I want to do my annual yearly review, but I feel like I should tell you how the rest of my year went first. So here we go...
September: I did the Big Bang Mud Run again! This year's went a lot better than last year. The run was organized way better and this time I didn't make the mistake of doing the 12k. I did the 7k with my SIL and we finished in 88 minutes!
The whole gang at the mud run
We love our visits to the farm.
Astrid and her cousins at the cornmaze!
October: My birthday was pretty quiet this year. I debated inviting a bunch of girls out to brunch or something, but instead I just watched Conference at home and had a friend come over to watch with me. Oh, I also made an impromptu trip back home for Thanksgiving. It was quick, but fun. And Halloween was great! For my friend's Halloween party I dressed up as a witch and did green-face and everything. I love dressing up. And then Astrid dressed up as Cookie Monster and we had so much fun trick-or-treating at the mall, and then doing trunk-or-treat and then doing a quick trip down our block with dad in the evening. It was a very busy day.
On the road to Lethbridge
Cookie Monster! She was so cute!
November: I got so many nosebleeds this month, it was stupid! I was even paranoid that I would get one at work and start bleeding all over a patient. Thank goodness that never happened. Me and some girls did an art date and it was so fun. It was good to get the creative juices going again, even though it was just recreating something someone else has already done. Ooh, MOANA also came out this month and Joe and I actually went out to the theatre to see it on the second night it was out (we don't go out to the movies anymore because we hate Cineplex so this was a big deal).
Nosebleeds. Blech.
Arting!
December: December could have gone so much better. It was still good, don't get me wrong, but with my calling at church and making preparations for Christmas down south, I was so done. Astrid's birthday was a quiet affair. We had originally wanted to do the sleigh rides they had going on just outside of town, but we were in the middle of a particularly cold snap that week, so the sleigh rides had been cancelled due to -40 weather. Yeah. Ridiculous. So instead we had some friends of ours with a little girl Astrid's age come over for cake and we let the girls play afterwards. And then of course we spent Christmas with my family and it was such a good visit. Astrid went ice fishing for the first time, we got to see a bunch of family we haven't seen in a long while, and we alllllmost got to see our new nephew - except we left a week too soon. Bummer. I guess we'll just have to make another trip to see him!
We went sledding just before the cold snap, thank goodness!
Astrid and her birthday presents.
Our family Nativity Pageant. All the second cousins!
Grampa was so proud to have Astrid ice fishing with him. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if we'd caught any fish!
Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the day I escaped my mother's womb.
Yes, I am 24 now.
It doesn't seem too different from 23. Especially since I spent most of my 23rd year thinking I was 24 anyway.
Seriously, I'm pretty sure almost every time someone asked how old I was, "24" always wanted to be my first response. Then I would correct myself and say, "oh wait, no, I'm 23"
My day yesterday was pretty good. Joe had to get up at 6 for work, so he got me up about 10 minutes later so he could give me my present. Apparently his gift wasn't to let me sleep in, but he got me some awesome books instead.
One book is called "642 Things to Write" which will be quite useful in getting me to get back to blogging about more than being pregnant (not that I've done a ton of that anyway!). And the other is a Q&A journal where everyday it asks you a question and you have a few lines to answer that question. What Joe didn't realize was that this was a couples journal where we both get to answer the question. He's not big into journalling so this shall be an interesting experience, ha. I made him answer yesterday's question at the breakfast table since it was such an appropriate question for how I've been feeling lately. The question was, "Do you feel at home in your body?"
Now, had you asked me that question 7 months ago I would have said, "yes! I love my body!". But these days it's difficult to say you're at home in your body when you have to battle with a tiny human for control of your bladder. Or when picking up an object off the ground requires a wide, awkward squat instead of a simple bennnd and snap!
Sorry, I've gotten off track. This post isn't about being pregnant, it's about my birthday.
My day at work was good. My co-workers gave me an ice cream cake and a card and this cake is the most delicious ice cream cake I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I don't normally like ice cream cakes because they usually come from Dairy Queen and have way too much vanilla ice cream and not enough chocolate ice cream and cookie stuff. But this ice cream cake is awesome. It's made of two layers of actual cake lovingly sandwiching a middle layer of ice cream. The ice cream to cake ratio is perfect! Plus the cake part is chocolate so that's great.
After work Joe and I went to a new restaurant in town called The Sawmill. Just a heads up, if you plan on going to the Sawmill for your birthday to get a free birthday dessert, this is not the place to go. It's a nice restaurant, but it was definitely not worth the price. Joe's plate cost 30 bucks and he was still hungry after finishing it. I couldn't finish my meal, but even though I didn't really have a lot left, I couldn't justify not packing it up because we were going to be paying so much for it anyway. As for the free dessert, you have to have a loyalty card to get one and even if we had opted to get one that night, we still couldn't have gotten a free dessert. I thought it was pretty stingy of them. I ended up getting dessert anyway just because I had saved room for it by not stuffing myself with the last remaining bites of my entrée so, dangit, I was going to have dessert! I opted for one of the cheaper dessert items since it wasn't going to be free and it was delicious. I had the lemon tart with cream and fresh berries on the side.
Even though the Sawmill was disappointing, I got to go to dinner with my favourite guy and I didn't have to make my own meal or wash my dishes at the end of the night, so I was happy.
My most favourite month for selfish and non-selfish reasons:
a) My birfday. I just turned 23, boo yah.
b) General Conference! If you've never seen it, you should! There are four 2-hour sessions. There were two today and there will be two tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 am and 2 pm. To tune in live via the internet, go here.
c) A billion other birthdays too, including Joe's and my dear friend, Trudy's!
d) Hallowe'en. I love any excuse to put on a costume!
e) It's pretty. I love watching the leaves change colour as long as I don't think about the imminent winter on its way.
This year, however, October is special to me for another reason.
Today is the anniversary of the fateful day I crashed our favourite car. Although it was an awful experience, I am grateful it happened (and more importantly, grateful we came out of it okay!) and it is the reason why I am where I am today.
Did you ever wonder what made me choose to move up to GP this summer? It was this stupid accident. Before the accident, I was completely set against living in GP, even after I graduated. It was just too far away from my family. I wanted to at least move to a middle ground where we'd have family 3 hours away on either side of us. After the accident, I changed my mind. Joe had stayed home for a whole month and given me a taste of what it's like to live like a "normal" married couple. When the time came for him to go back to work, I was so sad that I knew I didn't want to do long distance any more. Initially I wanted to quit school after that semester and move up with him that year, but that was just the concussion talking. Luckily I came to my senses and knew that I needed to finish school before moving up with him. So the next best thing was for me to move up to GP for the summer. And I am so glad I did. My summer there changed my attitude about the city and made me realize there are good things there too.
So for my Lethbridge friends and family, now you have something to blame for me leaving you. And to my new GP friends, you now know what brought me into your lives. I just hope that for future life changes, God chooses a more subtle way to point me where I should go.
What's this??? It's my birthday today? Well, I should probably write something to celebrate!
Only greatness can be born on October 1st. Look who shares a birthday with me!
Julie Andrews - Musical greatness. Plus she's practically perfect in every way.
Jimmy Carter - 39th president of the United States. You've gotta be pretty awesome to be president. (Except then I don't know how Bush got in...)
Zach Galifianakis - Though I don't appreciate all his movies, you gotta admit, the man's hilarious!
King Henry III - He's a king, duh! How much more awesome can you get?
I've turned 22 today, so I decided to share 22 things about me that you probably didn't know.
1. As a child I wanted to marry Raphael the ninja turtle.
2. Even though I'm all grown up and married now, I've contemplated getting a nightlight for our place because sometimes I'm afraid of the dark.
3. I have double-jointed elbows and I think they're gross.
4. I crack my knuckles even though people say it's bad for you.
5. I hate cats. But kittens are cute, so I hate them for trying to make me like them.
6. When I'm eating ice cream with a spoon sometimes I blow on it like I would for a spoonful of hot soup. And then I feel silly because ice cream isn't hot.
7. I have a slightly irrational fear of caterpillars.
8. I like to cut my grilled cheese diagonally.
9. God made georgia mud fudge blizzards just for me.
10. I pick up change on the street as long as it isn't a penny.
11. I have a bad habit of getting parking tickets.
12. Summer is my favourite season for the heat and it's a toss-up between fall and winter for my favourite pretty season.
13. I've recently noticed that I do this weird thing when I'm putting on sweaters or hoodies. As I'm about to put them over my head, I suck in some air and hold my breath until my head pops out the neck hole. I have no idea when this started because I've only noticed that I do it within the past month.
14. I play the violin. Did you know this? If you do, bravo, because I don't share that fact too often with others.
15. I cannot pick a favourite colour because I love all colours. The only requirement I have is that they are vibrant.
16. I hate scary movies. I blame them for making me afraid of the dark.
17. I looooove chocolate. But I don't like white chocolate. I guess I'm racist.
18. I think that men's feet are ugly. I haven't met a man who has nice looking feet.
19. I don't own a brush.
20. I am a very jumpy person and therefore easy to scare. (I probably shouldn't have shared that with some of you)
21. I love listening to classical music. My children will probably hate road trips with me because I listen to lame music. (Unless I raise them to love classical too!)
22. I've lived my whole life thinking I am an american citizen, but my mother has just recently informed that I was wrong. I'm full on Canadian!
