Things we did lately...

Went to a sweet motorbike show, and saw some amazing stunt riders (see video)







We babysat our cute niece at the riverrock casino while her mother was bellydancing and her father was gambling at poker



Jamie had a birthday



For Valentines we ended up going to the Korean grocery store in Langley (H-mart) and later making Galbi.





I (Jamie) aquired the most wicked RC monster truck you've ever seen, and painted the 1970's Ford truck body white to match the 1979 crew cab F250 that our family used to cruise in. I have very fond memories of that truck.



Best of all, we welcomed Brian and Marrianne (probably slaughtered the spelling there) to Abbotsford. Brian is one of my best friends and I'm extremely glad they're living close by now, so we can hang out and get to know Marrianne (again, lousy spelling, sorry Marrianne).

Friends

We had a girls night....finally.We call it RC night. For the girls, this means "Relaxation Center" and for the boys it means "Remote Control" trucks.





This night included a "quick" trip to Starbucks for Chai Lattes, lot's of chocolate, a chick flick and face masks.




I love Keegs!!!



Moi et Michele



"Just the three of us...we can make it we try..."

Sisters

Rachel, Keegan and myself at Ethical Addictions.

Memoires of Christmas

Finally, time to post. I have not a lot of "free time"; however, I do make time for parousing other peoples' blogs. Sometimes I even say to myself "why don't these people ever post?". Then, I realize that it's a double standard, I haven't posted in awhile either.



Goodbye Dodgeball. This was our last tournament of the dodgeball season.

We did make some time for a family game of dodgeball over the Christmas holidays.




Office parties. @ the Giggle Dam Theater. They picked on Peter and his dad.



We left for Burns Lake on December 23, just in time for Christmas eve and we stayed until New Years Day.



Dave and Dad trying to be Lenny Kraviz



Our little Christmas miracle




Ellen, Bond style



Tasty Christmas treats.



The lovely couple, and a lovely Christmas tree.


Is that Ian or Naepolian?

"We like to party"

As soon as December hit us (or when the snow began to fall) we entered into this magical winterland full of christmas parties, snowball fights, hot chocolate and yummy Christmas treats.

I made this Christmas wreath myself!!!!



Here are a few snapshots from my PDP Christmas/Bridal shower party. Since two of the girls in my program are getting married in December, we decided to surprize them with presents and cheesy shower party games.






This was a game we played where each team had to decorate an "elected" bride with a wedding dress made out of toilet paper. Notice that 2 of the "elected" brides were the 2 guys in our program.....hehehehehehee



Next party was a house party attended by mostly people from our church. It was definately NOT boring. There was a lot of crazy middle aged people dancing up a storm to eighties music (and I definately joined in with them).



There wasn't any official dancing at Alex's party, but we showed off a few of our moves at the end for the party finale. There was random Christmas songs, Christmas stories and plenty of good food. (**don't let the jacket fool you-this party was on an entirely different night as the other house party)

An "all star" weekend

This past weekend was a very memorable one for us.

Saturday:

8:30-10:00am
I took the skytrain intop Vancouver. It brought back fond memories of the subway system in Seoul.

10:00am-12:30pm
I went to Utopia Academy in Vancouver to get my hair cut. Dispite the "new tecniques" the student was trying to learn on me, it was a good haircut.

12:30-1:00pm
My American cousin, Jake, was in town so he met up with me at the salon and we went to Chinatown. We did lot's of touristy things, like taking pictures of the Chinese garden with our cell phone cameras and going to all the local gift shops.



1:00-2:00pm
Jake and I had some Nem-sam: a Chinese arrangement of small foods.



2:00-3:30pm
Jake and I went to Metrotown (via the skytrain)---we're sooooo metro. We did a little Christmas shopping/adding things to our own Christmas wishlists.




4:00pm-by this time it was starting to become a snowy winter wonderland.




6:00-8:00pm
Triple date with Jamie, Brian, Laura, Ryan, Lane at Pasta Polo (a very yummy organic pasta restuarant).

8:00-9:00pm
Off to Chapters to look at all the picture travel books and to make my own travel wishlist.


9:00-11:00 pm
Bowling to our hearts content. Jamie got a "turkey" (3 strikes in one turn).

Sunday-snow day!!

Christmas bake-off. I made shortbread cookies, banana chocolate chip loaf...and brainstorming more recipes to come!!

7:00-10:00pm
Not too snowy to make an appearance at Nathan and Lydia's pad for some "catching up" time.

Total snow accumulated: almost to my knees
Approx. temp: -10

Quattro Reunito!

We're lucky to be able to share lives and memories with 2 highly interesting and special people, Lydia and Nathan (the Skulls). After seeing Lydia and Nathan every day for 12 months in a far away alien land, the four of us have been apart for the past few months. But now the Skulls are back in Langley (after spending a few months in Ontario, Mexico, and Boston, to name a few of the places they've been).


Even better, they live really close to us - only about 5 minutes away by car. That's almost as good as in Korea, when we lived a 2 minute walk away from each other.

Dodgeball isn't just for kids anymore....

Dodgeball: the name of a traditional American game involving players trying to avoid being hit by a ball that players on the other team are throwing at them.


Bait-ball: One team member lobs a ball up in the air to distract the other team, while a second team member throws a ball at normal speed in hopes of getting someone out.

Suicide throw: In some rulesets, individuals can cross the center line while jumping. They are only out when their feet hit the floor. Suiciders take advantage of this by attempting to jump across the center line and throw the ball before their feet hit the ground.

Mexican Flying Coffin Filler: Involves a blocker springing a thrower up off of his/her back to gain forward momentum on an aerial throw

Fake Doctor: This tactic can be used in Dr. Dodgeball. First, a selected teammate pretends to be 'out'. Of course, they really are not. Second, another teammate pretends to be the doctor and touches the teammate, bringing them back 'in'. The opposing team then thinks that the second person is the doctor, even though he is not. The entire team then aims for the second person, thusly sparing the real doctor.




The team: Chuck it like it's hot.

Every tuesday night we're chucking it and we're hot,

The first picture is Jamie's parents back yard last week (October 25th ish). The second picture is their back yard as of this weekend (October 29th ish). Note how high the snow is one the swingset. They've never seen this much snow in one snowfall, let alone in October.

What's happening with the Grahams???

After looking through my friends' blogs and inwardly complaining that I wish they posted more...then realized what a double standard I was setting b/c the last time I posted was 3 weeks ago.

So let me break it down for you...




I went to a wicked awesome basketball game at TWU on Friday night. There was a marching band. There was a dance team. There were 3 overtimes (maybe 4???). They lost by 2 points. You could cut the game tension with a knife.



By the way, the housing market SUCKS right now. This house we looked at in Abbotsford was delapetated/moldy/needed to be torn down and rebuilt and it was OVER our budget.



I love fall.




This past weekend was a busy one. We had around 12 people over at our new place, all at different times throughout the weekend. It was swell seeing lot's of family.




I'm back at the elementary school, student teaching. This is the highlight of my decimals unit: the Guiness Book of World Records board. I asked each of my students to find random decimal facts by looking at the book or by using the internet. One girl was confused when she found internet information about beer instead of Guiness World Record facts....hmmmmmmm.


Jamie's parents' hometown of Burns Lake has been on the news a lot lately because they have 3.5 feet of snow and the power has been out for the past 3 days.


BEFORE


AFTER