New design is still coming, but I just had to post and say... I got my UK visa! Hooray!!

Well, I don't actually HAVE it, but I got an email from the High Commission, telling me that my application had been approved and that the visa was being issued and would be sent to me by the end of the week. This is very good news! I was starting to psych myself out about it, like I did with the Russian one, imagining all these reasons why they wouldn't let me have it, but they have, and I am now legally able to work in the UK, and it's all good. :-)

Enough for now - new design coming soon!

Argh, another late entry. I swear I will get better at this. The problem at the moment is that we are using wireless internet, 'cause it's free at our new apartment, but the connection is not very good, and I get very impatient whenever I try to do anything on here!

Anyway, Christmas is over and it is now the new year - Happy New Year everybody! I am really looking forward to this year, which is something I haven't said in quite a while. Things are looking really good for my London trip (well, aside from the rejection letter I got from one company I applied to - but that's okay). I am applying for my visa on Thursday, and once that's done, I'll put the down payment on my apartment!

I haven't been all that focused on that though, because it has been Christmas time! I did all the usual pre-Christmas stuff - made my gingerbread house, did some baking, decorated the entire apartment, put up the tree at work (I was actually gonna let someone else do that, but then they asked me, so why not!). We had tons of free food at work, and I had some nice Christmas lunches, including one here at my apartment with my team from work. It was two days after I did their performance reviews, and most of them still came anyway. :-)

Todd and I flew to Edmonton in the evening on the 22nd, and Shanda, Mike, Caleb and Cuddles (the dog) picked me up at the airport. We drove back to Provost that night, arriving around 3:30 a.m., and then I was up early in the morning to go to Saskatoon with my mom to pick up my grandmother and bring her back with us for the holidays. I was a little tired by the end of the day. :-) But it was great to have her there, and we all had a lot of fun. Our Christmas Eve fondue was wonderful, and Christmas morning was really good. Everyone liked what I got them, and I got some lovely things too, like clothes from Mom, perfume from Shanda, and some lovely Venetian drama masks (from Venice) from Lee and Dawnelda.

On Boxing Day we had some more company, and played some games, including the Amazing Race DVD game we bought for Dawnelda (fun!), and then on the 27th I went to Edmonton to pick up Todd, and brought him back to Provost for a few more days. We had some fun wandering the town, and playing Mario Kart at home, and he and Mom and I went to see the Nativity Story movie. On the 29th, it was back to Edmonton, and we spent the 30th with his parents, walking in the river valley in Edmonton, and then my mom joined us for supper at his parents' house. We flew back on the 31st, so we were actually still in the air at midnight, but we had the 1st to recover before getting back to work today.

It was a busy time, but really fun, and I got to spend lots of good quality time with Caleb. He's such a great kid, and he can even say my name now! The downside to going overseas for a while is that I won't get to see him as much....or, my new niece or nephew!! Yup, that's right, I'm going to be an Aunt again, this time for Lee and Dawnelda's baby, due in June. They told us on Christmas Day, and we're all thrilled for them!

Alright, I better try to get some pictures uploaded to go with this entry while I still have a connection. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and all the best in the New Year! Watch for a new design here soon. :-)

My gingerbread house for this year

Our tree with presents beneath it

Todd with his presents from me

Me with my presents from Todd

Tiger wearing a bow tie (he's too cute!!)

My town set up this year

Caleb opening one of his presents

Caleb eating a cookie on Christmas Eve (with his Santa pajamas on)

Caleb and Mom hanging the key on the door for Santa

Caleb with cookies and milk for Santa

My gift to Lee and Dawnelda (I'm including it 'cause it took me forever!!)

Close-up on the cross-stitch

Caleb and I getting bombarded with bubbles from Lee

Once again, there is a long delay in my updates here, but I do have a good excuse this time.

I had to take an unexpected trip home last week as my grandfather passed away suddenly. This was a real blow to our family, as he was such a strong presence, and someone that we all admired and loved. He lived between my mom's house and the city, so we would often stop in on the way to visit. He lived in a house that he had built in 1950, and which is the only really constant home in my life to go home to.

I'm rambling in no real direction because there is just too much to say about him, and a lot of it has been said much better by other people. Nearly our entire extended family came to Killam for the services - my mom, uncle and two aunts, my brothers and sisters, and 9 of my 10 cousins. The funerals were very good - there were two, a Mass at church, and then a community service, where people spoke about him, and the Legion did a tribute, which was the most moving part for all of us, I think. My grandfather was a World War II veteran, he served in the Navy. He was also mayor of his town for 15 years, so most of the people of a certain age in the area knew him, and lots of people attended the funerals.

I spoke at the community service as well. Many years ago, when my grandmother was ill, my grandfather had asked me if I would speak at her funeral on behalf of the grandchildren. Unfortunately, when she did pass away, I was in Quebec, and was unable to go home for the funeral. So it seemed fitting to me that I would speak at his instead. It was hard to do, but I tried to dwell on all the good memories that all of us grandchildren have. I cried a lot while writing it, but when I actually gave it at the service, it went pretty smoothly.

It will still take some time to sink in that he's actually gone. It will be tough at Christmas, since we usually saw him at Christmas time, either for dinner, or a few days later, for his birthday. And it will be very hard on my mom, who saw him regularly, as they only lived just over an hour apart.

Other than that, things around here have been focused on the Christmas season. We put up our tree last weekend and decorated the apartment, and have just come back from some shopping this morning. Next week is the gingerbread house, which, yes, is later than usual, but with everything else going on, I haven't been as organized as I'd like to be. We attended the One of a Kind craft show earlier this week and picked up a few things, but I still have two major gifts to buy, and some small things. I've also got Christmas cards to do, which I haven't even started yet. Yikes!

Things have been busy at work too. I have to do performance reviews for my team for the first time, and it is really hard to try to sum somebody up in a few sentences! I've done the first draft, and my manager has reviewed them, so now I just need to make some changes before actually going over them with my team members.

This coming week we have Todd's work Christmas party, and we will be exchanging gifts on the 9th. Yeah, it's pretty early, but both of us are bad at waiting. :-)

I hope all your holiday preparations are going well! Below are some recent pictures. Only 23 more days!

Me with all my siblings & cousins

Our Christmas tree

This year's ornament, gift-exchanging S'mores!

So, we are all settled in at our new apartment. I haven't written about the move, since it's taken me this long to get over it. It was truly a horrific experience, and we got totally ripped off by the movers, but I guess there's not much we can do about it now. At least it's over, and hopefully we won't have to experience anything like it for a long time to come.

Speaking of bad experiences, Tiger went to the vet yesterday. :-) It was just for a checkup, but he gets so upset, and then they were behind, so we were waiting there for almost an hour before he got to go in. And then they wanted to do some blood work and stuff to see how his kidneys were doing. By the time we got home, he was exhausted, and hardly moved off the bed for the rest of the day. We had friends of Todd's over in the evening (as a thank you for helping us with the early part of the move), and Tiger only came out once, to use the litter box. Poor thing. But he's doing much better this morning.

Anyway, he's doing fine, and has even lost a fair bit of weight - he's down under 14 pounds now! They're going to call me on Monday with the results of the blood test and the urine analysis, but I'm not expecting anything too drastic.

The biggest news for me over the past week (other than moving, of course) is that I've bought my plane ticket for London!! It is to leave on March 6, arriving on March 7. I've also found a place to live that looks good to me, I'm just trying to get some information on details, and then I will go ahead and get that set up too. My budget is still in good shape (though the $250 at the vet yesterday didn't help), and things are looking very good!

Actually, money-wise, the only issue we're having at the moment is trying to find a decent flight home for Chistmas! The best we can find right now is for $700, and since my flight to London was less than that, I'm having a hard time wanting to pay that to fly home. I'm hopeful that we'll still get a deal, even though it's only 6 weeks away.

Also yesterday, Todd and I went to the Remembrance Day ceremony at Queen's Park, which was pretty good. They have a new veterans' memorial there, so it was the first year they were having the ceremony at it. I wish I could have been with my family, though, who were celebrating it with my grandfather, who is a World War II veteran.

Before that, on Friday night, Zorana took me out to dinner for my birthday. We went to Le Papillon, a very nice French restaurant downtown, and ate a ton of food, all of which was excellent. We then drove to a Greek bakery, where she bought me a box full of different kinds of baklava...so yummy!! The evening was a wonderful present - thank you Zorana! :-)

And earlier Friday, my team went out for lunch at Swiss Chalet, as our prize for tying for 1st place in the office Halloween decorating contest! Yes, there was a tie, but I won't get into that. :-) We covered our entire row with a giant spider web, and then had our giant inflatable spider sitting on the web. To top it all off, we all dressed as spiders as well. I thought we looked great. :-) Pictures are below!

Today I am watching the CFL semi-finals - Saskatchewan is playing in the West one! They won in a very exciting game against Calgary last weekend, so I'm hoping we'll see a repeat today. :-)

So I guess that's about it for now! We had one work holiday party on Thursday, which was fun, and there's another one coming up on the 29th. I am not going to my work Christmas party this year, since they are totally skimping out and only have a cocktail party, and we're not allowed to bring any guests, but Todd and I are going to his work Christmas party instead.

Only 43 more days!!

My desk under a web

The giant spider

My team dressed as spiders!

Todd and Tiger

Tiger stalking his reflection in the mirror
(look at the puffed tail!)

I've spent the whole day packing and taking shelves apart and cleaning, and generally having no fun at all, so I decided I should end the day by getting my Christmas design up here! Yeah, it's a little bit early, but not much...I usually have it up in early November, so what's a few days, give or take? :-)

Moving day is Tuesday, and I can't wait for it to be over with!! We are actually hiring movers this time around, since we're not able to move into the new place until the evening of the 31st, and we have to be out of our current place at the same time, and we know we're not that fast. :-) So the moving hours are roughly 6-10 on Tuesday night, I really hope everything goes smoothly.

October was very busy with all of the things that I mentioned in my last entry, plus a few more that I wasn't planning on! The Air Farce and Rick Mercer tapings were both really good, and we got to meet Rick Mercer too! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera. :-( But we got an autograph, so that'll have to do. The football game was fun, even if it was very low-scoring (13-9!), but at least the right team won. East Village Opera Company was just as good as I've come to expect them to be, and they're working on a new album soon, which is good news.

The skating show was really great, although there was one major disappointment, which was that Jeffrey didn't skate after all! :-( Apparently he's injured his back, I really hope it's not serious. So Brian Orser filled in instead. It was lots of fun to see Barenaked Ladies live, and all the performances were great, especially Kurt, as usual. He did a song for his wife that made me cry, it was so sweet. :-)

But the best event of the month was definitely the Jason Robert Brown concert. He's so unbelievably talented, it's just not fair. He sang lots of stuff from his new album, and songs from all his shows as well, including shows that he's working on, which was cool! And we got to meet him afterwards, which was fun! I told him I saw Parade on Broadway, and he goes, "Oh, so you're the one?" :-)

My birthday was also very nice. My team at work took me out for lunch the Friday before, and then brought me a cake on the actual day. Todd and I went for a very yummy supper at Spring Rolls, and then to see Wicked, which was really good. This touring cast is great. Todd bought me more RAM for my computer, a wireless card, and Civilization 4, which we have both been spending waaay too much time playing (him more than me, actually!). And Krista got me some fabulous presents, a book about living and working in London, and a set of cards with different walks to do around London. Makes me want to go even more!

I haven't bothered decorating the apartment for Halloween, since everything needs to be packed up, so I hardly even feel like it's in a few days. At least we are decorating at work...hopefully it turns out! I'll put some pictures up here if we're successful. I'll give you a hint as to what we're doing...three words...."giant" "inflatable" "spider". Hee! :-)

Alright, I better head off to bed, I've got a busy day tomorrow as well. Todd's actually away this weekend, on the youth retreat with his church, so I'm working alone. We're in good shape with the packing though, there's really only the big stuff and stuff that we're still using left to do.

Here's one picture for today - of Tiger, of course! It just makes me laugh for some reason. Happy Halloween!!