think i was blind before i met you...

birthday wishes to my love from far away...

2007-03-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Its my WONDERFUL husbands birthday TOMORROW!!! and i just wanted to post a pic of him doing what he loves best to honor this very special day. its his last year in his 20s (hes turning 29 tomorrow!!! heehee!) and hes wayyyyyy out in the middle of nowhere STILL working his tush off (so far i think they are at like 60 somthing days in a row working on the pipeline in the freezing cold!) anyways, i cant be with him on his birthday but i am going to go see him in a couple of days for a visit and to celebrate but in the mean time here is a post to comemerate the greatest husband there is and the best friend i have EVER had. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABE! happy birthday!!!

JoBen and his best friend- his surf board!

us on our wedding day- best day ever

the most handsom man alive!

my hunky surfer boy!... relaxin in elsalvedor

Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

playing dress up in his sisters bridesmaid dress BEFORE it was altered.... it was wayyyyyyy to big for her but apperantly a perfect fit for him! hes so funny.

doin what he does best... surfing in costa rica!!!

at a resort we stayed at in spain on our honeymoon and below with a silly gaurd in London also on our honeymoon...

a pic of Jo-Ben driving along the beach in the back of a pick up tuck in costa rica on a surf trip to witches rock for his birthday last year... cant believe a whole year has gone by since then.... heres to another great one to come... love you sweetie!

survey!

2007-03-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

>FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD:
>1) Towne Cinnema Centre
>2) catering weddings
>3) Moxies
>4) Treeplanting
>
>FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
>1) The Notebook
>2) Hope Floats
>3) Serindipity
>4) Twister
ha all girly movies..
>
>FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
>1) Abbotsford, BC
>2) Maple Ridge, BC
>3) Medicine Hat, AB
>4) Santa Teresa/Mal Pais, Costa Rica
>
>FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE TO
>WATCH:
>1) The Office
>2) Heros
>3) Gilmore Girls
>4) any home reno/ decorating show
>
>FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON VACATION:
>1) California
>2) All over Europe- Switzerland, England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Austria, etc....
>3) Costa Rica & Niciragua
>4) North Carolina
>
>WEB SITES I VISIT DAILY:
>1) myspace
>2) hotmail
>3) facebook
>4) blogger
>
>FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
>1) any kind indian food & south east asian food
>2) spanish influenced food expecially payeya oooo and civiche and vegitarian cassado
>3) any tropical fruit
>4) moms menno food,blueberry verenichia, fleish pershki, zerumph platz, roll chuckien, chielche... hahah pretty sure they are all spelled phenetically (sp?)
>
>FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
>1) anywhere with my husband
>2) santa teresa/ mal pais, costa rica
>3) fiji
>4) thailand, vietnam, cambodia
>
>Four of your favorite CD's
>1) Sufjan Stevens - Come on feel the Illinoise
>2) Gyspy Kings- Greatest Hits
>3) Justin Timberlake- FutureSex/LoveSounds
>4) Nelly Furtado- Loose
>
>Four of your Favorite Books
>1) Life of Pi
>2) all James Patterson books
>3) A Complicated Kindness
>4) Shes Come Undone

My Visual DNA test

2007-03-19T12:50:00.001-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

ready!

2007-03-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

well im all packed(minus some everyday things like my computer and some clothes and makeup) but im nearly ready to go! im heading out one week from friday and then technically my summer vacation begins! its going to be an interesting summer.... thats for sure. im not sure if i am going to be able to fit allllll of our stuff that we brought plus our futon mattress and our new computer in the car so i am taking a trip to three hills to drop some stuff off at jobens boss' house and...

to look at this house! we found this lil ol house online and i have been in corespondance with the real estate agent and i am going to go take a look at it for us to potentially buy and move into this summer. its super old (circa 1926) and we are looking forward to renoing the entire inside (well most of it anyways) which will be a fun (and tireing!) project.... im pumped. its all just in the begining stages but i think it would be fun to flip a house with my hubby.

THIS is what i want the bathroom to look like! hahaha i know, i know. im getting a little ahead of myself but i cant help it! i REALLY hope everything works out! ill keep ya posted...

MOVING again....

2007-03-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

well its that time again!
we moved to medicine hat in august specifically for Jo-Bens new career and i KNEW that we would eventually be moving in the not so distant future but its kinda crept up on me and its here! our cute little basement suite is in shambles... the only thing that is in order is the bathroom (oh how i will miss my claw foot tub!) and my kitchen (pictured)! i posted two pics of my desk and the eating area which are just covered in stuff needing to be packed or thrown away (i realized we keep way too much junk, papers, etc!) and im not EVEN going to post a pic of our bedroom, what a disgrace... im basicly posting these pics in hopes my sister will show my mom and i will drive her crazy from a whole province away! awesome. well, we were semi situated here but its time to move on and be gypsies again! we have travelled pretty much throughout our first two years of marriage and im getting pretty good at it but i am pretty much ready to have all of our stuff in one place and really feel at peace about being somewhere. in a couple of weeks i am heading to bc where i will stay at my brother and sister in laws for most of the summer housesitting while they do another summer of planting (last one josh?!) and my husband will be here there and everywhere this summer... a little bit finishing work in alberta... joining me in bc... up north to pg to plant for a few weeks (in which hes wrangled me into planting for TWO.... ONLY TWO!!!) and then back down to the valley for some fun in June. at the end of june we are packing up all of our stuff into a uhal trailer and heading back to albeta (only a little farther north this time!) to three hills where i think we will be living for the next two years or so. We are hoping to buy a house in red deer and build a house in costa rica right after that. VERY exciting plans but for now i must pack up and in a couple of weeks be on my way to being a mobile person again! what an adventure we will have to tell our kids one day! ANYWAYS, here are some pics for your laughing/viewing enjoyment of my chaotic life right now!

SUGAR FREE, GLUTEN FREE, WHEAT FREE, DAIRY FREE... chick it out (aimee this blog is for you :) )

2007-03-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

Hey all! so, i was watching Martha Stewart late last night and she featured this lady who owns a bakery on the lower east side in Manhattan called Baby Cakes. Apperantly this place is for all kinds of people who have all kinds of food allergies. On the show they made the most delicious lookng chocholate cupcakes and a cinnamon loaf. The desserts seriously looked absolutly scrumptious and they were made from things like hummous flour insted of ap flour and zyanthane gum insted of sugar & canola oil insted of butter oh and my favorite applesauce insted of eggs. all of their stuff is gluten free, sugar free, wheat free and vegan... i dont have food alergies but i do have lots of friends and friends of friends who do (expecially people on here ... *ahem, klassens*) so i thought that this would be an AWESOME site for those of you to check out! i dont think that they have recipies online yet and i havent browsed the entire site yet but i do know you can order from them and she did mention on martha that a cook book was in the works. ALSO if you look on Martha Stewart online there is a link to the two recipies that they made so you could copy them from there. anyways, hope i was of come help passing this info along! Ill post the links below... have a good day everyone!!!

ps- 16 more days till i have our place packed up here in Medicine Hat and i go see my honey way up north! & 7 days after that i will be back in BC pretty much till july!!! YAY! so very excited!

Baby Cakes Bakery:

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/

A link on the Baby Cakes website to view the segments on Martha Stewart and the magazines that they have been featured in :

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/babycakes_press.html

Link to the recipie of the brownie cupcakes on MS online: (you can click and watch the video on this page too!)

http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe5560064&layout=martha

Link to the recipie of the cinnamon loaf on MS online: (you can click and watch the video on this page too!)

http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe5560066&layout=martha

also on this show (for all of you out there who LOVE LOVE LOVE refined sugar) is a cute idea for candy topiarie trees for parties and stuff... Ralph Laurens daughter shows how to make them on the show with all kinds of candy... would be really cute & different for a kids party!

just an update!

2007-03-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

WOW. i cant believe we are comming into the second week of march here... my birthday was on the 1st which started the first of many exciting months to come!
it was a great day... i thought it was going to be the worst considering that last year i spent my birthday with my incredable husband in costa rica on a quadding adventure that he planned out including a picnic on the beach and a suprise upclose and personal with a goup of howler monkeys... dinner on a cliff and a panoramic view of the sunset... it wasnt anything close to last years birthday but it was great all the same.
i got awesome happy birthday helium balloons from the people upstairs and beautiful flowers sent to me by my husband (who is out of town for work) i went out for lunch and a massage with my good friend echo and out for coffee with her later as well. it was just a great, relaxing day. and i got TONS of phone calls, emails and blog comments (thanks!) i am truley blessed.
exciting news: we have decided to go to mexico in october... i know its kind of a long way away but its exciting all the same. we have travelled ALLOT these past few years (about 20 countries in 2 years i think i counted!) but we usually do it backpacking style so its going to be really fun to go to a really nice resort which neither of us have done besides the one we stayed at in spain that our friends work at. its called Riu resort in Peurta Vallarta & apperantly its like a 5 1/2 star resort. i dont know for sure but i saw pics on the web site and it is AMAZING looking. we are going for my parents good friends (uncle george and auntie caroline) 25th anniversary where they are going to renew their vows to each other... they are even having a little wedding and everything and there are like over 50 people going. the plane ride there is going to be NUTS. anways, its going to be AWESOME & a blast and i can't wait. my poor husband more than deserves a break after working so hard for all of these months out of town and everything.
in other news... next week i have to give my two weeks notice to work because in three weeks from today i get to go see Jo-Ben!!! yay! and then drive out to B.C where i am spending most of the summer (helping my cousin Jess plan her wedding which i am almost more excited for than my own!, catching up with fam and friends, going to the cabin, etc, etc) Jo-Ben will be tree planting for 5 weeks from may-begining of June and ill be visiting periodically up in PG but spending most of the time in the valley where he will join me untill the end of june when we will pack up ALLLLLL of our stuff and move out to Alberta for the big move. we are going to be living in Three Hills which we are not thrilled about but its just for probably a couple of years till he gets to run his own truck (his boss Rod lives in Three hills) and then we are thinking we will buy a house in Red Deer. we love it there and think its a great place to make our home base (where we can go when we arent in costa rica which we plan on being the majority of the year if all goes as planned!) so yeah... feels like this month really started the ball rolling for everything.
i cant believe joben has been gone for over 2 months already... it hasnt been easy by any means but its almost over and it feels like expecially the last month has flowen by! i am SO excited for this upcomming year and this month has kick started it... its going to be a very good year, we are SO incredably blessed... cant wait to see what happens!
anyway, have a great day all you bloggers! im off to bed.

big girl earings

2007-02-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

so, as you may have read i got my ears peirced for the first time this christmas... so now im a big girl and i get to wear big girl earings! i have bought a few pairs and find myself in clairs browsing through the 'rainbow bright' earings ,as i refer to them, wishing i was thirteen again so i could sport the neon pink plastic gems on my ears. although i do wish for that once in a while its not gonna happen in this lifetime. i have bought a few pairs of hoops and some cubic zerconias (waiting on the real thing!... i told my husband taht hes going to feel the effects of the saying be carefull what you wish for because now that my ears are pierced there is always going to be earings for him to buy me!!!) anyways, these earings are the first big girl earings i bought and i love them and had to post a couple of pics for my mom and my sister to oggle over.

since EVERYONE is doing it...

2007-02-22T23:57:00.000-08:00

a few pics of joben at work

2007-02-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

some pics of joben at work way up in northern alberta...hes technically called a level 1 NDT operator (nuclear devices technical operator) which just means that he knows allot about science and radiation and he takes lots of pictures all day in teh freexing cold of welds with his fancy and very heavy radioactive x-ray camera. cool huh? ha.
the very first one is of us on the last night i was there... while i was there they worked their longest days ever since being up there which was rough and you can see it on jobens face... he looks sooo tired.
the next few are of him working with the x ray camera on the pipeline...
there is one of him all bundled up and then a couple of pics of a fox. joben said that a couple of weeks ago they were working at a job a few km away and one of the guys said he foudn this dead fox so he went to cut off the tail because he collects them or somthing and when he cut it off the fox jumped up and ran away! now at least two weeks later and a good 5 km away this fox with no tail shows up and comes up to joben and is all friendly... he just kinda hung out with him.. you would think that if it was the same fox he would be scared of people so it was pretty weird.
it was SO good to see him... it was day 37 of not seeing joben so it was a much needed reunion but it was tough only spending a couple of hours at the end of the day with him... oh well only a month and a half to go! ... and then comes tree planting- oh joy. well, june will bring normalness again. i can hardly wait... and by the look of jobens face in the first pic- neither can he!

Riding up to see Jo-Ben and Rod to Wabasca

2007-02-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

well, on wednesday i drove up to three hills (about 3 hours north of Medicine Hat where i live) and met up with Ethel (jobens boss' (Rod) wife) and their three kids Jannae, Brock and Lincon. We then drove through Red Deer (did some stuff) and then off to Leduc where we spent the night. The next day we drove through Edmonton (did some more stuff) and then up to Slave Lake (did some more stuff there) and FINALLY to Wabasca where Jo-Ben and Rod are working and have been working since the begining of Jan. (i posted some pics of the kids in teh back seat (lincon is the one wearing my touque thinking hes SO funny... he is:) and Brock and Jannae are the other two) they are awesome kids but over 10 hours in a car with three kids 7 and under in the backseat is pretty wearing. Jo-Ben and i have been able to spend some time together out here after work and yesterday their truck wouldnt start in the morning so he had the morning off too which was awesome.... not much to do out here way up north. there is basicly a big brand new rec center where we go every day with the kids to keep them from going nuts and one resteraunt (the burgar barron) where we go for dinner and then the guys come home from work. we are leaving tomorrow morning which sucks bug time but as i have said before i would have driven all the way up here even if i got to see joben for 5 mins. plus its almost half over so thats encouraging... joben and i were apart for 36 days which is by far the longest since we have known each other. it was crazy hard but now we wont see each other for another like three weeks and then i think i am going to see him again and then after a couple of more weeks he will be done his out of town work for this year! yay! anyways, right now im watching charlotes web with the boys while ethel took jannae swiming... shes in swim club and training for her next swim meet and shes wayyyyyy better at swimming than i am and shes only 7. crazy kid. anyways... ill try to get some pics of joben and i to put up althogh they wont be terribly exciting considering where we are (nowheresville!) till next time...

the office!!!!...& also bloggs are confusing :(

2007-01-28T00:25:00.001-08:00

so im not a pro by any means at this blogg posting thing and i wanted to post a SWEET video from you tube but i cannot for the life of me figure out why there is TWO OF THEM!! @#(*$#()!%#*49038214@($*JFEI204809483@#$U*!! arg. whatever its late so im not going to try to figure it out. so yeah just watch one... or the other. but watch it because its andy from the office and if you havent watched the office you should because its my favorite show (the american version (you can rent it!)) and andy (the guy in the video) is my favorite character... hes so random and i LOVE IT!

last few pics of abby (fun times with thiessen cousins!) and some random babbling about life

2007-01-27T23:40:00.000-08:00

here are a few pics of my last night in abby, mom and dad had some of my cousins and their significant others over for dinner (turkey dins- my fave) and it was super fun... a highlight my dad making his own specialty martini (basicly just everything mixed together and then shaken up- he made my cousin jess' fiance adam drink one bahaha) oh also my dad let me take a picture of him, rare moment. jess, adam and i and some of our friends went to see the movie catch and release after dinner which was also awesome if you ask us... if you ask adam he would beg to differ since he was pretty much sleeping through the whole thing! fun times. im back in medicine hat right now and basicly already bored out of my mind... blogging, eating blueberry eggos and watching the breakfast club for the umpteenth time in my life. BUT!!! i get to go see my WONDERFUL HUSBAND in 22 DAYS!!!! so so SO excited. we have never sepent this much time apart from each other since we have known each other and we pretty much spent the first year and a half of our mairrage eating, sleeping, working and playing together so this time apart has been super hard but also good i think. we are appreciating each other more and more which i didnt think we could so its great to see our relationship evolving and growing on different levels. i have never missed anyone so much in my life and i am SO excited to see him. hahahah if you havent seen breakfast club or havent seen it in a long time you have to watch it... very funny classic movie. my favorite character is the geek. go watch it. thanks for reading my random blog!

love this video- can you do somthing?

2007-01-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

i first saw bono and alicia keys do this song on oprah and i was so moved not by the super stars singing the beautiful song (although they are extrordinary) but the images in the video are so powerful. my husband and i were just talking tonight about our hopes and dreams, things we want to do with our time together and ways we want to help and bless others and we have these friends in rawanda who built and are running this school program there and we think about them all the time and can't wait till we have an oppertunity to help them. anyways, as i was thinking about that tonight & this video popped into my head and i wanted to share it. makes you think about daily choices we make and freedom we have. if you are reading this you are so blessed- share it.

update from BC part deux (more pics)

2007-01-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

update from BC

2007-01-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

well my time in abbotsford is almost up! i have been "back home" (its kinda weird cause it really doesnt feel like home anymore even though i grew up here for so many years) for over a week now and its been tons of fun. i got to hang out with allot of old friends and see my family who i havent seen for the most part since the end of august. my cousin sara got married on saturday so i had a blast at her wedding and even getting ready for it with my little sister. spent a couple of nights at my little sisters place in kerrisdale down in vancouver which was great, i got to see where she works and just hang out with her at her place... very surreal. my cousin jess and her fiance adam came out to van because we were planning on going up to cyprus (sp?) for the day to go showshoeing but it didnt pan out because of rain (i have realized how much i love the dry cold SUNNY weather in AB rather than being a drowned rat out here on the coast this week, sorry!) but we hung out in vancouver... had some fun on granville island and had some good laughs. ive spent some down time at my parents place and got to see my cousin mark and his wife bonnie last night and play with their son ben who i have posted some adorable pics of. and of course i have visited with all of the grandparents and spent some one on one time with my parents, gone out for dinner to our favorite places and stuff like that. oh! and hung out with my brother and sister in law. im looking forward to this summer when i will be around more than just 10 days and joben will be with me. i have been realizing just how much that guy is my absolute best friend in life. with him being out of town it has been really hard but kinda cool too because its definitly making our hearts grown fonder for each other (didnt know that was possible!) well, wnough of the mushy stuff. joben is doing fin up in the far north of alberta, it was really hard on him at first and struggled with working rediculous hours with no time off and on top of that having nothing familiar around him except the guy he is working with and missing me too. hes kinda getting the hang of things i think, the logging camp where he is staying sounds suprisingly nice and he is fed well and everything and i have made plans to go see him about two and a half weeks and then again in march so things seem a little easier to bear with looking forward to that. plans for the summer are awesome too look forard to too. my sister in law is graduating from trinity in april (yay anya!!) and joben will be done this job by then so we will be able to all celebrate together then (my parents in law are comming out from NC for a couple of weeks then too!) and then joben is doing a short stint of foremaning up planting for the last time this summer and i will be visiting him lots in princegeorge as well as hanging out at my parents place up in the okanogan and camping with friends and stuff. we are going to be spending mid-end of june in southern bc and im much anticipating my cousin jess's wedding in june (pics of her and her fiance adam are bellow!) then july will be in alberta where joben will be working a contract that month but i will be with him so that will be awesome and august is pretty much off so we will be hangning around be for the first half and NC for jobens 10 year highschool reunion with TONS of peru friends that he hasnt seen forever there so yeah, this summer seems to look like its going to be a GREAT time. it makes times like these a little easier to bear looking forward to a summer like THAT. anyways, ill quit boring you with all of this mumbo jumbo... hope you enjoy my photos of this past week! it was lots of fun and a still haev a couple of days left, lucky me!!!

lynette and i

2007-01-18T01:53:00.000-08:00

awwww i was going through my pictures to find a picture of my hot husband without a shirt on as per my couin mark's request (dont ask:)) and i found this pic of me and my cousin lynnette and since she is SO FAR AWAY and i miss her i thought i would post it for her. thinking about you lynnette and kyle! everyone always mistook her and i as twins when we were little but i dont think we look alike anymore, we both grew into our own looks and i love this pic. see you in less than a year guys...oh! the reason why i thought of you gusy today was because i was in an asian market and they had seaweed on sale for 50% off and because of your recent sushi obsession post it made me think of you guys. also im at my parents house for a visit and i got the christmas car that you guys sent and LOVE the pic- im going to put it up on my fridge as soon as i get home, thanks guys!!!

everybody except for my cousin mark can disregard this post!

2007-01-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

here ya go mark... this ones for you!!

lame blogg

2007-01-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

so i havent posted in a little while. christmas break was AWESOME... i took three weeks off of work and joben was off too bedcause he was inbetween two jobs. we spent two weeks with mom and dad barkey and the fam in north carolina and THEN when i got home my husband and brother and sister in law suprised me with a visit from my bro and sis in law josh and anya. i was SO suprised and excited, it was fun to have them here and show them where we live and spend new years with them and stuff. they left on the 2nd and then jo-ben and i had like 4 more days together and he left to go out of town for work for the next three months. it was really hard to see him go but i havent gotten as upsett as i thought i would be. im going to bc next week for 10 days and i have been working lots so ive been keeping busy and looking forward to my trip so yeah. thats pretty much it for me. nothing really new and exciting happening other than passing time as quickly as i can! joben is doing well- he had strep too and worse than i did and it doesnt help that hes working outside in like -40 but he is getting better and likes working with rod allot better than with the last guy he worked with. this blogg is lame, sorry im not in the mood to write. well, at least i got out the jest of it. bye!

Christmas Morning- just a few more pics for your viewing pleasure

2006-12-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

CHRISTMAS MORN

2006-12-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

dad and his cooooooool panthers freezer mug that we gave him.

Christmas Morning

2006-12-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

i made a really cool scrap book that took me allot of time and energy (thank you thank you) for jo-ben of the adventures of the last 10 years of treeplanting, since this is his last year out in the bush its kinda like a tribute for him and he really liked it, this is him looking at it for the first time.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

this is a pic for anya and josh (if they ever look at this) its babaw on the phone with josh so technically its a christmas picture of josh and babaw!!!

CHRISTMAS DAY

2006-12-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

jo-ben stuck monty in the trash can with all of the used wrapping papper, he looks so sad. :(

A FEW DAYS AGO

2006-12-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

here are a few pics from the other day, joben after playing soccer.. very sweaty. an impromptu pic of the two of us and one close up of my newly pierced ear ( i know i know im a big wussy girl for not getting it done untill i was 23 but I DID IT!!!) this pic is for my curious mom because it was so swollen and infected, my worst fear come true, yay.

CHRISTMAS

2006-12-25T16:36:00.000-08:00

my grandmother with some fake gag teeth! i LOVE this picture.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

2006-12-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

jo-ben and i in mom and dads kitchen before christmas dinner.

CHRISTMAS EVE

2006-12-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

this is our friends (who joben grew up with in peru) baby jayden, what a cute smile... he only smiles for his mom.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

this is a pic of joben eating this stuff called "liver pudding" it looks and smells as gross as it sounds... i have never and will never taste it but my mother in law and grandmother LOVE it, its one of those weird family traditions that will not carry on through the generations.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

here is my mother in law and babaw opening some of our gifts that we gave them, joben and i made homemade soaps for each of them (and my husband even helped and liked it!) and got them some candles and cute things like that. they loved them.
notice the tim hortons cups? we brought to go cups and tims coffee for a canadian touch to our christmas morning.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

i got jo-ben a really cool canucks freezer mug (we got his dad a North Carolina Panthers freezer mug) so they can have icey cold drinks and watch the games together! i also got joben a shaver that he wanted and i made him a really special crap book of all of this 10 years of treeplanting.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

me in my new christmas presents, my pjs, a new sweater from my mom and dad in law and their sweet little pup monty all cuddled up.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

my new slippers from my husband!

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

my sweet babaw

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

here is a picture of me in my new pjs from my mother in law- they are SO SOFT. i love em. sorry about the no makeup and specs- its christmas morning so thats how it goes!

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T12:06:00.000-08:00

here is a picture of my babaw wearing a nurses cap that my parents in law got her off of ebay, its a real nurses cap from the second world war in which my babaw was a nurse, she was SO suprised and pleased.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

2006-12-25T11:59:00.000-08:00

here is a picture of my mother in law and her mother (babaw) reading cards sent by my brother and sister in law (josh and anya) from bc and mom is opening a gift that they sent too!

a few random pics

2006-12-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

here is a pic of my cute husband and myself and his grandma who we call babaw after church last sunday, the day after we got to North Carolina. also a pic of my parents in-law that day and a pic of my little sister that she sent me of her all dressed up for a christmas party and with new hair which i think its fab. just wanted to share. more pics to come after christmas. also i apologize that i look sedated in that pic of me up there, dont know quite what happened. oh well :) have a lovely christmas eve day!

fun times with family

2006-12-22T18:14:00.000-08:00

we just got home from a fabulous two days away with my in laws. we went to ashville, NC and stayed in a great cottage and spent two days exploring the biltmore estate, its the largest home in north america and was built in the 1800's. its HUGE and BEAUTIFUL...my kinda place. i told joben that he should pay attention and take away some insperation for our future home! click on the link below and chek it out. the website does NOT do it justice. it was amazing, we went on a candel light evening tour with live harpists and a singers and other musicians and a tour of the estate winery and a wine tasting this morning and explored this afternoon. we forgot our didital camera but bought a disposable so as soon as i get the pics developed i will post em. fun times, will post more after christmas... the next few days should be very busy. merry christmas everyone!!! blessings on your holidays. oh ps: we have been having a great time here in North Carolina. i have spent allot of one on one time with my mother in law shopping and gabbing and doing all of that fun mother daughter stuff that we dont get to do regularily... we are liek best friends so its been so needed to be here with her and joben has been glofing with his dad and helping him with projects and we have just been having allot of fun seeing old friends and family and spending some quality time here. hope you are having a great time with the ones you love too!

www.biltmore.com

a christmas down south

2006-12-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

we are in North Carolina for christmas and are very excited, only 9 days to go. we have LOTS on the agenda while we are here visiting my husbands family and i am sure there will be a TON of pics to enjoy very soon. im pretty tired and a little jet lagged so im heading to bed. goodnight bloggers!
oh ps avey i tried to get ahold of you yesterday in hopes of meeting up for lunch or somthing but i couldnt get online and couldnt find your number and appertantly there are alot of mark christiensens in calgary. ughhhhhhh... will have to hook up on our way back through after christmas and before new years.

so sick

2006-12-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

wow, so since my last post which wasnt too long ago i have gotten very sick. i think i have a really nasty flu. i havent been this sick in a long long time, not since i can remember. i have nothing left in my body and i cant even keep water down. i feel very dehydrated, weak and i really hate my bathroom at the moment. this is the first time in the last 24 hours that i have realy been able to sit up without throwing up... not pleasent. please pray for me to get better because the light at the end of the tunnel looks pretty far at the moment. thanks friends. oh also, joben thinks that hes getting it too so pray for him that he doesnt- i wouldnt wish this upon my worst enemy! -amanda

a few more pics!

2006-12-08T00:33:00.000-08:00

THE BARKEY'S NEW CAR!

2006-12-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

here are some pictures we took today of us and our new car, its like our first really
big purchase as a married couple so we are really excited. we totally went out expecially to take pics of us and the car... who does that? "hey babe, lets go have a photo shoot with the car" were nuts. we even scouted out backdrops but there isnt much to choose from in our neighborhood and i was getting impatient. oh well, here is the new car and US! yay.

just life

2006-12-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

(a pic of my new car! woot woot!!!)

so my sister came out to visit us and i didnt get a SINGLE good picture of us. this is the closest one that looks remotly normal and she is probably going to kil me for posting it.
we did so much FUN STUFF> medicine hat isnt exactly the most happenin' place to be but we packed the weekend with fun stuff. ate, drank and were merry.. did normal sister stuff liek starbucks, shopping, movies, etc. drove in my new car, introduced her to our friends, went to moxies (where i work) and ate some more yummy food. had christmas, did the whole presents, appys, dinner, and big christmas breakfast. oh yeah, and we ate. (did allot of that! :)) we had a fun time... at least i did anyways. its going to be fun to go stay with her in van in a month and a bit and SHE can make ME some yummy food and take ME out. yay!
this month is going to be CRAZY. it kicked off with rebecca comming to visit. i go back to work tomorrow (boo) but only for about 10 days (yay!) and then my husband and i head off to the dirty south to visit his family in North Carolina for christmas holidays. i am SO excited. i havent seen his parents and grandma since last christmas and i miss them SOOOOOO much. its going to be a blast and WARM! my man sure deserves it after braving working crazy long hours in this blizzard that we had for the past bit here. when we come back i only have about a week and a bit with him before he heads north to go work his tail off and bring home the real bacon for about three months. i am going to miss him more than i even know now. i already miss him and he is still here. its going to be really hard on both of us but we will get through it. two weeks after he leaves i am going to vancouver for a week for my cousins wedding and to see my family, havent seen my parents since august so im pretty pumped for that, itll be a great distraction. THEN in about a month after that i am either going to go back to vancouver or hopefully to wherever jo-ben is to see him for my birthday in the begining of march. oh! also my hsband has decided to give treeplanting one more hoorah (for the eleventh summer in a row!) and he will be foremaning a crew for the last time for the month of may... i am NOT going to plant or check or do any of that silly bush stuff this summer but i am going to go with him either for part of the month or the whole thing, dont know at this point. i will be camping and making his life easier and maybe helping out the cook or somthing in my more than ample spare time. geesh, what have i gotten myself into with this life?! just kidding, its all a big adventure right?! we are hoping after all of this that we can go on some kind of trip since my husband is going through travelling/surfing withdrawl. i want to go to figi but we will see! hawaii is an option too because we have some good friends who just moved back there (jo-bens university friend and best man and his girlfriend) so yeah, who knows where we will go but the two stipulations are that i must be able to lay out and get a great tan and jo-en must be able to surf till his hearts content. oh! and if that isnt enough stuff we are heading back to North Carolina at the end of august for jo-bens 10 year reunion with his highschool friends. he grew up in peru, SA for almost 20 years and hasnt seen lots of friends from highschool and on the missionary base since he was like 18 and there is a huge ( ha, there were 3 kinds in his grad class and about 20 i think in his bro's the year after... so that constitutes together as huge as far as people getting together from the base) amount of people comming out ... 20 or so, to NC for this combined class reunion. i am SO excited to meet people i hear all of these great jungle stories about and people i havent seen since our wedding and jo-ben is super excited too. its going to be great.
so yeah, our lives are getting turned upsidedown again (and it feels like we just got a min to breathe here!) and this weekend kicked it all off. i will have some interesting bloggs to come for sure so stay tuned.
till next time, im off to bed!

pics of me and my lil sis- just for fun

2006-11-29T14:38:00.000-08:00

A few pics of me and my sis, some from when we were little, a pretty pic of her at my wedding a year and a half ago and one of us treeplanting. i like the treeplanting one because we look SO bad and she looks so miserable!

my little sister is comming to visit!

2006-11-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

i am SO excited that in 24 hours my little sister, rebecca, will be here in medicine hat for a visit!!! i havent seen her since the end of august and she is staying till monday and there is allot on the itinerary! we are having christmas celebarations because jo-ben and i are heading to his family's home of north carolina this year for the holidays so rebeccca is comming out for an early christmas with her brother and sister, we are going to make lots of yummy food and watch our favorite chritmas movies and open gifts (cant wait!!) we are getting a couples massage, going shopping, going to booster juice and star bucks, showing her where i work and where we live and just doing all those fun sister things that you do when you are together. im SO SO SO pumped. there will be many pics posted on tuesday, im charging my camera battery now! plus the snow is easing up around here so the roads are better to drive on so we will be zipping around in our new car! im not sure if i have posted about it or not but jo-ben and i bought a 2005 honday civic si. its awesome and its so nice to have a car that actually WORKS plus looks like a million bucks. (to us anyways!) ill post pics of it soon too. anyways, just had to share my excitement with my blogging world!!! have a fun weekend everyone- i know i will! oh yeah- shes also bringing a suitcase of presents from my mom and dad so that adds to the excitment!!! heehee.

for avey

2006-11-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

amanda and avey @ camp, summer 2000.

OUR HOME IN MEDICINE HAT

2006-11-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

so today i had a day off of work, a WHOLE day to laze around in bed and what do i do? go on a cleaning frenzey (now i know for sure i am not adopted, i AM my mothers daughter... we are different in many ways but shes a cleaning machine and apperantly so am i) well, our house isnt so big so it wasnt that big of a deal but i wish i had before pictures, when we dont have time because of work and life it gets pretty bad. and ladies, do your husbands leave their clothes every where, like seriously we HAVE a hamper... am i the only one out there?! anyways, here are some pics as promised of our little basement suite because its CLEAN! i didnt take any pics of the bedroom because there are still clothes everywhere as per usual so thats not going to change therefore no pics but it is behind the french doors. so yeah, here it is. its not much but its home for now! ps:like our little tv? jo-ben HATES it. he wants the ol 56 incher... im fine with our lil gipper of a tv. :)

just amanda

2006-11-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

No pictured of our new place yet but we are really enjoying the privacy and our king sized bed and everything here. I died my hair and people have been wanting to see it so here is a picture of me and my hair (and i am wearing a touque in this picture NOT a doo-rag or a bandana as my wonderfull sister and husband commented "why are you wearing that weird doo-rag thing?" anyways, here is a picture of me, pics of our house still to come!

2006-11-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

"wow, amanda is actually posting!"

that is probably what you all are thinking after over a month of not posting. well, october was a bad month(needless to say after the lack of postage on this thing!) we moved three times! yep, three. we found a place in september and moved from the hotel that the company was putting us up in to a basement suite on oct 1. well it didnt quite turn out how we thought or were told it would. here is a list of bad things that happened there:

1. over the first few days the land lady who lived upstairs let her little annoying dog run around the whole house and it seemed to find a favorite spot in our living area to pee every day. jo-ben stepped in it and she refused to clean it up for us and it was pretty nightmareish.
2. she decided to raise the rent on us about 4 days after we moved in, what were we sposed to do? say no? we were already there!
3. her mother (grandma) stays there four nights a week to help take the land ladys 7 year old daughter to school every morning, we werent told this initially but her room was right beside ours in the basement suite! not so great for a semi newlywed couple.
4. the 7 year old kid upstairs hates school. big deal your thinking? well that equels her standing at the top of our stairs screaming at 7:45 on the dot every morning, not so great for night owls like myself.
5. we shared a kitchen which i thought i could live with at first but i simply cannot. i LOVE to cook and i really tried to be in the kitchen when they were not but the ONE TIME in a month that we were there that grandma and i happened to be in there together she got so stressed and basicly freaked out at me.
finally 6. one night i came home from work (at moxies, more about that later) and i had worked 3 split shifts in a row (translation: leave the house at 9:30am and get home around 11 pm) and i had two more the next day and the day after and my uniform REAKED. i smelled like garbage as my husband so affectionatly informed me and b.o. so i decided to put my uniform in the wash on the very shortest cycle as to not wake anyone up. also to let you all know the laundry room was in the basement in the right corner of the house and land ladies room was on the top florr on the opposite side of the house. anyways, grandma was still up in her room (beside ours btw!) and as soon as she hears the washing machine she comes scurring into the laundry room and reems me out becuase i was going to wake up her daughter and shes a single mom and i have no repect and so on and so on. at this point i was SO tired from work the past few days and just wanted a clean uniform but i hate confrontation so i just turned the washer off and i told her i would wake up early and turn it on in the morning. THEN after all of that she has the audasity to ask me if im using my own laundry soap!!!! WHAT!? as if i am staying there, paying to stay there by the way, to ruin everybodys lives and steal from them. i was so mad. and to top it all off jo-ben was in calgary (3 hours away) for a class all that week and wasnt comming home for two more days at that point. the kicker was i set my alarm and woke up the next morning to turn on my laundry and it was already on cause grandma turned it on for me. now tell me this, if i was down stairs only a few rooms away from the laundry room and i couldnt hear it and it didnt wake me up how on earth would it have woken her daughter up!?!?! asldfhqwe*#$)(#YIOFNIO3uy54237854ui2enrIO@*$*#()@$!. i was so mad! oh AND THEN! i took my laundry out and i had accidentily put thrown in a new pair of orange underwear and a few other things and because it sat all night long in that hot water it wreaked some of my tank tops!!!! grrrrrrrrrrr.
so when my husband came home a few days later we decided to move which didnt make the land lady happy but we paied her for another month and just left because we couldnt stand it there anymore. we moved all of our stuff to our friends place who are also in the middle of packing and moving (i felt horrible but they are good friends and didnt mind at all, we are really lucky and blessed to have such good people in our lives here!) and a week later we moved into our basement suite which we are in now.

we werent sposed to move in here till the 15th because they wanted to paint but tehy heard our sob story and let us move in (they are our friends parents)
its so great. private enterance. way nicer house. big living/eating area. common room with a pool table. super nice kitchen (all to myself) and HUGE bathroom with clawfoot tub and nice big bedroom with a king sized bed which we love and french doors leading into the living area. its just perfect for us right now.
i am going to be so glad when our townhouse is built and we get it all finalized and buy it cause i really really want a place of our own. no more renting hassles. although this will be a nice place to stay in untill the townhouse is finished because i cant forsee any type of hassles in the future, i think its a great fit for right now.
now, no more moving around for a while!!!
other than that craziness, life has been awesome. here are a few random facts about whats been going on in our lives:

1. i started work at moxies classic grill. i love it, the girls are all great and i am a good server and im making killer tips. last night i averaged 27 dollars an hour with my tips so its a good thing to support my shopping and salon habit. and joben love having someone to call to bring home foood whenever.
2. i died my hair brown. i love it alot, pictures to come when i find my camera, we still havent fully unpacked everything.
3. joben took a class in calgary for his pipline x-raying stuff and he got 97%- top of his class! woot woot! i am SO PROUD OF MY HUSBAND!!! he is really realyl smart so i knew he could do it but we heard that it was an intense course and i wasnt expecting top of the class so i was and am pumped.
4. my sister is comming to visit us!!! i am SO EXCITED. we havent seen any family since august so im very excited....we are most likely not going home to bc for christmas too so we are going to have christmas early together here, its going ot be alot of fun.
5. my parents jsut got back from mexico and celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary i think... i can never remember what year it is. yikes!
and finally 6. we are getting a new vehicle, i think maybe a for explorer sport trec. i think thats what its called. we are looking at a tundra, an f 150 and an explorer. we are albertans now so we need a truck. joben is hunting for one so hopefully he finds a good one!
oh also - as i stated above i painted our whole new place, i never really knew how to paint very well before but my friends mom showed me a bunch of tricks and i turned out to be really good at it. i think the place looks great!

well there are some updates about our lives... i will be posting pics soon... when i dig out my camera ill take pics of our new place and of my hair and hopefully some snow here soon. it snowed near halloween and then we got a chinook and it was nice and warm out but i looved the snow, it was really dry not like in bc so if it wasnt icey you dont need to scrape your windshield it just floats off when you start driving. really pretty snow flurries. well, i am off to make some honeygarlic meatballs for when my man gets home from work. blessings to you all!

living la vida loco.... no seriously, LOCO!

2006-09-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

ok so this is going to be a funny post. most people (on blogs that im looking at anyways) are putting up all of these great pics with their weonderfull blogs of their beautiful homes and decorating and blah blah blah.
WELL,
welcome to MY life.
ill post some pics before i write my blog.

here are some pictures of our disgusting hotel room at the beautiful ramada inn in medicine hat where we have resided for the last two weeks of our lives.
(the hotel is great (nice rooms, pool, breakfast, awesome staff) paid for by jobens new company for the last two weeks which has been really helpfull) the room started out quite nice but we have managed (in our hectic two weeks of joben working min 10 hour days, average 12-16 and me finding places to live, have them fall through, finding more places to live making dinners and lunches and doing laundry and all that wife stuff in that little kitchenette and room and looking for a job and both of us keeping busy at a new church we found here and meeting people, playing vollyball with said people, etc. this room has gotten pretty bad.

i just thought it would be funny to start out this blog with some pics that arent quite so typical.

ive said it once and ill say it again, we live la vida loco.

well about a month ago now we packed up our little blue car and left abbotsford, bc (my beautiful hometown) for calgary, alberta. joben landed a great job doing pipeline x raying which he is going to be jumoing into as a new career and starting up a company with his ex treeplanting boss rod hoel in jan. first though, he has to get a certin amount of hours in (like 300 or somthing) and then take a one week course and take a government test and pay lots of money to the gov.
SO
we found a great company out here in medicine hat and joben has been working for the for the last two weeks....
we spent about a week in calgary at joben's cousin heather's house and had a great time hanging out with them, seeing some barkey uncle and aunts and cousins and spending some time at my favorite place in calgary... the chinook centre mall!!!
it was a good time.
two weeks ago tomorrow we took off from calgary and headed east to medicine hat. joben's new boss put us up in a hotel for two weeks while we got settled and figured out living arangements.
THAT was a nightmare in itself. joben started work the next morning and scince then has only had two days off in two weeks. he is a very hard worker and a trooper and i love him to peices for making this new endevar a reality and working so hard to be the best in this industry and everything. hes awesome. so anyways, that left me to try to find a place to live... we dont have any furnatre since our first year of marraige was basicly a travelling year (we were kinda like gypsies!) we travelled through europe for a few months, visited north carolina three times, spent some time in the fraser valley and also spent some time living in one of our favorite places costa rica for a few months and then went treeplanting again. it was a busy year of travelling and thus we have collected NO furnature or things other than the attic full of wedding gifts that we have accumulated at my parents house. so we were looking for a place that was fully furnished and cheap (cause im a menno, duh!)
SO i found a place (well joben actually did through a guy at the church at drop in basketball the first day we were in medicine hat!) it was small but fully furnished and clean and everything and only like 400 bucks a month for rent and we were pumped... well, a few days later the guy calls back and said his wife rented the same place out to another couple so we were out of luck.
great.
so i franticly started looking again for a place. i found a basement suite this time, again fully furnished, nice landlord, clean and bright for a basement suite. rent was a little higher but we were getting desperate so we decided to take it. i called the guy and he told me to leave it on his voice mail by 8 oclock that night if we wanted it and thats just what i did. so less than 12 hours later the guy calls me and tells me that he rented the suite out to someone else.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
needless to say i was getting kinda stressed. luckily though, after phoning about 30 people i found in the classifieds and viewing about a dozen places over the last two weeks i found a great lady, a single mom with a 7 year old daughter (and the cuttest puppy you have ever met... even joben loves the dog) offered their basemet suite, nice neighborhood, big recroom/ dining area, nice bedroom with huge closets (as you can see from the pics that is very importiant to us!) and very cheep rent. the only problem is is that we have a shared enterance and kitchen and the luandry room is through the recroom downstairs so it is a very shared space but at this point we are only hoping to be there for less than three months and we DONT CARE ANYMORE!!! we are happy to be in a place. it will be really nice when we have a home of our own in a few years... we are definitly deserving of that let me tell you!!!
other than house hunting craziness we have been having a great time here in medicine hat! its too bad that we arent planning on sticking around because there are some GREAT people here. we are getting really invloved with things at a church here, co-ed rec vollyball, drop in basketball (for joben) bible study, haning out with friends. we just had a great dinner pary at a couples place last night. its been really easy to intergrate here so we have been enjoying ourselves and settling in quickly over the last two weeks.
medicine hat is quite beautiful too in its own way, its kinda like kamloops or kelowna, very deserty. and there are these amazing mini vallies that go through the city and brautiful golf courses (ive seen 3 and i havent even been looking!) nice trails and a river that runs through the city.
im planning at this point to return back to bc in december and i will probably stay there while joben goes and works out oftown for a few months from jan-april. i cant go with him because he and his boss are going to be busy developing contacts for their new buiness and stuff (apperantly they are going to be working "37 days a month") yikes. so i will be able to go visit him once or twice but it doesn make sence for me to tag along and never see him anyways so i think im going to hang around vancouver area for a few months. in the spring joben and i are planning on settleing in a bit near three hills, alberta (thats where rod and his fam live and the buisness is going to be based out of)
its been and is going to be another crazy year but its in preperation for a life that is going to be worth it all. and its been a GREAT adventure. im not going to lie, i am practiacly a wanna be marthastewart so i AM very much looking forward to our "5 year plan" of owning property (hopefully in costa rica) and building a house here in alberta and having babies and all that jazz but for now im happy with our crazy life and our messy hotel room.
we are moving tomorrow and after settling in i can really look for a job hardcore (long days without joben around to play with get pretty boring!) ill post more interesting pics as they come and blog more next week!
i hope all is well on your side of the computer screen!

1 year later...

2006-09-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

this is a picture of joben and i in whistler on august 20th... i look kinda goofy in it but joben looks HOT so i had to post it, i really lost hot points on this one. joben 1- amanda 0 oh well! this weekend was so great. happy anniversary to us!

mmmmm some spicy hot chocolate and a good book on a cold calgary afternoon

2006-09-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

so im on a cooking frenzey, i made this really good hot chocolate tonight... 2 cups milk, 1/4 cup chocolate chips, a splash of pure vanilla extact and a little sugar AND a dash of cyanne pepper, i know it sounds weird but it tasted really good, not really noticable but made the hot chocolate a little spicy as it was trickling down my throat. yum. anyways, you should try it next time you make hot chocolate but just to warn you it wont be as good as mine. oh yeah, i put a cinnomon stick in the cup and topped it off with homeade whipped cream and white chocolate shavings.
i talked to my mom today and she was sitting outside with my aunts and uncles bbqing in the back yard in abbotsford.... grrrrrrrrr. oh well, i sipped on my hot drink and finished my book.

snow? in the middle of september?!

2006-09-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

most of my friends who read this thing live in beautiful bc... just so you know how lucky you are, yesterday it was 3 degrees here in calgary and there were snow flurries all afternoon. i went out to get a dvd and i had to wear my snowboarding jacket! uhhhhhhh thats not how september is sposed to be! at least not in amanda's world. oh well, at least i got to wear my new jacket!

breakfast for dinner... yummy!

2006-09-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

wow, so i just made the best fritatta ever. if you dont know what a fritatta is, its basicly like an egg pie spanish omlette thingy. i usually dont like them cause there is too much egg and not enough stuff and i dont bake it long enough and its gooey eggy in the center but this time it turned out great. there were tons of veggies and stuff in it and joben still even liked it! in case you are longing to be inspired to make a fritatta of your own heres what i did: 9 i modified a recipie i found on foodnetwork.ca...

first i put some butter and chopped onions, one shredded potatoe and two cloves of garlic in the pan to saute for about 3-4 mins.
next i threw in some chopped brocoli florettes, sliced mushrooms and finely shredded/sliced leftover chicken breast into the pan to saute with the onion-potatoe mixture for another couple of mins.
meanwhile i scrambled 8 eggs and threw in some cyanne pepper, parsley flakes, cumin and salt and fresh ground pepper in too.
next i dumped in the egg mixture and turned the heat down to low.
i let the fritatta set for about 5 mins and then put it into a 375 degree oven for about 5 mins... half way through i pulled it out and crumbled some goat cheese and sprinkled some shredded chedder and sprinkled some sliced green onions over top.
after the fritatta was nice and firm i put it on broil for 1 min to make the cheeses really mealty and bubbly.

i served this fritatta with belgium waffles with strawberry sauce and apple chedder biscuits for dinner and my husband loved it....
he might have thought it was SO great because he was watching a ncaa football game on tv while he ate his dinner and sports makes him pretty euphoric but who knows... i think it was the good food.

anyways, i havent cooked for a while so it was great to make a special breakfast for dinner meal but now i have a pile of dishes to do so i gotta go!

oh! we are moving to medicine hat tomorrow... jobens company is housing us at the ramada in madicine hat while he is traning. its going to be weird living in a hotel for the next couple of months but hey! its paid for by the company and the hotel is nicer than i expected we would be put up in... there is a nice pool and exercise room and everything so im pretty pumped. ill put up some pics of our "new place" soon. hahaha, yeah right. i WILL post a pic of my fritatta though cause its totally awesome.

change in plans...

2006-09-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

...we are moving to medicine hat... for now. oh my crazy life.

a good day

2006-09-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

well today was an eventfull day!
Jo-Ben and i headed to brooks, alberta early this morning from his cousin heather's house. its about a two hour drive from calgary. it turned out that brooks wasnt as dumpy as we htought it would be... it was actually really nice, bute houses, tree lined streets and everything. we thought it was going to be this town full of rig pigs as they call them which i am sure it is but there also seemed to be some nice families there too. anyways, joben had his interveiw with his new boss there and it went really really well. he offered him the job and is paying him two dollars more than we originally thoguht he would AND he is paying for our living arangements in med hat while we are there for jobens work experience. we are pretty pumped for both of those things. what a blessing it is for me expecially because while joben is doing this pipeline stuff this year we are planning on putting all the money he makes aside so we can save for an investment (either in costa rica or a home here in alberta) and live on what i make so it takes the preassure off that we are going to be living rent free... all i have to worry about is getting food on the table which shouldnt be too hard. this also gives me the freedom to do somthing i want to do insted of working in a resteraunt because they tips are good or somthing i can go and try my hand at doing what i love- working in a spa! yay for me!
so today started out being a graet day and kept getting better and better. we came back to calgary in the early afternoon and hung out with joben's friend ryan shantz(from trinity and treeplanting)hes awesome. we cheacked out his house and took a ride in his new jetta. SO nice, i originally wanted a golf as our next car but i think i really like this jetta we drove in today. BRAND new, super comfy... kinda felt like a town car or somthing from the back. anyways, we went down to the river that runs through calgary and grabbed a booster juice and had a long walk through a beautiful park along the river. it was good times. then we went back to ryan's place and ordered some pizza and hung out. it was relaly nice to see him again.
so yeah, great day. seems like this new adventure is on a good roll. we are really excited and totally appreciate any prayer thats being given up for us... we are excited but still nervous. :)
sorry i dont have any pics from today, i left the camera in the car... maybe tomorrow.
hope you are all having a good day too!

quiz

2006-09-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

here is a link for a quiz i made... its pretty lame but if you are bored & have nothing to do then you might as well be bored figuring out how much you know about lil ol me!

http://www03.quizyourfriends.com/takequiz.php?quizname=060910225721-379127

PICTURES

2006-09-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

this is the chateau in three valley gap that i want to go and stay at, saw it driving to calgary yesterday.

this is one of the tree houses that they have at this place called the enchanted forest, some kitchy tourist attraction that i want to go to near the chateau.

wishing for moraccan tea and details about our road trip to calgary

2006-09-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

so this morning i woke up with a HUGE craving for mint tea but not any mint tea... when joben and i were on our honeymoon in europe we spent 10 days in belgium visiting friends and while we were there our friend vincient took us out for coffe (they call it coffee che which just means little coffee... they actually add che to alot of things i guess its like slang like they called me amanda che.) anyways, our friends in belgium drink coffee all day (a perfect life for little miss amanda... i LOVE coffee) when we were out with vincient this one time he told me to order this mint tea because this place made it the best so i got it and i have never had a better glas of tea EVER. this morning i woke up craving it and i am just wondering if anyone knows anywhere in calgary or vancouver that serves this tea because i need it! i have discoverd its moraccan mint tea and apperantly they drink it all the time in moracco... guess ill just have to go there! j/k but here are a few pics that i found on the internet to show you what it was like. amazing.

the tea itself was served in a pot like the one in the picture and it was brigt green like the stuff in the glasses. it was served in a glass with tons of mint sprigs in it with sugar on the side and when i had it there was another pot kid of like the silver tea pot but it was really tall and skinnier than the tea pot and it had pure jasmine in it and i was told to put a few drops in my tea. anyways, it was amazing and i was just curious if anywone knew of any coffee shops or perhaps moroccan resturaunts that served this wonderfull drink!

oh also- we are safe and sound in calgary. we are staying at joben's cousin heather's house. joben was really excited to get here to insted of waiting till saturday morning to leave joben and i left around 3 am on friday... i guess that IS saturday morning. anyways, i slept till salmon arm and then we switched and then switched again in golden. saw some AMAZING sights when i was driving and joben was sleeping. the drive between salmon arm and revelstoke is so fun. there are alot of things to see and do around there and a chateau on this lake that i am dying to stay at. i didnt take any pics cause i was driving but i found some on the internet. i guess it was when i was driving through rogers pass. the chateau is located at three valley gap.
well i tried to upload the pics i found but they arent working, i will try again later. about 2 k away from the chateau there is this place called the enchanted forest which is this cute whimsical place with bc's tallest treehouse that looked pretty cool and a suspention bridge AND (my sister will love this cause shes a big geek like me!) MINERATURE LAND! oooooooooo. hahahha it looked like a funny dutch commune or somthing but looks like it would be funny to go see. im trying to hook joben on going to stay at the chateau with me and seeing all of these kitchy things with this hummer wilderness tour that they offer around there! haha, anyways, i think next time we drive to bc we will go through here and stay, looks like there is alot to see and do.

we are off to alberta!!!

2006-09-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

tomorrow morning we are leaving for alberta and i dont know when we will be back! i have mixed feelings about this move, dont get me wrong... i am SUPER excited or this new oppertunity that we have been blessed with but i am also sad... its going to be an exciting adventure but i am sure going to miss our friends and family out here in bc. im going to miss alot of other things about here too... (but NOT the rain and grey days, thats FOR SURE!) anyways, keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we make this transition... we are slowly moving there semi-permenantly so ill keep you all posted on how things go! here is a pcture of one of the things i will miss the most... i stole it from my friend stephen hubbards daily photo blog, you should check it out... hes the first one on my links! have a good day friends!
ok... i lied, that picture isnt working out so well but you should still go and see his blog, but im going to post another pic...

ahhhhhhhh one of my favorite things, i love driving down the number 1 and seeing this majestic beauty come up over the hill.... goodbye, so long.

the trooth about ahmanduh's spelling non-abiliteees

2006-09-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

just wanted to post that my husband has informed me that im a bad speller. for all of those out there who read my blog- SORRY! but im pretty lazy (i dont even use capitals on this thing!) and i dont think i can spellcheck on blogs so the conclusion of this post is: my spelling is bad, deal with it.

our day... saying goodbye for now

2006-09-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

my beautiful cousin jessica and i... sorry about the red eye!

not too much to blog about, we just got home from hanging out with my cousin jessica and her fiance adam for the last time in a long time and we dont know when we are going to be able to see them next so thats sad... im going to miss her tons. also tonight we went to my parents house for a bbq with some family and my cousins were there with their son benjamin. he is ADORABLE and i took some pics of him so ill post those! joben and i leave saturday for alberta. we are staying with his cousins for a couple of days and then figuring out living arangments where he is going to be working for a few months. this year is pretty crazy because his job is taking him all over the place... three months here and a couple there so im just kinda following him around but we are hoping that things go smoothly and go by quickly this year so that this time next year he is settled into his job and doesnt have to do anymore schooling and we can finally find a more permanent place to settle down, probably near calgary. anyways, im sure there will be lots of fun travel pics after this weekend. goodnight!

this is a picture of my cousins son ben playig with an elephant and making elephant noises... you cant hear him but im sure you can imagine, super cute.

i tried to get a picture with the cute little guy and he is saying cheese but mostly looks scared of me!... he really does like me though cause i got him some juice... i know how its done.

apperantly i look like...

2006-09-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

saw this on some other blogs and thought it would be fun to try! results- super funny.

ooooOOOOOooooo my husband looks like BRAD PITT! hahaha... another one that came up was ralph nadder but i decided not to include him. Jo-Ben's matches were all very different looking.

i thought this was funny... i just put in another pic of myself with totally different hair and a different expresion on my face and everything and got TOTALLY different results, weird.

a mouse and our dear kitty wormwood

2006-09-04T21:39:00.000-07:00

so my brother and sister in law have a cat named wormwood (i wanted to name him sara jessica parker but that didnt fly by my brother in law) anyways, in recent months my brother and sister in law have developed a mouse or i should say mice problem (mice being plural?) and it turns out wormwood isnt fufilling his cat duties... he mostly likes to look at them, they are cute but we prefer them outside. here are some pics to prove wormwood SHOULD in fact be named sjp because he is no man cat.

yoeys wedding!

2006-09-04T00:06:00.000-07:00

our very good friend jonathan (aka:yoey) & not to mention jobens most prized planter got married yesterday. it was a beautiful ceremony, i am in awe of how much that couple honnored god in their ceremony i mean, isnt that what getting married is all about? it was such a blessing to be there and a very special day. we love you yoey and robyn! here is a picture of yoey, myself and my husband... i planted with yoey when i was a rookie and he worked for joben for 4 years!

my life as i know it

2006-09-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

well, since i check out other people's bloggs just about everyday like an obsessed blogg stalker, i figured i should start one of my own. i have tried (quite unsucsessfuly) to start a blogg of my very own THREE times now. the first time i forgot my user name AND password and couldn't for the life of me retrieve it, the second time i started this blogg, wrote out my first blogg entry and tried posting pictures on it and managed to erase the whole blogg entry entirely which got me SUPER frustrated so here we are... hopefully the old saying of third times the charm is true because i REALLY want this to work.

WELL

i should pobably begin this new endevar with a run down on this past year of mine.

about a year and two weeks ago from this very day my wonderful husband and i got married. we had a gorgeous outdoor wedding in my hometown of Abbotsford, BC and it
was all i could have ever dreamed of.

my amazing husband planned a suprise honeymoon for me and it wasnt a typical affair. he took me on a two month trip through europe. i guess if i really do think about it it is typical of him because he has travelled to over 30 countries but it doesnt seem very typical of most people to me. we went EVERYWHERE. we started out our adventure in london for a week, flew to barcelona and off to the island of ibiza in the medateranian for 12 days at an all-inclusive resort there, headed to the south of france for a few days after that and then to switzerland. after a night in the alps we spent a few days in paris, 10 days in belgium and then a whirlwind trip through amsterdam, prauge, germany, austria and part of italy, back to london for a few days and then a night in denamark before heading home. i know! its alot to take in even just to read. those two months flew by!

we spent the winter in our cute suite in maple ridge. we had a great time (other than joben breaking his foot playing soccer!) hanging out with friends and family, spending time in our hot tub, watching way to much csi and eating the best homemade pizza you have ever tasted (we became homemade pizza perfectionists) oh, also we had a blast babysitting our favorite cat and dog, minu and jackson.

we flew down to jobens parents place in north carolina for holidays with the WHOLE family (there are alot of us!) and then made it back up to canada for christmas with my family (there are alot of us too!).

in february we decided to go back to costa rica (we travelled for a few months and got engaged in central america over the winter the year before) we absolutly LOVE costa rica. its an amazing place and we are looking forward to investing in property down there one day really soon and spending alot more time there.

after we came back to the lower main land from central america we headed straight up to northern bc for another eventful summer of tree planting in canadas great north. (well actually we were in the south alot, we were lucky enough to have contracts in the okanogan and calgary) it was an interesting summer to say the least. we worked for a new company this year (after jo-ben spent 9 years with his last company... this was my second season out in the bush) and it had its ups and downs. all in all we made money and that is what we go out there for and we also came to a realization that this might be the end for us as far as the great world of planting goes.

jo-ben was offered a terrific job by his former boss this summer in a new feild and it looks like it is taking us to alberta. we are really excited about this new move and oppertunity and can't wait to get started. i just might be able to put my aesthetics license to some good use too!

its been an amazing last couple of years for me. its increadable how god changes your life around every new bend in the road and sometimes so drasticly! i am SO blessed by god in the life that he has given me and i can't WAIT to see what he has in store for the barkeys around the bend.

hope you enjoy my blogg and i have better luck figuring things out on here so you have new things to read and look at!

1.Jo-Ben and i in the rainforest in Costa Rica Jan, 2005 a few days after we got engaged, this was on a zip line tour we took.
2.my handsome husband on our wedding day.
3.a picture of me walking down the isle that my husband likes!
4.Jo-Ben and Amanda Barkey August 20, 2005
5.amanda!
6.our first dance. we danced to michael bubles 'it had to be you' and my husband sang along to it to me. replicating probably THE most romantic moment of my life, the first time he told me that he loved me... but that time we were dancing in the rain!
7.on our honeymoon in venice, italy, st. marks square... i was VERY tired in this picture!
8.london!
9this is what we look after a day of tree planting... pretty scarey huh?! summer 2005
10.and here i am a couple of weeks ago when we went wakeboarding at cultas

little miss sunshine

2006-09-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

jo-ben and i went to see the movie little miss sunshine tonight and i would HIGHLY reccomend seeing it, halrious, well acted FABULOUS film. so good. thats all i have to say right now. ... ill try working on a real first post... third times the charm right?