Our Weekend

So this past weekend we went on a little road trip... a surprise trip! My Mom's birthday was on Thursday, so on Friday we went up to surprise her. It was a challenge to keep it a secret but somehow we managed, and it all worked out. When we got there we parked on a neighbor's yard, had my brother come pick us up. We had him park his truck in the shop, got out. He went to get Mom, telling her that he had something for her in the shop and she needed to come look. She comes to the shop, he's telling her to come in a little further. Then when she was past where we were hiding I popped from around the corner and said "Hi Mom". She spun around, her jaw dropped and she's like "ALISE" A huge surprise, but it was awesome!

After surprising Mom, quick popping into the house, we went to the barn to surprise Dad. He was surprised but not nearly as much so as Mom was. He must have been excited though because he called Oma and told her to come and have a look-see who was standing "here". Oma walks in and says, "I already thought so".

Then that evening it was Mom and Oma's birthday (the other Oma). Anyway since most of the family didn't know that we were going to be there, there was a few surprises for several of them. When Oma and Opa came I hid around the corner in the kitchen. Oma came down the hall when I popped around the corner and said Hi. She was so shocked... the first word out of her mouth was "WHAAAAAAAT?!"

So every once in a while I think everyone needs a surprise, since it makes their day!

Having fun with family and friends!

Well this past weekend we went to visit my family, and spent some time with several friends as well. Let me tell you when you have a weekend to visit everyone for some reason there isn't enough hours in a day to get it all done!

Here is what my/our schedule looked like.

Arrive at "home" at 4:30
Eat supper
Go to shower for a friend 7:30 - 8:45ish
Go to cousin's engagement party so I can see my grandparents and aunts and uncles 9:00 - 10:30ish

Saturday:
Get up at 6:00 to go to the Farmer's Market, because I wanted to
9:00 - 11:00 go hang out with some friends for coffee
11:00 -12:30 go hang out at the Mall and do some shopping - score found a top I was looking for, for my BIL's wedding this coming August.
1:00 - Home, eat Lunch
2:30 -3:30 - Go visit my Grandma
4:00 - In town again to pick up my swaps - At my Upline's
4:30 - Meet friend so she can show me her house - They hope to get married the end of this month and are building a house

So as you can see way to much, at least Sunday was spent with my family just relaxing and attending church.

Anyway, now that you've seen what my crazy schedule was like here are some pictures :)

Millet Meeting - Stampin' UP!

I know I don't post about my Stampin' Up! life very often anymore.. it has kinda taken the back burner for a while, especially since I have gotten married. I kept telling myself that it wouldn't etc. but it has... two Saturdays ago when I was in Alberta I attended an event from the WeCANStamp group in Millet and am now feeling re-energized and totally need to get my act together now! So my game plan is to make sure I get business cards printed off.. and carry Mini Catalogue's around with me everywhere I go, bringing it up in conversations with people I meet/know and hopefully booking my first few workshops here in the U.S. :)

Anyway that is my little blurb on that.. and now for some fun pictures from Millet on some of the things I saw/made there!

My Upline: Lisa Althouse, with a designer paper covered Pop Can :)

Sherri with the ribbon wreath we made on her head! :) Mine is currently hanging on my wall in my living room, not really visible but it is there, for lack of a better place to hang it at the moment!

Below is the make n' takes that we did.. cards :)

and then last but not least the little surprise that Lisa my upline had waiting for us on the table when we got to the meeting, an altered Hilroy Notebook! :)

the last make n' take.. a candy wrapper. The die is from the Big Shot :)

So there are some pictures from that!

My Suprise visit!

Well since I couldn't post about this plan on my blog till after the fact it has had to wait :)

I had already been planning for about a month that the perfect chance to go back to AB and surprise my parents was the weekend that Janita and Leanna would come, since we were already planning to go up the next weekend! Either way the day had finally arrived that it was going to happen, trust me a bit of freaking out on my part and hard thinking but I was determined that the plan had to work out! So what did I do? Well that fine Tuesday morning as we were getting ready to walk out the door I took my home phone and made a quick call to my mom to let her know that Janita & Willard were leaving right about now. Turns out I got Brittany on the phone so I told her to tell mom what I just said. LOL :) Hoping that mom wouldn't decided halfway through the day that she needed to call me to find out what I was doing etc.

Well so anyway since a ton of crazy/funny things happend I'm going to have to write about them all because it isn't every day that a trip like this happens anymore either! So as we were leaving Willard decided that while he was putting things in the car that he was going to put his coffee mug on the roof of the car. Smart move or what? Anyway so since I was in the car before he was I just assumed that he would have taken it in with him. Turns out we found out differently in a big hurry. First little bit was alright, but as soon as I started to pick up some speed tada there went someones coffee all over the back of the car and onto the road... Janita was having a fit LOL, because it was her souvenier coffee mug from Heritage Park or something. Me: well I was like hey no biggy.. turn around and go get it again :) Willard hops out and grabs it, jumps back in the car.. drive around the block and away we go.

At least we thought away we go... we still had to get some fuel and stop by the Best Western to get mom's curling iron which she had forgotten when they were here in Sunnyside a few weeks earlier.. But first of all the story behind our stop for fuel. So Janita is busy fueling up.. and I was driving. I know the car, because obviously it used to be mine so I had better know the quirks that it has! Anyway so I left the keys in but the door wide open because I knew that if I shut the door the keys might get locked in... umm well that was all fine and well till Janita shuts the door as I tell her she had better not because if she does the keys will be locked in. (car seems to like doing that to you when it is really inconvenient)... ugh ugh and ugh.. spare is locked in the car now too.. hmmm dumb move but hey it happens to the best of us at times! So I run into the convenience store to ask if I can borrow their phone.. while I'm talking to the lady.. Janita walks in.. hey don't bother.. the passenger door was unlocked.. phew!! I could have know this would be the case because for some odd reason the drivers door will automatically lock but the other doors don't umm yup really really weird! So on we go.. quick stop in at the BW.. and then hit the road!

It was quite the day! Anyway.. so I drove most of the trip.. and by the time we hit Cranbrook I decided no stopping at Timmies because we had gotten stuck in construction and then we had finally passed a semi, that we would end up being behind if we stopped.. and I know how un-cool that is on the stretch from Cranbrook to Fernie so I guess no coffee for me :( So we get to Fernie.. and what would you know that annoying semi driver was speeding so he is right on our tail.. ugh, I guess no timmies for me there either! LOL :) So I kept on driving till the Crowsnest Pass where we quickly switched in a roadside turnout. From there Janita drove to Fort Macleod.. and then Willard drove from there till home.. just so that they could say that they had driven. When Janita and I switched I was sitting in the front..taking picture, what else would I do LOL :) Then when we got to F.M. I switched with Willard and went to sit in the back of the car so that when we drove up at "home" they wouldn't see that they had an extra person in the car!

So we pull up at home.. and I have Willard drive up to the shop so that I can get out and not have anyone see me in the house! Someone, namely Evert happened to be walking across the yard at the same time that we drove up but hey whatever.. Anyway so he gets around the corner and can't see me so I hop out and run around the corner.. haha he looks at me and gets this huge grin on his face LOL :D Then I stood in the garage and chat with him for a couple secs and I can't stand it anymore I have to go into the house and see what happens. (side note: Janita and Willard were really bummed that I didn't wait for them to be inside so they could see/hear the reaction)

I come into the house through the back hall.. and I say: "Hey Mom" she says: "what?" then I walked around the corner and she could see me.. and her jaw dropped... (haha) and she says: "what are you doing here?" bahahaha Mom.. that is a nice way to say hi to your daughter LOL :).. all in all SUCCESS!!! Anyway then I looked at my little brother Joel and I think I shocked him that most LOL, because he wasn't saying anything and just looked and looked at me.. so I go up to him and ask him if he wanted a hug.... yup he did.. so I give him one.. then he says "where's John?" LOL... so apparently it was all wrong that I showed up without John. Since normally he is used to seeing us there together first and then I stay behind... haha

Oh well that is the story of my surprise visit! :)

Alberta Pics

So finally some pics.. it has taken me forever because I kept getting frusturated as I was trying to upload the pictures.. I couldn't seem to get them all uploaded the way I wanted and if I did then somehow I messed up and deleted half the post.. so that became work for another day. Which has become tonight, I've been relaxing on the couch just looking at photographers websites and decided that I totally needed to get my pictures up here :)

So first of all.. I couldn't believe it, but John decided that he was going to go outside and help my dad and brothers do some work. Quite truthfully I really think he was bored and just wanted to do something. So there he was bedding corrals.. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that LOL.. so I ran out there and carefully snapped some pics while he wasn't looking. It was a little bit of a challenge since the cows didn't really want to cooperate with me.. they started moving around and every time they would get in front of where John was standing. Finally I got a picture that turned out, and here it is!

Of course I can't resist taking pictures of my cute little brothers either. They were playing Dog, and obviously as you can see here Nathan was the puppy and Joel has to give him something to drink. The only problem with this puppy was that he kept getting out of his dog house!! oh oh.. and then Joel would come running to me again.. Lise the puppy is out of his pen and won't go in.. HELP ME! LOL.. so what did I do.. help him of course.. finally I told Nathan that he had to stay in because I could get up every two seconds to help Joel. LOL :) Good times.. it was so fun to see them playing like that! I love my little brothers to pieces!! :)

Well as you can see my hubby's helpfulness didn't end at bedding corrals... Milking time came along and Jared convinced John to go out to the barn with him and Evert to milk. Worth another picture?? Of course LOL.. the surprises just kept on coming! I couldn't believe it. This time he did notice though.. it is pretty hard not to after all since there is only one opening into the milking parlour.. :)  The only part that his wife was quite horrified at was that he was wearing his brand new button up shirt in the barn milking.. :O Later I told him.. what would you have done if you had gotten manure on it.. umm he didn't know.. I told him well he would have wrecked his shirt.. cause try to get that stain out of it.. LOL.. His answer?? Well it didn't happen so what did it matter. Typical!

Willard and Joel.. Story time :)

Of course where else did you expect to see this Canadian Girl!!! Tim Hortons not?!? yuppers.. I had to have my second dose since being in Canada.. the first one happened at the first timmies as soon as we were in the airport before we went "home" on New Years morning.. bright and early! This is on the day that I did a photoshoot of Leanna. Yes pictures are coming up of that as well! :)

Finally another picture of my favorite little boys!  I sewed "half" (or more, since it is debatable that way) of their pajama's and they were both so happy. I did everything on them but the binding. Which I would have done if the last Saturday there hadn't been so hectic! It seemed like I ran from the one place to the next all afternoon. Totally worth it though since I saw a bunch of my friends and finally got some catching up in! Good times! :)

Alberta

Well, sitting in my parents' home in Alberta definitely brings back memories as well as feeling like it so isn't home, and I shouldn't be living here even if it is only for a week! So far things have gone well, even though there has been some hard times in between, like Saturday, the day of Opa's funeral. At the same time it has been nice to see most of the family, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. and some of my friends!

So for the most part this week I've been finding something to do, or somewhere to go everyday. On Monday I stopped in to see two friends in the morning and had a nice quick catch up visit with them. Then at night we went to John's aunt & uncle to visit for a bit. On Tuesday we popped in to see Oma before we brought John to the airport and Opa & Oma Slingerland stopped in at the rents' place to see us, and then off to the airport we went!

From the sounds of things and from what John experienced the airport security is so not fun right now!! Ugh that is actually the part that is going to drive me crazy... I'm not worried about getting through or anything, just the fact that he said it took him about an hour to get through is insane... I'm just going to have to hope for the best! The fact that you can't have carry on into the U.S. is crazy though! So now I have to get a bag to put the laptop in and I'm going to have to carry my camera around my neck by the shoulder strap. :(
Slightly annoying but what can I do... such is the way it goes.. I just hope that I get everything into my bag and I guess if not.. well then I leave some behind and get it next time again! LOL :) For the rest he had no delays and made it home safely! :)

Anyway so then Tuesday night mom and all us girls were sitting in the living room busy crochetting, or actually I should say that at first I was working on our Family Recipe collection that I'm doing so that I can have all the recipe's that my mom uses, and I really want. I've  been making a scrapbooked recipe book on the Stampin' Up! My Digital Studio, which is a lot of fun!... eventually I got tired of that though so I started crochetting too.. slowly but surely my doily is getting bigger and bigger! Then we kinda got talking and I told mom that I figured the kind of calcium/magnesium that she has from BodyWise works better then the kind that I've been taking since we got married, which is from Nature Sunshine. So she told me that I could buy a pot from her... so OK sure whatever I guess so.. then Dad figured he had a better idea though! He said to me, hey why don't you get out of bed on time tomorrow morning and make Pancakes for me and then you can have the bottle of calcium for doing that! LOL :) I think mom figured I would get out and do it because that was almost to good of a deal to pass up.. whereas Dad figured there was no way that I would get out of bed at that time if I didn't have to. Too me it was too good to be true so guess where I was bright and early yesterday morning!?! In the Kitchen making pancakes!

Wednesday: So my day started with making pancakes. Then after breakfast I folded several baskets full of laundry and at 11 I headed into Lethbridge. First I ran into the quilt shop to see if I could find some fabric for an apron for Katrina(still part of her Christmas gift from me). Which I did find! :) (I think I might actually start on that today! Just cause!)  Then off to find out where Leanna works and go have lunch with her! We decided to walk since she is pretty much downtown anyway and there are choices galore! I told here I had no clue where I wanted to go, so she said there was a new place that she wanted to try out! The Schnitzelhaus..  turns out that it was very yummy!!! We both had a Cordon Bleu Schnitzel with fries... I so wish I had taken a camera along.. just cause it would have been fun! oh well I guess that is partly what happens when you have a huge DSLR and don't feel like dragging it all over the place! There are definitely several changes that I noticed downtown... Now they have a anna banana store, which I can't remember seeing before either, so we decided to go check it out! They have got some really cool furniture in there as well as some very cool kids clothes. The furniture comes with quite the hefty price tag though!! :( ugh.. bummer! LOL especially cause some of it is totally my style.. oh well, I don't have room for it in my house anyway!

Then I headed down to the ADRI where I used to work, since I thought it would be nice to see some of the people that I used to work with again! I still kinda keep in touch with several of them, so I guess that always adds a little more of an incentive to go see them! What was supposed to be a short visit ended up being a bit longer but oh well it happens and it was good to see several of them again! I sure don't miss the dumpy gravel road that I used to drive all the time though!! :) After the visit down there I headed over to visit another friend.. in Coaldale this time! Checked out her house and saw what they had changed after I last saw it.. and then had a nice long visit.... after which is was time to head home.  Definitely been keeping busy eh!?

At night Mom, Dad and I went to visit Oma for a while, and then it was time to get some sleep! I was super tired!!! It didn't help that I had a bit of a headache either... pretty much from being on the go all the time, and also partly from the stress from the last week or so! Finally caught up with me :( Oh well... such is life!