Looking Back, Looking Forward

Looking back on 2009, a lot of major things have happened in my life.

• Started the year off with a broken hand
• Got my eyes lasered (Best decision EVER!)
• Lost an Aunt :(
• Took a trip to Mexico
• Took a trip to Vegas to surprise FI's brother at his wedding - so much for them eloping, we all went anyways!
• Bought a house
• Took a trip to Kelowna to surprise my friend
• GOT ENGAGED! (you can see this is the biggest thing and the best thing that happened :D )
• Gained a new niece
• FI got his first Nephew
• Got back to pole and made it through from level 4 to level 7

Looking forward to 2010 - That which is planned in the new year

• Take up reading lots and lots of books with The Nest Book Club
• I plan to partake in the seasonal challenges that they have and hopefully read all the monthly books
• Trip to the Caymans to meet FI's nephew! (he'll be 4.5 months old!)
• Friend getting married in Kelowna, BC
• FI's cousin getting married in Vancouver, BC
• my cousin getting married in North Alberta
• Finish with the RCIA process and become a Catholic
• Numerous wedding things to be planned and booked and shopped for

Here are  few other things that popped up after reading a few blogs or just from my own thoughts

• Set a number of books I want to read - Thinking of 40. Start low and then see how it goes.
• Get my fitness certification so I can teach pole
• Get a puppy or dog
• I thought about doing a 365 challenge, that is take a picture of something every day, but I think my life is pretty mundane and would end up taking the same photos throughout the year.

What happened in your past year? What are your plans for the upcoming one?

Wonderful weekend and Early Christmas

This past weekend, my FI and I drove to Edmonton in the frigid temperatures to celebrate an early Christmas with his side of the family. The roads were ok driving up, there was only one really icy section. We passed about 8 cars in the ditch, some of them still had people in them, so they must have just gone in. We also so another dozen sets of tracks from previous days where people had hit the ditch. We made it through that section ok, but drove about 70km/h on the highway where the speed limit is 100km/h.

Once we got to Edmonton the temperature that afternoon was -31C. At one set of stop-lights my FI had to keep pumping the gas peddle so the car wouldn't stop! That's way too cold to be out and about. The evening went to about -36C. Craziness!

The whole family hooked up on Skype with the brother/sister-in-law/nephew that live elsewhere. It was great to be able to 'see' them and spend some time with them. We went out for supper at a really nice restaurant, Ric's Steakhouse, then proceeded back to FI's brothers where we stayed in and opened gifts, played games and ate way too much. It was a great evening.

Sunday morning we all go up and went to The Sawmill for brunch. After that we drove to the hospital to see FI's grandmere. She seems to be going downhill, and it's really sad. She still seems in good spirits when people talk to her, but life is getting harder.  She is unable to walk far, so she stays in bed most of the day. Really hard to see someone like that.  FI had a hard time with it, and said it was very sad to see her like that, and that he doesn't think things will get any better. It's disheartening to hear that from him. He doesn't do well expressing himself when it comes to those sorts of things. I can relate to him at least, losing two grandparents and not ever knowing the others before they passed.

All in all, it was a great weekend, aside from the sad visit. It was nice to see the family, hang out, give gifts and have good cheer.

The Nest Book Club

I have entered into an entirely new realm of reading. I'm a member on The Knot forum and never ventured over to The Nest until today. There is a whole other world/forum over there.
I found the board that's the Nest Book Club. Wow! I never really had a book list before, but I sure do now! I have a bunch of books on my bookshelf that are my "To Be Read", but I never seem to get around to them. I think now with the Winter Book Challenge, I will get around to reading a lot of them.

I'm very excited and finding now I am definately getting addicted to forums. There is so much information, people from all over and a wide variety of opinions. I love it!!

I will definitely post a list of the books I am planning to read soon. I have to refine the list first. haha

My trusty notebook

In pole class last night, I figured I'd bring my little notebook that I write down new moves that I learn in. It came in very handy.
We are still working on the Butterfly and now getting used to pushing away from the pole to get our body in the right positioning for the full pose.  I'm finding that my grip is not up to par yet in order for me to release my body away from the pole. I'm not afraid to take my legs off, and I'm not afraid to be upside down and pulling away from the pole, it's just that I'm afraid my top hand won't grip well enough. Very frustrating!

After practicing that for a little while, we moved onto to what we'll learn next week. Catapiller crawl. I can barely do the Catapiller push as it is, but now we're going to start crawling up the pole. Yikes!
This is where my trusty notebook came in.  My instructor was going over the breakdown of the crawl and showing us in steps. I couldn't grasp which hand you move first to regrip, when you move your legs, and so on and so forth.  Once I wrote it down, it made sense in my head. Once I inverted and went over it again, and again in my hand, saying the steps outloud, I was able to get the idea.  I certainly couldn't do the full move, but at least I understand the concept now.

Looking forward to next week!

Wedding Photographer

We have booked our photographer!
That's three things that are done now. Church, Reception, Photographer. We're done now until after January. Maybe a little research here and there, but no meetings!

We decided to go with As I See It Photography. We both felt comfortable with them and found that their photos had that fun feel to them. Beautiful photographs and a touch of something we liked.  A lot of the other photographers seemed to have less smiling faces to their work, and maybe it was the people they were shooting, maybe it wasn't, I don't know. I know for me, I want to have fun and make the day as stress-free as possible (a difficult task since stress runs my life). We worked with them going through what sort of album we want, what the budget was and between them and us, we found a package that is going to work. I'm ecstatic to work with them and can't wait for our engagement shoot! (which won't be until this snow is gone...)

You can view their blog here for more examples of their work:
As I See It Blog

Level 7 begins....

Last night was the first class of level 7 pole. I'm so excited to be getting higher in the levels, but now realizing I need to do more than just one pole class a week. I need to get myself into better shape so pole is easier. Funny, strength training so my fitness class is easier on me. Doesn't that seem a bit backwards?

Last night we learned a few ariel combinations and I got them all. Felt great to be able to do some things since my last class of level 6 went poorly. I guess that's the way it goes. Somedays are good pole days, somedays are not so much.