this should do for a little while...

Camping at WhiteswanLake
Niagara Falls - Maid of the Midst boat

ride, we were (obviously) very soaked!

ah, so as i sat here at work and opened up a fresh can of president's choice diet pomegranate sparkling soda, i thought to myself, "why not write a new fresh blog to go with my drink of choice." so here we have it my friends, a real update, in my own words, no blog picture cheating (well okay, just a little). now as a little side note, i have to say that i love putting up my pictures on here and writing about what's been going on, because truly, a picture says so much. and i know how much i LOVE when other people post their pictures, so hopefully mine are somewhat interesting to all of my faithful fans.

so summer has been great, as great as can be when one works Mon - Fri, 8:30 - 5:00. as you can all see, i did get to take a week off in july and we headed to Ontario for some cruisin down the freeway in the hot hot sun... above left is a picture of us right after we went on "maid of the midst" in Niagara Falls - it took us right into the center of the falls and it was absolutely awesome. we had such a great time. we have decided we prefer to be on holidays and would like to become professional holidayers. we are planning a trip to Los Angelos now... yah we leave tomorrow. hehe. just kidding, it's one of many imaginary trips.

for August long we went camping with some friends, Angela (who I work with at BX) and her boyfriend who is now her fiance as of yesterday, Kim. we went to whiteswan lake which is about 30 minutes from the famous candle lake. we had fun despite the crummy saturday weather, as we pitched our tent in the pouring rain and set up a great big huge tarp and made a roaring fire. kim and angela had brought their black lab puppy who that night followed kim and jeff in the truck to go get firewood, and angela and i didn't see her follow them so suddenly we realized she was missing. so out we went in the absolute pouring rain with our little flashlights yelling for charlotte for 30 minutes, when the boys come driving around the bend with the dog in the box of the truck wagging her happy little tail. yes we were less than impressed and drenched the the core. but heck it was fun. sunday we went fishing because i am dating a hillbilly and all my friends are too. haha just kidding angela! :) i'm turning into one too, as i caught 4 of my own fish, my very own fish. i have graduated from beginnger to novice fisherwoman status. jeff needs to now buy me a cooler, more expensive fishing rod, as the one i have now has been called everything from a fisher price rod to a kindergarten rod. thats so uncool. i want to find a pink reel. now thats cool!

school starts in a few weeks and i'm not really looking forward to it, other than the fact that its my last year and i will actually have a really expensive degree. that'll be awesome. i'm gonna get my degree framed and send out really big grad pictures of myself to all my friends and family for them to mount in their front hallway in their homes :)

i have three new loves to discuss with you all:

1. in september a few girls from work and i are registering for brainsports learn to run clinic. they start you off running real nice and slow and for short periods of time, and by the end of the 8 weeks you should be able to run at least 30 minutes. so hopefully that'll be good. i need something to help me get motivated. at least lynnel will be back this fall so that we can go back to the gym together, as long as she takes a night class or something so that she'll have the membership. they teach you about proper stretching, running posture, nutrition and other crap like that. you know, all the stuff thats good for you. and they take you down all those beautiful meewasin trails by the river. so it should be good! you should join too!!!

2. so since i read sooooooo freaking fast i bought myself a killer. war and peace. 1392 glorious pages of war and peace. its got the smallest printing a person can read and i'm loving it. its taking me forever to read and its great cuz normally i read books in about 3 days. this summer i've read a million little peices and my friend leonard (you know that james frey author who's story is a big crock but still, great books to read), the life of pei, the devil wears prada, a couple of the shopoloholic books, 2 john grishm books, some dumb book i found on our bookshelf downstairs, and a few others i can't remember. so war and peace here i come! and i'm loving it so far, it's a great story. some parts are very quircky and clever and the characters are unique and it's lovely. hehe. i love reading.

3. and finally, i have bought my first installment of scrapbooking stuff! i was flipping through the good old entertainment book and found a coupon for a scrapbooking store on 8th street, and last night as there was a 1.5 hour wait between my Wed night shows, Rockstar Supernova and The Hills, i decided to check it out. so i got about 16 individually chosen peices of paper, a scrapbook, 2 gel pens, 2 packages of stickers, and some adheisive for $38.00. it's still not enough to really do a good job, i need way more stuff, but it's a start. it's so overwhelming being in there and choosing paper and stuff but sooooo fun. and the lady working there, she's a bit of a cooky one (as much as i love home sewn navy blue and white bunny rabbit jumpers), but she was very helpful. i had a fun time talking with her and trying not to laugh. she was very passionate about scrapbooking. maybe i will be too one day (my bday is coming up in 37 days so hint hint).

well with all that, and one sip left of my sparkling soda, i must bid you all adu. have a great great day!

love kristin

Guess where we were?

This pretty much is a dead give away...
Yeah, so Jeff and I took a little vacation from July 14th - July 18th... we jetted off to Toronto and had an awesome trip! Here are some of our highlights.

(I honestly just love my digital camera... can you tell?!!!)

"Everyone Loves Marine Land!"
The Killer Whale up close and personal!
Oh so cute Baluga Whales - it cost $8.00 to touch and feed them, so we stood back and jealously watched the rich people touch them.
Niagara Falls all lit up at night.... so beautiful!
The Maid of the Midst boat ride - it takes you right into the center of the falls, soooooooooooo scary and fun! We had a great view - right in the very front tip of the boat on the lower deck! We were soaked, but it felt good on a +40 C day (that's with the humidity of course).
Again, the beautiful falls at night time.
An afternoon at Niagara-on-the-Lake - a very quaint tourist town about 20 minutes outside of Niagara Falls. We took a walk by Lake Ontario, tasted some Ice Wine samples, stopped for a little lunch, and picked up some cherries and sugar plums! Who would've thought that sugar plums are a real fruit? Delicious!

No trip to Toronto is complete without a Blue Jays game! We went to two - Friday against Seattle, and Monday against Texas. Good times!
Right before the game. I love this picture!

June in Pictures (mostly!)

Has summer arrived or WHAT?! I'm loving it.

SOOOOOO I thought I'd put my past month of June in pictures, cuz a picture says a 1000 words. So in the next few posts, I will say approximately 14000 words, and any boys reading this won't even have to stop listening! Perfect, I know. I have already posted lots of pics this month, it's been a busy month. Spent a lot of time with family, friends, babies and babies who I have to realize are no longer babies anymore (Kayden's a big boy now I guess). So in the next 14000 words, I'll go through a stagette at Beileys for a girl I work with at Blue Cross... a spa weekend in Moose Jaw.... betting on horses (and losing badly) at Marquis Down...Divine Brown concert at the Jazz Festival... a to finish off, a nice sister picture of Jenna and I taken tonight at the park. I realize Jenna put it on her blog too but it's just a nice pic, so I added it too.

Enjoy!

Karey, Me and Angela at Carla's stagette

There's the bride herself (she's the one in white with the veil... in case you couldn't tell)

June part 2 - Moose Jaw Spa

Girls Weekend in Moose Jaw!

Friday June 23

Our cell group - half of us anyway (sans Kerri, Cory, Sarah, Adrienne and Lauren), went to the Moose Jaw Spa on Friday night. We stayed in a honeymoon suite with a jacuzzi for the night and had an awesome time. We got beautiful in the mineral spa, did our nails, drank champagne (okay it was sparking peach juice...), some shopping (the gift shop counts, right? I bought a bathing suit there!), and just hung out and chatted. Girl stuff, you know. So these pictures are of me, Charmaine, Lynnel, Dani and Lillian. Next time ALL 10 of us are going, no jokes.

June Part 3 - Marquis Down

Marquis Down June 24th

Jeff & I went to bet on some horses last Saturday... we mostly lost but altogether I won $7.80 and Jeff won just over $5.00... We lost just about every race. But it was fun!!! And it turned out Aaron & Sarah Jane, Matt H and Katherine were there too, so we all hung out. Good times!!!

June Part 4 - Jazz Festival

Okay this is at the Divine Brown Concert at the Jazz Festival, at the Bessborough Gardens. Beautiful night, fun people, good music, yummy hotdogs.... altogther a perfect summer evening!

This ain't the best pic, I was just trying to get a lot of people in... like a candid shot or something but its actually kinda a crappy shot :) Here we have Kevin talking to Tim and Jenn, and Kerri and Rob looking at the ground... :)

Jolene and Amelia with the beautiful hotel behind them.

Chad and I making eyes at each other (sorta)

Kerri, Ashley, Me

Thursday June 29

Jenna and I at the park

Kayden climbing the wall

(Start from the bottom)

Too Cute - all my babies...

Carmen's new daughter, Cate & I
(June 11, 2006)

My favorite little man, Kayden
(June 6, 2006)

Jeff's nephew, Cole, on his 3rd birthday
(June 10, 2006)

my friday pm thoughts

-snapple lemonade is tastier than the kiwi strawberry drink. i know this because macs had a sale on, 2 snapples for $3.00. i had to buy 2 of course.
-the PBR (professional bull riding) is in town this weekend! i'm soooooo excited. this is my favorite event ever. it's so dangerous and thrilling. cowboys are hot.
-walmart has some great summer sandles. i got a good pair for $19.99, and all i had to do was cut the lame little flower off the top of each sandle to make them cool. why does walmart always have to go and add a stupid detail to an otherwise cool product?
-i also bought two pairs of shoes at zellers last week for $12.50 each. i'm so thrilled that i have a shoe collection from walmart and zellers. very classy.
-carmen is in town with her new baby this weekend, and i finally get to meet her! that is going to be so fun.
-my grade 9 yearbook was returned to my yesterday after 10 years of MIA! i haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but it sure was a suprise to get that. oh grade 9. my first year in saskatoon.
-reality TV: can't believe chris got kicked off american idol. i hope kathryn wins now. can't believe jade is still on ANTM but she does do nice pictures, and its hard to kick her off just b/c she is nasty. i hope that the frat brother win amazing race. i wish i could go on that show. ER was the saddest ER i have ever seen last night. i cried the entire hour. survivor, ehhhh don't really care actually.
-going for supper tonight at manos for a birthday. gotta eat fast so jeff and i aren't late for the bull riding.
-jeff thinks may long is still too cold to go camping, i'm not so sure but better safe than sorry probably.
-mothers day is on sunday. i like mothers day b/c we always go for a nice brunch and so i hope this weekend is no exception. plus i love my mom.
-have i mentioned that i can speak 61% spanish? hehe.
-i'm scared of ruining jeffs flower bed...he's given me free reign to do whatever i please, but i'd rather it be a nice bed of top soil than a bunch of dead flowers and ugly shrubs!!! so far we've got two ceders... to date they are still alive... it's been a week.
-the phantom of the opera is going to calgary this july. i sooooo want to go.
-speaking of shows, the producers, aladdin and Jesus Christ Superstar are all coming to saskatoon this year. i saw the producers on broadway in new york last december so i won't go see that one but aladdin and JC superstar would both be amazing i am sure.
-a year ago today i was in either vienna, prague or london. sigh.
-a year ago from now i will be a university graduate.
-my dear friend lynnel is leaving me for the summer to move to calgary. i'm sure gonna miss her.
-the last CD i bought was Keith Urban, "Be Here". its quite sexy.
-it's the weekend for me in 35 more minutes! YAY! have a good one everyone!

a taste of everything

well friends, another school year has been wrapped up. i've been officially done as of one week today, and everything has gone pretty good. the best news is, i passed spanish. and i passed it with flying colors in fact... a whole 61 per cent. now, i know you're all thinking, 61? brutal! but for a girl who has failed it once already 2 years ago, and spent many sleepless nights worrying about espanol, i am as happy as if i had won the lottery. well, almost as happy. i'd probably actually rather win the lottery but anyway, i'm happy. so it's back to work i go, 8:30 to 5, monday to friday, with not a whole lot to look forward to this summer, besides nice weather and a few camping trips. and a couple visits from carmen and baby cate in may and hopefully alison and baby aria in june. i can't wait to meet these little girls!!!

speaking of babies i'm so excited about jenna giving me a new neice or nephew. i'm going to go with her to her ultrasound on tuesday because kyle has to be at work, and when we were talking about it yesterday i got all teary-eyed just at the thought of seeing the next baby in my life. i LOVE being an auntie so much. anyway my mom and sister were making fun of me for almost crying. i imagine i might cry at the ultrasound too. i hope there are two babies in there! wouldn't that be fun for me? i think so.

not much else to report. contrats to philly who won senior ring or pin or watch or some sort of jewllery at walter murray. so proud of that little guy.

the rest of this blog is about food. hope you're hungry!

yesterday we went to "a touch of ukraine" at lunch time. it was this teeny tiny little 'small town' restaraunt on 22nd st and ave X, and it was an awesome buffet of garlic farmers sausage, deep fried and regular perogies, borsht (ummm sorry guys i'm not ukrainian, can't spell that), salads, corn, noodle soup and pickles!!! for cheap too. soooooooo i would totally suggest that little place if you just need a good ukrainian meal. just don't expect fancy thats all. and the buffet ends at 1:30, just so you're not late.

i think next week we will go for chinese food. and the week after... thai. and then italian. and then.... um not sure. greek how about. does anyone have a suggestion as to a good restaraunt in saskatoon for these types of cuisines? we'll probably go to the saigon for chinese cuz its right down the street and i already know its awesome chinese.

as for now, it's greasy kfc chicken for moi.