wow, long time

so yeah, it is apparent I suck at this blog upkeep. It's been MONTHS since I updated!

Let's see ... since my last update ... I now have a 6 year old in the house - Xander celebrated his birthday on October 18th. I also celebrated a birthday, on November 19th. Yup, I am now 32 years young. We ran away for our Christmas holidays, since the mines were on shut down. We went "home" for Christmas, to celebrate with my ILs, my parents, our siblings, and other family & friends. The kids got spoiled, as always.

Unfortunately, while we were away, tragedy struck our small community. 8 local boys died in an avalanche while out snowmobiling. There were 11 of them, 3 survived and managed to be rescued. Sadly, this affected my close circle of friends. The last body recovered from the avalanche scene was my best friend Marcie's sister Theresa's common-law husband. Danny was a quiet man, but he had a heart of gold. He will be missed deeply, as will the rest of the "Valley Boys".
Here's to the boys
Sparwood Victims Memorial Gallery
(if you click on the first photo in the third row down in the thumbnails, you will see me getting off the bus, approaching the line to enter the arena - I am wearing my pink jacket - thanks Kristin for pointing this out to me!)

So we are slowly trying to get things back to normal here. For me, that means a bit of digi-scrapping! Here's my first two LOs of 2009 ...

~*~ YUM ~*~

using Cake & Ice Cream Perfect Pairs by Christy Lyle & Amanda Dykan
new release 01/10 at SSD

~*~ family tree ~*~

using Family Tree by Penny Springmann
new release 01/10 at SSD

And now to the real reason I came to post ... FOBTY challenge at Sweet Shoppe Designs ...

Your Snow Test Says You're Independent

You feel like something good will happen to you eventually, but not soon. You have an amazingly strong work ethic. You are likely to be very successful in life. You are an independent, individualistic person. You thrive when you're doing your own thing. Your biggest worry in your life is your health. You tend to be a bit of a hypochondriac. When it comes time to relax, you have no problem letting go. You are already pretty relaxed as is!

The Snow Test