Goodbye October!

Hi Everyone!
        Well, it's been a couple weeks again. I am finding it's hard to find things to keep talking about since life has settled into such a routine. Now that I'm busy working 40+ hours a week, I am not finding as much time to get out and about and experience Hamilton. Life has been pretty quiet these past 2 weeks. Matt has been fairly busy with school which doesn't leave a whole lot of time for the two of us to explore. :) Today I did manage to get him out of the house for a bit and we headed out to an orchard to pick some apples! Matt loved the apple pies I was busy making last month so we went out there together so I will be able to make some more. Heres some pictures from our outing:

 Sooo many yummy apples!

 Hokey Posed Picture. :P

 Lots and lots of pumpkins! :)

 Yummy apples that will be turned into delicious pie!

 I think Matt was excited to come along only because it gave him the chance to actually drive our new car! :) I've been taking it to work and back every day and today was only his second time driving it. 

        Work has been going pretty well for me! I'm still enjoying it and I'm learning LOTS about cars and people. This week was pretty crazy for me because my boss/the manager was off sick for 3 days leaving me to fend for myself. The guys from the shop would come and have me go look at a car and then ask me "So, do you think we need to order this part here? Or what do you want us to do?" Ummmm... I don't really know ANYTHING! I'm just supposed to answer the phone and be friendly... not actually do anything regarding the vehicles! :P But using a whole lot of team work, we were able to make it through! 

        We've been really enjoying our new little car! We get crazy great gas mileage and it's so fun to have a nice little car to drive around in. Matt and I have been a little stressed out trying to figure out what to do about insuring and registering the car though! When we moved here we found out that it cost quite a bit more to register a vehicle here then it does back home! We got a quote here for our car and in order to have Ontario insurance, it will cost us $260 a month! CRAZY! We got a quote from our insurance company back home in Alberta and she said that they can insure the car for $120 a month. That's a BIG difference! So right now we are toying with the idea of Matt driving the car home at Christmas and having an out of province inspection done in Alberta so we can insure and register it there. We have looked into it and as long as Matt maintains his student status, we are able to have our car insured and registered there. So we are working on the logistics! I won't have enough time off work at Christmas to drive with him so Eric and him might be sharing a road trip. And then hopefully I will be able to fly home for a few days as well. Hopefully we can figure something out!

        Well, I can't think of too much else new that's going on. Pretty boring hey? Well, here's a picture of the latest "decor" addition I did on one of our walls, and then I'm off to have a date night with my hubby. 

        One last thing... I think Matt's best friend Mitchell reads this blog... And we both just want to wish you a very happy 24th birthday way out in Australia!!! Hope you and Julie both have a great day!

Much Love,

Matt & Jacquie

It's been a while!

Hi there!


It's been a while since my last update and we've been keeping BUSY! I'm slowly settling in to the routine of work and housekeeping and wife being and all that. Not quite there... but we're working on it! I am loving my job and keeping pretty busy there. I've been doing quite a bit of shuttling customers to and from home as well as picking up cars from dealerships all around the city. I've gotten to drive some pretty cool cars (ie. a Lexus, a BMW, a VW Bug, etc.) and it's been a great way to learn the city even better. It's a part of my job that I really enjoy! I also keep busy in the office and shop with paperwork, answering the phone, running info back and forth to the guys in the shop, etc. All in all, I'm very happy with it and I have a GREAT boss. The lady I work for is kind of turning into my "work mom". She takes super good care of me and is just so sweet. She texts me at night and offers to bring me lunch for the next day. Chicken alfredo is on the menu for us tomorrow! :) So I sure can't complain!


Matt's parents have come and gone. They were here over the weekend for a very quick visit. They arrived Friday and spent the afternoon with Matt before coming to get me from work. We hung out at our place for the evening and then headed out car shopping first thing on Saturday morning. If you follow me on facebook, then you already know the exciting news that Matthew and I bought a car this weekend! With much help and advice from Matt's mom and dad, we made the decision to buy a 2007 Toyota Matrix XR. It's a fully-loaded 5-speed with a little over 100,000 kms on it. We are really hoping to be able to drive it for the next 5-10 years and are blessed that we are able to have such a great car to drive around here. It is more than we could have ever hoped for! We go tomorrow to the dealership to pick it up and I'm pretty excited! :) We spent the rest of Saturday afternoon shopping with the in-laws as well as Jason and his fiance at Costco. Matt's parents spoiled us with some groceries and then we all headed out for dinner. From there we went to watch Tim's band at their concert. It was super fantastic and I wish you all could have been there! Check out my facebook page for some short video clips. :) Sunday we all drove up to Bowmanville to hang out with Jason's fiances family and then it was back home Sunday night. I worked a short day on Monday so that we could all go out for dinner one more time before Al & Aneta had to get on a flight back home. It was much to short of a visit and it was nice to have them here!


Now we're back into the swing of things for another week. Matt's got a pretty average week at school, just trying to stay on top of things and I'm keeping busy too. Homesick sometimes... but it usually passes pretty quickly. Sorry there isn't any more exciting to share. We hope you are all doing well. And thanks for checking in!


Much Love,


Matt & Jacquie

Stories of a Working Gal

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! 

        Another week has come and gone in Hamilton. This week was the first where we worked on developing a bit more of a routine together. This of course had to do with the fact that I started working this week and things are changing around our home.
        I started working on Monday of this week. I work from 8am - 5pm Monday-Friday and it's been good to get settled. The first couple days had me a little worried because there wasn't much to do, the phone wasn't ringing and I thought I had signed myself up for months and months of utter boredom. But as the week wore on, I learned quite a bit of new things and I have realized they plan to teach me much more!  Some of my responsibilities are the basic answering the phone, messages, invoicing, signing for and ordering parts, etc. I also get to shuttle people to and from their homes in a cool little car. I drive cars in and out of the shop so that they're ready for the guys to work on. This means I've got to drive some pretty cool cars! I'm suffering from car envy a little bit... :) The lady I work for (Alison) is great! Often times people come in expecting a man to walk out of the office and do the estimate on their car and are shocked to see her. We've had some fun with that! There are 6 guys that do the repair work and painting in the shop and they are all super nice. I've developed a cool rapport with a couple of the guys. Soon, they hope to train me to be able to do small repair estimates (ex. on the bumper of a car involved in a fender bender) so that should be interesting! So far, so good. 
        I've been keeping busy doing some hair as well. I hope to schedule any hair appointments so that I'm only doing them 2 nights a week and then Saturday mornings. We'll see how that goes! I still really enjoy it and want to keep using my skills this way as well.   
        Matt's week was pretty average. Just busy with school, staying up way to late working on papers and fulfilling his many obligations. :) Not much to report there. He was pretty excited for his past Thursday night when Hockey Night in Canada kicked off with a Battle of Alberta. Our apartment was pretty busy with friends and family watching the game. Unfortunately, due to the time difference, the later games don't start until 10pm here which meant I went to bed and tried to sleep while everyone else stayed up until 1:00am watching the game! Craziness! I guess that's just life though. I've just resigned myself to the fact that we will be having many late Saturday nights during the hockey season. :)
        We're looking to buy a new car in the next week or so which has me pretty excited! Matt's parents are coming out for a visit next weekend and some car shopping is part of our plans with them. Matt's dad is great with vehicles and I don't think we'd buy a vehicle without him helping us pick it out. :) So I'm excited that hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we will have a car to drive around instead of the lovely truck. The truck's been great and all... but yikes, I've had some scary moments trying to get across 5 or 6 lanes of traffic on my way to work. :)
        This week was a bit of a rough one for me. With me starting work, it kind of hit me that this is life now... Living here, missing family and friends, missing out on all the things going on back home, etc. Up until I started working, it just felt like a great big adventure that we were on, and then soon we'd be heading back home... But I've had to realize that this is our home now. My home is here in Hamilton with Matthew. And it's been great... But now it just seems so much more permanent. I dunno if that makes sense, but ya, Matt's had to spend some time this week consoling his wife. :)
        Well, it seems that with the start of full time work has also come the end of a significant amount of my adventures so there's not much else to report. We hope you are all healthy and well and enjoying a very happy and blessed thanksgiving weekend. It seems cliche to say, but we really do have so much to be thankful for hey?


With Much Love,
Matt & Jac

One Month In...

Hi Everyone!


        Well, it's official. We've been in Hamilton, in our new home for a month now! Seems kind of crazy to think about but it makes sense at the same time. We are really starting to feel settled in now, the apartment feels like home, and Matt is as busy as he's ever been with school. We've had a good week and are getting ready for the changes that are on the way in the coming week. 
        Why the changes? Well, I got a job this week! I applied for a receptionist position with an auto body shop about 10 minutes away from our place. I had my first interview last week and then got called back to come in for a second interview on Wednesday. It was a pretty competitive job process with over 90 applicants, ~15 of us getting a first interview and then only a few of us getting the second interview so I was pretty excited. The interview went well and they told me I would know the answer the next afternoon. So I was surprised when they called only a couple of hours later to tell me I got the job! It's a job that is a great fit for us and will really help us out financially. I am going to work Monday-Friday from 8:00am-5:00pm, leaving me evenings and weekends free to take care of the house, do any hair I want, and spend time with my hubby. Any of the other jobs I have been offered have included evening and weekend shifts with no set schedule, and also a lower wage... So this position should hopefully work out great! I start tomorrow so I guess we will see! Matthew and I have talked a bit about planning for dinners and both of us helping keep the house clean/organized so we are optimistic. :)
        Things with our truck are still up in the air. We dropped our truck off at a repair shop last Friday and were supposed to hear news sometime this week and we simply haven't heard anything. We tried to call a couple times and only got answering machines so we don't really have a clue what's going on... But we still have the little Kia Soul SUV from the rental company so that's been fun! :) I'm going to be sad to give it back. :) We're hoping to get some answers about our truck in the next couple of days and then get it on Kijiji as soon as we can. My route to work is on one of the busiest streets in downtown Hamilton so I'm not to excited about the prospect about driving the truck to work and we'd really like to get a car. :P But we'll see what happens!
        Matt has been busy at school this week and there were a couple days that he stayed there pretty late. I on the other hand enjoyed my last week of not working as best I could! On Monday I went to Toronto with my aunt & uncle as well as my cousin and his girlfriend. We checked out a lot of cool things down town including the CN Tower (didn't go up it though... My uncle & I both HATE heights! :) ), the Eaton Centre Mall, the Steam Whistle Brewery,the CBC building, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the waterfront. We found this little cafe where people are allowed to bring their pets in with them... Ummm EWW!! We sure didn't order anything there. 
Here are some pictures of Toronto:

CN Tower

 Weird Toronto Architecture

 Self-Explanatory :)

 CBC Building; Mr. Dressups real actual easel and stool

 Toronto's Old City Hall

 Hockey Hall of Fame; net, stick, gloves, etc. of Wayne Gretzky 

commemorating one of the many records he broke. 802 goals!

 Derek came in the picture with me. Stanley Cup!

 Self-Explanatory. I hope! :)

        So Monday was a fun day! Tuesday I hung out with my aunt and we did some shopping while my uncle and cousin did their own thing. It was nice to spend so much time with you Auntie Veronica! :)

        The rest of the week is kind of a blur. I did a couple hair cuts, did groceries and the like, took care of getting some more of our paperwork switched over to Ontario, etc. Friday afternoon Matt and I had to wait for over an hour to try and get health care cards for this crazy province. Turns out that we put EVERYTHING under my name when we moved here so Matthew doesn't have a single piece of government mail proving that he actually lives in Ontario. So he wasn't able to get one yet. Oops! I was able to register for one no problem, although it's a bit more intense here. You don't just get a little flimsy card that will rip in your wallet... You get a card that basically looks like a second drivers license complete with your picture and what not. Mine should be here in a month. 

        Matt's been busy with school. He finished book report #1, only to right away start preparing for book report #2. He also is really busy with his practicum placement. He is working with a campus ministry called the Navigators and it keeps him busy an additional 10 hours a week with small group studies, a main group study, prayer meetings, etc. He's not minding it so far, but hasn't really found himself to have a passion for it. We will see how the rest of his placement plays out.

        Well, not much else to report. Life is about to settle into a pretty set routine. I think I'm ready for it, but I'm gonna miss all the "me time" I've had over the past month. :)

        We hope you are all doing well. 

Much Love & God Bless,

Matt & Jacquie