Changes

It's been a while since my last blog post and A LOT has changed....

I don't know how else to describe the last few months of my life, there are so many words... mostly hectic, insane, awesome, exciting as well as filled with lots of learning and even more challenges.

Firstly, a big challenge came when my Nana's cancer took a turn for the worse. Christmas was tough but at least we got to celebrate as a family. Nana was quite sick but still able to open presents and spend time with us. Throughout January and February my Nana was in and out of the hospital and her pain was increasing daily. By the end of February she was admitted in to the hospital for full-time pallative care. Originally there was talk of moving her to a pallative care home but it turned out that time was just to short. After only three days in the hospital the doctors informed us that she would not be leaving. Along with that they decided that because of the intense pain she was in her medications would be upped and her food would be reduced to water only. It was tough to see her in the hospital and suffering but she was so sure of where she was going that it gave me a sense of peace. I know that she is going to a WAY better place than earth. She will be up in Heaven enjoying Gods glory and waiting for us to arrive some day. Of course there are days when I really miss her and wish she was here to share in all the exciting stuff going on. I love her and miss her but know she is in Heaven.

Only a few weeks after my Nana's funeral I had gone to Church and felt extremely sick. Along with feeling sick I was extremely tired and couldn't handle the smell of coffee (definitely NOT ME!) After a few days the sickness did not subside but seemed to have gotten worse. I decided to take a pregnancy test and it came back positive!! Ben and I are extremely excited to become parents in October!! Learning that I was pregnant was such an exciting time but also came with many new feelings. We decided it was best to wait three months to tell our family and friends. This was tough but well worth the wait. Overall I have loved every moment of pregnancy. I am now 28 weeks pregnant which means I only have 83 more days!! Along with my changing body and doctors visits we have learned that our little baby has a multicystic kidney. This means little baby will only have one functioning kidney when they are born. The amazing thing about how God has created us and just how intricute we are made, the functioning kidney will grow to be double its size and function as two kidneys once baby is born. The last few months have been filled with doctor visits with specialists and ultrasounds but overall I have really been at ease about all of it. We have more ultrasounds than usual but this has made me fall in love with our baby even more. God has given us this AMAZING gift and I am excited for becoming a mommy and this new chapter in my life.

Other than those two big massive changes in my life I have been working lots and we have been trying to keep up with our renos as my belly grows. We have made a big decision to finish the house and put it up for sale before baby gets here, we would like to see how much our house has gone up in value and have a larger down payment on our next home. We will see what the outcome is both Ben and I are at ease about it all. God is in control!! The most important thing I have learned over the last few months has been giving up my need to control and letting God take control. He knows all and has planned our lives from when we were in the womb. Of course I need to remind myself almost daily about this but it is getting easier and easier.

I am going to TRY to blog more often, I have had some great little projects I have taken on and our home seems to be changing daily. I'm excited to share it all!!!

Update on our home

It has been a year and 6 months since we purchased our very first home! Ben and I purchased the home knowing that it was a fixer upper and we had lots of work to do. The work began the day we signed the papers, we needed to make the upstairs livable so that we could move out of our basement suite! The first order of business was a fresh coat of paint second was to remove the old carpets and then a massive deep clean of each room especially the kitchen and bathroom. The place already looked 100% better and was ready for us to move in.

Our plans were to eventually do a few updates to the upstairs of the house but the major work was going to be done in the basement with the plan in the end to have a suite for an income property! Our suite is almost done and I will post on it when I can get down there to take photos of the finished product, it's almost there only a week or so to go and it will be up for rent.

Our major project upstairs was started last Christmas, Ben decided on his few days off between Christmas and New Years to rip out the entire old kitchen as well as remove the stairs that went from upstairs to downstairs. After the demolition took place on Christmas Eve day they stated the looooong project which included re-doing all the plumbing, moving the back door and window, re-drywalling, re-framing and then at the end having our new kitchen & flooring installed and lastly the tiling of the backsplash. Only a year later am I now in LOVE with my brand new kitchen. I love baking and cooking so to spend lots of time in here is amazing. I'm so happy that we decided to re-do the kitchen right away and not wait. I can't believe how small it was when we first moved in.

Old Kitchen

My New Lovely, Perfect Kitchen

Moved the back door and window to maximize space

Back from Montreal!!

I had a great time in Montreal even though it was an extremely quick trip. I flew out of Calgary on another lovely 7am flight on Tuesday morning! Which meant I was up at 4:30am so I could be out of my hotel and in my car by 5pm. I was at the airport by 5:30am and the flight left on time! I arrived in Montreal (local time) at noon. I got my rental car and tryed to figure out how to work my GPS. It didn't seem to recognize the address I had for my hotel as well as where I was going to be working for the week. After about an hour of trying to figure it out the Avis guys finally helped me, turned out that I needed the french version of my address. Who would of thought?!?!!

I went and rented a space for working in for the week and then went to my hotel and checked in. I was really lucky and got a great friends and family deal through my brother in law to stay at the Fairmont in downtown Montreal. It was AMAZING!!! I went and wandered around downtown Montreal for the rest of the evening and went out for an awesome dinner. Food in Montreal is great. The only thing that throws me off is that everyone speaks in French.

I worked for the remainder of the week, doing exactly what I did when I was in Calgary, fixing a job that had a problem. This was the first time my dad has given me this much responsibility, I am really happy that I got to take the reigns and show him that I am able to be responsible. It took two full days of work in order to finish everything, glad it didnt take any longer because it was really long day.

While working during the week I got a little time in the evenings to wander around Montreal. On Wednesday night my Dad bought me a hockey ticket to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Detroit Red Wings. It was really great to see how crazy the fans get there. Montreal won 7-2!! The last day I was in Montreal was Friday so I had the day to just wander around. Unfortunately the week hadn't rained and it wasn't super cold but of course the last day I had there it was pouring with rain and was really really cold so the sidewalks were covered in ice. I still went out and enjoyed a bit of Montrael but I really don't like the cold and I also hate being soaking wet and it was a combo of both! I saw Old Montreal which was nice cobblestone streets and really old buildings. I went in to the Notre-Dame Basilica it was really gorgeous. After being soaking wet and ready to head home I had lunch at a little cafe, tryed a Montreal smoked meat sandwich and then headed to the airport. It was a long flight and being delayed 2 hours made me get in at 12:30am on Saturday. I was happy to see Ben when he finally arrived at the airport at 1:30am (he fell asleep and forgot to get me). It was a good trip overall but I'm happy to sleep in my own bed and enjoy my own house!!!

Montreal Canadiens game

Notre-Dame Basilica

Inside the Notre-Dame Basilica, it's GORGEOUS

Soaking wet and cold in Old Montreal

Calgary & Montreal for the Week, a little adventure

I am currently on a little adventure, pretty excited that I have gotten to do some travelling now with my job. Unfortunately it's not as exciting as going to Chicago for a print show or anything but I do get to see a little bit of each city and have some fun while working.

We had a project that we did for a large client and unfortunately when the product was shipped across Canada and we realized that the product has a problem, it's falling apart.  After a week of coming up with different solutions and options we finally decided on a solution and the flights were booked right away. My dad off to Toronto and myself off to Calgary and then Montreal, teams were arranged in each city to meet us and help us each day. The process is a pretty long and tedious one but with lots of help it hopefully will go quick.

I spend the last three days in Calgary and today arrived in Montreal. I'm excited to see the city a little, I have never been to Montreal and heard it is a great city. Tonight I will probably be off to bed early since I feel like I have been up forever, oh wait I have been!!! My flight left Calgary at 7am but I had to return my rental car and such so I was up at 4am and at the airport by 5am. I didn't sleep on the flight since I wanted to make sure the time change didn't mess with me and I was able to go to bed at a decent time and be all adjusted. And on top of it all tomorrow morning I have an early start at work and need to be refreshed and ready to go.

For me there are only two hard things about travelling to different cities
1) I'm terrible at driving in a city I don't know.... I got lost in Calgary a few times and already here in Montreal.
2) I don't like travelling alone. I am so lucky that Ben (my very very best friend) is always arond and we do everything together. I am happy this trip is only a week long so I can come home and enjoy the weekend with Ben.

Here are some photos from Calgary......

Me missing my hubby on a walk....

Calgary Tower

Walk by the river

Another Year Come

Ugh New Years Ev.......you just finish Christmas and now you have to think about what you're gonna do on New Years Eve. Most major cities have a street party with fireworks, bands and street vendors. Vancouver hasn't had anything like that in the last at least 5 years. This year was probably ruined by the riot but I feel like New Years Eve in Vancouver is extremely overrated. When you talk to people their plans usually consist of heading to a club and getting drunk till 4am, for me and Ben that just doesn't interest us. We decided that this year we would just play it by ear and not really plan anything, we wanted to just chill out and be in bed early. On Saturday my parents proposed for all of us to go for dinner and a movie together. We decided it was a good idea so we rang in the New Year with my parents and my oldest brother and his wife. It was a lot of fun and we ate A LOT! It was a really fun night and I 'm glad that's what we decided to do. The evening ended early and we were in bed by 1am.


Of course when you ring in another year making New Years resolutions come up. Ben and I every year since we've been married (4yrs) have never made resolutions that have a time line. When people make New Years resolutions they usually find themselves disappointed by March when they haven't lived up to your resolutions.

Last year instead of making resolutions I made a list of things I wanted to do and try over the year so I decided that this year I would do the same thing. Most of the things on my list are the same, I didn't get to some of the things on my list like learning how to play piano or buying a sewing machine but I'm not disappointed that I didn't get to those things because I will try to get to them this year. What are some things you'd like to try or do this year? It's proven that when you write down your goals you are more likely to complete them. So what's on your list for 2012?


Here is my list for 2012:

- Read Bible & Journal once a day

- Pray once a day

- Tell my Husband I love him every day

- Read a book a month

- Bake something new once a month

- Cook new recipes & eat more healthy

- Buy a sewing machine and learn how to sew

- Be more creative & crafty

- Learn how to be frugal & budget

- Make a coffee table book of wedding photos, Europe trip & India trip

- Learn how to play the piano

- Work towards finishing my associates certificate in business

- Go to the gym more

Another Year Flown By.....

Why hello it's me Vanessa and yes I am blogging again! I can't believe I completely neglected my blog for almost 6 months. Unfortunately Ben and I were so busy over the summer and then in August our house was broken in to and both our computers were stolen. We have been without computers and our Tv since then. It has been a good break from technology but can make things a little complicated at times. We finally settled with our insurance company so our first purchase was getting our computers back! Now that we have it all up and running I can start to blog again.

This past year has had many ups and downs, a lot of tears and a lot of laughter. For the last year I wanted to really change a lot of things in my life. It has been an interesting change and A LOT of learning. I have has some amazing married women in my life to teach me things and answer questions, through those amazing relationships and really changing things in my life I have been SO MUCH happier. Biggest thing I learned is that when I focus on my relationship with God over everything else then life seems to fall in to place. Of course there are still hardships, tears and sorrow but with the hope that I have in God and remember what I had been studying just makes it all a lot easier. My marriage has been amazing and I have been focusing on how to really serve Ben as his wife.  With those two big things in my life to focus on we have been really busy, the last year we have been working on our house (basement suite almost done), we've taken a lot of little vacations to our families cabins, we have our puppy dog Nixon and our last big thing of the year was going on a missions trip to India with Westside Church (will have a blog about that shortly).

Of course it hasn't all been easy also in the last year we have seen my Nana & Ben's aunt fight cancer, my papas Alzheimer's has been progressing each and every day, Ben's work went on strike for 6 weeks over the summer, Ben's dads memory has been deteriorating and they aren't sure why, our house was broken in to, we are still working on our renovation in the basement and many other things. But through it all it's been a great year.

I am excited for what 2012 has to bring, I know that everything that is thrown at me I can handle.