Happy New Year!

For those of you who didn't get this in the mail:

Here's what it said on the back:

Hello!

2008 was a year of milestones & adjustments. Esther completed her Bachelor of Human Ecology in May & became a career woman in the fall, at Siloam Mission.

This past summer we took as much time as we could to hang out together, including Folklorama, where this picture was taken. We also completed a house project together, turning our office into a media room. This summer we got bicycles & spent time riding around Winnipeg admiring houses.

Michael spent another dedicated year keeping trucks on the road & wheels turning.

We have been enjoying our church family & Getting involved in teaching preschool. We’re so thankful for the friends we’ve made here.

We hope that your holidays were memorable & we wish you a very Happy New Year!

Michael & Esther

Christmas Party - appetizers & open house

This has become somewhat of a tradition...

Christmas Cookie Bake!

Val & Allison joined me this year for soem Christmas baking! Yum!

playing at auntie & unlce

This is Sofia, she's almost a year old and almost walking. She discovered that Michael's lunch box worked quite well as a walker...too cute!

Hanging out with Uncle Michael (who is playing pacman on PS1).

the OTHER job, that I still haven't told you about...

Well, thanks all for being patient. I'm now in my fifth week at the other job, and you still don't even know what it is! This is also my first week of full time work. The first four weeks were three days a week. This week I also started taking the bus. So far I've been extremely fortunate, because the weather has been really amazing. Although the bus I'm supposed to catch is either usually very late, or seems to skip a round. On Monday it was a balmy 18 degrees C! I've barely been needing a jacket to get to work, never mind mitts, scarf & hat.

Are you getting impatient yet? I'll start with my title, since it's ridiculously long, and everyone at work has fun teasing me about it. Adminstrative Assistant to the Executive Team. Doesn't that sound important? I suppose it is too, it just doesn't seem that important because it involves being organized and for me that is just so natural.

This is my tag, pretty official, eh?

Where is this job with the long title? At Siloam Mission, that's where I work. In a lot of ways, I feel like I found a job that gives me the best of both worlds. A place that relates to my degree, allows for awesome opportunities to network and makes use of my administrative skills. Pretty cool, eh? I report to the COO, but am available for anything the SAO & CEO need me for as well. The COO and I work together well which is really great.

I'm also learning a few other roles within the organization as a back up person for reception, medical reception and donation processing. This keeps me engaged, because my head is so full of new things.

October proved to be a really crazy month as I juggled three jobs, this one, the Stradbrook one and finishing up at TMR (where I've been doing the books since March).

So, there you have it, you finally know what I'm doing! Here's a picture of me at the end of the first day.

pumpkin carving

This year we managed to find some time for pumpkin carving...with Dan & Jenn, Chris & Allison. We had a good time. Any guesses as to who carved what?

Michael did the mountain scenery on the far right, and I think Jenn did the middle one, Chris & Allsion did the left one.

happenings in October...

So, I mentioned that October was crazy, and it really was. Michael is too embarrassed by this to let me post a clear picture of this, but I couldn't resist putting up in some way or another....

I suppose in fairness to Michael I won't say much more about it, but if you'd like to venuter a guess, feel free to.

Another project for this month was dealing with our garage floor. Our first winter we noticed that it was sinking, because we painted it the night we got possession, and there was a now a gap between the wall and the floor where the paint used to meet up. We let it go another winter, which was probably good, because it sank some more. A total of 4.5 inches I think it was. Anyway, we had it jacked up this fall. Here's the pictures:

Last, but not least. We grew lot and lots of hot peppers this year. So, we harvested them as the frost threatened, and decided to dry them. We tied them altogether on one long string and then had to come up with a good place to hang them. Michael thought this would look good:

Thanksgiving at the Cottage...

Well, it seems to have become a tradition.  How many times does something have to happen to be considered tradition?  Michael and I spent our first Thanksgiving when we were dating at the cottage with Henry & Shirley, his sister Angela and my Mom.  That's where Michael said the "m" word to me (marriage).  It's also where we went out in the row boat and he broke an oar in his efforts to get back to shore asap when the rain started pouring down!  Since then, we've spent every Thanksgiving that we've been in Manitoba there as well, I think that makes it a total of 4 times.  

Dan & Jenn joined us this time.  Mostly the weekend consisted of good food and lots of relaxing.  The weather wasn't too great, so we spent most of our time indoors by the fire.  Reading, doing homework or knitting, depending on who it was.  Dan & Michael did go out for a hike and got soaked, but had fun apparently.  

Unfortunately, I really don't have many pictures, probably because nothing eventful happened, and the few that I have aren't that great, but just so you have something to look at I'll include them.  We had turkey dinner, but in a very untraditional format.  It was BBQ turkey roll ups.  Turkey pieces that were pounded thin, and rolled up with stuffing inside them.  Yummy!

first day of school & first day of work

Ok, so this may seem totally dorky, but for us it's kind of a big deal.  Michael is taking a class and I'm finally going to be working.  I thought it'd be fun to take a picture of Michael's first day of class and my first day of work, kind of like back in the day when our parents took pictures of us on our first day...only it never happened.  

But I did want you to know about the role reversal, so I'm posting this anyway, sans pictures.  

Michael is taking a course to learn how to use Access software, and I officially have a job(s), which you will hear about in future posts.  

first day of first job

Ok, so I know I said I would make you all wait until Oct. 6 to hear about the job (because that is my first day of work).  But, I actually have two jobs, and I had my first day at the other one today (training) and I'm way too excited not to tell you about it.  

In the summer, I went to a weekend at a friend's cottage, which was basically a reunion of my old university friends that I met through Campus Crusade.  Sandra was one of the people there and Sandra has a Human Ecology Degree just like I do.  So we talked a little bit, and she told me where she works and that I should apply there.  So about 4 weeks later I finally did just that.  It took until last week to get an interview (both parties were to blame) and then by the end of the week I was apparently hired.  This whole process was far less formal than the other job, so it didn't really register that it was really happening until I had to tell them when I could come in for training.  

So, I now am working part time for Stradbrook Residential Services. This organization provides life skills training to adults with mild mental disabilities who are living on their own, but still need assistance with everyday stuff from banking to cooking and so on.   My first day basically consisted of job shadowing my friend.  She met with her client, H to bake chocolate chip cookies, then we went out for lunch and did some shopping at the Forks.  That was three hours of my day, the rest of the afternoon was spent learning my way around the office and learning about all the reports that I need to do after meeting with each client (they are not that complicated).  So, as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about this job, because it's going to be a lot of fun!  

While we were shopping I also came across this, and while Michael and I are both pretty strict about not doing impulse buys, this was a time when I chose to ignore that particular rule.  

Isn't it cool?  I've wanted something like this for a while, since I can't convince Michael to spend money on an advent calendar with good chocolate in it, and neither one of us can stand the cheap one at Walmart that sells for 97 cents.  This one allows me to put in whatever I want (one chocolate for each of us?).  I wanted this bad enough that I looked into making one (in all my spare time), but never got around to it and for the $20 I paid for this one, I decided that making one was not worth the stress and effort.  Not to mention the fact that it fits in with the rest of our Christmas decorations so well (our house gets overrun with snowmen at Christmas).  So, not only did I enjoy my first day at the first job, I scored a really great advent calendar!