"Anybody know what species this is?" I don't really care.

I wasn't going to blog until the weekend was done but I find myself not wanting to do anymore work tonight. Although I didn't do that much today anyways. Yesterday Jessica and I went to a dinner theatre at my church. The food was good and the play was so funny.

This morning I went on the invertebrate cruise for 3 hours. Boy was it COLD! I was already wearing three layers but it went right through me. We saw some sweet crabs, shrimp, and cool fish. Now lately I have been thinking that I am bad at remembering what I learn in class about different organisms and fish. However I am beginning to realize that I grew up on the prairies and wasn't exposed to all the marine life until my first year here. So yeah, that's my excuse. Plus mammals are way more interesting than little things you have to look at in a microscope.

This afternoon Jessica and I went to the Victoria Rebel's football game. Big adjustment to watch Canadian football again. I have decided that I really don't like it and will stick with watching the NFL. The NFL trumps the CFL, but football is football and any chance that I can get to watch it I will take.

I have gotten all my assignments underway now and am less stressed about the work load. I have to do this dumb dog watching experiment. It's so dumb. I don't really like dogs so to have to watch them is a real snore. I think I know some people that would agree with me. Worse if it was about cats. Haha.

This is just a shorty but I don't have a lot of other stuff to say. My knee is okay. I really wish that I could run, but all in due time. I'm just not that patient.

Have a good one.

Seahawks 24 - Bengals 21 WE WERE THERE!

Before I begin this lengthy post about the Seahawks game we went to, I must comment on this picture. As you will read we sat at the border crossing for 2.5 hours and we got bored. I tried taking some nice pictures and this is all that happened. I only posed like this once, the rest I'm smiling nice while Joe was still making faces. Haha the joke's on me.

Let's jump right to the chase. The Seahawks game on Sunday was so awesome. Joe and I were sitting 3 rows from the field on the 30 yard line right behind the Seahawks bench. We were in a section with a whole bunch of season ticket holders which made the atmosphere even better. Now when they talk about Seattle's 12 man and how loud it is in there, you kind of take it with a grain of salt, until you are in the midst of it all. The first quarter was especially loud, my ears were ringing like it was a rock concert or something. The fans and cheering caused 3 false start penalties by Cinncinati in that game and it was so great to be a part of that.

We got to Seattle about 2 hours early and so we walked around a bit and watched the warm up. It amazes me watching all the stretches and workouts that they go through to get ready for the game. They have an actual hawk that flies out of the tunnel before the players run out, which was pretty cool. Oh yeah and they had 4 guys skydiving into the stadium.

The opening drive by Seattle was so exciting and LOUD. We're like jumping up and down and clapping and yelling when we scored. It was awesome. And apparently right after this first drive we were on TV. Pretty cool. It was a really good game to watch. Shaun Alexander had a better second half. The Bengals offense was really good and so many times our defense seemed like it was lacking, but it was just because the Bengals were so good. But Seattle kept it close. The last two minutes when Matt Hasselbeck threw for the touchdown and then when we forced a fumble in the dying minutes were crazy in the stands. It was so exciting to watch. Joe and I both had a really good time and thought it was an awesome game.

Of course we stopped at Jack-in-the-box for supper on the way out of the states. It never lets me down. Hoping to make the 9 ferry to Victoria that night we went through the Peace Arch Border crossing in White Rock. BIG mistake. We waited 2.5 hours to get across. With the Seahawks game and the dollar being so good I'm sure that everyone had been in the states that day. Or so it seemed.

I just took the ferry on Monday after Joe was done class. No big deal. To back track a bit, I went to Abbotsford on Saturday. Joe picked me up and we went to White Rock and walked around for a bit. Then we went to Surrey to get his new Canucks jersey (boo). At 4 we watched the Lion's game in Boston Pizza for a couple hours and waited until his hockey game at 8. Not as many fans as last time, but I like watching Joe and his team play. They lost 7-1.

Now I am back in Victoria and getting ready to hunker down to do some assignments. This weekend will be busy with a dinner theatre I'm going to watch with Jessica at my church on Friday, a field trip on the ocean Saturday morning, and a Victoria Rebels football game in the afternoon. Should be good times.

I thought that I would also add a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Me and Joe standing in our seats.
A good shot at the play and the number of fans that were there.

Play in the background and our view of the bench. That's how close we were!

The Promised Pictures of My Place

Hello! Here are the pictures of my place in Victoria. My address is: 2225 Greenlands Rd., Victoria, BC, V8N 1T6. Just in case you need it, haha.

Okay the door straight ahead is Sarah's room. The living room area is to the left of that chair. Our door, a separate entrance from the landlord's, is to the right. And this is the kitchen with our little table and chairs.

This is the living room area, fully equipped with dvd player and cable!

This is the hallway leading from that other picture to our rooms. Mine is the first one on the right, then Salema's is next to mine. The laundry room is straight ahead and the bathroom is to the left.

My room. All the furniture was provided, a bed, shelves, a desk, chair, lamps. It's pretty sweet!

This is the rest of my room. The door, closet, shelves. Pretty full I guess.

Well there you have it and hopefully you will now know better where I live. It's only about 20 minute walk to school, 10 to the gym, 10 to the my favorite cove on the ocean, Arbutus Cove. I like it and it's relatively quiet! Adios!

Just a Quickie

I got an email yesterday saying that I had won the Millenium In Course Scholarship that I had applied for in June. It is $4000 for one year. For those of you who know how much work I had to put into that thing, I am so excited. It's not the renewable one, which is kind of a downer, but this is just awesome. Thanks to Mrs. McComish who filled out a reference thing and all the other people that helped me write it out. The package with all the information and money will be sent by the end of the month. I just had to let you all know this exciting news!!!

Awesome Weekend in Abbotsford

Well my creativity for titles and pictures is decreasing as my brain is slowly loading up with pictures of fish and facts about sponges. So I hope that I can make some time to entertain you through this blog rather than boring you with the facts. I did learn some sweet stuff on the ferry to the mainland this weekend (keke) and in my class the other day. It was surprising to find out that most of the organisms in the ocean are animals where as on land most are plants. So even things that look like plants are probably animals. Cool eh?

My weekend in Abby was amazing. I don't really want to give you a whole play by play, but Joe and I played minigolf (ending in a massacre, it's up to you to determine who won), went to Mr. Bean's holiday (amazing and hilarious), watched football on Sunday, and watched Joe play hockey. I'm sure that he is going to write about it in his blog but from a fan's point of view I'll explain. All of the stands were full and people were standing 4 back from the glass to the ice. There were soso many fans! We lost 8-2 but every time that they scored they had maybe 5 fans cheer and we started chanting "CBC" so that shut them up. Then we finally scored and the place went crazy. Joe said that he couldn't hear anything on the ice, it was so loud. Then Matt scored near the end of the third period and it was even louder. It was a great goal. You would have thought that we won the game!!

Anyhow I was super tired when I got back here on Sunday night and still am.

I can't thank God enough for great friends. Cat and Carlene, rather Donna, let me stay at her place for night. I had some good conversations with Melissa and Katherine too. Just getting hugged 4 at a time by those girls was so awesome and my greeting at the school couldn't have been any better. Of course seeing Joe wasn't too bad either, haha.

Labs started this week and I already was making rash decisions about hating biology and labs and never taking any more. It's just so time consuming and this semester I have so many assignments and projects for them too. There is this one girl that is in both labs on Monday (back to back from 2:30 to 9:00) so it's good we can be tired and stressed together. I have a whack of reading to do, but what else is new?

Just a quick prayer request, other than strength for all my school work, would be guidance for deciding what to do for volunteer work. I know that I have a really busy schedule but it's really been put on my heart to volunteer somewhere. I am putting so much into my mind at school, heart at church, and body at the gym, but I need to be putting love and time into other people. I have a couple ideas of what I want to do, but I just need help picking one and the time to do it. Thanks so much.

Until later, adios!!

New School Year

Greetings!

Life is good here in Victoria. My place is really great. I will try and add some pictures to my blog sometime if I ever figure out how to do it. My first days of classes have gone well. Except for the fact that having 5 classes and 5 labs is WAY too much! I thought that I could handle it but after the first day I realized that I was going to be way too busy and I was already getting stressed. So I ended up dropping Animal Physiology, which would have been interesting, but too hard I think, and am taking a course of Earthquakes, Volcanos and Plate Tectonics. I have wanted to take that since my first year here.

I went to physio for the first time on Thursday and it was amazing! I waited all summer for that one great half hour. My physiotherapist is so nice and she remembered me from my first two years. Could be because I was in there pretty much every week for two straight years! She is into kayaking and hiking so she was telling me all about her trips in the summer. She saw a whole pod of whales and a seal being born! Crazy stuff. I wish that was me. Oh but to get back to the actual physio, she did some stretching and heating of this one tendon that's been bothering me. It feels so good now. I just knew that she could do something about that. I still can't run because of the pain but maybe soon. She thinks it's from having basically no cartilage left for cushioning. Let's hope that's not the case because I love running.

I don't want this post to be as long as my last one cuz Leia was complaining so I'll wrap 'er up soon. This weekend I am heading to Abbotsford, bringing my freshly baked, but hard as rock cookies along. I guess when Mom says that they go in for 7 minutes, she means 7 minutes exactly. Haha. I'm sure that I'll get better at baking over time.

I guess that I'll catch up you all on my life later next week when I am practically living at the school. 4 three hour labs and 5 three hour classes a week makes for a very busy schedule. Oh well. I'll see how I feel once it actually starts. Bye for now!!!!

Vacation Time in BC featuring C, Le, Bre, and Momsy

I'm back in Victoria and it's so exciting. It hasn't been overly sunny or anything here so it's kind of a drag. My new place is awesome. We have cable (a big selling point haha), a big room, all new furniture, a fully loaded kitchen and it's only about 5 minute bike or 10 minute walk to the university. Apparently there are shortcuts but I don't know them yet. I will explore tomorrow or Tuesday.


Well, my dad didn't come on our vacation so it was different. Still fun though. The drive up was rainy and frustrating because Brianne and I just fought over who's music to listen to. In Vernon we met up with Leia's friend Charissa and had supper there. In Kelowna the next day we chilled on the beach, Okanagan Lake, and the hotel pool. We did go mini golfing there and I believe that I won. Haha, I'm sure that my mom is pleased that I put this in here.


Next we headed to Grand Forks on the Saturday. We met up with Joe at Christina Lake, which is the lake my dad really wanted to see. It was a really nice lake. That night my mom and sisters stayed at the hotel and I went with Joe to his camp staff appreciation banquet.
On Sunday we went to church, ate at Joe's house, and then left for Chilliwack. Brief stay in Chilliwack and then onto the States. We shopped,shopped, and shopped. It was great although my knee swelled up to the size of a melon and Leia was in a lot of pain too. Although she got to be wheeled around in a wheelchair while I pushed her.


After three days there, we came back to Chilliwack, visited my cousins and then dropped Leia off in Surrey. She was doing some cruise thing but you can read more about that, I'm sure, in her blog coming soon. After disposing of Leia (no offense, Le haha) we headed to the ferry to ride across to Victoria. Now normally I don't complain or rant like Joe but the ferry is so expensive and it's ridiculous because other than plane it's the only way across. For a vehicle and 1 person it is $51.55. I wish they would lower it or give a deal for "frequent flyers" like me. To just ride on the ferry though it's only around 11 bucks, so I guess that it's not too bad.



Anyhow in Victoria we went to the Craigdarroch castle. For those of you planning on visiting me, which may be few, the castle is alright, but more of a museum. The architecture is cool and it's huge because it's 28, 000 square feet. I would be happy to escort you through it but I've done it twice so if that's not your thing than don't go. We also went on the breakwater, so cool. We shopped some more for necessity things and food for me. We did go minigolfing once too and the course is so good. It's "Around the World" so each hole is a different country, if you have seen "Overboard" then it's like what they are designing. Let me just admit to you all that I am a sore loser and I was losing hardcore the first 9 holes or so. But in my back nine I had a major comeback with 1 hole in one and a couple birdies and won the game. My mom and Brianne were not very pleased. Actually I would say that they were mad. Haha. Good times.



Now I am here writing this blog before going back to my church, this time with Robyn. I am happy to have some friends still from my first two years to do things with. I am also happy to have a vehicle here. The bus system is good despite what most people think, but driving is so much easier. I will be taking my bike to school most of the time though because it's cheaper, faster and better exercise. There is a big bbq on Tuesday, classes start on Wednesday, and then on Friday I am heading to Abbotsford.



That about catches you all up on my life to this point. I really hope to keep up with this blog so keep your eyes peeled. Later!