Baby Blankets

Last year was the year of weddings. Leah and Marc Perrault in May, us in July, Lani and Regan in August and Lisa and Curtis Machnaik in October. This year is the year of the baby!




First, Sydney Paige Baisley was born to Lani and Regan on
May 13th.









Then Avelyn Paige Brown was born to Amanda and Steve Brown on July 19th.





Then Owein and Alana Heileger had little baby Alena Zara Heileger on August 4th. (I don't have a picture because we have yet to see that little bundle)


Most recently, my cousins Carla & Marc VanHorne had little Kaeleigh Heather Rose on August 9th.





Many months ago I had decided that the best possible baby gift would be a home made blanket. So before I went to Edmonton (to work for a month, the middle of March to the middle of April) I bought a bunch of flannelette fabric and began making quilts while away. I bought 4 different fabrics, all as unisex as I could find so that boys or girls would be fine with it - even though it ended up being 4 girls. It was a surprisingly long process. The first one was fun, the second one, the novelty wore off, the third was no fun and the last, I procrastinated like it was home work. It seemed to take forever, but they were well worth it as I think they all turned out beautifully.
I would have written about the blankets sooner but I just gave out the last on the family reunion weekend and didn't want to give it away. I could have been smarter though, I gave 3 away before I took a picture. They were all different and two of the four had cotton batting centers for extra warmth and padding. (two had to be mailed so the smaller they would fold the better.)

Another milestone

Life is full of firsts. Some a big, some small, some good, some bad. Today we had another first. Our first pet died. Guy Smiley was a samurai Fighting fish, and he chose to end his life today but jumping out of his bowl and behind the TV. Needless to say I was not impressed when I discovered his bowl empty and knew that there was a dead fish somewhere. Ew.
Margarita, the red fish, is doing fine so far without her friend.

Logan the Bank Robber Catcher

This was the write up in Thursday's Calgary Sun

CalgarySun.ca
Thu, August 31, 2006
Police catch alleged robber
UPDATED: 2006-08-31 03:25:48 MSTBy TODD SAELHOF

Tipped off by a security guard, police arrested a 42-year-old city man suspected of a pair of recent bank robberies.
About 4:15 p.m. yesterday, a loss prevention officer at The Bay in Chinook Mall saw a shopper fitting the description of a thief suspected of holding up a CIBC only 20 minutes earlier.
Calgary police arrested the man and charged him.
Further investigation revealed the suspect is also believed to be responsible for knocking off an ATB branch at 2140 34 Ave S.W. on Monday.
Kenneth Michael Griff of Calgary is charged with two counts of robbery.

That loss prevention officer at The Bay Chinook Mall is my loss prevention officer. Logan caught a bank robber. And he is pretty happy about it. He has received a lot of attention because of it.

As I may or may not have been recording - Logan has sent in his application with the Calgary City Police. He has been through the physical, eye exam, 100 probing questionnaire about everything in his past, and most recently the aptitude test. We are awaiting results as we speak. So after this bank robber thing some of the cops that he works with all of the time have been asking when he is putting in his application - he replies that he already has. They have all said they will be writing a letter to recruiting. He even had cops from the Robbery Unit thank him. Yes, he has been quite the hero these past couple of days!

House hunt a bust

Yesterday Stef and I went on an adventure to see a house. It was listed as a 2 bdrm house on trendy 17th etc. We drove down 17th for a very long time. The trendy part of 17th stopped at least 5 blocks back. But still not bad, a nice area. We pull around the corner, quality starts to go down but still not bad. We are looking around and can only see apartment blocks. Weird. Start walking down the street. "Oh, there is a house". We couldn't see it cause it was overgrown with bushes and trees. We walk through the forrest to see a house that couldn't look more run down with bare wood showing everywhere, unpainted for a least 10 years and the shingles were falling off. And then we see the sign on the top floor saying "For Rent". So... it is not a house but a suite in the house great. We have pretty much ruled the place out by this point. So we get to the door and I ring the door bell, but there are two, so I ring them both. A very friendly but slightly dodgey looking fellow opens the door. He is the main floor tenant. He says that he will give the landlord a call and tell them that we are here. After a couple minutes (of Stef snooping around the side of the house) he comes back to say that it has been rented and the guys it not coming. How rude. Was I just supposed to guess that it was rented - thanks for the telephone call!

Back on the house hunt

To add the excitement of our fantastic holiday - we drove Stef home with us. Stefanie now lives in Calgary as she started school at SAIT. We gave up looking for a place to rent over the summer because it was getting stupid. Things that were listed were rented the same day. People did not give you time to think before you needed to put money down. Yesterday I started the search again. This time with a little more luck. I have an interview/viewing of a home on 17th ave (a very trendy street) for only $750 + untill, and one for tomorrow for a condo in Kensington (an even trendy-er area)! I am very excited. A little nervous that we might actual move, however, I would really like to help my sister out. And if she is chipping in on the rent she will be helping us out as we find a really great place! Cross your fingers for us. I really hope that one of these work out.

Family Reunion

To finish the tale of our holidays I continue to our family reunion. My dad's mom's mom's family is fairly large and growing. The only original sibling that was missing was my dear grandma, but there were three generations. I am the oldest great-grandchild and there were two babies there that were 2 weeks old! It was very neat. It was out at, wait for it... Lutherland at Echo Prov Park on Pasqua Lake in SK. It was a beautiful location with plenty of space for camping, however, my family chose to stay in the "lodge". Which was just a larger building with 14 rooms with sleeping for five.
There was water sports, football, baseball and other fun activities during the day. A camp fire, kareokee, limbo and dancing at night. And the common theme, family fun and booze. We took the liberty of bringing the remaining shooter ingredients from mom's party with us. We had a great time. Most of all it was great to see all the people that you don't get to see all the time, or the people that you get to see, but not often enough!

After the party

No, this is not a post about the hang over I had the day after Mom's 50th bash. Though I do want to say for the number of shooters I had I was in great shape.

Logan and I had thought about spending our holidays on the East Coast. Check out the maritimes! However, after doing some math we realized that even though it would be much cheaper than if I wasn't working at Westjet, it would still have cost us around $1000. That kind of money we can't sink into a holiday. We are grown-ups and have to think about things as boring, but needed, like tires.

So instead of the East Coast, we went camping. We packed up on the Sunday (after the party) and drove out to Deifenbaker on Monday.


We set up camp in a great site. There were hardly any people there! Late Monday (after being lost for a couple of hours) Derek and Chelsea joined us. We spent the night around the fire and Tuesday on the water. We were very fortunate to have the Kotlar's boat out with us. We did have a struggle at first with the battery, and were floating in a boat that wouldn't start. However, that was easily fixed with a new battery and we were on our way.





We found a great beach, with a huge cliff of soft, very hot sand. Chelsea created a fun game of first toboganning down the hill, and then surfing on a knee board.

We spent the whole day in the sun, in the water and on the sand. I even tried water skiing. That is something that I have never done. All of the other water sports, just never skiing. I didn't actually end up skiing, just dragging behind the boat, but I tried!


Derek and Chelsea left on Tuesday night. On the drive out I called Nicole and left a message saying that we were camping and that they should join us, but that we wouldn't have service. To our pleasant surprise, as we were finishing lunch on Wed Nicole and Kenn pulled up! Back on the water! This time, at the same sandy beach Kenn started digging a whole with the soft, rock-less sand. With all of our help we created a huge whole full of thick mud - a mud bath! Out on the water we did the usual knee boarding and skiing, but also brought out the tube.


Camping was great. The weather was fantastic - until the last night when we thought it was going to storm. We hid away in our tent until it passed and then it was calm and clear again. So we restarted a fire! When we finally went to bed we left everything out (after we had already rain proofed things earlier). And of course, it rained. We were up early on Thursday to pack up our wet camp and head back to Regina!

We had a great time! And a very inexpensive holiday!

Video Update

On Thursday, before we left for Regina, I finished (for the most part) my wedding video. I had a couple of things that I wanted to add to my video, but had finished the video that other people would want to see. However, I finished on Thursday and was to leave for Regina straight from work on Friday. So I decided to take my external hard drive (thank you for the Birthday present Logan). Take it to Regina, I would have the finished video there, and burn the DVD from our home computer. It took longer than I thought, and spent at least an hour at home creating the DVD and set it to burn. 3 hours later I received the message "Can't complete final command. DVD error" and it spit the DVD out. I tried again and go the same result.

All that work to meet my deadline, and it didn't matter cause I couldn't leave a burnt copy for anyone. I really don't care though, I am proud of it, and DVD's are cheap. I will be sending a copy to all who might care. If they never watch it, I don't need to know. So if you are on the list of people that might care, watch your mail boxes.

It has been too long!

I am very sorry. We went on holidays for the last 10 days. While I was in Regina I did try blog, but on my computer it remembers my password - and I couldn't remember it. Which bring me to the next problem. When I got home it asked me to sign in - and it took awhile for me to recover the password. And our internet was down until right now.

Enough excuses!

I flew home on Friday night (the 18th) and Logan drove on Saturday. Stef and I spent Saturday putting together a party for my mom's 50th Birthday! We had a great time putting it together and an even better time partying! We decorated the back yard up, had plenty of food (thanks to a few great helpers!) and a shooter bar! The shooter bar was my personal favorite.


The party was great fun!


Happy 50th Birthday Mom!



Just for the record, it was the CO-OP bakery that suggested the cake!

And there were plenty of people that brought some great gift that reflected the milestone birthday!

Taste of Calgary

Yesterday Nicole and Kenn were in town on their way home to Regina. For supper we decided to try something different. Taste of Calgary is on in Eau Claire this weekend. (Eau Claire is steps away from our place - I can hear the live music right now.) For $15 each we ate so much food, from so many different restaurants. We would buy one thing from each restaurant and split it between the four of us. There was some really great food. One of the more interesting things we tried was the freeze dried ice cream. They were like frozen drops of ice cream that looked like the candy Nerds, then melts into ice cream in your mouth. They also had booths set up by restaurants and liquor suppliers. They would give out 2 - 3 oz drink, new beers, martinis, and cocktails for a couple of tickets. It was a lot of fun.

And then back to our place for more martinis!

The countdown is on

I have a new deadline for my wedding video. We have a family reunion on the 26th ish of Aug. That is my new deadline to finish the beast. I think I can do it! At least, I hope I can. I really don't like missing deadlines - especially ones I have set for myself. No time to blog - I have work to do.
Stag/Stagette - check
Getting Ready - check
Ceremony - check
Dinner - check

All that leaves is a bit of stuff between the ceremony and dinner, and the dance. But our videographer buggered off for a couple hours during the dance, so I have about 5 min of video. This is do able.

(ps - Day 2 as a broken record was way worse than Day 1. Day 1 was more of a shock and awe effect "did that really almost happen again, we will do anything..." Today "does that ban mean me?" - Yes moron, it does!)

Broken record

If you have watched the news at all today, or for that matter any TV channel, you will know that another terrorist / plane plot was discovered before anything actually happened. This caused a chain reaction throughout the world as the various Transportation Boards created bans etc. So today, 8 1/2 hours of "and just so you are aware Transport Canada has put into place a ban on all liquids, gels and creams. That means...... And we are asking you to arrive at the airport 2 hours prior to the fight to get through security - as we are expecting long lines." That is all I did today. There were three times that my screen saver turned on because I hadn't touched the computer for so long. But the lines were jammed. People were calling all day! I do not look forward to another day of it tomorrow!

Money is all relative

The real estate in Calgary is out of control. There is no one around here that is going to tell you that the house across the street from mine that is probably 1000 sq ft, is very run down but in a prime location is worth $400,000. Someone will buy it, but no one will tell you that it is actually worth that. Money is relative to everything around it.

When I first moved here there was a block of condo's that were selling around the $100,00 mark. They were newly renovated and very nice - but very small. At that time we hadn't looked at anything else and there was no way that we thought you should buy something so small for that much. Especially when we were fresh from Regina and you could buy a house for that. Today, those people are reselling those itsy bitsy condos for at least $200,000.

To make matters worse, there is a row house that went up for sale really close to us. It looks beautiful. I called to get the details, just for fun. It is huge, 2 bedrooms up, 1 or 2 down, 3 bathrooms, a 2 car garage etc. It is selling for $385,000. Logan and I both responded to that unimaginable price with "that's not bad"! It is all relative!

(Just for the record $385,000 divided by 20 years of monthly payments (not including any of the huge interest) is well over $1400 a month. The house across the street that is much smaller and dingyer is renting for $1400 a month!)

Just wanted to tell a quick story

The Beatty Golf Tournament.

The first year I golfed was two years ago. I had heard that it was fun, but had usually chosen to take part in some Calgary shopping with my mom and a couple aunts, rather than wander around in the hot sun chasing a little white ball. But that first year changed my thinking. I was on a team with my Uncle Ron , party animal cousin Jared, and my cousin's boyfriend.

Things started off a little weird when after we teed off we drove just out of sight of the marshal and both carts came to a stop. We needed to have a drink before we went any further. What a way to start a day. I want to let you know that that is pretty much how the rest of the day continued. If we ran into an other team, there were shared and traded drinks. If we made a good shot, made a bad shot, were thirsty. There any and all reasons for drinking. Needless to say little Stacey got back to the club house after 18 a little loaded. We then leaned that we had won - so we had to have another round of drinks. Then there were drink with dinner. And then back to an uncle's place for drinks.

In the end I was blitzed for 12 hours straight. And my family still reminds me about it. But I had a good time. And it seems to be the way we initiate people into the tournament!

Just thought I'd supply a little back story about the tournament before you heard what I did this weekend.

Way to many days have past.

I must apologize. This has been the longest span I have had without a blog. My excuse. My mom was in town, then my entire family, all the while I was still working until 12:00 or 1:00 am.

My mom, grandma and grandpa drove to Calgary last Monday and we spent some time together. Mom and I went shopping - and she was nice enough to buy our groceries. And might I add it was one of the largest shops I have ever had for myself. So we should be fully stocked for quite some time.

I was lucky enough to be given a three day weekend this week, so mom and I had all day Friday together. Then Logan joined us for some dinner and then for drinks at Auntie Terri's.

On Friday my dad, sister and brother drove up as well. Friday night we had a full house as the whole family stayed in our one bedroom apartment. Made no matter to me though, I was the one with a bed. Saturday Stef, Matt, Logan and I floated down the Bow River in a couple rafts with a few of my cousins. The weather was nice - the wind a little cold - but we had a good time. *Pictures to follow*

And yesterday. Yesterday was the Beatty family annual golf tournament. To tell you a little about this requires you to know my family a little. It is large: 2 grandparents, 14 aunts and uncles, 14 grandchildren, 10 grandchildren significant others, 11 great grandchildren. This familiy is loud, likes to have a good time, and likes their drink. So we take over golf course for a day and have a good ole Texas Scramble. Where winning is not the main goal, but rather which team can drink the most. It is always a good time. This year I was with Rob (an uncle), Todd (a signifcant other of a grandchild), Auntie Terri, and I. We had a blast !! And as a bonus we WON!! I believe our final score was 5 under par! Go team!! I won a rain coat.
I believe that a great time was had by all!

My little video

I have been spending time at the computer again, working on the wedding video. I don't know why I love doing it so much. I get frustrated and upset when it doesn't work, it takes hours to put together a very short piece, and no one really appreciates all of the work I have put into it. And still I love it. I love that I can be the perfectionist that I am - and no one is around to judge me. Sadly, I did not make my own deadline. I had hoped to have it done by my anniversary, but since I had to re do everything that timeline had to be thrown out.

My birthday present from Logan was an external hard drive for the computer. We have now added 300 Gbs of space. Now that may sound like a ridiculous amount of space, but yesterday I moved all of the video and photos I had on the computer to the new drive. We now have 48 Gbs on the computer again. That is huge. Video takes up so much space and makes it move very slowly. So everything now runs smoothly, making the editing move faster and me just a happier camper in general!

I like my sparkley ring

I love my beautiful engagement ring (and wedding ring too!). Especially when it freshly cleaned and it glitters in the lowest light. Today I stopped by People's for my twice a year inspection of my setting. What a weird little ritual. It makes sense, the diamond is only being held in by four little prongs and you wear it everyday. Hit it on one to many things, the prong moves, the diamond falls out and People's has to buy you a new diamond. But what are they really learning from the 30 sec they spend looking at it. At least they clean it!


I was at the mall for a doctor's appointment. A physical to be exact. That is another weird little ritual. So I have a new doctor for the second time in my life. A female for the first time. However, my doctor is on holidays so I got her "sub". A nurse asks you to get naked and a stranger will walk in to touch you in all the places you don't really want a stranger to touch. I do have to say having a female doctor is much different. If felt a little more comfortable because with the male doctor it gets a little awkward at "please lie down with your legs spread and I'll call the nurse. -Buzz- Shirley can you please come in here". And then Shirley comes and stands at your head to make sure everything is on the up and up, but you now have to make awkward conversation with two people who aren't naked with their legs in the air!

But everything is fine. I'm right in the middle of the goal weight, for people who are at my height - which also happens to be in the middle of average. My blood pressure is right in the middle of average etc. It seems that I am just an average person in every way. (by the way we are very happy to see that my blood pressure is normal, as the last two times it was near low!)

On the up side of the physical she did not require me to give blood this time as she did not feel it necessary. That makes me very happy, as the smell of those small, sterile rooms makes me dizzy and nauseous. And no pee in a cup. Just the pap for me today! Yeah!!

Our 1st Anniversary! *updated*

It really doesn't feel as though our wedding was a year ago. In my mind, it could have been yesterday. But the calendar doesn't lie - and here we are - at the end of July.

But to celebrate our first anniversary we took advantage of my flight privileges (and hotel privileges) and took off to Montreal for three days. It was great! The city is beautiful, the weather was not bad and we had three days to spend together (which is pretty big, with this new job we have been seeing each other very little every day).

- Logan looking out of 24th floor window.










We flew out on the red eye and arrived in Montreal at 7:01 am their time (5:01 to us). We were very tired
when we got there, but our room was ready for us, so we had breakfast and then a nap. It was in the perfect location.





We walked everywhere.
Old Montreal was right on our doorstep -
no more than 2 blocks away.






Notre Dame Basilica was beautiful. (blurry but you get the point)
They had a sound and light show every night - which we both of course were interested in. It was really neat!
We did a boat tour of the port of Montreal and learned a little of the history of Montreal.

We were also a short 10 min walk from Saint Catherines Street - which is the big shopping hub of the city. We took in the mayhem that was that. And also experienced their vast underground - which connects most of downtown with Metro stations, hotels, office buildings and more shopping. It was also neat- a little uneventful - but neat.

We took in the Fine Art Museum (and was reminded that Logan finds no merit in any sort of Modern Art). However, we both found things of interest in there, and some things that were weirder than you can imagine. We had some great food, saw some great things, and even had the opportunity to see a HUGE demonstration about the crisis in Lebanon. It was huge - and one of the only times I really wished that I could speak French - it took us a really long time to figure out what they were saying!


On our anniversary itself - Sunday - we slept in really late. We walked up the street to a place that served crepes and enjoyed some French cuisine. We walked around for a bit and then headed back to the hotel. Logan wanted to go for a swim. So we did. It is our anniversary, we can do what we want to. Then we got all dolled up and headed back into Old Montreal and went looking for a neat restaurant. We found a great one on a side street. I really felt like I was back in Europe - only this time there was no price difference for eating inside or out, at a table or not. So we chose a nice table outside, pretty well on the street.

We had a great dinner, did a little more sightseeing and then made our way to the Just For Laughs Festival. It was crazy. And we went to a very funny show. The comedians name was Tim Minchin, he is from Australia and his bit involved musical comedy- he writes funny songs. It was awesome! There was a baby grand, a guitar and him! It was cabaret style with little round tables and candles in the middle. And to add to the fun two young Aussie tourists sat with us. We had excellent conversation, great laughs and a great anniversary. (And Logan saw Colin Mockery - from Whose Line)

Odd request

I don't know how many of you know this, but... While I was in Edmonton working on a show Logan decided to shave his head. This he did not tell me. I came home for a weekend and walked through the door to see his extremely bumpy head with a tiny layer of stubble.
Yesterday he came home from work with hair clippers. He wants to do this again. I told him this time I would do it - he looked a little stupid when he got drunk and had his drunk friend do it. I thought we would wait until after we went to Montreal and were taking pictures at touristy site. This morning, however, there was a call from the bathroom. "Stacey..." I approach cautiously... Turn the corner and he has already started.
I made his stop - so I could read the directions - and I finished. And if I do say so myself, I did a good job and it looks pretty good - for a hair cut done in the bathtub.

Birthday pm

To follow up on my whiney birthday blog - Logan came through like the good husband that he is. When I got home from work there were flowers and wine waiting - as well as birthday presents to open.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

Today is my birthday. And it is reminding me how difficult it is to start a new life in a new place.
Logan works from 7 am - 7 pm. I work from 7 pm -11 pm . We are to spend the whole day apart, and I don't exactly have friends of my own that I can call up and have them take me out. So here I sit, on my blog.
I did have a good weekend though. Friday Logan had off, so the two of us lazed around together. Saturday we went out to dinner and as you have read - went to Phantom.
And yesterday Nicole and I spent nearly $700 at Staples with her grant. It was the most fun shopping I have ever had. We were like little kids in a candy shop - only with pens, highlighters and post-it notes. (Then I called in sick for work.) Jen and Craig came over and we had a BBQ and then went to one of the other security guys houses for a fire. Though I was bored with no one to talk to at the security thing, it was better than being at work.
So my three day weekend was good- not very birthday like - but good. It is just that today is the actual day - and it sucks! And you know what, it is my party and I'll cry if I want to.

The first step

Last night I took the first step in undoing years of brain washing. Nicole and I went to Phantom of the Opera. That is right, all Do It With Classers, I have now seen Lloyd Weber's work live and in person. And I have to say that it was good. I still hold to many of the principles we were taught. The music was extremely simple, the melodies were a repetitions of a couple of notes and he chose to replay all of the songs at least four or five times. (I understand one needs musical themes in a musical to identify people and events - but how many times can a person hear it without feeling like they could stand up and sing the score themselves.)
All in all though, it was a great spectacle. Even though I know that it was a scaled down version of the show. After years of theatre classes affectionately called "Story time with Uncle Bill", I have heard many stories of the inner working of that show - and was waiting for them. Some did not happen. But I enjoyed watching and allowing myself to be distracted by the technical aspects of this very tech heavy show, and know that I would not be missing any story line.
Thank you Nicole for asking me to go with you!

Just another day...

So today at work, I was working my way through what seemed like a million and half calls, each only seconds in length, feeling like the day was never going to end, when I got what started as an ordinary call. I was just making a booking, like I had done so many time that hour. The guy was conversational and witty, so I joined in the banter. At the end of the call we have a lot of things we have to say, including policies and information, flight details and finally the confirmation number. As I was nearing the end I stopped and said "it doesn't sound like you are writing this down". He replied "I am not". "You probably should so that when you call us back and the agent says 'do you have your confirmation number" you don't have to say ' that nice girl on the phone read all of that stuff to me and I didn't bother to write it down.' "
-okay, here is the highlight
He said, "I guess I am just a mean guy", and I said "I doubt that" and he said
"do you watch TV"
"yeah"
"do you watch Canadian Idol?"
"yeah"
"you know the mean guy, did you notice the email address (it was his name), yeah, that's me."

Talked to a real live celebrity today - and I don't even feel that I came off like a total looser at the end. I actually feel that I was pretty witty. (unlike the time I met Great Big Sea... big time looser Stacey!!!)

Choices...

I am sure I am like most people when I try to not work on my birthday. It only makes sense, it is your day and you don't want to spend it at work. And now, I also have an anniversary to try to not work on. We want to try and do something for our first anniversary.
What the hell was I thinking when I arranged for them to be 6 days apart. I am gonna struggle with this for the rest of my life. This year my birthday is on a Monday and my anniversary on a Sunday - and yes I am schedule to work them both. So at work I posted for someone to take my shift on our anniversary. Well, she will take it, if I trade to work the weekend before - my birthday weekend. Decisions.

So I said that I would trade - which will give me three days off for next weekend. Logan also starts another week of holidays at that same time. So we have decided to go to Montreal for a couple of days.

(as a side note, Logan's next week of holidays are in Aug. I happen to have gotten the same week off. So we are gonna hit the east coast for about a week, and then go home for our (my) family reunion.)

The mysteries of technology

It has been a while since I posted anything. But I have a tragic tale of whoa as my excuse.

Not so long ago, I mentioned that I was re-editing my wedding video. I have spent all of my extra time on the computer - importing video, watching, cutting, adding effects and transitions and the like. Two days ago I devoted the computer to rendering my finished video of the ceremony (I have also finished the getting ready stuff). The rendering took 4 hours of computer thinking. Yesterday I created a DVD to give it a whirl and make sure it worked before removing it from the computer. It finished burning - and it didn't work. I realized that I burnt it on the wrong disk (who knew there was a difference between DVD-R and DVD+R, okay, I did but that is not the point here). So I burnt another copy and could not have been happier when I put it into the DVD player and my menu jumped up on the screen. My arms shot up into the air in celebration. Logan heeded the warning, "don't get too excited, they usually don't work the first time for you."

Whether he doomed me to failure with his pessimism, or I just have to learn everything the hard way, I don't know. But the video worked, except that it was a teeny, tiny square on the TV. You could have fit 8 of my videos on our TV. I nearly cried. Hours and hours gone.

Okay, no bid deal. Just go find out where the problem is. 6 hours, 1 glass of wine and a lot of frustration later, Logan, our friend Jason and I came to the conclusion that the program I used to import the video can only import in an analogue format. The brand new, super fantastic editing program I use is digit. The imported video is just smaller in size than if I could get it straight from our digit video camera.

It is at this time I would like to once again curse our STUPID videographer. If he would have just given me the source files from the raw footage video he gave me, all would be well. But no. "I'm Luke, I'm dumb, I'll give you your footage in a file type your computer won't read!"

So, now I get to start all over again. And the worst part is, I have spent all this time teaching myself how to use this professional quality editing program, but I won't be able to use it.

Back to square one!

July 2nd Celebrations!

On July 2nd - Lisa (pink hat) celebrated her 24th birthday!

and

Amanda and Steve Brown celebrated their 4th anniversary! (wow)

Happy Day to Each of You!

Short Weekend Home

I went home again this weekend. It was great! I flew home Saturday morning and spent the day with my family. A dinner out, drinks on our deck and then out to the Canada Day fireworks (which were not bad!). Sunday Mom, Stef and I went out shopping and my mom bought me way to much for my upcoming birthday (not that I am complaining). Sunday night was supper at grandma's. Gotta love suppers at grandma's!!! And to cap the weekend Stef and I went to Lisa's for cake and snacks!

I had a lovely weekend, and love going home!

Now I am back to work, and back to trying to find a place. This morning I found at least 20 places that peaked my interest. After making calls to each, 15 have been eliminated, and the remaining 5 are still around because I left messages for the contact. This city is crazy. I am really glad that we love our current place - because if we were looking because we had to move - or because we hated it - I don't think that I would be very happy right now.

My crazy brother

Who knew that my brother had it in him?

Lookn' good!

You know you are old when...

... your younger brother is graduating from high school. That means that my own graduation was 6 years ago. Wow! He is that same little boy that some of my friends remember singing West Side Story tunes with us.

He is all grown up now - and I am proud of him!

Today he wears the gown and the hat that looks stupid on everyone! And then to the party where everyone is dressed in their best. And my mom will be biting her nails because Matthew has not told her what he is wearing. And has told me that it is surprising! But his date went with him a second time to the tux rental place to make sure that he matches her white dress - so things can't be that bad!

Here is to my little brother - though he may be a foot taller than me, will always be my little brother - Congratulations on your Graduation!

It has been awhile.

Sorry it has been so long. Please don't give up on me. Working full time is a drag. There just isn't enough time in the day. Logan and I have been spending much of our free time on the internet trying to find 2 bedroom places to rent. Apparently the house boom has created a housing shortage. Not only are there too many people moving here a day - they have put a stop to any new building contracts until they catch up on what they are trying to do now. So that means that the 2 bedroom or more places and being snatched up as quickly as places to buy. That, and the people doing the renting don't return calls - because they don't have to. Renters will pursue them - they don't have to call you back. So you have to keep calling and calling.

Today we walked to a place right behind us. The actual apartment looked great. And she assured us that they were renovating the whole building. Right now, it had plastic runners over the forest green, worn out shag carpet, with brown glass hanging by a chain light fixtures in the halls and stairs. Not a great first impression.

It was nice - but didn't blow us away and she said that they were going to be making a decision today so someone could move in July 1st. So, count us out!

I am trying to contact (hound) two places right now. Cross your fingers. One is a duplex with 3 bedrooms, a fire pit in the back yard and a washer and dryer to ourselves (a huge plus for me - I hate shared - there are no rules or etiquette to it and people take your clothes out of the machines and put there's in!). The other is a row house/townhouse bi-level in the area we are in now. I haven't seen it - but if it is the ones I think it is we will be very lucky!!

Misc information

Red Leaf Studios, our wedding photographers, have posted on their website our two large collages they have put together for us. We will be receiving them in 16x20 prints. I think they are beautiful. To check them out:
www.red-leaf-studios.com
at the bottom right corner (under the images) click "client access"
on the second page click our picture
the password is "glass".
Enjoy!



Today is my good friend Nicole Olszewski's 21st birthday!

Happy Birthday!!

As promised, here is a photo of one of the four blankets I made! Two of the others were diagonal line patters and the fourth was blocks of colours.

Emotions got in the way.

Nearly a year after the wedding I am finally sitting down with all of the video I have collected to put it together. When you ask most people if anything went wrong on their wedding day, they will have a story. For me, I had so many great people helping me that it was damn near perfect. My only regret - MY emotions getting in the way when I got to the mic.

I had everything planned and put together, except a speech on paper. It was in my head, of course, but when you get up in front of all of those people that are there because they love you. Wow. Nothing beats that. So, sure enough, I nearly loose it. Logan saved the day with a little humor - but I no longer could put two words together. There were so many people that I wish I would have thanked publicly!!!

To make matters worse - I have been watching the raw footage from our extremely stupid videographer. I am seeing things that I never would have had the chance to see. There were so many people doing things I had no idea were even going on. So here is my short list of thank you's that I wish I could have said in front of everyone while I had the mic.

Nicole: my stage manager. You really pulled everything together. I can never thank you enough. And after watching all that you did - you really were everything I had hoped and knew that you would be!

Alexis, Danielle & Nicolle: You lovely ladies arrived to the dinner and were in there right away to help light the millions of candles that I had laid out and expected one person to light (above all of the other things that I had asked her to do). I thank you. I had no idea.

Jesse, Ben & Jason: Thank you for helping clean up the church! And Ben for helping strike the lights at the end of the night!!!



Uncle Gord & Auntie Shelley: For helping us find our place in Calgary (a GREAT place might I add) and help us feel comfortable there. Especially for making Logan feel not so alone for the 8 months while he was there by himself!




And perhaps my biggest thank you:
To the Zubick Family: You showed up days early. Were involved in making every aspect perfect. From Brad running out to get whatever it was we needed. To Kathleen making those decisions that just needed to be made and getting the job done!! And my beautiful little ones who helped more than some of the big kids! To Patrick for being the best program boy ever (there is a great shot of you on the video doing your thing). To all of you for averting the program crisis when they mysteriously made it back to our house after the rehearsal! And for all of the countless things that I got to see you help with on the video - and for the millions of other things that I did not see. I don't know what I would have done without you guys!!!!!!!!

It really touches the heart to see so many people going out of their way to help make our day the perfect day that it was!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Today's post is dedicated to my dad!

To his birthday (June 7th) and to today (Father's Day)!

I miss you - and I love you!

Cheers ! To my Dad!

My sister is moving to Calgary!!!

I am happy to announce that my sister has been accepted to SAIT here in Calgary, in the Respiratory Technician Program. She will be moving here in August. I couldn't be happier.

In order to assist my sister, Logan and I have been looking at finding a two bedroom place to rent. (At first we were thinking of buying. HA. With house prices rising $1100 a day, the houses are prices three times what they are worth. We can't even afford a condo smaller than our apartment). There are a couple of cute houses posted on the internet that we are planning on looking at. I really hope that we can find a place that is as great as the place we have now.

I love our little apartment. I can walk to the theatres to work, and am really close to WestJet headquarters. We are also really close to the Chinook for Logan. It is inexpensive and all of the flooring, tiles and appliances are new! We are very lucky to have found this place. I hope there is a two bedroom place out there that will rival our current home!

Hey Amanda, how far away is Summerland from the airports WestJet flies into: Kelowna, Prince George , Vancouver or Abbotsford? I would love to come out there and see you guys.

Is there any end in sight?!?

Today is the 3 billionth day of rain in a row. I don't really know what is going on. It is the middle of June and I don't think we have seen any sun. Today looked promising. We got up late, and headed out to check out some places. The sun was shining. Sure there were tiny showers while the sun was out - but it seemed harmless. After hitting up the grocery store (and the liquor store), we came home to enjoy a martini on the balcony. We had a pleasant hour and a half before I headed in to start dinner. It was still sunny and warm as I walked through the door to the kitchen, Logan started the BBQ and headed in to help. Five minutes later there is a huge crack of thunder and the clouds opened. That was twenty minutes ago. The lightning is bright, the thunder is wall shaking and the rain is coming down in sheets. And still our chicken and asparagus cooks away. Oh wait, it is now coming down sideways. This rain has got to stop or it is going to flood like last year. Not that we have to worry - being on the 4th floor of an apartment that is on a huge hill.

It is now official

I wrote my final yesterday. 98%. Whoo hooo!
Tomorrow is my last day of training.
I am officiall an employee now - as you can see from my very official ID.

Pics from the trip home

One of my priority stops while in Regina was visiting new parents Lani & Regan Baisley. This is Lani with 4 week old Sydney Paige. Very Cute!















I also really liked this picture from the plane. As I was saying a couple of days ago - dark and gloomy in Regina and Calgary - but beautiful from above.

Short weekend home

Two days are not long enough to be home and visit. It is always great to get home but it is always stressful. Trying to see even half the people that you should is impossible. So you make a mental list of people that you are going to see this visit and catch the others next visit. Once again I did not achieve this list!

I had a great time at the casino with my family - spending time with my grandparents I love! I also had the opportunity to see Lani and her husband Regan and their 4 week old baby, Sydney Paige. Beautiful baby! We also got to visit, shortly, with Owien and Alana that are expecting at the end of July. Turned out to be a baby weekend.

I got to give out two of the four blankets I made while I was unemployed. They are very cute (if I do say so myself) flannelette quilts. The third went to Amanda and her "kicky boots" in Summerland, and the fourth is yet to be given. The camera is in Regina with Logan so I will put a picture of the blankets on the blog tomorrow.

My favorite thing about flying.

It's not the snack mix or the child sized cup of pop, or even the WestJet song we were serenaded with tonight - it is the clouds. Both flights this weekend were from cloudy city to cloudy city. As you climb through the air you leave the dreary, gray light and disappear into white. And if you are lucky - as we were on the way home tonight - it is not a solid band of clouds but there are gaps. There were empty pockets of space so you could see the other clouds and their shapes and levels. And then you burst through and it is like a fluffy carpet - and in this case the sun was setting so they were glowing pink. It is fascinating to me the different ways clouds are shaped - and how soft they look. And from above, no matter how thick and gray below, they don't look that menacing. The sun is out and it is like you could run around on the layer of cotton candy.

If I see another hand in the air...

Today was the end of the second of four weeks of training for WestJet, and I couldn't be more frustrated. The class moves so slowly that I might kill someone - I'm actually not sure how I have not done so yet. The class style is "wait for everyone to be on the same page". There are some people out there that I am unsure how they get to work every morning. And the groans are getting louder as they ask for clarification on the same thing for the fifty thousandth time!

Today we spent the entire day with a different "teacher" for Customer Care. We were talking about call flow and how to fill dead air while we are typing or looking something up. The teacher says "it could be as simple as an open ended question about why they are traveling - so instead of saying "So you are going to your daughter's wedding" say "tell me about the wedding plans"". This lady actually put up her hand to ask for a definition of an open ended question and if she could get a couple more examples of "good ones". And the worst part is that she used to teach. I know that this may not be the appropriate forum to vent - but HOLY CRAP!

In lighter news - we used my fight prevailed for the first time yesterday - Logan flew to Regina. I have to say that I felt so proud while I was walking through the airport that I almost wanted to put on my WestJet ID. It is cheesy but I have never been so brainwashed by a company - I am really proud to be associated with them.

Best job perks ever!

On Friday - for the last few hours of training I sat on the phones with a lady that has worked there for 4 1/2 years. One of her first questions was "have they showed you how to look up your flight perks?" They had not. As a WestJet employee I pay $2.50 for a plane ticket anywhere in Canada WestJet (and a couple other airlines) fly. Of course, we have to pay the GST, Airport Improvement Fees and Surcharges. Every airport is different.

To fly out of Calgary I will be paying $23
out of Regina $18
out of Toronto $7

to name a few! I am so excited about this job. So, needless to say - we will be flying all over the place this summer!

The only bad news is - I do not get "buddy" passes until I finish my probation. So not until Aug. So for the rest of you, no cheap flying yet (except the mom's who are down as my "parent passes").

Just as much a keener as ever.

In high school, and university to a lesser degree, I was all about marks. I worked as hard as I could to get perfect grade while putting in as little effort as possible. Today, and this whole WestJet experience, are just further proof. Yesterday on a little quiz I got 100%. Today we were to write an exam that we were allowed to bring in a cheat sheet for. Even though I did not feel as though the material was challenging enough to warrant a cheat sheet - I made a beautiful sheet. The teacher featured mine as a good example of choosing important information. When the exams were returned at the end of the day I saw 30.5/31. I asked about the 1/2 mark (knowing that I was right). He said that he would check it out and let me know if I could have that half mark back.

Meanwhile, in order to "pass" and continue to work you have to achieve 85%. Over half the class did not meet that bench mark. There I am, at the front of the class discussing 1/2 a mark.

Oh well, old habits die hard.