Lots of stuff happened today. First, because of unforeseen circumstances, Bryn, Jonathan, and I made it to the 10:30 showing of SonRise with only a couple minutes to spare. Jonathan's mum had our tickets and was waiting outside the church to give them to us. We ran all the way from where we parked my car and got inside the sanctuary just before the doors closed. Other than that, we traveled through the pageant without any other major dilemmas or delays. I got to see Tyler just as he was heading through the market place to join his group and made him stop to get a picture with me. Then I got to watch him act out his part of Judas masterfully, which was fun to see.
Second, after SonRise we went to Jonathan's grandparents place for lunch and then watched their DVD of "The Adventists." I had wanted to watch it at the convocation last Tuesday, but I was working then and couldn't. So it was nice to be able to see it today.
Third, when we got back to our apartment, Bryn and I went to seek out places to take her senior violin recital pictures. We found a simple but nice looking place just across the street from our cul-de-sac. Then I took lots and tons and hundreds (probably) of pictures while Bryn tried out different poses. Then we went back to our apartment and ate supper.
Fourth, we journeyed back to campus where Bryn, Jonathan, Josh, Danielle and I got free smoothies and played table games in the cafe. Jonathan and I played Sorry while Bryn and Josh dueled in Battleship and Danielle waited for her smoothie. Then we all played Set and Rummikub before going our separate ways to sleep. It was a good day, but really busy.
And now, here it is. The best quote of the day:
(During game night)
Ali: (reaches to set the Sorry box on top of the Battleship box) Can I put this here?
Josh: (grabs one end of the Sorry box) Sorry, you can't.
Ali: (glances at the games and thinks super fast) Well, (sets down her end of the Sorry box on top of the Battleships box) Battleship, I can!
Josh and Jonathan: (uproarious laughter)
Ali: (grins in pride that she came up with a witty and game-night-appropriate comeback so fast)
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Suit shopping
I woke up pretty early this morning, but continued snoozing after a bit. All of a sudden a familiar, but slightly out-of-place sound woke me again. I listened to a loud scraping sound go by the front of our house three times. I was suddenly convinced the sound was made by snowplows. Just then my mum walked into my room and I mumbled, "Did it snow last night?" "Yes, it sure did," my mum replied. As she left my room I dragged myself from my warm bed and looked outside. Sure enough there was a thin layer of snow sitting on top of front lawns all down our street. The snow looked like crisp, clean white sheets stretched over large mattresses. So finally we got snow! Even though it was just a little bit, it was still enough for the city to get the snowplows out on the road, so I think that is pretty significant. We actually had been forecast to get snow when I checked the weather last night, but that happened last week with no fluffy white results, so I hadn't believed the report. We got some more snow tonight though not very much. We have snow forecast for the next few days as well until the week is supposed to end with rain on Saturday.
Around 4 p.m. our entire family went out to Moore's to help Ty pick out a suit that he got as a gift card Christmas present. He found several he liked and then we all said which we liked best and he finally picked from there. My mum and I left then to take my grandma to the hospital to visit Auntie Beth. We made sure she got in the hospital alright and then went back to the store to help with picking out dress shirts, ties, shoes, socks and a belt. Man, it's quite a complicated process to get a new suit. I used to be jealous of guys cause they can get ready for church so fast. All they have to do is pick a suit and then make sure the shirt/tie etc. match and they're good to go. But I realized tonight that a lot goes into the buying of the suit. Maybe shopping for dresses/skirts/tops isn't so bad after all . . .
After the purchases were made we drove back to the hospital and all of us went up to visit Auntie Beth except my dad stayed with the car so we didn't have to pay for parking. She had just been moved to a floor in the hospital and I liked it a lot better. It seemed more cheery and happy. When we got to her room my grandma told us the story about trying to find the new room. She sure went on a trek to get to the right place, but finally she found it and was happy to see her sister. She called us to let us know the new hall and room, which was nice so that we didn't have to go through the same confusion. After a short visit with both Auntie Beth and her two new roommates, we prayer with her and left. Then we went straight to my grandparents place where my grandma and my siblings and I got out. My parents went home to get some extra food and us kids helped my grandma get everything ready to eat haystacks. I turned on the World Junior game and it was near the end of the 2nd period with Canada beating Slovakia 7-1. By the end of the game it was 8-2. There was another hat trick tonight and that guy got the Player of the Game award. So, because I know you all care so much about hockey, here's some interesting facts about Team Canada so far in this tournament: (1) Canada has scored 30 goals so far and only has 2 goals scored against them (both in tonight's game). (2) Canada had a shutout (no goals scored against them) for 157.25 minutes before Slovakia finally found the back of the net. I think that's pretty impressive.
My parents had come back over and we were pretty much ready to eat by the time the game was done. It was delicious and I ate too much. Then we gave our grandparents their presents that they hadn't had time to open on Christmas Day before sundown. After that we cleared the table and played some games. First up was 7-Up (the game played with Rook cards) and somehow I won that one, even though Bryn usually does. Then Ty wanted to play Probe because he had an awesome word to use. It's a game only really made for four players so we teamed up. I was with Ty. As it turns out, curmudgeon isn't such a great word when the G, O and N are guessed/exposed right in the first few rounds. Our word was guessed first. Then I figured out Bryn's and my grandma's word of phonics. Bryn and my grandma guessed my parents word of icily and then they eventually guessed my grandpa's word of curriculum. By the time all the other words were guessed we had only guessed the C and the L and two blanks of my grandpa's word, but then my mum guessed M and I knew the word right then. Too bad my turn didn't come back around until after Bryn and my grandma's turn. Oh well, they won, but I think Ty and I had the next most points. Then some people wanted to leave and get home to bed, but I convinced them all to play one game of SkipBo. My grandpa finally won that game and we headed home. So it was a relaxing morning and early afternoon and then a busy but fun evening and night.
Around 4 p.m. our entire family went out to Moore's to help Ty pick out a suit that he got as a gift card Christmas present. He found several he liked and then we all said which we liked best and he finally picked from there. My mum and I left then to take my grandma to the hospital to visit Auntie Beth. We made sure she got in the hospital alright and then went back to the store to help with picking out dress shirts, ties, shoes, socks and a belt. Man, it's quite a complicated process to get a new suit. I used to be jealous of guys cause they can get ready for church so fast. All they have to do is pick a suit and then make sure the shirt/tie etc. match and they're good to go. But I realized tonight that a lot goes into the buying of the suit. Maybe shopping for dresses/skirts/tops isn't so bad after all . . .
After the purchases were made we drove back to the hospital and all of us went up to visit Auntie Beth except my dad stayed with the car so we didn't have to pay for parking. She had just been moved to a floor in the hospital and I liked it a lot better. It seemed more cheery and happy. When we got to her room my grandma told us the story about trying to find the new room. She sure went on a trek to get to the right place, but finally she found it and was happy to see her sister. She called us to let us know the new hall and room, which was nice so that we didn't have to go through the same confusion. After a short visit with both Auntie Beth and her two new roommates, we prayer with her and left. Then we went straight to my grandparents place where my grandma and my siblings and I got out. My parents went home to get some extra food and us kids helped my grandma get everything ready to eat haystacks. I turned on the World Junior game and it was near the end of the 2nd period with Canada beating Slovakia 7-1. By the end of the game it was 8-2. There was another hat trick tonight and that guy got the Player of the Game award. So, because I know you all care so much about hockey, here's some interesting facts about Team Canada so far in this tournament: (1) Canada has scored 30 goals so far and only has 2 goals scored against them (both in tonight's game). (2) Canada had a shutout (no goals scored against them) for 157.25 minutes before Slovakia finally found the back of the net. I think that's pretty impressive.
My parents had come back over and we were pretty much ready to eat by the time the game was done. It was delicious and I ate too much. Then we gave our grandparents their presents that they hadn't had time to open on Christmas Day before sundown. After that we cleared the table and played some games. First up was 7-Up (the game played with Rook cards) and somehow I won that one, even though Bryn usually does. Then Ty wanted to play Probe because he had an awesome word to use. It's a game only really made for four players so we teamed up. I was with Ty. As it turns out, curmudgeon isn't such a great word when the G, O and N are guessed/exposed right in the first few rounds. Our word was guessed first. Then I figured out Bryn's and my grandma's word of phonics. Bryn and my grandma guessed my parents word of icily and then they eventually guessed my grandpa's word of curriculum. By the time all the other words were guessed we had only guessed the C and the L and two blanks of my grandpa's word, but then my mum guessed M and I knew the word right then. Too bad my turn didn't come back around until after Bryn and my grandma's turn. Oh well, they won, but I think Ty and I had the next most points. Then some people wanted to leave and get home to bed, but I convinced them all to play one game of SkipBo. My grandpa finally won that game and we headed home. So it was a relaxing morning and early afternoon and then a busy but fun evening and night.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Q&F game night
This morning I:
-woke up late
-missed Sabbath School
-got to church in time for our Christmas program
-performed in the program
-heard and wrote down a great quote
-got my foot caught and almost fell down (nearly knocking Ty's cello over) during the closing hymn
-talked to a friend from way back in Gr. 1 who I haven't seen since summer
-had a pleasant conversation with our pastor
-nearly froze walking to and from the church in a skirt
I think that's quite a few accomplishments for one morning, despite the few setbacks included in there. (Apparently despite is my new favourite word. I'm using it all the time these days.) If you're curious about the quote, here's the background story as well as the quote:
For our church service, the elder in charge did some announcements after the song service and then said the program would proceed as planned after the prayer, scripture reading and opening song. When the opening song was over, the song leader said, "Now the Q.'s will play. I'll let them introduce their song." We were just planning to set up and start playing, but I thought that would be just a bit awkward after he said that we'd introduce our song. So once we were set up and tuned I just said, "I'm sure you'll all recognize the song." Then we played our song. My friend, Shannon, played a flute song next and before she played she said, "I don't think this song needs much introduction either so I'll take a cue from them (point in our direction)." I almost burst out laughing right on the spot because of her little cue/Q pun, but managed to contain my glee to a quiet, muffled guffaw. A classmate of Ty's who was sitting behind me giggled, so I knew I wasn't the only one that caught the joke. After church as we were eating lunch I brought it up and my mum said she thought it was pretty good, too, but I don't think the rest of my family got it. Maybe it's not even that funny or maybe it's just one of those things you had to be there for. In any case, it amused me for the rest of the day.
For lunch we all pitched in to make raclette. My mum had left church early to go spend some time with my Auntie Beth at the hospital and so Ty directed the rest of us in the raclette-making so that it would be ready by the time my mum got home. She came in the door just a few minutes before we were done the preparations so it was pretty good timing. It was an awesome meal to finally eat again. I'm so happy we have a raclette grill!
Tonight my friend, Julie, and her family came over for a game night. We each wrote down on a piece of paper one game that we wanted to play and put them all in a Santa hat. Then we took turns pulling pieces of paper from the hat starting with the youngest person. The first game was "Smart Ass," a game Ty had seen when he and Bryn were shopping at the mall and told her he wanted. She went back and later and got it for him for Christmas. It was actually a really fun game and when my dad eventually won, I was sad that the game was done. (I was also annoyed that he won cause we had been sitting on the very second-to-last square of the board until he got that last question right and moved to the end.) We played crokinole next. Since we had nine people it was rather complicated but Julie's mum sat out and kept score and then we played in with partners (two people on each side of the board) so there were four people per team. It was a little confusing at first to remember who's turn it was to shoot, but eventually we figured out the pattern and it was fine. I was on a team with my dad and Julie's dad and brother and we won 110-0. Then we were going to play 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school), but we couldn't find our Rook cards. My set are at my apartment at college and my mum said she thought our other set was in our 5th wheel down in storage there until the end of the school year. Our pizza came right around then so we took a break from games to watch the last movie in the "Love Comes Softly" series. Those movies are aggravating. They are so drastically changed from the book series that it really bugs me. I decided to just think of them as a whole different storyline and then they're not so bad. Anyway I pretty much called the entire plot, which is fun to do sometimes. After that we played Careers, which Bryn had just bought me for Christmas. Our family plays it with my grandparents and so we know the rules down pat, but it took a bit of explaining to teach Julie's family how it works. Finally they got it, although on some turns it took three or four people to help Julie play. It was pretty hilarious. Bryn ended up winning that game, but several of us were close to winning. Then my mum took some pictures of Julie and I and we said good-bye to her. She's flying out to NYC tomorrow night and then going to GYC for the weekend before heading back to Andrews for her last 8 months of PT school. She made me promise to come visit her at school sometime before the end of March when she'll be gone to other parts of Michigan doing more clinicals. So I guess I'll be going to Andrews in the first couple months of the semester. If any of you want to come with me, let me know.
In hockey news, today Team Canada beat Team Latvia 16-0 in the first game of round robin play in the 2010 World Junior Championships. That is the most goals Team Canada has scored since an 18-3 win over Poland in 1986, according to CBC.ca. It might look like a cruel score to you, but CBC.ca explains, "There is no mercy at the world juniors, where goal differential in the preliminary round can be a key tie-breaker to reach the single-game elimination stage next week." There's a lot more stats from the game I'd love to tell you, but you can just read them yourself if you're at all interested. Also, the Canucks beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1. Bryn's friend and her husband were at the game in Vancouver with seats three rows back from the Canucks bench. They were so close to the ice that they made it on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada." I'm jealous (of them being at the game and sitting in those seats, not for being on CBC). I kind of wanted to watch the game since it was the only time during break that I'd get to watch them on HNIC (which only happens on Saturday nights during the regular season), but I'm still glad we got to have game night. Hockey is just a game, friends are more important.
-woke up late
-missed Sabbath School
-got to church in time for our Christmas program
-performed in the program
-heard and wrote down a great quote
-got my foot caught and almost fell down (nearly knocking Ty's cello over) during the closing hymn
-talked to a friend from way back in Gr. 1 who I haven't seen since summer
-had a pleasant conversation with our pastor
-nearly froze walking to and from the church in a skirt
I think that's quite a few accomplishments for one morning, despite the few setbacks included in there. (Apparently despite is my new favourite word. I'm using it all the time these days.) If you're curious about the quote, here's the background story as well as the quote:
For our church service, the elder in charge did some announcements after the song service and then said the program would proceed as planned after the prayer, scripture reading and opening song. When the opening song was over, the song leader said, "Now the Q.'s will play. I'll let them introduce their song." We were just planning to set up and start playing, but I thought that would be just a bit awkward after he said that we'd introduce our song. So once we were set up and tuned I just said, "I'm sure you'll all recognize the song." Then we played our song. My friend, Shannon, played a flute song next and before she played she said, "I don't think this song needs much introduction either so I'll take a cue from them (point in our direction)." I almost burst out laughing right on the spot because of her little cue/Q pun, but managed to contain my glee to a quiet, muffled guffaw. A classmate of Ty's who was sitting behind me giggled, so I knew I wasn't the only one that caught the joke. After church as we were eating lunch I brought it up and my mum said she thought it was pretty good, too, but I don't think the rest of my family got it. Maybe it's not even that funny or maybe it's just one of those things you had to be there for. In any case, it amused me for the rest of the day.
For lunch we all pitched in to make raclette. My mum had left church early to go spend some time with my Auntie Beth at the hospital and so Ty directed the rest of us in the raclette-making so that it would be ready by the time my mum got home. She came in the door just a few minutes before we were done the preparations so it was pretty good timing. It was an awesome meal to finally eat again. I'm so happy we have a raclette grill!
Tonight my friend, Julie, and her family came over for a game night. We each wrote down on a piece of paper one game that we wanted to play and put them all in a Santa hat. Then we took turns pulling pieces of paper from the hat starting with the youngest person. The first game was "Smart Ass," a game Ty had seen when he and Bryn were shopping at the mall and told her he wanted. She went back and later and got it for him for Christmas. It was actually a really fun game and when my dad eventually won, I was sad that the game was done. (I was also annoyed that he won cause we had been sitting on the very second-to-last square of the board until he got that last question right and moved to the end.) We played crokinole next. Since we had nine people it was rather complicated but Julie's mum sat out and kept score and then we played in with partners (two people on each side of the board) so there were four people per team. It was a little confusing at first to remember who's turn it was to shoot, but eventually we figured out the pattern and it was fine. I was on a team with my dad and Julie's dad and brother and we won 110-0. Then we were going to play 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school), but we couldn't find our Rook cards. My set are at my apartment at college and my mum said she thought our other set was in our 5th wheel down in storage there until the end of the school year. Our pizza came right around then so we took a break from games to watch the last movie in the "Love Comes Softly" series. Those movies are aggravating. They are so drastically changed from the book series that it really bugs me. I decided to just think of them as a whole different storyline and then they're not so bad. Anyway I pretty much called the entire plot, which is fun to do sometimes. After that we played Careers, which Bryn had just bought me for Christmas. Our family plays it with my grandparents and so we know the rules down pat, but it took a bit of explaining to teach Julie's family how it works. Finally they got it, although on some turns it took three or four people to help Julie play. It was pretty hilarious. Bryn ended up winning that game, but several of us were close to winning. Then my mum took some pictures of Julie and I and we said good-bye to her. She's flying out to NYC tomorrow night and then going to GYC for the weekend before heading back to Andrews for her last 8 months of PT school. She made me promise to come visit her at school sometime before the end of March when she'll be gone to other parts of Michigan doing more clinicals. So I guess I'll be going to Andrews in the first couple months of the semester. If any of you want to come with me, let me know.
In hockey news, today Team Canada beat Team Latvia 16-0 in the first game of round robin play in the 2010 World Junior Championships. That is the most goals Team Canada has scored since an 18-3 win over Poland in 1986, according to CBC.ca. It might look like a cruel score to you, but CBC.ca explains, "There is no mercy at the world juniors, where goal differential in the preliminary round can be a key tie-breaker to reach the single-game elimination stage next week." There's a lot more stats from the game I'd love to tell you, but you can just read them yourself if you're at all interested. Also, the Canucks beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1. Bryn's friend and her husband were at the game in Vancouver with seats three rows back from the Canucks bench. They were so close to the ice that they made it on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada." I'm jealous (of them being at the game and sitting in those seats, not for being on CBC). I kind of wanted to watch the game since it was the only time during break that I'd get to watch them on HNIC (which only happens on Saturday nights during the regular season), but I'm still glad we got to have game night. Hockey is just a game, friends are more important.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Away in a Manger
Happy Christmas to all my readers! I can say, from years of experience, that probably the most obnoxious way to get woken up in the morning is by someone jumping on you. I know this because every Christmas morning my younger siblings come wake me up sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. by jumping on me. This morning I was already slightly awake so I heard someone running through the kitchen and dining room. I tried to roll into a ball to protect myself but before I could, Ty was already in my room pouncing on me. I was surprised that Bryn wasn't with him because usually one of them wakes the other up (of course by jumping on him/her) and then they jointly come to wake me up. Bryn showed up two minutes later so I got jumped on twice. Usually I greet this treatment with some gruff-sounding mumblings, pull the covers back up to my chin (they always pull them off), and stuff my head under my pillow. But since I was already kind of awake by the time they showed up, my grumbling session was shortened and I was soon up and racing into the living room with them to check out our stockings. We waited for my parents to come join us and then we all opened our stockings. I was surprised by the number of books that can be fit in or nearly in a stocking. I'm really not sure how I'll be able to read them all before break is over. I haven't even finished "Harriet" yet, but I'll try to work on that this coming week and then get through a couple of my new books. I read two of the small kids picture books already this morning between stocking and Christmas present-opening time. One of our traditions on Christmas morning is to open our stockings really early and then to make hot chocolate and/or freshly-made coffee cake and drink/eat it either during or right after opening our Christmas presents. We also hand out all the presents from under the tree to each person and then we just go around the circle each opening one present at a time. None of this ripping all the presents open at the same time for us. We use a orderly method to prolong the package-opening ceremonies. I got quite a few awesome gifts. Actually they're all awesome. But I have to say, my most surprising (and therefore most memorable) present was a voice recorder. Now I just have to figure out how to use all the features, but I'm sure my dear brother will help out with that. We tried it out on my grandparents this afternoon and we were both pretty impressed with the sound quality. The recorder will help out my interviewing so much, especially to get exact quotes! I'm excited to try it out when I get back to school.
After the presents were all opened and hugs were exchanged were brought our stuff to our rooms. Then we talked to my older three siblings. Ty skyped my older brother Mark and his family and that was hilarious. The kids were so excited to see us all on the screen and they showed us all their new toys and other assorted items Santa had given them. We also got to see their new-to-them dog, who is really cute. I can't wait to meet her in person . . . or in canine-son. Then Coral and Tucker sang "O Tannenbaum" for us. Well, Tucker sang the words in pretty good German and Coral spent the entire song dancing, jumping and twirling all over the room. I'd say she must be a Q. cause her jumps looked a lot like the ones I experience every Christmas morning. When that call was over we all took showers and got to work on the Christmas dinner preparations. Then my grandparents came over. Bryn, Ty, my grandpa and I set up the crokinole board and, after us kids practice our shooting a little bit to regain a little bit of skill, we played a game. Sadly, Ty and I lost to Bryn and my grandpa with the final score being 105-50. I'd say we were sorely beaten although it was a pretty close game at the start. Then we ate Christmas dinner, which was amazingly filling, like Christmas dinner's should be. We were all so stuffed full, in fact, that we vetoed dessert for the time being and listened to my mum read a couple Christmas stories instead. Then we had sundown worship and played a Bible trivia game, guys against girls. The girls won 25-22 so at least I won one game today. When worship was over my dad and Tyler took my grandparents home and then Bryn, my parents and I went to the hospital to visit my great-aunt, my grandma's sister, who has been in the hospital for a week and a couple days because of asthma-related problems. She was really glad to see us, especially since all her roommates were either moved to other rooms or gone for the holiday. We talked to her and read her some e-mails from church friends and family members who live far away. Then the nurse came to assess her and visiting hours were over so we left.
Now my siblings and I just finished figuring out what we're going to play for our church Christmas program tomorrow. We thought we'd play one of the songs we did with orchestra for the School of Music Christmas concert, but that sounded pretty bad with just us three, so we tried a few other ideas, none of which worked out too well. Then Ty said we should just do something easy, like "Away in a Manger" Bryn started playing it and Ty joined in with the rhythm from the version of "All Creatures of Our God and King" we made up. I came in with a harmony part and that's how we decided what we'll play. It's weird how we just play around with things and get kind of discouraged and frustrated that things aren't working out and then all of a sudden something comes to one of us and we all contribute ideas to make it awesome and a new version of a song is created. What a weird process. But it seems to work. Bryn and I tried out some different ways to change up the verses and I had the idea to do a round kind of thing for the first verse. It sounded really cool at the start, but had some clashing notes in certain parts so then I tried coming in a bit later. It worked sounded weird. So then I tried waiting a bit longer to come in and it worked all really good until the last two lines and then that part sounded just awful together. We were almost ready to toss that idea aside when I realized I could just switch to playing a harmony part at the place where it started to sound bad and we could finish play in unison instead of a round. We tried it and it sounded good. So we kept that idea. Then just a little more tweaking made it sound reasonable. I hope it's not too short though. "Away in a Manger" is a pretty short song so we thought up four verses and an ending, but it still seems not that long. Anyway, the audience will just have to be happy with what we play. Hopefully it goes well tomorrow.
After the presents were all opened and hugs were exchanged were brought our stuff to our rooms. Then we talked to my older three siblings. Ty skyped my older brother Mark and his family and that was hilarious. The kids were so excited to see us all on the screen and they showed us all their new toys and other assorted items Santa had given them. We also got to see their new-to-them dog, who is really cute. I can't wait to meet her in person . . . or in canine-son. Then Coral and Tucker sang "O Tannenbaum" for us. Well, Tucker sang the words in pretty good German and Coral spent the entire song dancing, jumping and twirling all over the room. I'd say she must be a Q. cause her jumps looked a lot like the ones I experience every Christmas morning. When that call was over we all took showers and got to work on the Christmas dinner preparations. Then my grandparents came over. Bryn, Ty, my grandpa and I set up the crokinole board and, after us kids practice our shooting a little bit to regain a little bit of skill, we played a game. Sadly, Ty and I lost to Bryn and my grandpa with the final score being 105-50. I'd say we were sorely beaten although it was a pretty close game at the start. Then we ate Christmas dinner, which was amazingly filling, like Christmas dinner's should be. We were all so stuffed full, in fact, that we vetoed dessert for the time being and listened to my mum read a couple Christmas stories instead. Then we had sundown worship and played a Bible trivia game, guys against girls. The girls won 25-22 so at least I won one game today. When worship was over my dad and Tyler took my grandparents home and then Bryn, my parents and I went to the hospital to visit my great-aunt, my grandma's sister, who has been in the hospital for a week and a couple days because of asthma-related problems. She was really glad to see us, especially since all her roommates were either moved to other rooms or gone for the holiday. We talked to her and read her some e-mails from church friends and family members who live far away. Then the nurse came to assess her and visiting hours were over so we left.
Now my siblings and I just finished figuring out what we're going to play for our church Christmas program tomorrow. We thought we'd play one of the songs we did with orchestra for the School of Music Christmas concert, but that sounded pretty bad with just us three, so we tried a few other ideas, none of which worked out too well. Then Ty said we should just do something easy, like "Away in a Manger" Bryn started playing it and Ty joined in with the rhythm from the version of "All Creatures of Our God and King" we made up. I came in with a harmony part and that's how we decided what we'll play. It's weird how we just play around with things and get kind of discouraged and frustrated that things aren't working out and then all of a sudden something comes to one of us and we all contribute ideas to make it awesome and a new version of a song is created. What a weird process. But it seems to work. Bryn and I tried out some different ways to change up the verses and I had the idea to do a round kind of thing for the first verse. It sounded really cool at the start, but had some clashing notes in certain parts so then I tried coming in a bit later. It worked sounded weird. So then I tried waiting a bit longer to come in and it worked all really good until the last two lines and then that part sounded just awful together. We were almost ready to toss that idea aside when I realized I could just switch to playing a harmony part at the place where it started to sound bad and we could finish play in unison instead of a round. We tried it and it sounded good. So we kept that idea. Then just a little more tweaking made it sound reasonable. I hope it's not too short though. "Away in a Manger" is a pretty short song so we thought up four verses and an ending, but it still seems not that long. Anyway, the audience will just have to be happy with what we play. Hopefully it goes well tomorrow.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve pajamas
gI finally wrapped my Christmas presents this morning. I had most of them bought and hidden around my room several days ago, but just didn't get around to wrapping them until today. It such relaxing work. I also find it fun to be creative with which wrapping paper is best to go with which present for which family member and deciding to how wrap each present and if I should include a bow or not. Maybe I'm just too orderly or OCD or something, but I just find it fun to think about all that stuff.
After my presents were wrapped I went to the grocery store with my mum to get food for Christmas dinner. It was probably the fastest we've ever bought food for any big, family-get-together type of meal. We were in and out of the store in 20 minutes and that was including my mum talking to three people she knew. Yeah, I know. Pretty impressive, right? When I was over in the bakery getting baby-sized loaves of flax bread, a mother and her two kids were there just before me. The mum told the two kids they could choose which cookies they wanted to get and the boy decided on these humongous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The mum made sure the kids knew the cookies were for Santa. She put several in a bag, all the while apologizing to me (like any good Canadian) that they were in my way. I responded with, "no worries," and smiled at the little girl who stared up at me with huge brown eyes. She gave me a half smile back and those adorable eyes started twinkling. I'm serious. They twinkled. It was amazing to see. I was kind of sad to see those merry eyes leave when the whole group moved on to let me get my baked goods. As they walked away I heard the little boy ask if he could have a cookie and his mum told him again, "No, we're saving them for Santa." Poor kid. They looked like yummy cookies, too.
When I got home from the grocery store, I left the bags for Bryn to bring in and ran to grab stuff for swimming then drove to the H20 Adventure + Fitness Centre. Julie was waiting for me in the lobby and so I paid quickly and we went to change. Then we spent the next two hours there swimming in the wave pool, being pulled around this circular pool that had a current (my personal favourite pool in the place), racing down the waterslides (Julie won every single time even though we alternated slides), lounging in the hot tubs, and laughing a LOT. Another friend, Kristina, was there, too, and so was Julie's family. We had a great time, although I was rather pruney by the time we emerged from the water and went home.
After that we went to my grandparents place for Christmas Eve dinner like we always do. It was awesome and I was so stuffed I could barely fit any dessert into my overfilled stomach. Then we played this game where one person had to draw a Christmas phrase while the rest of us guessed what they were. It was rather hilarious. After each song was guessed (the phrase idea morphed into just drawing Christmas songs pretty quickly) we would write the name of the song under the drawing and then get a picture taken. Ty went first and got us in a giggly mood when he wrote the title of his song upside-down and it turned out as "Joy to the Worlb." My mum's drawings were also fun to guess because they got pretty complicated and then were almost impossible to guess. Ty's last one was funny too because it was a four-part drawing of "In the Bleak Midwinter." Maybe I'll try to upload some of the pictures here later, so check back if you want to see them. When we ran out of ideas for that game we taught my grandparents how to play 8 1/2, a card game Bryn got for Christmas last year. We got kind of confused between that and Pinocchio though, so we ended up just using the 8 1/2 cards, but playing by Pinocchio rules. Then I scrounged up my grandpa's crokinole board and discs to bring back home with us. We didn't have time to play it tonight, but we're going to make sure to have a few games before eating Christmas dinner tomorrow when my grandparents come over. I love crokinole. It's probably my favourite games ever. Maybe that's why I occasionally like watching curling on TV.
Then we finally trimmed our Christmas tree and put most of the presents underneath it. My dad had set the tree up last night, but it was already late by then so we decided to finish it tonight. Before we went to my grandparents house my dad had put the lights on so we just had to put the ornaments on. It was kind of fun doing it on Christmas Eve for once. Our tradition used to be to put up the tree on December 1, but that's pushed back now until we're home from college, and this year we couldn't find a time to get the tree and put it up until tonight. It was still fun though. We also listened to our Billy Gilman CD, which has been another Q. tradition since my mum bought that CD for Tyler years ago. Once the tree was stuffed to overflowing with ornaments (it's a rather straggly and spindly tree, but we all love it anyhow), we made hot chocolate and then opened our Christmas Eve presents. Every year we are allowed to open one present each. That present is always pajamas. It's so nice knowing that you are guaranteed new pajamas at least once a year and my mum always finds really awesome ones too. This year Bryn got music ones, which are adorable. Ty got ones that have cartoon animals playing a bunch of different sports and I got moose pajamas. I must admit that I knew about mine. When we were driving to the Winnipeg airport after a weekend in western Ontario for my cousin's grad, we stopped to get gas at a small town that had a bunch of random stuff for sale in their gas station/gift shop. I saw the pj's and told my mum they would be nice for Christmas. Then I forgot about them until I opened my box tonight. I also got Canadian hockey pj pants. And then, of course, my mum took some more pictures before we headed for our own rooms to finish up last minute pre-Christmas secrets. So I bid you all goodnight and a Happy Christmas Eve!! Hope this holiday is amazing for you all!
PS - I just posted this, but came back to edit this blog with some good pre-Christmas news. I just found out that my married friends, Sharlet and Brad, just had their baby at 11:35 p.m. It was due on the 28th, but Sharlet's water broke last night. She went to the hospital, but was sent home cause nothing was progressing. Apparently she was going to get an IV to induce labour this morning if nothing had happened in the night. Anyway, her step-father-in-law posted updates on Facebook throughout the day (which weren't that interesting since nothing was really happening) and then her brother wrote a new status update from the hospital when the baby was born, which is how I heard the news. (Crazy how society has changed since we were born and our parents had to actually call up their parents on the phone to let them know.) Anyway, so they're now proud parents of a Christmas Eve daughter and everything is right with the world because a new Canucks fan was born . . .
After my presents were wrapped I went to the grocery store with my mum to get food for Christmas dinner. It was probably the fastest we've ever bought food for any big, family-get-together type of meal. We were in and out of the store in 20 minutes and that was including my mum talking to three people she knew. Yeah, I know. Pretty impressive, right? When I was over in the bakery getting baby-sized loaves of flax bread, a mother and her two kids were there just before me. The mum told the two kids they could choose which cookies they wanted to get and the boy decided on these humongous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The mum made sure the kids knew the cookies were for Santa. She put several in a bag, all the while apologizing to me (like any good Canadian) that they were in my way. I responded with, "no worries," and smiled at the little girl who stared up at me with huge brown eyes. She gave me a half smile back and those adorable eyes started twinkling. I'm serious. They twinkled. It was amazing to see. I was kind of sad to see those merry eyes leave when the whole group moved on to let me get my baked goods. As they walked away I heard the little boy ask if he could have a cookie and his mum told him again, "No, we're saving them for Santa." Poor kid. They looked like yummy cookies, too.
When I got home from the grocery store, I left the bags for Bryn to bring in and ran to grab stuff for swimming then drove to the H20 Adventure + Fitness Centre. Julie was waiting for me in the lobby and so I paid quickly and we went to change. Then we spent the next two hours there swimming in the wave pool, being pulled around this circular pool that had a current (my personal favourite pool in the place), racing down the waterslides (Julie won every single time even though we alternated slides), lounging in the hot tubs, and laughing a LOT. Another friend, Kristina, was there, too, and so was Julie's family. We had a great time, although I was rather pruney by the time we emerged from the water and went home.
After that we went to my grandparents place for Christmas Eve dinner like we always do. It was awesome and I was so stuffed I could barely fit any dessert into my overfilled stomach. Then we played this game where one person had to draw a Christmas phrase while the rest of us guessed what they were. It was rather hilarious. After each song was guessed (the phrase idea morphed into just drawing Christmas songs pretty quickly) we would write the name of the song under the drawing and then get a picture taken. Ty went first and got us in a giggly mood when he wrote the title of his song upside-down and it turned out as "Joy to the Worlb." My mum's drawings were also fun to guess because they got pretty complicated and then were almost impossible to guess. Ty's last one was funny too because it was a four-part drawing of "In the Bleak Midwinter." Maybe I'll try to upload some of the pictures here later, so check back if you want to see them. When we ran out of ideas for that game we taught my grandparents how to play 8 1/2, a card game Bryn got for Christmas last year. We got kind of confused between that and Pinocchio though, so we ended up just using the 8 1/2 cards, but playing by Pinocchio rules. Then I scrounged up my grandpa's crokinole board and discs to bring back home with us. We didn't have time to play it tonight, but we're going to make sure to have a few games before eating Christmas dinner tomorrow when my grandparents come over. I love crokinole. It's probably my favourite games ever. Maybe that's why I occasionally like watching curling on TV.
Then we finally trimmed our Christmas tree and put most of the presents underneath it. My dad had set the tree up last night, but it was already late by then so we decided to finish it tonight. Before we went to my grandparents house my dad had put the lights on so we just had to put the ornaments on. It was kind of fun doing it on Christmas Eve for once. Our tradition used to be to put up the tree on December 1, but that's pushed back now until we're home from college, and this year we couldn't find a time to get the tree and put it up until tonight. It was still fun though. We also listened to our Billy Gilman CD, which has been another Q. tradition since my mum bought that CD for Tyler years ago. Once the tree was stuffed to overflowing with ornaments (it's a rather straggly and spindly tree, but we all love it anyhow), we made hot chocolate and then opened our Christmas Eve presents. Every year we are allowed to open one present each. That present is always pajamas. It's so nice knowing that you are guaranteed new pajamas at least once a year and my mum always finds really awesome ones too. This year Bryn got music ones, which are adorable. Ty got ones that have cartoon animals playing a bunch of different sports and I got moose pajamas. I must admit that I knew about mine. When we were driving to the Winnipeg airport after a weekend in western Ontario for my cousin's grad, we stopped to get gas at a small town that had a bunch of random stuff for sale in their gas station/gift shop. I saw the pj's and told my mum they would be nice for Christmas. Then I forgot about them until I opened my box tonight. I also got Canadian hockey pj pants. And then, of course, my mum took some more pictures before we headed for our own rooms to finish up last minute pre-Christmas secrets. So I bid you all goodnight and a Happy Christmas Eve!! Hope this holiday is amazing for you all!
PS - I just posted this, but came back to edit this blog with some good pre-Christmas news. I just found out that my married friends, Sharlet and Brad, just had their baby at 11:35 p.m. It was due on the 28th, but Sharlet's water broke last night. She went to the hospital, but was sent home cause nothing was progressing. Apparently she was going to get an IV to induce labour this morning if nothing had happened in the night. Anyway, her step-father-in-law posted updates on Facebook throughout the day (which weren't that interesting since nothing was really happening) and then her brother wrote a new status update from the hospital when the baby was born, which is how I heard the news. (Crazy how society has changed since we were born and our parents had to actually call up their parents on the phone to let them know.) Anyway, so they're now proud parents of a Christmas Eve daughter and everything is right with the world because a new Canucks fan was born . . .
Monday, December 21, 2009
Nappy-Nap
Another lazy day. I haven't even unpacked yet so I'm currently living out of my suitcase. I'm not totally sure I will unpack during this break anyway though, so I guess it's fine. I feel like my blog posts are just getting longer and longer, but I can't manage to keep them short and sweet like Janelle is so skilled at doing. I console myself with the knowledge that if people didn't want to read my blog, they wouldn't, so I'm not going to stress about my lack of brevity.
When I went to have a shower this morning I found an intriguing-looking book left on the washroom counter so I stole it from who(m)ever left it there (I assumed it was my brother since we share that washroom) and took it back to my room for further inspection. After said inspection, I realized it was an awesome book and started to read it. Then Tyler came into my room to talk to me, saw that I stole the book my mum had just given him, and took it back. I'll have to stage another book-napping at some point in the next few days, but for now I guess I'll just finish "Harriet the Spy."
Later on, in the afternoon, my mum took us to the mall. She dropped Bryn and Ty off in front of Chapters (the Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble, but better because you can actually buy books written by Canadian authors) and then she and I went to some other stores in the area. At one store, we were waiting in line behind a lady who was returning something. The computer was being super slow and the saleslady was very apologetic to the lady returning the item. Finally the transaction went through and the lady in front of us left the store. Then she started ringing up my mum's purchase, but the computer was still being slow. The lady apologized to us saying, "I'm SO sorry the computer's being so slow. I guess it decided to take a little nappy-nap." I thought it was hilarious and immediately whipped out my phone to text the quote to Bryn. (I wanted to include a link here to How I Met Your Mother's "Three Days Rule" episode so you could understand the joke, but apparently nobody except for my siblings and I thought the clip I'm referring to was amusing enough to put up on YouTube. In any case, what I was going to link to was a scene where the main character Ted sends a girl he just met a text. In that text he says, "I just wanted to send you a little texty-text," and then sends it. He realizes how dumb "texty-text" sounds a second after he sends the text, but by then it's too late. And now that that's been over-explained, I'll continue my blog.) Then my mum and I left the store and went back to the mall to look around for half an hour before meeting Bryn and Ty.
Back at home, we hid our presents and voted on a place to eat out as a family. I won the vote and we went to Lake Tai, a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant. I've been there at least three times, but Bryn and Ty had never been for some odd reason. I guess it does make sense though since the three times I've eaten there were during the year I worked at home when they were both away at Southern/UCA. Anyway, my dad told us each to order a dish and then the five of us shared all the food. It was amazing as usual and I surprised myself by not appreciating the dish I ordered because I thought I remembered liking it before and actually enjoying the curry Ty ordered. The radio was playing quietly in the background and near the end of our meal a song that I almost recognized started playing. I tilted my head toward the speakers and wrinkled my nose in thought for a few seconds, but then smelled the food in front of me and bent back down to gobble up more fried rice. Bryn, who had been watching me said, "Ali, don't you recognize this song?" I listened intently again while chewing and then it hit me. It was "À la claire fontaine" a French children's song I had learned in my middle school choir in Gr. 6. I immediately got out my phone and texted my best friend Jodi. Every once in awhile, when we're together, we'll remember the song and start singing it. We can remember a good portion of the song and kind of just quickly gloss over the parts we can't quite recall. I didn't hear back from her until about an hour later and then she told me that she could sing the song perfectly, but didn't remember when we'd learned it or for what. So I refreshed her memory. Then she texted back that another of our classmates, Londell, was hanging out at her house in Alberta and she sang it to him, but he had no clue about the song. I laughed at him for his not-so-impeccable memory, but later on I realized something about choir class in Gr. 6 (read this if you care to learn more) and decided that Londell wasn't to blame since he was probably in a different choir section. In any case, I'm really glad that song came on the radio so I had something to text Jodi about. It was great to communicate with her again.
After filling ourselves we stopped in at my grandparents place for a game. We eventually decided on Rummy-O (I believe it's called Rummikub or something like that in the States). It was a very atypical game with Ty and my grandma not being able to play once until the second-last round of the entire game. I've never seen a game of Rummy-O quite like that. In the end Bryn and my grandpa won (my grandpa almost always wins that game), but I would have gone out if it had got around to my turn first. I was ready to either play around game of Rummy-O or to play the second choice, SkipBo, but other people were ready for bed so we said good-bye and left. I could have stayed up all night playing games, but I guess it's better this way. Now I can try to finish "Harriet" so I can try to re-steal that book back from Ty and make some headway in it before he realizes it's missing.
When I went to have a shower this morning I found an intriguing-looking book left on the washroom counter so I stole it from who(m)ever left it there (I assumed it was my brother since we share that washroom) and took it back to my room for further inspection. After said inspection, I realized it was an awesome book and started to read it. Then Tyler came into my room to talk to me, saw that I stole the book my mum had just given him, and took it back. I'll have to stage another book-napping at some point in the next few days, but for now I guess I'll just finish "Harriet the Spy."
Later on, in the afternoon, my mum took us to the mall. She dropped Bryn and Ty off in front of Chapters (the Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble, but better because you can actually buy books written by Canadian authors) and then she and I went to some other stores in the area. At one store, we were waiting in line behind a lady who was returning something. The computer was being super slow and the saleslady was very apologetic to the lady returning the item. Finally the transaction went through and the lady in front of us left the store. Then she started ringing up my mum's purchase, but the computer was still being slow. The lady apologized to us saying, "I'm SO sorry the computer's being so slow. I guess it decided to take a little nappy-nap." I thought it was hilarious and immediately whipped out my phone to text the quote to Bryn. (I wanted to include a link here to How I Met Your Mother's "Three Days Rule" episode so you could understand the joke, but apparently nobody except for my siblings and I thought the clip I'm referring to was amusing enough to put up on YouTube. In any case, what I was going to link to was a scene where the main character Ted sends a girl he just met a text. In that text he says, "I just wanted to send you a little texty-text," and then sends it. He realizes how dumb "texty-text" sounds a second after he sends the text, but by then it's too late. And now that that's been over-explained, I'll continue my blog.) Then my mum and I left the store and went back to the mall to look around for half an hour before meeting Bryn and Ty.
Back at home, we hid our presents and voted on a place to eat out as a family. I won the vote and we went to Lake Tai, a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant. I've been there at least three times, but Bryn and Ty had never been for some odd reason. I guess it does make sense though since the three times I've eaten there were during the year I worked at home when they were both away at Southern/UCA. Anyway, my dad told us each to order a dish and then the five of us shared all the food. It was amazing as usual and I surprised myself by not appreciating the dish I ordered because I thought I remembered liking it before and actually enjoying the curry Ty ordered. The radio was playing quietly in the background and near the end of our meal a song that I almost recognized started playing. I tilted my head toward the speakers and wrinkled my nose in thought for a few seconds, but then smelled the food in front of me and bent back down to gobble up more fried rice. Bryn, who had been watching me said, "Ali, don't you recognize this song?" I listened intently again while chewing and then it hit me. It was "À la claire fontaine" a French children's song I had learned in my middle school choir in Gr. 6. I immediately got out my phone and texted my best friend Jodi. Every once in awhile, when we're together, we'll remember the song and start singing it. We can remember a good portion of the song and kind of just quickly gloss over the parts we can't quite recall. I didn't hear back from her until about an hour later and then she told me that she could sing the song perfectly, but didn't remember when we'd learned it or for what. So I refreshed her memory. Then she texted back that another of our classmates, Londell, was hanging out at her house in Alberta and she sang it to him, but he had no clue about the song. I laughed at him for his not-so-impeccable memory, but later on I realized something about choir class in Gr. 6 (read this if you care to learn more) and decided that Londell wasn't to blame since he was probably in a different choir section. In any case, I'm really glad that song came on the radio so I had something to text Jodi about. It was great to communicate with her again.
After filling ourselves we stopped in at my grandparents place for a game. We eventually decided on Rummy-O (I believe it's called Rummikub or something like that in the States). It was a very atypical game with Ty and my grandma not being able to play once until the second-last round of the entire game. I've never seen a game of Rummy-O quite like that. In the end Bryn and my grandpa won (my grandpa almost always wins that game), but I would have gone out if it had got around to my turn first. I was ready to either play around game of Rummy-O or to play the second choice, SkipBo, but other people were ready for bed so we said good-bye and left. I could have stayed up all night playing games, but I guess it's better this way. Now I can try to finish "Harriet" so I can try to re-steal that book back from Ty and make some headway in it before he realizes it's missing.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Babysitting
Today after church, my sister and brother, Bryn and Tyler, and I changed, packed up some stuff and left for Soddy Daisy. We're currently babysitting our nephew, Tucker, and niece, Coral, for today, tonight and tomorrow morning. We got to their house around 1p.m. and ate a yummy haystack lunch. By that time the kids were telling their parents to leave so they could start having fun with their aunts and uncle. So my older brother, Mark, and my sister-in-law, Terrie, gave us a few directions, said good-bye to the kids and left for a night away for their anniversary.
We spent the afternoon doing awesome aunt-and-uncle-ly things with Tuck and Coral. We taught them how to play that wonderful Adventist Review & Herald game, Animals, and they really enjoyed it. Coral played on Auntie Bryn's team and they tied with me for a winning four sets. Then the kids needed some running around time so we put them in clothes that could handle the rain-softened earth and took them into the backyard. We taught them "What Time is it Mr. Wolf" and played that until the mosquitoes and other assorted Tennessee bugs drove us back inside. Then Tucker showed me his coin collection (and I inwardly drooled over some of his specimen) and Auntie Bryn introduced Coral to her camera. Coral became the family photographer and captured the rest of the afternoon on memory card. Not sure how many of the pictures turned out, but it should be fun to look at them later. Then we had Lupi's pizza for supper and spent the last hour or so before Quiet Time playing more games. We played a couple rounds of Uno and then taught Tucker and Coral some new games including Pit (rather hilarious since Tucker couldn't remember that the point of the game was to get a spoon, not worry so much about his cards) and 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school). Then it was Quiet Time and the kids got their blankets and "buddies" (stuffed animals) and snuggled onto the couches with us while we listened to "The Sheaf of Grain," one of my personal favourite Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan stories. When that was over we made them a camp-out nest of pillows and blankets on the floor in Tucker's room, said prayer with them and shut the door so they could have some sister-brother talking time before falling asleep.
Now Bryn, Ty and I are hanging out in the living room eating leftover pizza and ice cream. It's great babysitting these kids!
We spent the afternoon doing awesome aunt-and-uncle-ly things with Tuck and Coral. We taught them how to play that wonderful Adventist Review & Herald game, Animals, and they really enjoyed it. Coral played on Auntie Bryn's team and they tied with me for a winning four sets. Then the kids needed some running around time so we put them in clothes that could handle the rain-softened earth and took them into the backyard. We taught them "What Time is it Mr. Wolf" and played that until the mosquitoes and other assorted Tennessee bugs drove us back inside. Then Tucker showed me his coin collection (and I inwardly drooled over some of his specimen) and Auntie Bryn introduced Coral to her camera. Coral became the family photographer and captured the rest of the afternoon on memory card. Not sure how many of the pictures turned out, but it should be fun to look at them later. Then we had Lupi's pizza for supper and spent the last hour or so before Quiet Time playing more games. We played a couple rounds of Uno and then taught Tucker and Coral some new games including Pit (rather hilarious since Tucker couldn't remember that the point of the game was to get a spoon, not worry so much about his cards) and 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school). Then it was Quiet Time and the kids got their blankets and "buddies" (stuffed animals) and snuggled onto the couches with us while we listened to "The Sheaf of Grain," one of my personal favourite Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan stories. When that was over we made them a camp-out nest of pillows and blankets on the floor in Tucker's room, said prayer with them and shut the door so they could have some sister-brother talking time before falling asleep.
Now Bryn, Ty and I are hanging out in the living room eating leftover pizza and ice cream. It's great babysitting these kids!
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