So I've been a bit busy lately, and not busy at all at the same time. I've had a few interviews and just as many job offers, but none of them are full time enough. I did, however, accept a job today as a hostess for Red Robins in Guildford. I'll be right across from Kira and the manager said that there are lots of people who want time off so it shouldn't be hard to pick up extra shifts. I'll still look for another job for the mornings or something, but for now this is what I've got.
I've also spent a lot of time hanging out at my sisters house and with my nephews and such. Kaitlyn and I went to watch Zachary's "One-base baseball" on Monday. It was so cold outside and it was so windy, but the kids were so cute! They play tee-ball, but they only have one base to run to and they run to it and jump on it and it doesn't matter how far their hit goes or whatever. It is quite comical to watch them and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The kids were dancing in the outfield and playing in the sand, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves and that is all that counts.
These are all my neices and nephews. Jessica Hailley is in the back. She is 12 years old and is currently in Grade 7. Her favorite subject is Chemistry and I hear she reminds teachers of me... yup she's a brain and she is beautiful! Kaitlyn Renee is to the right. She is turning 11 this month. I couldn't tell you what her favorite subject is, but she got her haircut yesterday and she is quite a cutie... I call her Piglet and I have no idea where it came from or why. Zachary Arend is to the left in his baseball gear. He is four years old and is quite athletic. He is so funny and he makes me laugh all the time. Christopher Michael is the one in the middle. He is a rugrat. He is also hilarious, but he can definitely be a handful. He doesn't really like me still... if I come over he starts crying becuase he thinks that Shar is going to leave them with me and that would be a terrible thing. I promise I am actually a relatively fun Aunt. Like for real, I play with the kids and we always have a good time, but Christopher is still uncertain and doesn't like me so much.

This is Katy and my brother, Jonathan. She is a friend of mine who has been friends since... before I was born. Well, she's been friends with me since I was born, but our families go way back. She moved to New Mexico when I was in gr. 8 and she was in gr. 10, but she is part of the Redeemer Choir that is touring in BC right now so she's staying at our house for two nights. Oh man.. she is so much fun and we all just hung out in the living room laughing last night. I love those family times where you just hang out and talk and laugh... that's what I missed about being home.
Here's Zachary and Riley dancing in the outfield instead of paying attention. At least they had fun.
Christopher loves his snow boots. He always wears them!
Zachary and I went for a walk today.
Here are the mountains! I am still amazed when I get out of bed in the morning and drive my mom to work because there are mountains everywhere! I've taken them forgranted all these years, but now that I've been in Edmonton, I notice them all the time and think they are the most beautiful things in the world. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating there, but they are pretty amazing.

That's pretty much what I've been up to lately. Wait! I also went to the ocean!!! I missed that too. I'll post a picture up in a second.

Nephews

So I got to spend a bit of quality time with my nephews. They came over while my sister ran out to do some things and so we got to hang out. Here Jon is showing them his gun... a bit sketchy, but they seemed to like it quite a bit.

Christopher was being a goof.


I would just like to point out, for all you stuck in Edmonton, how green our grass is. It really is quite beautiful.

Pictures from home.

Visiting my Dad at his schoolJustin and I are pretty much the coolest people I know.Pops and Mommy at Swiss ChaletHeather and IOur Japanese Exchange Student left so we were cleaning her room and we found some goodies. Here I am sporting the Sumo wrestling head mask covering thinger and two swords... good times. My lovely nephews, Christopher and Zachary, playing with the cars I bought them at the store... I am the greatest aunt. *Christopher was scared of me yesterday and would cry if I came near him so I had to bribe him to like me... I'm a failure.
Zachary's photography. Me at Shar's house.

Beautiful British Columbia

It's over. My exams are complete, my things are packed up and hopefully sitting at Laura's house, and I am here listening to my mother rustling around in the kitchen tidying up this and that as mothers tend to do. I've been home for two days now and already miss Edmonton. Alright, so I don't miss Edmonton, but I miss the people I came to love there. Don't get me wrong, I love home, but my friends in Edmonton were prettty sweet.
I miss being woken up at all hours of the night for no apparent reason, I miss climbing on the trains, I miss hanging out in Laura and Brittney's room, I miss the guessing game of knowing whether Jen would be home for the night or not, I miss streaking across 50th street and all the bum touching and dancing. I miss being able to walk across the hall and be guaranteed a good time, I miss going to Highrun with Eric, Church and Josh and usually watching them play pool (I am terrible) and hanging out with Teresa. I miss the Talons. I miss Wallace, Jen's pet fish. I miss the sunsets and the blue sky. I miss the wind and the cheap theatre, the lame jokes from Colin in the cafeteria and Geoff's grumpy demeanor. I miss being able to order unlimited amounts of bacon and eggs, staying up all hours of the night, singing karaoke, having dance parties and... other parties, playing with Teresa's Fire Poi's, late night walks with Teresa, window watching with Mikey and Dave, turning the heat on high so my room is unbelievably hot, and I miss being able to walk into a friends room and knowing that they'll be there and that they will be willing to talk or listen. Living with a bunch of your best friends is a wonderful thing and I will miss that. I didn't by any means come to love everyone in rez and the smallest part of me regrets that, but there were many solid friendships built that I will be forever thankful for.
The last few nights in rez were so much fun! One night we went streaking, I went to the park a couple times and played football (Colin and I beat Church and Josh), we went to Tracy's for a fire, slept at Jen's house in LeDuc, danced and hung out a lot, packed... I don't know. We just enjoyed ourselves, enjoyed each other, enjoyed our freedom... and it was awesome.
Saying goodbye was so unbelievably hard. Teresa was the first to leave and we were in tears... it was so sad. Oh man... so much crying in the last few days. When Jodi left we were disasters and then when it came to be my turn to go... oh no. Knowing that I'm not going to be returning made the goodbye's so much harder! Laura, Jen, and Jackie brought me to the airport and saying we were a gong show when I had to leave. It was cute though... they were all so cute. I'm definitely going to miss them all.

My two days here have been filled with family. Yesterday I visited my dad at work, went to the airport with my mom to bring our Japanese exchange student away, had dinner with the family at Swiss Chalet in honor of Jonathan's graduation from Malaspina, and promptly went to bed. I went to my sisters at 7:30 this morning and babysat my nephews until 12:45. They are so cute! I missed them so much. We played hockey, airplanes, dinosaurs and some other random games. We sang and danced and biked and ate. I took them to Fraser Valley and we snuck in with a rose for Mrs. Visscher. I love her. Then we came to Grandma's house before bringing Uncle Benjamin a lunch. It was a lot of fun with them.

Sleep Deprived

I've clocked a total of 14 hours and 20 minutes of sleep in the past four nights put together. I'm coming home today... it's a lot harder to leave then I thought it would be... and I knew it would be hard. On the list for today:
- Go out for breakfast for Jackie's birthday at 11:00am
- Come back to Rez and meticulously clean the room at 12:30am
- Paint out picture on the stairwell wall
- Hang out for a couple minutes
- Say a lot of hard goodbyes
- Go to the airport at 1:45

[l(a]

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E.E. Cummings

Nobody Likes an Angry Michael

And because I have to live next door to him, I will write a word-full blog to appease him.
I have been enjoying myself immensely as of late. I have not been doing much homework and I have been hanging out with friends a large amount of the time.
Teresa and I have been frequenting the Highrun. We go there and play pool with Josh, Church and Eric who all have nothing better to do and go there more often then we do. We mainly go to enjoy the walk because it's not too far and the weather has been so nice. The evenings are rather warm and it is so peaceful to walk. Teresa and I have many good talks on the way and I have really come to appreciate her and to love her. She's so smart and so passionate about life and God and she is such an encouragement.
The weather has been amazing so we've been spending so much time outside. Lots of walks... I went to the park one afternoon. Church, Josh and Nate came and picked me up and I bought them all icecream with my excess money because of the stupid foodcard we had to buy and then we went and picked up Eric at his school. We went to some park and played soccer and frisbee and then Church and I went running in this duck feces infested puddle in the grass. Josh was making dinner for their house that night so we went to Safeway and picked up groceries and then he made tacos.
On Sunday Church came over to throw a football around. Then we decided to go for a walk over this tiny hill we have by our grass field. We ended up walking to the tracks and decided to be a little adventurous and climb on top of the trains. It was actually quite thrilling. It had a great view of the city too so we sat there and talked for an hour or so and then decided to meander back to rez because Eric and Josh were coming after Millwoods.
Amber and I decided to be daring and went for a run one day. It definitely did not last as long as we'd expected. I mean, I know I'm out of shape, but I didn't know that I was THAT out of shape. We barely ran for 10 minutes before we took a break and headed home.
Umm.. let me see. Nope, not much else has happened. Michael... I was definitely not in the mood to write a blog and that is why this one is so boring! I'm sure you're the only one who finished it though... and maybe Stewart and Lynn... so I hope you're happy and I think I will recommence just posting pictures until I have the time and the energy to write an interesting blog... or maybe I'll wait till I have something interesting to say or maybe when I've had time to think deeply about some subject that I would like to enlighten your mind with.

Lately

Jodi and I

Me, Andy and Laura
Brittney










The last couple weeks have been pretty... well I haven't done nearly as much work as I shoudl have, but it has been so much fun! I guess it's a bad time to start slacking off, but that's the way things go I guess. Last night Teresa and I went outside to play with her Thailand Fire Dancing thingers... that was pretty much amazing. Teresa is so good at it! I was quite impressed... then Eric, Church and Josh came and told us they were going to Highrun to play pool so they left and Teresa and I eventually followed. We ran/skipped/danced/galloped/airplane ran/frolicked the whole way there. That was the highlight of the night, but pool was pretty fun too I guess. Afterwards I came back to rez and went to my room, but I heard the girls underneath me talking so we talked through the window and then I went downstairs and we had a bit of a party in Tracy's room with Tracy, Amber and Dani. It's surprising how you can get to know someone so much more when you've already known them all year. Hahaha, we definitely took a step in our relationship.
Here's pictures of Teresa dancing with her fire... I'm not nearly as skilled, but I'm slowly catching on.

strange people I hang out with

Josh thinks he looks cute in this picture.
Church eating my foot
Josh dancing
Eric waltzing in
Josh after the guys danced/ wrestled/ climbed on each other.

Walk with T

My buddy Teresa Berkholtz and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a 2 hour stroll and it was so beautiful. We made our way to Walmart where we developed the pictures we took on the way. Here's a little... some of them.
Snow and Sandals

An alley along the way.

Jodi's a baby!

Jodi Hummel being her usual self



Seduction

Ok... so here Jodi had something in her eye and she just started screaming and refusing to blink or cry to get it off. She was lying on the floor yelling for numerous minutes before we decided to take some action of our own. Brittney hollars at me to come and hold Jodi still while she grabs her bottle of saline. So I climbed onto Jodi and grabed her hands above her head and hold her head still between my elbows as Brittney shoots the saline into her eye. Jodi is screaming and squirming and kicking and yelling and getting angry at us, but we pressed on and made numerous attempts to successfully get saline to go into her shut eyes. After much sweat and hard work, we succeeded and Jodi felt a little bit better... maybe not, but it was fun while it lasted.

I'd like to introduce you to my roommate Jennifer Anne Herren. She was born on August 19, 1987 and grew up in Thermopolis, Wyoming. She was graced with the opportunity to move to Canada three years ago, but unfortunately ended up in LeDuc, Alberta rather than anywhere in British Columbia.


Jen's favorite course is philosophy and she likes to incorporate it into all aspects of her life, including watching people play pool.


This is my beautiful sister Lindsey Anna Jansen who is leaving to go to Africa in three hours for a 6 week safari. I am very sad to see her go. She's leaving me here in Edmonton alone for a month!!! I will miss her. She is sadly an Oilers fan..... tsk tsk.


Here she is disgusted that I am even considering taking a lame picture of her playing pool.

randoms

Here is my good friend Brittney Olsen. She lives in 507 across the hall from me. She is an avid Oilers fan and is quite dramatic while watching games which makes things all the more fun... especially when the Canucks beat the Oilers.



This here is Amber Hubers. She's American, but we forgive her for that because she works at the High Run and gives me free non-alcoholic fruit concoctions that taste amazing most of the time and interesting at other times.



This is Jackie Goutbeck, Laura Boskers and I at Newcastle watching the Canucks lose to the Oilers. It was still a lot of fun though.


Jodi Hummel, Amber Hubers, me, Laura Boskers and Jacki Goutbeck at Newcastle still watching the game.

This is Brittney in all her glory. Haha. Oh man, she has taken a liking to seducing us girls on the floor, but I'm not complaining because it is quite entertaining.

Go Canucks Go!

I was studying for my chemistry midterm this morning when my phone rang. It doesn't ring too often, especially at 10:00am, so I was quite curious to see who was calling me. I assumed it would be someone who had forgotten their FOB and needed to be let into residence. It ended up being my aunt, however, much to my delight. I bounded down the stairs (having given up the elevator for Lent) and saw, much to my surprise, my father standing with my aunt. I was so excited and I gave him a huge hug! My daddy came!!! Hurray!!! So we went to my room and hung out for a bit. I had a midterm though so he went to visit my Oma.
My day progressively got better, surprisingly enough. There were 25 of us from Rez who went to the hockey game. It was so much fun!!! The Canucks finally beat the Oilers and we were up as far as you can be to watch it. Laura, Scott, Theresa, Erica and I went early and watched warm-up. I was three feet away from the Canucks and they were absolutely beautiful!! For real though, it was quite wonderful. Then we trecked up to the nose-bleeds to watch them win 4-1.
Yup, it was a pretty good day.

Sisters!

So I've been doing way too many hours of homework lately. I just checked the internet and the photographer finally posted some of the pictures of us sisters so I thought I'd put a couple on here.

Go Brian!

I just wanted to let you all know that my good friend Angela Reize got engaged yesterday!! I'm so excited for her! She is beautiful and Brian, her fiance, aww they're so awesome. The ring is too small so she's wearing on her pinky... I think it's cute. Anyways. I love her dearly and am so happy for her!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a Greek wedding. My coach, Jim Plakas, got married ina Greek Orthodox church downtown and our team was all invited. First of all, we walked into the building as the bride was getting ready to go down the aisle... she was coming down the stairs before entering the sanctuary and so we hustled our butts and sat down.
The wedding was so good. I straight up understood absolutely none of the ceremony because it was all sung and mainly in Greek, it was so interesting though. They did all this ceremonious stuff that I didn't understand. It was so much fun though! It definitely felt like My Big Fat Greek Wedding because there were all these ladies in big coats with big hair who are all loud and they just talk all the time and yadda yadda. It was good times.
We had tons of time to kill between the ceremony and the reception so we went to Boston Pizza and then to the mall. Hmm.. the reception was amazing! The food was so incredible and then they had Greek dancing. We just went up and joined in the circle dancing even though we had no idea what we were doing and it was so much fun! Like.. who knew you could have so much fun dancing in a circle just trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing? It was excellent. Then they had some non-greek songs that my team danced to. Those girls are so much fun. I love them and I'm going to miss them so much! ps. WE GO TO BREAK PLATES! It was awesome! They handed out plates and we got to throw them while Jim was dancing and then while other people were dancing and it was so fun! It is symbolic for something, but I have no idea what so it was just entertaining. My first two didn't break but then Jim's brother told me how to do it properly and they began shattering and it was so fun!! I'll post some pictures when the girls give me some.

Plummeting

So, volleyball is over and my time management skills are once again non-existant. I'm pretty sure I have not done homework in the last two days except for half effort jobs that barely account for completion. My school work is in its post-volleyball plummet, per usual.
I've spent lots of time thinking about what I want to do next year. It is so frustrating because I have no idea and multiple ideas all at once. It's like there are so many things I want to do but not enough time to get them all done. Then there's always the problem of pursuing them in whatever order would be most beneficial. I don't know. The options are endless and that is so exciting, but so scary all at the same time. I could literally go anywhere and do anything, but I can't decide what I want to do! I hate having choices!
I'm going to go spend some time with Michael Jackson.