St. Patrick's Day

I know... it's a little late. I really was meaning to update my blog last Saturday, but it was a long day. Here's what I did:

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to meet my coworkers Golta and Kimya, at Starbucks for 7:00 a.m. After grabbing some coffee, we made ourselves comfortable for the drive to Huntsville, we got there around 10:30 a.m. We had a quick detour into Port Sydney and looked at the rapids, Brad's and my first apartment, and the ice fishing huts on Mary Lake. Once we got to Huntsville, we make our way to Rock Ridge to go tobogganing. If you've never been, you HAVE to go!!! Everyone has their own snow tube, and rides up the hill on a pully. Whoever thought of making rides UP the hill was a genius... that's always the worst part about tobogganing. Now that we're at the top of the hill, we pull our tubes together and get a quick spin and go soaring down the hill. The weather was perfect, not too cold, and nice and sunny. We had a blast for 2 hours and then got out of our snow gear and went to Bracebridge for lunch. We had delicious Red Pepper and Basil soup, quiche, salad and a sandwich at Marty's, as well as a complimentary shot of espresso, yum! After writing on the chalkboard wall we did some window shopping, and each of us ended up with a souvenir to take home.

I think we left Bracebridge by 4:30 p.m., we were originally planning on being back home well before now. We passed the time on the car ride back by singing to Kanye, Oasis, and a mixed CD that my Dad put together. Its a good thing Kimya was in the back seat and had all the extra room for her air-guitar, air-drums, and performing as a backup dancer!

The rest of the night I was at home with Brad, Lily and Ella. After the girls were asleep, Brad and I watched Mission Impossible 3... it was alright. Sorry Krista, I know its one of your faves.

Sleep must not have happened until after midnight, because after the movie I started to knit.

So that was last week... and nothing new since then. Golta and Kimya took lots of pictures on our road trip and I'll add them once they are passed along to me.

Holiday's Over, Back to Reality

Christmas has come and gone... New Year's too. I've missed blogging for a while because of the busyness in the last few weeks. We've attended Christmas concerts (Lily's and my cousin Christy at The People's Church), gone to a wedding (my cousin Wesley, and Rachel), 3 family Christmases, Brad just got back last night from a week in St. Louis (Urbana... maybe I'll be able to convince him to blog about it), the girls had a weeks vacation at Grandma and Grandpa Boo's (Brad's parents), and I've been working full time this past week. Busy, busy, busy. While everyone was out of the house, and when I wasn't working, I managed to get to Home Depot with my sister and paint Lily & Ella's room, "Pooh Bear Yellow"... pretty mellow compared to Elliot Gilmore's room, but really brightens up the space, and a million times better than the white it's been since we moved in. I kept the redecorating a secret from Brad and the girls. Lily wants to spend more time in there now, and Ella keeps running back and forth touching the walls, saying "Ohhh!" I was going to tackle our master bedroom too, but there really wasn't time, and I wanted to make sure that Brad would be happy with the colour too. Oh yeah, I'm also half way through a new book, "Banker to the Poor". I actually gave it to Brad for Christmas, but decided to read it first while he was away. Ha ha!

Somewhere among the busyness I was able to visit with my friends Krista and Kim from Calgary. It wasn't much time, but it was a BLAST!!! We made a couple visits to Bagel World, went shopping at the Yorkdale H&M, had a pot luck at Gilmore's in Oshawa with a bunch of old MBCers (thanks for hosting Joan & Derek), did our own version of a gift exchange (check out Jaime's website to find out more & see pictures), had a late dinner at Montana's. Without them, Lily and Ella's room would have never gotten completed either. They are a lot taller than me, and the taped the ceiling/wall for me with ease. There was only one thing that we weren't able to fit into their visit, a trip to Honest Ed's. They've never been, and I thought that it would be fun to stroll the isles for a bit. Next time.

New Year's was fairly uneventful. If you were in the Toronto area, you would know it was raining, pretty hard too. I was working a close shift that night, our manager gave us permission to close early if it was slow, which got us out an hour earlier. I was scheduled to open the next morning, so asked if I could borrow the couch at my Aunt & Uncle's who live right across the street from my work. We visited for a bit, watched the ball drop on the tv and toasted the New Year with some sparkling juice... and then went right to bed.

After work on Jan. 1st, I headed up to my in-laws to pick up the girls. Lily and Ella had a great time!!! I heard all about the tea parties, birthday parties, pajama parties, dress up parties - you get the idea. I know they were busy with the playdoh making all the pretend food for each of these events too. When we got back to our place, Brad was here waiting for us. It's nice being back together again after a week apart... and a lot messier too!

Well, I think that covers everything for now. All the best to you in the year ahead, and good luck with any resolutions you may have made.

BRAD PITT!!!

YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!! I was working my usual shift at Starbucks and in walks BRAD PITT!!!! I'm trying to act cool, like I know what I'm doing. I wait for his order... I can't believe I'm about to make BRAD PITT his drink!!!! He orders a tall white hot chocolate with extra whip cream. I know how to make that... no problem. The extra whip is easy, I'll just put the drink in a larger cup (grande) to make sure there is enough room. Do you think I could find a grande cup?!?! Someone new to the store has completely RUINED the order of the cups, not keeping them in nice stacks of their own kind. So, I'm tearing the place apart, cups are flying everywhere!!! NO GRANDE CUPS!!! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!!! Then, Brad and Lily woke me up, and now I'll never find out.

It's probably all for the best. How embarrassing if that actually happened! I now make sure that there are plenty of cups (especially grande) in order ready for the next customer... and in case Brad Pitt comes in!!! Tee hee :o)

New Starbucks Store

As most of you know, I’ve been working part time at Starbucks since March. I’ve recently moved to a new store (5140 Yonge Street) which opened its doors last Thursday. This is a picture of the Partners at our store.

It has been CRAZY busy on each of my shifts. But we have a hard working team and get along well together. Jessica (the only one not wearing an apron) is our Store Manager, and she’s great. I’ve been travelling out to Markham to work at the other store, so I’m enjoying the quick commute over to Yonge Street.

If you haven’t been to a Starbucks recently, you need to go! My new favourite drink is the “Pomegranate Frappuccino Juice Blend”. It is delicious... and nutritious! Perfect on a hot summer day.

P.S. Joan - Even though I’m not standing in this picture, please believe me when I say that I’m wearing pants! :o)