Today was my first day of my second semester of school.

It was a relaxed day, although we did get assigned one small piece of homework.

The bad news of the day was that our super awesome physics teacher would not be teaching us this semester. Apparently he is taking a semester off, which is a big bummer, because he is a fantastic teacher and we all learned a lot of complex stuff from him with few problems. Physics is one of our heaviest courses so it’ll be interesting to see how this new guy does. I don’t know if you can beat 20+ years of teaching nuc med at BCIT experience!!

Our new math teacher seemed great though, so that is an improvement!!

It was nice to see all of my classmates again.

What else have I missed.

  • Rosemarie and I went over to our aunt and uncle’s house and ate yummy thai food. I would love to have that soup recipe HINT HINT HINT.
  • Rosemarie left Ottawa to go to Toronto and I got lonely. It is weird being home without her.
  • Went out for a girly lunch with Cassia and her mum and Jane and Brenda. Our burgers were enormous.
  • I went to Ikea with Leslie and Cassia, and had meatballs for dinner.
  • My flight back was delayed and longer than usual because of headwind.
  • School starts on Monday. A 5 month long semester of 8:30-3:30 school. This one is going to be tough, I can tell. I am going to work really really hard though because although I did very well last semester, I want to do BETTER!


I know that is not the most appetizing picture in the world, but I just wanted to share that cooking macaroni and cheese in milk, instead of water WORKS. It was creamy and delicious. I followed this recipe.

Rosemarie left her syrup in the fridge so this morning I made pancakes. They were very fluffy. Who needs pancake mix!!

Today I am trying out my new slow-cooker that I got for Christmas. I’m making slow-cooker jambalaya. We’ll see how it goes!

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.

January:

February:

March:

April:

  • I interviewed for BCIT (in Vancouver), SAIT (in Calgary), Michener (in Toronto) and NAIT (in Edmonton).
  • There was a fire in the kitchen.
  • Scott’s aunt came to visit.

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

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.