Birthday Fun

I just turned 23 a few days ago...boy am I getting old! I had a wonderful birthday and feel loved by so many people! The weekend before my actual birthday I had dinner with a couple friends. I didn't want it to be a huge thing so I asked the Manville's and Leishman's to come celebrate with me. We went to San Remo, an Italian place in Mckenzie Towne.

Here we are...as you can see I share Jeff with Porter now (Melissa's little girl). She has a little crush on him! We missed Steve this night, he was a little sick =(

Me and my girls! I love you Melissa and Alicia! =)

Me and my man! =)

After dinner we went to DQ to get a cake to share. However, with my craziness in not being able to make a decision for the life of me on what flavor, we ended up getting separate blizzards. After about a half hour of decision making...haha sorry!

The day before me birthday my most amazing mother in the whole entire world took me shopping! I LOVE LOVE LOVE shopping with my mom!! It's something we've always enjoyed doing together. I was so so excited and found some really cute things. She also bought me lunch...Edo of course! And then Marble Slab! How awesome is my mom? I had a great day with her and we were also able to get a bit of Christmas shopping done.

On the day of my birthday Kinga (my coworker) made me this delicious chocolate cake!  I ate it all in 1 hour!
Doesn't sound like me does it...don't worry I shared with my staff. It was definitely delicious though, Kinga knows how to bake!!

They also gave me this sweet card! Perfect for a dental office. Oh and Alina, the dentist, gave me a scale...which is kind of an inside joke so I won't go there. And Theresa forgot to tell me what time to come in so I showed up 3 hours early for work and she felt terrible! So she ended up getting me a gift as well haha. 

Then when I got home from work I found out how much Jeff loves me...

Boy does he love me a lot! He even bought me a present even though he wasn't supposed to because I had gone shopping online earlier.

All in all...a great birthday! I have the best husband, family, and friends! I feel so blessed. =)

   

Roast Beef

So I'm caught up in my blog now, which means I will probably struggle a little more to find things to blog about. But, I figured I should blog about little things that go on in life, not just big events. So... today I made ROAST BEEF. I got a call from work saying that some patients had cancelled and I didn't need to come in today. Sooooo...I thought it would be a great day to practice my cooking skills! My mom showed me how to do a roast beef dinner a few months ago when I asked her to come over and help me, but I haven't looked at a roast since then. So I wasn't sure how it was gonna go. But luckily, I have a great memory...and a mom to call at any moment with questions. So things turned out pretty good!

  

This apron is one of my favorite things. Kellie Ady gave it to me as a gift after I threw her a baby shower. Oh and she made it herself! I am not a crafty person in the least bit so I think it's quite impressive.

 Jeff came home from work just in time to cut the roast, thank goodness! While I'm on the topic, I think I better share a small story about what happened the last time I tried cutting the roast:

So I made this meal a few months back and as I took the roast out I asked Jeff if he wanted to cut it for me. He was almost asleep on the couch so I told him never mind, I will do it myself. So Jeff relaxed (which was fine...he had just worked a long day), until he heard a scream. I was trying to cut it too fast and completely sliced my finger! I had never seen my finger bleed so bad and it wouldn't stop. Jeff came over immediately and told me to put pressure on it, even though my first reaction was to run it under water...guess I wasn't thinking straight. When Jeff and I peaked at my finger we knew it needed more than just a band-aid so Jeff drove me to the clinic and I ended up getting a few stitches. To this day I cannot feel the tip of my pointer finger! It is numb and has not gained the feeling back...I must've done some nerve damage. So that's the story of my dead finger (as I call it now)! And now Jeff will not let me cut the roast! He is always right ready to do it and save me from the pain!

Well, dinner was very delicious. I was quite happy with the yorkshires I made because they are not so easy. Very touchy! But my mom is a great teacher =)

Staff Mexico Trip

This year me and Jeff got the chance to go to Cancun, Mexico with my staff. I am a Dental Assistant and work for Alina Drosu, shown in the picture on the right. She has an office in Calgary and in Fort Macmurray, so she brought both staff and whoever wanted to bring their spouses could. So there ended up being a total of 20 people who came!

It was a very fun experience to go with so many people. There were always people to hang out with, and I got to see my coworkers in a different place other than at work, which was neat. It built greater friendships and Jeff thinks I work with some pretty fun people. Here's a shot of the group:

We went to an all inclusive resort called Valentin Imperial Maya. So one of the big activities we liked to do (or at least one of my favorites) was eating! I loved trying the different restaurants and ordering anything and everything we feel like.

 The Italian place was our favorite! The restaurant had a bit more of a romantic setting than the rest so me and Jeff went there twice on our own - the only meals without a group. We both love pasta and bread with balsamic vinegar. Well actually, we loved most of the menu! The food was to die for!

The Japanese restaurant was also one of our favorites. We got to watch the chef make our food and put on a little show for us with the utensils. He started with sushi, then rice, then gave us vegetables with our choice of 2 meats. The food was delicious and it was a very fun experience!

The French restaurant was also very tasty. Most of our group went together for this one and we filled 2 big tables. It was very fancy and beautiful inside the restaurant. I ordered Chateaubriand, which I have always loved and it was cooked medium rare - to perfection. The appetizers and desserts were amazing as well. The only bad comment me and Jeff made was that it was a little too loud in there. It was a very romantic setting, but with our big group we didn't get to enjoy that. It was still a lot of fun though!

It was neat to have the waiters all come to give us our food and take off the covers all at once. They must have used all of their staff to do this!








We also went to a Steakhouse one night and tried Indonesian another night. For breakfast and lunch we usually went to the buffets, and sometimes ordered room service. We always ate way to much, but enjoyed every bite of it!

 Besides eating we enjoyed some awesome activities. One day we went to the Ek Balam ruins, and then to a Cenote where we rapelled down into the water. We went with 7 other people from our group and most of us had a good time...me and Jeff definitely being one of those!

 

Climbing was the easy part as long as you didn't look down. I got a little nervous when I got to the top and realized how high we were. I seriously wondered how I was gonna make it down! But I took it one step at a time, while Jeff practically ran down it.

Here we are at the top of the biggest one. It was a gorgeous view!

Then we headed over to the Cenote...

 

I had only gone rapelling once in my life and that was in Young Women's many years ago, which was terrifying. This time though...not so bad. I got a little nervous leaning over the edge, but after that it was easy!

 It was one of the neatest experiences to do this. We had no idea what we were rapelling down into until we did it and saw how beautiful it was. It was amazing! Me and Jeff were also lucky because Jeff volunteered us to do it first! So everyone watched us make it look like a piece of cake. Just kidding! It was good to be first to experience it though and as a bonus we got the most pictures! The guy even told us to kiss and moved our lines together! How romantic right?

This picture shows the full view of what we were doing. So neat!

Once we rapelled to the water it was a little chilly but felt good after a hot day at the ruins. We then watched as the rest of our group came down, swam around, did some ziplining and Jeff did some backflips off the cliff they have to jump off of.

We had a great day! After all the activities and having too much fun we were finally able to eat some lunch.

Besides these activities, we mostly stayed around the resort. We hung out around the beach and the pool. During the nights we usually hung out with our group eating, watching shows, and shopping! We had a bunch of shopping around the resort and Jeff insisted on buying me 4 necklaces and a swimsuit coverup, which I actually love! Jeff purchased some sunglasses and decorative items for his office. It's funny because when we're at home Jeff hates shopping, but in Mexico he loves it probably more than me!

What a great holiday we had! The only thing we would do differently next time is bring more clothes! We didn't realized we would have to dress fancy to every restaurant, so Jeff wore the same pair of jeans and 2 collar shirts over and over! While I had a little bit more choice I still had to wear some things twice. Other than that we were ready to go home after the week, but also didn't want to go back to reality and making our own food again! But the time came and we headed back to the airport on the bus. We thanked Alina for the great time we had and headed on our way.

Bye Mexico! We miss you already!

Calgary Temple

Big news!! Calgary got really lucky and had a temple built here! The Calgary Alberta Temple was dedicated in October 2012. This was my very first experience with a temple open house and dedication. I figured I needed to do some volunteering and enjoy this whole experience, which I did!

Me and Jeff volunteered on a Saturday and were at the temple from 7-3. We were called "ushers" and helped get the crowds through the temple tours. I was also able to get one of my coworkers (one of the assistants I work with) and her husband to come tour the temple. And boy did we have a really neat experience...

We took Kinga and Frank on a Monday evening and did not realize it closed early...I guess I forgot about family night! We got there around 7 and found out it had closed at 5. We thought we might as well go walk around and see the temple from the outside at least so we didn't waste the drive. We started walking and found some people to talk to who hadn't left from volunteering that day. We made sure there was no way to get inside the temple and they ensured us that it was too late. So we started walking away until the sister missionaries came and asked if we came for a tour. We told them we had but didn't realize it was closed. Then they told us that there actually was one last tour going on and they were in the middle of watching the opening video right then. So we snuck in, watched the end of the video, and then got an after hour tour with just a few others. Brother Palmer was the tour guide and I could not believe how kind he was. He had been working all day, every day of the open house, and must've been exhausted. As bad as I felt, I was really glad Kinga and Frank got to go through temple after all because they couldn't have made it any other day! Kinga whispered to me, "I guess we were meant to see the temple." As me and Jeff thought about it later we knew that those sister missionaries must've been prompted by the spirit to come and tell us there was another tour going on. They really did come out of nowhere and I was surprised they heard us talking at all. We all loved the temple and its beauty and had a great experience.
 



 I am so excited to have a closer temple so that me and Jeff can go there regularly together. This was a goal we had made from the start of our marriage and have struggled with it lately. Now it will be much easier for us!

Piano Wrap-up / Summer

Last year I started teaching piano! I've been playing piano for many years and have passed my grade 8 exam, which was a ton of work. I have to say I was more stressed about a piano exam than any exam I have ever done in school. I now enjoy playing and teaching! It started with Tamara asking me about it and wondering if I would think about teaching Mason and Dakota. I thought it was a great idea so I looked into it, and made some calls to my previous piano teacher Carla Humphreys for tips and advice on what books to start in. I went ahead with it and ended up teaching quite a few students that year.

 

In June I had a piano recital for them. I had done some advertising and ended up with 6 students, but I decided to do a recital for just family since my other students had started mid-year. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures, which I regret! The only ones I have are with Mason and Dakota. I also teach Skyler and my mom, who are doing so well! I was so proud of all my students and how much they've learned this year. It's just amazing to see their growth! 

I got this fun candy gram from Mason and Dakota...pretty cute!

I'm on my second year of teaching now and I have 9 students currently. At the end of the year I'm going to do a bigger recital, so I'm really excited for that! 

 Summer came and me and Jeff realized how hard it is to find time to relax and enjoy the sun!

This year, Jeff could only get 2 weeks off work, so we didn't have a ton of summer holidays. It's easy for me to get time off...the dentist I work for has a few assistants, so I'm more flexible. We ended up using long weekends and took a few days off so that we could make it to our cabins in Montana...

We love the lake and are both into skiing. A lot of people I talk to now say that wakeboarding just isn't worth it anymore...and we completely agree. Too many face plants and injuries, like blown eardrums in the past! We had a great time at both my parents cabin on Ashley Lake and Jeff's parents cabin on Echo Lake. How lucky we are to have 2 lakes we can go to!!