Adieu 2006

This will more than likely be my last entry of 2006, so to mark the occasion I decided to do a 2006 Year-In-Review. It was hard to think back to events from the beginning of the year and I'm sure I'm forgetting important things that happened, but here's what I could come up with. Enjoy and all the very best to you and yours in 2007!

January
-The new year started for Ryan and I by waking up at my friend Kim's house, after she hosted a great New Year's Eve party.
-The federal election saw the Conservatives defeat the Liberals, but Canada still ended up with a minority government

February
-My father celebrated his birthday on the 3rd.
-My best friend Carrie came home from Ontario for a visit and brought her friend and co-worker Tara with her, who had never been to the Maritimes before.
-I hosted a stagette party for Kim while Carrie was here.
-The 2006 Winter Olympic games were held in Torino, Italy.

March
-Kim and Jon got married in Cayo Cocoa, Cuba
-My cat Neo, turned 2
-My nextdoor neighbours had their second baby, another daughter, named Cassidy

April
-Kim threw Angela a surprise 30th birthday party
-Ryan celebrated his birthday on the 13th
-Carrie and Chris came home for a visit (Chris' first time east). Chris was down for a week, Carrie stayed for two.
-Kim and Jon held a wedding reception, allowing friends and family who couldn't make it to Cuba for the wedding, an opportunity to celebrate their union with them.
-Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had a baby girl name "Suri"

May
-I was laying out tanning regulary at the beginning of the month (holy "2006-year of crazy weather"!).
-Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had a baby girl they named Shiloh (wonder if they've ever been to Manitoba, lol) Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.

June
-I began the Weight Watchers program on June 5th.
-The Carolina Hurricanes won the NHL's Stanley Cup.

July
-My brother celebrated his birthday on the 4th.
-Chris proposed to Carrie while they were vacationing at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
-Carrie's grandmother passed away 2 days after her engagement.
-Pam Anderson and Kid Rock marry several times.

August
-I celebrated my birthday on the 17th.
-Carrie celebrated her birthday on the 8th.
-My friend Sherri and her husband Jamie welcomed their first child, son Tyson James.
-Carrie came home for a visit and we started planning her wedding for April '07, here in Fredericton.
-My neighbours purchased a new home and moved.
-Ryan and I, along with friends, headed to Woodstock to enjoy a weekend of camping and the sounds of the bands Survivor (Eye of the Tiger), Foreigner (Hot Blooded, I Wanna Know What Love Is) and CCR (I don't need to list any of their hits...everyone knows CCR!).

September
-My Mom celebrated her birthday on the 9th.
-Ryan went to Hong Kong to work on a contract with Treasure Island Resort.
-Tie Domi and Belinda Stronach let slip their courtship, which is going to cost Tie Domi in the end, with his messy divorce.
-Dog the Bounty Hunter gets arrested due to fiasco from arresting Andrew Luster in Mexico.
-Steve Irwin "The Crocodile Hunter" dies after getting stung by a sting ray.
-Britney Spears gives birth to her second child, son Jayden James.
-Another Canadian wins the reality show Rockstar. Lukas Rossi wins the opportunity to front the band Rockstar: Supernova.

October
-I found out my job was being taken to Tijuana, Mexico. All hope was not lost as I do get to be transferred to the company's other brand, although I am still not happy about the situation and am still looking for a new job.
-I celebrated a nice Thanksgiving with my parents and my brother.
-I flew to Toronto to visit Carrie for 10 days. During this visit we also ventured over to Buffalo, NY (I was not impressed by this place at all!).
-I made it back to New Brunswick in time for Halloween, where I went to my brother's to pass out treats to the kiddies.

November
-I got a new toilet on Rememberance Day weekend. My dad's friend Scott (a plumber) installed it for me.
-I had all of my Christmas shopping completed and wrapped by the end of Rememberance Day weekend.
-Britney Spears and husband Kevin Federline call it quits.
-Jimmie Johnson wins the Nascar Nextel Cup.
-Michael "Krammer" Richards explodes into a racial tirade while performing at the comedy club "The Laugh Factory".

December
-Carrie arrived home on the 9th for Christmas.
-I threw a bridal shower for Carrie on the 10th.
-Stephane Dion won the Federal Liberal Leadership.
-Baked Christmas treats and also cupcakes as a trial for Carrie's wedding "cupcake cake".
-counted down the days until Ryan arrived home from Hong Kong on the 22nd.
-attended Christmas church service with my parents and then attended Carrie's parent's annual Christmas Eve gathering.
-Celebrated a wonderful Christmas with my family and then again with Ryan.
-Caught Ryan's "Hong Kong Flu", of which I'm still not completely recovered from.

We're Down

I get into work today to find that our server system is completely shut down - our rental counters our down, our website is down, and we're down here at the call center. I love these days!!! I feel like this is the break that we've earned for putting in numerous hours dealing with extremely moody, negative, verbally abusive customers who call us day in and day out. It's so great to say "I'm sorry I cannot assist you at this time, please try back in X amount of hours". I then get to sit back and play on the internet or do whatever I want, while we wait for our system to come back up. It's been 3 hours now that we've been down. Usually if we're not back up within an hour, it means that we've got a major problem and we'll be down for the majority of the day...I love it!!!

Catch Up

Let's play catch up for the past couple of days. Friday night I left work and went to my parent's place to do up my week's worth of laundry. I wanted to have it done to free up my weekend for Ryan's arrival home and with Christmas and all.

I went home Friday and slept restlessly, eagerly awaiting my reunitement with Ryan. He spent some time sleeping in (extreme jet lag, coming from a country with a 12 hour time difference) and catching up with his family and then came over to my place after supper. It was so wonderful to see him again and show him the new me (ie- minus the 50 lbs I'd lost since he was gone). We spent a nice quiet evening at my place, filling one another in on the stories of our life in the past almost 4 months. Ryan had been sick his whole last week in Hong Kong and was starting to feel better when he got ready to leave. As soon as he got on the plane though, it aggravated his illness and he wasn't feeling too well until Christmas Day.

Sunday afternoon I went up to my parent's place to prepare Christmas Eve dinner, traditionally made by me every year. This year I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, as per my mother's request...which was shocking considering her picky-ness with food. She'd never had it before and claimed that she did like it, however I don't believe she'll be requesting it again, lol.

After supper I went to church for the Christmas Eve service with my parents and then up to Carrie's parent's house for their annual Christmas Eve gathering. Carrie and I exchanged gifts that evening as well and I received a pair of earrings, some Cadbury thins chocolate bars and a gift certificate to get my nails done for her wedding.

I then ventured home to my parent's house to spend the night and wake up on Christmas morning with them, along with my brother staying over too. We had a great Christmas morning and an amazing big breakfast together, despite my waking up with what I thought was a bad case of allergies. I received many wonderful gifts which including a Columbia winter jacket, a new coffee maker, cordless phone, new cookware, bath towels and a new shower curtain from my parents. My brother got me a potato and onion bin and Full House ( I loved that show) on DVD...although he got me season one, which I already had, lol.

In the afternoon on Christmas Day, I met Ryan back at my place for our Christmas together. His gifts for me all came from Hong Kong. I received a new purse with a matching coin purse, a beautiful jade necklace with matching earrings and matching bracelet and also a beautiful white silk kimono.

I then went back to my parent's place for Christmas dinner. At this point I was feeling miserable and realized that what I thought were my allergies bothering me, was really Ryan's flu that he brought home with him. I suffered through dinner and then headed straight home. I was supposed to go up to Carrie's parent's place after dinner and say goodbye to her as she was flying out at 6 a.m. on Boxing Day. I felt horrible for not being able to go up and say goodbye, but I called her and explained to her how sick I was. She understood, but I still felt bad.

Yesterday I layed low, trying to recover somewhat from my flu. Thank goodness I didn't have to work yesterday. I'm feeling a lot better today, but am still not 100%. All in all it was a wonderful holiday, although to me it just didn't feel the same this year. I don't know if it was the fact that Ryan wasn't here this year until almost Christmas Day or that there was no snow on the ground or what, but Christmas-time just didn't feel like Christmas-time this year.

"Hey La, Hey La...My Boyfriend's Back"

Ryan is back safe and sound now in Fredericton! I can not express to you how happy I was to see him again! I will report more later on the home-coming. I just wanted to take a brief moment before I sit down to Christmas Eve dinner to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! Be safe over the holidays! :)

On His Way

So Ryan is now on his way home as I type this! He boarded the plane in Hong Kong at 4:30 a.m. this morning (4:30 p.m. Hong Kong time). I have been tracking his flight online ever since I got to work this morning. It's pretty neat to see exactly where in the world he is at that very moment. The flight that he's currently on arrives into Toronto tonight around supper time-ish and from there he boards a flight from Toronto to Fredericton, arriving into Fredericton just after midnight tonight.

I think I mentioned this before, but I won't actually get to see Ryan until tomorrow some time. His parents are picking him at the airport tonight, along with his brother who is flying in tonight from Newfoundland. I can't tell you how excited I am to see Ryan!

This has been the week from hell work-wise. We have been so busy with the Christmas rush of travellers and then with Denver getting snowed in, it's been nuts! People have been extra bitchy and stupid this week as well. Of course we are sold out of all cars in New York City for Christmas day...you moron, LOL. All I can say is that I'll be happier than a pig in crap when I leave work tonight at the end of my shift. I'm not back into work until Wednesday, December 27th. It's not a whole lot of time off, but I'm happy with that.

Over Baked

Last night the bake-a-thon was on at my house. It doesn't seem like I made a lot, but the stuff that I did make took a lot of friggin', so it took me a few hours.

I started baking at around 7:30 p.m. At about 8 p.m. my friend Yolanda, who now lives in Edmonton, called me. She's home for Christmas and is trying to round up some of the old gang to get together at Dolan's this upcoming Saturday. We had a nice chat for about a half an hour or so and caught up with each other.

I hung up with Yo and then my friend Mark, who lives in Moncton, called me. He had been talking to Yo earlier and was under the assumption that the weekend get together was going to be hosted by me, at my house. I quickly cleared that up and told him I wasn't hosting and that the tentative plan is to go to Dolan's. He was a little disappointed, as Mark's not really into the bar scene anymore and would prefer to come to my house. I also would prefer the latter, but seeing that Saturday is my first day with Ryan after his return from Hong Kong, I don't want a houseful of people at my place and wishing that they would leave, so I could get some alone time with Ryan. No offense anyone! Just this way, we can go and make an appearance at Dolan's and then leave after a couple of hours. If it were any other time, I would be more than happy to have everyone over!

After talking to Mark on the phone, I picked up baking again and then Carrie stopped in after the movie that she went to with the girls. We sat at the kitchen table and chatted, while I frosted some shortbread cookies. Carrie stayed until about 11 or so and then I continued on with the baked goods.

At the end of the evening by about midnight I had a sinkfull of dishes washed and had 2 pumpkin loaves, oodles of shortbread cookies frosted with vanilla frosting and a cherry on top and a cocoa krispie roll made (my brother's favorite...he begs me to make it for him every year, but it's such a pain in the a$$ to make!). I was impressed with what I had got done, considering everything I had done in between baking. I was hoping to make a couple of more things, but just couldn't fit it in.

Tonight Carrie, Andrea (one of Carrie's bridesmaids) and Angela are supposed to come over around 8 p.m. If any of you friends reading this would like to join us girls, feel free to come on over! :)

Baked

I think I'm going to start my Christmas baking tonight after work. I have been putting it off because I don't have a deep freeze and the freezer in my refrigerator is completely plugged full. Not that I plan on baking a whole lot, but I will be making two or three things and didn't want them to be stale before Christmas.

Tonight a bunch of my girlfriends are heading to the movies to see "The Holiday". Since I don't get off of work until 7:00 p.m. tonight, I unfortunately won't be able to make it. Seeing as nobody will be around tonight, I figure that it's a good night to put on the Christmas music, do some baking and start cleaning the house before Ryan gets home! I am so excited to see him in mere days now!