Day 26 (January 26, 2010): Couples Communication

Today was a VERY long day. Ken got up at 5 to go to the gym, as usual, then went to work. I had a meeting downtown from 9-12 then had the afternoon off and a parenting program to facilitate in the evening from 6-8pm. I used the afternoon to clean, pack and move things from our current apartment to the new one that we will be fully moved into in a few days! As a result of all that craziness I am exhausted. I am very glad that Ken and I started to plan in advance what we are going to do each night. I know that sometimes our plans will change but at least this way when I get home late we are not panicking trying to find something to do. Last weekend we planned out this entire week. Knowing that tonight I was going to work late we planned something that we could do "together" but at separate times. We decided to write out 10 questions that we would ask each other about ourselves and our relationship and answer them without looking at the others answers or discussing them first. So here it goes. I will start with the questions:

1) Are there any areas of our life that you changed your thoughts on since we got married?
2) Do you think that your partner makes enough of an effort to be romantic?
3)Where would you like to take your next vacation?
4)What do you like best about our life?
5)What is your biggest concern for our future?
6)What is your favorite memory of our relationship?
7)What part of your partner's personality are you most attracted to?
8)Do you feel that you can share your feelings/thoughts openly with your partner?
9)Do you believe in a higher power?
10)How many kids would you like to have?

Mel's Answers:
1)I don't think there is much that I changed my thoughts on since we got married but there are things that I changed my thoughts on since I met Ken. For example: I am a very independent person. I used to like to take care of myself and I actually prided myself in that. I am still an independent thinker and a strong willed person but I like being nurtured by Ken. I like that he opens doors for me and won't let me carry many groceries. 5 years ago I would have been offended by that!

2)Ken is probably one of the most romantic people that I have ever met. He has written songs about me, wrote me poems, buys me flowers and cards regularly, is very thoughtful about gifts etc. I am very lucky to have a husband like him. I am afraid though about his answer to this question because I am not very romantic! By the way, he just bought me my favourite flowers last week:)

3)A couple of things come to mind. 1. I would love to go snorkelling again and possibly take up scuba diving so somewhere tropical would be good. With that in mind we have cousins in Australia so that would be fun. 2. I would love to see an NFL game so anywhere with an NFL team!

4)I like that we appreciate the same things about our life. I like that we both help with cooking and cleaning so it gets done faster and we can relax together. I like that we both like a simple, quiet life. We support each other through everything and that makes our life enjoyable and easy. Life is better with Ken than it was without him and that makes me happy.

5)Money!

6)So many to choose from: Walking down the aisle with my parents and seeing him waiting for me at the front is definitely one. Also, our camping trips.

One of my favorite memories though is when Ken ate the Birds Eye Pepper on one of our first dates at "Pad Thai". I've told that story many times so I'm sure most people who read this blog will know what I'm talking about.

7)I really admire Ken's "energy"....I don't mean the fact that he can run around and not get tired. I mean his "presence". He has a really positive energy about him. He makes people feel at ease when they spend time with him. He can meet new people and they instantly like him.

8)Absolutely!

9)Yup.....I don't know what it is but I definitely believe in something.

10)This is interesting. Before I met Ken I swore that I wouldn't have kids. Now that we are together I could see myself having kids with him. I would only like 1 or maybe 2.

Ken's Answers:
1. I have changed many areas of my life since we got married. I am now healthier and am food conscious alot of the time (still workin on that). I have become more communicative with not just my wife but with more people (still in progress....). I have become more family oriented than I was before. I am now reading books rather than the sports page and magazines.

2. Yes I think my partner makes an honest effort to be romantic by asking to go for walks and have small things to do like going to the book store and making nice meals for me.

3. I would like to take my next vacation in a remote forest area for a solid week at least, where there is only my wife and I and a canoe, some fishing gear and the rifles with a tent.

4. The best part of our life is being able to spend so much time with one person and miss them when you are away from them.

5. My biggest concern with our future is living in a place where we spend the next 30 years paying off a house and debts because of our social requirements and needs.

6. When we first met and we went out for supper and I ate the hot thai food for the first time. When we got back to the house you sat on the chair that my brother brought in from outside and I sat at your feat as we told Lloyd about the dinner.

7. I am most attracted to the motherness of my partners personality. How she always wants to take care of me and make sure that I have enough food and if I remembered everything.

8. I do share most of my thoughts with my wife unless I forget them.

9. I am lost about the higher power thing. I do not believe in a higer power but i would like to believe in Norwiegen mythology.

10. If we are to have kids I would like 2.


OMG, I just read Ken's answers and I think it is so cool that we both had the same "favourite memory"!!!!!
Good Night Everyone!

Mel

Day 25 (January 25, 2010): Newspaper Article Review

Tonight we decided to each read the same newspaper article. We thought that without discussing the article with each other we would each write our thoughts on the blog and see how similar/different our thoughts are. Here is the link to the article:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Convict+says+drive+shooting+Asia+Saddleback+accident/2482800/story.html


Mel's thoughts: I have followed this story since it happened. I feel really awful for the family that it happened to. I think that the situation on that reserve is out of control. I get frustrated when I hear of yet another youth who gets their trust money and blows it on a crazy drinking/drug binge. I would like to hear about a youth from Samson who used that money in a positive way. I know there have to be some but we never hear about it. The second thing that really annoys me about this article is we don't hear about anything happening to his wife who was driving the vehicle when he shot the gun at that house. I would like to know what became of her. I understand that they have a child together so I'm not suggesting that she be put in jail and for the child to not have a parent at home but I would like to see some sort of consequence for her. She obviously knew what was going to happen. Lastly, I would like to mention that I don't think the people in those communities (Wetaskiwin, Hobbema, Samson etc.) are doing enough to be pro-active with their youth. Their talk of opening a youth centre is great but there needs to be more than that. Who is reaching out to these kids before they get their trust money and teaching them about future planning, finances etc.???

I have a WHOLE lot more that I could say about this article but I will stop there (I didn't mention anything about his sentencing, the young offenders sentencing, the fact that there were probably gang members in Asia's house etc.). Ken just asked me if I am "writing an essay", lol!

Ken's Thoughts: dun dun dun haha

Well, what happens to kids when they sign big music contracts or sport contracts and are not supported by their mother and father to make sure that the money is put to good use? It is spent on sex drugs and rock and roll. Then they go out and screw around because they are not being looked after their whole life. The reserve claims to look after their own but they do not. The other issue with this article is the one about preserving native american or aboriginal heritage like they are some sort of relic. Instead of encouraging them to grow with financial means and payouts. They need to be living like the rest of born canadians and paying taxes and the rest of it, rather than being handed money and allowed to spend it as they see fit. We can not expect to have our native heritage remembered well if we do not make it a memory soon because the children of this heritage are beginning to become restless as they should.

Mel again..: Ken and I just read each other's thoughts and found it intersting that we had similar thoughts about the money education part.

Lastly I just want to remind everyone that we are still looking for ideas of things to do. I just discovered that we missed the Oilers skills competition on Sunday and it was cheap to get in.....I'm sure it would have been better than the Pet Expo, blah! So, please, if you hear of anything going on or if you think of something we can do please let us know!

Thanks!

Day 24 (January 24, 2010): Edmonton Pet EXPO

We have been planning for a couple of weeks to attend the Edmonton Pet Expo with our friend Joey. All 3 of us were really excited about it. Truthfully, it was kind of a let down. Joey was looking forward to free stuff (pet toys, treats etc. for his dogs) and Ken and I were looking forward to seeing weird pets. Basically there were cats, dogs and reptiles there. We did get to pet a few really nice kitties and some very sweet dogs. We saw a maine coon cat like our cat Oden. It was very cute and fuzzy. Just like Oden. They had a petting zoo for the kids but it was packed so we didn't go in. We entered a few draws for baskets of pet stuff and doggie spa weekends etc. The only free thing that Joey got was a dog training clicker that you put in your pocket and click when you want them to come back to you. Hopefully it works for him. It cost us $8.00 each to get in and we walked around for about 45 mins and then left.....oh well!

Day 23 (January 23, 2010): Edmonton Rush Lacrosse

Tonight we went to the home opener of the Edmonton Rush's lacrosse season. This is our second year as season ticket holders and we were so excited to go to the game. As it turned out the game itself was exciting too! We played the Buffalo Bandits. We beat them 11-7 which was awesome. The team looks really good this year. It was a fast paced, action packed game! There weren't any fights but there were definitely some tense moments.

Day 22 (January 22, 2010): Snack food review

Tonight we decided to try out a new snack food. I bought "Lundberg Bean and Rice Chips". The flavour we bought was "Pico de Gallo", whatever that means! They are shaped like nachos. The texture is a bit heavier than nachos though. They are wheat free, gluten free and vegan grade. The chips themselves don't have much flavor. Thankfully or not, I haven't decided yet, they have lots of flavoring on them. However, they are LOADED with salt! In 10 chips they have 430mg of salt. The healthy meal plan that I am on right now only allows about 600mg of salt per day! Since there is sodium in pretty much everything we eat I can't really eat anything with salt added. I only had a couple of the chips to taste and left the rest for Ken.

Verdict: Mel- If I wasn't on a low sodium diet I might eat them again, if they were on sale.

Ken-I wouldn't buy them again but if someone else did I would eat them.

Day 21 (January 21, 2010): Dinner at Brewsters

Tonight we were going to go to Kelseys because they had a free hot wing deal and we also had a gift card for there. When we got there the parking lot was full and it was a 45 minute wait. Since we were both starving we decided to go to Brewsters instead. We had a wonderful meal. We sat upstairs on the balcony part. It was really busy downstairs but upstairs it was nice and quiet. Ken ordered the beef dip and I had a steak with seasonal veggies. The food was so delicious. Ken also had one of the original Brewsters beers. I can't remember the exact name of the beer he had. It was a lager. I think the name was something like "tree frog". It was pretty good. It was a really nice, relaxing meal out.

Day 20 (January 20, 2010): River Valley Walk

I've been telling Ken for a couple of weeks that one night we should walk along Saskatchewan Drive and take pictures of the skyline. We have some great views of downtown from different places along our street. We decided to go for a walk tonight and I took the camera. I didn't realize that since I had gotten home from work it had become quite foggy out. So instead of going out to take pictures of the skyline we turned off of SK Drive and walked down a path into the river valley. We had a really nice walk and took a few pictures. I will post them later when I have more time to upload them onto the computer. We will have to take pics of the skyline another night.....look for that in upcoming posts!

As you can see here the pics of the skyline didn't really turn out.

But we had a nice relaxing walk!

Day 19 (January 19, 2010): Cat Training!!!

Tonight when I was on my way home from work Ken took Oden, our cat, out for a walk. Oden has been out for walks before. It's hard for us to tell if he likes it or not. When we first put the harness on him, he lays down. He will not walk on the sidewalk. When we get to the park he likes to walk along the retaining wall between the wall and the little shrubs. Sometimes he gets a burst of energy and tries to run. Tonight he was meowing loud every once in awhile.......again we don't know if it was because he was happy to be outside or wanted to go back in?!?!?!

When I got home from work Ken and Oden came upstairs and we decided to "train" Thor, our kitten to get used to the harness. We thought that he wouldn't like it, similar to how Oden first reacted. We were wrong. He didn't even care that it was on him. He just ran around the house like a maniac like he always does! Now I guess we will have to buy another harness so we can take Thor outside with Oden.

Day 18 (January 18, 2010): Visiting with our cousins from Down Under

Tonight we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for dinner. It was a very special dinner because our cousins from Australia were there to visit. My mom only has one sister and she had two daughters (Nicole and Andrea). Therefore I only have two first cousins on that side of my family. Unfortunately Andrea lives in Maine and Nicole lives in Australia! Nicole tries to bring her family to visit every few years. This year her husband Peter was unable to make the trek but her and her two daughters, Shae-Lynn and Annaleise came to Canada before Christmas. Eventhough they have been in North America for a few weeks this was our first time seeing them due to their busy travel schedule and our trip to Ontario. We only had a few hours to visit with them but it was a wonderful visit.

This was Ken's first time meeting his Aussie cousins! Ken went out to Auntie and Uncle's earlier than I did because I had to work until 7:30:( They all had dinner together. I ate when I got there. We all visited together around the table for awhile then Ken played darts and crokinole with Shae and Leise while I visited with Nicole and Auntie. It was so wonderful to see them again. Shae-Lynn and Annaleise are so big and grown up now. I wish we could see them more often. I hope that the next time they come to visit Peter can join them. As we were leaving Uncle Lawrence took some pictures. Hopefully I will get ahold of them and be able to post some on here.

Day 17 (January 17, 2010): Ice on Whyte Festival

Just now as I wrote "Day 17" I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that we haven't missed a day yet. I am very proud of us!

Tonight we went with Ken's brother and his girlfriend to the Ice on Whyte Festival. I have gone to this festival a few years in a row now. I think that the sculptures get better every year. Some of them were a bit melty this year because the weather has been really warm here. It was only -2 degrees celsius tonight.

This year there were two big ice slides and one smaller one for kids. That is an improvement. Last year I went with my 5 year old (at the time) niece and she went on the only slide that they had and it scared the crap out of her and she hurt her arm because it banged on the sidewall of the slide. They also had LED lights in alot of the sculptures this year.

Here are some pics from the festival.



This is Ken yawning while sitting in the ice bed that was in the bedroom of the "ice house".

This was an ice fountain. They had coins froze in it. I looked to me like it was capable of being a working fountain but it was just not turned on.

Close-up of one of the gargoyles on the ice bridge.

Ice bridge.

This is a close-up of the creature in the next picture......

The detail was amazing!

This is cute but look at the giraffe in the background. The lighting is amazing. The snow that they packed in the "spots" on the giraffe really lit up.

This was my favorite sculpture and it won the "viewers choice" award.

Day 16 (January 16, 2010): Rockin' Out!!

Tonight we went to see our friend's band play at a bar in Edmonton. The band is called the "Huge Fakers". They were awesome!!! Ken and I had alot of fun watching them. Unfortunately there weren't many people at the show. They played at "Sneaky Pete's". Apparently it was quite busy on Friday night but I guess Saturday isn't typically a very busy night there. It was great for us because we are getting old and prefer not to be around a big crowd of drunk people, lol. And eventhough it was quite dead the band didn't hold back at all. They entertained us with a huge variety of music from Elvis and Black Crows to Nine Inch Nails and Foo Fighters! They broke out some 80's tunes like "She's got the look" and some 50's stuff like "Run Around Sue". We had such a good time and it was nice to see Roxy and Mike again too! Thanks for the awesome night Huge Fakers!

By the way the "Huge Fakers" have shows coming up at the Palace Casino and The Crown and Anchor. Also, they are opening for Default this summer at the Edson ball tournament. If you are into live music they are really fun to watch. You can contact me if you want to know more about their upcoming shows. I can get the info for you, melstrand_5@hotmail.com

Day 15 (January 15, 2010): Movie Night

We had a few options for what we could do tonight. The "Ice on Whyte" festival is happening in our community but it runs all week so if we didn't make it tonight we could go another time. Also, some friends of ours are in a band and they are playing tonight but they are also playing tomorrow night.....finally we decided that we wanted to spend some time together at home. We decided to have a movie night. We made snacks, fresh cookies for Ken and strawberries for me as I am on a "healthy eating plan". We watched "Hot Fuzz". I haven't seen the movie before and it was a long time since Ken had seen it. It was hillarious. The only thing is that at the end they didn't explain how the one cop didn't die when he was shot. I am still wondering about that and I hope that it doesn't irritate me for too long!

Day 14 (Jan. 14 2010):letter

Today Mel and I wrote a letter to our Aunt Madie whom we went to visit while on our vacation in Ontario at Christmas time. She is in her late 90's and is such a wonderful woman. We had a great visit and decided that we would write her a letter to tell her how much we missed her and what we have been up to since we returned home.

Day 13 (January 13, 2010): Olympic Torch and Theatre

Today we had quite a busy day and did a couple of different activities. The Olympic torch was coming through Edmonton today so we had planned on going to see that. Then through work I got some free tickets to see a play at the Citadel Theatre. The torch was going to be downtown at City Hall at 7pm and the play was at 7:30 right across the street from City Hall. We decided that we would also go out for dinner before all of this because that would work a bit better with our tight time schedule than going home to make dinner. We had dinner at Kelseys downtown right after work then headed to Churchill Square to see the torch. I will add some pictures of the torch later.

After seeing the torch we headed to the theatre. The play was hillarious. Here is a bit of a description that I copied from the Citadel website: "In the midst of a record drought, the wells on the Seventh Line are drying up. A search to locate a new source of water on Wingfield Farm ensues, but distractions abound: a high-tech cattle drive, a battle with ground bees, a feud with a red-tailed hawk, an eccentric line-up of water witches and a well-driller who's only too happy to perforate the ground at forty dollars a foot. Is it the end of farming for Walt and Maggie, or can the precious liquid be found?" What this description doesn't explain is that the play is a "one man show". The actor was hillarious and played all of the characters brillantly. I would totally recommend this show! Ken and I laughed through the entire performance.

Day 12 (January 12, 2010): Coffee with friends

Today I had to work a split shift (a meeting in the morning and facilitating a parenting group in the evening) so Ken and I didn't see each other all day. We decided to do things on our own today.....we both ended up going for coffee with friends. I called up Celeste after my meeting in the morning. I was downtown for the meeting and she works downtown so it was perfect. We went for coffee for about an hour. It was great to see her since we haven't seen each other since before the holidays. I wish we would have had a bit more time though.

In the evening while I was at work Ken went for coffee with a friend of his. His buddy is moving to the maritimes so it will probably be the last time he sees him for awhile. It was nice that they had an opportunity to visit before he moves away.

Day 11 (January 11, 2010): Fish, Fish, Fish!!!!

Tonight we had to go out to our storage unit so Ken could pick up some tools and put away the Christmas decorations. We had decided that since it is half way to Sherwood Park we would go there and go for a walk at Broadmore Lake park where we got married......our plans changed. I asked Ken if he had ever been to "Big Al's" (a really cool fish store) and he hadn't so we decided to go there instead of go for a walk. Big Al's has salt water and fresh water fish. They have a big shark tank in the back. I really like all of the pretty, bright colored fish. Ken likes the big sinister looking ones, go figure! I also like the little crabs that scurry all over. They are so cute! We had lots of fun looking at all of the different fishies. I used to have an aquarium and am now thinking that maybe we will have to get another one sometime soon.

Day 10 (January 10, 2010): ordered seeds for garden

Today Mel and I went to a Canadian greenhouse website to order our seeds for our garden this spring. We would like to start some of our seeds in the house again this year so we ordered them now. The website is saltspringseeds.com, and we chose this site because it is organic Canadian seeds. We ordered tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, corn and lettuce. We are very excited and hope that the garden does as well as last year or better. It was really hard to decide on what to order because they had tons of different kinds of each plant. Hopefully we made good decisions about what to order for our region. Gardening is definitely one of our hobbies so I'm sure there will be some future posts about our garden.

Day 9 (January 9,1010): Family (and friends) Game Night!

Since it is the weekend we decided to do something a bit bigger on Saturday night. We invited a few friends over for a game night. I made supper for everyone which included Beef/Deer Stew and fresh biscuits. Audrey, Heather and Premo came over around 6 o'clock. We ate and then began our game marathon. Our guests brought snacks and drinks. We started out by playing Taboo then moved on to Cranium, Headbanz, Crokinole and Scattergories. We played well into the early hours of the morning. Here are some pictures that highlight some of the funnier moments. Unfortunately I uploaded these in the wrong order....

We were up so late that even Thor, our kitten was tired out. He had a nap in the Scattergories box.
Yay, the girls win the game!!!!
What can I say about this? It cracks me up!!
This is Premo's "eyes closed" drawing of tablespoon. I can't believe that Ken knew that was a spoon!
This is Ken's sculpture of Madusa. Premo didn't guess this one in time.
Premo hard at work on his Unicorn. I couldn't believe that Ken figured this one out. He smashed the horn on it at the end and Ken guessed it right away.
My "bounced cheque" is on the left. Premo's is on the right. The girls win this "club cranium"!! Yay!
Premo politely reminds Audrey that she needs to read the card before she closes her eyes to draw the picture, lol. From now on we called this her "game face".
This is Ken's "tree hugger".
Poor Heather had to get "zero gravity" for sherades. We didn't get this one but the ladies did win Cranium.

Day 8 (January 8, 2010): The joy of giving

Today we decided to clean out our closets and donate clothes to a local charity. We both ended up donating about 1 large garbage bag full of clothes. Ken was very proud of me because I even donated a purse. It was hard but I did it, lol! When we were finished Ken mentioned that this was actually really good timing since we are moving at the end of this month. We will now have a little less to move and hopefully someone will be able to use the things that we donated.

Day 7 (January 7, 2010): Tea and Cake

Tonight we decided to go over to our neighborhood coffee shop, "Wild Earth". It is a local coffee shop that does all of it's baking from scratch. I tried a new tea called "King Tut's Lemonade" and Ken had a hot chocolate with a slice of white chocolate carrot cake. My tea was really good. I would totally recommend it. If you like sour or tart things you will really enjoy it. Ken's cake was awesome as well. I think it is also noteworthy to say that Ken saved half of his cake for his lunch tomorrow. That in itself is something different for Ken!! Chapters was enjoyable last night but I am glad that we went to a local, community based business tonight. Balance is good!

Day 6 (January 6, 2010): Chapters

Today we decided to go to our neighborhood Chapters store. We don't usually "go out" during the week. In order to make this happen we had to quickly make our lunches for work tomorrow and eat an early dinner. Ken gets up at 5am to go to the gym every morning so he needs to be in bed early Monday - Friday. I am happy that we made the effort to get out and spend some time together doing something that we enjoy. We both looked at alot of books and I bought two. I bought one for a gift for someone (I can't say on here who it was for or I will ruin the surprise) and one for myself. I bought the third book by Frank McCourt in the Angela's Ashes series. If you have not read these books you should. His writing style is amazing (he writes like a kid thinks, you have to read the books to see what that means) and the stories are gripping. Also, they are autobiographies which to me, makes them even more interesting. Ken looked for some of the books in the series that he is reading by Bernard Cornwell (these were suggested to him by our Aussie friend Shawn) but they didn't have the one that he wanted. He also looked at some body building books. We had a few laughs togther looking at a book about how to be Canadian and some camping and gardening books. All in all it was a nice evening out.

Day 5 (January 5, 2010): World Juniors

Our activity today was extremely emotion filled! Today Audrey came over and we watched the World Junior's gold medal hockey match. Canada vs. USA. We watch the world juniors tournament every year. For me it has become a Christmas tradition as the tournament usually starts around boxing day. This year Canada was hoping to win gold for the 6th time in a row. If we could have done that we would have set a new record. Unfortunately we lost in overtime to the US. It sucked. I was heartbroken! A silver medal just isn't good enough!!!!! After it was all over I commented to Ken that it is very emotional being a sportsfan. I realized that I don't have any other interests that are so emotional. I am still getting over the Rider's grey cup loss and it will take me awhile to get over this silver medal.

Day 4 (January 4th, 2010): The Forks in Winnipeg

Once again a delay in our train ride gave us an opportunity to explore a new part of Canada that we hadn't been to before. Well, actually I have been to "The Forks" before when I was a teenager on a band trip but I don't really remember much of it other than that is where the Red River meets the Assiniboine River in Winnipeg. We had about an hour to walk around so we toured the little shops in the "Market" at the Forks. There were all kinds of specialty shops like jewelry shops, hand made clothing stalls, specialty food shops, candy stores etc. I bought some cute little bug shaped chocolates for my friend Audrey to thank her for taking care of our cats while we were on vacation. They also had outdoor skate rentals which would have been fun if we had more time. But alas, we didn't!

Day 3 (January 3, 1010): Hornepayne

Today we are on the train back to Edmonton. The total time of our trip is going to be 48 hours and 30 minutes. I thought that it might prove difficult to find something to do for our 365 challenge today since we are stuck on the train. I should have known that life presents opportunities all the time. You just need to see them when they happen. Our train got delayed in Hornepayne, ON today and as a result we decided to get off the train and walk around the small town for about half an hour. It was quite cold and windy out but we managed to get some exercise in and stop by the only store that was open in town. It was a little corner store full of everything you can imagine. They had movie rentals, snacks, Christmas ornaments, magazines etc. Today we went somewhere that we never expected to go to!

Day 2 (January 2, 2010): New Food

We are still at Ken's Dad's house. Today he made "porketta" roast cooked in the campfire. Neither Ken nor I have had porketta before. Basically it is a pork roast that comes with a spicy dry rub on it. The other "new" thing about this meal is that neither of us have had a roast cooked right on the coals in a campfire before. It was really yummy! Thanks Dad!

Day 1 (January 1, 2010): Board Games and Booze

Everyone has been asking me how I got this idea to do 365 different things this year. I was reading a storybook of my nephew's when I read something that sparked the idea. The storybook is about Canada and for every letter of the alphabet the book tells a different event/place/historic fact etc. about Canada. When I got to the letter "T" it said something about Toronto being a city where you can do a different thing every day of the year. Given that I was reading this on New Year's Eve it made me think of a New Year's Resolution. I passed the idea by Ken and he thought that we should try it out. And so it begins.......

Today we are nearing the end of our Christmas vacation in Ontario. We have been travelling around Ontario visiting Ken's family since Dec.23rd. We are now in Levack, ON (close to Sudbury) and are at Ken's Dad (Jean) and Step-Mom's (Colleen) house. We got the board game Taboo for Christmas from Ken's sister so we decided to try it out. This was Ken's first time playing the game. We played it with Jean and Colleen and had alot of laughs! I also tried Strawberry Sambuca for the first time today. It was interesting. It starts out tasting like strawberry and then tastes like licorice, yummy!

Day 1 complete!