I'll trade you a sheep, immunity, and all of my future knights for that darn wheat.

Hahaha, if you don't know about Settlers of Catan then this makes no sense. If you do, you can appreciate how badly resources are needed. We have had a great deal of fun playing the last few nights. I'm the only one who hasn't won yet, BUT I built the most epic road complex tonight so I'm pleased enough.
Christmas has been wonderful this year not only because I was home in Greenwood, but I also got to have Scotty with me :). We had a lot of fun preparing for christmas (wrapping and decorating) both in the Nish and Greenwood. I'm enjoying relaxing, but also working at Peoples for the holidays. It has been so fun being around the diamonds again and of course all of the wonderful people :).
We spent boxing day afternoon at Wendy's, and so I prepared some cupcakes to bring over. I wanted to so a design from the many cook books I received as gifts, but i didn't have any fondant or my collection of icing tips, so I improvised with a chocolate orange. Thankfully they turned out great and were popular wih the crowd. See picures below :).

Can't catch that Wabbit

Can you see the kitten? Neither can I, because it's not there.


But I assure you it was very close by! For those of you that don't know, I'm on the hunt to trap a little kitten (with a live trap - one that doesn't hurt them) that is surviving in the bog behind my apartment building. No, unfortunately I can't keep it, but I have been in contact with the Antigonish vet, SPCA and Animal Control and together we are going to secure some medical attention and home for this little Wabbit. I have affectionately named the kitten Wabbit (with some help from the official cat namer - Steph), as in wascally wabbit, because it has proved difficult to trap so far. But I have some help, I've been in touch with the man from animal control on the best methods of trapping kittens. He is a very sweet man who is compassionate about helping stray or abandoned animals, which completely baffled me as I assumed all "dogcatchers", as he is referred to by the vet office, were mean and hateful towards animals. He volunteers as a crossing guard, and is running to be re-elected as a schooolboard something.
I will keep EVERYONE posted via this blog on my progress with Wabbit, I am going to leave some more food out for it tonight to get it used to one location of eating. More to come!

Pink Velvet

This week has been a very busy with, I've been FULL to the brim with homework, but also enjoying wings and mixology and the regular stuff. I've even been getting some good wedding plans worked on! I've been too busy to blog, BUT I have been keeping photos in line for when I got a chance!
This week I baked a bit, some cookies and cupcakes. I Have big dreams to bake something fun for halloween but I am quickly running out of time! I'm going to do my best to get something put together this week for a girls night we're all having on the 30th. I am torn between making a cake or doing another round of cupcakes... we will see! Anyway as you can see from the picture my Pink velvet cupcakes turned out to be more red looking than pink, but its a nicer red than the brown/red the recipe made. I made a cream cheese icing to go on top and had some fun piping it out. I think it looks/tastes better with a little less icing than the usual ones I make, just because the cream cheese icing is SO rich. Instead of eating these ALL myself, they were shipped off to the boys house and megans house :). All found good hungry tummies.




And a kittykat update. The kittens are growing big! Apollo had his second vet appointment and is very very healthy. He weighs in at 3.2 pounds, and met two dogs while waiting in the reception area. Needless to say, they didn't become friends. The vet ooogled over how cute Apollo is, and how fluffy he is getting. Apollo even licked the vets nose, I think he loved the attention. Sirius and Apollo go back to the vet on November 19th together to get their last needles. Which will be so fun to try to control both of them. But I do think they wil be a good comfort to each other. Here are some cutie pictures of them from the past week and a bit!

Not Just another Bathroom item!

I painted my toes last night, and I brought out some Q-tips from the bathroom. And it began. I noticed that i was short quite a few Q-Tips after they were in the living room for 5 minutes. I peeked under the couch and Sirius had them with him and was rolling around and acting like a fool. This morning I threw one into the garbage and he dove in after it wildly. Not being a kitten expert I thought this was like tinfoil balls or bells, but it seems like this may be a Sirius thing afterall. Apollo tried to get into it, but after a while he gets bored. Enjoy the film! (there isn't any sound sadly, but I am laughing a lot)



I Will upload another one soon!!

Oops continued; Did I mention Phanny is a boy?

Okay if you are thinking that we've made a mistake with determining the kittens gender again, you are right! Our newest addition to the family has followed in Apollos footsteps and dooped us all! At the vet we learned that we have gained another little boy, and that in fact 'Phanny the girl kitten' was never meant to be. So I'd like to introduce Sirius, our new little boy kitten! Named after Sirius Black, from Harry Potter! (so it is pronounced Serious)
On another note, I had my eyes examed and sadly... I will NOT be getting cool fun amazingly awesome glasses. :( My vision is still perfect. BUT i had a lot of fun getting my eyes checked, as Dr. Noseworthy was fairly young and had a great sense of humor. We shared a long laugh over a family guy joke, "Jafar at the optometrist"... he thought it was hilarious because sadly it is so close to reality of optometrist life. He reccomended not to take the Jafar approach but rather to go with my first impression lol (see video).

(poor Quality but it is the only one i could find.)
Jafar Needs Glasses



And now, please enjoy silly pictures of Sirius and Apollo!

Welcome to the Jungle...

OKay, i Promise. This will be THE LAST blog where I introduce a new member of our family. We have officially become a zoo. But I would like to introduce, PHANNY (formerly known as Binx) has become a part of our family. She came to us is dire need of a home, as a friend of ours had to get rid of her. Phanny is a recycled name, but we just couldn't let it slip away. Apollo and Phanny are meant to be friends. He is kinda plump and goofy, while she is wirey and fast. They make a hilarious team, sharing kibbles, a litter, toys and sleep times. They took a little encouragement to warm up to each other, but they have been GREAT for each other. Both kittens were a little wild before (as Haley, Phannys other mommy, would compare scratches with me in medieval history class) but now that they have each other to play with they hae really calmed down and even become a little cuddly :). Haley got Phanny(Binx) the same weekend we got Apollo, so the two kittens are close in age. Now for many pictures!
(please bare with me its not uploading properly i will upload them tomrorow!! )

Advanced Computer User

Plans for this week; cleaning, eye exam, baking a pumpkin pie to bring home, a lot of readings! Its just going to be a week of a lot of schoolwork I think, hopefully getting me ahead of the game for next week!

Well Apollo is fitting in nicely with our family, and I am so excited to bring him to the Valley at the end of the week for thanksgiving. He has adjusted well to the apartment, and we have finally let him run about the place when we are gone out (and we usually come home to a snoring fluffball). Today his litter was moved into the bathroom, so he'll stop stinking up our bedroom with his litter. He also got his second treatment of worms goop this morning, which wasn't the funnest time for him. Of course that didn't slow him down at all, onto his usual routine of sitting on Scottys desk while he works. Apollo even follows along and "helps" as much as he can.

Apollo-kins!

Thats the cutest nickname we have for him... sometimes Pollllllooooo. Its hard to match a masculine nickname to him, becuase he's just so darn cute! To prove my point I'm posting a video of him exploring the new lid to the guinea pigs cage. We HAD to create one becuase he was so interested in living in there with the piggies. Please take note of his tail action, it is so cute!

Big Plans for the weekend :)

So, here it is Friday again! I worked my last friday shift at the TSG because next week the schedule changes to having just one person at the desk each day. So I work just Monday and Tuesdays. I'm really looking forward to it as I'm overwhelmed with schoolwork at the moment, and I'm going to spend a lot of my weekend getting caught up on it all. BUT I'm also going to try to bake a pie :) At Scotty's suggestion, I'm making Pumpkin as it is his favorite and very seasonal! I will certainly document it with pictures and blog. I've been reading about making pastries, so don't worry! I've done a lot of research and hopefully it'll go smoothly. :)
And our little boy has stuck with the name Apollo! He's also living up to the reputation of boys being bad. but how can you be mad at such a cute face?!

Bad boys bad boys... whatcha gonna do...


I'm such a cutie, you can't stay mad at me!

Surprise!!!

Well we took our little bundle of joy to the vet and all is well! It seems the ear mites have cleared up quite nicely! After a quick ear cleaning ( four large q-tips later) the vet felt all over to make sure our baby girl is healthy... "So you have been calling it a girl!? Sorry, but uactually have a little boy!" Surprise!!! So after a good laugh (which lasted a surprising amount of time) we decideda name change is in order. Sadly, Phanny just sounds far to girly for our little boy! So now Phanny is a rthing of the past, and we'd like to introduce.... Apollo!

My Ring Chose me!

So, As you may or may not have seen on my twitter, I ordered my X ring blingaling!
I'm so super excited to get it, but I must say that the trying on phase was pretty fun. It was way more personal than I thought, and for anyone who is a Harry Potter fan, it was JUST like getting a wand. I tried on a BUNCH of rings with different golds and face sizes and she kept asking how the ring felt on my hand and if this one was right or this one or this one... etc. It was VERY fun and now I REALLY can't wait for my Xring.
A Phanny update: She's wonderful! She is doing everything well, eating sleeping pooping and more. She is very playful then VERY sleepy, so she's pretty much loving life. We have had to get a squirt bottle to keep her away from getting into the guinea pig cage, but she is doing much better. All we have to do is pick up the water bottle and she squints and backs away. Since she is such a baby she is learning how to groom, so right now she is a little dirty faced.

Who is that third little guinea pig... Meet Phanny!

One teeeeeny tiny bundle of joy has found her way into our lives!
Phantom, named by Steph the official Cat Namer, is called Phanny for short. She's not a guinea pig shes actually a kitten! BUT she is smaller than our pigs!! She is JUST 6 weeks old now born on August 1st (scottys bday) I dont' have much else to say, except that we have had the most exciting 24 hours as the surprise kitty plan was played out. Thanks to EVERYONE who kept the secret and thank-you SO MUCH to everyone who took part in the plan on Saturday! It was perfect! I will blog the full story soon, however schoolwork is calling to me :( and of course a teeny kitten who needs some snuggles.
I will blog the pictures we took of her in the cage with the pigs later!

This is Phanny in Ashleys apartment sniffing out her new surroundings!


This overly friendly thing is Phannys mother, who was so interested in being petted i couldn't get her face in the picture!


This is me and Phanny in the PALACE of an apartment building she was born in! (looks just like the entrance into Ashleys, so beautiful!)


Here is Phanny with her new daddy having a snooze after all the excitement!


Here is the little one having a snooze on Grace in the car on the way back to Antigonish. She was good as gold, snoozed like it was her job!


More sleeping! (Grace was an excellent photographer, thanks so much for all of your help :)!


Sleepy kitten!

The ring with Super powers!

Well I have been busy with schoolwork (not a word of a lie) pretty much since classes have started. It feels completely overwhelming in a very scary way, but I think that is just what fourth year is supposed to feel like. Even though i have one less physical class in my schedule, I actually am busier than I've ever been before. I do work at the library almost every day and do readings every night. I'm doing about as much as I can to stay above water... agghh. Mostly everyone is in the same boat so that is really nice, at least we can all suffer together.
But of course fourth year has its perks for certain, aka X-RING!! I got my eligibility form, and thank goodness I'm eligible for one. haha so now everyone is a buzz about what face size they'll have on their ring and the ultimate question; yellow gold or white gold? I know I'm going with yellow gold, but some people are having an internal battle as they decide whether to get the traditional colour gold or one that they can wear with all of their other jewelry. I think that the X ring as a piece isn't exactly fashionable, so its not really that concerning whether it matches everything else or not. Then there is considering 14k 10k or the super crazy expensive "handcrafted" something or other rings that go for about 2000. I say, they put the special super powers in those ones, because for that price you need something amazingly special about your ring.
Well, its off to TSG and then endless readings! (on the plus side I'm off to see Signal Hill tonight!! Weooo!)

a Little Sunshine for your day!

So tomorrow is THE BIG DAY! (no not the wedding, but another BIG DAY)
Tomorrow is Move in Day at X. The whole summer the university has been preparing for this day, when the froshies arrive in all their nervous glory to become a part of the Xavieran family. Each and every move in day I've been an active participant. First year obviously I was moving in. I vividly remember feeling overwhelmed, lost, scared, but also excited, accepted and ready for fun! Second year was my first time being on the other side of the fence, as university staff welcoming the newbies. I LOVED moving people in, sympathizing with their struggles and enjoying their excitement. I didn't stop running around ALL day moving kids in, helping carry items, talking to parents about the wonders of this university and that their kid was more than safe with me. Third year I was part of the Senior RA staff, being the Mamas/Papas of our new RAs and our New froshies. It was just as exciting as second year move in day, but funner because we has a brand new building to show off, even though it had recently flooded displacing 11ish residents to lounges. Ah the fun!
Now in my fourth year, i'm neither frosh nor RA. BUT I am going to be a personal tour guide to a very special family, The Triggs!! :) Grace my lovely cousin fell in love with X when she came to visit in april, slaved over Pre-cal summer courses and has finally made it to being 24 hours away from being an official Xavieran :)! At the crack of dawn we are getting in line at the KMC, (where we will see Scotty posing as Mister Apple Man) and then heading to Lane to move her into her temp room! All very exciting, i'm MOST excited to be on the other other side of the fence again, moving someone in :).
Now for the sunshine!
Lets begin with my newest little creature friend, Ginger. This is the kitty than lives in Megans house! In a house full of girls Ginger gets all the love and attention a kitty could hope for!

Next, is the three teddybears I made out of sugarpaste last week from a tutorial on you tube! adorable :) I can't wait to try some more!

Here are the sunshine cupcakes I began this morning :)! I used my new icing tip and it turned out beautifully! here are the naked cupcakes!

Next we have the sunflowers I created :) They were inspired from my aunt Kellys cake she made for James' birthday :) ! It was BEAUTIFUL, so I attempted some sunflowers of my own!

Here is the finished product :) I added some leaves because the green really adds some colour! They are all packed and ready to head off to Bishops hall to "add some sunshine" to a potentially rainy and stressful day as two of my fav ladies move in their froshies!

Adventures of the last few days :)

Over the past few days I've done lots of fun things :)

Last weekend we went home and relaxed, try to blue stephs hair, watched Walle and enjoyed good company!
This week I've been enjoying being busy at work as it a busy busy time of year trying to get every phone prepared for the coming of the residents. This monday will be my last monday working full time, and I can't wait to be done and start classes! Its been a very very long summer, fun but long. I'm looking forward to classes, friends and more frequent trips to the valley. Of course I've been doing baking over the past few days as well, and testing out some new methods with the gum paste!
Here are some highlights from the last few days!

This is the cake that almost didn't survive, because it almost was thrown at the floor lol. (several times) I finished this one at home last weekend with steph and mom!


These are the lovely flowers outside Minimoes! The grounds people at X have done an EXCELLENT job this summer, so I had to take a picture to show everyone!


Pika snoozing on scotty with his tongue sticking out... priceless!


Last night we went out to celebrate our SECOND last friday at work! Prepping for next friday of course! And it just so happens it was fishbowl friday, so we indulged! That is Raspberry Ice tea (with a kick!) It tasted like red freezies Mmmmmm.


These are the cupcakes I tried out! I used my piping tools to ice it... but sadly I didn't ahve a very good tip. So I researched post-production of this cupcakes and found a cheap set of Wilton ones perfect for icing cupcakes! Stay tuned for round two ! Notice my further attemps at icing flowers, so cute :)


This was my adventure today :)


...And this is the mess it made!



a close up :) (I'm very proud that I ended up making two... success! And learning experiences!)


And last but certainly not least, Scotty's bday present from his grandparents! An Xbox and Guitar hero III! The source of much happiness and frustration haha!