Ok, because you asked.

Alright alright, Amelia thinks 10 days is too long to go without a blog, so here I am. Not really even sure what to blog about...

I'm coming down with something. I blame Mike - ok only because of his last post... truth is I think I was getting sick before I even saw him this week.

Being sick and going swimming is a gross mix. Especially when you constantly have to be within arms reach of a child who thinks it's funny to try to get away from you.

I'm at a lack of things to watch on tv... I'm all out of 24, and I've watched a whole season of Dead like Me because my sister owns it. I guess I should take this time and get things organized... but I'm sick.

Still trying to deal with all the changes in my life... Last Sunday's service I just cried and cried through the whole thing because it was totally directed at me. It was talking about changes within the church, but there were a lot of things that rang true in our life. We know God wants us to move to Kamloops, but it doesn't make it not painful. Our family is here, our church home is here, and the "unknown" in Kamloops is the scary part. Oh, I'm sure we'll make friends, find a new church home, but I think it's because I've always been afraid of being alone and being forgotten that I'm nervous about this change. I've moved so many times, I should be a pro at it.

Anyways, enough of that... other news... hmm... went out for birthday dinner last night (I think this is the never ending birthday this year) but this time it was because my Dad was in Ontario for my birthday. We went for Thai food in Pitt Meadows with his new girlfriend. She's really nice, more down to earth than ... well, another. She remembered a conversation we'd had at Cafe o Lei about how I wanted to make an Ikea trip before I leave for Kamloops, and that there are these cute little mirrors I liked... She got me 6 of them! It was very thoughtful.

Well that's that I guess... I'll think of things to blog about this week ...

24

and no this post isn't about Jack Bauer... not totally anyways. 24 years ago today in Toronto my mom was listening to Supertramp as she waited for her first daughter to arrive. Hooray, here I am. And I'm beginning to learn that the older you get, the more birthdays become "just another day".

I worked a split shift at the daycare, which meant getting up at 4am... no special treatment for the birthday girl, she still needs to bring home the bacon, as lean as it is. (ha ha)

Anyways, fairly normal day I suppose. Came home, ordered sushi, watched 2 episodes of 24, not sure when I'll be able to watch the next two, hopefully soon.

So onward I go into another year of my life. Hip hip hooray.

Mission: Accomplished!

The goal as of back in October: to start 24 Season 1, and continue until fully up to date before Season 6 started. (January 14) I'm proud to say that as of tonight, we are finally up to date! It's been a long, suspense-filled journey, but we made it. We've laughed, we've cried... Several of my favourite characters are now dead and I'm not impressed. But Jack's still alive. As the guy at the end of Season 5 said, he's "too valuable to kill". I agree.

So anyways, I'm excited for Season 6 now, like every other 24 fan, although those fans will watch the season premier before me. We decided since we have no cable (we can get the show, it's just a bit fuzzy) and we've watched 5 seasons on commercial-free dvd, we're going to wait until Jan. 16th and buy the first 4 episodes on dvd. Then I will spend my 24th birthday watching 24! How appropriate! It's funny too, since we don't have a lot of money, that's my gift to myself because I have a wal-mart gift card that I'm giving to J to buy for me. I'm excited!

So for now, I have a week hiatus from 24, and might fill my nights with other things... what shall I do? any suggestions?

Welcome to 2007!

Alright, so we've been in 2007 for about a week now and I haven't blogged. Oh, I've had the best intentions to blog, came up with various topics, wanted to do a 2006 recap, but hey, apparently I had better things to do. Like play Guitar Hero. Or lose track of time on YouTube. Look, I don't judge you. But I'm here now.

Today was an interesting day... we wanted to clean up around our place, which meant getting rid of the Christmas tree. In front of the tree was an upside down plant pot. Inside this pot was the biggest, nastiest wolf spider ever. We'd (Jason) trapped him in there a couple days ago but we (Jason) hadn't gotten rid of it yet. With a slipper in one hand raised above his head and his other cautiously holding the pot, he slowly lifted the pot, prepared to pounce. No spider. He looked inside the pot - there he was, crawling not too quickly towards the top, but quick enough to get Jason's feet moving. He opened the door to our place and instead of maybe shaking the pot to get the spider out, he throws the whole thing up the stairs! It bounced and made a racket and somehow the spider ended up on the wall. I handed him his sandal and that was the end of the spider.

Not 10 minutes later we decided to bring the tree up to the car so J could bring it to the compost place. I carefully steadied the tree as J undid the screws in the tree stand. He then instructed me to go open the door. He lifted the tree (I wasn't looking) and when I did look I didn't know what to say for a few moments. The tree stand was still stuck to the bottom of the tree. J didn't see it. I watched as all the water left in the bucket splashed all over our floor. I finally yelled "Stop!!" and he put the tree down but by then the pot was empty. We had a trail of pine needles all the way out to the car, and a huge puddle in our living room. Needless to say, I laughed a good laugh right about then. And then I cleaned up. A lot.

Later we decided to unwind by taking a little stroll over in a little park area we always drive past. It's a pond type thing with trails all around it. The thing is, the trails are basically the same level as the pond in a lot of areas. Did anyone happen to notice how much it rained the other day? There were huge puddles all along our route. But we were determined. Jason rolled up his pants at the first puddle, I hopped on his back and off we went. It was cold but only a few feet long so we figured it would be ok, it was an adventure after all.... Well I don't think J was singing the same tune around the end of our walk. We went through maybe 6 or 7 very large puddles, the biggest being maybe 20 feet long and up to J's knees... I stayed dry, so that was ok. I may have felt a little bad though, as we're (again, Jason) wading through a puddle and he's in pain from the coldness of the water, and I was just laughing hysterically in his ear. It only took him ten minutes or so of standing in warm water in the bathtub for him to feel his feet again... Anyhow, it was an adventure!

I got to finish off the day with J's sister and her husband, they came over tonight which was awesome since we aren't coming out to Maple Ridge much with our budget cutbacks... We watched Garden State - they'd never seen it and it's one of my favourite movies! Good times were had.

This is a long post already but I need to share this one picture with you...





This is my Sarahmaynard plant. I call it that because she recommended I get one of these because I wouldn't kill it. (that and I have no idea what it's actually called) And she was right!! Check out at the bottom, that light green thing. It's the opposite of dead!!!! It's growing!!! That wasn't there when I bought it! I was so excited when I discovered it that I decided it needed a celebratory drink. (of water, before you ask) It's the first plant I've made grow! Hooray!

Addictions

Some of you may know that both J and myself are totally addicted to the tv show 24. Well, since Christmas we now have a competing addiction. Guitar Hero has got to be the best video game ever. But it's getting in the way of Jack!!! At least we bought Season 5 so we don't have to worry about late fees this time.

Gregor Christmas 2006

Merry Christmas! This is our beautiful tree I've wanted to post about for weeks now, it's the first real tree I've had in about as long as I can remember. It's huge! I had to just stick a bow up top because there was no room for a tree topper. Oh and those lights, yeah they've been on continuously since Dec 9. Yay for LED!

Most of the presents you see there were for me, from all the little kids at school. That was fun, I think I have more chocolate than I know what to do with now...

Christmas was awesome! I woke up around 7:30 and was excited to see that Jason too was awake. We got up and did stockings and gifts - I was super excited when he opened up our new playstation 2! I'd had it for a while but couldn't say anything! And he seemed to really like his other gifts. He got me the gift of shopping (at American Eagle) as well as a new sweater that I love from there. Once that was all finished and breakfast was eaten, we went out to my moms for a few more surprises. Jocelyn's gift was hilarious. She got me a whole bunch of DVDs, but she wrapped each of them individually, and in all different kinds of wrapping paper - each kind representing a different genre. Inside her card was a legend that told what type of wrapping paper went with what type of movies. All in all I think there were something like 20 DVDs... It was sweet. But the thing we received that has us most occupied was from our good pal Justin Dekker. He got us Guitar Hero 1 and 2 for playstation. We've been rocking out nonstop since Christmas. Last night we even beat the game on the Medium Setting... there's 2 more to go from there which is extremely hardcore. My hands hurt! But it's a blast. If you haven't tried it yet, you need to.

That afternoon we went over to Jason's parent's house. They gave J a new cordless drill which rocks cuz we don't have one and it's amazing how much you realize you need stuff like that when you don't have it... They gave me a huge wall mirror, it's gorgeous! I love it! Dinner was over at J's grandparent's house with their cousins that are visiting from Nelson. I was exhausted after all that excitement so we called it a night pretty early.

Anyways, I will leave you with some of my favourite Christmas pictures.

This is actually the day we put our tree up, I just thought you could get an idea of how big it is... Maybe I just think it's bigger because I'm used to a small fake tree... Oh well, it's huge to me!

Yes that's me wearing the tree skirt as a cape...

Jason looking happy that he got a toy for Christmas. My mom got us each these little tiny remote control cars that you build and then race... He was thrilled!

People who know me know that I can't cook... I think Mom's trying to get me to learn or something...

Jason wearing the box for his cordless drill on his head. And that's why I married him...

Oh and that jacket he's sporting was my gift to him, he saw it on our honeymoon and I tracked it down and found it for him. Too bad the only good picture I have with him wearing it so far is of him as a robot.

Merry Christmas!

Walk This Way, Talk This Way

Alright so last night was an adventure night and a half. Aerosmith was in town with Motley Crue. I'm not a huge rocker fan, but I would say I'm a moderate fan of some of Aerosmith's stuff. We knew there was a chance of going to the concert but nothing was set in stone (My dad grew up with the guitar player from Aerosmith) But we found out for sure at 4:00 that day that we were getting all-access passes. It was a mad rush to get there quickly, while detouring to Pitt Meadows to pick up my sister. But we made it, and went to the back entrance to meet my dad who was already there with the passes.

I'd been to a show of theirs before, but I was in grade 6... I remember Greg Moore was in their dressing room hanging out with us. And the Barenaked Ladies were in the hospitality room too, which was sweet. We had seen the show from the back area, so I expected the same this time. It turned out that there were actually only 2 tickets to the show itself. My dad said he'd hang back, and Brad Whitford (guitar player) went and got us another ticket so J, myself, and my sister could all see the show. Unfortunately the extra ticket wasn't with the other two. We ran through various scenarios but all ended up with one of us alone... and since none of us were all that comfortable sending my sister alone, or me alone into a mass of crazy drunken rockers, Jason watched the show by himself... We weren't all that far away, and his seat was also pretty sweet! He had row 16 on the floor... I feel guilty though when I talk about how close we were... As I said before, I expected tickets in the back, or up top, since this was a sold out show, and all tickets were really expensive. But the two that were included were row 4, directly beside the catwalk. Yes folks, Aerosmith used a catwalk. I should say they worked the catwalk. It was unbelievable. The show was amazing! They broke into "Boston Blues" as they called it and WOW, those guys are old but they can still rock out. The whole thing was extremely surreal.

And old they certainly were... Jason commented on the way home that Brad looked "haggard"... which is true. When you consider how long they've been doing this, and how much crap they did when they were younger, you understand the haggardness.

Anyways, I was able to get a few pics to share with you...








Steven Tyler rocking the mic. I got a giggle out of the bottom of the mic stand, it says "Yo Mama"




There's Steven Tyler rocking out with Brad...

Kind of a motion shot, but Nikki from Motley Crue came out and rocked out wth them. It was pretty sweet.. Also, check out Steven Tyler's pants... They're purple, sparkly, and they have fishnet patches on the side... Is that for ventilation?

Questions

Well, some of you might already know all this but it's on my mind so I figured I'd blog.

Yesterday I (FINALLY) went to Vespers (I am a good friend, really, I promise)... Heather had prepared a slide show where we were to take a moment (11 minutes to be exact) and pray and reflect on these questions that appeared on the screen. There were 12 in total, I won't include all of them of course, but a few that really stood out to me...

"What has been a triumph?"

Wow, I've been married almost 4 months now... and while I'm not the best wife ever, I don't cook, I'm a terrible mess-maker, I feel that these 4 months have been a triumph of "growing up". I'm learning every day, and I feel blessed to have everything that I have.

"What has felt like a failure?"

Alright, so a little while back I felt God leading me in a different direction. I didn't feel "right" I suppose at CLA, for many reasons, but I definitely felt God leading me elsewhere. I struggled with this for a long time, I had just finished school and now this wasn't where I wanted to be? One word I kept feeling and repeating over and over: Failure. I'm beginning to recognize that this isn't so much a failure as it is a leap of faith so to speak. It's hard to follow where God's leading you, especially if you don't quite understand. And as Heather said, maybe one day I'll just be a really kickass mom.

"What has been a question?"

The last month or so has been a question... What does God want for us? What does God want us to do? I've been struggling with how to write this out (I've told some of you, but it's easier to tell you when I have my happy face on in public, and much harder to write when you're all by yourself in a basement.) Basically J has been discovering that his job and what he's trained for will entail primarily desk jobs. Anyone who knows J knows he's a much more active person than that. Being a permanent "Desk Jockey", as he calls it, would drive him insane. He found this apprenticeship program through BCIT working for Mack/Volvo as a heavy duty mechanic. Everything fell into place and as it turns out, he's been officially sponsored by the dealership in Kamloops. Which, inevitably means we're moving to Kamloops. I'm so torn up about it all, it's so hard and so confusing, but if it's where God wants us, I need to have peace about it. There's so much going through my mind, I'm so overwhelmed. So many more questions pop up all the time. How are we going to do this? With J at school, that means I'm the only source of income. When are we going to move? This could be as early as the summer, or as long as a year and a bit... I hate not knowing. I'm just scared, scared of leaving my family, friends, church.... I know it's not that far, but it's far enough to feel alone. But we'll get through. As I keep repeating to myself, we'll be ok. It's just taking a lot of adjustment, even if only mentally at the moment.

Anyways, sorry about the seriousness of the post, I just had a lot on my mind and find it helpful to get things off my chest sometimes. Now I'm off to wrap some presents in beautiful wrapping paper, and that will make me happy!

Weekend of Christmas

Well my weekend was filled with Christmas... mostly of the cafe variety. Thursday and Friday we rushed off to the church and tried to make it for the first play (I was a singing server) but alas, being in Abbotsford and trying to have dinner before we leave makes for a very rushy night... I was there for all the 2nd performances. It was fun though. We were invited out afterwards on Friday but decided to call it an early night since J had a judo tourney the next day...

Saturday... I didn't really feel like going to J's tourney (they're really long and a little boring in between when he's not fighting) so I asked him to drop me off at my mom's in Pitt, and sent my love and best cheering wishes for him... Unfortunately it wasn't enough and he ended up losing both his matches... He said it was because he didn't have his cheerleader there. Probably true, since he won silver last time when I did go... Oh well, I spent the day with my mom. She made us blueberry pancakes and we watched White Christmas (Snooooww, snooowww, snooowww, snoooww!!! It won't be long before we'll all be there with snoooowww!!) love it! And then we watched One Magic Christmas - a family tradition when we're decorating. It's a fairly obscure movie, but we love it. Then I had a nap. It was a rough day. :) Of course later on was another round of Christmas Cafe! This time I missed the first performance because J's dad made us dinner and it went late. But what can you do when you're given free dinner???

On the way home that night, after dropping off our compassionate friend, we decided to go see what was up on Sumas Mountain... There were some bright lights up there so we went exploring. There are some freakin' HUGE houses up there!!! We drove right over the mountain, going into every cul-de-sac we could find to look at these amazing houses. Absolutely beautiful!! They all seemed to have names like "Foxglove Acres" and the like. We decided if we ever own anything with more than 1 acre, we need to have a nifty name like that. Jason suggested Moversansh Acres (say it out loud) I thought maybe Noisem Acres or Head Acres... I guess we'll decide later.

Sunday... We went to this church in Abbotsford where a friend from our church was performing with this theatre company she's been travelling around with for the last few months. It was an amazing performance, called "Little One", about this program in Zambia (and other countries troubled by poverty and AIDS)... It was about this little girl who loses her mother to AIDS, and these missionaries who come bringing these "Seedbags" that have a educational workbook, a bible, and a toy. The bag itself can be a backpack. It was amazing, and saddening, hearing about the realities over there. People think they can send money, food, clothes, and wonder why nothing changes. But this program is working. They went into this high school that hadn't done this program and over 70% of the kids in that school tested positive for HIV or AIDS... Later they went into this school that had gone through the "Project Seedbag" education and not a single one tested positive. It teaches kids about the gospel, about Jesus, and about making choices that build character. If you want to find out more about the program, the website is here You can adopt an entire school for $100 a month, I think it would be so awesome to have a Seeds Ministry, one fundraising event a month with a goal of just $100 to raise... Anyone else interested?

After this was another round of Christmas Cafe... The last one for the year. All in all it went really well. I wonder how long I'll have the funny feeling song in my head for??

Feels like a Monday!

Alright, so here I am at work for the first time all week... I must say, I do enjoy the snow. However, come Wednesday I was fully prepared to go back to work. Alas, a migraine that left me super-sick decided that another day off was what I needed. We cancelled class this morning but decided to go ahead with afternoon classes as roads aren't as bad as earlier... However we had said we'd meet between 11:30 and 11:45... it's 10 after 12 and still no sign of my boss. (Class starts at 12:30) Hope the class is a small one!!! Too bad I didn't know she'd be late, I would've stopped at Starbucks!! Oh well, I saved some money I suppose...

I realized on my days off how much I miss cable... I really don't watch much tv, but on days like those where there's not much to do, it's really nice to flick through channels and watch stuff I'd never usually watch. Especially channels like TLC and OLN... Ahh I miss those days. It's hard to flick when you only have one channel... I even tried moving our rabbit ears to maybe pick up a signal on another channel. I almost got it, but after a while I just got frustrated. It's not worth paying for it now but I think our next place needs to have that, just as an option.

Speaking of our "next place"... there might be some big changes ahead. I'm a little stressed about it all, but we'll see what God has in store for us... I need to stop worrying and start having more faith. Your prayers on this would be fantastic...

I guess I should go get ready, only 15 minutes left til class... still no other teacher... Maybe all the kids won't show up since it's a snow day for all Langley elementary schools... Here's hoping...