Five Not So Quick Takes

Kind of a catch up blog post. Here it goes:

1. While I was reading this hilarious blog I found a link to this white noise website and found a free download for thunderstorm noise. This is awesome! It totally relaxes you and helps in falling asleep. It's also great when you have young kids. My sister in law has a white noise machine for putting her son down for his nap.

2. We went to visit the new LDS temple in Calgary. It's up in the north (we live in the south). It's really beautiful. We brought the two nephews who were really reverent the whole time we were inside. I think I heard that Rocky (2yearold) asked grandma "where's Jesus?". Too cute!

 Rocky (aka: spiderman)

 Family shot

 For some reason I thought the whole building was going to be in the picture since my mother in law said, "I'm trying to get angel Moroni (the statue on top) in the picture." I guess he didn't fit.

 These windows on the outside were so beautiful. They're images of wheat (reflective of the building being in the province of Alberta...I guess there's lots of wheat in Alberta.) It kind of reminded me of peacocks though, which are also beautiful and which remind me of home.

Crew and Rocky partaking of cookies and water in fancy schmancy chairs.

3. Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone! What? No! "That's weird!" says all the Americans reading this. 

Canadian Thanksgiving fell on Monday 8 October this year. I think it's usually around the second Monday in October. My mother in law said it's because the fall season happens sooner here (and is over sooner too). They have all the same foods as American Thanksgiving. It's not as huge I've heard. Prob because they don't make a four to seven day weekend of it. We actually ate on Sunday instead. On Monday it was raining so we couldn't go do much. We did go see The Amazing Spiderman at the $5 theatRE*.

(*Canadian lesson: they spell some words slightly different than the states. They switch the "er" to "re" in words like centre, theatre, litre. I've also noticed they like to add "u's" in words where Americans got lazy and took them out of like colour, harbour, labour. Here's a  big old list of these differences.)

 Not the best pic of our dinner, but I had to document before everyone stuffed their faces. Missing are the sweet potatoes which were just coming out of the oven with the marshmallows getting huge on top.

I tried an autumn dessert recipe found on pinterest. It's called Pumpkin Better Than Anything Cake. I made a slight mistake. I was supposed to mix pumpkin puree and just the cake mix together, not the other stuff for the cake (eggs, oil, water), but it still came out okay. I think I would've liked a little more pumpkin flavor happening though which may come from doing the recipe the right way. There was also some helpfulness from this other blog about the recipe.

4. Since I made the above recipe there was still some pumpkin puree left over in the can so I decided to make some pumpkin cookies. This recipe comes from Barbara Terrill from Monrovia, CA. I grew up eating these cookies every year. They are delicious and pretty easy to make. You just mix everything up and throw 'em in the oven. So easy!

I got about four and half dozen out of the recipe and they were gone in a day. Soooo...they taste pretty good.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup shortening

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix together - drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes.

I cooked at 350 for 10 minutes and they came out perfect!

Here's some pics to show you how perfect and yummy!

5. It was my birthday yesterday. I hate getting older, but I love my birthday. It was a bit/really hard to have a birthday where I couldn't have friends and family call me because they don't have out of country long distance (except for my mom and stepdad - my mom did call). But my in laws did get me pizza for dinner (love) and an ice cream cake (looove) and got me some presents. 

Oh, and Canada got me the first snow to stick for the season! Whaaaat? Don't like that gift Canada! Take it back! Exchange, please!

Four (Semi) Quick Takes

1. So, yesterday I was going to finish doing permanent resident paperwork stuff (well, finish what I can - I still have to wait for a police certificate to be mailed and to go to a medical exam in two weeks :/ ) by making copies of stuff at Staples and getting two more passport pics taken at Walmart. 

The workers at the photo place said they had to lighten something or other on the camera because "my face was tan".

My face was tan. 

That's probably the only time in my life anyone's said I'm tan. I told them this and they said, "well, everyone we take photos of is Canadian so they're pretty white".

That was pretty awesome.

2. Also, yesterday was the first time I went driving around in Calgary by myself. Okay, it was only for a couple blocks and I still got a bit turned around, but I DID IT! (as nephew Rocky would say :)

3. Since I've been here and not had a super pressing sched to attend to I've been doing a jog/walk thing most everyday...about 4 or 5 times a week. I didn't want to get lost so I stayed pretty straight then turned on a street I recognized and then went to another corner I recognized and turned again until I did a big circle and got back to the house.

Yesterday I found out how long my jog/walk circle was.

3.3 miles. 

Okay, don't laugh if you think this is nothing because it's really good for me and if you're impressed then Thank You!

4. After going to Walmart and Staples yesterday I saw Petland and decided to go in and check what animals they had inside.

Not to buy one. Just to make me smile.

Do you ever do this? I think it's awesome.

Mark has realized there are a couple ways of cheering me up - let me look at kittens or puppies, but esp kittens and get me something sweet (ex: chocolate, ice cream, chocolate). He did this when we got back to Calgary after being in BC and the reality of the move set in and I was having a semi/full on melt down. My husband took me to Petland to look at kittens. He totally gets me.

Anyway, so I went to Petland and they had these little kittens in the back you could see through the windows. They were almost three weeks old. There were six from one litter and they were all playing with each other and it was so cute. I smiled. I laughed. It made me think of the kitten I used to have. My rescue kitty. Dinah. She now lives with my brother and his wife because they love her and I was moving around too much. She needed a stable environment.

Here are some pics (sorry for the overload - you might not find these as great as I do) of her when she was a wee one. These are actually the first night I had her. By her size and the way her eyes looked she was probably around two to three weeks old.

Fierce. 

A bit older.

Eyes went from blue to copper.

She loves climbing in plastic bags and wearing them.

She's def a Halloween cat. Almost all black.

Okay. Probably everyone has seen this, but it just shows how cute kittens are. Now go get lost on youtube watching kitten vids.