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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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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 am pooped. I haven’t been sleeping well. Why am I so bad at sleeping???

It’s been fun here so far. It’s also been really cold, like -15ºC, and then another 10ºC of windchill. I haven’t experienced this weather in a long long time. Maybe rainy Vancouver isn’t so so bad.


We played Wasabe. Rosemarie and I tied.

I think it would be fun to actually gather all the ingredients in the game, and every time you complete a roll you actually get to make it and we all get to eat it. That would be awesome, except some of the ingredients are strange like urchin and blowfish.


On Wednesday Rose and I went for a quick snowshoe in the forest behind our house. We didn’t go very fast. Very leisurely.


It’s hard to make a snow angel in snowshoes.

The Haberl kids dropped by for a quick visit, and then we had dinner with Kate’s kids.

Yesterday was good. I met up with Lauren and Sarah Swan for shawarmas downtown. I consider shawarma an Ottawa thing. We were going to go trampolining after that but then decided not to, and to get bubble tea instead. Sarah knew a good place that lets you substitute the tea with water, so no caffeine. The place also can serve the bubble tea hot, instead of icy, which is much more appropriate on a day like yesterday.

I actually ended up ordering a strawberry yoduly bubble tea with pearls, which had no tea at all. It was made with drinkable yogurt and real strawberries and was extremely extremely delicious. I want to go back to that place!!! This is the place, if you are in Ottawa and want to check it out: http://www.letseat.at/MySweeTea

After bubble tea I met up with the Ace Gang for our first reunion since Christmas 2008, I think. (The Christmas we were all in Sydney together.)

It was fun catching up, and we went out for dinner at the Clocktower near Leslie’s place and my bacon, apple, and dill sandwich on a potato bun was really yummy. We took a picture, but I don’t have a copy. I would make a terrible photo journalist.


Oh and here is Rosemarie with her secret santa gift in Vancouver. Scott made her a sushi kit with every single possible thing she would need to make sushi: rice, nori, sushi mat, rice vinegar, wasabe, ginger, chopsticks etc etc. I think she liked it.

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We played two games of Agricola last night with the Komplex deck. Rosemarie broke her losing streak and beat us BOTH TIMES! Grrrrrrrr.

I want to play more.

Looking forward to tonight’s little feast. Homemade sushi, clementines that Rosemarie found at Superstore (!!!), Smartfood popcorn, NANAIMO SQUARES!! (Although I won’t have any nanaimo squares until tomorrow morning.)

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Check out that delicious looking pizza.

I tried out a new dough recipe yesterday, and it turned out really well. I wish I made the pizza bigger, or made two pizzas, because the crust was way thicker than I like. It was still amazingly soft and nice though.

I made it about 75% whole wheat. I also did pilates three days in a row so far. I think I’m turning into my mom!!!!!!!!

Our friend Rob helped Rosemarie move all her stuff over here yesterday. We invited him to stay for pizza and to play Agricola. He is the first outsider that we attempted to teach this game and it went really well. It helped that he actually watched the whole half hour video about the game on Youtube.

Yay for four player Agricola for the first time!! It was interesting. I came in last place. I have no idea what went wrong.