Our Adventures

So last week we were in Herbert and my brother Roy was home from Thetis Island for Christmas. He had not really seen our new computer much so we had some fun with the webcam. Here's what happened!
Chris

Hello there people, I'm back. Now that I have something to talk about. It just seems that the events in my life are not the most exciting right now but I have a few that have happened lately. This past weekend we got a tree! Our very first Christmas tree. Chris likes to call him Tom, I don't know how a tree can be a boy or a girl but whatever. He was a little frozen the day we got him so we had to let him leaf out and then we decorated sunday morning. The night before we prepared for his arrival by rearranging our bedroom and living room so he wouldn't just be off to the side but actually be part of the room. Here's the result.





In order to make a cozy Christmas room we had to put the desk in our bedroom so we could move our couch around in the living room. I think it turned out pretty good and we still have room to move around. I guess we're pretty good at rearranging.
We bought some ball things and lights a few weekends ago and a little reindeer named rudy, oh and our angel Bobby for the topping. (Nice undies Chris)



This is the finished product, the thing under the tree is our nativity scene that we got from Chris' parents last Christmas. It's a nice little extra touch. A new tradition for me to have a nativity scene under the tree.





Yup, so other than us getting our first Christmas tree and it being beyond cold this past week not much else is new. Yesterday was our 6 month anniversary, it's crazy how fast things have gone since we got married. It seems like much longer than 6 months because of all the things that have happened in between. This weekend we're going out to Herbert because Chris' girls basketball team has a tournament in Swift Current which is only half an hour away. We're pretty excited because Ryan's coming home that weekend from Capes so it'll be good to see him again. I've started my study mode, yesterday was the last day of school so I got to sleep in today instead of waking up at 7am to walk in -25 degree weather. Tomorrow I have a presentation for this research thing I did this semester and then the next day I have an exam worth 50% with only three questions on it. Pretty sketchy, I know. And there's such limited stuff to study for that exam that I'm worried he'll throw something completely unrelated to anything we've talked about. I plan to get notes ready before the weekend for the next exam after that which isn't till next wednesday and then after this weekend I'll just be studying, studying, studying. I borrowed a puzzle from Chris' aunt so that'll be my study break activity. I should probably start our wedding scrapbook too so we'll see. I don't want to get to caught up in that stuff that I don't study...or maybe I do.
Well, that's all for now. Sorry I've been a blogging slacker but so is life. I'll try and do better. Until next time...

Well hello! Chris here. You all have seen the amazing exciting things me and Vicks do on the weekends, and you've seen Vicks vacuuming during the week. Now you get to see where I live during the week and get a glimpse at what I've been doing.
So for the last three months I have been doing my internship for teaching in a tiny, but lovely, little town called Plenty. It has definitly been one of the most awesome things I've done and I'm coming out of it glad I chose to be a teacher. I guess thats pretty good eh? Anyways I guess what I"ll do is show you some pictures and give you some explainations as they go along. So buckle up. Here we go!!!



So here is the school I work at. I teach from grades 9 to 12. The 9's and 10's are my homeroom. It is so fun. This school is just so friendly and easy to work in.








So these are some of my kids when we were doing an experiment in a lab. I love these guys.









These four pics give you an amazing 360 degree view of main street Plenty!





Here are the town office and the church.



and here is my house! So yeah that is my little tour of plenty. Your really did see 90 percent of the town just from those pictures. It has been an amazing time here. The only crappy part is being away from Vicks all week. But hey! Only three weeks to go! So yeah I hope you enjoyed your tour. Talk to you all soon.
Chris

Well, not much new has happened this week. I had to shovel snow again but not as much as the week before so that was a little easier. This week was filled with essays and I still have one due on tuesday, it's not over yet. Only two more weeks of real school and then time to study it up for exams. This weekend was a very relaxing one. I didn't do too much homework and we got some good errands done such as a car wash, groceries, and christmas ornaments for our very first christmas tree which we will hopefully get as soon as they're available somewhere. Don't know exactly where we'll be putting it but we'll find a spot. Yesterday we did all these errands after Chris' dad who was in town for the day, took us out for lunch at fuddruckers for some good burgers. Today we went for a nice long walk across to school where I took some shots of the brick work around campus. Chris wanted to see the football field that is getting all ready for the big national championship next weekend which the Huskies made it to! We unfortunately didn't get any tickets so I guess we won't be freezing our butts off as we watch it. Here's a little sneak peak of our adventure...

Well, I figured it was about time I updated this thing. Although, there's really not much to talk about because all that's been happening lately is writing essays and that can't be too much fun to talk about. This week we got a whack load of snow, over a foot probably. I spent a good two hours shoveling so my car wouldn't be stuck in a frozen pile of snow and shoveled all our walk ways and such, I had a good nap after that. Jo, the lady that lives upstairs gave us a fresh baked loaf of bread the next day for me doing that so that was nice. This is the finished product of my shoveling, well it looked better right after I did it but you get the point. The stuff in the back is our car, the alley and jo's garage, so there you have it.



This weekend we headed out to Lucky Lake for Chris' volleyball team's regional tournament. The top 3 teams of that get to go to provincials. Chris' parents came out and Herbert's volleyball team was there too so at least this time I had people to watch with. Chris' team didn't win any of their games but they came close a few times. It could've been a long day if they made it to the finals so it was sort of nice to be able to leave in daylight. I went on a baking spree today, figured I would stock up on some goods. I made bran muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I also made this really easy jello mousse thing and that is pretty tasty I must say. Yup, I just a little housewife aren't I. Not quite.



We bought a christmas tree stand today because we're hoping to get a little charlie brown tree this year. It'll be nice having a tree to keep my company during the weeks and it'll make me feel like it's Christmas already, can't get much better than that. Tomorrow our big plans are to get the oil changed on our car and to see if we can get a block heater cause I guess cars in BC don't have those and they're quite essential out here if you keep your car outside and need it to start. We'll see, they might be a little too much moolah. Yup and then we're going to watch the big semi-final game, BC versus Saskatchewan. Two years ago we went to that exact match up for the semi-final and of course BC won so we'll see if it happens again. Not much else is going on these days. We'll be able to have longer weekends now with Chris' volleyball being over. I have 4 big essays to write in the next 2 weeks. Christmas break is in 6 weeks but really in 4 weeks because when you don't have classes then it's pretty much Christmas break. We're looking forward to going out to BC and cramming in some good quality time with all our peeps out there. It'll feel like going to Hawaii after being here in the dead of winter. Alright, well I guess that's all I have to say for now. Until next time...

Okay so about two months ago or more I ordered this vacuum from Sears online. We did this because it wasn't in the store and it was back ordered so we thought that by ordering it online it would get here faster. Little did we know that that was far from true...The delivery date was supposed to be October 19th but it was going to be dropped off anywhere between 1-9pm so I had no idea if I would be home in that huge period of time seeing as how I only finished school at 1pm. Anyways, so I called the ordering place and asked if I could just pick it up somewhere instead and she said that she could get it sent to a sears store and that I could get it a couple days later. Okay so that sounded good. I waited 3-4 days like she said and no one had called me so I called her back and the people at the place where I was supposed to pick it up had no idea what I was talking about and had no idea where my vacuum was. To make a long story short it was only today (two weeks after the delivery date) that I finally got this long awaited vacuum after talking to many people who had no idea where it could be or what was happening. I didn't know it was so difficult to deliver a vacuum. I've learned my lesson, I don't think I'll order something like a vacuum online ever again or at least I'll make sure that I'm waiting at home for 8 hours for it to arrive. I'm pleaseed to say that it came in once piece and worked wonderfully to get rid of all the dust and dirt that has been building on our floors for the past two months.

Well, Chris was pretty disappointed in the lack of comments on his post but Jen and April you get major points. He's refusing to write another post now but I think he just needs to accept that sometimes there won't be as many comments and that doesn't make one post any worse than another. I'll get him to learn this one day. You'll see him again. But for now it's me. We had a pretty nice chillaxing weekend. We both had some school stuff to do so our mornings were filled with homework. On Saturday we went on a date with Chris' birthday money from his grandma. First we got to see a cross dresser! Yeah, what a perfect moment for a date. He was even carrying La Senza bags, I don't want to know if they were for him. So after the cross dresser we went for chinese food cause I was craving it and it was swell. It was pretty funny, the bus boy asked us if we wanted more water about 10 times and even when we were getting up and leaving and putting on our jackets he asked if we wanted more water. Does that make sense to anyone? Do you want more water? As we're about to leave. He was really keen on giving water. This is us on our date-o-rama.





When we got home from Chinese we bundled up and went for a walk by the river. We went up to the train bridge, which is a bridge that I walk across to get to school and it has a walking part right beside where the train goes across which is pretty freaky when a train is actually going across. It was a really nice night out. Usually when I walk across during the day it's really windy and that's the killer part about cold weather. It's a pretty nice view up there though.



And the view is especially good with us up there...



After my butt was too cold to be outside we came back and finished the night off with a good ol' game of settlers which I have to admit, I won without hesitation. Hence the loser sign (for him, not me).



So that was our big date night, the highlight of the weekend. Not much else happened. Watched football, did more homework, went to a wetland that I'm doing a research project about having to survey people and such, went to church, bought steak knives and desssert bowls. yup that's about all. 'Twas good. Until next time.

Well, Vicky is making me post my first blog on our blog site because she said she might have to change it's name if I never did any. So here I am. So I guess I'll tell ya'll about our weekend. On Friday I came home from Plenty to a house that smelled real good. Vicks had made beef dip, which is like one of my favorite meals, and I was starving so that was awesome. Then I realized that she had set the table for four so apparently someone was coming over for supper but I had no clue who. I thought it might be Andrew and Janette because she was in town for the weekend but she said no. Then I said it must be Kevin and Alysha and she wouldn't say so then I got thinking it might be someone else but I didn't know who. Anyways, in the end it was Kevin and Alysha which was swell. We had a superb supper, my wife makes a mean beef dip.Then I was surprised because they gave me birthday presents because my birthday is next tuesday. That was pretty cool. I hadn't realized that it was my birthday party. Yup, so I got this i trip thing for my ipod and a new Boston Red Sox hat from Vicks. Kev and Alysha got me a gift certificate to get a cd too so that was swell. After presents we had a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, Seafarers edition. I lost, which is extremely rare I have to say. After that we watched the end of the Riders game which they won! I was impressed with how they actually completed some clutch plays to get the game winning field goal. So that made it all around an awesome evening.



Here we are all eating supper! I think that was the largest meal we have had on our new table so far. It held up pretty good I'd say.



Awwwww. Look at them.



Thats me with my new hat and ipod toy.

So anyways, I think I'm dragging this on. Remember, I'm new at this. On Saturday we went to the town of Davidson because my Girls Volleyball team which I help coach in Plenty had a tournament there. I was so impressed with how our girls played. We were in the semi-finals against the first place team and were just two points away from beating them in the third game. Anyways I was proud of them. I love coaching stuff. It was great that Vicks could come watch too and see a bit of what I do in Plenty. I'm taking Kev's camera out there this week so maybe I'll put a blog up of what life is like out there for ya'll. If you care. After we got back to the city on Saturday we went out to Moxy's with Andrew and Janette, Kev and Alysha, and like a tonne more of A and J's friends. It was sort of an engagement party I guess. It was pretty fun but we didn't get any pictures to show ya'll. Maybe next time we have an engagement party for someone.

Well I guess all that is left is Sunday. It was pretty splendid. It was sort of a miserable day so we didn't get to go on the walk that I wanted to. Instead we went shopping because we had a few things we needed for our house, like a rolling pin, and I was checking out the Gap because Vicky's parents and her dog got me a Gap gift card. I got a shirt, I'll check again some other day for other stuff. When we got home we had a message on our phone to go to my uncle steve's for pizza with the gang, which is what he calls the whole Braun family. So that was fun and they all sang a rousing Braun version of Happy Birthday for me. Between the ping pong with A and J and the bug your neighbor with everyone the afternoon flew by. We stopped by at kev's for a bit to pick up his camera and then went to church. Church was really awesome tonight. The worship and the message just all meshed so well. It was about how we are free from the law and how it is so easy to slip back into looking at our lives based on right and wrong and not just on the fact that Jesus already did it all for us! Anyhoo I loved it. And that brings us to now basically. I need to get to bed because tomorrow is another week and I'm up at 5 to leave for Plenty. Nice talking to all of you.

Well, it's been a while and Chris keeps reminding me that I haven't updated "my" blog, which makes me consider renaming the blog. Anyways, not much has been going on around here these days. A typical day in my world consists of going to school, coming home, doing homework, doing some part-time work for my prof and watching t.v. Although this last week has been somewhat busier as I realize that I have essays and mid terms coming up...yippee.

This past weekend we headed out to the farm for Thanksgiving. It was a good time of relaxation and too much food. The boys had a fun time chasing cows and rechasing cows after they broke out and ran 3 miles back to their moms. That was the big moment of the weekend I guess. It was really nice the last day we were there so we went outside for a bit and I took some action shots of the boys playing football. Here's a little sample...



Kevin was much more photogenic than Chris on the action shots. I only got one good one of Chris because all the rest of them he just caught the ball normally and that's no fun to take a picture of.



Although the boys thought taking action shots was fun, I'd rather play with Jake, one of favorite dogs. I've never had a big dog like Jake before but I really like him, he's so friendly and always wants to play, plus he's really cute. He's quite the character too. He likes to chase balls and sticks but once he gets them he'll never give them up unless you trick him by getting another ball or stick and then he'll drop the one he has to get the new one. Here's some proof of just how cute Jakey is. He deserves two pictures...





A huge thing happened on the weekend that had nothing to do with us but it's exciting. My cousin in law, or chris' cousin got engaged! Andrew is the cousin and Jeanette in the fiancee and they've been dating long distance for who knows how long, ever since they went to Bible School together like 5 years ago. So about 5 years. Jeanette could only say one thing at our wedding..."I can't believe you beat us". Now it's finally her turn, I'm sure she has lots already planned out in her mind for the big day. It was funny how she would just flat out say that she was getting impatient waiting for Andrew to actually propose. This last couple months everyone's been suspicious about when he would do it. He told me that he would make it happen before we up and leave the country next year so I guess he sticks to his word. Here's a pic from their big moment when he visited her in calgary for the weekend. Congrats guys! I can't wait to have another newly married couple in the fam.



well, I guess that's all for now. Hope you've enjoyed my update.

This weekend went by way too quickly. It started with Chris coming home and us hanging out waiting for our friend Carmen from BC to show up at our place cause she was staying there for the night.



Her and Eric (who was Chris' best man) came out for Eric's sister's wedding. We got to spend a little bit of time with them, Chris and Eric took advantage of the waterslides at Eric's hotel and went early morning watersliding before all of us went out for breakfast at Grainfield's. I had crepes, they were good.



After we said our good bye's we spent at least two hours getting a deep freeze we've been planning on buying for about a month. We had to get chris' uncles van and called up chris' bro and his roommate to come help us. The thing is, the van only holds two people so me and kevin's roommate had to follow the van everywhere in our car. Turns out the deep freeze wasn't even that heavy so Chris and I probably could've done it by ourselves. And so that story goes. Now it sits empty in our kitchen just waiting to be filled with all sorts of frozen goodies.



Before we knew it it was sunday and we were out buying a birthday present for chris' littlest bro who's at capernwray thetis island right now, then there was church and then there was hang out time at kevin's place and then pack up time for chris to leave the next morning. I like when the week goes fast but not the weekend. All in all it was a really good weekend but this better not become a trend of the weekend going by fast. That's all I have to say about that.

I saw a strange thing today. I'm not sure if I just don't know funeral traffic etiquette or if this was something that is out of the ordinary. I was walking home from school and this herse with a limo and some other black vehicles slowly drove by with their emergency lights flashing. Then like 30 seconds later two massive buses drove by just as slow with their emergency lights flashing. They were followed by cars, trucks, just random vehicles who were driving just as slow with their lights flashing. I started thinking that all vehicles just normall have their emergency lights flashing but then I realized that it wasn't the case as normal cars started driving by. I just don't know what that was all about, I've never seen something like that. My guess is they were going from the funeral chapel to the gravesite but I've never seen such a long line of cars with flashing lights and two huge buses! I wonder who this person was, they must have been loved a lot.

Well, I don't have very many exciting things to say. See what I mean, all the exciting stuff happened in the month of June. Anyways, the most exciting thing if you can call it that is that Saskatoon had a record high rainfall this past friday. It's not very typical of it to rain here for more than a night but it happened to rain for three straight days here. And it's not like Chilliwack rain where it's still somewhat warm out, it's like 4 degrees with the rain, not too much fun. Supposedly the basement suite we're living in flooded last year from rain so we're happy that it's not happening to us this year. I wore a toque for the first time today, it was kinda sad, only the 18th of september and I'm wearing a toque. Don't get me wrong, I really like toques but when you're not just wearing them for fun in the middle of september then you know that something is going on. If winter comes already it better be over by march, that's all I have to say about that. I think last year it snowed here on April 30th, what's up with that? Anyways, who would've thought I could write a whole blog on the weather, I must really have nothing to say.

I guess those options aren't so bad, except for that old guy who I don't know and the fred dunst guy, he's scary.



Kay I tried a billion pictures and half of them showed up as men being in the top percentile as looking like me. Great. This is the only picture where I think the people sort of look like me and kirsten dunst is the only one that showed up twice from a few pictures I did so I guess I look like her, I don't really see it. Well, that was fun, time for bed.

Here's our first real place. I don't know if it counts as yours if we're just renting but I'll consider it our first place. We moved in here on August 15th and we're pretty happy here, only a few blocks from the river, in a sweet neighbourhood with roads lined with big trees and a nice lady living above us with a british accent. Can't get much better than that. After many stressful searches of dingy places we were totally blessed by getting this place, it sort of just fell into our hands. Funny how things work like that. Take a look at how we're living out in the prairies...

This is our living room, we took a trip out to edmonton one weekend and stocked up on some ikea furniture which perfectly fit into our echo. See Jen, the exact same furniture you picked! The couch is another sweet deal that sort of landed in our hands when we randomly went to value village one day. Stuff in here looks a bit different now, we got some wedding pictures up in there now but this is pretty much the jist of it.

This is our porthole kitchen as we like to call it cause there's this one window on the wall beside the fridge that's about the size of a port hole. It's actually pretty spacey though, there's a nice little open area where the table is at the bottom.

This pic doesn't really do our bedroom justice. Today there's the pic that was under the window in the living room in the first picture on that blank wall on the left in this picture. At the wall at the foot of our bed we have a shelf thing for clothes that don't fit in our tiny closest and two lovely wicker hampers given to us by kev and apes for our wedding.

So that's pretty much our place, I have pics of the bathroom but how exciting can that be? Our bathroom is across this entrance part where there's laundry so that part is sort of weird but it's nice and big so that makes up for it. Hope you enjoyed the tour.