Christmas get together/gift exchange

Last night "the girls" had our Christmas get together/gift exchange at Natasha's. Fun was had by all. :) Merry Christmas, my friends.

Natasha's Charlie Brown tree was very cute (I'm stealing Keri/Kori's cool idea of taking pics of the ornaments).

Can you see me in the reflection of this bauble? I wasn't trying to do that, but I thought it looked kind of fun.

And this is what I woke up to this morning.

It's very beautiful, but it better be gone by next Saturday when I need to get to the airport!

Sure am glad I have a 4 x 4 if I need to go out for something.

Birth, Death and a bit of an update

Last week my friends Dwain & Lori welcomed a beautiful new edition to their family. Lily Marie Faith is a first daughter for them and a little sister for Ryan and Jacob. This family has grown to mean a lot to me over the years and I am very happy for them. I got to see Lily when she was just 7 hours old and I felt privileged to be able to hold her, smell her and give a celebratory toast to her. Look at all that hair! Isn't she great? I can't wait to watch her grow up.

Lori was very smart in thinking of a way to break Lily in with the boys. She told the boys that when the baby came, "it" had a present for them. When they came to the hospital, Lily gave her brothers this present and they said something like, "She's going to be the BEST little sister EVER!" So cute!

Have fun buying little girl clothes, Lori! ;) Bring on the pink!

Also this week, my friend unfortunately lost his Dad. I debated whether to put these two things in the same post, but it just shows how unpredictable life can be. Lily was a bit of a surprise for Dwain & Lori, but they welcome her and love her with all that they have. My friend wasn't expecting to lose his Dad either, but God decided that it was his time to go Home. It's a good reminder to let the ones we love know how much we love them no matter how young or old they are.

Which is why I want to thank you all (whether I hang out with you or simply know you through this blog) again for your prayers. Work has gotten MUCH better. They have gotten me some help so I don't feel quite so overwhelmed, which is great, however, training someone can be awkward because technically she's not my assistant. We are equals and I want her to feel that, but it's mostly me who has to train her so I feel like I'm giving her my grunt work. I'm hoping that we will feel more like team mates soon and that I won't get the looks from her that I feel I'm getting when I bring her new work to do. Yes, these looks may only be in my mind, but it can make it uncomfortable none the less. For the most part it's great because some of the pressure has been lifted and yes, I'm sure the fact that I leave next week has helped a lot, but I know that God has answered your prayers, so thanks again!

If YOU want me to

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Your prayers are working. This week, although my circumstances haven't changed, my attitude has been MUCH better and I know that's because of all of your prayers, so I say Thank you to each and every one of you who prayed. Isn't prayer great? It really does work! :)

Last week I heard this song on the radio and then today on my way home it came on the radio again and I had to let you enjoy it with me. It's by Ginny Owens and she has such a beautiful, sweet voice. The words are amazing. It really makes me remember that even though life may feel crappy, God has a reason for it and I need to trust Him. If you want to listen along to her singing it while you read along with the words below, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvqbDiOjuwE&feature=related

The pathway is broken

And The signs are unclear

And I don't know the reason why You brought me here

But just because You love me the way that You do

I'm gonna walk through the valley

If You want me to

Chorus:

Cause I'm not who I was

When I took my first step

And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet

so if all of these trials bring me closer to you

Then I will walk through the fire

If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen

When you lead me through a world that's not my home

But You never said it would be easy

You only said I'd never go alone

So when the whole world turns against me

And I'm all by myself

And I can't hear You answer my cries for help

I'll remember the suffering that Your love put You through

And I will walk through the darkness

If You want me to

Little side note: Ginny is blind. I've seen her a few different places talk about her life and what she went through growing up and even what she still goes through today. Another reminder for me that there are always things to be thankful for even when you're going through your own valley.

I Can Only Imagine

So, I've been going through some really hard times at work lately. I won't bore you with the details, but I've never felt so stressed and on the brink of snapping as I have been this past month. Life just hasn't seemed as rosy and I've been trying to put on a happy face, but I'm exhausted. I want to give up and sit on my couch and do nothing. I've had no energy to do things and haven't even really wanted to hang out with my wonderful friends lately. I haven't really told them what I'm going through, so friends, if you're hearing this for the first time, I'm sorry. I just haven't wanted to talk about it, but I realize that bottling it up isn't doing me any good and I need to ask for prayer to get through this time (and for patience in my lack of blogging).

My sister sent me an email today and she's been going through some stuff as well ... decisions to make and being in God's will, and she sent me this You*Tube clip of Wynonna singing I Can Only Imagine. I've heard the song a million times and it always bring a tear (or 2 or 3 or 4) to my eye, but it's such a great reminder that life on earth is temporal, but life in Heaven is eternal. I need to remember that my job does not define me or consume me. It is just something I need to do my best at until God calls me Home and I can fall on my knees in awe of Him.

My Facebook status today says ...

Fiona is psyched, yet shocked that she won tickets this morning on the radio to MAROON 5!!! Can you believe it? Whoo Hoo!

I wanted these tickets SO bad! Tomorrow they're giving away backstage passes. Wish me luck!

Mmmm, I get to be in the same building as Adam Levine. :)

Jerry Seinfeld's Take on Halloween

This cracks me up. I love the part about the elastic on the masks breaking and getting shorter and shorter. Take a listen.

Weekend in Whistler

Last weekend we were privileged to go up to Lori's sister and brother in law's place up in Whistler. We had a great weekend. Let me take you on a visual journey.

We arrived late on Friday night, went and sat at a pub for a bit (watched the hockey game) and then walked through the village while it lightly rained.

On Saturday morning we woke up to a small snowfall on the ground! We were so excited about the yummy food that Lori was whipping up that we forgot to take a picture of the snow on our cars, but I did manage to get this picture.

Aaaah, snow covered mountains. Isn't that what Whistler is all about?

After we were full from our scrumptious breakfast, we wandered into the village. It wasn't sunny out, but it wasn't raining, so that made for a very pleasant day. So, we walked ...

and walked ...

and walked ... and stopped for quite a few photo shoots.

and when we were tired from walking and had built up an appetite again, we ate pizza!

One of the things I love about Whistler is that they allow dogs in the stores. I'm sorry for those of you who have allergies, but I love it. This guy (his name was Marshall) was in the Roots store and we all literally stopped and stared when we saw him because he's so cool looking. I've even had a friend who wasn't there and only saw this picture say the same thing that we all said, "He doesn't look real." It's totally true. If you've ever seen the dog, Barkley, on Sesame Street, that's what he looked like. We thought he was going to look up and start talking to us. He looked like a puppet. Oh so fluffy and cute.

And there there was this guy hanging outside of the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. I think he's their mascot.

These pictures don't do the foliage justice. The colours were amazing and so great to look at.

More signs of the fall were the decorations (this was at the Fairmont as well).

As well as this fun giant chair. Fun girls shot, hey? From left: Carmen, Karen, Lori, Jennie, me and Bren.

And then we walked some more and had another photo shoot on the bridge.

And of course we had to compare shots.

So many photo ops, so little time! Oh wait, we did have time for one more. :)

Little close, right? Sorry about that.

One last shot of the village with the snow capped mountains in the background.

Since we had a late lunch, we went back to the cabin and rested from all the walking (ok, and some shopping). Then we got dolled up again and went out for supper (of which I forgot to take pictures, but we sat outside for the first bit underneath a heater but my hands were still cold so I didn't take my gloves off and therefore forgot about my camera). You'll have to take my word for it .. we looked hot (boys even flirted a little with us .. I KNOW .. crazy and unusual things happen when you leave Abbotsford). :)

After that we went back to the cabin again and played one of my all time favorite games.

It truly is a Vonderfully Goot Game (oh yeah, and fast paced!). Jennie and I had grown up playing this game and Karen and Lori were the newbies, but they did VERY well. Karen even won one of the games (points up to 100, not just one round). Now that I've wet my whistle again with this game, I hope it comes out more often. I brought my camera down to take a picture of us playing, but then got so wrapped up in the game that I forgot. I wasn't too up on my picture taking that evening ... or just tuckered out from all the photo ops during the day.

Thanks to Lori for organizing the weekend (let's do it again sometime soon ... wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and a very Happy Birthday to Karen whose birthday we celebrated (sort of .. I kind of feel like we wimped out a little, Karen ... sorry about that. We'll get your present to you eventually) while up there a few days before the actual event.

P.S. These next pictures are for Lovella who inspired us to try on a few hats.

It was so fun that 3 of us decided to make purchases!

How Cute is This!?

I have no idea who this little girl is, but I thought it was so cute that I had to post it.

Today on my way to work ...

someone was driving in front of me with the license plate 333 FTB. That would be the PERFECT license plate for me (if you've been following along, you should know why)! Granted, my middle initial isn't T, but it could stand for Fiona The Bold, or Fiona The Ballsy, or Fiona Talks Back, or Fiona's Three Bias ... well, you get the point.

I promised THREE posts this week, and this is #3. I meant to post about my trip to Whistler last weekend, but I need to get a few pics from a friend of mine that I think I'll want to add to my post, but she's gone for the weekend, so I'll try to post about that on Monday or Tuesday.

Hope y'all have a GREAT weekend. Did you notice it's only 41 days until I leave??? :)

Thanksgiving in Alberta

On Thanksgiving weekend, I was privileged to be able to fly out to Alberta and be with family. Usually I'm spending Christmas with them, so I don't get to go out there for T-giving, however, this year I'll be in Malaysia with my sister Jodi and her family, so I wanted to see my parents and my sister Carolyn and her family before year end.

I flew out on a Thursday night like any other night ... or was it? When I checked in they told me that my plane was about half an hour late arriving, so I got out my book and settled into reading about what Jason Bourne was up to in that chapter. When we finally boarded the plane, I sat down in my seat and heard the two girls beside me talking about bringing their dogs with them and how they've had to put their dogs underneath in the cargo area before. Then I realized they were pointing at something under one of the girls seats, and this is what I saw.

Isn't he cute? His name is Diesel and he's a toy Chihuahua. He had a studded collar on and he was quite quiet. I asked her if she was allowed to take him out and she said no. I told her that if everyone in your row is ok with him coming out of his case, they should let him because he would've been so fun to play with, but alas, he stayed in his case the whole trip.

Finally, we got underway. Engines revving and wheels turning. I was deep in my book because if you've seen one take off, you've seen 'em all, wouldn't you think? Not this time. You know how fast you're going when the plane is about to leave the ground? Imagine going that fast and then ... slamming on the breaks! Yup, that's what happened. In the 10 to 15 seconds it took us to stop, I had 4 thoughts, "Hang on Mr. Pilot!" "This could be bad." "I'm glad it hasn't rained lately because then the runway's not slippery" ... and ... "Did we hit a cow?" Seriously! What would make us slam on the breaks right before take off? Well, apparently a light came on saying that a door was ajar. Hmmm, not good. The pilot came out and said to us, "No worries, folks. It was just a faulty sensor. Sorry about the violent stop everyone. A technician will come and look at it and we'll be off and running in 10 minutes." I turned to the girl beside me and said, "Let's time him, shall we?" An hour later, we were on our way to Edmonton.

My sister met me in Edmonton at 12:45 am and we headed to our hotel. Her and I had decided that since I was getting in late on a Thursday and the kids would be in school the next day, why don't we just stay in a hotel and then go into Edmonton and do some shopping on Friday? We had a fun sister's day out, shopping, eating and chatting. I was too busy doing all of those things to take any pictures.

Friday evening we headed back to my sister's place and I got to hang out with my niece (Bailey) and nephew (Clay). They have Playstation 2 and Clay had the game Guitar Hero that I've heard so much about, so I had to try it out. I do have video of me playing it, but trust me, it's not pretty. You'll have to settle for the pictures.

I only played a few times on the Easy setting, therefore, I mastered nothing.

Now, Sing Star was another story. We stopped in at their friends house to see their new puppy, but while the kids were in their friends room, I sauntered in to see what they were doing. They were playing Sing Star and let me tell you, it looked like a lot of fun. It's pretty much Karaoke, but you sing against each other. You each have a bar on the screen where you should be singing and if you're too high or too low, you get less points and you have to hold the note for the whole bar. I stood and watched the kids for a bit and then they showed me that there was a U2 song as one of the options. Yeah, just try and get that microphone away from me after that. Too much fun! We went to the store the next day and I bought it for Clay and Bailey. Ok, I'm an adult so I know how to maybe hold a tune a bit better, but I kicked their butts!!! I was surprised they even let me play with them the second day because I won all the time. :) I tried to throw a few of the games, but when you have a mic in front of you and you're finally not embarrassed to sing (I would probably never play this game with friends because I'm really not very good), you can get quite competitive. But we had a lot of fun. Next time I'm buying the 80s version and I can challenge my sisters!

Bailey wanted to show me her Halloween costume. I'm not 100% sure what she is, but I think it has something to do with a princess and a pink wig ... or maybe a fairy with a wand. Either way, she's very cute.

Then she wanted to show me the easel she had gotten and wanted to draw me a picture. She asked me what I wanted her to draw and I said, "A dog." "No, not that, Auntie Fiona." "Ok, a horse." "No, not that, either." "Ok, how about you draw me something YOU want to draw?" "Ok."

Kids are funny.

So, she drew me a goalie which is now proudly displayed at my desk at work.

I just had to put in this picture of Bear because he's so cute!

Sunday after church the preparation for the Thanksgiving dinner began. My brother-in-law (Fred)'s family live nearby, and they came as well, so we had a FULL house. While the women were inside getting ready for the meal, the boys were outside quading ...

and playing Wing It (my Dad saw it somewhere and decided he could make his own rather then spend the $$$ - he's so Mennonite).

I've heard this game has a few other names as well, like Horse's Balls ... hmmm, I wonder where that name came from?

Sorry, too graphic? :)

Actually, not all of the guys were "horsing" around. One of Fred's brother's deep fried the turkey outside.

Let the feasting begin!

Although the turkey was yummy, my favorite was the ham. It melted in your mouth and was so moist and salty. Mmmm, Mmmm, MMMMMMMMM! I had a LOT of food that day. Yes, I went for seconds and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I also had a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert ... because I wanted to. :)

Afterwards, I saw the dogs doing this outside ...

and it pretty much summed up how we all felt. I think we all slept pretty good that night!

I had a wonderful time with my family even though you'd never know it by the lack of pictures of my Mom, Dad, Sis and Bro-in-law. Weird. I have no idea why I have no pictures of them. Too much chatting and not enough picture taking, I guess, but talking with the fam can never be a bad thing. I think my family is pretty honest with each other and I like that. No, we don't talk every day or share every single one of our feelings, but I know that at any given time if I need to talk, they're there for me. We love each other very much and on this Thanksgiving, it was a blessing to be with them.

Police Run

Ok, for those of you who have been bugging me for bugging Jennie because she hasn't been blogging and yet I don't seem to be blogging very often lately either ... yes, you are correct, HOWEVER, her and I do agree that I have blogged more than her lately. It's just a fun ribbing between friends. Jennie put it very well to me today when she said, "Living actual life is getting in the way of me blogging." Very true. Let me catch you up on my life. I will try to be more on top of things again. I PROMISE 3 new posts in the next week (this will be #1).

Waaaaaay back in September, Carmen and I ran the Police Run. Now, as much as I hate to admit this, I'd only run twice since the Sun Run in April and had only been on a dozen or so walks since then. I wasn't keeping up on my fitness regime like I had wanted to, but I signed up for the Police Run anyways. I toyed with the idea of not running because I thought it would practically kill me because I'm so out of shape, and who wants to die, right? The night before the run I was at Bren's place and her and Jennie and I were hanging out and at about midnight Jennie looks at me and says, "You're not getting up tomorrow." Oh, it's on! No one challenges me like that. Ha ha, ok, maybe my pride got in the way a little there and I felt like I had to prove something, but I'm actually glad that it did. I woke up the next morning and thought, "I can do this. If only to see how it goes, I can do this, and no, it won't kill me."

Off I went to pick up Carmen (who has a gym membership and goes a LOT more than I've gone over the last few months). My goal to myself was to try to run the whole thing (we opted for the 5 km version) and only walk if I absolutely had to and to try to get it done in 35 minutes.

At about minute 4, this was the view I had of Carmen.

She's the one in the green jacket and black pants in the middle of the picture. "Bye, Carmen! Have a good run!"

There were a few times when I thought I would stop. At minute 15 I thought, "Am I crazy?" When we turned the last corner out of Downes Bowl and onto Tretheway, I thought, "Ok, I can practically see the finish line. I can do this," and then I heard someone coming up behind me and I could hear them go from a run to a walk and it sounded SOOOOOO good, but I pressed on. When we were beside Mouat Secondary, I looked over beside me and there was a little girl with her Dad and she was honestly maaaaaaybe 4 or 5 years old and she was at the same spot as me! What the heck? I almost asked her if I could take her picture when we crossed the finish line to show her to you (see, even if I'm not blogging, I'm thinking about blogging), but I didn't want to be the creepy lady at the Police Run, so I didn't take her picture. If a 5 year old can do it, I can do it. I kept going, and here's a picture of me crossing the finish line.

Ok, it's not actually a picture of ME crossing the finish line because I'm taking the picture, but can you see what the time says? 35 minutes, 47 seconds! I was in the 35 minute range (the timer is always a bit off because depending where you are in the pack, you never cross the starting line when they start timing, so the finish line time isn't your real time).

I saw a few friends when I crossed the finish line so I forgot to stop my own timer until I had walked away from them, but when I did stop it, my timer said I was within the 35 minute mark, too!

Carmen had finished about 4 minutes ahead of me. Way to go, Carmen! Thanks again for running with me and getting me out there.

When they posted the times online, this is what mine said (I'm in the middle of the page. Sorry for the blurriness).

Do you see that? 35 minutes EXACTLY!!! That was the time I was aiming for, and I hit it! I was quite happy with myself. I remembered that it's not as hard as I always tell myself it is when I'm sitting on the couch. Yes, it's a tad bit harder now that the rains have set in, but I have gotten out there a few times and hope to keep it up better than I did after the Sun Run. I don't know if you've noticed my countdown to Malaysia or not, but I have to be in a bathing suit in 47 days, so it would be nice to drop a few pounds before I leave. Here's to hoping!