Mission call!

So it FINALLY came!!!! I can't believe it is FINALLY here! I FINALLY have a legitimate mission call! WOWZA! This is really happening :) So the 2 weeks that I waited from the time I found out it had been assigned until the day I finally received it were a little nerve wrecking not gonna lie... But then finally on Friday February 3...
I got a text from my tenants out in Spruce Grove that said
"there is a Giant white envelope from a church in the mailbox for you...is that what you've been looking for?" 

YES!

So I immediately called my Mom because her and my Dad wanted to drive up and be with me when I opened it. So they started driving up and I stayed at work to distract myself haha. Cool thing is Mama & Papa (my grandparents) happened to be up at my aunts for the weekend so I was able to open it with them to.

So I finally got to Spruce Grove at about 8:30 ish I think and checked the mailbox!

Sure enough it was there! 

This is my Extremely nervous/ excited face!

In my mind I am thinking "WOAH BABY! this is for real!"

So I had to talk to my tenants for a bit then I headed over to Auntie Jens house.

Where no one had a clue that it was here they juts thought I came out to drop some stuff off and visit. Which was legit because that was the plan... 

So then about 5 minutes later my Mom & Dad walked in and Mama was like "what are you guys doing here?" and then I said "I have something to open" she took a few seconds and then she got SUPER excited and kept saying "Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!" haha it was pretty funny 

So then we all gathered around in the Living room and I opened it up.

I covered up the actual call letter with the info packet so I could read it one line at a time and not skip ahead. 

So I read the first line that says

"You are hereby called to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Then I move it to the next line and I start to laugh and I say "Well this is funny!"

and I continue to read...

"You are assigned to labor in the Canada Winnipeg Mission"

I continued to read and I report to the Missionary Training Center May 30 2012, and I am English speaking.

I am SO EXCITED!!! 

I have never been east of Alberta! So this is foreign to me ;)

I am soooooo grateful for the opportunity I have to be going on a mission! 

I am soooooo excited to FINALLY have a mission call! 

I am sooooooo excited to be going to the Canada Winnipeg Mission!

I am sssoooooooo grateful that I am going to be speaking English!

I am sooooooo happy that I am going on May 30 because it gives me tons of time to get everything in order!

My favorite part of the whole thing is that for the past few months as people have been trying to guess where they think I am going every time some one would guess somewhere crazy foreign my response every time was "Let's be serious I am going to Saskatchewan"

My mission covers the entire province of Saskatchewan! hahaha

My mission is HUGE! it covers all of Saskatchewan, all of Manitoba, a HUGE chunk of Ontario, a little piece of Minnesota and a tiny little snippet of Alberta.

How cool is that!??!??!?!?!?!!

and the best part is that I do not leave until May 30 which means I do not have to work myself to death for the remainder of my time in Edmonton because I have adequate time to get everything situated! So I will be able to relax and have some fun before I go! YAY! less 12 hour days! woohoo!

"Goin to Winnipeg!" 

According to Google this is the Manitoba Flag

look at the cute little buffalo... haha 

I LOVE my mission already! 

  

"PATIENCE is a VIRTUE"...... (that I clearly do NOT have)

So I am being tested yet again.... apparently I have a lot to learn haha. For those of you who know me you know that when it comes to patience- well I don't really have any. 

I started my mission papers back in May 2011, I had a plan (as I always do I can't really function without one) Plan was slowly fill out application till September. Get medical and Dental in September/ October-ish send in Papers early November. 

All went as planned till November when during my final interview I discovered that I could not send them in until 4 months before my date of availability not 6.

So I was on hold again... till the end of December. December 30 to be exact.

Well those next 6 weeks were by FAR the hardest weeks since I made the decision to serve. Everything that could go wrong DID, I was SO discouraged and had lost my desire to serve all together.... then when I really thought about it and prayed I knew that I needed to go through with it.

My impatient self not wanting to wait ANY longer moved my date of availability up to April 20 so I could send them in December 20 instead of waiting till the 30th. 10 days BIG woop! right?

So December 22 they were officially submitted to Salt Lake City.

Where yup you guessed it another hold up... My papers were flagged at the mission medical office for about 2 weeks before they were submitted on for assignment. 

A MILLION urine samples-multiple doctors appointments and a kidney ultrasound later... Salt Lake realized they had flagged it for no reason and forwarded them on without any info from these tests. hahaha

Ya'll know how much I LOVE doctors ;) that was a lovely experience. 

So they were forwarded on for assignment during the week of January 11.

Then I waited.

On Sunday January 22 I was informed by my stake president that my call was assigned on Friday January 20.

So since then I have been waiting..... and waiting...... and waiting......

My life has been flashing before my eyes for the past 6 years until this past month. 

I think Heavenly Father is trying to teach me patience. 

I am not doing so hot if that is the case.... haha 

ANY DAY NOW!

YIKES!

this whole thing seems so surreal... I NEVER thought in a million years that I would be going on a mission

it's kind of hard to believe actually, and hasn't really sunk in.

I don't think it will feel real until I am on the plane and even then it probably won't feel real. 

I have made progress in the patience area though I did not drive to Spruce Grove tonight to check the mail...

(I have my tenants checking the mail box instead haha hopefully they checked it!?! what if it's in there right now?! YIKES!! guess I won't know till tomorrow)

2012! ALREADY!?!?!?!

WOW! it's 2012! that's crazy! it never ceases to amaze me how fast time seems to fly by. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years. I know I sure did. I was able to go my friend Kim Archibald's cabin down by Wateron we all spend the evening with tones of amazing snacks and playing games. Then around 10:30 we got all bundled up and headed to Waterton to Bears Hump. We hiked it pretty quick and were at the top to ring in the new year! It was so much FUN and such a cool way to ring in the new year!

Sorry for the bad quality pictures.... they are off my phone. My camera isn't working lately which makes me SUPER sad casue I LOVE taking pictures.... I keep forgetting to take it in to get looked at :(

This is the crew on the hike up

 This is the Waterton townsite @ midnight on New years eve 

 Jeffy & I we drove down together from Edmonton we left @ 5:30 in the morning on New years eve so we would have time to stop @ my parents for a bit. Needless to say it made for a long day haha. 

But we survived and actually made it till 12!

 Getting ready for the official countdown!

 Attempting to light sparkers on top of a SUPER windy mountain

this was quite the task!

 Kim Brought up Sparkling juice and little dixie cups for everyone haha She is the BEST!

Robyn & I were trying to light this sparkler and it wasn't working @ all they were trying to take group photo's and so we both turned away and looked at the camera for a minute and when we did this it lit and we didn't notice till it started to burn our hands! haha  

Happy New Year Kim!

 FINALLY got the sparklers lit!

We had sooooo much fun ringing in the new year on the mountain! I LOVED it! 

that beats a dance or a house party any day! 

One of the highlights for me was Emily (Kim's sister) brought a crazy carpet to the top. I crazy carpeted ALL the way down bears hump. Which was a pretty stupid idea because I was the only person who didn't have a light (my little lantern died) So I laid on my belly and crazy carpeted face first down bears hump in the dark. IT WAS SO FUN!!

I only had one major crash where I shot off the trail and the side of my body smoked a tree and then I was launched face first into the bush. A few very minor scratches on my face, and a pretty sore hip but other than that no damage. So after that little mishap I decided this was a pretty stupid idea. 

So I got back on the crazy carpet and continued down the mountain. hahaha 

 I am easily entertained

I think if it would have been daylight I probably would not have been brave enough to do it because I would have been able to see how rocky and steep the upcoming areas were.... which I know sounds backwards. But ignorance is bliss right? haha jk

This is in the car on the way back to the cabin. My phone was pretty frosty it was in my snow pants pocket all the way down... I'm lucky I didn't smash it on a rock.

 Emily has wanted to have a confetti fight for a few years now I guess so she unleashed the confetti when we got back to the cabin... What a MESS! haha 

 We were trying to get a picture of the confetti flying down from the loft but it wasn't working

We made hot chocolate and played some games and visited when we got back till about 2:30am then we all headed to bed so we could be up for church bright and early. The Archibald's are simply the BEST!

They made us scones for breakfast! They are so wonderful to open up there cabin to us all the time! It is ALWAYS so much fun to go there! I LOVE it there! and am so grateful for their friendship and kindness and willingness to share it with all of us!

Thanks for the wonderful start to 2012!!

So lets re-cap 2011:

If I remember correctly my new years resolution was to keep up with this Blog. I'm sure I could have done better but I did make a significant improvement in how often I Blog. I only missed one month where I didn't Blog at all. So I would say that resolution was a Success. I have come to realize that there is ALWAYS room for improvement and that perfection cannot always be attained and if I can accept that it makes life A WHOLE LOT less stressful! 

I started off the year attending U of A working towards my bachelor of Education Degree.

Took a few random trips with Brett:

Portland was the last Big one before he left on his mission.

I gained a testimony, a legit one, I had a testimony of the gospel before but 2011 was a MAJOR growing year for me, I learned A LOT about who I am and who I want to become. 

I look forward to continuing on this journey :)

I had a BLAST with my room mates! we did all sorts of random things, then in May they ALL changed on me, and the adventures seem to continue, which I am grateful for. I am so grateful to have such wonderful people in my life to have fun with and help me through the rough times. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and to have gained so many new friendships over 2011.

I finished both my student teaching practicums. Which means I am half way to have a bachelor of Education degree... What a roller coaster that was. WOW. I attended University for a full year and in May 2011 I just didn't feel right about the whole thing. I was supposed to move to Pincher Creek area in August to get ready to start teaching in September. I could NOT stop thinking about a mission. So at my final meeting with the division I finally decided (literally in the meeting was when I made my FINAL decision) that I would no longer be moving south to teach and I was going to go back to welding full time.

I am so blessed I made this decision and was pretty scared because I didn't have a job to fall back on. My previous employer had kept me on staff as part time/call in employee in order to keep my pressure welding tickets valid. When I called literally like an hour after my meeting with the division. I was calling to tell them that I was going to be looking for a new job because I was no longer moving south. My position had been filled so I didn't think going back to work there was even an option. before I even had a chance to say any of that my boss asked me if I wanted my old job back. he said that the person they hired to take my spot had literally JUST given their 2 weeks notice and if I wanted I could have me exact same position back. I knew right then and there that I had made the right decision. 

One of the main reasons I decided not to go through with the teaching thing was because I could not stop thinking about serving a mission. Once I escaped my contract I decided that I needed to start preparing. The BIGGEST road block for me has been my debt. I own a house, and had taken a year of school that I couldn't afford and had accumulated a bit of debt by backing out of my contract, not to mention my stupid credit card. I jokingly said at one point "2010 was my year to have fun and do whatever I want 2011 is my year to become debt free" I honestly did not think this was possible. lets just say I had A LOT of debt. But I have been VERY blessed with available overtime and health and energy to work the excessive overtime that I've been offered and I am happy to say I am about a month away from being debt free! That has definitely been one of my BIGGEST accomplishments of this year! heck probably of my life. I have worked so hard to make that happen it's actually hard to believe I have almost achieved that goal.

I started my mission papers WAY back in May knowing I was not going to submit them for a long time. It was my main focus heck it was my only focus for the past 7 months. I had EVERYTHING ready to go for my stake presidents interview November 2. I thought we would be submitting them that day. My date of availability was set as April 30th due to my financial situation and I THOUGHT I could submit them 6 months before date available to serve...... well we finished the interview and everything was good to go and then we realized that my date of availability was 6 months away and the stake president informed me that I can only send them in 4 months in advance. :( 

So that was all good we decided we would send them in on December 30th. and I was O.K. with that for about 2 weeks. Then I started to panic a little bit and almost decided not to send them in. I even registered myself in school next semester and the whole works. I have since realized where all the opposition was coming from and after much thinking/ studying/ praying and all sorts of other things..... 

I KNOW that I have made the right decision I could not wait any longer so I moved my date of availability up 10 days and my mission papers were submitted to 

Salt Lake City on December 22 2011.

What a CRAZY journey it has been to get to this point! I have never been so tested in all my life. 

I am SO excited to receive my mission call. I am so grateful for the growth I have experienced over the duration of my preparation so far and am so excited to see what's in store for me.

People keep asking where I hope I get sent.... To be honest I don't really care. I mean of course it would be sweet to get sent somewhere Ridiculous but in all honesty I will just be happy to get a mission call and to have the opportunity to serve. I am so excited for this next adventure in my life and I know it will not be easy, in fact I imagine it is going to be one of the most challenging things I ever do, and am definitely stepping out of my comfort zone. But really that's what life is all about. If we don't take chances we don't grow.

I have always LOVED hearing peoples mission experiences and it's crazy to think I will be having my own here pretty quick.

I have no idea what's in store for me in 2012 but I am sure excited! so far the year has started off GREAT! I rang in the new year on a mountain with some friends.... spent some time with my family and now am having the first relaxing day in FOREVER!

I hope you all had a wonderful 2011 and I wish you all the BEST in 

2012   

I am Grateful for....

I saw this challenge in the first presidency message this month and on Amy Lou's blog and wanted to do it myself. I did kind of the same thing this week I found a random weekly planner note pad and each day I had to fill out all the rows under that day of things I am grateful (no repeats!) for before I could shut off my light and go to bed... I really liked it I have SO much to be grateful for! 

Now I will try this challenge 10 things I am grateful for under each topic:

1. Physical Abilities

-Sight, I LOVE seeing new things!

-Hearing, I LOVE visiting with people and listening to music

-Walking, I am so grateful for my health and my physical capabilities. I think I take this for granted WAY too much! How Blessed I am to be able to do this every day without even thinking about it.

-I LOVE working with my hands, I LOVE having the ability to create things whether it be crafts, baking, welding, fixing.... anything.

-My ability to Learn, to take in new information and apply it in my life. I LOVE learning

-Taste, mmmmm Christmas baking ;)

-Breathing, O how grateful I am to wake up every morning to live each day in this beautiful country.

-Exercise

-Snowboarding, I LOVE to snowboarding.

-Laughing~ really is the BEST!  

2. Material Possessions

-My Bed

-Laptop

-car

-house

-Welding Helmet

-iPhone (man I LOVE that thing.... a little too much sometimes I think)

-Clothes

-fridge

-stove

-Snowboard!

3. Living People

-Mom

-Dad,

-Jessie

-Mama

-Papa

-Auntie Jen, Uncle Marty, Auntie Nita, Uncle Thornton

-Philip, A.J., Chet, Amy, Levi, Cody

-Laura, Alyssa, Stephanie Bennett, Stephanie Tobler, Ashley McGale, Amy Wilde ;)

-President Monson

-The Savior

4. Deceased People

-Great Grandma

-Grandpa Cal

-Grandma Myrtle

-Uncle Wayne

-Uncle Larry

-President Hinckley

-Joseph Smith

-Emma Smith

-Mary & Joseph

-Clarence & Robert

5. Things about Nature

-Sunshine

-Flowers

-Snow

-Rain (especially the smell of it...and usually only if it is warm outside...)

-Warm weather

-Mountains either covered in snow for snowboarding on.... or beautifully unkempt for hiking. O how I miss the mountains! 

-I Love lakes especially in B.C. they are so clear.

-Trees Big shady ones.... or ones that grow fruit. I LOVE fruit!

-Sunsets they are SO BEAUTIFUL! Sunrises!

-The colours of the leaves in the fall. 

6. Things about today

-Breakfast date with Jeffy mmm froot loops ;)

-Church. I really Love going to church each Sunday. I am so Blessed to have the freedom to do this.

-almost nap

-Spicy Spaghetti (thanks work dad)

-Relaxing with my roomies

-no Working today

-Warm weather it's December 18 for Pete's sake and I wasn't wearing a jacket!

-it snowed :) not enough to be annoying just enough to say "O hey it actually is winter and almost Christmas"

-Time to Blog

-the thought of making cookies.... it almost happened... maybe soon. today before people come.

7. Places on Earth

-My Bed

-The mountains

-Waterton/ Glacier National Park!

-Home

-Vegas I like warmth 

- Mexico is pretty cool to

-Mama's house

-Driving in a car on road trips

-Church

-Europe--> I want to go to Germany!

8. Modern Inventions

-iPhone

-Internet

-Electricity

-online banking (makes life so easy!)

-cars

-Modern medical advances

-dentists

-health care

-Pension

-bicycles

9. Foods

-Chocolate Milk! is the BEST invention EVER!!!!!!

-Chocolate is also pretty good

-Pasta

-Pizza (chicago deep dish Baby!!)

-Soup

-Salad

-Sandwiches

-casseroles!

-COOKIES! I LOVE cookies!!!

-Ice Cream

10. Things about the Gospel 

-The peace it has brought into my life

-the Atonement

-Sacrament

-Temples

-Living Prophet

-Scriptures

-Prophets & Apostles

-Ensign

-Home teachers/ Visiting teachers

-Plan of Salvation! How Cool is that?!?!?! SERIOUSLY though! we have soooooo much potential and SO much to look forward to!!!

I have SO much to be grateful for! I am one truly blessed little lady!

Lunar Eclipse Party

Saturday December 10 2011

Friday December 9 was my ward Christmas Party... Laura, Braden & I skipped out of the festivities early as we were not in the mood to sing our lives away... so we hard core dine & dashed 

We went to a local park and played on the swings for a bit....and played on the playground till our hearts were content. Then we hit up Candy Cane Lane.

For those of you who do not know Candy Cane lane is a street in Edmonton where All of the houses go all out with their Christmas Lights and there is tons of stuff going on there each night.

However every year I go I go too late at night and A LOT of the lights are already off. 

This year I thought I FINALLY made it to see the festivities but Laura later informed me that she went back later on and I had yet again missed out... UGH!! one day I will see Candy Cane Lane at its finest!

Anywho after our little adventure we decided to plan a Lunar Eclipse party for the next morning.

I had heard on the radio that the best time to watch it was 5:44 am.

So we told Braden to show up at 5:30.

4:55am there was a knock on Laura's door! GOOD GRIEF! was 5:30 not early enough?!?!?!

Anyway so our day got off to an even earlier start than anticipated... So we bundled up and headed to the park. 

 Laura lives just outside the city so we stayed there anticipating we would get a better view.

After about 20 minutes of freezing at the park and the status of the moon not changing we headed home to start breakfast.

 By 7:30 am we had already made and cleaned up a pancake/ bacon breakfast

Played settlers of Catan and watched a Lunar Eclipse.

I thought a Lunar Eclipse would be RED and SUPER epic to see...

We kept fairly close tabs on it but all that really happened was it disappeared... we are wondering if we maybe missed it? from the pictures we have been looking at it seems as though it was supposed to disappear- turn RED and then come back? 

O well must have missed it... I guess we will have to try again in 2014.

 GOOD MORNING!

I LOVE early mornings!

I accomplished SO SO SO much that day!

I came home around 8 o'clock & had the most productive day of all time it was GREAT!

I LOVE LAURA and our random FUN adventures together!

Company Christmas Party

Well on December 3rd, I had my company Christmas Party.... Which I was kind of not looking forward to...

A-Everyone would be drunk

B-I had 2 tickets and no one to take with me... I still get bugged for the last person I took to one of these things, You'd be surprised how close these old guys I work with pay attention to things like this... That was 2 years ago for pete sakes!

Anyways at the last minute I invited my friend Robin Lybbert and it actually ended up being A LOT of fun. I thought we would eat & run, but we stayed until after 11. I work with some pretty FUN people! We had fun talking to all the Germans I work with.... well Robin did I am still learning so I didn't really know what was going on haha but I am getting better! I had a few conversations with Jakob this week at work... 

O by the way I am learning German haha random I know-- but I work with a ton of Germans and my room mate Stephanie is taking her minor in German so I figured I might as well take advantage of the opportunity while I have a ton of people who can help me! I NEVER thought I would EVER be interested in learning a new language but I am addicted! it all started one day @ work there was no Welding to be done so Darin (my boss) sent me to work with Jakob in the machining area for a couple days. It was SUPER fun he asked me a MILLION questions about church over the course of the 2 days and I learned A LOT about Germany and Russia. Jakob was born in Russia and moved to Germany when he was about 7. His older brother Edward was 17 at the time... I work with Edward also. Anyways near the end of the 2 days I worked with Jakob I asked him to teach me something in German so he did "Was ist hier los" was the first phrase I learned... It means "What's goin on here?" kinda slang similar to "what's up?" and after that I was HOOKED!!! within the next week I learned "Guten morgen, vie gehts" Which is "good morning, how are you?" the Alphabet, numbers, how to say goodbye, and a bunch of other coin Phrases I have a little note book that I write things in and then I set it by me while I work and between welds I read them and then while I'm welding I repeat them over and over till I can remember them. So I have a huge list of words & phrases I can say, I have an English copy so I look at it in English and then remember how to say it in German, and I have a German copy that I look at and say and remember what it means in English. The thing I struggle with is understanding when other people say things to me in German it takes me a while to process what they are saying.... I really have to think about it. But everyone at work is really good and patient with me as I think things over and figure out what they are saying. 2 of my most common phrases are 

"Ich verstehe das nicht" (I dont understand) & "Bitte Sprechen sie Langsamer" (Please speak more slowly) haha

Anyways back to the Christmas party....here are some pictures of the night.....

This is Jakob and Meagan she is our company H.R. rep.

This is Brad in the center.... Brad, Max & I were the only Welders that showed up and Max left right after din din.

Larry is in the far left corner... He is hilarious and he made me dance.... then I refused to dance the rest of the night without him haha

This is my Friend Robin Lybbert who I conned into coming with me

Edward-Kayla-Jakob

These are my German speaking Russians

Right after we took the group photo above Edward said lets take a funny pic. before I could even think he scooped me up and my dress was wide open @ the bottom hence the screaming face!

 good thing I was wearing spanky shorts!! haha

Aufwiedersehn!!

My life is flashing before my eyes yet again....... YIKES

I feel like it was just yesterday that I blogged about my new years resolution to 'keep up with this darn blog' this year.... and I'm feeling like it was a rather epic fail on my part....

Time just seems to rip by at an ever increasing speed, for pete sakes I'm 23! how the heck did that happen?

I have been saying for the past 3 years that I am having a quarter life crisis which means each year I guess my life span is increasing so that could be a good thing I suppose? that might buy me some more time... haha

I am at a bit of a cross roads right now.... I feel like I have so many options as to what I could do or where I could end up and I'm finding it a little frustrating/ overwhelming cause I would just like someone to decide for me and send me on my merry way. I am very good at having goals and being focused and working my butt off to attain those goals but when a decision comes up..... Man o Man I hate making decisions!!

I am the kind of person who has to weigh out all the pros and cons and think about things for ages and weigh out ALL my opitions and it seems to take me forever. I just want to have a clear head. 

Anyways enough on that little tangent here is the update on what I've been up to the past couple months:

Halloween:

So my second home has been across the ravine @ Tyler Bohnet, Jared Nelson, Scott Christie, Brad Hogg, Dalin Duce and Justin Boyd's house. A while back they decided to assign us all a 'justice league' identity. seeing as I was the only girl around at the time who was not someones girlfriend. I was assigned Wonder Woman. So naturally we decided this is what we would be for halloween.....

Boyd who is in the front was super man.... and at the dance he had to do a little challenge thingy and ripped off his suit to reveal his superman costume haha. 

I'm not to sure who this guy in the front is.... but we got to the dance and he was dressed as the green arrow? who apparently was the only character that we did not have with us so he joined up with us and we were a complete set. 

I met up with everyone at their house before the dance and I brought COOKIES! 

I made everyone's symbol in the form of a cookie... and a J.L. for justice league.

lets just say since I dropped out of school in May I have found a bit of spare time :) 

it's weird I usually don't know what to do with myself when I have a spare minute so I fill the time with things like this..... haha

I was a little stressed when I was informed I was to be wonder woman for halloween; if you have ever done a google images search of wonder woman she is not the most Modest character....

So I thought and thought and searched and searched and came up with this....

It had all of the 'components' (even red boots) just in a more 'comfortable' form haha

Now I know NOTHING about these characters aka the 'justice league' 

Funny thing my dearest Laura and Maren steed dressed up as greek goddesses. We were later informed I think by Scott that wonder woman's mother is the Greek Goddess that Laura was being. haha Funny.

Laura and I go together even when we don't mean to.

There were some REALLY awesome costumes this year... these are some of my fav's

Hope everyone had a GREAT Halloween! cause I sure did. But I'm not gonna lie the Halloween fun started on Friday and by Monday which was actually Halloween I was all Halloweened out.... and didn't even dress up haha.

Pumpkin Party

So Laura's house carved 2 pumpkins this year for Halloween..... Laura is the kind of person who CANNOT let anything go to waste.... (this is a good quality- I LOVE LAURA) 

So she cooked up these pumpkins and we started baking:

Laura was on boiling/ cutting/ Blender duty

which was weird cause Laura is a baking champion! commonly referred to as homemaker 5000 

At one point she had every burner on the stove boiling pumpkins.

 I just started following all the pumpkin recipes we gathered....

These were the "Pumpkin Whoopie cakes"

hahaha thats what they were called! or at least thats what we remembered them being called...

You made these cookies and then stuck 2 together with delicious cream cheese icing.

 This is a chunk of what we made....

 This was the pumkin raisin cookie dough...they were to die for as well.

 Here is the homemaker 5000 herself

~LAURA HILLS~ 

she is the best

Here we have our pumpkin cupcakes....(Which by the way we got off of pinterest..... all you do is take one box of cake mix add 2 cups of pumkin puree or one 16 oz can of pumpkin and walla cupcakes! thats it thats all don't even add the ingredients on the box. pumpkin only.) They were yummy we used a plain cake mix though I would recomend like a spice cake mix maybe...?

Anyway the whoopie cakes are also in this picture as well as the pumpkin Crumble it was SO GOOD!

 We had a BILLION of these pumpkin raisin cookies. 

And after all that we still had this bucket full and a mason jar full of pumpkin puree! holy moly Pumpkin goes a LOOOOOOOOONG way!!

Another Fun fact about pumpkin that I learned 

(besides the fact that you can actually cook them and use more than just the seeds to bake hahaha)

Is ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you bake with pumkin WILL be RIDICULOUSLY moist and soft. All our cookies were more a cake texture than cookie they were still yummy though.

November 9-13

CFR: Canadian Finals rodeo

My very good friend from high school Levi Simpson competes in it each year, so each year the 'edmonton fan club' gets tickets and heads to rexall place to cheer him on. This year I was not going to go because I was too broke due to my extremely unforgiving get out of debt budget. However the week before the president of the Edmonton fan club called me and presented me with 6-pack tickets (for the whole week) for my combined B-day/ Christmas present. O how I love the president of the fan club : ) 

Thanks so much Auntie Jen!! I had a great time! here are some shots with our local celebrity;

Levi won the CFR this year.... Congrats Levi!!! your a champ!

November 12

That same weekend was the first snow fall of the season......

Edmonton set a record this year of our latest snowfall ever! it did not happen until November 12.

I thought I was DREADING winter but I was so excited when I woke up to snow that I took pictures and went to store and purchased some celebratory chocolate milk. YUMMY my fav.

Preference:

was on November 25th if I remember correctly...

So this year I had no intention of asking someone to preference.

However Alyssa and Steph came up with a fun idea and convinced me that I should ask someone.

I decided to ask Jeffy (aka Kayla's Jeff Bennett).

Hold that thought....... The story of Laura's Jeff and Kayla's Jeff.

So when Laura and I first moved in together (we are not room mates anymore so sad) anyway when we first moved in together she was attending Grant MacEwan and I was at U of A. We both had a friend named Jeff Bennett, and often found ourselves getting confused about which Jeff we were talking about. 

So since Jeff W. Bennett attended Grant MacEwan where Laura was (and she knew him better) he became known as Laura's Jeff Bennett. (he is in the pic beside Laura)

Jeff A. Bennett attended U of A where I was also attending (I knew him better) he became known as Kayla's Jeff Bennett. (he is in the pic beside me)

Don't worry we filled them in on their secret identities.... 

O.K. back to preference. So I wanted to ask Jeffy aka My Jeff Bennett. I currently live with his sister and we decided to call him up one night and as we were chatting he mentioned how he did not want anyone to ask him to preference. So I said "haha done then I don't have to go cause I was going to ask you"  then he and Steph convinced me I should just ask someone else. So I agreed with the conditions that he would have to help me find out whether or not my prospects had been asked yet....

The story of how I ended up going is quite entertaining so I have to share....

Anyway as promised I receive a text from Jeffy the next day with some results... the convo via text goes something like this:

Jeffy-"Hey forget those other guys I met a cool guy who would love to get asked.....(insert phone number here) Just go with it he is excited!"

Me-"Who is it?"

Jeffy-"You'll have to text him and find out. he'll think it's funny"

(After looking up the number) Me-" You bonehead! thats your number!!"

Jeffy- "Hahaha I told you he would think it's funny. But that isn't a very creative way of asking...."

Me-"I didn't ask you anything"

Long story short he challenged my creativity.....

So Yes I did end up asking Jeffy, in the most obnoxious way I could think of.

I made him a scavenger hunt. All over Edmonton a total of 8 clues. each clue was embedded in a different color of JELL-O. The Final clue was embedded in a Giant container filled with 3 boxes of JELL-O. the last clue said "I met a cool girl who would LOVE to take you to preference.... call this number for more information (insert number here)"

The best part is the number was not mine it was his mothers..... hahaha Steph helped out with that part. So he got asked to preference by his mom. 

Also the night I planted all the clues happened to also be on one of our coldest days so far this year so it was also Frozen JELL-O

Here are the 8 JELL-O clues

 all the clues including the Final one

 Left this on porch with first clue haha

Total JELL-O used: 8 boxes

TAKE THAT JEFFY! challenge my creativity again some time.... I dare ya. lol.

Anywho I got a response it was very clever as well.... and we went to preference together. We had a grand ol' time.

Laura, Alyssa, Steph and I had so much fun asking everyone it almost trumped the date all together haha.

Anyways so for our date:

We picked up our dates (it's preference it's weird why not make it as weird as humanly possible?) So Steph and I picked up our dates and bought flowers for them on the way there haha flippin weird but funny. 

Then we all met up @ our house and made Pizza's

There were 4 but I only have pictures of 2 for some reason. 

Then we played household Sports.

We set up mini-golf all over the house, then id curling on the kitchen floor with blocks of frozen butter (we even drew a target on the floor with dry-erase marker) then we were bowling water bottles with grapefruit. 

It might sound lame but it was SUPER fun! and I LOVED every minute of it. We did end up going to the dance for the last 10 minutes (which was the plan all along haha)

It was a super fun night. I LOVE my FRIENDS!! you guys are the best!!

 and I think this was 2 weeks ago allready..... so I still have some catch up to do..... but that will have to wait until I get access to some more pictures!!

ta-ta for now!