ketchup!

Michael and I went to the store and bought 16 large tins of ketchup. I don't know if I've ever felt that ridiculous in a grocery store ever before. I felt like one of those women with the shopping cart entirely full of milk. I always wonder what they could possible do with that much milk. I guess today I was the one everyone was wondering about. What on earth could I possible do with that much ketchup?

Convert it into honey, of course!

How you ask? Well, a local honey producer donated an entire pallet of honey to SM, and that is a lot of honey, more than the kitchen can store or use up in a reasonable amount of time. So, they put up a list of things they really needed and we could bring in these items as a trade for one of the pails (15kg) of honey. We chose ketchup off the list. All in all, a pretty sweet deal. Ha!

my first knitted baby blanket

And no, it wasn't for me. I knit this for a friend. After spending the first quarter of it struggling to get the pattern right and ripping back numerous times, I finally got my head wrapped around it and was able to speed through the second half. Absolutely beautiful, eh?

We had lunch with N&M at their place the day I delivered the finished blanket. Here Michael and I are having some cuddle time with Sofia.

Auntie sharing her cookies with Sofia.

K&P and Phoebe were also there for lunch.

Michael holding Phoebe. And me holding Phoebe.

Kids are so freaking cute!

Siloam Mission Staff Appreciation Event

Instead of a Christmas Party, Siloam Mission does a staff appreciation event in January (when the busy-ness of Christmas is over).

I am on the Celebrations Committee, and as a team we planned this event. Do you like the lovely place cards? Our graphic designer created those little symbols so the server would know which plate belongs where.

Michael and I dressed up and enjoying our awesome food!

Brendan & Erin (Brendand works in the Volunteer Services Department with me).

Brendan showing off the salmon dish.

  

Me & Erin (and a good shot of my new do).

  

Diane with baby Cassidy.

  

The table centre pieces. This was a collaborative effort between Delores and myself. Our whole party was a snow man theme, and these were the centre pieces.

Manitoba Christmas!

Christmas was spent in Manitoba this year, although it was our year to travel to BC (I couldn't get the time off work). So we celebrated with the Schultz Family.

Here are all of our lovely faces.

This is us opening presents...

This is Michael and Stuart enjoying the fresh snow outside (Michael is also trying out Dad's new John Deer tractor).

Christmas at our House

Michael and I got to spend Christmas morning at our house. That was fabulous. Since this was our year to be in BC, we went with a fake tree for the first time ever (courtesy of friends of ours who traded us for our live tree stand). The advantage is that this one had a straight trunk and didn't fall over or require us to tie it to the wall.

New iPod, meet old iPod. This is what Michael got me for Christmas. Isn't that wild, the different in size? I felt like the new one was going to slide right out of my hand!

Michael got more woodworking tools and a great tool bag for tools that stay in the house (admittedly, I benefit from this one as well, since now I can always find a hammer or a tape measure).

meeting Phoebe

Our dear friends K&P had finally had their baby. We got to meet her at the hospital. Of all the babies I've ever seen at a day old, I think this might be the cutest.

Albertville - Thanks Mom!

Michael and I have been talking about taking a little trip south to do some shopping. We have been saving up money to do it, and with a little gift we got from my Mom, we decided we had enough to make the trip worth it.

The spoils from our weekend of shopping. Thanks Mom!

It looks totally ridiculous when it's all piled on the couch like that. Would you believe me if I told you our feet ached a lot after this weekend?

oh. my.

Can you tell what's wrong with this photo? It's a picture of the inside of my freezer.

Yup, you got it. EXPLODED beer bottles!

This is what you get when someone puts a couple beers in the fridge to cool them off quickly and share them with a friend...and then gets so distracted that he someone forgets about them until the next day.

That is the bottom of my freezer.

What fun!

Dan comes to visit!

Dan came to visit us, which was really exciting. When you have lived and shared your house with someone for three years, you miss them when they are gone. We were enjoying some cheese cake (I think), that we knew Jenn would be really sad about missing out on, so we pretended to feed some to her photo.

Dan hanging out with Katrina at our place.

It was great to get to see Dan. Too bad Jenn couldn't come too. Next time!

5th Anniversary Getaway - nice

It's hard to believe, but Michel and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this year. So, we decided to capitlize on the long weekend and do a little get away. We tried to find a place sort of like where we spent our wedding night & 1st anniversary (check out this place). So, we went to a place called Pinewood Lodge. Which was also very nice.

A bed with rose petals, nice.

the inside of the chalet, bed in the loft.
The living space.

The weather was beautiful, even though it was the middle of November, so we went for a walk, and ended up spending a good chunk of time on this bridge throwing rocks at the frozen ice. Not the kind of thing you would expect from to married adults, but that's what we did.

Another view of the inside.

It was so nice to get away and just be not at home, where we could forget about the pressures of life for a few days and totally veg out (how on earth should I be spelling that?). It was hard to come back to the real world.