Brother

2008-08-28T19:39:00.004-07:00

This week at work has been so crazy busy. The last week of August is when 80% of our agendas get delivered, and 80% of 3.5 million is....a lot! So of course everyone calls in to see when their books are coming, where their missing box is, let us know that something is wrong with the agendas, or order more. Most people are pretty pleasant, it's mostly school secretaries, but there are some nasty people out there! One of my co-workers got yelled at last week. This secretary was awful, swearing and saying all sorts of horrible things. My co-worker ended passed the call on to the supervisor and just ended up crying because it's just so hard to take that, no matter how long you've been at a job. I still think that working in customer service should be mandatory for everyone at some point in their lives so they can get an understanding of what we go through. We're people too! The lack of respect some people have just astounds me.
I still cover for the receptionist for 4 hours of my shift, so I really only have about 3 hours to actually take calls and help people. I looked over my book of notes from the past 4 days and have helped 84 people. That works out to 21 per day, or 7 per hour. I think that's something like 8.5 minutes per call. We seriously take notes like mad while talking to people, because as soon as we hang up another call comes through and off we go again. A couple hours later when we finally get a break, it's hard to remember what everyone needed!
Okay, done venting.

Summer seems to be officially done here in Abbotsford, and I couldn't be more bummed about it. I seriously never get enough summer. It's what I live for!

There's a possibility that I could be staying on at Premier permanently. Well, I have to formally apply and whatever, but my supervisor really wants me to stay. Right now there's an opening in the West region, but I would rather work for the East. If everything works out, one of the Sales Assistants in the East will be getting a promotion in a couple weeks, so then her position will open up. We'll see I guess!!

I subscribed to my own blog through bloglines so I could see how many people read my blog through there. It's a total of 3 people subscribed, and one of those is me! Seriously folks, it's so worth it!!
I've considered doing what Vanessa normally does, and not doing a new post until I get at least 2 comments on my current one, but decided not to. I do love comments though. They're so fun!

Tonight is Double Eviction night on Big Brother, so I have to run so I don't miss it. I love that show! And I'm so excited that Survivor starts again soon :) I know, I'm a dork.

Picture time!

2008-08-17T10:51:00.007-07:00

I have a bunch of pictures from the past month, but don't feel like doing seperate posts for them so here they are!

Kim and Daniel were married almost a month ago, July 19. I had so much fun hanging out with Kim and the bridal party the day before the wedding, and the ceremony itself was beautiful! So perfect. The reception was a lot of fun too, I always love hanging out with my crazy fun family. Kim and Daniel both looked amazing. Love you guys!

A while ago I posted about Kaeli and I seeing Spamalot. Well, a couple weeks later I got an email from Ticketmaster saying that if I wanted to see it again I could go for half price! I couldn't pass that up! I knew a couple people I work with love musicals too, and a friend of mine had said she wanted to see it. I let them all know that I could get them half price tickets and off we went! It was going to be 6 of us, but only 3 ended up going. I had even more fun the second time around :) Here I am being a taunting French knight.

Every other week in summer we have a BBQ at work. We're put into teams of about 6 people and are assinged one of the weeks. There is usually a fun theme and everyone in the office gets to hang out and have fun together. My team had our turn on Aug.7 and had a bit of a hard time coming up with a theme since the typical ones like Pool Party, Fiesta, and Greek were already done. We finally decided to have a Slumber party! We got permission from the office manager to have a pajama day, so that was so fun :) With people on holidays that week, our team was actually only 3 people, and none of us know how to BBQ so ended up just doing subs. We called it a Slum-bar party, with a sandwich bar, salad bar, beverage bar where people could make milkshakes, and a candy bar, with a ton of candy to choose from. I think it was a hit! Everyone loved our decorations and the fun theme :) I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are two of my super fun co-workers, Lisa and Lori.

Yvonne was over with the kids on Friday, escaping the crazy heat in our nice air conditioning. At one point Kyra was down in my room with me while I was at my computer. She picked up my brush and started 'brushing' my hair, telling me how pretty I looked. She always loves taking out my hair elastic and trying to re-do my ponytail. So I decided to give her some! She looked so cute! It's always hard to get her to sit still long enough for a good picture, but I think you can get the idea from these.

Yesterday the boys and I took care of spent part of the day here. I babysat all day and Yvonne came with her kids for a bit too. This first picture makes it look like Nathan is such a serious little guy, but he really isn't!
At one point I had Kyra, Sam and Nathan outside by myself. Kyra and Nathan are just 6 weeks apart and Sam is 8 months older than Kyra, so I had a sudden glimpse into what it would be like to have triplets. Scary! So fun though :)
I took about 6 pictures of these two trying to get Kyra to smile. I kept saying "Say cheese" and Nathan had the biggest smiles and kept saying cheese, but Kyra was too distracted I think. I got a ton of cute Nathan pictures though!
Snack time!

Warehouse goblins

2008-08-14T19:22:00.006-07:00

I signed up for a blog tracker to see how many people visit my blog in a day. Right now I'm averaging about 19/day, and about 3 of those people ever comment :) Anyway, that's why I'm posting tonight. I felt guilty that people check every day and don't see anything new! Oh, and while I remember, anyone who checks a list of blogs every day should sign up with Bloglines. It's amazing! All you do is create an account, subscribe to all the blogs you read, and then every time you sign into Bloglines, it tells you which of those blogs have been updated. It totally cut down on the amount of time it took me to check blogs every day! Seriously, check it out.

For the past 2 weeks I've been working out in our warehouse at Premier. We've been using the building behind the office as storage, but we only have the building leased through September, so all the stuff we have there has to be organized and either somehow put in the office or moved to an off-site storage facility. My supervisor put me in charge of it and I had one other girl helping me. I couldn't believe how much there was to do! We have so much random office stuff there that we had no idea what to do with. A big part of the job was just organizing the skids of stuff into some sort of system. We also un-coiled a lot of agendas so the paper could be recycled and the covers and coils could be thrown out.

Yesterday we started organizing and labelling the approximately 475 boxes of customer files, accounting records, and payroll information. That is a HUGE job!! We had to unload the skid, label and record what was in each box, and reload them all again. It sounds like an awful job, but my friend Lori and I had a blast! We've worked together all summer in the same department, but since we don't sit near each other we never really had a chance to talk. Well, I can safely say that I learned more about her in the past 2 weeks than I know about the girl I sat next to for 5 months. We had a lot of fun laughing and making every little job exciting and fun. :) Today was her last day at Premier because she's starting the LPN course at UFV, so that was sad. I'm really going to miss her! Oh, and one of our other co-workers started calling us the warehouse goblins since we spent so much time in there, in case you were wondering about the title.

Tomorrow I start being trained on the phones for the delivery and problem season. Schools are starting to get their agendas now, so I'll be one of the people on the phones fixing all the problems that occur. You wouldn't believe how many agendas get printed upside-down, backwards, with the wrong content...you name it, it happens! It might get stressful, but it'll be nice to be busy again.

In 3 weeks The Backstreet Boys are coming back to Vancouver and I'm going again! Lisa and I went when they were here a few years ago and I had so much fun. I knew that if they came again I would definitely go. I'm pretty pumped for that. And a month and a half after that is Celine Dion!! We got our tickets last November, so it feels a little crazy that the concert is almost here! So excited :)

I'll leave you with some cute kid pictures from the past couple weeks. Some are from our Loewen family waffle party last Monday and others from our family dinner this week.

Ethan enjoying our new playground set

Sandbox!

Cutie pie Myra

Can you tell Kyra loves swimming?

Samantha and Auntie Tasha

I still can't believe how big Sammi is getting. 7 months already?

Rosanna and Jayce

More Sammi :)

Samantha and Jayce

Lately Sam seems to stop smiling as soon as I pull out the camera. I was trying to get a cute picture!

Cuddles with Auntie Lisa

My favourite girls :)

Hello New York!!

2008-08-01T22:14:00.011-07:00

Okay, I know it's a couple weeks later than promised, but here's our New York portion of the trip! Be prepared, it's a long one, and jam packed with pictures!!Excited to be on our way to NY!

We landed in New York at about 9:30 on Thursday. It took about an hour to get to the hotel, so it was around 11 when we finally got there. Our hotel was half a block from Times Square, and I think the moment the van turned a corner and we got our first glimpse of Times Square is something I'll never forget! I don't think I can even begin to describe all the thoughts and emotions going through me. The scene was one that I've seen on TV and in movies, but to experience it for real is just insane. It was almost like culture shock, so totally different than anything I'd ever experienced. It was loud, bright, overwhelming, crazy, and just amazing. I think my senses were definitely overloaded. We checked into our hotel and set off to explore the Big Apple! We asked the shuttle driver if it was safe to walk around at night and he just laughed and said that wherever we walked there would be a million people walking with us. Definitely nothing to worry about! We just wandered around the area taking it all in and planning to take more time to really explore it over the next few days.

People everywhere!

Oh yes, the great chicken fun of the trip! Remember the massive plate of wings we had in Chicago? Well, we thought we'd learned our lesson so when we went our for wings in NY we asked the waitress how many came in the half platter. She said 6, so we decided to share the full platter. Huge mistake! Turns out at the Dallas BBQ the wings are MASSIVE! We lauged so hard when we saw the plate. There was no way we could have eaten all that! We just thought it was hilarious that we even asked how many there were so we wouldn't order too many.

We made a valient effort, but didn't quite finish. We did feel slightly ill afterwards though.

On Friday morning we took the subway to catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. It was my first time ever taking the subway and I loved it!! We ended up catching a train heading the wrong direction a couple times, but always found our way to where we wanted to go. I think subways are a great way to keep traffic off the way, and could be a fairly relaxing way to get to work. So fun! We got to the South Ferry stop and went to get our ferry tickets. Little note to anyone planning to go to NY - buy tickets in advance! We got there at around 11:30 and the next sailing available was at 1:30. So we stood in line for an couple hours in the hot sun, just hanging out. I got pretty sunburnt actually, which wasn't so fun, but I think it was worth it! We rode the ferry to Libery Island, which is where the Statue of Liberty is. The tickets to actually go inside the Statue were sold out for that day, so we decided not to get off the ferry, especially since we would have had to wait in line again to get back on. It was amazing to see it up close. I have to admit that when we were planning our trip, this was definitely not something I considered to be a priority. But, I realized that it's a huge part of NYC so missing out on it would probably be something I'd regret later. I'm so glad we went! Even though we just sailed by on the ferry, it was a cool experience. The ferry also goes to Ellis Island, which was where all the immigrants had to stop before actually being allowed into the States. We also didn't get off there, just stayed on the ferry.

Part of the line stretching behind us

Part of the line ahead of us

When we got back to the mainland we walked to the World Trade Center site. It was interesting to be face-to-face with everything and actually experience it as an acual event, not just something for the history books. We also went to St. Paul's Chapel, which was a very active site for volunteer reliefe after 9/11. It was fascniating to wander around there and read the letters people sent to the workers, look at pictures, and just experience it on a more personal level.

That evening we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner - my first time ever! Very cool restaurant. From there we saw our first show on Broadway - The Lion King!! It was so amazingly well done. They used masks and puppets to bring the characters to life, and they did it so well! Sitting there and seeing rhinos, elephants, birds, giraffes and zebras make their way down the aisles was so cool! The creativity it took to make it all happen is just extraordinary!

Vanessa loves taking pictures, and takes amazing ones, and something that was high on her to-do list was to take night pictures of the city from the Empire State Building. We walked there after the show, and were lucky enough to have a beautiful, clear night. She got some really great shots! It was crazy to walk around the outdoor observatory and look over the lights of the city. The size of NYC is just mind boggling!

Here I am at the top of the Empire State Building

When we were ready to head back, we decided to take a pedi-cab. We had no idea it would become the most terrifying 10 minutes of the trip! Our driver just booked it through the streets, weaving in and out of people and cars like he owned the streets. When I saw a red light at the intersections we were coming to, I was relieved that he'd have to stop for a bit. Nope, he just kept flying through! I honestly didn't think we'd survive it!! So crazy, but we laughed about it a lot.

Here we are smiling, before we realized how scary it would be

Our crazy bike taxi driver

Saturday was our main Broadway day, with Grease in the afternoon and Rent in the evening. We spent the morning doing a bit of shopping, exploring the fun souvenir shops and taking in more of Times Square. They have a 3-story Toys 'R Us store with a ferris wheel in it! And the M&Ms store is huge, full of everything you can think of, from aprons and oven mitts to onesies and hats. Fun fun!! There were more cool stores, but it's late and I'm blanking out here.

One of the many walls of M&Ms

Grease was a lot of fun to see live. Last year I watched the TV show "Grease: You're the one that I want". It was an American Idol-type show to find the next Danny and Sandy to star in the Broadway revival of Grease. The 2 that won were the ones that I loved, so seeing them live was very fun! They did an amazing job, the whole cast did. Such a fun musical! We thought it was quite pathetic how much attention and praise Taylor Hicks (past American Idol winner) got for his role as Teen Angel. It was pretty lame.

After the show we went to the Olive Garden for dinner. There was a 45 minute wait, and we weren't sure if we'd make it to our next show in time, but figured we'd give it a shot. We were standing around waiting for maybe 10 minutes when all of a sudden a nearby waiter asked us if we wanted a table that he had just cleared! We weren't going to pass that up! We had some good laughs over that, and if we hadn't been so hungry we probably would have felt kind of bad for all the people who were there before us and were still waiting.

Next came probably my favourite part of the trip - Rent! My top three favourite musicals are Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and Wicked. Phantom has always held the #1 spot, but it was a toss-up between the other two. Now that I've seen them both live, I have to say that as amazing as Wicked was, Rent was the definite winner. It was just incredible to see. I love the real emotion that is portrayed, and the real life situations. It is high on my list of musicals that I would see again in a heartbeat. I just can't describe what it is that draws me to it.
I remember last year when I heard it's run on Broadway was ending June 2008 I was really sad because I knew I would never get to see it in it's original theater. It has been at the Nederlander since 1996. When we started planning, I found out the the run has been extended to September of this year. I was so excited to have this amazing chance to experience it in it's original setting. So awesome.

I just had to get a picture at the Majestic Theater, home of the longest running musical on Broadway!

On Sunday we walked down Fifth Avenue and to Rockefeller Center. That was a cool area. We went to the Nintendo store, which I loved! I'm a huge Nintendo fan. We discovered there that Rock Band for Wii is out in the States, so it'll be out here eventually too! Very exciting :)

Luigi has always been my favourite character

We also went to Central Park and rented bikes there. We spent a couple hours biking around the park and enjoying the scenery. It was crazy to go down to the subway in the middle of Times Square and come up just a couple blocks from a beautiful park. This was our last planned day of the trip. We headed to the airport and hung around there for a while until we could board. That's when the whole ordeal with the cancelled flight started. It was a little crazy at first, but I didn't really mind too much. I just go with the flow!

One of my faves. Vanessa takes amazing pictures

The trip was over too fast. I will definitely go back someday!

I think I'll end there because I'm fading fast and don't want to ramble endlessly. Plus, I think I'm running out of adjectives to describe everything! Kudos to you for finishing!

The adorable faces of Jayce

2008-07-28T19:23:00.003-07:00

My favourite kind of day

2008-07-25T18:22:00.002-07:00

We're into our slow couple weeks at work so my manager asked us all to take a day off here and there. Today was my day! Kyra's been hanging out at our house for the past couple days and it's been so fun! Today everyone else was working so I got to have some awesome Chrystal and Kyra time :) I just love how happy she is, from the moment she wakes up to the time she goes to sleep again! We hung out here for a couple hours and then headed over to spend a bit of time with Yvonne, Eric, and Jayce. She was so full of energy, we just couldn't believe it! I think it must have been a mixture of normal energy, excitement over being home, happy to see mommy and daddy, and getting to see Samantha! Lisa and Sammi came up for a bit so Kyra had a captive audience for all her antics. So funny!

Kyra and I went to the library for a bit after that, and as we were walking through the parking lot, I realized that it felt so strange to be doing normal errands in the middle of the day. I haven't had a normal weekend at home for a few weeks, so this felt great!

Now I plan to spend my evening doing pretty much nothing! As much as I love the travelling that I've done lately, I also love just sitting at home doing my own thing. It's a great balance I think! So, unless a better offer comes along (hanging out with Kyra, Samantha, or Jayce would be the only thing I can think of), I'm looking forward to relaxing :)

I still need to post about:
*New York
*Kim's wedding
*More on my Wonderful Month of Musicals :)

I'm in love...

2008-07-24T15:43:00.002-07:00

...with my adorable nephew, Jayce Carter Gronau!!

I was SO excited yesterday to get the call that Yvonne was in labour and I would soon meet my newest niece or nephew! I found out at 11am, so the whole rest of my work day was completely shot! I was literally bouncing and couldn't contain my excitement :) Thankfully I was off at 1:30 so I could head over and meet him when he was just under an hour old! He is so perfect, and I cried holding him for the first time. The tears were a mix of happiness, relief, excitement, thankfulness...I can't believe we have another boy in the family!! He was 7lbs 14oz, so just bigger than Kyra, but I honestly can't remember Kyra being so tiny! It's amazing how fast they grow and how fast you forget. Okay, enough gushing. Here are a few pictures!

Chicago

2008-07-21T16:11:00.006-07:00

I finally have time to sit down and blog all about my travels! I've been home for a week and I've been so busy, it just flew by! I had the most amazing time on my trip! It completely exceeded my expectations and definitely gave me another bite from the travel bug.

We started off at about 2:45 Wednesday morning. We were crazy excited the night before so didn't really get much sleep, but it was worth it. I never manage to sleep on flights, so I was a little worried that I would just crash when we finally landed. That definitely did not happen! When we landed in Chicago at about 12:30 I was so jazzed and ready to go, I couldn't even believe it. We checked into the hotel and set off to explore the city! It was great to be at a hotel that was within walking distance to everywhere we went! I think we spent a good portion of our time exploring Michigan Ave, or The Magnificent Mile. We're not really shoppers, but it was fun to see all the stores and have a different variety than we have here at home.

One of our first stops was the Hershey's store. It was jam packed with chocolate and all sorts of souvenirs. Vanessa liked making me jump for joy while she took pictures. I eventually had to give up on finding a moment when nobody would walk by and see me. There were just too many people!

5 lbs of chocolate in one convenient bar! As much as I love chocolate, I don't think I could have attempted that!

One very cool moment for me was going to the American Girl Place. My sisters and childhood best friend all collected American Girls when we were kids, so this was really exciting. I actually still have the dolls that I got as a kid, and I think I always will. They're a huge part of my childhool. The two that I collected were Kirsten and Samantha. It's kind of fun now that I have a niece named Samantha :) I have to admit that it was a little sad to see that they've changed things a bit and they aren't exactly the way I remember them, but still so fun!

One of our next stops was the John Hancock Center. We took the 45 second elevator ride up to the 94th floor. The building is 100 stories and 1,127 feet high! I'm pretty scared of heights so I was impressed with myself for going up and actually looking straight down over Chicago

The view of Lake Michigan from the observatory was amazing! It was my first time seeing one of the Great Lakes, and even now when I look at this picture I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that it's a lake, not the ocean. Living on the coast, when I see water to the horizon I automatically think ocean. Crazy!

View of Navy Pier from the observatory. We wandered through there the next day. Pretty cool!

As much fun as everything was that day, the thing I looked forward to most was seeing Wicked. I mentioned before that it's one of my top 3 favourite musicals. Seeing it was just spectacular! It was so funny and emotional and fun, and the music is so amazingly well done! Definitely a highlight!

The next morning we took an hour and a half long architectural boat tour. They took us along the Chicago River, pointing out different buildings and explaining why they were built in the style they were, the motivation behind the building itself, and other fascinating bits of Chicago's history. Okay, I love history so I found it fascinating! Hahaha.

I had always heard about Chicago's famous deep-dish pizza so just had to try it. Oh my goodness, it was the best pizza ever! It's like a little pie with cheese and topping melted in it and sauce on top. I would love to find somewhere around here that makes it!

So good!!

One really fun moment for me was seeing the Drake Hotel. Vanessa pointed it out and mentioned that she'd heard of it in a movie or something. It took me a second, but all of a sudden I realized that it's mentioned in my favourite movie ever! In Mission Impossible near the beginning of the movie they discuss one of the main characters having stayed there. I got all excited and practically quoted the entire scene, only to have Vanessa say that she didn't think that was the movie she was thinking of! Haha, I guess I'm a little more obsessed than I realized!
After we saw Wicked we went to the restaurant at the hotel for a light meal...or so we thought! We decided to share a platter of chicken wings, not having any clue that it would be the hugest plate of wings we had ever seen! We laughed so hard when we saw the massive amount of chicken that we were supposed to eat. I have to say they were some of the best wings I've had, so we managed to eat quite a few of the 2-lb pile! We laughed about it all night, saying that we definitely learned our lesson about the serving sizes in the States. Apparantely that lesson didn't stick too well, but I'll explaing that in my New York post!

My first TGIFriday's meal! Good food :) I think this was also our first Chicago meal...?

Random exciting picture for me :)

Wow, I can't believe I actually finished that! Hopefully it wasn't too long for you all! The New York one will be longer, so brace yourself! I think I'll attempt that tomorrow.

New York trip, Day....6?

2008-07-13T21:41:00.002-07:00

We are now into Day 6 of our 5 day vacation! Our vacation has been extended, but not really by choice! We were on the plane this evening ready to head back home when the pilot announced that since the winds changed direction, all the planes had to take off from a different set of runways. This wouldn't have been too big a problem, but it turns out there were about 25 planes ahead of us waiting to take off too!! We sat on the plane for a couple hours, only to find out that Northwest Airlines decided to forget about the whole mess and just cancel the flight! So then there was a mad scramble while everyone tried to find a different flight to take. We managed to book onto the same flight for Monday night, so we'll be home on Monday at 11 instead of Sunday at 11. So now we're stranded in New York City for an extra day! Fun times!!

I'll have a real update probably on Tuesday, with a lot of pictures! The trip has been so fun, completely beyond my expectations. I've never had such a busy, crazy, fun, exciting 5 days! I'm ready to go home though I think, and rest for a few days before heading off to Kim's wedding on Saturday!! Yippee!! Adios for now!

T minus 10 hours

2008-07-08T20:18:00.004-07:00

Somebody pinch me. Is this really happening? 10 hours from now I'll be sitting on a plane bound for Chicago! It's only been a few weeks since we started planning this, and yet the time just seemed to drag. I can't believe this day finally came. I think I've got everything packed..I'm so crazy when it comes to packing. I totally stress myself out and think I've forgotten the most important thing that I simply can't function without.

We're flying with Air Canada tomorrow, and I was a bit worried about the luggage situation since I've heard they often lose bags, but then I realized there are worse things than ending up in New York with no clothes...especially when your hotel is 2 blocks from the all the shopping on 5th Avenue.

Today at work I felt like I didn't get anything accomplished. I was just too excited! My co-workers kept talking to me about it, asking when I was leaving, telling me how much fun I was going to have, and the more we talked the more excited I got. I'm glad my manager had me working on a project today that didn't take a lot of concentration.

This week we hit another one of our goals at work so we got a reward! The first one we had this year was a 20 minute shiatsu massage, then we had a pizza lunch, and this time they brought in a couple ladies to give us all complete pedicures and manicures! I got to go yesterday morning and enjoy my hour and a half long treatment! It was so wonderful :) Today they got approval from my manager to do Henna as well, so at the end of the day I went up for mine. I love it! They say it should last at least a week, and I left mine on really long before peeling it off so hopefully it'll be around longer. Have I said lately that I love my job? Wait til you hear what we're doing at the end of July! (Kim, if you see this, you can see the corner of the dress I bought for the wedding in the background.)

Okay, I'm way too excited to sit here any longer. I'll be blogging with pictures of the Windy City and the Big Apple on Monday (hopefully)! Have a wonderful week everyone...I know I will!

Spamalot!

2008-07-05T19:46:00.003-07:00

Today Kaeli and I saw Spamalot in Vancouver. For those of you who don't know, Spamalot is the musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's one of our favourite movies and we quote it all the time. One of our favourite things is to see how often lines from the movie apply to every-day life. We can almost quote entire scenes. So funny! Good times all around. The musical was just as good as the movie, just with singing!

Spamalot sort of makes fun of musicals in general, which was so funny. They incorporated 2 of my favourites, Phantom of the Opera and Fiddler on the Roof. Anyone living in the area who likes musicals and Monty Python, definitely see this. It'll be in Vancouver for most of July I think.

Last night my mom, Kaeli and I saw Kit Kittridge: An American Girl. My sisters and I all loved and collected American Girl dolls when we were young, so this was a lot of fun to see, even if Kit wasn't one of the original 5 dolls. Very cute movie.

This morning the boys that I took care of came to play at the farm for a couple hours. I thought they would love Mocha and have so much fun with him, since they have a dog that they like playing with, but Sam was so scared of him! It was too bad, but once we put Mocha back in the barn Sam finally had fun playing. Kyra came over too, and Samantha was there for a little bit too. I love watching them run all over the yard trying to do everything at once and not miss anything. I miss those boys so much, and I loved seeing them again.

Tomorrow my plan is to finish laundry and try to organize what I want to pack for my trip. I can't believe I leave in just over 3 days! So crazy!

3.5 days until Chicago

5 days until New York

14 days until Kim and Daniel's wedding

24 days until Baby Gronau is due

A week of firsts

2008-07-02T16:52:00.003-07:00

This past week has been busy and fun...

It was the first time I went to a Japanese restaurant. It was an interesting meal of food I can't pronounce! I'm not an adventurous eater, so I'm actually pretty proud of myself for branching out a little.

That was also the first time I ate an entire meal with chopsticks. I've never really used them before, and it was pretty fun to eat everything from chicken to rice with them.

On Monday night I went to the Drive-In theater for the first time. Vanessa, Lindie and I packed up her brother's pickup truck and went to see all three movies that were playing, Wall-E, Prince Caspian, and Step Up 2. It was so much fun! I definitely want to go back. The first movie started at 9:45, so by the time all 3 finished and I got back home it was 5am. Crazy! I can't remember the last time I stayed up all night. I slept through most of Prince Caspian since I've seen it twice, but otherwise I was actually pretty awake! We missed probably half of Wall-E because of vehicle issues.

It was the first time I've had to call my wonderful mechanic brother-in-law to come 'rescue' me. When Vanessa started driving the truck, she thought it felt funny, and we heard strange noises. We thought maybe the park brake was on, so she tried pushing it in to release it. Turns out it wasn't on, but the put it on by doing that, and the release is broken. Of course, we didn't realize that until we were halfway down the narrow driveway with no way of moving the massive truck we were in. I called Eric to see if there was anything we could do, and he heroically came to manually release it for us. Thanks again Eric!

I also played Rock Band for the first time this past week. So fun!! I have Guitar Hero for Wii and totally love it, but playing drums is a lot of fun too. It's fun to play shows and get fans (or lose them if you get booed off stage) and form a band with friends.

On Monday I got a bug bite on my foot, probably when we were loading up the truck for the drive-in, and now my foot is really swollen. It's kind of hard to walk and move my foot, but it's not too painful so that's nice. I went to the clinic this afternoon because everyone at work seemed really worried and kept telling me I should get it checked out. The doctor said it isn't infected, it's probably just a delayed allergic reaction. I have no idea what bit me but it must not have been a mosquito because I have those bites all over and none of them are swelling. Hopefully it'll go down soon and I won't be limping around the office all week.

One more week until I leave!!! I honestly still can't believe it. I keep adding to my list of things to pack and do before then, and when I stop to think of how little time I really have to do it, it's just crazy. Speaking of which, I desperately need to do some laundry. Here's my updated countdown!

3 days until Spamalot
7 days until Chicago
8 days until New York
17 days until Kim and Daniel's wedding
26 days until Baby Gronau is due (if you haven't yet, check out Yvonne's blog for a baby poll)

Finally!

2008-06-29T15:04:00.002-07:00

Summer has finally arrived in Abbotsford! The weather really has been lousy this month. The newpapers call it Junuary!

Yesterday Yvonne, Kyra and I went to Aldergrove Lake. It was so fun! It was Kyra's first time playing in the sand and really enjoying the lake, which was so fun to watch. She didn't care at all that the water was cold, she just walked right in as far as she could. I had fun throwing her up and catching her as she went back in the water. Sam and Nathan ended up being there too, which was awesome. I've missed those boys so much since I stopped taking care of them. Sam loved the water, but Nathan didn't like it at all, so he sat on the blanket watching while I played with Sam and Kyra. Silly boy.

Today I'm heading into Vancouver to see Twelfth Night at Bard on the Beach. I saw King Lear a week ago, so I'm looking forward to seeing this one. Seeing Shakespeare performed live is always good times!

I'm excited to only have 4 days of work this week. We've been so crazy busy the last couple weeks. I've been authorized to work 6 hours of overtime a week, and last week I did all 6, but the 2 weeks before that my manager asked me to come in on Saturday to get a bunch of work done so we can get more agendas processed sooner. So I've worked some 10 and 11 hour days to get as much done as I can. It's kind of nice starting at 5 when i do overtime, because I can work 2 hours OT and still be done by 3:30. Pretty sweet!

Updated countdown:
6 days to Spamalot
10 days until Chicago
11 days until New York
20 days until Kim and Daniel's wedding
29 days until Baby Gronau is due

Countdowns

2008-06-24T21:18:00.002-07:00

I have a lot of fun and exciting stuff coming up in the next little while. Here's my countdown to fun, everything big and small, in the next 34 days!

17ish hours until Vanessa and I watch the next Indiana Jones movie
11 days until Kaeli and I go to Vancouver to see Spamalot
15 days until Vanessa and I leave for Chicago and see Wicked
16 days until we leave for New York
17 days until we see The Lion King
18 days until we see Rent
24 days until I fly to Saskatchewan
25 days until Kim and Daniel's wedding!!!! (yay yay yay!)
34 days until my newest niece or nephew is due :)

I made a calendar of all this on my computer, and since I love organizing, I have different events in different colours, depending on what it is. People who have seen the state of my bedroom don't believe that I love organization, but the colours I used above are the ones in my calendar. It actually helps to have that visual to differentiate between everything that's going on. I'm probably slightly neurotic, but hey, whatever works!

The one thing I should probably schedule is a decent bedtime. It's the one thing I can never seem to follow through on. On that note, I'm off to bed!

Have I mentioned lately...

2008-06-22T20:31:00.004-07:00

...that I have the cutest nieces ever?

Here is a plethora of pictures of the girls in matching dresses on Father's Day. My Sugar Plum and Angel Baby

Samantha full of smiles
Samantha being very un-ladylike
Kisses for Samantha
Kyra and her daddy. She really did not want to sit for pictures! Sam and her daddy
The girls and their dads. I had to add this picture because it's just so priceless. Samantha is so happy to be anywhere near Mocha, and Kyra, who is usually so easy going, was having a random crying moment that even Mocha couldn't help fix.
The girls love the baby chicks we just got. They're used to seeing the ducks that Jared raises, so Kyra says 'quack quack' when we talk about them. Kaeli and I taught her to say 'peep peep' now for the chicks. And then, since these are the ones we raise to eat, we taught her to say 'mmm...yummy!' Hahaha, it's pretty cute.

I added this one because it's the best I have of the full dress. So adorable!

Sammi going for a ride on Mocha

Exciting news!

2008-06-15T14:05:00.005-07:00

That's right! I'm going to New York! Just over a week ago Vanessa asked me if I wanted to fly to Chicago and New York with her for 5 days in July. Haha, slightly random and last minute, but I couldn't have been more excited! She had bought tickets to a couple shows and was going to do a road trip with a friend, but when that fell through, she didn't want the tickets to go to waste, so off we go!! If you remember this post, you might understand why this is so exciting for me. I have wanted to see a show on Broadway for sooo long, so this really is a dream come true. We just worked out the detaile yesterday. The tickets she already had were for 'Wicked' in Chicago on July 9 and 'The Lion King' in New York on July 11 so that gives us a bit of a guideline. 'Wicked' has been one of my top 3 favourite musicals for a while now, so having the chance to see it just mind-boggling. And 'The Lion King' is supposed to be amazing, so I'm totally pumped about that too. Actually, just being able to walk down Broadway is huge for me, and seeing any show makes it just that much more exciting.

We decided we'd rather spend more time in NY than split it equally between NY and Chicago, so we'll only be in Chicago for Wednesday evening and most of the day on Thursday. Then we fly to New York on Thursday evening and stay until Sunday evening. We randomly decided yesterday that we wanted to see more Broadway shows so bought tickets to 'Rent' for Saturday evening. We'll wait until we're there to decide what else we want to see since you can buy half price tickets the day of the show sometimes. We figured we don't really need sleep, so we can pack our days full of sightseeing and Broadway shows :)

Even though we've booked everything and have it all planned, it honestly doesn't feel real. It's a dream come true!

My only worry now is that I'll be gone for about 9 days total in July (with Kim's wedding being the weekend after this trip), and if Yvonne and Eric's baby decides to come early, I might be gone for it! :( I'm praying that she is no more than a week early so I'll be around. This is the one and only time I actually wouldn't mind if she's late!!

We finally have some beautiful weather here, so I'm heading out to enjoy the sun! Cute pictures to come later!

Oh, and funny school name of the week: Eyebrow Academy

Laughing

2008-06-10T20:26:00.002-07:00

This was some of the most contagious laughter ever. We had each other going for so long I could hardly breathe.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Every time I pulled Kyra onto my lap she would laugh, and every time she laughed, Samantha laughed. When Samantha laughed, we all did! Right after my mom stopped filming Samantha snorted, which sent us all into more hysterics. We had some sore abs after this!
Kyra and Samantha are so cute together and always have fun playing and laughing. It's great watching them grow up together!

Most bizarre work moment EVER!

2008-06-09T15:28:00.003-07:00

So today I was covering the receptionist's lunch break like I always do. We're at the point in our production season where we get bins full of handbooks to log in and organize so that's what I do between phone calls. The mail was delivered just after she left so I sorted the handbooks out so I could start working on them. I noticed this return address on one, but didn't really think too much of it because the envelope was made out to Premier just like all the rest.

It ended up somewhere in the middle of my stack and then the phones got really busy so I forgot about it. About 20 minutes later I was helping a customer on the phone and grabbed the next envelope on the stack and opened it, not really paying attention. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when I pulled out this:

A full-size autographed picture of Jim Carrey!! So crazy! There was no note or anything with it, so I have no idea who it was supposed to go to. I checked with my manager and she said it was probably for someone who works up in the Marketing and Product Development department. I brought it up to the receptionist for that department and she wasn't sure either but said she'd ask around a bit. She'll let me know if she figures it out.

Everyone was joking with me that I should have kept quiet and taken it home to sell on ebay :) I'm really curious now to know who in my office gets mail from celebrities!

Anyway, that's my bizarre moment of the day. I have some exciting news to post soon, but I want to wait until it's a little more official. (And since I know most of you are thinking it, no I'm not dating anyone) :) Stay tuned!

Mocha

2008-06-08T12:34:00.005-07:00

Yesterday we bought an adorable little puppy. He's an 8 week old Lab Retriever that we named Mocha. He's black with little brown spots - so cute! Yesterday he was pretty mellow. I guess the excitement of the drive home, meeting new people, and exploring his new home was a bit much for him! Today he has a lot more energy and is so much fun! Samantha and Kyra both met him yesterday and loved him! It'll be fun to watch them all play together over the years. Here are some pictures!

What school do you go to?

2008-06-07T16:42:00.002-07:00

I haven't give a job update in a while I think. I've been officially trained as a Preflighter, so that means when handbooks get sent to us from schools, I go over them and look for any formatting issues or obvious typos. Then they get sent to the order engineers who put all the information we give them onto a sheet for the plant and give instructions on what to change. It's been a lot of fun so far, and pretty interesting! I've started writing down all the funny school names I come across for Kaeli and decided to share them with all of you.

-The first one I came across was Biidaaban Kinnomaagegamik. How would you like to be 5 years old and having someone ask you what school you go to when this is the answer?
-Another great one was Yoda Elementary. So funny. I wonder how people decide what to name schools.
-The most recent, and my favourite, is Sandwich Secondary. I honestly burst out laughing when I read it!

Those are my chuckles from the week. I'll try to keep writing them down to share with you :)

Sorry Tamara!

2008-06-06T16:54:00.004-07:00

Tamara just reminded me that I promised her an explanation of what bushpies are, so here goes!

A bushpie is kind of like a toasted sandwich made over a fire. You take two pieces of bread, place them in the iron with your chosen filling (we use pizza mix, but you can also use eggs, pie filling, whatever you think might taste good), close it up, and stick it in the fire. The result is a pizza pop-like sandwich that tastes SO good! Let's see if I can find a picture...here we go!

So there it is. Our favourite summer campfire treat.

Oh, and Daniel, I know it must have been embarassing to be beat by girls, but just admit that you're jealous of my mad skills. Someday we'll have to have a re-match so I can prove once and for all that we're better. You're going down buddy!

A post for Vanessa

2008-05-24T23:12:00.004-07:00

Hi Vanessa,

Kaeli and I missed you in church tonight

We even saved you a seat!

Don't worry, we still had a good time :)

My car was lonely too...

Wish you could have joined us for hot chocolate, popcorn, and a movie!

We're glad you're having fun in South America but we can't wait until you're home again!

I'm home!

2008-05-21T21:07:00.004-07:00

Well, I've been on a bit of a blogging break for a couple weeks, but there was definitely a good reason for it! I tried blogging a few times lately, but always came too close to mentioning something about my trip, which would have totally given away the surprise.

On Friday I flew to Saskatchewan to surprise my cousin Kim at a wedding shower for her. It was so much fun! The look on her face when she walked in the house and saw all the relatives there was priceless, and then a minute later when she finally realized I was there, I was so excited that I cried! :) I lost track of how many times that night she said "I can't believe you're here!" I was there for 5 days, and we definitely kept busy!

We saw Prince Caspian, spent an afternoon and evening at the campground in Rosthern, went swimming, and played games. Kim and I always play Phase 10 when we're together, without fail. We've become really competitive when we play, and this time I managed to beat her in the closest game we've ever had! She beat me at Wizard though, so I guess we're even :)

I know there's probably so much more I can say, but I have to work at 5am tomorrow so I have to head to bed. I'll finish by saying that I am so thankful that I got to go spend time with Kim and the rest of my family, and meet Daniel. I'm looking forward to their wedding in July and getting to know Daniel better in the future. Although, with the way I kicked his butt in basketball at the pool, maybe he doesn't want to get to know me better!!

Kim, I love you and have always considered you to be one of my closest friends. Thanks for spending your long weekend with me!

(p.s. - to have a chance at winning some of my favourite books, check out this link!

Fun quick visit

2008-05-09T16:31:00.004-07:00

My Uncle Marvin is in town for a few days for a conference in Vancouver, so last night he joined us for dinner. He got to meet Sammi for the first time and get re-acquainted with Kyra. It was a lot of fun! I have a few pictures from the evening:

This is one of Sammi's favourite places to hang out at our house.

Since Kaeli's been neglecting her blog lately, I thought I'd put a picture of her and Kyra on here!

Creepy...

2008-05-01T19:23:00.002-07:00

This morning I went outside to leave for work at about 6:45. I got in my car and suddenly realized that the glove compartment, the storage console between the seats, and the little ashtray/coin holder thing were all wide open. I know I almost never open them, and never leave them open when I do. I was totally creeped out, but figured I'd ask my family in the evening if any of them had been looking for something in my car after I'd gone to bed. None of them had touched it! Not what I wanted to hear! Nothing was taken (not that I had much to take). I have a few cds laying around, some sweatshirts, not much else. I've never locked my car at home because I feel so safe here and we've always had dogs around, but I guess now I'll start! I feel so violated knowing that a stranger was poking around in my car.

Oops!

2008-04-30T19:30:00.004-07:00

My resolve to blog more often seemed to work for a little while, but I think I've slipped again. It's been on my mind all week, but I guess it just wasn't high enough of a priority!

It's been interesting transitioning out of the reception role at work this week. The new lady started yesterday so I was back to doing my normal work, but I still do reception in the mornings before she starts and during her lunch hour. Today was her first full day by herself, but I think I spent the majority of my shift with her. There were so many little things that she wasn't really trained on and it's been hard for her to get the phone system since she doesn't know all the employees. For the most part it went well, I got her pretty well trained on the phones and she's slowly getting used to it, but it's also been a little frustrating. She's very slow to catch on to all the computer stuff, which is a huge part of the job. I've always known that I'm not cut out for training because I just don't have the patience for it, and today definitely affirmed that! It's hard because she's such a sweet lady, and I want to help her as much as I can without being frustrated. Tomorrow she's got another full day of training (not with me!), so hopefully it'll help.

My mom made it her mission last night to get pictures of her granddaughters while they were here for dinner. Samantha is definitely easier than Kyra!! My mom spent so much time chasing Kyra around trying to get her to stand still for a few seconds. Not easy with that kid! Here are some that she ended up with.

I made it!

2008-04-24T21:04:00.003-07:00

When I got to work this morning there was an email telling us that a new receptionist has been hired! It's been an interesting and busy couple weeks filling in as the interm receptionist, and it's nice to know it's almost over. I definitely value the added knowledge and confidence I've gained. My manager sent me a seperate email saying that she thinks I did an amazing job filling in, so that was really nice to hear. The receptionist who went on maternity leave is coming back next week to train the new lady. (Her baby isn't due until the end of May). I think I'll still be doing some of the receptionist duties to give her time to do the training properly, but for the most part today was my last full day! It'll be nice to be able to fully focus on my other jobs.

Last night I went to Vanessa's for a games night. She had a couple people visiting from Edmonton and we had a blast playing Things and Scattergories. Always good times!! It's so funny to see what people come up with. A lot of it is totally random. Fun fun! I went back this afternoon to play Dutch Blitz. I think I totally kicked butt :) That is the one game that I get totally competitive in. Vanessa usually give me a pretty good run for my money.

Tomorrow will be my last day taking care of Sam and Nathan. My manager at Premier wants me to start working Fridays there next week, so the boys will be in daycare. I've had the most amazing time with them. After 8 months of spending time with two babies/toddlers and dealing with all the diapers, runny noses, whining, fighting, vomiting, and tantrums that go along with that age, I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can't handle! :)
Seriously though, even with the days that I just wanted to pull my hair out and never go back, I will miss those little boys so much! I'll miss the huge smile Nathan always has for me when I walk in the door and the adorable way Sam says my name. It's going to be really hard when I leave tomorrow, but I know I'll be able to babysit them occasionally. I definitely want to be there to continue watching them grow up!

The end is in sight...I hope!

2008-04-19T22:42:00.002-07:00

I think I must have had a milder version of that cold than most people did because I'm slowly getting over it. I can actually breathe through my nose today! I've been pretty miserable most of the week, but today I kind of feel normal again. I'm so thankful that it won't last 2 weeks! Funny story. Yesterday morning I freaked myself out and thought I had overdosed on cold medicine. When I got to work yesterday, the mom of the boys I take care of said she and her husband had had colds all week too and gave me the cold medicine she said they had been taking. I took some, hoping it wouldn't make me feel loopy like the stuff I took on Wednesday did. A couple hours later, the boys and I were at the mall and I suddenly remembered that I had taken Dayquil at some point. My mind's been foggy all week so I couldn't really remember when, but I know it hadn't been any of the previous mornings because I didn't want to feel drowsy at work. I convinced myself it had to have been that morning. I was kind of worried because I don't know what the side effects of a double-dose of cold medicine are, but I mostly felt fine. A few hours later, my mind had cleared enough that I remembered taking the Dayquil the night before. I'd never taken it before, and the label said it may cause drowsiness so I figured I'd take it in the evening to test it out before taking it in the morning. That was a relief!! I honestly don't know how I made it through the week at work. It was my first week being the full-time receptionist so I had a lot to try and remember, but my brain just didn't seem to function. Fun times!

Other than the cold, work was actually pretty good. Getting the receptionist duties done every day went really well, it was just all the extra work that made it a little more stressful. Last week my manager asked me to take care of a pretty big job that has to be done every morning. When schools submit their handbooks via our Electronic File Submission tool, the handbook gets sent to our server. Someone has to go onto the server and get the files printed off so we can use them. That's one of my new responsibilities! It's still pretty early in the season, so the first day there were only 2 handbooks. But, on Tuesday there were 35! It takes a good 5 minutes to do each one, so that's a good couple hours of work right there. Then, since I have more experience than any of the other 4 summer staff we have right now, I was asked to help with another job that is easy but time-consuming. It got kind of frustrating because when my manager asks me to do these jobs I don't feel like she's really asking, so I can't really say no. It would be totally fine if I wasn't receptionist too. Oh well. The manager interviewd 5 people on Thursday, so hopefully one of them works out and I won't be doing all this much longer.

I went to see The Curious Savage at MEI tonight. It was their spring production, and although some of the shows in recent years haven't been spectacular, this one was pretty well done I think. It had some good laughs and a good plotline. Good times!

Moovivor

2008-04-16T20:04:00.004-07:00

This will be a short post today. I'm not sure if it's the cold medicine I took or if my cold's getting worse, but I feel pretty light-headed feel like I might pass out if I stand up. I definitely need to go to bed. Unfortunately, I also need to finish my laundry or I won't have anything to wear to work tomorrow!!

People who know me well might know how much I love Survivor. Yes, I admit it!! Anyway, when jared and lisa were in whistler for their honeymoon, they bought me a funny 'Survivor' t-shirt...with a twist. It's 'Moovivor', where cows compete to Outgraze, Outmilk, and Outmoo to become the Ultimate Moovivor. I totally love it and wear it most thursdays while watching survivor.
The other day, Kyra was over and when I was sitting on the floor at one point, she came over and started poking my back and mooing. I was so confused at first, until I realized that I was wearing the Moovivor shirt and there was a picture of a cow on the back!! I thought it was so funny! Now whenever I'm wearing it, she'll come over and moo when she sees it. So cute!! At least I know that if the cows are in the barn and she can't see them, I have a backup!

(Tamara, I'll post tomorrow about bush pies. Right now my brain is too foggy to try and explain)

Bush pies!!

2008-04-15T20:43:00.002-07:00

I tried and tried to resist, but that stupid cold/flu bug that's been circulating in the office finally caught up with me. I woke up with a sore throat this morning and as the day went on I got more and more stuffed up and everything just seemed to hurt. I feel a little better now, but not great. I really thought I could avoid this, but I guess with that many sick people working together every day, it was bound to happen.

My parents are in Vegas until Friday so tonight for our weekly family dinner we made bush pies. I have a ton of stuff to clean up now, but it was worth it. I love bush pies!

Kyra was really cute tonight. She loved helping us with everything. She saw me carrying the three loaves of bread from the freezer and wanted to carry one, so I gave her one to take to Auntie Kaeli. She delivered it with a huge smile on her face and came running back for more. She ended up carrying, one at a time, 3 loaves of bread, a tin of tomato sauce, a tin of pineapples, a block of cheese, and she helped set the table by carrying the plates, forks, and knives. (Don't worry, she only held the handle of the butter knives and only carried them a couple feet to Yvonne)

My goal was to get to bed early tonight so I could try and kick this cold sooner, but that never happens!

Wow!

2008-04-14T19:29:00.002-07:00

It was a nice surprise to see 7 emails in my inbox this morning!!! Thanks for your comments everyone! I always knew that people read this, but it's nice to actually see it. It makes me feel loved :) Tamara, I don't think I knew you read it. I'm looking forward to reading your blog someday...(hint hint)
A lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm really competitive. I HATE losing at anything. So, thanks to Tamara's comment about how Yvonne seems to be winning since she posts the most out of us and Lisa, I have decided to post a lot more!

As of today I am the only receptionist working at Premier. The other person who had been doing the Monday and Wednesday shifts got a new job with the City of Abbotsford today and since she had taken the next couple weeks off for exams, today was her last day! It made me a little more nervous since I was counting on her being around every other day to answer questions and explain things that I was having trouble with. I guess I'll have to figure it out on my own now!

There's been a nasty cold/flu virus going around our office for the past few weeks. So far I've managed to stay healthy, to everyone's amazement! I've been surrounded by people with throat and stomach infections, hacking coughs, awful congestion, and probably more symptoms that I don't even want to know about!! I keep praying that it stays away from me. I've even started bringing hand sanitizer to work with me so I can keep the germ transfer from computers and phones to a minimum. Hopefully it works!! Everyone who's had this so far has had it for at least 2 weeks. It just hangs on and on and on :(

That's it for today! I'll do my best to update throughout the week instead of waiting and doing a huge one every couple weeks :)

where to begin..

2008-04-13T10:57:00.003-07:00

I mentioned to Vanessa the other day that I realized recently that if I don't get any comments here, or not many, I feel very unmotivated to blog. I think I assume that if there was only one comment, only one person read my post. I know there are probably people reading this who never comment, but in my head I think it really isn't worth my time to do this if no one's really reading it. But, here I am!

Last weekend Kyra stayed with us while Yvonne and Eric were away. It was SO much fun! On Saturday Kaeli, Tasha and I took her to Vanessa's house to go swimming. She was a little hesitant at first, but pretty soon she was splashing and playing and having a lot of fun. She loved pushing the ball around and 'throwing' it to people. One of the funniest things was when Tash and Kaels would jump off the diving board. Kyra would watch them walk over and get ready to jump. When they jumped, as soon as their heads went under the water she would look at me and put her arms up in a shrug, as if asking where they went. Then, when they came back up she would say "boo!" It was so funny. I guess she thought they were playing peek-a-boo with her :)

We spent a lot of time outside with the cows. I just can't believe how much she loves them. If she was ever upset or fussy or anything, all we had to do was say "Kyra, where are the cows?" She would instanly stop crying and run to the window to look for them, mooing the whole time. So funny! If they were in the shed and she couldn't see them, she would crouch down and beckon with her hand as if she were calling them to come. Thankfully it was relatively rain-less so we could spend time outside.

I wasn't really worried about her being here the whole weekend, but I did wonder how she would do without seeing Yvonne and Eric for a few days. Believe me, there was nothing to worry about! On Sunday afternoon I was asking Kaeli if I should lie to Yvonne and tell her that Kyra was miserable because she missed them so much or tell the truth and say that she honestly didn't seem to realize they were gone! I heard her say dada a few times when she would see a picture of Eric on the wall, but it was just a statement of fact, not asking for him. I think she actually asked about Samantha more than her parents!

What else did we do? On Friday evening Kaels and I took her to the school down the road to play at the playground. She loved the slides, swings and the little bridge thing on the play structure. I pushed her and Kaeli on a swing for a while (it's an elementary school, not a public park, so there weren't any swings for toddlers), and she loved it! She laughed and laughed. She came to church with me on Saturday and was pretty good most of the time, but partway through the service she was getting restless so I took her to the nursery. She had so much fun there! She didn't notice when I left because she was already busy playing, and she didn't want to leave when I came back for her. She kept climbing the stairs to get back!

I've babysat her quite a bit so I know her schedule and stuff and am used to being with her, but I was honestly blown away by how good this little girl is. Yvonne, you and Eric have done such a great job with her. You're such great parents and it made our weekend so fun. You'll do great with two kids!

Kaeli and I are dog-sitting for the next couple weeks. Our neighbours are away so they asked us to walk and feed their dogs. So far it's been fun! The dogs are really good and so cute. Haha, I guess most people wouldn't say that about Hunter. He's a really big fluffy dog, so cute might not be the best description!

Last week at work I was asked to take on a different position for the next while. We had two receptionists at Premier and they job shared. On Thursday, one of them worked their last day because she's on maternity leave. The other one has been looking for a new job so probably won't be around much longer. There's been an ad running for a while for a new receptionist, but so far nothing's worked out. Since I was the relief receptionist last summer and have been starting to cover lunches again this year, my manager asked me to fill in temporarily. I spent two days being trained on ordering office supplies, replacing toners in all the printers and photocopiers, shipping Canada Post and UPS, dealing with incoming mail, and a ton of other little things that are necessary to keep the office running smoothly. It was a lot to learn, but I think I'm ready. I hope it really is temporary and I won't be spending most of my summer doing this. It's not my favourite thing to do, but all in all it's not bad. Right now I just feel like my brain is overloaded with information.

On Friday Vanessa and I went to see Mamma Mia! I saw it a few years ago when it was here in Vancouver and really enjoyed it, so I was really looking forward to seeing it again. It was so much fun! I liked it more than the first time I think. The cast was a lot of fun and it was really really well done. I stole this picture from Vanessa's blog since I didn't have my camera with me :) (thanks vaness!)

I bought Guitar Hero a little while ago and it's so fun!! I have no problems with Easy mode, but Medium seems crazy hard! I guess I have a lot of practicing ahead of me!

I was a little sad to wake up to clouds today. Yesterday we had an amazing day of 24 degree weather. It was wonderful!! I had forgotten what it was like to be out in the sun and warmth. It was a great break from the rain and chill, but at the same time it made me so anxious for summer and constant sun. It's going to be hard to get through the next couple months of spring now that we've had this taste of summer.

Quick random post

2008-04-02T19:45:00.002-07:00

I don't have much to say today, but I wanted to blog just so I could say I did :)

I just finished washing my car, and although it was a sunny day, it definitely isn't warm. My poor little fingers are pretty frozen now, but it's worth it. Every morning at work I can see my car from where I sit at the reception desk. It was pretty dirty I always told myself I should wash it. I finally got around to it today.

For the past few months I've been following this blog. The story of this family is so amazing and inspirational. Nate, the man who writes it, is so open and honest about the journey his family is on. It's partly because of their story that I registered to be an organ donor today. I've always known that I wanted to but just never sat down to do it. It seems so logical to me that once I'm gone and have no use for my earthly body, it can be used to help people who need it.

Kyra is staying at our house this weekend so I'm excited to spend a lot of time with her. I may not be so excited by the time Sunday evening rolls around, but for now I'm really looking forward to it. I'm trying to think of fun things we can do. She's pretty easy to please most of the time, so I'm not too worried. It'll be an adventure!

My house is empty now (a rare occurance around here), so I'm going to curl up and watch a movie. I borrowed Gladiator from yvonne and eric because I've heard so much about it and never seen it. Should be good!

Congratulations!

2008-03-21T22:42:00.003-07:00

I just wrote a huge post below this, but this one deserves its own!

On Wednesday I got a super exciting phone call from my cousin Kim telling me that she's engaged! It totally made my day! I consider Kim one of my closest friends, even though we live 2 provinces apart and don't get to see each other nearly as often as I would like!

Kim, I am so happy for you and Daniel, and am incredibly honoured that you want me to be part of your special day. I love you!

Here we go...

2008-03-21T21:01:00.005-07:00

I know it's been forever since I posted last, so I'll try to remember what's been going on around here lately.

In January my Grandma came from Saskatchewan for a few weeks. She stayed here while the new place she was moving into was being readied for her. It was great to have her here for so long. We usually only see her for a week at a time, and that week is always packed with so much family stuff and so many people to see. She also got to meet her newest great-granddaughter, which was pretty special. Love you Grandma!

Kaeli turned 17 on Tuesday, but she's in Costa Rica so we celebrated a week earlier, the day before she left. I'm not sure exactly what Kaeli's trying to stop Tasha from doing in the above picture, but I laugh every time I see it because she's fighting off her sister but still manages to keep a perfect smile on her face :) I have crazy sisters!

She's been gone for 8 days now, and the one and only email she sent said she loves everything about Costa Rica, even though she was completely sleep deprived :) Her flight from Vancouver left at midnight, but even though it was a late night, Tash, Kaels and I managed to have a ton of fun on the way to and at the airport. These next few pictures are smaller, so you can click to make them bigger.

She knows she loves us :)

I love that Kaeli looks genuinely terrified in this one. You don't want to see the picture of Tash jumping into Kaeli's arms. Let's just say they didn't stay upright very long!!

There were two teams going to Costa Rica, so when you add all the students, leaders, parents and siblings, you get a huge bunch of people all in one small area of the airport. It was great to be able to be there and see the people she'd be spending the next couple weeks with.
Only one more week until she comes home!!

She never posts pictures on her blog, so I thought I'd add this one. The dress she's wearing is one that she made! I tried to find a picture of the full dress, but this is the closest I got. It's it amazing? She loves sewing and has made some great stuff. I'm trying to convince her to make me something, but it hasn't happened yet.

Kyra's hair has been growing longer lately. A few weeks ago she was pulling at my hair elastic so I took it out and put her hair in a ponytail for the first time :) It was so cute! Tasha said she looked like a pirate :) It'll be fun once it really starts to grow so I'll have a real life doll to practice on!

I love my nieces!! Every moment spent with them is just so much fun, and they totally light up my days :) Samantha has the most adorable smile and I love finding new ways to get her to show it. Most of the time it's not hard! Even when an evening of babysitting is filled with a lot of crying I wouldn't trade it for the world.

This is one of my favourite pictures of Kyra. I just LOVE the huge smile on her face. She loves being thrown between people and this captures that perfectly. The stage she's at now is so fun! She does the funniest things without ever knowing it. My days spent with her are filled with rides in the wagon, playing 'soccer', playing a 1 year old's version of hide-and-seek combined with peek-a-boo, flying, just having a ton of fun!

I realized that haven't given an update on the most recent change in my life. Last week I started working for Premier Agendas again! I'm back as summer staff and so far it's been great. I've learned how to do some order entry which I love because it keeps me busy and I'm not on the phone all day! The only part I don't like is that I only spend one day a week with 'my boys' now. I still take care of them on Fridays, but after 6 months with them I definitely miss them. Last Wednesday when I drove to Premier instead of their house was really hard. I love those boys!

Yesterday at work I spend a few hours unzipping binders and throwing away all the stuff that was inside. In past years one of our agenda lines has been Historica, which has Canadian content. This year they changed that to Character Canada, so all Historica products are irrelevant now. So all the binders that were full of Historica products are useless. Each binder had 30 Canadian Encyclopedias on CD-Rom. We realized that the plastic pouches they came in can be used at home for our CDs, so some of us took a bunch home. I ended up with 21 pages of pouches that can be put in a binder to hold my CD collection. But, first I had to take out the CDs that came in them. Long story short, I now have 210 electronic Canadian Encyclopedias that are going to end up in the garbage. I've given a few away already, and if anyone else would like one (or 10!) let me know! They have interactive graphs, maps, timelines, article, and all sorts of good stuff. I realize that I'm a bit of a history geek, so I'll understand if nobody gets as excited as me about this :) I also took 10 Historical Minutes DVDs that would also have been thrown out. Have you ever seen the historical moments on CBC? They have 30 second re-enactments of a major event in Canadian history with a little blurb about them. Well, I have them all on one disc! I was super excited about that since I always find them interesting :) Yvonne took one already, so I know I'm not the only one who likes them!

Congratulations on making it to the end! That was a really long post that I probably could have broken up into smaller ones. Oh well, too late now! Happy Easter everyone!

Pain

2008-03-01T18:12:00.007-08:00

I've heard it said

That people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led to those

Who help us most to grow

If we let them

And we help them in return

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit

As it passes a sun

Like a stream that meets a boulder

Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew youI have been changed for good

It well may be

That we will never meet again

In this lifetime

So let me say before we part

So much of me

Is made of what I learned from you

You'll be with me

Like a handprint on my heart

And now whatever way our stories end

I know you have re-written mine

By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring

By a wind off the sea

Like a seed dropped by a skybird

In a distant wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better

But because I knew you

Because I knew you

I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air

I ask forgiveness

For the things I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know

There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Who can say if I've been

Changed for the better?

I do believe I have been

Changed for the better
And because I knew you

Because I knew you...

I have been changed for good...

-For Good, from the musical 'Wicked'

This week has been so rough. The kind of week where I wake up every morning thinking "Life sucks right now." As much as I try to remain positive and look for the joy, I keep asking myself how much pain a heart can take before it starts to put up walls to defend itself from more pain. I want to be the kind of person who loves the people around me and is a great friend to them, but it's so hard when I'm constantly reminded of the people I've loved and lost. Most days I can easily see how the joy outweighs the sorrow, but this week has been harder. I feel so defeated. I don't want to think about life continuing on when a family who has been like a family to me has lost a son and brother.

Bittersweet moments

2008-02-25T21:01:00.003-08:00

I just got back from a candlelight memorial for a really great guy. Trevor Dueck lived all of his 18 years to the fullest, full of joy and laughter. His life ended too soon but his memory lives on in the hearts of the people who knew him.

My thoughts and prayers are forever with the Duecks. Trevor was a great son, brother and friend, and he will always be missed.

little update

2008-02-22T20:29:00.002-08:00

I just got back from visiting my friend. She's been moved from the hospital to some sort of home for 2 weeks. I'm not really sure what kind of place it is, but they have classes in the morning and have to do homework and have nurses and doctors there a bunch. She seems to be doing okay. We talked and laughed for the hour I was there, keeping things pretty light and superficial. I didn't want to ask any probing questions, just waited to see what she wanted to share.

Thank you all for your prayers and definitely keep them coming. She's still struggling with things and has a tough time ahead of her I think.

Prayer request

2008-02-11T17:22:00.000-08:00

I found out today that a friend of mine tried to commit suicide over the weekend. I obviously won't go into details here, but please keep her in your prayers. I don't know when or if I'll be able to see her, so there are a lot of unknowns even for me.

The 'man shower'

2008-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Jared asked me to plan a baby shower that his guy friends could come to. We called it a 'man shower' even though a few girls were there. All his guy friends were really excited about Samantha being born, which was really cute. (None of them read this, so they'll never know I said that) :) When Jared was in high school, all his friends loved coming over here because they love my mom's food so much. We had about 14 people here and my mom made dinner for all of us. It was fun to see everyone with Samantha.

A couple of the guys had never held a baby before, so it was funny watching them with her. They were so worried that they would drop her or break her or something.

I think someone told Mika to just make sure he held her head. He actually held her like this for a while as we all laughed at how awkward he looked.

Worn out from the party. She looked so cute while she slept.

It's hard to believe she's a month old already. What a precious blessing.

Pictures of Samantha!

2008-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted, so I'll try to make up for it by posting pictures of my beautiful new niece. It's been so fun having a baby around again. I can hardly believe Kyra was this age a year ago! And to think that in 5 months we'll be blessed with a baby again...I love it!

She was wide awake and staring at me and the camera
Hanging out on Auntie Chrys' lap
Me with my nieces. I love them both so much more than I ever dreamed possible.

Another beautiful niece!

2008-01-05T15:55:00.001-08:00

Jared and Lisa's daughter was born on Thursday, Jan. 3 and we were all so excited to welcome her here! Her name is Samantha Lynn, she was 8 lbs, and is absolutely perfect! So adorable. For the full birth story check out Lisa's blog! They came home from the hospital this morning and since I was on my way into the hospital when they were leaving, I just followed them home! At one point, all 4 of Samantha's aunties were there so Lisa finally got a much needed nap! I'm sure she loved being back in her bed after a few days at the hospital. Jared also got to take his first shower in....probably a few days! We all didn't mind at all, Samantha just slept the whole time. Oh, except for when she spit up all over me! It was always a joke when Kyra was a baby that she spit up on me at least once every time I saw her. It looks like Samantha is wasting no time catching up to her cousin. There wasn't a blanket or anything nearby, so I just held her on my lap while she spit up. Like any proud new daddy, Jared sat and laughed at me while taking pictures. :)

Congratulations Jared and Lisa, and welcome here Samantha! You guys did great through the long hard labour and I am so proud of you. I'm super excited to watch you guys as parents and see the special place Samantha will have in our family. I love all three of you!

Final template!

2008-01-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

I made my final decision tonight and chose my new template. I have a few things to add to the sidebar, but otherwise I think it's great!

Some pictures

2008-01-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures that cover the few weeks in the Unruh household.

I got Lisa a popcorn popper for her birthday and bought their first containter of kernals to go with it. We had the table cleared and Kyra was having fun walking around to everyone. The popcorn kernals ended up being her favourite toy for quite a while! In the second picture she's trying to get the cap off. If we loosened it she could usually get it off. The seal was still on so there was no danger of kernals everywhere!

Kyra's birthday party!

We managed to get her wear the party hat for short periods of time. You can tell she wasn't totally thrilled with it! Auntie Kaeli seems to like it though.

Sitting with Nana. Notice the adorable outfit she has on from our Aunt Cheryl.

The cake that I spent 6 hours working on. That included baking the cake, mixing 6 different colours of icing and trying to get them to be the perfect shade, and actually doing the icing. For those of you who don't know, this is Brave Heart Lion, a Care Bear cousin.

Making friends with Myra at the Loewen gathering

Tasha's reaction at getting an iPod for Christmas. Kaeli and I are still in the process of opening ours in this shot!

Big kiss for Josi

Some of the Unruh cousins - Lisa, Tessa, Tasha, Chealsey, me, Shayleen, Tamara, Jenette, Kaelie, Yvonne, and Kyra. There were about 9 missing!

New template

2007-12-31T01:03:00.000-08:00

I finally got sick of my pink blog (and I'm sure many of you were as well), so I'm trying out a new one. It may change again, so don't get too attached!