Soul, Surfer, Sharks

Last night I went to see the newly released movie, 'Soul Surfer'. An absolutely incredibly story, but above all incredibly inspiring. It's the true story of a young girl, Bethany Hamilton, who grows up surfing and is set to be a pro surfer and then loses her arm in a shark attack. With faith and perseverance, against all odds, she learns to surf again.


What I loved especially about this movie (besides the fact that it's a great story), is that it is blatantly Christian. I didn't realize this when watching the trailer, but Bethany and her family are Christians and the credit and glory that were given to God in this Hollywood movie are incredible. And exciting to see and hear the testimony of what God has done in and through this young woman. I have been reading other articles on her and it's a pretty incredible story. Check it out. And go see the movie.

YAHTZEE, yummy, yuppifying

One thing I have been loving about this summer is sitting on my patio enjoying the sunshine, and chatting intermittently with my neighbors.

The porch sitting was infinitely improved last week when I changed the lightbulb outside. I have never had a working light out there, but decided to take on of my 25 cent {highest quality} lightbulbs and try it out. And it worked!! So that meant I can sit out there at night, which has been wonderful!

Megan came over and her, Cedric and I played Yahtzee. I had been working outside when she came over and suddenly I said "Do you like Yahtzee?" And of course she did. And of course we played. About nine games..

Cedric was too busy eating chips to play.

But he made a new snowman blueberry friend.

Then we went to Waka Sushi which I had never been to, but it was quite good! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Except for the time when I almost accidentally ate Cedric..
We went to see Despicable Me, a new cartoon movie in 3D and it was fantastic! Laughed a lot! It was actually way better than I expected-I'd even see it again. We are yuppifying Cedric, in introducing him to more culture {a 3D movie can be considered culture, right?}All in all a fantastic way to spend the evening and hooray for outdoor porch lights which make summer evenings even more enjoyable!

Knight, Kaleidoscope, Kin

Today i decided that a great way to describe life is a kaleidoscope. Definition: a toy consisting of a tube containing mirrors and pieces of colored glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patters that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is rotated. A constantly changing pattern or sequence of objects or elements.

Sometimes we can predict what's coming, but often life is a random mesh of color and patterns that are ever changing, but ultimately beautiful. Life is kaleidoscopic (and yes that is a word... I looked it up).

For Mother's Day, Des and I told our Omi that we would take her for dinner and a movie. Our schedules haven't worked together until last night when we were able to go out all together. It started at Red Robin's and ended at the movie theatre where we saw Knight and Day.
Some favorite moments from the evening:

Twenty minutes into the movie, Omi leans over and says "Is this the movie?"

During the previews, Des laughed intermittently and every time she did, my Omi chuckled in response.

When leaving Omi's apartment, she noticed the stack of newspapers was getting lower and she made a statement about how they never bring enough papers, whilst grabbing two papers and then proceeding to stash them beneath the couch cushion in the lobby so she could get them later.

Being asked 3 times who brought her the wool to make a new afghan. I bought my favorite patterned wool and am SO excited for this afghan! My grandma is a crocheting machine and I treasure every piece dearly!
Today was a beautiful day and tonight the sunset was stunning. I have done things outside almost every day for the last few weeks and haven't noticed it being overly horrible weather. Sure it hasn't been smoking hot, but I've still been able to enjoy each day and the unique mix of weather patterns with it. Anyway, so this is me saying that I like the weather. I'm enjoying the variety and trying to enjoy each day as it comes. And for those of you who are hating the weather and want it to be super hot and sunny, hopefully that day will come on your behalf. :)
Today I enjoyed doing some of my work by the pool, until a bit of wind picked up one of the papers I was about to mark and almost came to the point of throwing it into the pool. Thankfully I caught it before it made it to the pool. Was able to swim some laps as well which is always such a great to clear the head.
Lots going on but I'm enjoying it all and trying not to get whisked away in the scurry of it all but enjoying every moment and trying to see the beauty in it!

Enjoy looking through the kaleidoscope today and allow yourself to be awestruck by the wonder of the myriad of colors and patterns that life brings!

Gnome, Gallavanting, Great

Cedric is a little gnome who enjoys traveling. So far he has been to Seattle and Hawaii. But he has many adventures up and coming! Here are a few photos from his trip to Hawaii with his good friend Megan.

If you want to follow Cedric on facebook, here's the link: Cedric's Page.

Eating some airplane food

Funniest sign ever... hehe

Surfing in Hawaii

Hanging out at the beach. He likes to take his suitcase everywhere


Nice backdrop...

TURTLE!!
Cedric arrived home the other day and enjoyed going to the movies with Lindsey, Megan and I. We had a delightful time.
That's all on Cedric for now. Stay tuned for his adventures. He was jealous of my blog and wanted his travels posted on here too... I was a bit sad he didn't take me to Hawaii with him. But maybe next time?

Washington, White, Weekend

Last night it was my friend Ryan's birthday, so we celebrated in style in White Rock.

I have been getting to know Ryan and his wife Melissa since I started going to the same church as them back in September.
And they are awesome. I think it is a true reflection of being a genuine great friend and person when over 20 people come out to celebrate with you on your birthday! Wow-how great! :)
While waiting for our reservations at the Washington Ave. Grill, we played cards and football outside. Here I am explaining 'Bohnanza', a really fun bean trading/planting game. It's pretty funny to listen to people play it. :)

All of our bean fields...

Three wonderful friends, Adri, Megan and Maia

If you look close enough, you can see Adri and my reflections in her sunglasses.

Karissa and Maia

Melissa, Ryan and Dave

Jamie and Karissa

Dave and Adri

And so ended a lovely Saturday! Well, I had three lovely ladies come over and hang out for quite a while afterwards.

This morning in church, I was really challenged/encouraged by the sermon, speaking about ministry in hard places and from hard places. I talked a bit about my prison ministry at the start of the sermon which got me excited in a new way for serving in prison. But it was also encouraging to think 'What "prisons" of my life does God want to use to spread the gospel and to glorify Himself?" We looked at the passage of Paul when he's in prison. Definitely encouraging and a thinker!

This afternoon I hung out with some friends in Vancouver and we went to see Robin Hood. It was quite good actually. I love Russell Crowe too. Afterwards, my friend Heather and I went out for dinner and now my friends are on their way over for a rousing game of Dutch Blitz! Fun times! Have a great start of the week!

Car, Crazy, Cotton

This video is of Maia and I dancing and singing on the way to the Canucks game.. I may have sped the video up slightly. And we were going about 3km/hr so not to worry.. i know the video looks like we're going quite fast. haha

Blind, Bullock, Beefy

Last night I went to see the movie "Blind Side". It's based on a true story. I hadn't heard of it actually, but a friend wanted to see it, so we went. What a great movie! It had a fantastic mix of funny and sentimental and was just really inspiring. Especially as to how you treat other people and so forth. I highly recommend it!


It's a movie about a boy from the projects who gets taken in by a wealthy, Christian family and they help him reach his full potential. It's a sports movie too, but I liked it that you don't have super long stretches of sports that you watch, because sometimes that can get long in a movie. So, here's my recommendation if you are looking for a great movie to go see!! :)

Pretty, Primer, Paint

Since having my new blackberry I have no need to be on my computer.. so I am never on it and therefore haven't updated my blog. So here's a few pictures I downloaded from my camera. Heres a pic of Chrystal and I. I forget where or why we took it, but then i remembered that we were walking out of Boston Pizza and wanted to take a picture of the snow. Haha.. you can sure see it falling all around us.
The other day after I picked up Hilary from the airport, we went to McDonalds for breakfast to officially end her no-mcdonalds december.

Destinye and my visit to ikea. the second redeeming one where we had lunch!

I had a bit of extra cash, so I purchased Destinye. I failed to tell her her jacket sleeve was on the ground as i pushed her and when i remembered to tell her, it was so incredibly filthy. Kind of funny though.. I had a good laugh!
Yesterday Destinye and I made wedding invitation for her wedding. We made a few different kinds to see which she liked best. It was fun. Then we went to the Canucks game and even though we lost, we had a wonderful time because,
a) we got on the big screen during the first period
b) when the sharks scored once, Kesler was so angry he broke his stick in half across his knee
c) Sundin scored his first goal and the crowd went bezerk
d) when we were fake dancing on the way home, the guy in the truck beside us joined in with the crazy arm pumping
e) destinye's crazy so it's always lots of fun

Since I was younger, I have always wanted to paint my room blue. however, i was never allowed. Here's the eggshell yellow color that I really did not like in my room.. I don't really like light colors to begin with so ya...Here's the blue primer I started with in the bathroom. I was tempted to leave it at this because I really liked it, but then I knew there was better yet to come!

And voila!! My blue bathroom! Okay I need a final coat (which I'm never to do because I secretly suck at painting) and then I need to paint the bedroom!! But I'm super excited! I'm going to have black accents! YAY! I have never really painted, but one of my goals for 2009 is to become handier.. so go me and my paintbrush. Chrystal came and helped too which was muchly appreciated. And then we had Little Caesar's pizza (first time going there) and watched 'The Emperor's New Groove' (first time seeing it). So it was a day of firsts!

Have a good day!
One more week til Disneyland!! YAY!