blink...

Um, so apparently I blinked and an entire week went by! The last few days have been absolutely nuts! I haven't run in almost a week and skipped swim practice tonight....so bad! Here's a re-cap of what's kept me busy lately....

Friday night I went to the Butchart Gardens with Erin to see the Magic of Christmas, it was um...magical! As usual there was a (teeny) skating rink, as well as carolers and a brass band playing christmas music. We laughed our heads off at one of the male carolers who would sing sections of scat once in a while...our favourite was "a-humba-humba-humba..."it sounded hilarious in his baritone voice; so for the rest of the night one of us would randomly throw it into a conversation and the other would dissolve into fits of giggles {try it, you'll see!}. My favourite thing is the lights that look like water- not sure how they do that, but it's very cool!

Saturday night was a concert by mum's choir. Everyone was great, but a young woman called Sydney Needham absolutely stole she show, she's only 17 but has a phenomenal voice...I have a feeling we'll be hearing lots more from her in the next while (she's a finalist in Victoria Idol!).

a-humba-humba-humba...

The rest of the weekend was mostly work-related Christmas stuff, including our kids' xmas party- this year we changed the venue to a bigger room and added a bouncy castle...there was tons of food, gifts, and Santa made an appearance, so the kids had a blast as usual, and the bigger room helped cut down on the volume of the screaming (a little!) which the adults seemed grateful for;)

a-humba-humba-humba...

Immediately following the kids' party was the Mustard Seed Christmas dinner... we were short of volunteers so I dragged my parents along to help- we were 'dishers' and worked assembly-line style with about 10 others, assembling dinners so the servers could take them to the guests (I was in charge of the cranberry sauce!). The quality of the food was great and the servers all tried really hard to make it seem like a restaurant (as opposed to a cafeteria or a soup kitchen), taking time to individually serve and chat to each guest. I've helped for about 5 years running because it is a really worthwhile event, but as with every year, I was shocked at the number of families and kids that were there. So sad. If you want to donate online or give to the food bank, click here.

I finally got some news today about my visa... I'd been dealing with the company's immigration lawyers who are in the US and seem a little clueless about certain things....up until this morning there was still a possibility that I might have to "stop by" the Egyptian embassy in Ottawa to sort the paperwork out....um okay, sure, let me just hop on a plane for 6 hours and I'll be right there.... Thankfully they were able to get a hold of the embassy today and it sounds like I can mail the info in...I was really relieved until I heard I have to mail them my passport...no not a copy, the original passport!!!! But apparently once they receive it, the paperwork only takes 2-3 days to process... so cross your fingers for me (for the visa and the safe return of my passport!)

Besides that, I just need to sell my car...anyone want to buy a 2004 matrix??