Maya and Jordan's Wedding, March 21, 2010

This is my friend Maya from my Sign Language Course. She married Jordan on Sunday and needed a hairstylist. As someone who also got married on a Sunday, I volunteered my services, knowing that she wasn't able to find another stylist on a coveted day off. The building behind the couple is St Eugene Hotel. Formally a residential school on the St. Mary's Reserve, the building has been transformed into a beautiful hotel, conference centre and casino. It's a gorgeous spot for a wedding.

I'm not bragging here, but I will say that I'm quite proud of this updo. Maya is a beautiful woman so it wasn't hard to make her look fancy for her wedding. Thank you Maya for the oppourtunity to spend some time with you and work with your lovely hair. May you and Jordan have a loving and fun life together.

Birthday Shoes

I wanted to show Angela, Ron and Rian what they bought me for my birthday, so here they are, ORANGE BIRKENSTOCKS!!! Moofut thought they were spectacular and I always weigh in his opinions when making my shopping purchases. Also, not to make you in the frostier regions of the country jealous, but I've been wearing these since March 7th, OUTSIDE! Now, at this time I will admit that I have mostly worn them with ummm socks, shhhhh, but I'm in hippy country. Anywho, Thank you Mom's of mine for the great gift.

Shutter Island parody

If you have seen "Shutter Island", and we highly recommend you see it, then this video will make a lot of sense. If you haven't seen it, better go tonight!

Reflections on St. Patrick's Day!

This is Dustin's hat from the absolutely awesome St. Patrick's Day party we attended on Saturday! I don't think either of us had ever been to a St. Patrick's Day party before, so, in order not to be pinched, Dustin dressed as a Leprechaun, complete with a pot of gold (which were the truffles I made wrapped in Gold foil), and I found dark green scrubs. Being that it's 2010, they were "skinny" scrub pants, which I didn't discover until I got them home. I am generous through the leg, so the skinny scrubs made walking and sitting a bit of a trial, but we had such a good time, I eventually forgot about it. There were games at the party, and Rachel put on an amazing spread of 2 kinds of Irish soda bread, 6 different Irish cheeses, 3 different soups, and apple cake. Unbelievable! We played pin the Leprechaun on the other Leprechaun's crotch, while blindfolded. That was hilarious, and I was winning for quite a while, but eventually lost. We played Balloon Booty Basketball! One person had a balloon taped to their booty and the other one threw a balloon in the air and the balloon booty had to bat it into a big box! We lost. Oh, and we had to guess the irish person on our backs, I was Enya and Dustin was Bob Geldof and then Bruce Springsteen. Did you know that these people were Irish? We didn't.

When I think of the best part of the party it was the bookends. When we arrived both George and Rachel gave us HUGE FRIEND HUGS! I don't think I've allowed myself to get too lonely for my friends, but I am realizing that without hugs, I die slowly. That may sound dramatic, but I really need a lot of affection to feel myself, so, my favourite parts of the party were the hugs.

Thank you George and Rachel, Paul and Lochlan for a perfect place to stay and all of the kindnesses you've shown us while we've been here.

Oh, and here's a picture Dustin took with our broken camera, and I really thought it was sweet.

I think it's his Harrison Ford impression! Enjoy!

What made last Friday exciting!

Last Friday we attended our friend Keltie's science fair here in Cranbrook. She did an experiment where she sunk a 120 feet of black plastic reinforced pipe 6 feet into the ground and pushed air through it on order to send the warm ground air up to the surface. They found that if they fed this pipe into a furnace or heat pump, the air would go in at about 2 degrees Celsius and then the heating system would only have to heat the air in the house another 18 degrees. At minus 20, this would be a real energy saver. I'm probably not explaining this exactly right, but the point is that she won best project in the show. There were at least 80 other projects and she won!


Also at the fair was a very enthusiastic gentleman offering people the oppourtunity to stand on a podium and hold the Olympic torch that came through Cranbrook. Even though we have not watched more than 30 seconds of the Olympics so far, Dustin stood on the Gold podium and I stood on the bronze. I don't need to be the best!

Pretty fun day, but it didn't end there. We went to see "Shutter Island", which was just so intriguing, and thought provoking that we went to see it again on Tuesday!

Where there's a will...

One more fun little memory from our friend's visit! Blayke is only allowed to have her soother at certain times of day and night. Waiting to go in the car is not one of those times. She has become resourceful and creative and turned her turtle into her soother to sooth her while she is sootherless! Brilliant!

Visitors from Edmonton!

Five weeks into our stay our good friends Rob, Gabrielle and Blayke showed up to visit with us. Since Gabe's Birthday had just passed we had a birthday supper for her Friday night and then they all rested in their gorgeous room here at the ELL. Saturday we all piled into the Enclave and drove to Creston and then to Kimberley. The sun had decided to stay hidden for the trip, but the view was still remarkably beautiful with frost covered trees and hovering clouds. Really good food in Creston and then we visited a book store, a store called The Chocolate Orchard (yum) and checked out a fruit store. There is nothing like homemade apple juice! In Kimberley we walked through the Plaztl, which looked just like a Swiss town, or what I believe a Swiss would look like, and we all enjoyed a baked good from the Bavarian bakery. We ended our eating for the day at East Side Mario's in Cranbrook, that's where I picked up some food poisoning, rendering me incapacitated and disgusting for our last day together. Dustin went swimming and bowling with our friends. In the evening, Gabe was able to visit with me for a few hours, as I felt a little bit better by then. Each morning we had a real treat, Blayke all to ourselves. Dustin would go and get her and bring her to our room and we would play with her and feed her banana pieces. She's such a great eater. And now she crawls, waves and claps on command. They all gave her "high fives" at bowling last night, so this morning I tried to work with that skill and was very successful! A few tears were shed when they left, but we will see them again soon, well in April, which will come pretty soon.

Dustin learned a new game!

We had very special visitors this weekend! One of them was Blayke, and she is learning that if she grabs at people's noses, they may honk. I've been working on teaching Dustin this game since we found out she was on her way. He just nailed it and here is the evidence. This game went on for at least five minutes, and eventually she was honking both of our noses at the same time. Quite a nice little schnoz symphony!

Gleek!

This was an early morning for me as Lola, our car, had 2 boo-boo's that needed to be mended, so off she went to the shop, and off I went to a coffee shop to wait. I read for 2 1/2 hours, which was heaven, and then picked up Lola, and we were off.

We rented a fabulous movie called "Away We Go" on the weekend and decided we must own it, so I went to Roger's, for the 5th time since I've been in Cranbrook, to pick up the movie. Michelle, the most wonderful and helpful clerk at Roger's, has time and time again tried to find me a copy of "Glee" Season 1 Volume 1, and has even called Blockbuster to inquire if they had it. That is service! So today, Michelle, my second most favourite person of the day (the first always is and always will be Dustin), asked if she could help me! I had found the movie, and said I was good, and I was always looking for "Glee" but had come to terms with not finding it in Cranbrook. At that she said, "Let me just check the computer again!", and I waited, and then she casually said, "It says we have ONE!". My heart jumped, but I dared not let it get too excited, for surely the ONE DVD that they did have would have been scooped up by some other fanatical Gleek by now! She searched her desk shelves, glanced at the computer again and started to stroll over to a shelf 10 feet from the main desk. I walked, well sort of skipped, over to where she stood, and watched with joy as her right hand reached out for the colourful Brady-bunchesque cover, and there in her hand was the "Glee" DVD!!!

Not being a shy person, I almost hugged her, but was able to hold back and then proceeded to verbally hug and kiss her with words, letting her know that she will be my second favourite and most lovely person in Cranbrook today, that I would be blogging about her loveliness, and that she was just wonderful! And, being that I had just had a large mug of green tea, followed by a large glass of iced black tea, the caffeine decided to hit at that point, and I just glowed all the way home!

4 years ago today I was planning my father's funeral, and today I'm just full of glee! Time helps, kindness helps, and memories of being loved no matter what help the most!

Have a Glee filled day! I sure will!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today would have been my Dad's 80th Birthday, so in honour of that occasion we had a bowl of chips and some ice cream bars! I think my Dad would approve and then we said "Well my little bit was good!" which he said no matter if he had 1/2 a cake or just a small piece! Happy Birthday Dad, love you!

10 minutes ago in Cranbrook...

So we slept in! It's Saturday! All of a sudden, at 9:30 am, there is a knock at our door. We aren't dressed appropriately. Then the phone rings, it's George, "The Olympic Torch is coming in 2 minutes!!!" . Okay, great! So we look out the window, 2 minutes pass, no torch, I have to pee, should I go, I'll miss it, I go, still no torch, hmmm, should we get dressed? Ya, I guess. So we throw on some clothes, phone rings, George says, "It's coming right NOW!!!", okay so we run outside in our pj's and boots with no socks, and my Canada toque and there, beside the mini golf greens was the torch bearer!