On Location

Im writing to you on location from the big city of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, North America, The World, The Universe, Chunk of Creation. We are spending the next couple of weeks down here with my in-laws. Its Moe’s birthday and we have some time to get away. It’s really nice. Morgan will have to go back up for work on friday, but he’ll come back down next week for another day or two. I’ll stay down over the weekend for the Party and fun fun.

So the last couple of weeks have been oh-so-crazy. With the Relay for Life and normal life to deal with I havent had much time to blog. So I’m trying to catch up.  Heres my favy story from the Relay.

While hanging out at the Relay with some friends, my “Extra Parents”(Mark and Shannon) came up to say hi. I noticed Shannon had a travel mug in her hand. She walked up to me and reached out to hand it to me. It smelled amazing. A London Fog!! I thought to my self.” Awe how sweet, they brought me a London Fog. How did they know that would be the perfect thing in this chilly weather.” Thats when Shannon(My extra Mom – I practically lived at her house in high school, I did chores!) Walked right passed me, and my hand hanging out like an idiot, and handed the mug of delicious hot London Fog to this Lady she hardly knows. I then proceeded to pull my hand back all awkwardly like I was sort of waving or something. Could I possibly be more awkward. Um no. After I cried, I got over it and now find it mildly funny. Ha Ha.

Well sounds like we are going out for Breaky so Id best go. *kiss kiss*

"Croc-xperiment"

I feel like Ive taken a blog sabbatical. Ok so now I’m back. I have hardly even been at home in the last two weeks. Between Avalanche and the Streams conference Ive been gone way to much. It was good, but I am really happy to be home. hopefully I don’t verbally puke all the latest stuff on you.

Ok…Game plan. I’m going to leave my goal update until later today or tomorrow. That way I can talk about fun stuff and Emily. Ok blue forty two…hut hut hike!

Firstly my gorgeous little daughter has a new gorgeous little boy to bully. His name is Issac Gordon and he was born last week to one of my bestest buddies. Go see his picture cause he is adorable. And click this pic too. Way to go Leah!

I was only gone a couple of days this weekend, but Emily learned like three new words while I was gone AND decided it was ok to wear hats. Yay my mom! So now she can also say hat, hot and out(because she is always being told “get out of there turkey”). I wonder what new ones she’ll learn this week. I think Ill have to update the Emily Page and put in an Emictionary.

While we were in Kelowna we got Emily a baby doll. At the beach last week she loved playing with Jada’s baby doll. She loves it. Its so cute cause she walks around holding it and hugging it and giving it huge kisses (something she is now very good at). We also got her a couple of hats and books and a bunch of new bigger non-plastic melt-in-the-dryer bibs.

I’m doing a “Croc-xperiment”. I got a pair of rip-off brad crocs. Those sandals everyone and their cat are wearing.( I looked, but I couldn’t find a picture of a cat in crocs sandals). So my experiment is to see if they are as comfy as everyone says they are. Or to find out if there is any reason to be wearing them in public. We say this lady walking down a hill in Kelowna wearing Crocs and walking with 2 hiking poles. Like was she hiking to Alaska or what? It was weird. So far I’m finding them fairly comfortable. I also got a pair of .33cent flip flops or thongs (as we always called them). so Ill trade back and forth and let you know the conclusion. My hypothesis is that both pairs of sandals will be equally comfortable and that I will end up wearing my crocs out in public by accident.

Well I have oodles more to blog, but I’ll get to that. Slow and steady wins the race.

Emily at the Beach

I have returned from whence I came.

I think memorable is the best way to describe my weekend at avalanche. There were good things and bad things thats for sure. Heres a recap of the funny things. We are driving down the coquahalla when the van starts to sound a bit too much like a Suzuki. We pull over and the van is now toast. Yay for Elisha who saved the day having only caught up to us 10 minutes before coming from Vancouver. So Leesh saves the day! We get there and all is going well. We set up tents and head for the conference. Skip ahead a bit until Saturday night. The day has been pretty good so far and we stay up a bit late for a concert and then head back to camp. I’m wondering…did you ever played with dominoes as a kid? I did, but nothing even compares to coming back to the camp and finding that 2 of the 3 huge tents have played dominoes while you were away. I’ll admit, not everyone thought it was as funny as I did. Ok mostly they did. Skip ahead a bit more to Sunday Morning. At the church service they had this drumming contest. They asked who could drum so my group yelled me and I ran up to the front. I jumped on stage to meet my competition who happens to be a guy I know from Williams lake. Imagine that! Rival towns drumming it up. We played stomp on these barrels full of blue and red paint. It was awesome. My dress is now perma tye dyed. Well I lost, but it was a cheer contest so It could have happened to anyone. But I won a t-shirt. YAY.

We are working on a video for Youth and Church. I’m loving all the stuff we have so far. Its awesome. Ill try to put it up as soon as possible. Anyways. I’m zonked from a long weekend without much sleep so Im gonna go get a coffee and chill out.

Oh yeah and we got given a new hugemongous awesome HD LCD flat screen T.V. YAYAYAY!!! Just in time for the season finale of Heroes. Which rocked by the way.

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Poop Smith

I’m taking a breather from packing to blog. I’m trying to get loads of things done for Avalanche this weekend. I’m soooo excited though.

I have a great Emily story this week. We had our friend Elisha come over and take pictures of us down at the park. There were so many mosquitoes that we couldn’t stay long so we went back to our house to just relax and play with Emily. It was bed time and so Emily had just finished her bottle and I took all her clothes off to let her run around in her diaper before putting her jammies on. It has been so hot this last week, so I decided Em could run around nudey buns for a bit cause she is all done her”business” bybedtime, plus I could take the opportunity to take some good nudey pictures for her baby book. About 5 minutes after I had taken her diaper off she turned and looked at me with this look that said “Here I go” and gave a super grunt. I hucked the camera on the couch and ran for the diaper bag. I grabbed a diaper and didn’t really even unfold it much before franticly trying to put it on her while she was standing up. I had exactly 1 second to spare. I just made it in time for Emily to poop a gooder. At that point Auntie Leesh says “I’m never having kids!That was sick!”. Anyways. It was pretty funny. I think Ill think 2 next time I decide to let Emily run around nudey buns.

Well I should get back to packing and getting last minute details all done like dinner. Catch ya on the flip side! Oh and I finally broke 170!! Its 169 for me.

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Final 10!

I got halfway through a post yesterday when Emily woke up and the rest of the day was shot. I went back to my post this morning, but found it to be rather boring so I deleted it and we are starting fresh.

Emily has the worst attitude today. Its crazy. She keeps freaking out over dumb stuff. Dealing with Toddler temper tantrums isn’t very fun. I’ve read so many different ways to deal with them, but I haven’t found something that fits us yet. Thankfully its nap time and I get a few moments reprieve. Grr. I think she’s waking up again. What is this?? AHH!
I have been overhauling my house. It was in serious need of a good cleaning. I’m going away for the long weekend and my in-laws are staying with Emily so I wanted to make sure the place wasn’t icky and cluttery. Man its relaxing to walk around in a clean house. I think I’ll even clean out the fridge today. I spilled a box of baking soda everywhere and I’ve been putting off cleaning it up. It looks like it snowed in my fridge. Or like a snow globe that has yet to be shaken.

Perfect segue into…

Sylar on last weeks Heroes. Its ok if you didn’t see it cause Sylar went psycho and killed his mom. Who does that. Seriously. I’m stoked for Heroes tonight. Only 2 episodes left. This is the only TV show Ive ever watched that I haven’t missed an episode. YAY for Tivo! Thats not true. Morgan rented the first season of 24 and I watched all of that. Loved/Hated it.

Oh yeah and guess who won the challenge at my gym. ME! I lost the most inches at the gym in the last 2 month. I won some candles. oooo. Plus even tho the last 2 weeks didn’t go so great I still lost a pound. I’m in the final 10 baby yeah!! I know everyone says those are the hardest, but I didn’t do so great on the last ten and now I’m back in the game. I’m pretty excited about it. Yay Me!

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Prickley Jeans

What a Mc-awesome day. It stayed gorgeous all day. When we got to Loon Lake I put Emily down for a nap and Roxy and I went exploring. We took the camera too so you’ll see some of those at the end of this post. We went across the creek and even found a couple of places we hadn’t been before. Mostly because of this rule about crossing through fences. I mean it was a good idea and all. A 10 year old would make a lovely snack for a bear. As usual I couldn’t help myself I ended up with my shoes off wading out to a log to stand on it. I didn’t get too too wet. Well at least I dried off before we got back. I think I still have prickle bushes in my jeans. Poppa made us wear these…uh…sweet…hats.

We fixed up the golf course. Put up the flags and de-cow-poop-ified everything. Then we had a round of golf. I’ve discovered that my long game is great. My short game…not so much. My dad got a hole in one. Roxy did too, but we weren’t playing that hole. haha. Overall it was a great day. We even made it home in time to see Morgan before he had to go to bed for work in the morning.
I had a bath with Emily tonight. I mostly stopped doing that except for the occasional shower. I don’t think she’s to big yet, but she usually has more fun playing by herself. Tonight we both needed a bath and I needed to keep her up longer before bed so into the bath we went. Em is so fascinated with my belly button ring. It’s funny. she pokes me and says “ohhhhh”. We had a really nice cuddle, Emily sang me a very nice song she made up and then I got her ready for bed.

She has been more cuddly lately. It’s nice. I’m ok with her not being cuddly cause I think I’m the one who really likes it most. Pastor Rick and Marci came over the other day and Emily crawled up to Pastor Rick and when he picked her up she just lay her head down on him and cuddled. It was so cute. She did that again with my Grampa today. I love it when she’s like that with other people.

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Way Back Machine

You have to check out the Way Back Machine. so cool. It caches web pages from forever ago. I found quickdot and my old web page. Morgan was looking up CNN’s page from September 11. Its pretty cool and man my old page was ugly!

We are going road trippin again today. It’s my Gramma birthday so we are going to Loon Lake. I’m stoked. Morgan has to work so thats sucky. I’m going to take some more cute pics today. It looks to be another gorgeous day for picture taking.

I’ve been “camping out” in psalm 119 for the last few days. I’ve been really enjoying the things I’m learning. My favorite part so far is in verse 107 where it says “…the willing praises of my mouth.” Its cool because very often its easy to praise God because its a good idea or because you should, but not always in the “…the willing praises of my mouth.” I don’t know I just found it intriguing.

Yesterday I was complaining about not getting to do enough cardio at my new gym so Morgan suggested I run to the gym, only a few blocks from here. So I did yesterday. I ran for 5 minutes and then walked for 3 and I was there. It felt great. I walked back because I wanted to listen to a podcast and podcasts aren’t good workout tunes. I think I’m going to try to run at least a couple days a week. It’s a good run too because It’s totally uphill. Nothing like being good and sweaty.

Well I have to get Emily up and get ready for Loon Lake. So I’d best not dawdle.

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What a Day!

It finally happened. Emily had a UFO(un-food object) in her mouth. She was rather enjoying the crunch and munch when much to her dismay mommy’s finger was shoved in her mouth to remove said UFO. and well…theres no good way to say this. It was poop. I have no idea how she got it, but she had her own crap in her mouth. So now when ever anyone says something tastes like crap…well we can ask Emily if it does. I gagged.

After the crappy ordeal, we headed out on our road trip. It was the most gorgeous day. Its been so cold and windy here lately, but it was absolutely gorgeous out. We decided to go to Marble Canyon because I had never been there before. We stopped for lunch at some rinky dink little restaurant in Clinton. It was called the Cordial Cafe. The first thing our waitress said to us was “I have to apologize for our service. I’m a crappy waitress.”Then when I asked for a glass of water she said.” Do you want bottled water because the town water looks like someone tinkled in it and didn’t flush”. It was awesome. We stopped at this little antique store and wandered through. I found a tortilla press for 2 dollars so I bought it because Ive wanted one forever and they are like 40 bucks new. Such a good find I think.

When we got to marble canyon we drove right past it. It just looked like bluffs on the side of the road. There was this little pull off and thats it. We drove around for a bit and found this spot my Dad remembered where there was a pictograph. It was really neat. We hiked a bit and took lots of pictures. It was Emily’s first real day to play outside. Last summer she was to small to do pretty much anything, but lay on the grass. She wanted to walk everywhere. We let her sit in this big grassy hillside and play. She loved it.

We saw some people rock climbing up by the cliff face so we decided to go up and have a little look see. My eyes are downright liars. They made the hill look like a stroll. We were extreme hiking for a bit. I had Emily in the Backpack so I was good and weighted down. When we got to the top we started talking to some climbers and there was this guy there who new Dad from the high school. Then around the corner comes Mr. Meville. My high school shop teacher. Ok so this gets weirder still. While my parents were in Arizona last week so was Mr. Meville. Only they were riding Harleys and he had a convertible. And now here we are way the heck out in the middle of no where climbing up a mountain and here he is again. It was just plain weird.

Well over all we had an awesome day and I think we took some good pictures too.
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Day Trippin

15. Thats right. 15. It’s the number of steps Emily has taken all by her little old self. She doesn’t even need encouraging to walk she just goes and goes. I’m loving it. Ill admit shes quick so it isn’t always easy to keep up, but its still so fun. Shes gotten really good at saying “bye bye” and waving. She says daddy and Mama and bubba and I think she says Heidi too. When we were driving in the car the other day she was singing to herself and we heard her sing the melody of twinkle twinkle. It was super cool.

The next week is gonna be pretty busy again. Tomorrow we are going road trippin to who knows where just because we can. and then on Saturday its Gabe’s birthday so we are gonna party. Theres all kinds of youth stuff this week and then on the weekend its Emily’s birthday and a youth service and I think I’m preaching at church. I’m not sure what I’m preaching on yet, but I hope its interesting. haha.

Ive spent the last 2 days knee deep in paper. We are helping my parents with organizing their office. Its fun. I’m not sure why, but I like organizing stuff it doesn’t matter whose it is. So far we only lost one important piece of paper, but we found it again later. whew.

dang. I just realized that my gym is closed tomorrow. I haven’t gone once this week. Ive been so tired and had meetings and kind of didn’t feel great anyways. I was totally gonna go tomorrow, but now I cant. I’ve been floundering in my goals of late. I think its because Ive been feeling so good about my self its easy to just settle with where I am. I really don’t want to give up so I’m going to have to set some new goals and hop back on the band wagon. I think I need to set some more maintenance style goals. Its too hard to eat like a vegan/gymnast/stick/boring person all the time. hmm. Ill have to give that some thought.

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The 5th of Never.

Home again home again Jiggity Jig. I’m pretty excited to be sleeping in my own bed again. It feels like Ive been away for ever. maybe I have. I think I’m mostly excited to get Emily back into her routine. Not that our routines are ever normal anyways, but they will be oodles better than traveling all the time. She had so much fun staying with Nanny and Grandpa. They spoiled her again. Grandpa even bought her new shoes. They looked so cute on her even tho they were way to big for her teeny feet.

I had a great weekend at Charis Camp. I look forward to going every year. Its a good chance to get away and be with God and have a fun girls weekend with my Mom and Roxy. ooo I ate to much chocolate tho. What kinda girls weekend could it have been without chocolate. I’m back at the gym tomorrow tho so no worries.

I got new jeans. Well I actually bought the exact same pair as Roxy had lent me, but she wanted her jeans back and walking around in my underwear all weekend didn’t appeal to me. Then I tried on a cute belt so I bought that too. Then I tried on a long tank top dress thing and It was cute so I bought that too. Ill get Morgan to take a picture of me because I actually think I look good in this outfit. Today someone said I looked very spring-ey. When is the last time I looked like the actual seasons fashions…uh…never.

Emily is waking up so its time to go practice walking. yay!!

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