I finally went sledding again!!!!

I have not been sledding for years mostly because every time I went I would freeze to death. This was due to a lack of a proper pair of snow pants and boots. Well, I bought some snow pants in early Novemberish hoping I'd get the chance to use them, not really knowing for sure if I even would. Well, I was talking with Jenn on msn last week at work (as we usually do!!) and she suggested we go sledding on Saturday and I got really really excited. Then the weather forecast called for -25 Celsius but Jenn, Emily and I were still determined to go. I had a few other friends willing to go but they backed out when Saturday came because of the cold, the wussies. Friday I got off early and went Christmas shopping and happened to find myself some awesome new winter boots, and some cute shoes. I also picked up some great mittens too.

Well, Saturday was so much fun. Emily and I looked like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man all bundled up. We were laughing so hard at ourselves. On the way to meet Jenn at the hill Emily asked where we were going, and I told her Connor's Hill, the most dangerous hill in the city. She was like, oh sure, now you tell me. I laughed. I love that hill and have been injured on it a time or two on it. Really screwed up my knee one year. The three of us were the only ones brave enough to be out there but had so much fun. We were so warm all bundled up. I had so many layers on it wasn't even funny. I am such a Canadian LOL!!! I may not like the cold but growing up here I sure know how to layer up and have some fun in it!! The best part is going for hot chocolate after!!! That made me feel way way better :)

The funny thing is, I had a friends wedding reception that afternoon and it was just finishing when we got done with hot chocolate so I drove to the chapel in my snow suit and all, went in, didn't change and talked with the Bride and Groom. It was hilarious. Ben was just happy that I came he didn't care how I looked. It was so nice to see them there and so happy. They are such a cute couple and deserve it. Now I can say that it was a good thing I bought snow pants and I can't wait till the next time I get to use them and hope to use them a lot this year!!!!!!

I'm a friggin' idiot

So, tonight I did something that makes me feel rather stupid. I can't believe I'm writing about it but it really is kinda funny. First of all let me just say I blame my sister. I was planning on going to the temple tonight, but my sister called me at work, remind me to have her forget the number there, and was pretty desperate for a babysitter tonight so I caved and told her I'd watch Cache. They had Veronica's Christmas concert and forgot they couldn't take him with them. He was actually pretty funny and made me laugh. So, anyway, when I got home I decided to wax my legs.

Now everything was going just fine until I decided to heat the wax up again. Well, I pulled it out of the microwave and there wasn't a ton in the jar and tried to swizzle it around to see if it was melted enough (it had only been 15 or 20 seconds). That's when the pain began. It spilled over the top and landed on my thumb. Some got on my right hand too and dropped on my foot, but that only made it red for a bit and it doesn't hurt at all now. I didn't scream, I didn't feel like cursing (amazingly), I just quickly went to the sink and ran some cold water. Ya, some of the skin started to peel. Not a pretty site. The cold wet washcloth I already had out did the trick at first and I went back to waxing. It was kinda tricky, especially when my thumb started to really burn. I got some ice on it but I finally had to give up. I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

So there you go. Today I'm an idiot. I'm even including some pictures of the lovely job I did. I'm going to have a hard time sleeping tonight, but will hopefully be ok. Let's just say tomorrow should hopefully be an easy day at work and then it's the weekend. I am so looking forward to this weekend. I'm going sledding for the first time in a long time. The best part is I have new snow pants. I haven't had real snow pants since I was a kid so this is awesome. My first time to try them out. I can't wait to take pictures and blog about the broken bones from that one LOL!!!!

No sleep and great days make me a giddy, tired girl

Well, I finally got to have my family birthday last Sunday. Somehow it always gets postponed for a while with the Temple Devotional and other goings on around here. It was really quite funny. I put in my "order" with Diana for my cake and it turned out not too bad. My favourite part was when Veronica was helping Diana light the candles and Veronica said, "wow, that's a lot of candles. Barb's old, and she's not married????" I died laughing. The funny thing is about 2 weeks before that I was babysitting her telling her how I used to play with her mom and babysit her mom while grandma taught piano when we were little girls. She couldn't believe I was older than her mom and not married. She was shocked!!!!! So how's that for a birthday present eh?

Then Tuesday, oh my Tuesday. Jenn had her birthday dinner and I swear, I stopped breathing I was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming down my face. First we went for dinner which is always delicious at Olive Garden, but, when you get six giggling girls together, trouble can be had. Jenn barely got us there alive, but we were partly to blame laughing so hard in the car. I gave Jenn the best present a girl could ever ask for, a man!!!!! I bought her a bunch of movies with Gerard Butler in them. One even has Christian Bale, another hottie. I'd better be the favourite for a long time to come :) I mean, who has ever received EXACTLY what they wanted. Now I know he's not real and just on the screen, but she didn't specify that he had to actually, physically be there.

After we went back to Jenn's place for more girl time and wow, what a bunch of girls together can talk about is hilarious. Emily told the most ridiculous story about getting over a fence, well flipping over, and squishing her missionary companion behind her. Oh!!! you just have to have her tell you one day, you won't be able to breathe. I swear, I couldn't get any air in I was laughing so incredibly hard. Then Paula with the "lip gloss" and bleacher stories, and then I had storied on other people. Let's just say, the embarrassing moment story I heard on someone brings a whole new light to the phrase " I have to go pee". Oh, and to top it all off, Jenn got out sparklers with which we promptly set off the smoke detector with. The best part is Jenn was trying to fan the smoke detector with a sparkler still in the other hand. Honestly, I don't know how we all made it through the night without peeing ourselves we were laughing so hard. We didn't leave her place till after midnight and by the time I drove others home and then got home myself it was 1am and I had to get up for work. Boy was I tired.

I had planned to catch up on my sleep Wednesday, but ended up watching my sister's kids while she had a meeting and then played Wii till 11:30 with a friend. You should have seen me by 2pm on Thursday at work. I almost didn't make it through. In fact, I had gone down for a short nap Thursday after work and was glad I had set the alarm on my phone or I would have missed the Institute choir concert, which was wonderful, but it was the conversations that were had with certain people that made it all worth while. OK, so it was more like "a" conversation with "a certain person" that made my night. It wasn't what I was expecting or how I was expecting it. I went home so giddy I couldn't sleep. Such a cheesy school girl sometimes I swear, I felt like a silly teenager again. Then talked with this certain person again last night, again, not what I expected, and got giddy all over again so that when I finally went to bed at 1am I had to distract myself with some TV to be able so fall asleep and not think too much. I hate that I think too much, but it's so much fun sometimes. I'm hoping this week is a little be quieter and I can get some stuff done and relax a little. I need a nap, which is I think the next step today. Nothing quite says Sunday like a great afternoon nap.

One Crazy Week

Well, last week was a very crazy and busy week right through to the bitter end. I had so much going on I barely had time to think, but at the same time it was absolutely fantastic. On Tuesday (Nov 18th) I had a fantastic conversation with Jenn on msn while I was at work. I realized so many things and was finally able to be honest with myself about something I was trying to deny. It lifted such a huge burden from me I didn't even know I was carrying. The best part is it changes nothing about what I want out of life, but admitting the truth has made me free to feel, and feeling has allowed me to get over some HUGE HUGE fears I have. I even had some bad and stressful days last week but was so happy all week that it didn't matter. I've even had that happiness carry over into this week. It's been so nice to feel free of those burdens and know that Heavenly Father really does know me and what is best for me and can take my troubles away.

Now for a bit of a lighter note. Part of the reason my week was so stressful is I had my birthday last weekend. It wasn't until Saturday but I did have a party for myself on Friday. I had a lot of fun and I think pretty much everyone did too. Two Tyler's got into some funny stuff with the game boxer's or briefs. Oh man, when I gave Tyler S the I am big where it counts card I nearly died. We had decided to end the game about then and it was his turn and I was hesitant about putting it down but everyone else said I should. It was soooooo funny. I turned red and so did he but it was hilarious. I couldn't help but laugh. Then later, oh man, gave Tyler V the I have a cheerleading uniform in my closet, I couldn't help myself. Those poor boys and all of us girls. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! Then later I got caught looking at one of the Tyler's going what the heck and had all 3 that were there turn and look at me. Too funny, I don't think I've ever had all 3 of them in a room together at the same time. I have too many friends named Tyler. My mom has said I'm not allowed to name my kids Tyler, Jenn or David because I know too many with those names.

Then to top it all off, on the Sunday it was the temple devotional. When my dad got called to be second councillor in the temple presidency my mom volunteered me and my friends to help serve for it and we did for the 3 years they were there. Then, when the new temple presidency was called last year they asked for our help since they were new and then again this year. I have now done this for 5 years. It was a lot of fun this year though and probably the easiest it has been. Probably because most of us had done it for 3-5 years and two of them it was their 2nd year. We definitely have it down to a science. Emily got pretty messy too trying to put this one cake with the desserts. It was a good cake, but very messy and hard to get out of the pan to serve. We faked it, as we do very well.

Armed and Dangerous

Well, after months and months of being promised that we would go shooting, Tyler FINALLY took me shooting last weekend. So after we set it all up and Tyler shot some he handed me the gun and showed me how to load it and said there you go. At first he was said do you want to move closer? Maybe you should move closer. I asked why, I was fine and then sat down and proceeded to hit the target on my first shot. In fact out of the first 15 shots I hit the target 10-12 of those times. I laughed. David proceeded to tell me he was afraid of me now with a loaded gun and that I could shoot. I thought that was pretty funny. We had a couple different guns going and took turns between all of us. I felt even better when David shot and didn't do as well as I did (notice my humility there).





I had so much fun and am even more excited to go for my class in 2 weeks to work towards my gun license. I had forgotten how much fun it really was. When I was around 19 years old or so we had gone down to Calgary to visit my Aunt an Uncle and my Uncle has what I call a gun vault. It's a room in his basement with a deadbolt lock and a bunch of guns of all kinds and varieties. He took my sisters, father and me to the gun range and I got to shoot his revolver. This time we were shooting Tyler's .22 rifle. This is going too be a pricey but so much fun hobby, and all Tyler's idea so my mom can blame him for anything bad that might happen.





I do have to say that today was fantastic. Absolutely nothing exciting happened and I am so tired today it's not even funny. I woke up at 4:30 am and didn't really go back to sleep before I got up for my workout this morning. I just felt less burdened and more like I can deal with anything that comes my way. I know a bunch of life changes are coming, I can just feel it, and I'm ready for anything baby. BRING IT ON!!!!!!!! In the mean time I'm going to celebrate my 32nd birthday Friday and it's going to be fun. No matter how many people come and what happens the most important people in my life will be there and we will make it the best time ever. Not excited to turn 32 on Saturday but I'll live with it. My 30's so far have been fantastic and keep getting better so 32 can only be even better. The only thing I don't like is it just makes me sound so old. Oh well, like I said, BRING IT ON!!!!!!!

High School Musical

So, my sister called me a week and a half ago and said she couldn't take her daughter, Veronica, to go see High School Musical 3. Karen asked if I would take her for her and said Cache would LOVE to go too. He loves the first two also. Well, I was supposed to take them that weekend but they went to their grandparents place in Wetaskiwin. So, this past Saturday I ended up taking them. I was a little worried because when I had been to visit them earlier that week Cachie was being a grouch. He wasn't cute or handsome or anything, he was angry, according to him. And then he tips his head down, rolls his eyes up and looks at you with the dirtiest look. It's so funny, even though he's mad. They were at mom's when I was there Thursday and they were almost perfect angels so I was less worried. I tried to convince a friend of mine, who loves them, to come but he was a wuss to see the movie.

As I was packing them up to leave my 18 year old niece, Taya, who lives with them decided to join us too which was nice. It definitely made things easier, especially considering Veronica ALWAYS has to pee half way through, which of course happened again. This meant I could stay with Cache and not have to drag him along too. Taya and Veronica saved us seats while Cachie and I got treats. That was an adventure and many a mom were impressed with my juggling talents. I had a large popcorn for Taya in my left arm with the two small tubs of popcorn for the kids dangling from my finger. Two straws in my mouth and in my right hand I had the two little cups of pop for the kids. Cachie so lovingly carried the licorice. I had the tickets between my fingers and Cachie kept saying to me I'm coming Barb. It was so cute. He got himself settled in quite nicely. It was so funny watching him watch the movie. He sat there with the little tub of popcorn in his lap and slowly ate away at it. Then he would pass it to me to hold and pick up his drink and hold that and slowly sip away at that for a while, then put that back and grab back for his popcorn. Considering he was almost constantly eating away at it he hardly ate any of it.

Veronica on the other hand pigged out on her popcorn and even had a refill from Taya's popcorn. The Kinder Surprises they got were in my pocket and we saved them for home because they would have been very messy. After we got home they sat down to eat their chocolate treats. Cache starting stressing out as soon as we got home. He really really wanted Kung Fu Panda on and was almost in a fit. I started getting it ready for them and then I heard it. I thought Alex had splatered dinner all over the floor but it was cute little Cachie puking. I turned just in time to see the second spill of it. I thought it was kind of funny, and at least he did it all over the tile and not the carpet of thier BRAND NEW HOUSE!!!! We got him changed and Karen gave him a bowl while he was in the kitchen and said what do you do if your tummy hurts and he made the hurling sound over the bucket. I nearly died laughing. He wouldn't take it with him so I helped him get him and his bowl settled in front of Kung Fu Panda. I made sure he knew what to do and again he turned his head over the bowl and made the hurling noise. It was just so funny. We think it might have been flu related since Vernoica had been sick earlier that week.

So those are my adventures. Am I the best Aunt or what? Those kids love me. During church on Sunday I asked Cachie how he like the movie and he looked at me and said ya, it was so cool. What a cutie. I love that boy. He was so adorable when I had to wake him up from his nap (he'd already been down for 2 hours) to go to the movie in the first place. I'm just glad I survived and that they had fun and especially that Cacheton waited until we got home to puke.

To add to crazy things........

So, on top of everything else I already do I have decided to start learning Spanish. Not quite sure why but I've kind of wanted to for years and I figured I might as well right? I already know a fair bit of French seeing as I took 9 years of it in school and was writing essay's, although poorly, by the end of grade 12. That was, however, in 1994 when I graduated high school and I never was very good at carrying on conversations with it. So my knowledge of French is going to be both a help and a pain when it comes to learning Spanish. As I've discovered with what I've learned so far, there is a lot similar, but just enough different to confuse my brain every once in a while. I'm taking the self taught route, with the help of a friend who knows Spanish, seeing as I have NO TIME to attend any classes. As it is I have to remember to stop by the gun store this weekend to pick up the book I need to have for my class on Dec 6th.



Most of my friends think I'm a little crazy taking so much on but I'd rather be very very busy than bored for even a minute. Work has slowed down some which has helped and yet not helped. I've had a few days where I've had nothing to do and I feel like I'm going insane. I'm also sick again which isn't helping the exercise routine I added to my mornings. Oh ya!!! Forgot to mention that one. I am now getting up at 5:30 every morning to work out to my Turbo jam. There's cardio, toning, abs, etc and it's totally awesome and I have a schedule to work with it. So I have that on top of my Taekwondo to keep me athletic. But, being sick this week it hasn't worked out as well as I'd hoped. It's mostly in my lungs, which, when added to my asthma problems makes it really hard to breathe really fast. I'm hoping to get better soon so that I can get back into the swing of things.

It seems everyone around me is getting excited for Christmas. Well, usually I am too, but this year I'm getting excited about my birthday first. I don't really do anything for my birthday but go out for dinner with my friends and kinda lazy around, but this year I've decided to have some fun. I haven't had a party for a while and thought I should. The last one I really had was 2 years ago my sister threw me a birthday party and then I did a New years Eve get together with some girlfriends, but that was in 2006, which was a rough year. It was the year that my dad had health problems on and off for all 12 months, and they could never figure out what it was and then he passed away on Dec 30th, and yes, still did the New Years Eve party. Of course I did, it's such a me thing to do. I needed to have fun at that point. So, I'm taking matters into my own hands and I hope a bunch of people show up. My mom is letting me use her house, thank goodness, because mine is just too small and she has the pool table and such. I think it will be awesome if it goes right. I had a party in January of 2005 that totally rocked and I'm hoping to have the same kind of fun this time. So, I'll have time to get excited for Christmas after I rock it out me style for my birthday. OH YA!!!!!!!