10@10

 1. Sam gave Burns "Pandemic" for Christmas. It's pretty great. Basically there are four different diseases that are spread throughout the world and everyone playing works as a team to eliminate them. Sometimes "outbreaks" occur and if you get up to eight "outbreaks" the game is over and you lose. It reminded me of the movie "Contagion". I recommend it.

2. A few weeks ago the sibs and their fams went tobogganing at Suicide Hill. Lita and I joined them and it was my first time there. I wish I had a toboggan but the crazy carpets were pretty great. I wish we had more time but the sun was going down so we left after going only a couple times down the hill.

3. On January 19th I went snowboarding at Nakiska with Haillee and her family. The snow was so compact so it killed when I fell...and I fell quite a lot. I wasn't really enjoying myself too much even though the weather was gorgeous! After lunch Haillee was fed up with my whining so she decided to try to teach me more about carving. She did a great job and we took the next few runs really slowly. By the end of the day I was almost carving (very slowly but still). I had so much fun! Thanks so much to the Litousky's for putting up with me.

4. Burns got a new shirt. Thanks Joe! Now if only Burns was allowed to wear it around his house without being seriously chastised...

5. Alex and her friend Leslie hosted a Favorite Things Party. They had all of their guests think of one favorite thing and bring five of that one thing. I brought Aveeno lotion and Nivea lip balm. We also brought our favorite treat to share with everyone. We all drew numbers and went in order to pick out one item at a time. We then drew numbers again and again until we all had five different items. Here is my stash:

Party bags, chocolate, cotton cosmetic rounds, hand sanitizer, cupcake liners, coconut oil, foaming soap, lip gloss, and nail polish.

There was a prize to be won so we all drew numbers again and put the numbers back into the jar. The prize winning number was drawn and ... I WON! YAY! I ate all of that chocolate in two days. I loved the party and I can't wait for the next one!

6. I got to make snowmen for my job the other day. I seriously can't get over how great my job is.

7. Speaking of jobs, I just started a part time job with the PREP Program. I'm basically doing the same thing as I am with the Cause and Effect Foundation. I'm having a great time with the little boy I'm working with even if it's from 6:45am until 8:00am every day. I'm glad it's really early in the morning because I love having my evenings with Burns and Kobe.

8. Last Friday after Burns was finally finished his final exam from last semester (he was sick on the actual day so he had to get it deferred to Friday) we went out to eat at Tango Bistro! He's heard me rave about it and we finally got to experience it together. He loved it! We then went to The House on Kensington for some hot chocolate and a little live music. I really would love to sing with Burns on the open mic night. While we were listening to some good ol' live country music, we doodled on our cups and had drawing competitions. I loved our little date night.

9. I invited Alex and Arianne to go dress shopping with me a few weekends ago and we had a lovely sister date. We should do that more often. I found my dress too! I can't wait to get it!

10. Remember when I did Bryanne's wedding makeup? Well I did Haillee's and Alyssa's too. Now Alyssa wants me to do her wedding makeup! Mostly because I won't be charging her for it, but at least I know she thinks I'm okay! Haha. I have a trial with her tomorrow. I hope I can make her happy and feel beautiful.

goals for 2013

Here are my goals for 2013:

1. Get married.
2. Exercise every day for at least 15mins except for Sundays.
3. Be more prepared for my work sessions.
4. Go camping without a parental figure (this must be accomplished this year!!!).
5. Concentrate more on the people I'm with rather than the people on my phone.
6. Run another half or even a full marathon.

I guess that's it for now. 

two thousand and twelve

Last year was a year of firsts.

I went through every blog post of 2012 and so much has happened in only one year! I started with what  my goals were for last year. Taken from a previous blog post:

Things I regret about 2011:

•   Burns and I didn't go skating ONCE

•   I didn't go snowboarding for the first time

•   I didn't go camping

I am happy to announce that in the year 2012 I accomplished all of these things. I went skating, I went camping, and I went snowboarding!

Here were my goals for 2012:

•   graduate with an undergraduates degree in linguistics

•   get into grad school (crossing fingers)

•   if I get into said grad school I will be moving to Edmonton

•   run the 10k in the moonlight run

•   run a half marathon in September

start a YouTube channel featuring Burns and me playing/singing duets

What actually happened in 2012:

- graduated

- ran the moonlight run

- ran a half marathon

I think I did pretty good. As I said before, 2012 was a year of firsts. Let's take a look:

January

1.    Bought new glasses

2.     I started volunteering at ARBI

3.     Went to the Calgary philharmonic orchestra for the first time

5.     Got eyelash extensions

February

1.     I got pooped on for the first time

2.     Hosted my very first cookie exchange

March

1.     Ran my first 10k in the Moonlight Run

April

1.     Celebrated Earth Hour for the first time

2.     Learned how to change the oil in a car

May

1.     Hiked in the States for the first time

2.     Burns left to work up north as a security system installer

3.     Bought Burns’ car

June

1.     saw my first musical in Calgary – Sweeney Todd

2.     GRADUATED!!!

4.     Met kobe’s brother, Chase

July

1.     Burns turned 25

2.     Ran for the first time in the Raymond 10k

3.     Grandpa Wood turned 90

4.     Went on an epic bike ride with Matt and Steph

5.     Hiked up to the ice caves

6.     Went to the Stampede for AWOLNATION and Lita’s birthday at the Grandstand Show

7.     Went to Shakespeare in the Park for the first time

8.     Went camping with Brentwood Ward

9.     Got my wisdom teeth out

August

1.     Ran my fastest 5k and won in my category in the Seeba Beach race

2.     Went to Saskatchewan for the first time

3.     Went backpacking in the Rockies for the first time

4.     Ran in the Spartan Race

5.     House boat trip!

6.     Visited the enchanted forest with Kutarnas

September

1.     Whitewater rafting

2.     Ran my first Half Marathon in 2hrs

3.     Boonie started his first semester at UofC

4.     I started my first real job at C&E

October

1.     I moved to Charleswood

2.     Went on an awesome bike ride with the fam at Thanksgiving

3.     Went to the Calgary temple open house

4.     Went to the Calgary Corn Maze at night for the first time

5.     Turned 22 and went to West Ed to experience the brand new slides at the water park. 

November

1.     Hosted my first bridal shower

December

1.     Maid of Honor for Bryanne’s wedding

2.     Survived the 21^st

4.     Snowboarding

5.     GOT ENGAGED!!!

fj

dI think 2012 will be pretty hard to beat. On second thought...maybe not. I'm getting married and I will get at least 3 new nieces and/or nephews! If Alex jumps on the bandwagon then that will be 4 new babies all in 2013! I'm pretty excited!

utah new year

Burns was going to go to Utah to be with his brothers for Christmas and we decided that I would drive down with Kobe to be there for the New Year. We eventually decided that it would be best for Burns to stay in Calgary for Christmas and we would travel with Denise down to Utah on the 28th.

Monida Pass is almost always sketchy in the winter, but we made it through alright without even having to slow down. And it made for a good picture:

I was such a grump when we got to Matt and Steph's. I was tired and sore from snowboarding, so I took a nice bubble bath and felt way better. Sam, Burns and I waited up for Matt to get home from work at 11:00pm. Right after I said hi to him, I went straight to bed.

On Saturday, the 29th, we didn't have much planned. All I wanted to do for sure while I was down there was to go to the Temple Square Christmas Lights. We decided we would go that night. After a day of Costco shopping and eating out at Cafe Rio, we had supper and we were on our way to Salt Lake!

The rumours were true, the Christmas Lights are fantastic!

My favourite lights are the tree lights and there were no shortage of them there. I was in Christmas light heaven!

Burns and Rhett being superheroes:

We walked around for a little bit and then Sam told us that their Aunt Nancy would be joining us soon. As we headed over to where we were to meet her, Burns bought me some hot chocolate from a street vendor. It was delicious. While we were waiting for Nancy in a bookstore at City Creek Mall, Sam came in and told us he just saw some guy propose to his girlfriend in front of everyone at the mall!

We found Aunt Nancy and went back to the lights.

We saw this huge tree of lights and decided to go see it and get a family picture.

Aunt Nancy, Steph, Denise, Sam, Me, Burns, Rhett, and Capri.

Then Burns said we should get a picture of just us together up by the tree. He handed my phone to Sam to take the picture and we marched on up.

After the picture I was going to go back, but Burns was just standing there still. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. He turned to me.

Pulled out a ring, and got down on one knee.

Then, with tears in his eyes, he asked me to marry him.

I nodded and couldn't stop smiling. I guess I was what they call "speechless". I didn't even say "yes" out loud, I just gave him a long hug. I think I might have whispered "yes" or "mhmm" or something but I vaguely recall hearing cheers in the background from his family and random people walking by. It was all so surreal.

We stood up and hugged even more.

Then I put the ring on and we went back down to his family.

I have a weird expression in this pic, but Burns looks so happy and cute.

Apparently Denise knew the whole time and was trying to get Burns to walk somewhere private with me to propose haha.

Showing off my new bling.

Yes, I was expecting it, but I was expecting to be proposed to on New Year's Eve. Good job, Boonie, you sure got me! And yes, I picked out the ring. Burns really wanted to completely surprise me, but everything just fell so perfectly into place when we went ring shopping for ideas that he just had to get it right then and there. I love it!

My feelings right after he proposed were kind of the same as before he proposed. It was just so surreal and I was almost disappointed with how he had proposed. Don't worry, Burns and I talked all about it afterwards so he knows all about my weird emotions on the matter. The more I thought about it, though, the more I loved how he did it. He was so sincere and the lights were so romantic! Even as I think about it now, I love it more and more. He's a keeper for sure.

I spent the next morning calling home and texting people to let them know the big news. I'm glad it was so close to Arianne's announcement that she is pregnant because we kind of had a little inside joke. I asked her about a year earlier when she was getting pregnant. She then replied that she would announce her pregnancy when I announced my engagement.

We haven't picked a date yet but we want to get married some time in the summer. 2013 is going to be a big year for the Leishmans and even the Harris'! Both Mandi and Steph are pregnant so I will have 3 new nieces and/or nephews by the time Burns and I get married.

Other than the engagement, the rest of the trip was quite uneventful in a really good way. It was so relaxing. It was also very nerdy. Sam got Burns the game "Pandemic" for Christmas and we learned how to play it on Sunday night. New Year's Eve morning we headed over to Luke and Mandi's for some crepes. We spent the day just hanging out and eating a bunch of great food. We visited a couple gun/hunting stores and it was crazy! Because of the recent shooting, people are going nuts and everyone is buying a gun! Scary.

When we got home we ate even more great food and we stayed up for the countdown. Luke even lit some fireworks on his front lawn. That was pretty cool.

On New Year's Day we all went to see "The Hobbit" and all of us thought it was pretty awesome. The next day we did a whole bunch more of nothing. Sam and Matt made a pretty great Hobbit dinner though. Then on Thursday Burns and I hung out with Matt and his kids. We got some "scones" at Sill's diner. Massive and pretty good until the last couple of bites when you want to throw up.

Matt and Rhett

We even learned that Elvis is not dead! We saw him! He's right there behind Rhett...

I wish we could have taken a better picture of him but there he is again behind Matt.

That night I was the nerdiest I've ever been. We played Dungeons and Dragons (the Drizzt Do'Urden edition) and it was actually pretty fun!

On Friday the 4th, Burns, Kobe and I headed home.

We made a stop at Burns' father's grave close to Blackfoot, Idaho. It was nice to finally see where his dad was buried. That must have been so hard for Denise to go through. She raised some pretty amazing boys though. I'm sure Rhett would be very proud of all of them. 

I had such a great time and I can't wait for our next trip down there! Hopefully we'll actually get some nice summery weather because I haven't seen Utah in its summer state yet. Thanks so much to Matt, Steph, Luke, and Mandi for feeding us and sheltering us. We love you and I can't wait to be officially a part of your family!

snowboarding

Alex, Joe, Marshall, Carol, Daryn, Burns and I all decided to go snowboarding on the 27th. It was my first time and I had a blast!

Daryn rode with Burns and me on the way to Castle Mountain. We had some exhilarating conversation going on.

We arrived at the resort, rented our snowboards, and paid for our lift tickets. I forgot that students get a discount so I paid full price, but then right after Burns came over and reminded me. I then asked for student pricing and they gave us the remaining money back without even checking that we had student IDs (which I don't because I'm graduated). Score! Oh and as we were picking up our snowboards I asked if they had anymore goggles left (the cashier said there weren't any more). The snowboard guy gave me some and I didn't have to pay for the rental! Then Burns did the same thing and he got the last pair. We were so lucky.

Burns and Carol taught me how to snowboard and we all went down the mountain together. When I felt more confident I went with Alex while the rest went to the double black diamond run. 

There were some pretty beautiful views.

I sure did fall a lot, but I was expecting to. We had a much needed lunch break then we were back on the slopes within the hour.

Alex and Me

Alex

Daryn, Me, Burns

He crashed right into me right after I took this.

Marshie and Carol

I had so much fun!