Evanescence

Well, here I am finally! So on Monday after I finally got Michael out of bed at the unearthly hour of 11am we headed over to the nearest Old Navy. Sadly there was no maternity section, but I did get a couple longish shirts and a cute toque and matching mittens. We had plans to bring some pizza over to Ben and Sarah's house in Airdrie.

It was so good to see them again! They have 2 boys now, Isaac is going to be 3 in March and Caleb I think just turned 1 in December. We had stopped at Toys-R-Us on the way to Old Navy because I wanted to get a portable fold up toilet seat for him -which they conveniently had with a Diego design - and I grabbed a couple cute little trucks for the boys which went over great.

By the time we headed back into Calgary, we just had time to get changed at the hotel - because I had to get into my 'concert outfit' *smiles* - and then head out to the Keg. Ben used to be a server at the Keg, so he told us which Keg was the 'nice' one - and it just so happened that it was next to a Old Navy that had a maternity section so of course we had to stop by that one first. The Keg was soooo good! I haven't been there too many times, but I don't think I've ever had steak. So this time, I decided to try the ribeye with mashed potatoes and a side of asparagus. The seasonal vegetable was beans and onions which sounded pretty gross. I really didn't think there would be that much asparagus, but it was like they took a huge bunch, the size they sell in stores, and cooked the whole thing! It was seriously the best dinner I had had in such a long time. Michael and I both decided we would never eat again.

The two openers for Evanescence were Black Maria and Stone Sour. I had heard one song by Stone Sour, called Through the Glass and it was actually pretty good. However, it was the only good song they had! It turns out they're more of a (very) hard rock band which was too bad. The lead singer was pretty hilarious. I totally thought he was a woman when he walked out on stage. He had shoulder length blond hair, permed and maybe a mullet. He kept stomping around, throwing water bottles into the crowd, headbanging and fingering the crowd. It was pretty dumb and also pretty funny.

Evanescence, on the other hand, was really really great. There was a piano that came up so Amy Lee could play for certain songs, and then would disappear when she was done. There was one funny part where she was walking backwards a couple steps in the middle of a song and she just about tripped. Then she turned around and stomped on the spot as she was walking the other way. They played most of the songs from their new cd and a couple from their first one - Going Under, My Immortal and one more, I forget the name. By the time the second song of the encore came around though, I was getting just a little claustrophobic and tired of being squished between Michael and a different guy, so I made him leave even though he said he liked the song. Michael insisted on buying me something, but all the Evanescence shirts were either black or gray, and after seeing Stone Sour I refused to wear one of their shirts - which actually looked alright - so that narrowed it down to a toque, necklace or stickers and I chose the necklace. Also earplugs. That ticked me off. I brought 2 pairs along with me to Calgary and of course I forgot to bring a pair to the concert, so Michael had to buy me a pair for $2, nevermind that we have a HUGE box at home.

Tuesday morning we made it out of the hotel by 9:30 and stopped at Krispy Kreme and Winners and McDonalds and got gas and were on the road by 10:30 and home to pick up Aidan by 5:20! I had promised Aidan that if we got home in time I would take him and Michael out to dinner at Joey's Only. Aidan was really excited about it - and about his Diego potty seat which we tried out at Joey's Only. As we were walking in and Aidan was sniffing the air I said Smells like fish? and he said Yeah, like yellow fish. The little fish mascot or whatever for Joey's Only is yellow and I thought that was kind of cute. He was very excited about the fish and ate quite a bit of it. Halfway through the meal he noticed one of the large fish on the wall, one that had a long pointy nose, so I asked him what the fish looked like, hoping to get a funny face from him. Instead he held up a piece of battered fish and said Like this!

Anyways, I thnk that's long enough for tonight. I made this super great chocolate cake tonight - from scratch - and I need to scrounge up some icing and put it on a plate and get it ready for tomorrow. It's Bonnie the new bookkeeper's last day, so I thought I would bake a cake. If it tastes as good as it smells it's going to be super yummy!

Calgary

I was going to post yesterday but I couldn't find the picture I was looking for. I got another milk frother and I was going to put a picture of it on here but I couldn't find one and then Michael needed to go on the computer...I had one of those handheld ones that you stick in the milk and then it stirs it all up and froths it, but then I left it soaking with other cutlery in a big glass of soapy water and corroded the batteries. I'm not really sure what the technical term is, but there was a really cool turquoise-y color coming from the batteries and I know that's not normal, so I just threw the whole thing out. Then of course after it was gone, I wanted steamed milk, and couldn't have any. Michael had won these 2 $50 gift certificates for Canadian Tire from his work party and I had to go there to get an oil change (having left it to the very last second) so I figured while I was waiting I would look around for a milk frother. They had 2, and one was like the one I had (although 3 times the price I paid for it) and the other one was like one of those single cup coffee presses with the glass beaker and the metal domed lid and stick in the middle with a filter on the bottom. It seemed a little more advanced, so I got it and Aidan and I tried it out when we got home. Aidan wanted chocolate steamed milk so I put some Nesquik syrup in it (he calls it bunny-treat) and pumped the little filter up and down to froth the milk. It worked really good! Now I've got like 4 mugs waiting to be washed because we had some that night, the next morning and then I had another one before we left for Calgary!

Speaking of leaving for Calgary, the plan was to leave around 11am on Sunday. I was going to drop Aidan off at church and leave his little sign in number with Pat and Michaela, and then Michael and I were going to take off. The only problem with this was that this weekend is right in the middle of Michael's 2 weeks on shift, and he was still somewhere out near Manning/Fairview when I called him at 7 on Sunday morning. He made it back around 11am and then had to watch half the seahawks game, pack, have a shower etc. So we only made it out the door at 1pm! Plus we had to stop at his shop so that he could tie back a piece of the bumper I wrecked so that it wouldn't melt onto the tire. Finally at 1:30 we're on the road, Michael driving, having had only 1 hour of sleep the night before and refusing to take an energy drink. He made it to Whitecourt and then wanted to sleep, so I drove from Whitecourt to Edmonton. My only highway experience is driving to Sexsmith and back and that almost doesn't count. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to go fast enough or that the roads would be bad or that I would total the car or something, but it actually went alright. I managed to go fast enough - well, I managed to do the speed limit or a little above and once everyone behind me had passed me it was pretty good. Then we started getting closer to Edmonton and it was almost 6 and it was getting dark and there was heavier traffic and turnoffs and all sorts of stuff so we stopped at a Safeway and I let Michael drive again. We stopped for dinner at Harvey's - which wasn't as good as I remembered it - and filled up with gas - it was 84.9 and almost a whole tank was only $26! Michael said that was the cheapest trip to Edmonton he'd ever seen and I was pretty happy too, since I was covering gas costs. Then we headed to Calgary while Michael listened to Howard Stern and I watched Dreamgirls. Michael had downloaded it for me a couple days before, but I saved it for the trip. It only lasted me from Edmonton to Red Deer, I thought it was going to be a longer movie. It was alright - either that means that the story was too fluffy or the actors did such a superb job that they made it look super easy. I'm not sure which, but I don't think it deserves best picture.

Our hotel room is okay. It said it had a 2 person whirlpool bathtub. Which is kind of open to interpretation. It wasn't all that impressive, especially since we couldn't find the button to turn the jets on. This morning I found it, I think my skittles must have been sitting on it last night. We stopped at Krispy Kreme donuts last night and then at Superstore to get some milk (and ended up getting way too much other stuff - that place is like a mini-costco!) so I had a donut last night, and 2 for breakfast and I think I'm on sugar overload! I'm not used to so much sugar anymore - I need to go find some regular food.

Right now I'm just waiting for Michael to wake up - or rather for it to be 9:45 so that I can wake Michael up. I want to do a little bit of shopping today and then we might be going out to Airdrie to see Ben and Sarah and their kids and then we're going to come back and go to the Keg for dinner and go to the concert! I'm very excited - although I think I'm about as excited for the Keg as I am for the concert. I was listening to Evanescence yesterday while I was driving and Michael said I was breaking the concert rules by listening to them. I thought that was pretty dumb, but I've never been a big concert person, so I guess I just don't know the rules. Either way, I'm going to keep listening to them.

Well, I think that's it for now. So far I've been able to resist buying any baby stuff, but if there's any super cute stuff on sale at Old Navy I think I'm going to get it!

Sometimes I am just sooooo smart...

Here are some things I said in the last couple months:

My stomach cramps were so bad I could hardly move, it really sucked. The pizza was pretty greasy, I guess that's what the problem was - it's amazing that a couple pieces of pizza can cause that kind of reaction! – October 31

It's almost like I'm trying to eat everything that's bad for me and I can't stop! – December 5

Lately I've been hungry all the time and that gets annoying real quick. – December 11

When I got home last night my stomach was still hurting so I lay on the couch and then I started to get flu symptoms like that hot cold thing with shivers. This morning I still felt yucky, but not that bad. It's like my body is faking being sick so I don't make it work out. I honestly thought I was sick last night and I felt so gross that there was no way I was working out and then this morning I'm almost all better. Very suspicious. – December 20

Well, all I'm really doing here is majorly procrastinating. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me this weekend, but I am really feeling 0 motivation to do anything at all! – December 24

I also remember saying to someone, also on Christmas Eve 'It's so weird because I haven't gained any weight since my surgery, but it's like I changed shape; my stomach is really puffy still'

You'd think after going through this once, I would recognize the symptoms....but no. This time it took me three months to realize that I'm pregnant! I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, blood test on Wednesday and ultrasound on Thursday and I am officially 13 weeks. Pretty crazy to all of a sudden find that out and then go to the ultrasound and see this little baby that actually looks like a baby (instead of a blob) moving it's hands and feet around! Aidan's pretty excited about it and up until yesterday wanted the baby to be a girl and then all of a sudden he decided he wanted a boy.

Stupid Winter

This is what it looks like here:

This could be a picture showing my driveway, a view of my house, the road I tried to drive on to work or Aidan's daycare, or it could be an aerial view of Grande Prairie itself.

I think we must have gotten at least 15cm of the 10-20cm of snow they were forcasting. That would have been sort of okay - I mean, it is winter and we're in Grande Prairie, so I expect there to be snow, but then the wind picked up and blew it everywhere! There were drifts all over the place, I even had to shovel a little path out to our car this morning.

Aidan has been very unimpressed with the snow, especially the wind that blows those tiny particles of snow into your face and neck and any exposed area. The only good thing about it is that he really hustles his butt from the house to the car! This morning it was so cold that we brought a blanket out to the car and bundled him up in it to keep him and his bear warm.

The roads were and still are really really awful. The main ones have been plowed so they're a bit better, but getting into the cul-de-sac where his daycare is was not cool. I actually got stuck once pulling in and then again trying to get going after I pulled away from the side of the road but I managed to get unstuck all by myself. I was very impressed with myself and was zooming around the side of the snow mountain (when they plowed the cul-de-sac they just piled all the snow in the middle in a big mountain, so you have to sort of drive around it to turn around) when I plowed right into a 3 foot drift. The sides looked clear, but the snow had drifted and it was pretty much just solid snow back there. Fortunately there was someone with a truck and tow rope handy and I got pulled out and was able to make it to work an hour late.

I thought that this was going to be the end of the major difficulties, but it was really only the beginning. I assumed, wrongly, that the streets would be better by the end of the day because there would be trucks out there clearing them. There were trucks, but I guess there are too many roads because the roads were pretty much the same, maybe a little better, as on the way to work. And, I was going a little too fast and wound up nose in the air on a little mini ice mountain on the side of the road. There goes the bumper. Needless to say it was not a good day yesterday. So imagine my excitement this morning when my car wouldn't start and I only got into work at 12:30. It was partially my fault because I didn't want to get stuck in the driveway, so I parked in the parking lot and didn't plug the car in. Then since it was about -34 there was no way the car was starting and the wait for a tow truck from AMA was 4 hours!! Hopefully my trip home today will be less eventful.

Blizzard Warning!

Apparently today there is a blizzard warning in effect for Grande Prairie! We've been getting a lot of snow lately...pretty much every morning I wake up and there are a couple new inches. They say it's going to snow 5-10cm during the day and then another 5-10cm overnight and in the evening is when this blizzard is supposed to develop and do it's thing. Hopefully it's nothing serious, or as serious as our tornadoes. Since the one that actually did some damage we've had numerous tornado warnings issued for our area but only one little wimpy one ever showed up as far as I remember.


This is a cute picture I took of Aidan maybe a week ago. He brought me the camera and wanted me to take a picture specifically of him.

This morning he was doing what he usually does before getting his coat on and going out to the car - tucking his teddies in to bed. Those bears sure get a lot of sleep!

Here he is with most of his teddies - he's holding Green Teddy, then in the bed is Red Teddy, Blue Teddy, White Teddy and Gopher who had to go to sleep with his head under the blanket and his bum sticking out. The names are really imaginative, I know.

Eggnog Bread

I think I figured out why I haven't made Christmas baking before. Because I don't eat it! I still have some squares left over and half of the dough for both the oatmeal raisin cookies and the rugalachs sitting mostly frozen in the back of the fridge - oh, and the rest of the raspberry pinwheel dough rolled up in my upstairs freezer. And those I actually liked! Plus, I gave away most of the stuff I made. I brought a big plate to work, some to Darlene, some to Bev and then I just sort of picked at what was left. It's kind of too bad, but I guess I'll know for next year. Oh, and I made Portzelky/New Years Cookies on New Years Day as well and that was a first. I thought I had gotten the recipe from my mom, but when I looked through my little recipe book it turned out that I actually hadn't, so I called her (forgetting that it was the morning after New Year's Eve) and I think I woke her up. Michael and I watched a movie together but I only made it til 11:24. I think he made it past midnight, but not much after. We were both falling asleep watching the movie and then he got a call that he would get called out - and not only called out, but called out to Rainbow Lake which he was really less than thrilled about. So Aidan and I were on our own the next day and he didn't look too impressed with the deep frying of the Portzelky and only took 1 bite because I told him to. I was fine with that because I thought 'good, more for me'. I brought a couple to work and it was really funny because they didn't go over too well. But, now it's a week after New Year's and I still have 6 of them sitting on the counter. Deep fried yummy Portzelky that I probably shouldn't be eating - but how can I throw them away? They actually turned out pretty good despite the fact that I forgot all about needing raisins and had to use cranberries and even then didn't have enough. Aidan was rather alarmed about the big popping noises that were coming from the deep fryer which turned out to be raisins popping.

Today I finally got out my breadmaker that I got courtesy of freecycle mid summer. Freecycle is pretty cool, I'm not sure how many of you guys have heard of it. It's a group of people that basically recycles stuff they don't use among themselves. For example, I can post that I want stuff or that I have stuff I want to get rid of and then other people can contact me to pick up the stuff I don't want or I contact someone to pick up the stuff they don't want. In this case, someone posted that they had a breadmaker and I emailed back quick enough and got to go pick it up. And the cool thing is that it's totally free. Usually it's done through Yahoo, so check it out and see if there's one in your town! Anyways, I finally hauled mine out and decided it was time to make bread. I found a recipe for buttermilk bread but I'm making eggnog bread instead. Aidan found the mixing process highly amusing and spent a good 5 minutes kneeling on the stove hovering over the window in the top of the breadmaker watching it mix the bread and laughing. If it turns out well I think I'm going to be making bread a lot more often!

Well today was pretty boring. Michael's gone to Seattle with the Sebring so I am without wheels. I was going to dig out the bike trailer and go to Safeway with Aidan (it doubles as a stroller, it's far too icy out to be riding a bike for me, at least) but I wasn't feeling all that great and then it was dinner time and the day just kind of slipped by. Last night I was craving Costco hotdogs and fries, but we had grilled cheese and mushroom soup instead. That's right. Imagine my disgust when, after searching around, I realized I was totally out of tomato soup, but had already started the sandwiches. Too late to go back and mushroom sort of worked. I had about 12 cans at one time, but I guess that was longer ago than I thought. Anyways, today we had hotdogs and some fries I found downstairs in the freezer. I deep fried them and they were so yummy and crispy. We filled up on lunch so much that neither of us was hungry when dinner time came around which is pretty remarkable for both of us.

All this talk about food and I'm starting to get a little hungry! My bread still has about 45 minutes to go, so I think I'm going to go warm up a Portzelky.

Nothing Much

I don't really have much to say today except that I love the new line of clothes at Superstore by Joe. I am sure that most of you have a Superstore fairly close - these huge box stores are taking over the world! Anyways, if you haven't, you should check out their clothes. They are fairly reasonably priced, shirts $10-15, jeans $19-$29 and they have a whole section for fun comfy sleepwear! I never thought I bought too many clothes, but all from Superstore since summer I have 5 long sleeved shirts, 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of pajama pants, 3 t-shirts, 2 tank tops and 2 sweaters! When my mom was up visiting in August they had a bunch of stuff on clearance and the shirts were $3 or $4 and then I bought some more on Boxing Day. It's so easy to justify buying too many clothes when they don't cost that much. I think that they have pretty much replaced Old Navy as my favourite clothes store with the exception that they don't have as much selection. I'm looking forward to hitting an Old Navy store when we go down to Calgary in 2 weeks time. Maybe I should go through my closet and get rid of some stuff. I keep having to buy more hangers because we keep running out!

Today we were driving up to Darlene's house and Aidan wanted to go to Blackman's Butcher shop. I think it was Blackman's. As we drove past the little plaza he said "I go in there, mommy please?". In the plaza is Blackman's, a vacuum place, an asian restaurant and either a realty or a lighting store. None of those places seemed like a place he would really want to go, but I thought maybe Michael had taken him there before to get some meat for the bbq, and he agreed that he wanted to go there and get steaks for the bbq. He is a little carnivore. I made this really great soup yesterday with broth and creamed corn and carrots and celery and onion and potato, and as he's eating it he says "I like these no" and points at all the vegetables floating in his soup. I guess he prefers them cut up and with dip. He was eating carrot and celery sticks for lunch - he really likes celery, I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with where he ate them first. We were out at Earls for Sunday lunch and Pat had ordered wings and Aidan was eating the celery sticks and dip.

We had another meeting with the Mental Health person today. Aidan is really excited to go there and gets really excited when he sees her. It makes it even more funny because I thought I saw just a slight frown or something like 'oh, she brought the kid again'. But really, I'm not going to drop him off at 7:45 in the morning, I'm not even sure if Darlene is up that early. Things went well and just as I thought we were going to be wrapping up at 8:30 she suggested that she and Aidan go in the playroom for half an hour. So I ran out and grabbed some medicine and stopped by the bank. She asked me how I would rate things out of 10 and I said a 7 and she said that was better than most of the people she saw - and then we scheduled another appointment. I hope this will be the last one because I'm tired of missing work over something that really doesn't seem all that important any more.

Aidan's potty training is progressing very well. We re-introduced nibs and added Turtles which really seemed to help. Last night I gave him a flashlight so that he could see and not be scared if he had to get up in the night to pee and that was a big success. We don't have a plug in in the hall and the one in the bathroom is very inconvenient (under the light fixture) and he was very excited about the flashlight. So much so that right away he had to try it out and then the next morning while I was having a shower he came in and turned the light off and turned his flashlight on. I'm not sure if he understands that the flashlight is just for night time or whether it's just more fun to use the flashlight.

Well, tonight we're off to McDonalds for dinner and some playtime in the playplace. I asked Aidan what he wanted to do on Monday and he said he wanted to go to McDonalds. We never made it there on Monday and I was planning for Friday, but Michael is taking a trip down to Seattle to see the Seahawks play and scalp some tickets, so today's the day!