Say Goodnight and Go

Ahh, 2006 is very quickly coming to a close, and what a ride it has been!

Christmas this year was my best yet. The big ticket item was a laptop which will make my work life more easy and my personal life more fun...and portable:) Mike had an idea in the same realm as mine with the feet pictures. So now I am the thrilled owner of 3 black frames with white matting containing 3 of our feet pictures each. I can't wait to finish painting my room so I can hang them. And I finally got one of Mike's coveted mix CD's...it was worth the wait. Christmas contained a lot of family and friends and it was marvelous.

The year in review seems like a bit of a blur but I know that it was amazing. Sure, it started out a little rocky but it's picked up and I now feel that I've sufficiently rocked 2006. Highlights have included: 2 trips to the Island, making it down to Seatt's and The Gorge to see Dave again, fantastic friends, a job I love, adventures way too numerous to account for, bottles of wine too numerous to account for, dear friends getting married (Seann and Elina, Jason and Amanda, and Mike's cousin's Shannon and J.P.), dear friends getting engaged (Karin and David, Natalie and Kurtis), safe arrivals of babies (the little peanut Joshua P., Jericho S., Abbigail H., and a baby boy on the way for Becky and Myron), and (saved the best for last...) my cupcake man Mike. I'm sure I've forgotten oodles of things but that's just what's come to mind right now. Bring on 2007!

So in closing, I leave you with this...

Dance your cares away,
Worries for another day,
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock!

Just one more sleep

I don't have the time to be interesting and witty right now, but if you hang on just a little longer I might be able to manage something. It seems the cupcakes were a success and that couldn't make me more happy because by the time I finished all of them I couldn't wait to see the march of the penguins...right into waiting tummies.

Last weekend was busy, but fantastic. We had a night in with some guac, wine, and a movie. I saw my very first NHL/Canucks game. They wore their vintage uniforms and they looked splendid. And they won! I cannot wait for the other games. We had an impromtu hang out with some severely great folks and their children while dropping off cupcakes. We went to Mike's Grandma's birthday. And lastly, we finished off the weekend seeing some good friends of mine who are in town from Moosejaw and Mike got to play a Wii. Whew!

This week work has been crazy. The crazy actually started last week. There is no way that children should be in school this close to Christmas. They have all mutated into vicious elf-like creatures...you never know when one of them will turn on you. You even have to call the good kids name's at least 3 times before they register the glimmer of a look that tells you they heard you. But there is just 1 more sleep to go before school lets out for Christmas!

Hope your Christmas preparation is going well. May you also have time enough to prepare your heart to receive anew the wonder and awe of our Savior being born. How great the gift of Emmanuel!

Crazy's got nothing on Martha

So my love for cupcakes has been brought out and solidified since me and my Cupcake Man (as some of you call him) got together. The man knows his stuff. So after some proding (thanks Deanna) I decide "I'll make some Christmas cupcakes for the kids I know". Shortly after I'm flipping through a Martha Stewart Kids magazine (I swear it wasn't mine!) and see some adorable cupcakes and I immediately know that they're the ones.

Last night I started on some of the toppers. Yeah, these cupcakes are a multi-part project. They involve almonds made into penguins. I started with 60 and through the process of natural selection-a.k.a. culinary mishaps-the final usable number is 48.

They took roughly 2.5 hours. Children are suppose to make these. Martha is beyond crazy.

I want to stop but I'm in too deep now. You're children will all have fancy cupcakes sometime this weekend.

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

Well, tonight I'm biting the bullet...I'm stepping foot into a mall. It's December 11th and I haven't done one cotton-pickin' speck of Christmas shopping. At this point in the game I like to use the "get in/get out" method. There is no room for just browsing anymore. Those days were left back in summer when you go to the mall for some air-conditioning. Even then you probably headed for a movie instead. I'm a little fearful of the state the mall will be in. And I'm actually just going to help my Mom find a few things. So I'll actually be doing some inadvertant browsing. Either way, this could be the thing that finally breaks the thread my sanity has been hinging on. Probably not, but Christmas shopping conditions can be quite drastic.

This year I've apparently been hard to buy for (so say my parents and a couple of others). I always thought I was generally easy to buy for but now I see that I'm mistaken. The apparent problem lies in the fact that I haven't requested one thing this year. It's not that I'm trying to be difficult, there's just not much that I'm lusting after this year and I truly believe I'll be pleased as punch to receive whatever I get.

It's times like these that I wish I knew exactly what a hot totty was because it sounds like the type of thing you would drink on a blustery night such as this after doing Christmas shopping. Then again, it could be as gross as that other holiday drink that I've heard of, buttered rum. Never had it but was told I never should.

Now the real "I just about pulled my hair out" situation: I've decided that I should actually make some of my Christmas cards. I told myself I wouldn't do this to myself this year but I got a moment of inspiration and I just feel like I have to act on it now. I've also got a package of 'just incase this goes awry' cards that I can pull out in a pinch. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm feeling crafty.

Didg ya know Xavier?

Mike took me to the Xavier Rudd concert last night at The Orpheum and it was amazing. We had a great vantage point of the stage, sitting second row in the dress circle.

The opening act was fantastic. Her name was Ndidi Onukwulu (yeah, I can't pronounce that either...), she sang the blues, and she's originally from Vancouver. She made me believe-with only herself, her guitar player, Madagascar Slim, and her tambourine-that maybe I was watching a show at The Cotton Club back in the day. That girl had soul and confidence that I've rarely seen the likes of. She had us all clapping and singing and snapping (Magnificant M, I think you would have loved her). One of the best parts of the set came when she asked us all to snap and warned the first 5 rows that she could see them. That was followed by, "If you don't snap, I will come and sit on you and sing in your face." At this point some males in the audience let out whoops of joy. She quickly proceeded to, "It will be intense, and you will probably cry." That's what I'm talking 'bout.

Xavier himself was a sight to behold. He played the digeridoo, acoustic 6-string, 12-string, bass, lap guitar, harmonica, ethnic drums, and sang. He had a stand that held 3 digeridoos and a "didg tech" who swaped a new one in a few times. His set-up also included 2 gongs. For a pic of the set-up, hit Mike's blog. He did things that I doubted were humanly possible. At various points he played the didg and each of the guitars, and the didg and drums at the same time. Wow.

At another juncture, a couple of wahoos jumped up on stage and started "dancing" (I use that term loosely folks). Security let this carry on until about another 30 people decided to join them. They all crowded around Xavier and danced like drunken wild animals. A member of security, dressed like a bell hop, worked himself into a frenzy, trying to keep the innocent dancers away from Mr. Rudd while the rest of security held off the other stoners. And the band played on. Xavier's comment after he finished that portion, "It feels beautiful in here, beautiful energy." He was to repeat that phrase several times throughout the show.

His show also involved a rotund aboriginal man in traditional dress and paint, donning a Santa hat and grande Starbucks beverage, along with a beautiful didg. I can't pronounce his name either, but he was hilarious. And some Vancouver children joined him for a song during the encore...too cute.

While walking out of the show Mike said, "Hey! We know those people!" Turned out it was our friends Mike and Christina and their friends Shannon and Cara. Random but so good!

Definately one of the better concerts I've seen.

The LLC and other random events

Yesterday, after a relaxing afternoon of TV watching and napping (ok, only I was falling in and out of sleep) and Timmy Ho's chili, we headed into Vancouver to see our friend (I inherited her from Mike) Holly preform in the Elektra Womens Choir. It was amazing. We hadn't had dinner though and it started at 7:30pm so right before intermission I was food delirious and made a comment that almost sent me into a laughing spazm if I hadn't been biting my lips. One of the choir's co-directors was telling us that they had comissioned So-And-So to arrange a piece involving the childrens choir, the womens choir, the piano, the organ, and the harp...at which point I whisper to Mike "And a monkey wearing spandex". Sheesh! I thought that was quite a tall order so I thought I would just throw something else outrageous into the mix. It was almost our undoing.

Afterwards we needed to get some eats because we were hungry and The Cactus Club was mentioned. I explained in the car that this might be the one my cousin works at. Mike informed Holly and Stephanie that I hadn't seen that cousin since 1998. We arrived and as soon as we walked in I looked to the back and said to Mike "That's him...in the back with the blue shirt". So as we were seated I ducked my head behind the pass-through and said "Kyle!" he came over and I educated him with, "I'm your cousin Lindsey. I'm R and J's oldest daughter." He was a little shocked, but in a good way. He wondered how long it had been and I told him it was when we came to the island for Chirstmas of '98, which he barely remembered. He came to our booth and I introduced him to Mike and our other friends. I got his number and we have plans to get together, now that we're both on the mainland (his family-my Dad's brother and co.-grew up on the island). When the bill came he had given us the staff discount of 50% of our bill (he's the night manager there and just got promoted to day manager starting Wednesday...nice hook-up, eh?). Nice touch cuz! I then informed my table that he was now my favorite cousin. Through out our dinner we had called him my "long-lost cousin" and it got shortened to my LLC.

Thanks to my LLC, I feel extra Christmas-y right now. For various other reasons too, yesterday was one of my favorite Saturdays in recent memory. Bring on that Christmas cheer.