Kefi

It's official! I am done my University degree!
It hasn't really kicked in yet, doesn't quite seem real.
To celebrate my wonderful husband took me out for dinner.

We ended up going to a new Greek restaurant that was recommended to us by my brother. It's called Kefi and it's on Macloed Trail. We were not disapointed!
It seemed like it was owned by a Greek family, and everyone that worked there was related! I don't know if they were, but it sure seemed like it. They were all so friendly, and the service although a bit slow because it was busy, was still really great.



Everything was painted white and it was so bright and clean.

We ended up with a ton of food! We had tzaziki and pita bread to start, the bread was to die for!
Caleb ordered lamb, lemon potatoes and we had a order of this fried egg plant pictured below.
Wow was it ever good!!

I ordered a lamb stew that was cooked in what looked like a bag, it came with rice as well.
A LOT of food!!
Oh, and here's the best part of this place!
They have a dance floor!
Periodically the music will get really loud and the servers will go and dance.
Talk about an exhausting job!
These two guys were pretty amazing.
They also invite people to break plates on the dance floor every so often.
OPA!!

I had a wonderful night with my husband, and I would highly recommend this place.
So if you're in Calgary you should give it a try!

I'M DONE!!!

The Beginning of the End

It is true.
Tomorrow I will be finished my undergrad career forever.
It's about time!! I'm sure my parents agree.

I started out my University career at 17 years old, not really sure what I wanted to do, and confused about the choices I had to make.
I chose to go into the education program, but after three years....maybe more...eek, of floating through the program, then taking a break to serve a mission, I finally decided it wasn't for me.
With encouragement from Caleb, who was then my "secret friend", I followed my heart, and applied to the Addictions Counselling program...I had always thought about this program, but never had the guts to do it.

It was one of the best choices I could have made.
Through my classes and my practicums I have developed a passion for helping those struggling with addiction. They are all tougher, more resilient, and more courageous than I ever could be.
I learn so much from them.

I have also had the wonderful opportunity of meeting so many friends in this program, and I hope we will stay friends after we part ways, and start competing against each other for jobs! :)
We went out last night to celebrate a Birthday and our upcoming graduation. It was a blast, and I am going to miss these ladies so much. It will be sad not seeing their beautiful faces in my classes everyday. We started out together, and now we are going to finish together.
I love you girls!

So this is my friend Jamie. Here she is harassing the manager of the restaurant. ha!
She is beautiful, has such a kind heart, and is always good for a party! As you can tell. You can also tell her anything and she is always willing to listen.
My dear Jamie again.
This is Rachael. I used to highland dance with her sister! She is so smart, so passionate about what she does, and is the mother in the group. She also blurted out in front of our whole class before we were about to do a presentation, "Kailey, I need you to get a bun in your oven!"
She is also hilarious!
Carrie and Nicole are in this picture. Nicole and I started out together in the same lab. She helped me out by being my friend! She is smart, funny, and I will miss her! Also here is Carrie, one of the sweetest people I know!
And here is the group. Sadly I cannot do write ups on everyone! But they are all such wonderful girls, and I will miss them all so much!
Thank you for making school so much fun!!

The Big Blue Store

I love my sister.
We did not always get along when we were younger, but thankfully we grew out of it and are now good friends.

I also love her husband Aaron. We drive my sister crazy sometimes because when we get together we can be pretty...well....crazy! We were both born October 1st so maybe that has something to do with it!

I also love her children. She has an adorable girl and boy and they are both precious.
Her boy Stratton is always so happy to see us, and a common phrase of his is "I wub you Taiwee" or "Taiwee, you so funny!" Melts my heart. They are so much fun.

They came up for a quick visit this weekend. We went to Ikea and the to the always delicious McDonalds for lunch. It was so nice to see them and have a visit.



The adorable/hilarious Stratton.




We love you guys! Come see us again soon!

At it Again

I am a woman obsessed so I am posting some more of my projects!

I inherited this dresser from my Mom. You can tell it's not the newest of dressers but I love the lines of it and it reminds me of my childhood! So I decided one day that I was going to paint it. Well the process was a lot longer/more tedious/more difficult than I had thought! But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

First we invested in a sander. We got a little hand one and it worked well, except that for the next month we had brown dust all over everything in our place! Sanding was by far the toughest part. It had quite the finish on it that was difficult to get off. So the dresser took up space in our living room for quite a while.

I primed it and painted it white. I love the new look of it, but I'm not sure I love the hardware on it. I've been having the hardest time finding hardware I like/that's affordable. I would love to find some of those antique looking glass knobs, but I haven't been able to locate any. Anyone know where I can find them?? Let me know if you do!

So this next project was tons of fun and very easy!!

(That's Caleb's cute note for me. Isn't he adorable??)
I bought this frame from the thrift store, took out the picture and the glass. I picked up some chalk board spray paint from Canadian Tire. Chalk board spray paint just might be the greatest invention ever.
I replaced the glass with a piece of cardboard that I had spray painted, hung it by our door, and now we have a place to leave messages to each other!
I can't decide of I want to leave this frame as it is or spray paint it a fun color...or maybe white?
Any suggestions?
What would you do?

I also covered this bulletin board for my desk/craft area.
I picked the bulletin board up from Ikea, got a fat quarter from a fabric store, and then used craft glue to glue it on. I also spraypainted the frame. I love how it turned out! It adds some color to our living area.

Can you guess where I bought this little owl??

Ok, have you guessed yet?

He's from the dollar store!
I was pretty impressed with myself for finding him! He was not this pretty when I found him though. He was brown and green and very 70's looking. But I fixed him up with some white spray paint and I love him!

This is my little craft area I've been working on. I have yet to thread the sewing machine! But I am wanting to learn how to use it. The last time I sewed I was probably 12 years old. I think my little area has come together nicely!
Thanks for humoring me and letting me shamelessly write about me and all my amazing projects! haha!

Turtle Turtle

Meet "the turtle".

I never could have imagined that my married life would include a 20 year old turtle. And yes, he goes by Turtle. When Caleb was in grade three he got two little pet turtles. If any of you have seen baby turtles you know how small and cute they are!

He named them Rafael and Michelangelo of course! What else would you name turtles?
Well one of them died not long after, and it's almost impossible to tell turtles apart, so from then on he became "the turtle". Some people think it's sad he has no real name, but I think it works!

He has lived at Caleb's parents for the majority of his life, and I thought they were joking when they said we were going to take him after we got married. We went to Halifax for a year and that got us out of turtle duty for a while. But literally the minute we got to Calgary, he was ours....and I was horrified!! I couldn't imagine making space in our already tiny place for this thing!

But we made it work and I have to admit that he's grown on me. Both me and Caleb often find ourselves just looking at him, and when I do I usually call to Caleb, "come look what the turtle is doing!" Even if he's just taking a nap...he looks so cute! One of Caleb's main phrases since we got him is "that would be great for the turtle", or "we should buy that for the turtle." A few weeks ago we bought him turtle lotion for his turtle skin condition. Turtle lotion?!? Who knew that even existed.

"I feel like the turtle is bored" is also a common one for us to say.

If having this guy is any indication of the kind of parents we will be I would say the word that would best describe us would be paranoid. I panic and think the turtle is dead probably about once a week. When we go on vacation, you will hear the phrase "I'm worried about the turtle" probably once a day. When we were in Mexico we even made our landlords go check on him because we were so worried about him! So i have to admit I do like having him around.

He's already 21 I think, and I checked online the lifespan of these guys, and let me tell you he might be around for a lot longer! But I'm not sure I'll mind so much anymore. :)



(Caleb also would like me to clarify that we don't keep him in this plastic box. He has a much larger tank, but we do feed him in this thing.)

She's Crafty

I have to admit that I am slightly (maybe VERY) obsessed with crafty/home decor/diy blogs these days. I waste much more time on them than I would like to, but time just passes so quickly when looking at them.
If any of you are in the same boat as me I'm sure you know how it goes.
You see a cute blog,
Start looking through it,
See a cute idea linked on it from someone else's blog,
Check our their blog,
And that's where the viscous cycle starts!
BUT, I have gotten some great ideas, and have been doing some crafting/home decorating myself. So it can't be all bad right??
Here are just a couple things I've been up to.

We have two Ikea Billy bookcases that we love. I have been wanting to paint them white, but after I refinished our dresser, it started to look like more work than I had anticipated. I have been wanting to do something with the backs of them though. I was thinking wallpaper, but weirdly enough, cute wallpaper is hard to come by these days! Or maybe I'm just too cheap to have any of the cute stuff!
So the other week I found some wrapping paper at Superstore I liked and I picked up two rolls.
I got myself some double sided tape and went to work!

The width fit the bookshelves perfectly. The paper is a little short, but I just filled in the shelves on the bottom and you can't even tell.
It was tough to try and get it to lay flat while smoothing all the bubbles out. And I knew that it wouldn't look perfect once I was done...because it's wrapping paper! But I'm pretty happy with the results.

Sorry for the blurriness!
I have also seen many cute ideas for jewlery holders and have been wanting to make one for a while. I went to a thrift store and picked up a frame for $1.00! Lucky me!
I painted it kind of an antiquey blue, and for the back I picked up this plastic from walmart, which i think is meant for embroidery or cross-stiching for kids.
I cut it to fit, and it works amazingly.

I screwed in some hooks at the bottom for necklaces, and it's done!
I have some other things I've done to be posted soon!

So tell me...are any of you obssessed with crafty blogs?

Our Easter Weekend

With the perks of Caleb's job, sometimes comes disappointment.
We had planned since December on going to Utah for conference this April.
My former mission companion (once in the MTC, once in the field after persistently letting my mission president know that it was God's will for us to companions more than once....he eventually gave in. :) he also said he could never say no to sisters so I took advantage of it. ) lives in Salt Lake City and is finished her schooling, so she may not be there for much longer.
She was not only my mission companion, but we are now forever friends. I have been down to Utah for every conference (except the two when we were in Halifax) since my mission, she also has driven up to Canada twice to see me. Once for Christmas, and once to be in my bridesmaid for my wedding. Can you tell we love each other?

So it was our plan to go down and visit her, have fun and go shopping, but Delta airlines crushed those dreams.
We got passes to fly with them, but the flights were all full. We thought about driving,
but it seemed better if we went down in a couple weeks instead with less school to worry about, and more time to have fun! So hopefully all goes well for us to go down soon.

I was pretty disappointed we didn't get to go, but our weekend ended up being super fun anyways! I love our life, with just me and Caleb able to plan fun things at a moments notice.

We ended up going snowboarding for the day at Norquay, which is close to Banff. It was a fun little hill, and had some fun runs for me to go on. I feel like I am improving my snowboarding skills, but I get frustrated because I don't feel like i'm improving fast enough!
Caleb is so good and patient with me.
He reminds me that he doesn't want to go snowboarding with me because of my amazing skills
but because it's something fun to do with me, and he wants to spend time with me.
I love him.
So sadly below is the only picture of the day.


Nice huh? Next time I will get some better shots!

Today we woke up to a hunt for treats from the Easter Bunny! I thought Caleb forgot, so I "reminded" him last night that the Easter Bunny was coming tomorrow. He always does remember though, so I don't know why I always feel the need to remind him of things.

Today, Easter Sunday, I made my first Easter Dinner!
We had ham, funeral potatoes, and frog eye salad. If any of you haven't tried this delicious salad, I will give you the recipe!
For some strange reason though we couldn't find the acime de pepe we needed, so we ended up substituting cous cous. Which I fought Caleb tooth and nail on! I didn't want to use it!
It ended up being ok, but I'll have to pick some of the real stuff up in Lethbridge.

Here's my handsome husband carving the ham! Or trying to kill me, I can't quite decide.




We had a wonderul Easter together! Our first one actually together, so it was extra special.
Hope yours was extra special too!