A Fabulous Holiday!

Brad and I had Christmas with my family this year (2nd year in a row!). We spent two weeks here and it was wonderful! Basically I'm just going to post the pictures so you can see how awesome it was. :D

Halifax

Things have been happening in my life, but due to the busy-ness, I don't ever seem to have time to blog them. Sigh. I've recently uploaded the photos from my camera to my computer and have about 15 minutes which I can dedicate to blogging, so here goes!

First off, two weeks ago I was in Halifax (go figure!). I had a really great time walking around the city. It really is beautiful and has so much character. The weather was cold, rainy and blowy on Wednesday, but I went out for a walk anyway to take some photos. The rest of the week had gorgeous weather! We became so spoiled though, that coming back to cold, snow and sleet was a rude awakening. Ugh. Hello again, Winter. On Thursday night myself, Rachel and Maureen went to the Neptune Theatre to see a live performance of the Jungle Book. It was a ton of fun with fantastic costumes, ridiculously catchy songs ("friend of the jungle!" LOL!) and truly fantastic sets!

On my last day in the city, Maureen took me to the Sweet Hereafter, a Cheesecake cafe. Yes, that's right. Could a place have been created that is more suited to me??? It was fantastic! She had a groupon that got us two pieces of cheesecake (I had chocolate Irish cream) and two coffees. It may have been my lunch.

This was my third trip to the Maritimes and, as I was saying while I was there, I have yet to have a bad experience. Beautiful cities, the friendliest people. gorgeous weather...what's not to love?

A Night of Murder

After weeks of planning, hours of prep time, and days of building excitement, Saturday arrived and we were finally ready for our night of murder! The kit we bought from www.nightofmyster.com came with everything we needed, but there was still the printing, cutting, labelling, organizing and preparing of the information to make sure the party went off smoothly. Karlene spent Saturday making her house look fantastic by creating giant decorative dice, a Vegas skyline, and a poker table in her kitchen. I made 72 maimed sugar-cookie men, a double batch of cheesecake brownies and hot spinach and artichoke dip.

Due to a higher number of girls than guys, we didn't have enough girl characters to go around. The game came with a couple of girl/guy characters of which I took one and decided that I should probably have fun with it and be a boy. As I started drawing on thicker eyebrows and a goatee (complete with a soul patch) I started to make myself a little uncomfortable).

The party involved a murder mid-party (we made sure there was one extra character so that whoever was murdered wouldn't have to sit out for the night as everyone else enjoyed the game). The murder went fine (a sentence I never thought I would say) and only one person guessed the right murderer! It wasn't me, but I had a few people fairly convinced that it was me. Mwahahaha!

Back row: Landon - Aces High the High Roller/Agent Avery the FBI Agent; Ben - Elvis the Elvis Impersonator; Lindsay - Lucy Legs the Showgirl; Karlene - Hustlin Hailey the high roller; Lisa - Security Sam the security guard; Brad - Jack Black the blackjack dealer
Middle: Kyla - Mimi Martini the cocktail waitress

Front row: me - Cole Conway the sports book manager; Chelsea - Precious Trump the floor manager; Jackie - Iguana Trump the wife of the casino owner; Darrin - Ronald Trump the casino owner; Cody - Jim Beam the bartender; Rick - Paul Piano the lounge singer.

Getting ready for murder!

Over the summer, a group of my friends and I decided that we should have a murder mystery party for Halloween, so, with the day quickly approaching we've launched into the preparations for our night of murder! As a scrapbooker I was totally against the idea of just sending out the printed invitations that came with the game, so one evening after yoga, Karlene came over and we set to work assembling the invites. We're both pretty pleased with the result and the best part of it all was that Karlene discovered that she really enjoys scrapbooking! We've since had two Sunday afternoons of scrapbooking! Feels so good to get into it again! I realized that I haven't done any scrapbooking since Mare was visiting! RIDICULOUS!

Here is the invite that we created. Excitement is mounting! Can't wait to get our murder on!

Something to write home about

It's been forever (yet again) since I blogged. I now have something to blog about though! Incidentally, the something I have to blog about is something that I am currently blogging with, I bought myself a netbook! With my job I find myself on the road rather a lot at certain times of the year and staying in hotels. This leads to rather a lot of tear-your-hair-out-boredom. So, when I saw netbooks on sale, I suddenly (and quickly) convinced myself that this was something that I must purchase. Why, my life would be infinitely better with such a devise! However did I live without one before?? So I bought one. :) Happy day! I have it up and running fairly smoothly and am pleased to say that the keyboard, though smaller than normal, is quite comfortable to use. The screen, though small, is clear and pretty to look at. Yes, so far I am pleased with my purchase! Here are some fancy pictures (uploaded from my camera to said netbook via the built in sd card reader)

Ooooh!! So fancy!
(and yes, that is a tub of popcorn from kernels...I love the air caramel! ...and I love Happy Bunny!)
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The cover has a super-fancy ripple effect. Sadly, the high glass means it shows fingerprints like nobody`s business. Oh well...I`ll just have to keep a microfiber cloth around at all times.

See how small it is? Why, it's exactly Jessica Size! How convenient!

I'm practically a world famous artist!

Back in July Groupon had a deal for a photo-to-canvas through 44Wide. I've seen canvases that people have had made up of their photos and through it was a fantas tic idea. The deal was $69 for a 16x20 print (regular $209). I bought two. I started going through my photos to find something that would look good as a canvas and decided on one of the pictures I took at Peggy's Cove when I went to Halifax in 2009. It needed a wee bit of work, but I tidied it up and sent it off for print. The canvas came 4 weeks later.

Happy Anniversary!

Brad and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary today! Earlier in the week a friend of mine said "it's hard to believe it's been 2 years, isn't it?" and my response was "actualy, it's hard to believe it's only been two years! It feels like much longer...in a good way, haha!" And it's true. It does feel like longer. Since our anniversary lands on a Sunday this year, Brad and I went to Medicine Hat yesterday for some shopping and a fancy supper at the Cracked Peppercorn. It was very tasty, but the company was the best part. He also surprised me with a beautiful pure silver bangle (even though we had said no presents this year).

A big day!

At last calculation still getting 95mpg! When I bought gas last it was $4.64 for 3.94l which means that it costs me approximately .03/km to drive. Hahahahahahahaha! LOVE it!

Zip-Lining!

For my birthday, Brad paid for me to do a zip-lining tour at Cypress! I was super stoked to go when Karlene told me they had installed it and when I realized that we would actually be camping at Cypess for a few days, I became very excited at the prospect of actually doing it! Mum was right on-board with me (despite both of us being afraid of heights and bridges). And so on Tuesday the 19th, we suited up and went zip-lining!

A new fashion statement? I think so!

Mum, all harnessed up!
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The first platform was 42 feet up and involved climbiing a very wobbly rope ladder. Not as difficult as I thought...though definitely a challenge.
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Mum, getting going on the ladder
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We made it!! On top of the first platform
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Look how close I am to the tops of the trees!!
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Mum, zipping along
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Me, on the longest line: 600 feet.
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We did it!!

So Many Photos! (because we had so much fun!! Clearly!)

My blogging hiatus has been partly because June wasn't a very exciting month, but mostly because in early July my parents made the drive from Smithers to come visit me and Brad! They arrived on July 7th and stayed until July 25th for the best three weeks ever! We played lots of games (including Settles of Catan, Rummoli, and Angry Birds), and visited until the wee hours just about every night (making it very difficult to go back to getting up at 630 for work. booooo!). Here are some of my favorite photos:

Oh, Angry Birds...how I love and hate you all at once!
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Catching up on the scrapbooking I've done since Mum was last here
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Playing a game of Settlers of Catan
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At Lac Pelletier for lunch
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It's my birthday!!
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Birthday Bushpies!! YUM!!! (Mum and Da are now sold on bushpies...not that they were doubters, but they haev definitely hopped on the bandwagon)
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My Birthday Raspberry Cheesecake Bushpie - with a candle on top!
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See? Totally on the bandwagon!
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After my birthday supper we played Rummoli and I won. All was right in the world. :)
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At Bald Butte in Cypress
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Mum and I at the Cypress Hills Winery after an afternoon wandering around Maple Creek
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Da and I at the Winery
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On our last morning camping at Cypress, Brad and I had my parents "come over" for breakfast of pancakes.

~I taught Mum and Da how to play Mario Kart...which was enjoyed by all (though pretty ridiculous)
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One more game of Rummoli after supper before Mum and Da left on their long drive back to Smithers.
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