Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Hypnotic

I am considered an administrative assistant here at my work and yesterday we celebrated administrative assistant day!! The company that I work for, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, took us out to the Mayfield Dinner Theatre to see a fashion show and Wayne Lee, a hypnotist and wow was the food good!! (or did he make us believe that it was good?)

I did have a chance to go up on stage and get hypnotized, and part of me really wanted to, but I decided not to just in case he made me do something that I didn't want to. Although I did try to see if it would work while I sat at my table and he had me for a bit but then due to my strong will power I overcame the enticing relaxation and opened my eyes. Which was probably best because I laughed so hard that tears streamed down my face at the other people and the things that they did. I was a bit skeptical at first as some people seemed to not really be under, but then the most amazing thing happened. He convinced one lady that she was confident and made of steel. He laid her on two bar stools, one under her shoulders and the other under her calves so that she looked like a board face up. Then he stood on her stomach!! It was amazing. I am totally convinced that she was hypnotized. All in all it was a great day. Too bad everyday at work can't be like that.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Our Home

We really do love our home. It's a condo in a four plex so we have our own entrance and backyard,(if a patch of grass and an evergreen count as a backyard). We are away from the street so we don't hear any traffic and we are on the north side of Edmonton. Which is great because it only takes me 20 minutes to get to work. We did some renovations too. First I will give a description of what our place looks like. Entering in through the front door there are two sets of stairs. One goes downstairs to the furnace room on the left under the stairs and then the bathroom straight ahead and on the right is the spare room and the master bedroom. Going up the stairs leads to the closet straight ahead, the laundry/pantry room behind that and then the kitchen on the left with a wall between the living room on the left also. The balcony is off of the living room. I can see it clearly in my head but it might not be that clear to you. When I can I will put some pictures on for all to see. We put a hole in the wall between the kitchen and the living room which really opens the place up. And we painted the wall too. Plus we got verticals for the patio window and new blinds for our bedroom. We plan on doing more, maybe next year. We have vaulted ceilings and new cupboards, fridge and stove which really makes the place look good. The carpets are new too and we are just loving it. We have lots of windows so it is always sunny in the house. The surround sound system in our living room is fabulous and we managed to get a free entertainment unit from friends that are moving to B.C. The BBQ that I won three years ago is finally being put to good use on our balcony. We plan on planting some strawberry plants in the yard as opposed to flowers. The best part of it all is that I finally got a blender and we can make shakes!! Yah for me (us).

Friday, April 22, 2005

Honeymooning in Jasper

We had a wonderful honeymoon despite the queen size bed that left us fighting for covers and me getting cranked in the head. Which, by the way, happened again the other night. Except this time I woke up to Geoff rubbing my back and then pulling me over to cuddle. I thought that he just wanted to cuddle (at 3am) but I found out later that he had elbowed me in the back and felt bad about it. You think that this wouldn't happen considering how large our bed is but oh well. C'est la vie!

Back to the honeymoon. Jasper Park Lodge was amazing. In our cabin like room with a deck and a wonderful view of the lake and mountains they took really good care of us. Our room was always clean when we got back, they put our toothbrushes in the face cloth holder that they made, and the tv guy came at 10pm to fix our tv, even though we didn't use the pay movie thing because it was ridiculously over priced!! At the lodge they gave us flip flops to wear in the pool area, towels, lockers, everything we need to clean up afterwards including shaving cream and razors for the guys and razors for the women if needed. They had a machine that would shake all of the water out of the bathing suit so that it would be dry before leaving. The outdoor pool was heated and at night the steam would rise up off the water as we enjoyed the mountain view and the star filled sky. How romantic. The main lodge had a fireplace with a man playing the piano. We sat up there for an evening enjoying being waited on hand and foot. We had fun going everywhere in our pj's!!

Well those were our nights but what did we do during the day? SNOWBOARDING!! Who would have guessed that I would go snowboarding on my honeymoon? High risk of bodily injuries, mountain heights, and risk of avalanches. But I had a great time. The first day I snowboarded for about 3 hours and felt pretty comfortable. Comfortable enough for Geoff to convince me to go to a higher point on the mountain. After walking for 15 minutes to get to the lift that would bring me higher because it was too flat for me to get any speed snowboarding after the steep slope that I went down on my butt because I was too scared to go any faster, I made it to the top of the mountain. By that time, I was exhausted and my boots had loosened up and well it was hard to keep control while my calves and ankles were burning in pain and to top it all off, the runs were closing. What a blessing in disguise. The ski guy who told us the runs were closing called the ski-doo guy and gave me a ride to our car while Geoff enjoyed a leisurely snowboard down the mountain with no one in his way.

The second day it started to snow which made it very interesting for me. With more snow on the mountain I had to lift my edges higher so as not to wipe out. I forgot to mention that the day before I caught an edge and landed hard on my back as I slid bumping down the hill. Best wipe out of the day!! Anyway, so I'm on my bum for a bit again as the slope is too steep. Then I snow board down and wow are my legs tired. With all of the fresh powder I told Geoff that I would be more than happy to sit at the chateau while he went on the runs that he enjoys. He's such a great guy having spent the entire time the day before with me going down all of the green runs. So I sat outside on a bench at the chateau and soaked up the sun while I watched Geoff on a double black diamond jump off of a cliff and dodge trees as he snowboarded back down. Talk about extreme snowboarding!! I sat the rest of the afternoon while Geoff enjoyed the hard runs.

The third day brings 23cm of fresh snow!! and us up at 730am so that we (Geoff) can be the first ones on the mountain. We have a brilliant idea, I am going to rent skis and what a relief that is. Don't get me wrong, I love snowboarding. I'm just not very good at it. But with my skis, look at me go, swosh, swosh on the fresh powder, side to side, it's great. Didn't fall once, more control, less pain, always looking down hill, fantastic. Geoff does all of the extreme runs again and it's a great day.

The fourth day we go for a nature hike along the river where Geoff happens to mention that this is bear country and as I try to convince him that we should leave, he says that he's just joking. Ha Ha. Later I find out that there really are bears there and well, that's not good. We head off for our home reminiscing about our wonderful honeymoon all the way.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Still in Edit Mode

Unfortunately I am not finding it easy to figure out how to put my pictures on this blog site so for now I will continue to just post until I figure it out. Any suggestions are welcome or a whole course on how to do this would be great as I suck at things with computers. You would think as a University Graduate that I would indeed know these things but most of the at the time useless information that I learned hit the toilet bowl and was flushed away right after the final exam.

As for married life, it's been 3 weeks now and things are great except for the whole sleeping in the same bed part. I knew that this would be an issue so we bought a king size bed. We don't have to worry about fighting for covers or space on the bed. But my goodness, it is hard to get a good night's sleep. I wake up to go to the bathroom at least twice a night because for one, I usually wake up once to go, and two, since I am a light sleeper I wake up everytime I feel the slightest need to go! It is quite frustrating. Geoff finds it hard too to sleep because he doesn't want to hit me. On our honeymoon, we were in a queen size bed and now we appreciate our king even more, Geoff managed to crank me in the head with his elbow one night. I don't remember but I do know that I slept really well that night. I guess a blow to the head will do that. I'm sure that all married couples go through this stage until they are more comfortable and used to having someone there in bed with them. I would like to know though, how long this takes!

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Good Day

So, I have just recently signed up for this blog. I have read others and I enjoy hearing how their lives are going. I am now a part of a family. Geoff and Colleen Salter. It has been really wonderful and I would like to be able to share our experiences as a family with other family members that live outside of Edmonton. For now, I just want to see if my site works. :)