Life's Whirlwind Adventures

Uncle Nellie came by with Aunti Rhi this afternoon!!! It's really nice to have them come visit!!  The boys always enjoy having Uncle and Aunti over, and it gives the other adults in the house a break from being the only entertainment on the block. Today Uncle and Aunti took Chan out for lunch, they tired to take him to get his hair cut but the place was closed.  So after lunch they returned and had a visit with little man. After much cajoling we took Lil Man out for a short skate. Lil Man is still pretty uncertain on his feet in skates.  He would much rather have his boots on to play hockey on the ice then his skates.  But he is willing to try if you are persuasive enough with him. We took out two mini sticks, a soft puck, his skates, helmet and a red chair to do the skating today.  Lil Man had a little anxiety about putting the skates on, but he put them on and was out skating for ten minutes before he began to want to call it quits. First he skated aro...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of traveling some Alberta highways to pick up Chan from Provost, where his father and I meet when Chan goes to visit Greg.  It is a 2 1/2 hour drive with no stops, but since it was just me driving yesterday, I loaded up my camera, ipad and iphone so I could take pictures along the route.  It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to get to Provost and I was still early. I loved this rearview mirror shot, I pulled over on the highway and took some pictures.  Some guy was walking his dog and asked if I was ok, that's when it became apparent that this was not something people regularly do. Here's an old school site I stopped a few times and was able to capture some really unique pictures.  I really like being able to get creative with my camera, and when you have kids this can be really easy, but sometimes it can be difficult.  Lil man is way more interested in seeing what the picture looks like then in actually posing for the picture...

Last week was the Central Alberta Teachers Conference put on by the Central Alberta Teachers Conference Association.  It was held on Thursday and Friday during Red Deer College's reading week.  I actually think it was reading week everywhere, but only a the college had the whole week off in Red Deer, school was in session for Tuesday and Wednesday.   I had signed up to have a booth at the conference where I sold my Fifth Avenue Collection.  It was a busy two days.  I was able to visit with a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a long time and I met some great new people as well.  I enjoy doing the CATCA event because it allows me to be in contact with some great people and it's a great networking opportunity for me.   I didn't have as many sales as I would have liked, but I did have a lot of lookers and many people filled in forms to win my draw, it was a great two days.  Here are some of the items I had for sale, if you are interested in...

So awhile ago I posted how I was making lifestyle changes in order to become a healthy weight again, and I was saying how I wanted to get back into my size ten jeans.  Does everyone remember that??  Here's a link to that post. new me So here is my update, as of last Friday when I stepped on the god Forsaken scale, the numbers were 10 pounds less than they had been on New Years Day!!!  I reached my first milestone goal!!!! I was elated, jubilant.  Now I get to set my next set of goals!!!  Here are some happy pictures about my progress. So now I have to set a new milestone to reach. I would like to be down another 10 pounds by my sisters wedding in April.  I know that I can do this, I just have to keep doing what I have been doing and my weight will keep decreasing.  Currently I am fitting into a size 12 comfortably, and size 14 are now my fat pants!!!   So Goal #1: To lose 10 pounds by April 18th!! Goal #2: To exercise at minimum 3 ...

So week seven was a free week, and I couldn't even get anything photographed that I was happy with so I waited until my family day trip and I submitted some of those photos.  Here are my favourites from that day!!! It was a fun day, the only thing that would have made it better would have been having Chan home with us!!!

Ok I am behind in my blogging a bit, so I need to catch you up.  We are actually into week eight as I post this blog.  But week six was Fearless.  Come up with good photos to encapsulate a theme can be difficult, and sometimes you do need a preamble to why the photo represents the theme.  So I will tell you a story. Many years ago, I became afraid to leave my, then, boyfriend.  We weren't good for each other, we were constantly fighting and I was miserable.  But he offered me a sense of security that I wasn't ready to let go.  I was competent, I was putting myself through school, I was putting food on the table, I was taking care of my little guy and I was doing it all without his help.  But I had painted him in my mind as vindictive, I  firmly believed that if we broke up he would take all the furniture from my house that was his, the kitchen table, the television, the couch and I would be left with very little and that because I would hav...

Our family day was spent driving out west to see some of the sites of the Rocky Mountains.  I have been to and through the Rocky Mountains hundreds of times, but I have never been to them west of Red Deer.  So I asked my husband if we could go out to get some pictures and just spend an afternoon together, it ended up being the whole day but that was ok too. We actually slept in on Monday so we got off to a later start than we had planned.  But after feeding little man breakfast, packing snacks, getting water and finding all the clothes we needed we hoped in Hubby's truck and were heading out west.  We live so close to the mountains, and I love the mountains, I am literally in awe of them all the time so I couldn't tell you why we hadn't done this before, but I am so glad we did it this day and I hope to make it happen more frequently from now on. Out on the David Thompson Highway we had  a destination of Nordegg in mind.  It's really just a tiny...

Sunday I took Sasha for pictures at Fetch Haus in Red Deer.   Alicia was doing a Valentine's Day shoot for puppies and I thought it would be nice to take Sasha for some pictures.  I would take Louis too, but he's a bit unmanageable still, so I left him at home.  Sometimes it's nice to just do things with the girls and Sasha is the only other girl in my family at this point. So of course she looked great this morning then she and Louis went outside to play and got FILTHY!! I swear she was almost like Harry the Dirty Dog, you remember that story???  That was my Sasha, so I had to go out and clean her off.  Louis did not enjoy my brushing Sasha, he is very narcissistic, and thinks all attention should be given to him. As I was getting Sasha settled, he kept coming over and pushing her out of the way.  He's a bit of an arsehole, that's the only word to explain it, I mean he sits on poor Sasha all the time and Sasha is such a wuss, she just takes it. So h...

For Valentine's Day I thought I would share a letter to my husband! Dear Husband, I would like to start off by saying that I love you very much, you are a great equalizer in my life.  You make me smile and laugh, you allow me to cry when I need to. You are unobtrusive in letting me deal with my emotions, which I know can be a real freight train at times.  You understand that even though you drive me crazy I am willing to work on things with you.  We don't always agree, and sometimes those disagreements are larger than life, but sometimes they are small and inconsequential at the end of the day. We've now known each other for five years, and it feels like I've known you for 15 years or more ;)  It's been a great five years, and I look forward to the rest of our adventures together. Happy Valentine's Day my AGB Love, Wife

busy going to birthday parties Busy!! That is a great word to just describe my life, but to try to capture that in photo, well I am not sure how to go about doing that, what you usually get is the aftermath of busy, the crash and sleep of what we do after we have been go, go, go, all week long. Busy working multiple jobs So here are some of the photos that depict busy for me.  Let me know what you think!!! Busy teaching at work     Can you tell these two are related??? Busy Parking lot

Since we moved into this house 3 and 1/2 years ago I have been wanting to get new curtains for the bedroom.  Since we have moved in there have been metal beige venetian blinds in the windows.  The do nothing for blocking out the light or sound and they are not even properly anchored to the wall, they just rest on the brackets so when you adjust them, you have to put your hand up to hold them in place.  They are the WORST!!! So I have a sewing machine that I have borrowed from my mother, for like two years now, and I have finally put it to use.  It was a busy day and there was some cursing as I was not exactly sure who to get my sewing machine to work.  But at the end of this adventure I have new curtains in my bedroom and I couldn't be happier. The day started off pretty lazily, I laid around for three hours watching Netflix, then I got up and visited with a friend and somewhere along the way I became determined to make myself some curtains.  Now when I...

The theme for the fourth week was HARSH! It could be interpreted for harsh mid day light or maybe harsh shadows.  I knew what I wanted to capture the second this was posted, but when I went out to get it it just didn't turn out that way.  And try though I did I thought I was going to miss the deadline for this week.  But I was able to pull it together and miracles of miracles I captured some Harsh lighting photos. My initial idea was to take a photo with the sun in the background but use the suns light to create a lighting halo backdrop. I have done it before, purely by chance and apparently there was no way I was doing it through practice. I must have deleted 50 photos, that just didn't capture anything. So I ventured outside and began taking some photos, these are the photos I initially took and hoped one of them would be good enough for my submission, not that anyone is judging them, but I am trying to learn here so I am my own worst judge. The second pictur...

My mystery hostess was Alicia , she is the wonderful photographer who did our family photos this Christmas. So because Fifth Avenue Collection is in their 25th year, they are offer all the great hostesses out there double the hostess credits!! It's a phenomenal time to have a Fifth Avenue Collection party, and now we are extending this bonus into February!!!  I am so excited to see my calendar filling up with things to do!!! The sales of my mystery hostess show have earned Alicia 6 half priced items and if she decides to book a show with me, she will receive another $100 in free jewelry, just for coming over and having a visit with me and buying a pair of earrings. Don't miss out on your opportunity to earn double the hostess credits!!! Contact me today to get booked in, I still have a couple days open!!

It's been a quiet weekend around here, I have been working all weekend with my Fifth Avenue Collection business and Adrian and the boys have been doing their own thing.  It's been nice being able to stay home and just hang out with us here.  I'm really liking it. It's not been often in the past few months that we have been able to do this, what with me working nights, and then other things with the holiday season, justing sitting around and enjoying each other's company has been a fleeting ideal.  Not even something that has been actualized. Maybe that's why I love my Fifth Avenue Collection Business.  It brings in money when I want it to, it has the potential to be so much more, but for now it does what I need it to do.  I have made more this weekend by being at home then I have on my sleep nights, so I know making the decision I made to stop working front line is the right decision.  I know that I have to grow my business and step outside my comfort...

WOW I  am currently updating some of my first blog posts and WOW is all I can say.  It's kind of fun going back and reading them and then updating them with pictures and new tags. I hope you enjoy the posts as they come up.  The first few were all about my pregnancy with Lil Man which is very comical!!  I was quite dramatic about his whole labour and delivery . So hopefully things won't become too tedious or repetitive, and hopefully you will get a laugh or two out of these posts.  I know I did.  I am working to make my tabs work but so far I can't figure it out, if anyone knows how to do this please help me!!! Later Readers!!!

Another look back on how Lil Man came into this world October 22 and 24 were crazy days. So last week, actually on the 22 of October I had a doctor's appointment and I still had high blood pressure. My doctor sent me for a non stress stress test. I am pretty sure I mentioned this before, what I haven't mentioned though is that the next day October 23rd I was admitted into the hospital. My blood pressure was 160/100. I was light headed and felt clammy. It was not a good day and when I arrived at my doctor's office he sent me to the hospital almost immediately. I went home got my bags, kissed Chandler and Adrian and I set off for the hospital. I ended up spending the night in the hospital where they gave me a sleeping pill and monitored my blood pressure all night. The next day they checked my blood pressure again, it was still high, 147/86 but it had stabilized so my doctor sent me home with a prescription for labetatol and ordered bed rest. I was to go into...