Thankful Thought of the Day

Today I'm thankful for the great friends I have here. Friends that are willing to help out with the little stuff. Like painting 100 picture frames. Over the course of 2 days. 2 days with temperatures in the -30/40's. I just hope I'm 1/2 as good of a friend...

Today's Thankful Thought

Today, I'm REALLY thankful for a warm place to be. And worried for all the people who have no place. I can't imagine what it would be like to be cold and have nowhere to go to be warm. I'm really thankful for my warm house.

Today's Thankful Thought

I'm really thankful for the little old man who uses his snowblower to clear the sidewalks all the way down our side of the street. Even when it's -45. Thank-you Mr. LeClair!

It's HOW cold?

Ahh, the joys of living in the North. Today, the temperature is -30, but the windchill factor puts us at -45. CELCIUS. I was supposed to sub this afternoon, but because buses aren't running, they canceled. I wasn't surprised. I DO think it's quite ridiculous that they keep the schools open. Talking to some of the teachers via Facebook, it seems that there is an average of about 5 students attending in each class....lessee...5 students * 2 classes of each grade....10 students in each grade * 10 grades (incl Kindergarten)...100 students attending...wait, there's only one kindergarten class...so, make that 95...I believe there are about 50 people on staff there. That makes a 1:2 staff to student ratio. That sounds good...except that with 5 students in their class, the teacher can't really teach any new material. Days like this turn into glorified babysitting. What was it they used to call days like this? Ah, yes...snow days. I don't think they have those anymore But anyways...that wasn't what I was going to talk about.

What WAS I going to talk about? I don't remember. It's too cold...my brain has to focus on keeping me warm. ;)

....Continued...

So, I'm assuming that the Holidays are old news now...to be brief, we got to see Crystal for a WHOLE day!!, spent a lot of time with our nephews, my sister and my parents and saw some good friends from a long time ago. Here's a few pictures, and then we'll move forward with our lives.

Nephew #1. He's 2 1/2.



Nephew #2. He's 14 months here.




Aaron and I at our church's Christmas banquet.


My little sister...Mommy to nephew #1 and #2.




Me and Anna...friends for over 17 years!!!



(I had pictures of my parents, my brother and my brother in law, but they're just too small...how do I fix that??)


Me and a group of girls from my high school grad class...Beth and I are going to borrow kids for next time. We felt left out... :)



And now, on with our lives.....























ok...so now, what?

Whoops!

I seem to have gotten caught up in the all the busyness of the new year....traveling home, getting caught up on laundry, cleaning, etc., getting sick, trying out a new diet, saying goodbye to some good friends (sniff, sniff). So, without further adieu, here's some pictures to go with my last post...in no particular order...


I like to call this one "Beauty and the Beast." What do you think?




Chris playing hockey...he coulda been a star... ;)




Steph tried, almost successfully, to avoid the camera...we were all playing Dutch Blitz.




Cleo spent a lot of time sitting in the snow....





dissecting Granny's DELICIOUS pirogies to trade fillings...




Joe, the star of Team Bertrand.




Joselle tried to look big and tough, but her team still lost.





Me 'n' Dawn




Acting crazy with Crystal...just like old times... :)

This has been possibly the BEST Christmas vacation of my adult life. It's been (so far) a week and a half of spending really great time with family, reconnecting with old friends and just relaxing.

We started out right away after school on the 21st, heading to Aaron's sister's place in Stony Plain. It was busy while we were there, Joe and Joselle were working and it was an extremely hectic time for Cam and Dawn with their trucking business. We spent lots of time driving, to get groceries, finish up Christmas shopping, running to the shop, etc., etc.. Woo. Even though it was busy, it was SO good to see everyone again. Aaron got to spend a lot of time with Cleo and I spent a lot of time with Dawn. We had our Christmas dinner on the 24th, Gran was up from Wetaskiwin and Aaron had picked up his brother Chris and his fiancee Stephanie from the city. Cam got home just in time to eat, and dinner was FANTASTIC! Aaron and Joselle disected their perogies (homemade by Gran) to find the fillings they wanted so they could trade and Joe and Aaron made a bet whether or not Joselle could eat everything she had put on her plate (she didn't quite make it...I think Aaron lost the bet). After dinner was mostly cleaned up, Aaron, myself, Joe, Joselle, Cleo and Chris and Steph all headed to a pond in Stony Plain to go skating and play hockey. It was a BLAST. Some people had no skates and some people had no sticks, but we played on anyways. We headed back to the house for some Dutch Blitz and dessert....I guess Dutch Blitz is becoming a family holiday tradition...:)

We left late, at about 11 (sorry, Gran) and headed toward Wetaskiwin to drop Gran off on our way to Olds. Our drive had a few moments of excitement and nervousness because we encountered a VERY inebriated driver. We ended up calling it in and he was pulled over just as we drove into Devon. Well, pulled over is a loose term. He actually drove into the ditch, but whatever. After dropping Gran off and getting some gas and coffee, we continued on to Olds and arrived at about 2am....

This is feeling too much like a bland news story, so I'll finish later... :S...and add pictures.