:: My day...yesterday ::

:: Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on photography & photoshop at our church ::

:: I left the house at 8:50 am and didn't arrive home until almost 6:00 pm. It was a great day but boy did I miss my boys! Isn't it weird how we think "oh, it would be nice to have a whole day off " but then you get a whole day off and you wish you had your kids with you!?!?! ::

:: At any rate, I had a great day and thanks to my Dad for coming and taking on my fever ridden big boy and my screaching little boy and thanks to my Mom for showing up to my place to do laundry! Maybe I do have a laundry fairy after all! Oh and I mustn't forget to give mad props to my babe Paul for taking care of making a veggie filled dinner - yummo! ::

:: The workshop was taught by David duChemin a photographer that mainly shoots for humanitarian organizations like World Vision. If you are looking to learn the basics and have a good laugh at the same time, check out his website for his workshops and seminars. They are well worth the time (and I'm sure the cost as well!) ::

:: Today I'm making up a batch of jumbo chocolate cupcakes as place markers/gifts and doing Jamie Delaine's hair for her grad dinner tonight - I hope to get outside this morning and get my fill of vitamin D on my face...I've got blue sky above my house, how great it that? ::

:: Hope ya'll have a wonderful day and enjoy this day the Lord has made ::

:: FYI: I'm not dead ::

:: Ha Ha Ha - My Mom calls me this morning and it goes like this ::

{M} "People will think you're dead"
{S} "What!?!?"
{M} "People will think you're dead, you haven't blogged since like the 16th - that's a long time ya know!"
{S} Laughing "No they won't, people know I have a life"
{M} "No they don't, you need to blog"

:: It still makes me chuckle...but I'm sure ya'll know that I have a life, you just want to see what's going on inside of it...It's okay, I like to snoop too! ::

:: Okay, so I'm not dead but I have been super busy. Busy with good, not bad things. All the same it has kept me away from my blog ::

:: Hopefully the worst is almost over and I'll be back to my normal reality of daily posting by this weekend...okay, let's be realistic, Monday, I'll be back full force on Monday! ::

:: So what have I been up? Oh amazing things, things that make me just want to pee my pants::

:: Yeah, not so much. I have been having fun doing some different things, some new things & letting my creative juices get the best of me & my time ::

:: On Monday I had a photo shoot with a lovely group of people from the Advocacy department at our church CLA in Langley ::


:: That time was followed by finishing up decorations on a cake my girlfriend Lisa ordered from me - that was fun too, although a little nervy. It turned out well and she said that it tasted fabulous! So the goal was attained ::


:: In between those things, I have had so much fun working along side my other friend Lisa with a new adventure that has us just pumped (more on this later...much later)! ::

:: So really that's all that I have to say, I'm still up to my eyeballs in paperwork (aka: emails, because really that is what paperwork is these days) and I'm trying to finish up a few other things I have on my plate this week ::

:: We have had some exciting news around here but I won't update about that right now...I'll keep you in suspense ;) ::

:: Hope ya'll are doing well - Can't wait to have time to catch up with ya'll and take a peek into your lives! ::

:: Jennifer (a long time friend from church back in the day) tagged me, so here goes...then I'm off to bed. My boys are already all passed out! ::


What was I doing ten years ago?
1. Graduating
2. Working @ Jim Pattison Toyota
3. Deciding where to go with YWAM

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for tomorrow?
1. Organize "My Room" (scrap/beauticontrol/don't touch stuff room)
2. Fold the laundry
3. Vacuum the house
4. Go for a run
5. Eat properly

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Starbucks...any time, any place, Starbucks
2. Ice Cream
3. Peanut Butter
4. Pop Corn
5. Diet Pop

5 Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Finish Paul's 1972 Beetle for his 32nd Birthday
2. Live on a small farm in South Langley with a few horses and a very southern colonial house
3. Own a vacation home in Hawaii
4. Take my family on at least one mission trip - not short term. At least 3 months
5. Give it away!

Places I’ve lived:
1. North Delta, BC
2. Surrey, BC
3. North Vancouver, BC
4. Maui, HI
5. Kosovo

Jobs I’ve had:
1. Receptionist
2. Nanny
3. Sales (Executive home rentals)
4. Go-To-Girl for Cranberry Creek
5. Wife/Mama

:: Father's Day 2008 ::

:: For Paul's Father's Day celebration, I planned a Parisian Picnic @ Crescent Beach ::

:: When Paul and I were dating we went on a picnic together that consisted of french bread, tomatoes, specialty cheese, wine, strawberries & grapes all from Granville Island. Ahh, it was the best! ::

:: So I re-created it for him from our boys...I had bought two folding chairs as we need them for our day trips and packed the cooler and off we went to the beach for dinner and a walk ::

:: It was a great afternoon/evening, Paul and Jacob flew the kite, threw rocks into the water, Cole ate sand...all was well. Jacob loved eating strawberries and brie, geesh..what a life!?!?! ::

:: Paul just kept on saying this is the best, the absolute best. So I guess we did good. It was truly a fabulous afternoon and evening ::

:: Paul - you are a great man of God, an amazing role model to our boys and a superb husband and friend to me. With each year that passes I understand why God chose you for me...however at times my understanding may be foggy, most of the time it's only stress induced. Otherwise I am so grateful that you have also chose to do life with me -- From the bottom of all of our hearts, we adore and love you! ::

:: On Sunday after church we celebrated Father's Day with my dad and the whole family @ my parents place for pancakes & all the trimmings! We had a great time visiting with T&C who we don't get to see all that often due to the distance of traveling. Then after that we headed home and prepared a BBQ for Paul's Dad & Family. It was a very full, but fun day! ::

:: Happy Fathers Day Dad, you are SO loved! ::
:: Thanks to Mom for the pic...I didn't take my camera out once on Sunday! ::

:: Glorious Morning! ::

:: It is a beautiful morning @ my place - I love it! ::

:: We had a great weekend chalked full of helping other, celebrating, food and
fun in the sun ::
:: Picture taken my moi @ Crescent Beach ::

:: I don't have any time to let y'all in on what we did but I will later on ::

:: I'm off to the big city to celebrate a special 50th birthday ::

:: Hope everyone had a great weekend can't wait to hit all of your blogs and see what you've been up to! ::

:: Where in the World ::

:: Good Morning, Good Afternoon or maybe even Good Evening (depending on where you are reading this from) ::

:: I have come to find out that I can see where all of my some 175 visits per day come from....this is dangerous information. Just kidding, it's not...the only reason it's dangerous is because I'm continually checking to see who has visited me in the past few hours ::

:: So I thought I would post and let y'all put a face to your location ::

:: My last 100 visits have been from the below locations ::

:: In BC ::

*Abbotsford
*Surrey
*Duncan
*Fruitvale
*Langley
*Victoria
*Burnaby
*Vancouver
*Chilliwack
*Kelowna
*White Rock
*Coquitlam
*Richmond
*Comox
*North Vancouver
*Port Coquitlam

:: In Alberta ::

*Edmonton
*Calgary
*Spirit River

:: In Ontario ::

*Toronto
*Ottawa

:: In Nova Scotia ::

*Turo

:: In Quebec ::

*Montreal

:: In the USA ::

*Westfield, Massachusetts
*Melville, New York
*Royal Oak, Michigan
*Issaquah, Washington
*Cary, North Carolina (I love N. Carolina, well I think I would love it!)
*Minneapolis, Minnesota
*Bakersfield, California
*Portland, Oregon
*Littleton, Colorado

:: Abroad ::

* Zurich, Switzerland
* St. Pauls Bay, Malta
*Perth, Western Australia
*Surabaya, Indonesia
*Cordoba, Argentina
*Sydney, New South Wales
*Istanbul, Turkey

:: If you are one of these locations...can you leave a comment and just let me know where you live? I would LOVE to know who reads my blog and where you come from and how the heck you came across my blog ::

:: UPDATE: Updated to say that since I wrote this blog this am I have had a few more visitors from random places ::

*Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
*Sherwood Park, Alberta
*Delaware, Ohio

Welcome to my blog peeps and thanks for making yourself known!

:: Have a fabulous day...I'm off to finish up the list of things I didn't get done yesterday. I still have laundry (surprise!), bills & cleaning to do ::

:: Oh, and a quick shout out to Steph -it's her birthday today. Happy Birthday Steph, hope your day & year are blessed! ::

:: Coconut Dreams ::

:: These cupcakes are made with a traditional pound cake recipe, but with the addition of coconut cream icing & toasted coconut. I think they were pretty good. The icing isn't quite perfected, but they were tasty & I love the affect of the toasted coconut on top ::

:: They look quite homey to me ::

:: Well I'm off to clean floors, organize bills, finish the laundry that has been sitting around since Tuesday and organize Father's Day items. It'll be a busy day! ::

:: Here's to hoping Summer decides to show up...anytime now we're ready for you...come out from hiding, we won't bite! ::

:: Lemon Dreams ::

:: I made these cupcakes on Sunday - trying out a new cake recipe...they were okay, but not fabulous. So the search continues for a fabulous "white" cake recipe aka "vanilla cake" ::

:: However I think the icing was delish. I'm sure our guests would agree! ::

:: Edited to say: to make these cupcakes that much more special, I also drowned them in Liquid Lemon Icing...so they were tart and sweet at the same time ::

:: Pictures taken the next morning before my little man got his paws on the dish of goodies ::

:: Didya know? ::

:: That you can input all of your favorite blogs addresses into one place and it put an update on the page, so you can manage all of your blogs without going directly to the site! How fabulous is that!?!? ::

:: I can't take credit for knowing this information, Jamie Delaine was the one to set up my account. So I owe it all to her (so go to her site and give her some props for her awesome pics) ::

:: Anyway, this is where you need to go to get Google Reader ::

:: I find that I get to read a lot more blogs because of this and in half the time because I'm not going directly to the blog ::

:: However my addiction has gotten a little out of control. I now have 55 blogs I check out - Yikes....I wonder if you are one of those blogs? Hmmmm, if your not sure if I'm checking out your blog leave a comment here and I'll add you to my list ::

:: Blog friends are GREAT ::

:: I met a new friend last night, she's a blog friend. She's so much fun, so much fun that I chatted her ear off until just before midnight last night! Thanks for meeting up with me Cathy, it was a ton of fun! ::

:: Well I'm off to do some real work, I've got three babes under the age of two here today...I should probably be paying attention to them! ::

:: If I organize myself to have them all go down for their naps at the same time I may be back today to blog about more cupcakes and maybe even some photos ::

:: Have a great day today {hopefully Mr. Sun decides to come out and shine for us} ::

:: As I was in the archives...::

:: I came across this photo of me circa 1982 ~ I was 2 years old ::

:: I don't know, do you think I'm his Mama??? ::