Trees, Teddies, Tons

Christmas Tree Photo Shoot = brilliant idea.

My mom phoned me up and told me she was starting to take down her trees and I should come take some pictures. Unfortunately a few were already taken down, but I made good use of the ones that were still up!


At Christmastime, my mother's house becomes a winter wonderful and a five-star restaurant all at once. The whole house is decked out with decorations, including nine fully decorated trees, all with different themes. And then she hosts about 20 different gourmet dinner parties. She's pretty amazing.


Anyway, this year I didn't take pictures of my own decorations, but I took some of hers and had a pretty fun time with it, so I thought I would share some of my favourites here.


Included are the red tree, the old world tree, the crazy/mardi gras tree, the classic tree and the owl tree. All absolutely stunning and completely different. Enjoy!


















































There you have it! Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and enjoy getting into a 2011 routine-I know I'm excited for it!

Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-First

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings from Calgary!! Sorry for the lack of posting of late-I have been visiting two of my good friends in Calgary-Jenn and Lindie. I met them both in Quebec and really truly appreciate their friendships. They mean a lot to me and I love being able to catch up with them!

So Calgary has been fun-we've been having a good time hanging out, going for walks, going to some of my favorite Calgary restaurants. Last night we went to dinner theatre which was a lot of fun, except for my truly awkward moment with our waiter. Sigh. Why does not everyone catch on to sarcasm?? haha..

Congrats out to my friend Cheryl who just got engaged on Boxing Day!! Yippee!! So exciting! :) And Brian and Jenn who are in my lifegroup had their baby girl on Boxing Day as well which is also very exciting!

I'm excited for 2009! 2008 wasn't great for a lot of reasons. Well, it was good, but in some key areas I want to make changes so I'm looking forward to revamping that for the new year. And I'm thinking of ditching school for the most part and doing my own thing. Might take a little longer to graduate, but yay for impulsivity!

Have a great day!

Twenty-sixth, Tired, Tree

Happy Boxing Day!!!

I'm quite tired so I will make this short but wanted to keep up with the tradition of writing every day.

Had a good day today. Went for lunch with Brooke and then started taking down my Christmas decorations and my Christmas tree.. I figure it's been up since beginning of November so it's okay to take it down. That way I can clean everything and blitz through and be nice and organized. The hardest part is finding new homes for my Christmas gifts!! :)

Then I went to some friends' where we played some Rook and enjoyed a great dinner! The first game I was schooled and the second game we were all in the minus but it made it quite funny!

Then I braved the icy, slushy, slippery roads and drove back home. Yay me for conquering my resolve to not drive in snowy weather!! :) And I'm alive to tell the tale.

After I came home I decided to shovel my deck. I figure it won't wreck my deck or flood my house when it melts (not even sure if that happens..) and it's good exercise so it's a win-win situation!!

Anyway, off to bed!! Have a wedding tomorrow which I'm super excited for!!

Have a great day friends!

Twenty-fourth, Twenty-four, Terrific!, Terrible!

Happy twenty-fourth of December! And happy birthday to me!! I'm just waiting til I get to leave for the Keg for my annual birthday dinner. Here are a few photos and I will post more stuff later on!

Yesterday afternoon Desiree picked me up and we went to Arby's. Fun times. haha.. We made a video.. you can watch it down below..


Last night Chrystal and I went for dinner in Richmond to the American Grille which was excellent! A good find indeed! Then we went to Guys and Dolls which was absolutely fantastic-I really enjoyed it!! :)
Then Chrystal stayed for night and we cracked open the champagne this morning to celebrate my champagne birthday!! Okay so we added juice to make it mimosas and to make it taste better since I'm not a huge fan of champagne. Good times!!

Here's a picture of snow out my back porch...


Afterwards I came to Abbotsford and Desiree came over.. and that's a story that deserves pictures and videos that I shall post later on...

But for now today is better than yesterday because:

It's my birthday!!!!!!! YAY!

Stay tuned for more exciting information (that will describe why part of the title of this post is "Terrible"

Twenty-third, Tablespoon, Tamago

Happy twenty-third of December!! Crazy that it's so close to Christmas! And my birthday! :)

Last night, Chad and Bobbi took me out for dinner for my birthday. We went to Moxie's which was great and then we met my mom and drove out to the Canucks game! And Canucks won which made it great! :) We won 4-3 and with a lot of fights mixed in there.. which is to be expected when you have the two teams with the most penalty minutes in the NHL playing each other. And yesterday's win moved us to first place in the NorthWest division and 3rd in the western conference!! huzzah!! :)

Also, Chad and Bobbi got me a sweet birthday present- a Canucks looking stick putter!! :) I have needed a new putter for quite some time and this one is pretty cool, so I'm stoked about that!


This morning I decided to venture out and try to make my favorite Japanese dish for breakfast. It's called Tamago in restaurants but can be known as a Japanese omelette.. Um.. So I didn't have most of the ingredients, but I made it anyway. I think I used 3 out of 8 ingredients.. It looked disgusting because of the way I made it, but it tasted excellent!

This egg was perfectly round.. kinda weird and funny. Always exciting to see what the chickens give you from the farm!

Mmmm.. doesn't that look tasty..

This picture doesn't actually do my dish justice as to how gross it looked. But it tasted good I assure you!!

And now I'm off to brave the snow and walk to the grocery store and pick up a few things! I have not grocery shopped in all of December! Go me!

Here's what makes today better than yesterday:
-I made my favorite egg dish..
-I woke up and my closet was already organized
-I got to go for an amazing walk in the snow (okay we're looking into the future here...)
-Chrystal and I are going for dinner tonight and then to the musical Guys and Dolls!
-Chrystal's staying for night!!

Twenty-second, T-shirts, Table

Happy Twenty-Second of December! I just realized that for the rest of the month, I will have to think of a lot of T words!! Good ol' dictionary might just help me out with that one.

Chrystal's a little crazy, but I always try to match her craziness...

The snow pictures I took from my window seat last night!
Today is better than yesterday, because:
-Chrystal was here when I woke up this morning
-We had an amazing breakfast of mac and cheese and apple sauce.. mm at my kitchen table (just tying in the title)
-I organized my closet and got rid of a ton of T-shirts. I now have more room
-I finished wrapping my Christmas gifts!
-I get to go for an early birthday dinner with Chad and Bobbi!
-My mom, Chad, Bobbi and I are going to the Canucks game!! And they're going to win, because a) I'm going to be there b) it's my birthday soon c) and why not?

That's all for today folks!! Perhaps I'll post some pics of tonight's festivities tomorrow!

Twenty-first, Tsaef, Trapped

Happy twenty-first of december!! I am finally home! I slept in Abbotsford but now am in my own house and it is fantastic!! I am loving being on my own for the Christmas holidays.

Yesterday we had a good flight home. 5.5 hours and we beat the snow! And we each had a row to ourselves so that was absolutely wonderful!! Here are a few pics I took from the plane when the sun was setting. I love skies.. whether it be sunrise, sunset or dawn or dusk or stars or.. clouds. um. yah. so i like to obsess about how nice it looks and take pictures and get excited about it. enough rambling. here it is.




So, here's what makes today better than yesterday:
-I got to sing on worship team this morning at church which was great as usual- a few of us went for coffee in between services which is always fun too!
-I had a family gathering with my dad's side of the fam. Always lots of fun.. Just hanging out, joking around, catching up, enjoying great food together and enjoying a gift exchange that usually has some random gifts in it. :) Here are some pics from my fam gath











-Also, Chrystal is staying for night!! YAY for slumber parties!! There's WAY more snow in Langey than Abbotsford which is pretty fun! Since Chrystal arrived, it has snowed 8cm! (maybe i'll be trapped in Langley because of the snow...) Fun! We made popcorn and sat on my giant window seat watching the snow fall... it's quite fantastic.

And that's all for today folks!! :)