A Busy Baking Weekend!

Hi! It's me again! :)
        Matt is one week closer to being done his first seminary semester and we are both one week closer to coming home for Christmas! And I can't even tell you how excited we are about both of these matters. :P The countdown is totally on!
        Matt has spent the weekend busy studying for his two finals coming up this week. He writes his History of Christianity exam Monday morning and then his Greek exam Tuesday morning, and then he's DONE! He's heading out Tuesday night to celebrate with some of the guys from his bible study and then he won't have to think about school again until the New Year. I'm really excited for him... he really needs the break! 
        We have a pretty busy week coming up before Matt leaves for home next Sunday. Wednesday night we are having our landlord and her 2 kids over for dinner since her husband is out of town for the week... Should be kind of interesting! Some of the first people I'll cook for that aren't family. Yikes! :P Thursday night Matthew and I are going to do our own lil "family Christmas". We just decided to do some small gifts and spend some time together before he leaves. Unfortunately, he is already wearing and enjoying his slippers so I have to think quick about what else to get him! Friday we are heading over to some friends place for dinner and games. Looking forward to that! Saturday we're gonna be busy packing food for the guys trip to Alberta and packing all the gifts and clothes too. And then Saturday night we are going to a Christmas party for the Toyota dealerships here in the city. The body shop I work for is affiliated with and owned by the same family as the Toyota dealerships so we were invited to go represent the body shop with my manager and her husband. It's a pretty fancy deal so I had to head out and get a shirt and tie for my hubby and make sure i have something to wear that suits the weather. I'll try to remember to take/post pictures next week! And then Sunday morning Matt, Eric and Tim are climbing in the car to begin the trek home to Alberta. Crazy!!!!
        This weekend I was busy baking some Christmas treats. Eric's girlfriend Joy came over Friday night and we baked up a storm. Eric loves banana chocolate chip muffins so I showed Joy how to make those... and we made a ton of them! While she was busy with those, I was making Matt's favorite Christmas treat "Eggnog Cookie Cups". Here's the link if you're interested in trying them: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Eggnog-Filled-Cookie-Cups . Soooooo good! Kind of finicky to make but so worth it! Then yesterday, I made some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles. Basically, you just make some safe to eat cookie dough (like this one for example: http://www.food.com/recipe/heathers-safe-to-eat-raw-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-108925), then roll it into little balls and place on cookie sheets in the freezer. Let them harden for an hour or two and then melt some chocolate chips in the microwave. Then, toss the balls of cookie dough into the melted chocolate and coat it. Then put them back on the cookie sheet (with wax paper on it to make it easier) and back in the freezer so the chocolate can harden. And then eat and ENJOY! :) Yum, yum! 
Here's a couple pictures of the treats: 

        The banana chocolate chip muffin recipe is one I got from my mom that she's been making for years. I have a mini-muffin tin that I use to make some bite size muffins. 

        Well, that's about all for this week! Less than two weeks and we will both be home to spend time with family and friends celebrating the Christmas season! YAY!!

Much Love,

M & J

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Hello! And welcome to December!
        Is it just me or has 2010 FLOWN by? I can't believe that Matt is already wrapping up his first semester of seminary and that we will both hopefully be back home visiting in less than 3 weeks! We are both getting very excited for Matt to write that last exam and then to get ready for our trips. I hope to pack most of my stuff in the car with Matt and Eric (and maybe Tim!) and then just have a carry-on or two when I fly out the next week. We'll see how that goes!
        This week has been a pretty busy one. Not as much for me as for Matt! He had an entirely exhausting week and got by on very little sleep! Two nights he was up past three or four and then Thursday he pulled an all nighter to get his paper done and handed in on Friday. He was EXHAUSTED by the time Friday night rolled around, but he's catching up on sleep this weekend. He is done all of his papers now, has his last class on Wednesday and then his last exam is Dec. 14 so we're just looking forward to then. :) 
We had a really great day yesterday. We both slept in nice and late before heading out for a date day! We left equipped with Christmas shopping lists, grocery shopping lists and plans to not head back home until we were entirely successful. And we did great! We hit up the mall here in Hamilton which has a huge selection of stores and crossed item after item off of our lists. Success! Then we headed to the grocery store for the bi-weekly shopping trip. The majority of grocery shopping trips I tackle on my own... and now I know why! Men are just not efficient grocery shoppers!!! Matt gets sucked in by every sale sign, new product and food display. Throughout the trip I heard things like "Hey hon, they have Depends on sale. We should get some!" to which I replied "Dude, neither of us wear Depends! We don't need Depends! Just because somethings on sale, doesn't mean we need to buy it!" (Note: this might be a slight exaggeration... :P) We headed to the soap/body wash aisle because he was out of his body wash. I thought we would just walk down the aisle, pick out the one he's been using, and then continue on. But once he saw the great selection of men's body wash, as well as prices varying from $3.99-$5.49, we had to stop and smell them ALL! And then compare the sizes verses the prices. Finally a selection was made! :) Later on, in a different aisle, he was slowing us down again and I said "Jeepers, I should've left you at home. This would go much quicker!" An older lady overheard and laughed and then said "I just sent my husband to go sit down and have a coffee so I can get shopping done!" Turns out this isn't a new problem. :P Matthew and I actually have a great time shopping together but it was amusing to me how it took me almost twice as long! :)
        We got home in time to make some finger food for dinner and then began setting up our Christmas tree. We played Christmas music, ate some yummy food and set about making our apart ready for the season. Then I began wrapping the gifts we bought while he watched the Oilers game. It was a really nice "date day"!
        Here's some pictures from our tree decorating. Definitely doesn't look like anything from a magazine, but when you're working with a budget and dollar store decorations, you do what you can! :P

Before Photo!

Hubby stringing the lights!

Enjoying some yummy eats.

Taking turns with the decorations.

Some of our favourite decorations. Got this one from Matthew last year.

Reminder of our 2 favourite kids.

New ornament for this year! :)

:

Sure love me some Tim Hortons! 

Us with our first Christmas tree!

Later on with some of the gifts waiting to be brought to Alberta. :)

Every year for as long as I can remember my mom has bought us chocolate advent calendars  and this year was no different! Here they are displayed on our wall for my ma to see. :)

        Well, that's all folks! We're still waiting for the first official snow fall of the year. We've had a couple flakes fall here and there, but nothing that sticks around! We'll see what the next couple weeks have in store for us!

        Hope you are all enjoying the start to the Christmas season. 

Much Love,

M & J

It's been a really long while! / Streams of Consciousness

Hi there!
        You know it's been a while since your last blog post when your father-in-law, who is computer illiterate relatively new to computer use, comments that he's been checking for updates and there haven't been any! :) So here I am, typing a new blog post. This one's for you Al! :)
        The main reason I haven't posted is that I just haven't had too much to say! Life here in Hamilton has become very routine and I don't have too many fun or interesting stories to share. Also, I've been down and out with a nasty/cold/flu illness for the past week or so and have had zero motivation to do ANYTHING! Matt got sick a little bit on the weekend too and we had to rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go and make our eighth pot of chicken noodle soup. :) I do have to say a big thanks to my hubby for tackling the laundry though! We kind of have an agreement in our humble abode that I will take care of the laundry if he takes care of the garbages. Most would probably think he has the better end of the deal as his job consists of one trip down our 3 flights of stairs to put the garbage in the appropriate bins, while mine consists of 3 or 4 trips throughout the day... but I don't know if I've mentioned the maggots and mold and just general GROSSNESS that is the green compost recycling bin that sits under our sink... I would do 20 loads of laundry before I would touch that little green bin! :)
        Matt has been ridiculously busy with school the past week or so and the next two weeks are gonna be pretty nutso too! The end of the semester has really snuck up on both of us I think. I am having a hard time comprehending that he is already at the end of his first semester of seminary! He has two pretty big papers due and then it will be exam week before it all wraps up on Dec. 14. Then he will have a couple days to recuperate around home before him and Eric get in the car for their trek to Alberta. He's not looking forward to the drive very much but I know he's really looking forward to spending time with family! I too am very excited to be going home for Christmas! It was really up in the air for a while, trying to decide whether or not it would be feasible and I'm soooo glad we are able to make it happen. I have been feeling pretty homesick for the past month or so and it's been great to have this trip home to look forward too. I was hanging in there until my second super close friend told me about her baby on the way... Nothing like having your two besties pregnant with their first babies and being 3000 kms away to help cause homesickness. :P I knew these times and moments would come... It's part of growing up and part of the joys of being married to a pastor-to-be/pastor. But I don't think I was ready for them to come so soon! 
        Last week I had the opportunity to help Matt with his seminary homework... Go figure, me his somewhat uneducated wife, helping him with his Graduate level school work. Well, when he came home and said that he had to make a poster complete with pictures and Greek words, I knew that I should probably help him out! :) He chose to do his poster on different animals so I spent time on google looking for pictures of animals that were present in New Testament bible times while he searched for the Greek wording for them. I then cut and pasted all the pictures onto cardstock and then arranged them on the poster... So pretty much I did the majority of the poster... :P Matt's only job was to copy the Greek words from his dictionary and print them off on the computer... Well, the other day he came home from school and I asked him what mark we got! :) Imagine my surprise to find out that after all the work I did on the beautiful poster, we were only awarded an 80%! I was quite shocked and appalled! :P So I asked him why we lost marks... and he tells me that his spelling of some of the words was incorrect! I then made fun of him and said "you're only job was to copy the words directly from the dictionary! And you did it wrong!?!" It was all said in jest and we both were somewhat amused by the whole deal. I think he was more amused at the fact that I even cared what grade we got. :) I haven't been able to help him with any more of his homework, but that might just be better for our marriage as I seem to take things a little too personally. :) 
        We have been hearing tales from across the country about the snow and wind and cold and crazy winter conditions... and quite frankly, we think you all must be exaggerating. We have yet to see a single snow flake fall from the sky here... Not a single one! So my brain cannot comprehend the fact that back home, there is a deep freeze. I know our time will come, and we will be whining about the cold weather than, but right now it's nice for us to just enjoy the balmy +10 degrees we've been having. :P Yesterday, I was driving up on the "mountain" (a.k.a the escarpment that runs through Hamilton that everyone refers to as a mountain... but really is just a glorified hill) and looking out over the city and it was a beautiful fall day and I wished I had my camera to take pictures to show you all. 
         I started my Christmas shopping this past week. I was at the mall the other day and it was PACKED! Could hardly find a parking spot, and had to wait in lines at every store. It made me glad that I started now. Along with my Christmas shopping stories comes a sad story though! I have been trying to listen and pay attention to Matt to see if there's anything I could surprise him with for Christmas. Now he's always complaining about being cold (which has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a little bit of a heat nazi who won't turn the heat above 15 in our house :) ) so I figured that slippers would be a great gift! I went and bought them yesterday and had them hidden in the back of the car until I would be able to wrap them. Well, tonight, Matt is sitting in the room freezing, and looks over at me with my fuzzy red slippers and says "I know what I'll add to my Christmas list... Slippers!!" And he starts logging in to facebook to post it on the Christmas lists for our families... and I panicked! And said "Ummm.... I don't think slippers are a very good gift to ask for" and he said "Why?" and apparently I lost my ability to think on the spot and just said "Ummm... maybe you just shouldn't ask for slippers"... This led to him figuring out that I had bought him slippers for Christmas so his Christmas surprise is ruined. :( So now I think he'll get his slippers a little bit earlier than planned! :)
        Well, it turns out that when I get typing you can't really shut me up! :) But I think that's pretty much all that's new and exciting around these parts. Tomorrow night Matthew and I are headed out to a Christmas party that the Students Association at the seminary is throwing. I'm looking forward to it as I haven't really had the opportunity to meet anyone else from the school since I started working. Saturday I hope to get our Christmas tree set up and get this place feeling a little Christmas-y. Then next week I will be there to do what it takes to get Matt through his last couple assignments and ready for finals! What a fun time of year! :P


I/we hope you are all doing well and look forward to seeing some of you soon! 


Much Love,


M & J

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