Trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL)

My sister and I were lucky enough to take off for a few days just the two of us. We flew to KL (capital of Malaysia) and had fun shopping, site seeing and hanging out.

Our hotel was about 30 minutes from downtown. It was near the Ikea (however, to explain that to a taxi driver you had to pronouce it, Icky-ah). My sister had stayed here before and said it was really nice because it's attached to a mall. Nothing wrong with that! Here are a few pictures.

She was right that it was a really nice hotel, however, she forgot to mention that the beds were the hardest beds I would ever have slept on. When I walked in and put my purse on the bed, I noticed that my bag kind of made a thumping noise. That seemed a little weird, so I decided to sit on the bed and I let out a gasp. "Oh yeah, "said my sister, "I forgot to mention that they like their beds really hard." I was extremely surprised when I actually fell asleep and slept quite well (despite a bit of back pain in the morning). Maybe all the hard shopping we did tuckered us out enough not to care about the hardness of the beds. There really is nothing a little shopping can't cure. :) As well as the nice mall attached to our hotel meant several nice restaurants.

We shared some yummy pizza at this Italian place as well as a tiramisu for dessert!

This mall also had beautiful Christmas decorations. This was a life sized gingerbread house. Very cool. I love that it included the palm trees. :)

One day we took a taxi downtown and went to the famous Petronas Towers. You may recognize these buildings from the movie Entrapment (with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery), the 3rd season of The Amazing Race and many other clips in TV shows or movies. The Petronas Towers are the world's tallest twin buildings.

We were told that they only issue a certain amount of tickets to go up to the Skybridge (the connecting walkway you see about halfway up), so we wanted to get there fairly early. We arrived at about 8:20, knowing that they opened the ticket booth at 8:30 am. Well, apparently others had the same idea as us because when we came down the escalators, this is what we saw.

Ok, so others had gotten up earlier than us. We were on vacation. Who wants to get up at 7:00 am and stand in line? Clearly, these people did. The tickets are free, which I was really surprised at because most touristy things cost a bizillion dollars these days and the line up actually went fairly fast. Since they only give out a certain number of tickets and they only let about 15 - 20 people up every 15 minutes, they have little monitors up telling you what time of tickets they are currently issuing. As the long line ahead of us got shorter and shorter, the time of day to go up got later and later. The monitor would say, "Now issuing tickets for 9:15 ... now issuing tickets for 9:30," and so on. We kept watching it and all of a sudden it went from, "Now issuing tickets for 10:30," to "now issuing tickets for 3:30." What? By the time we got up to the ticket booth, they were issuing tickets for 4:15 pm. It was 9:00 am in the morning.

Luckily for us, at the base of the towers is a mall. :) Could we spend all day at a mall waiting for our time to go up the towers? You bet we could!

Yet again, there were beautiful Christmas decorations and I had to take pictures.

This "tree" was about 6 stories tall. Very cool. And the wreaths were about 2 stories tall as well. The mall wasn't even open yet when we walked in (Asia time is very different than here - they open at 10ish - and that's only certain stores), so we walked outside and took the touristy shots.

We also sat and relaxed at a Starbucks (you can see the bars still on the store beside the Starbucks).

This was a very nice mall. One of the 7 floors was strictly stores that you might only be able to shop in if you were STINKIN' RICH!!! A lot of them even had guards in front of them. We did saunter into Banana Republic, but they didn't have a good sale rack like they do in our Vancouver stores, so we slowly sauntered out, trying to look like we belonged there.

The kiosks in the middle of the mall were more our speed. :) I forgot to take a picture of my loot. I did buy quite a few cheap watches and jewellery throughout this mall.

Do you notice anything strange about this Santa? Why the need to paint his face white? Strange.

Maybe they wanted him to blend in with the mall itself. Most of the walls/stores/decorations in this mall were white, which is why when we came down the escalator at one point and saw all these Buddhist Monks in their orange, they really stood out. I don't know why it looked so odd to see them shopping in Swatch. They are people just like the rest of us who need to some holiday shopping. :)

Finally it was 3:30 and we were supposed to be in the lobby of the Towers at 4:00, so we headed out of the mall. First we had to watch a 3D movie (hence the beautiful 3D glasses below) of how the Towers were built and of course all about Petronas Oil/Gas. Side note: I'm wearing one of my new necklaces in the picture below. :)

I made it onto the Skybridge!

The view was nice, but the Skybridge is only halfway up the buildings, so it would've been cool to say you'd gone to the top of the World's Tallest twin buildings. Oh well. I'm glad I did it and would recommend doing it, however, it's one of those touristy things I can check off my list and don't really need to ever do again.

The last day we just relaxed at our hotel. I went to the pool and Jodi went to Starbucks to do some reading. It was a nice little getaway for the two of us.

Mall and McDonalds

Of course we had to take a trip to the mall and do a little shopping. All of their malls are built up. They are usually about 7 stories tall and are quite large. I don't know if that's because they don't have much land to build horizontally, so they have to go vertical, or what, but it makes for some pretty big malls (which is just fine by me!).

All decorated for Christmas.

My sister said when they moved there almost 5 years ago she could barely find a Christmas ornament and now it's everywhere. Why the change now? Who knows.

While at the mall, it's always good to make a stop at McDonald's.

I was supposed to look like I was really listening to the girls tell me an incredible story.

I love this picture of Jackson and I. He's like most boys and doesn't love to hug, so our form of affection would be to come really close together and we would touch foreheads and either smile or do that pretend mad sound of "errrrrrrr" if we were playing mad. Love that boy ... and now I miss him even more, so I'm signing off for today.

Funny spellings

Can you tell what kinds of stores these were? Some of them are easy, but still funny.

#1 - Pharmacy

#2 - Boutique

#3 - Cosmetic

#4 - Computer

Apparently I must apologize again for the lack of posts over my holiday. I have gotten bugged a few times about people checking every day for new pics, but alas, there would be nothing. I think if I was just travelling and not visiting anyone, I would've had no qualms about sitting at a computer for an hour here and there updating my blog, but I couldn't justify it when I was with family who I only see twice a year. I have now organized my 800 photos (that's after I've deleted the bad ones) and have 3 new posts today. Don't worry, I won't subject you to all 800 photos. :)

Pampering myself

Spa treatments are incredibly cheap over in Asia, so of course I had to indulge. I went to a swanky hotel that has a spa in it called Sanctuary and had a 2 hour massage for $30. It was heavenly. When I walked into my "room," I assumed it would just be the room where you get changed and eat some fruit and wait for your masseuse to come and get you. No, this room was all that AND my room with the bed where I'd get my massage. It all came together. I had my own change room so I didn't have to worry about other naked women walking getting changed (ok, I know most people back home use the individual change rooms within the main change room, but some weird people still change right out in the open and I'm not used to that - sorry if you're one of those people - not every one's comfortable with that - hee hee). Here, take a look at some of the pics.

In the 3rd picture you can see two chairs at the back of the room. I sat here and soaked my feet first and got that amazing scrub on them and my calves, then layed down for my 2 HOUR massage! Afterwards, behind that wall where the chairs are, is my very own tub, steam room and shower. My very own! Again, no awkwardness walking into a steam room when other people are in there. I'm not a huge lover of the steam room (I start feeling like I can't breath after awhile), but I do enjoy a good 5 - 10 minutes of it. I sat in my steam for 20 minutes, so I was really sweating and ready to be done, but extremely relaxed, then had my shower and took my leave. Beautiful!

Next, my sister's friend had 2 facial certificates that she wasn't going to use before they expired, so she gave them to us. NICE! It didn't say how long they were, so I was expecting them to be about an hour, so you can imagine my surprise and delight when we arrived and they said it would be for 2 HOURS! Am I a lucky girl or what?

It was nice to be in the same room as my sister so we could chat if we wanted to, although trying to talk after they had put these masks on us was quite interesting. We had many giggles. Afterwards we talked about getting another one right before I left to come home (as this was in my first week or so of being there) but I said that I was hoping to have a tan by the end of my trip and didn't know what a facial would do to a tan. We tried to ask the girls what would happen, but it was one of those "lost in translation" experiences because they said, "Oh yes. You come back and we will take care of that tan. We will take it right off and make you white again." They couldn't understand that I would WANT my face to be tanned because they all walk around with umbrellas and big visors trying to protect themselves from the sun. Yeah, they're probably the smarter ones, but I can't help loving the look of a tan. Oh yeah, and I didn't make another appointment to go back there later. :)

Then we went for pedicures. This store had just opened and it was good, however, they didn't have enough technicians to clients so one minute you would be getting a massage on your legs, then you would wait for 10 minutes because she had run to do another client and then another technician (is that the right term for them?) would come and they pretty much played musical chairs. It was quite funny. We were supposed to be there for an hour and a half and we ended up being there for 3 hours (for $30). Luckily I had bought a new book that morning and brought it with me. It was the new Mitch Albom story (Tuesdays with Morrie) called For One More Day. It was quite good. I read it in one day, so it's an easy read. He said he wrote it because he was talking to his Mom on the phone one day and after he hung up he thought, "What if that was the last time I ever talked to my Mom." So he wrote this book about this guy who gets one more day with his Mother who had passed away a few years before and he had much more he wanted to say to her.

Anyways, I forgot to take a picture of our toes afterwards, but I had a deep purple done on mine and my sister had a pinky/purply/red done on hers. She asked a couple of days before I was going to leave if I wanted to go get another one, and although I did, I said that it wouldn't be smart as I would just go home and put socks and shoes again anyway and no one would see my lovely toes. :(

Pampering yourself can be very nice ... especially when you feel you deserve it and it's cheap. :)

Wii

I don't know if you've ever played Wii, but it's quite fun. I'm sure there are MANY types of games, but we mostly played Wii Play which is with this Rabbit and you can make him dance, shoot, fly, do obstacle courses and many other things. It's quite fun.

There's also Wii Sports and you can play tennis, baseball, boxing, bowling, golf etc. The thing you hold in your hand (the baton) actually vibrates when you connect with the ball so you really feel like you're part of it. I got a little too into it though, because my arm was actually sore the next day from playing tennis. How pathetic is that? :)

Well, I'm back

God has an interesting sense of humour.

He took me from this ...

and I woke up to this yesterday morning!

A bit of a shock to my senses after being in such heat for 4 weeks.

I know I'm really far behind on my blogging, but it was hard to sit and blog when I had nieces and nephews to play with and my sister to hang out with. I am organizing my pictures and will update soon.

Back to work tomorrow ... well, in about 3 hours actually. I went to bed 6 hours ago and woke up an hour and a half later. I tried to fall back to sleep for 2 hours but it was useless. My body and mind were thinking it was 7 at night, so I couldn't sleep and I started working on my pictures. So, I'll go to work with an hour and a half sleep and see how that works out for me. Remember me talking about how crappy my job's been lately? Well, in the 4 weeks that I've been gone, 4 people have left my office and one of those even took a demotion to get out. More proof of how bad the morale is in the office, so needless to say, I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow. 3 days after I had set out on my trip, I got an email from work about a decision they wanted me to make so unfortunately, it didn't totally leave my mind.

The Good News is that I know God is loving and has a plan for me. If that plan includes being in this work environment, then I know He has some reason for it. I will try to stop complaining and try to be proactive in getting changes made in the office if that's a possibility. God only wants what's best for me. I need to focus on that.

Sorry, went off on a little tangent there. I will try to post about my awesome trip very soon. I did get to relax a lot and I did feel the stress of work almost completely leave my brain, so that was great. My sister and her family were awesome and I can't wait to share more with you about my trip.

Party Time!

My sister hosted a Christmas party for all the women from her church. It also doubled as a baby shower for 2 ladies. She had the place decorated very nicely and ready for Christmas.

I met all her "lovely" friends (my sister uses the word lovely a lot). :)

Ashtyn got to stay at the party because she LOVES babies so she was supposed to look after the other kids that came, but only one came but he wasn't feeling well, so he stayed with his Mom and Ashtyn got to hang out with all the ladies and even hold both babies.

There are many wonderful people that go to their church. I've had a great time getting to know them all a little bit.

Band Concerts, Christmas Plays & just hanging out

Since I arrived in Penang a day "early" I was able to catch all but one of the kids Christmas school activities (actually, we still have another play of Jackson's tomorrow, too). This was Ashtyn (obviously not posing nicely for the picture) and Sydney before their band concerts. I thought they looked so nice all dressed up. Syd hates her Thai outfit, but I think it's beautiful and she wears it so well.

Ashtyn's band played many Christmas songs and they did very well. I heard her practicing at home last night as well and for this being her first year, she sounds great. I knew what every song was that she was playing. :)

Sydney's been in band for 3 years I think, so their class played a few harder pieces. Her conductor said that one of their songs was the 2nd hardest piece he's ever conducted. I do have video of both girls playing (as any proud Aunt should), but I'll save those to show to my parents separately. :) Psst - see the guy behind Syd in this first picture? He's got a HUGE crush on her, but she says he's too stalkerish. hee hee

And then Jackson's class was in charge of the elementary school chapel one day and they did the Max Lucado (I think) story about the sheep that all the other sheep made fun of but his friend, the cow, always told him he was special and he ended up keeping baby Jesus warm in the manager. It was very cute.

We've also just done a lot of hanging out. Here's us at Baskin Robbin's.

Here we are at Chili's Restaurant before going to see the movie Enchanted (which is very cute and endearing). The pink haired lady is my sister, Jodi and across from her is her friend, Tracy and her daughter, Kenya (who is Ashtyn's best friend. Ashtyn's the tallest in her class and Kenya's the shortest. They are very cute walking together).

Jackson is a very loving little boy, but usually when my Dad's around, good luck getting Jack's attention. Well, since I'm here by myself, Jack and I have hit it off quite well and him and I are best of buds. Is it being a bad Aunt when you're playing so hard with your nephew that he actually pukes? Oops! Sorry, Jack. Next time we'll wait until at least an hour after supper. You'd think that puking when you're not sick would freak him out, but he got cleaned up, looked at me with a huge smile and wanted me to start chasing him again. So funny!

Ok, this is a nasty picture of me, but Sunday afternoon (after our quiet time), Craig, Jackson and I put together the Canada puzzle they got as a Christmas present from friends back in Canada. The pieces were nice and big so it wasn't too hard.

I had to put this picture in because I CANNOT believe how Sydney is growing up so fast. I literally just stop and watch her quite often because how can she be 14 1/2 already??? This picture was taken at a Christmas Banquet they had at their school before I got here, but I had to show off how beautiful she looks. The banquet was a Sadie Hawkin's event (where the girls ask the boys to go) and Syd didn't know who to ask. She has SUCH a huge heart and didn't want to hurt any of the 5 boys who like her (hee hee, so cute!), so her parents told her to ask a guy who is strictly her friend and there would be no pressure. She asked a SENIOR!!! Way to go, Syd! :) They had a lot of fun together and in this picture she's wearing his hat. Isn't she beautiful?

That's all for now. I'm off to the pool. :)

My arrival

Here I land in Penang, Malaysia and I'm all excited to see my sister and her family. My sister had emailed me before I left saying that she would have to pick me up from the airport and we'd go straight to my niece's band concert. I emailed her back and said, "Are you sure the concert will still be going on that late? I land at 8:30 pm and by the time I get through customs, get my luggage and we drive from the airport to the school, it'll be at least 9:15 or so." I didn't hear back from her, so I figured she'd know better than I would.

Side note: I had sent her my itinerary back in August when I bought the ticket so when we talked about a week before I left and she asked when I arrived, I didn't have my itinerary in front of me so I told her to check the one I emailed to her.

Well, I got through immigration super quick, then waited for a bit for my luggage, but as I was waiting I could see through the glass where all the people were waiting to pick up their loved ones. My sister is quite tall and usually has some funky colored hair and I didn't see anyone through the glass that matched that description. Finally I got my luggage (which I was a little worried about because I had checked it all the way through from Vancouver so I didn't even see it in Singapore) and I walked through the doors to the waiting crowd. Nope, didn't see anyone I recognized. Hmmm, maybe they decided to go to the concert and pick me up afterwards. Ok, I'll just go wait outside for them. I had my People's Sexiest Man Alive issue, so I didn't mind waiting. 10 minutes go by. 15 minutes go by. I literally started looking around to make sure I was at the right airport, but then I remembered that my luggage made it here and it had been sent straight through, so I must be in Penang. At the 20 minute mark, for some reason I thought to myself, "What if they thought I was flying in tomorrow!"

Luckily I had my address book in my backpack, so I fished it out, changed some money so I could use the pay phone and I called their house. My niece, Sydney, answered the phone and said, "Hi Auntie Fiona! Aren't you in the plane flying right now?" "No," I said, "I'm at the airport." "Which airport?" Syd asked. "Your airport," I answered. "WHAT???" Syd exclaimed. "Ok, I'll call my Mom." And she hung up on me. Alrighty. I wasn't sure if I should call back in case she didn't get ahold of her Mom and she certainly couldn't call me back, so I thought I'd wait. 10 minutes go by. 20 minutes go by. 25 minutes go by. At the 30 minute mark, I figured I'd call again and see what the status was. My bro-in-law answered the phone and said that my sister was on her way. He then asked me, "So, are you early, or did Jodi screw up the time?" I slowly answered him with a smirk in my voice, "Weelllll, I'm not early. Tell her I'm waiting outside for her." He said he would text message her and let her know.

I again pulled out my Sexiest Man magazine and continued reading the funny article about Matt Damon and the clips sent in by Ben Affleck and George Clooney. It really is quite humorous which makes Matt that much more endearing. Anyways, the whole time I had been waiting, as people would pull up to the area where I was sitting, they would honk their horn, I would look up, it wouldn't be them, so I continued to read. I figured they would honk when they drove up as well. No such luck. My sister tells me now that she brought my niece along with her because she didn't think I would be as mad if Syd was in the car. Apparently they were praying the whole drive to the airport that I would forgive them and that this wouldn't start off the trip on the wrong foot. Now, if you know my sister at all (my niece is cut from the same cloth), she can get a bit spazzy. They say that the prayers got really loud and excitable and Syd kept saying, "But Auntie Fiona HAS to know we're excited to see her. We just thought we'd be seeing her TOMORROW!!!"

Well, they were in such a frantic, spazzy mood, that Jodi pulled up, sent Syd into the airport to look for me, but she ran right by me and I had my head down because I was a little engrossed in my magazine. Jodi watched Sydney run wildly through the airport (it's all windows) and then every once in awhile she would stop, look at her Mom and do the sign with her arms like, "I don't know where she is?" So, Jodi turns the car off and goes running in herself, except she runs upstairs where there's a coffee shop in case I went there. She said they had been praying so loudly in the car that they didn't hear her phone when Craig text messaged her to let her know I'd be waiting outside.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting outside and hear someone drive up and honk. I look up, it looks like their car so I stand up. Just as I stand up, I get jumped on from the left ... it's Syd the kid. "We've been looking all over for you! Now my Mom's upstairs looking for you." I said to her, "What? Where did you guys park." She points to a vehicle seriously 20 feet away from me. They both ran right by me. Finally Jode come downstairs, we all hug it out and I say, "Sheesh! I fly all this way. The least you could do is meet me at the airport."

I wasn't mad at all (although if she thought I was going to be so mad and hold a grudge, apparently I need to do some work on myself) and we had a spazzy ride home telling the story from both of our perspectives. Jodi had thought I was coming in on Dec. 11 at 5:30, while really I came in on Dec. 10 at 8:20. She doesn't know where she got that date from, and we're not even going to try to figure it out. By the time we got back to their house, it was after 10 pm, so luckily she had wanted to be ahead of the game and she had already made up my bed for me. Now I needed to get some sleep for all the concerts and plays coming up in the next few days

But I'm here and I have another story to bug my sister with. :) Love you, Jode!

Vancouver to Singapore

So, here's the first leg of my trip. Picassa doesn't collage the whole picture, so my head got cut off in the first one. The first 3 are of me all packed and ready to go at the Vancouver Airport. Thanks Bren and Natasha for dropping me off. The middle 3 pics are: a picture of my plane (best airline EVER - movies galore, tons of TV shows, CDs to listen to and video games to play. I wasn't bored for a minute). It was a beautiful day for a flight as you can see from the view of the North Shore Mtns. I had really great meals on the plane (but a little weird times to eat, but I'm not complaining). This was my linguine with chicken meal. Last one in this row is from my stopover in Seoul, Korea. Took 10 1/2 hours to get there from Vancouver. Last 3 pics are just of the in flight map to show you how close to Singapore we were.

This picture is from the bathroom in Seoul. Bren had told me that when she was there, in the bathroom stalls they had a button you could push that would play music to drown out any noise you were going to make. :) Well, I thought that's what this was so I pushed the button. Instead, it played the sound of a toilet flushing REALLY LOUDLY! Of course I couldn't turn it off, so I had to wait it out and had a little chuckle. Etiquette Bell? I think not.

This first picture is when we were 6 minutes from landing in Singapore. Even though it was in another language, I could tell that it was 22 degrees outside ... at 11:00 pm at night! Sweet! Speaking of sweet (nice segway, hey?), the lady beside me on the plane brought these Krispy Kremes all the way from Seoul (and maybe from beyond that. I didn't ask where she was from). A lady after my own heart ... except that she didn't share. :(

When I went to my stopover booth at the airport, guess who checked me in? I don't know if you can read the last picture above, but it was Jackie Chan! I almost said, "Your name's Jackie Chan?" but realized he probably gets that ALL the time, so I just smiled to myself, thanked him and walked away.

I had a nice sleep in my hotel, then went downstairs for breakfast. Can you believe they had a chocolate buffet for breakfast? Ok, ok, it was yummy! As I was sitting there eating, I looked up and couldn't believe my eyes. On the TV was the 2007 Grey Cup! What? I didn't even watch the Grey Cup when I was at home in Canada, and here I was watching it in Singapore. Too funny.

The rest of the day I had the privilege of hanging out with my Bible school roommate, Lisa and her daughter, Thizbe. Her hubby, Steve and son, Emmett came to say hello and then the guys parted ways as they didn't want to hang with us shoppers. :) I can't believe that 14 years ago I was standing up for them in their wedding. We had a good laugh thinking about Bible school days and if someone would've told us we'd be hanging out in Singapore, we would've thought they were crazy. God's plans can be so different than what we think they're going to be.

We had fun going to the touristy places and of course stopping at Starbucks for a drink. Seriously, is there anywhere that Starbucks isn't?

Then we walked through this beautiful, swanky hotel called The Fullerton Hotel. They had amazing Christmas decorations up. Even though it was hard to think Christmas was coming in the 30 degree weather, the decorations were a good reminder.

As it started to rain, we didn't even mind because it was a very warm rain, we decided to stop for lunch along the river. It was a wonderful day and hopefully I'll get to see them again on my way back home.

This is me in front of the famous Merlion that all the tourists get their pictures in front of.

Ok, one more bathroom picture. This was in the Singapore Airport and is the most BRILLIANT idea I've seen in a bathroom yet. You wad up a bunch of TP, stick it under the slot at the bottom and press the button. Cleaner spritzes out and you can clean the toilet seat before you sit down! Isn't that great? Sometimes those toilet seats can be nasty, so I thought this was very smart.

Just over a one hour flight and I will be in Penang with my sister. Stay tuned for a funny airport pick up story. :)

Waiting patiently

Here I sit at 1:51 am trying to keep myself awake so that maybe I'll be able to adjust to the time difference better when I get there. There's nothing left to do but shower and shave my legs, but I'll do that closer to when we have to leave. I can't wait to get on the road and in the air. Did I mention that Singapore Airlines is THE BEST airline and I can't wait to see what movies they have waiting for me at my seat. Only 6 hours to go!

As I sit here and wait, I was thinking about all my blog friends and how great you've been at wishing me a wonderful trip (even waking in the night to realize you forgot to say goodbye ... thanks, Lovella). I'm hoping to have a bit of time to update my blog a couple of times when I'm away, but I can't promise anything. I've heard there will be lots of Christmas plays/band concerts and such to go to the first week and a half, then my sister and I are taking off on a little side trip for 3 days, then there's Christmas, then we're all taking a drive up to Thailand for New Year's, then we'll relax for a couple of days and then I'm on my way home! Wait, how did that fly by so fast? I'm not even there yet! Ok, back to thinking about you all. Thanks for your holiday best wishes and prayers for safe travels. I'll leave you with this.

This morning as I was waiting in line at Tim Horton's, I saw the sun rising over Mt. Baker. This picture doesn't do it justice (especially with the beautiful power lines in there), but it was awesome. It was so cool to remember to take pleasure in the beauty God has created.

As the sun was rising, this song was on the radio. I'll just quote the chorus.

We are the reason

That He gave His life

We are the reason

That He suffered and died

To a world that was lost

He gave all He could give

To show us the reason to live

Thank you, Lord, for giving us a reason to live.

Hanging with the Super Heros

Last weekend I got to go hang out with a couple of super heros ... and their brother (the one on the computer).

These next pictures may look like I'm standing on them, but I'm the one on the floor and they are going for AIRPLANE RIDES!!! Man, little boys have energy! All I kept hearing was, "Chase me! Get me!" After a little break, the next chasing session would begin. After about two minutes they were asking, "Can I go bareback? I'm SO hot!" So funny! They were all sweaty and red. Scrawny little guys.

After their brother was finished with his computer time, we put on a play. Oh, I wish I could show it to you, but I think it's just too much video. They would have this whole thing planned and as soon as I said, "Action!" they were all quiet. So funny. We did 5 different scenes of the King in the castle and the Good Knight coming to defend the castle from the bad guys. These were the bad guys.

I'll have to make copies of the "scenes" for their Mom. Too cute. Good times. Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys. :)

Last week I also got to hang out with my cousins (although not super heros, still just as fun).

My cousin Taraleigh (middle) was in Vancouver taking a course, so my other cousin, Janelle and I drove in to meet her and we went to Macaroni Grill for supper. It's so fun to relate as adults now (although we can still giggle like little girls).

Well everyone, I don't know if I'll get any more posts done before I leave on Saturday (I'll try to update once or twice while I'm gone), so I hope everyone has a glorious Christmas and remembers why we really celebrate. Although this holiday has been commercialized to death, Jesus is the Real Reason this holiday started. Don't forget to be thankful for Jesus becoming human and coming down to earth. The greatest Christmas gift you'll ever get is the gift of Eternal Life.

Merry Christmas!

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!