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I’m a bit embarrassed at how long this took me to do, but over the holidays I received a whole bunch of really awesome, thoughtful gifts, and I really need to show them to you. My friends and family are awesome.

I think I’ll just do them one a time, maybe one per day.


This is a name draft, made by my family friend Jac. I think they look pretty cool even without an explanation, but they’re even cooler when you know what’s going on!

Basically he takes our full names and puts them into a computer program he wrote. It spits out a design and then he weaves them on his weaving loom in our favourite colour. The pattern is based on our name going from the outside to the inside, on all sides (mirror image).

Scott’s is the green one on the left. His is bigger because he has two middle names that make his name very long. Mine is on the right in purple.

My favourite part of the weaves is that since Scott and I have the same last name, the very inner part of each of our designs is the same! I haven’t checked, but the inside of Rosemarie’s, and the one Jac made for our mom should also be the same. So cool.

Jac and Laurie made name drafts for us, Rosemarie, and the Monnon kids and their partners, and put them in these nice frames for us to display. This was such a nice gift, something that I will keep forever. Thank you Jac and Laurie!!!!!

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OK I’ve got a whole hodge-podge of pictures and stuff to show you from the last couple weeks.


Here is me, trying to figure out how to play Wasabi, after receiving this game for Christmas. Luckily it is not too hard to learn.


After Christmas dinner I made sourdough turkey cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches for our lunch. Mmmmm sourdough bread is so nice. These sandwiches were delicious.


I painted picture frames to bring home for gifts. I got the frames for $1 and painted them with acrylic paint. I also had some varnish left over from something so I got to make them nice and shiny. Here are my bunting frames.


I also made a Settlers frame for Natasha and Richard.


And this is the chevron frame I made to match Cassia and Pablo’s apartment. I am really pleased with how this one turned out.

I forgot to give out the little sticks to put in the back of them to stand them up. I will mail you guys the sticks, ok?! Oops.


Here is the Ace Gang, at Leslie’s house. The first time we were all together in several years.


After New Years we all trekked out to Jac and Laurie’s house. They live 75 km from us!! It had been a long time since I had been to their house. It was lots of fun, we ate yummy tacos and talked and laughed and told old stories. We even Skyped with the Monnon’s in Florida. Laurie showed us some funny pictures of all the animals she took care of, and we even found a bunch of pictures of our parents. Even Natasha and I were in some of the pictures, as little babies.

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Here is the painting I did for dad’s Christmas present. You can click on the picture to see it a bit bigger. It has all sorts of elements (past and present) from our cottage. Little funny things from all the years we spent building.

It’s pretty large, 16″x20″ I think? Acrylics on canvas.

I started to hate it a bit when I was painting because I was struggling with painting something that is in a FORREST and also on a huge CLIFF, but dad calls it folk art style and really seems to love it. He’s shown it to everyone that has come over, so that makes me feel pretty good. I’m glad it ended up turning out ok.

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I’m having a nice lazy morning after two action packed days in a row.

On Friday I was really really tired. I had a third bad insomnia night in a row. Anyway we were having people over so I spent the day tidying up a bit, and preparing food for 11 people. I made butter chicken, and saag aloo (potatoes with spinach), and Rosemarie made cheesecake, and Kate made an enormous salad. I think everyone enjoyed the meal.

After dinner we started our gingerbread houses. My family and the Monnon’s family have a big tradition of decorating gingerbread houses together. We must have been doing it for maybe 8 years? This year we had Rose and I, Natasha and her bf Richard, Sam (Eric’s gf), and Callum (Kate’s son).

We also set up the computer so we could Skype with Bill and Suzanne who are down in Florida. They saved their gingerbread house to decorate at the same time with us and we left the cameras on for an hour! It was really neat that they could almost be there with us.

This years gingerbread houses were pretty epic. Jane brought over all of her extra candy and we just had so much it was ridiculous. I covered every surface of my gingerbread house and so did everyone else, and we still had bags and bags of candy left on the table. We ate so much candy we all felt sick, and people even got hiccups. It was like we were drunk on candy. It’s three days later and I still haven’t touched my gingerbread house because I STILL feel like I never want to eat candy again! AND I REALLY LIKE CANDY!

The finished products were so good. We were all very creative this year!!

I made a board games house. Can you recognize it?? I hope so!

I tried to make the other side like Carcassonne, but it’s a little more abstract.

Rose also made an epic nerdy gingerbread house. She made a rock climbing wall!!! She says those are the real knots and everything. She also marked out a couple different routes. I love it!!

Nerdy sisters.

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I water marbled my nails last weekend during a break from schoolwork. I did rainbow colours this time and am quite pleased with how they turned out. I kinda need a brighter green though, I think.

I won’t be buying any though because I officially signed up for skeleton club. Scott and I discussed it a lot and decided that this is a pretty neat opportunity that may not come up again and in the long run what difference is a few hundred dollars going to make. In ten years I would regret not doing it more than regret spending the money, I think. Anyway so now I am on ultra-budget.

Of possible interest: My water marbling tutorial.

The first skeleton trip is next next weekend. :D I am iksidid.