Merry Christmas

Well we had a very busy Christmas and it flew right on by. We had a good time though. We spent Christmas in B.C. at my parent's house. Before Christmas we made a trip up the mountain on my dad's snowmobiles. It was pretty fun, but super windy up there. And it was snowing so we didn't get a good view that day.

We also went on a hay ride around town to check out all the lights. The little kids loved it and we all about froze to death by the end. We saw some pretty amazing Christmas lights though.
On Christmas day we got some sweet gifts. Tim bought me a video camera and I got him satellite TV. You see out in Stirling (in the middle of no where) you can't get cable. The cable companies call it a "dead area". Tim tried putting up with the rabbit ears on top of our big screen HD TV, but I guess the three fuzzy channels didn't cut it. And I have been wanting a video camera for ages. We got many other super nice gifts from our family as well.

Now we're back home and working again. Those six days that I took just zipped by. Today is Tim's last day of work for the next three months. January 2nd he starts his 4th Year Electrical schooling. By the end of March he'll be a Journeyman. We're pretty excited. However it'll suck for the next three months without Tim's paycheques. The EI he gets while is school is pretty terrible, but at least it's something right?

Nilsson Family Newsletter

Christmas Baking

Well I'm trying to do some Christmas baking. I actually really enjoy it. It's just kinda hard finding time to do it in the evenings after work. Anywho, Monday night I started with the Whipped Shortbread and I had problem after problem. I started the dough and I ran out of flour upstairs in my pantry. I didn't worry as I was sure I had a bag or two downstairs in my food storage. I went to check it out and to my surprize I had three bags of sugar and no flour. Now I live out of town so it's not like I can zip over to the grocery store. I started by phoning my Aunt to see if she had some...no answer. Then I called my cousin next door and she said she had some in her food storage that I could us and I said I'd replace it tomorrow. She called me back a minute later and she, like me, only had bags of sugar. She didn't even have one cup. Then I remembered that I keep a little canister of flour near my stove for making gravy (easier than bringing out the huge tub of flour from my pantry). I barley got one cup from it. But it's all good. I continue with the recipe that ends with a pinch of salt. I finished up and put the dough in the fridge and plan to bake it tomorrow as now it's too late and I'm tired. Fast forward to Tuesday (last night)...I bake them all (3.5 dozen) and then do a taste test. THEY WERE HORRIBLE! I don't know how much salt I put in, but it sure was no pinch. My beautiful cookies taste like salt blocks. So I have to toss them out and start all over again tonight. They look yummy though, but don't taste them. I'm starting to think the cookie stuff is not for me.
My Chewy Gingersnaps were much better. Thanks to Tim's sister Rachel for the new recipe. They're wonderful.

Presents

Last Friday I finished all of my Christmas shopping and on Saturday I wrapped the presents. It took me forever. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel the need to do ribbons, bows, and such on each gift. My back was super sore from sitting on our hard floor in front of the tv wrapping. Here's a picture.

Ashlee's Asian

You'll only get this if you've seen You, Me, & Dupree. "No you can't have it back! And why is it all Asian?"

Tim's Patrick

Well, I always liked Dirty Dancing (click the link to see my Blog post of Nov 14). Now the true test will be to see if Tim can dance like Patrick....for some reason I doubt it as it was like pulling teeth to get him to dance at our wedding. Kinda funny that we first met at a dance, eh? However, I can't complain...I'm married to Patrick, Jake, Ashton, Antonio, & Tom all rolled into one.

It’s been quite the week

So many things have happened this last week. In the last seven days there’s just been so much. Last Tuesday night my cousin’s 2 month old little boy passed away suddenly. And if a death of a baby wasn’t enough, when Granny heard the news she had a heart attack. She’s still in ICU and therefore Grampa was all alone and needed help (he’s 90 years old), so now the family is trying to take care of him. And then on Sunday a different cousin of mine had to take her little 18 month old baby to the ER because the side of his face was paralysed (Bells Palsy). It’s just been one thing after another. On Thursday we have the funeral in Jaffray for little Jaxson. We’re lucky we have such a close family when we have such trials as these. I know the Lord doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but this week has been very difficult.

There was one good part about this week though. On Saturday my immediate family gathered in the Temple and Dad was sealed to his parents and his brother for eternity. What an amazing experience. I’m so glad that I know families can be together forever.

Slide Show

As you can see I've added a slide show of our photos to our blog. But I'm not happy with it's location on the page. You see, I've never had any html training and it takes me a very long time doing the trial and error way and the Help function to figure things out. I switch to this new Beta thing with Blogger and it's supposed to be easier for people like me, but I can't seem to get it to do what I want either. So please work with me while I try and learn this html stuff.

Family Wall

I've added some photos to our "Family" wall. Our family is pretty small with just Tim and I plus a couple horses and dogs. We'll have to get some pictures of our extended family or it'll just have to stick with what we have in the frames. I want to change the photos to sepia from black & white. I think it'll go better with the color scheme of our house. Oh and sorry about the blinding flash reflecting in the photo. If I didn't use the flash then the picture was blurry. And I need to reprint the one that has Tim's head cut off.

Oh Ya It's Cold

So I told you it was cold and this morning I took a picture of the temperature displayed in my truck on the way to work. Yes, it says -30. And that doesn't count the windchill which the radio says is around -39 again this morning. The other pictures are of Tim and I hot-tubing last night. Tim got his hair wet (not so smart in temperatures like these) and it froze in a mohawk. It's hard to see in the photos cuz of the steam that was coming off the water, but his hair was pure white.

Brrrrrr

Oh ya, it's freezing here. It's been super cold for almost a week now. Yep, the weather station said with the wind chill our high will be -39 degrees Celsius today. Nice eh? Oh and for our family in the US, that's around -38 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, we're freezing in Southern Alberta. We actually have snow too. I'm sure we'll have a Chinook soon and it'll all disappear. But right now it's pretty.

I don't think our pets are loving it though. Their water keeps freezing. Which leaves Tim and I to haul buckets of water to our two horses and the dogs daily. We do have an electric water heater for our horses water trough, but in order to get it to work we have to string an electrical cord across our backyard and the problem is we have Dexter who LOVES to chew everything: hoses, buckets, sprinklers, extension cords, etc.

Tim's been working outside some lately, so we bought him some nice outdoor work clothes. Now he has insulated pants and coat. He says it's much warmer. The thick material stops the wind from blowing right through him.

Christmas Decorations

Okay Mom, you asked me to post some pictures of our decorations. Well, they're really hard to photograph. They look pretty terrible in these pictures. But at least it'll give you a good idea. You'll be here the beginning of December so you'll see then why I love what Tim's done. The photos just don't cut it. I bought a centerpiece yesterday and that's on here too. It's much prettier in real. It's all sparkly and stuff. I'm also adding a picture of a gift I received from my aunt. It is a photo of Jospeh, Mary, & baby Jesus.

Jet

So I told you all not too long ago how fuzzy Jet is now. Ya, it's chilly out and he's a big fuz ball. However, he no longer has a mohawk and his tail is much longer than before. I took some pictures of him the other morning to show you. The quality isn't that great cuz it was early in the morning and the sun wasn't up yet, but it was too bright to use my flash. Bad lighting. Tomorrow Jet will be 7 months old.

Hanging Pictures

Okay so we moved to Stirling July 6th and just a day or two ago I finally got around to hanging my pictures on the walls. I know what you're thinking. However, now it's done. Well my main level is done. I haven't hung any upstairs (don't rush me). So I took some pictures of my pictures to show you. Oh and I also bought these letters that spell FAMILY just this weekend and really wanted them up. They were my inspiration to hanging the others. Now I just need a picture of my family hung under the word. We'll see how long that will take me.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

So yesterday Tim and I tried to put some lights on the outside of our house. Well no such luck. Even with a tall latter we couldn't reach everything. So it ended up we had a straight string of lights along the top of our garage, a break, then another straight string above our window. Too ugly. With the peak over our main door we couldn't reach that part. And you can't really tell from this photo (taken back in June before we bought this house) but the slope of the roof is super crazy so we couldn't even stand on the roof to decorate the peak above the door. So instead we bought two spot lights (one red & one green) and pointed them at the house, put a lighted snowman thingy at the front door, and tried to string some lights on our tree in the front yard. We ran out after the first three wraps around the tree. I'll have to pick some up tonight. Maybe I can talk Tim into putting some lights around our doors and windows (fancy eh?). Ya our neighbours are totally showing us up with their decorations.

Okay I found a picture that shows the slope of the roof way better. See, that's why standing on our roof is almost impossible.

Oh Christmas Tree...

Yes, we did it. We put up our Christmas tree. I figured why not. Christmas is less than 6 weeks away. So last night we hauled our decorations out of the basement and we put everything out. It looks like we have way less in this new house. I guess if you go from 900 sq ft to 1600 sq ft house it'll look emptier. Maybe I'll go shopping to get some more decorations. This year (for the 1st time since we've been married) we're going to decorate the outside of our house. Yipee! We haven't been able to in the past cuz we don't own a ladder. Well we still don't own one, but now living in Stirling, my uncle is just down the road and he has one. I'm excited. If Tim didn't have to work every Saturday then maybe we could get them up. Anywho, here are some pictures of us decorating the tree last night.

I'm Bored

F A V O R I T E S
TV show: America's Next Top Model
Flower: Lilacs
Movie: The Notebook (it's now entered my Classic Movies that I could watch over and over again such as Top Gun, Dirty Dancing, Legend of the Falls, etc)
Sport: On TV would have to be Hockey, but in person I like it all
Actor: Brad Pitt has been my favorite for years and years
Music: I like it all, but Hip Hop or Pop is probably my favorite
Season: Bring back Summer!
Book: I don't read

F A C T S
Birthplace: Fernie, BC
Hometown: Stirling, AB
Height: 5' 7"
Hair color: Blondish these days
Hair length: The longest it's been since Grade 11
Hair style: Poker Straight (stupid hair won't curl)
Eye color: Blue
Shoe size: 8
Citizenship: Canadian

L O V E L I F E
Do you have a love life?: Yep
Have you ever been in love?: Yes
Why did your last relationship fail?: Well I'm married so I guess I'd have to think back to my dating years...it ended cuz my husband (who was a stranger to me at the time) asked for my number in front of my current guy and I gave it to him, but the relationship wasn't going anywhere anyways.
Have you ever been heartbroken?: Sure
Have you ever broken someone's heart?: Ummm a guy or two seemed pretty hurt back in my dating days
Have you ever fallen for your best friend?: No, but Tim is my best friend now (does that count?)
Are you planning on getting married?: Been there, done that
Are your bridesmaids going to wear sailor suits?: No, they wore mint green dresses (you can see them in my photo album)

T H I S O R T H A T S
Love or lust?: Love
Hard liquor or beer?: Ummmm
Night or day?: Day
Saturday or Sunday?: Saturday (or do I have to choose Sunday cuz of church?)
Colored or black and white picture?: I like B&W, but I always do color for some reason

H A V E Y O U E V E R S
Have you ever been caught sneaking out? Where would I go if I snuck out in Jaffray...honestly? There was no place to sneak to.
Have you ever done something you regret?:Sure
Have you ever been on a house boat?: No, but I want to one day
Have you ever had your revenge?: Once
Have you ever finished an entire jaw breaker?: Yep when I was younger.
Have you ever stayed up all night until the sun came up?: Yes, for After Grad Party and once while hanging out with a friend

A R E Y O U S
Are you missing someone right now?: My family
Are you happy? You betcha
Are you bored?: Why else would I be doing this?
Are you German?: No
Are you Italian?: No
Are you French?: Non (there's some French for ya)
Are your parents still married?: Yeppers
Are you into someone right now?: My husband!

And November's Here

Well November is now upon us. I don’t have much of an update for everyone. Things have been pretty much the same for Tim and I. Tim’s still having fun with the Stirling Fire Department. It’s keeping him extremely busy on top of his regular job as a electrician and church stuff. I’ll have to get a picture of him all dressed up. And what I am up to? I’m not really sure. My days zip by and I feel as though I get nothing accomplished.
We don’t get to do a whole lot with our horses these days. It’s dark when we leave for work and dark when we get home. Our foal, Jet, didn’t care for the snow last week and now he’s super fuzzy with his lovely winter coat. He’s friendly and loves people (which is nice). He’s also really good around our two crazy dogs. They’re pretty wild and yet Jet is fine with them (his mama is the same way). Jet will let both Diesel and Dexter eat out of the same bowl as him. And I don’t know why my dogs like grain, but they do.
With it now being November, we’ve started looking around for a few Christmas gift ideas. A lady told me last week that her house already has all her Christmas decorations up. I’m not quiet there yet. I think I’ll leave my Fall pumpkins and scarecrows up for a bit longer. I don’t have Christmas fever yet. I think it’s because all our snow melted last weekend. When is it okay to put your Christmas decorations up? My neighbor has his lights up. Is it too early?
So that’s a little update from us (well mostly me). Tim’s my silent partner when it comes to this whole Blogging thing. Occasionally I can get him to sit down for a second to read what I post, but that’s about it.

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we carved our pumpkins. We were going to wait until today to do them, but Tim has to write his exam tonight for the course that he was in all weekend. We both had a hard time carving our pumpkins this year. There are many toothpicks holding the designs together. Last year not one single toothpick was used. Here’s a little note to all of you that I wish someone shared with me before we started carving last night – cut out the little details first and leave the big stuff to last. I learned the hard way. However, most of you probably already knew that.

Vote for your favorite design. Tim and I have a competition going.









Here are our pumpkins for this year (2006).









These were our’s from last Halloween (2005).

Halloween Baking

I was finished my housework Saturday morning and then started doing stuff in the kitchen. My sister and her husband were coming so I thought I’d whip up a bit of Halloween baking (remember Tim now loves cookies). From 11:00 until 7:00 I was working like mad in the kitchen. I was so wrapped up in it that I didn’t even hear or see Tim outside our house with all his firefighting buddies and the fire truck testing out the fire hydrant. I totally missed them. Anywho, in the kitchen I made special Halloween Rice Krispie squares with little orange pumpkin candies in them, some fudge, and bat and pumpkin sugar cookies. I think they were a hit. Tim ate tons of them and I sent some home with my sister too. I swear it tastes better than it photographs.

In addition to my baking I made homemade turkey soup, a spinach artichoke dip, and a bean dip. It was my first time making turkey soup and the taste was great, but I put too much rice in and.....not so good. However Tim ate it up (he’s so sweet). The spinach artichoke dip was a new recipe and it was good, but I’ll stick with my old recipe for next time. And I’ve got the bean dip down to an art now.

Hardwood Flooring

On Saturday Tim had another firefighting course (actually it was all weekend long). While he was gone it gave me a chance to get caught up in my housework. I did a good cleaning of my bathrooms, kitchen, living room, and floors. For any of you that are planning on putting hardwood flooring in your homes, be prepared to clean them all the time. I love my hardwood. It’s a beautiful walnut color. However, I am constantly cleaning it. The dark wood shows absolutely everything. Now that I have this type of flooring it makes me wonder how much was "hidden" in my carpet in the other house. It makes me a little uneasy thinking about it. But in my new house I do have the cleanest floors around.

Just Another Day

So what have we been up to? We’re just busy, busy, busy. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day anymore. It feels like we’re always running. Here’s a typical day for the Nilssons:

6:00am We’re up! Tim starts getting ready for work while Ashlee goes downstairs to make Tim’s lunch for the day.

6:20am Tim’s out the door and goes to feed the horses while Ashlee cleans up from the morning and gets herself ready for work.

7:30am Ashlee leaves Stirling for the 35 minute drive to work.

4:30pm Ashlee leaves work and does all her errands in town (appointments, groceries, returns, Wal-Mart stuff, etc).

5:15pm Tim finishes work (if it’s a good day) and then he does his errands in town before heading home (horse feed, dog food, vehicle maintenance, helping his wife, etc).

6:30-7:00pm Tim and Ashlee both arrive back home (that is if the errands go quickly). Ashlee starts dinner while Tim feeds the dogs and exercises them while going over to check on our foal (and feed the foal again).

8:00pm We eat dinner.

8:30pm Ashlee cleans up dinner while Tim starts on his "Honey Do" list (leaking toilet, mow lawn, clean dog’s pen, hang mirrors, finish our deck, etc)

9:00-10:30pm Tim continues on his "Honey Do" list while Ashlee attempts to get some housework done (baking for Tim’s lunch, laundry, vacuum, clean bathrooms, etc).

10:30pm We call it a night and decide to stop with the chores and such. Tim will finally get his shower. If we’re not too tired we’ll go in our hot tub before bed, but if it’s been a rough day then we just say goodnight and fall asleep watching CSI.

And it all starts again at 6:00am. Yes, that’s a typical day for us. The days when we have home teaching, visiting teaching, firefighting meetings, and Elders Quorum meetings are even worse. I feel as if I’m running on fumes. Our weekends are packed so full we don’t get to recuperate during them. I'm sure the majority of you are going through this as well. I know we're not alone with a busy schedule. Maybe things will slow down a bit this winter........maybe.

Uneventful...

Well I have to say things have been fairly uneventful this past week or so. Thanksgiving was great and Tim and I hosted 14 people for dinner. And then my week was super quiet as Tim had to go out of town for work. I did a whole lot of nothing.

Tim got home late Friday night and then all day Saturday and Sunday he had a Firefighting course. Yes, Tim’s a firefighter in Stirling. But that’s a story all to itself. So Saturday while he was away I caught a ride with my parents who were in Alberta again to go and watch my sister Britnee play volleyball in Taber.

Sunday was a little more eventful as we went to church in Lethbridge for my cousin’s homecoming. Church was at 9:00am and while we were in sacrament meeting someone broke into a bunch of cars in the parking lot and stole tons of stuff. Pretty bold of the dude to smash windows in the daylight, but he did and he got away with it. No one saw a thing.

And that’s about it.

Here comes the weekend

Today is only Thursday, but it’s my Friday. I’m taking the day off of work tomorrow. My sister Jenn is coming to Alberta for the long weekend. She’ll be here by 5:00 – just when I’m finished work. So tomorrow we’re going to grocery shop for Thanksgiving Dinner food and just have a blast. I’m super excited. Her husband has to work (as does mine) so we’ll hang out together and do girl stuff (with her two kids of course – Jayda & Parker). We are just going to have the best time ever. I love hanging out with my sister.

On Saturday the rest of my family will be here too. Mom, Dad, Britnee along with Kimmy & Brendan will be spending the long weekend in Stirling. Yep, the turkey is on at my house. Gotta love Thanksgiving, eh? It’s awesome having my family come to our house to celebrate. Oh ya, I’m excited all right.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

So for two years of marriage Tim has told me that he does not like cookies. It doesn’t matter the kind of cookie…he just doesn’t like them. So I have been going about life this past couple years never making cookies. Until yesterday…

Tim and I are picking up some groceries yesterday and he turns to me and asks why I never make him cookies. Are you kidding Tim? Anywho, he asks if I’d make him some oatmeal raisin cookies. So me, trying to be a good wife, said that I’d make some for him tonight while he’s at his meeting.

Now I don’t have a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies so I went to some recipe website and found one that had a picture and they looked great (check out the pix). I made them and cooked up the first sheet… and they were HORRIBLE! They were the driest cookies I’ve ever had. They weren’t soft, moist, or chewy at all. They went to my dogs and I didn’t even bother cooking the rest of the dough.

So if any of you have an awesome oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that you could share with me, my husband (who has this new love of cookies) would sure appreciate it. As it turns out Casey, you’re the only master cookie maker.

Farewell to Dude

On Saturday Tim and I sold one of our horses, Dude. After thinking about it for a while we both knew it was the thing to do. He actually sold really fast (in a few days) and we were surprized cuz we didn't thinking many people would be buying in the Fall. It looks like he's got a nice home to go to though. In the next few weeks Tim and I will go to Jaffray and pick up my sister's horse, Ritz. Tim told Kimmy that we'd take care of Ritz for a little while for her. So, we'll be back up to 3 horses shortley. We'll miss Dude though.

Oh So Tired!

Is it common to fall asleep with your sippy cup in one hand and a half eaten corndog in the other? This is my nephew Parker. He's about 17.5 months old. My sister went to put him in his crib and he still wouldn't let go of the corndog, so his entire nap was with food. Some kids sleep with blankies or stuffed animals, but Parker sleeps with his "num nums" (Parker's way of saying food). However now that I think about it, there are times that I would LOVE to eat myself to sleep.

Goodbye Rhodenizers

Well, today Josh, Shauna, and their three kids (Elise, Zac, & Thomas) are leaving Lethbridge and heading back to the US. This time they’re heading to Salt Lake City. We’ve sure enjoyed having them here in Lethbridge and so

close to us the past 4 months. We’ll miss them tons and wish them the best of luck. But we are excited to go and visit them in Utah. We love you guys!!

New Ward, New Callings

Well Tim and I went from a massive Ward in Lethbridge to Stirling. We blended-in in the old ward, but in Stirling I guess we stand out. It's just us and one other couple that are "young marrieds" with no babies. Needless to say it didn't take them long to find some callings for us. In Lethbridge Tim and I were ward missionaries. There were tons of us so I didn't really do anything, but Tim was lucky enough to be called to teach the Gospel Principles class. And now here in Stirling, well I get to teach the ladies in the Relief Society (fun eh?) and Tim was called right away to Elder's Quorum Presidency. Oh yes, we've got the good callings now. I've already taught a few times now and things went well, but this past Sunday was Tim's first time in the EQ Presidency. I'm sure we'll both survive. Tim also got asked to speak next Sunday too. No rest for the wicked, right?

Summer Update

Okay, so I think I've finally got this thing figured out -- maybe. Well I'll give you a quick update of our summer.

We'll start with June. June was a write off...completely. My sister Kimmy was married on June 17th to Brendan Yuill from Cardston. It went very well (even though it was super windy the day of). In addition to Kimmy's wedding, Tim and I found a house out in Stirling that we just loved. So of course, we had to put our house up for sale and pack and move (all in June). We listed our house and we sold it for $5500 more than our asking price in three days. Then we needed get banks and lawyer and all that fun moving stuff in order. We packed and moved and were living in Stirling by July 6th. Also Rachel and her family moved to Lethbridge. We love having them near by.

Now July...we got moved to Stirling, but we needed to unpack. We've got most of that done now (yes I know it's September). Our garage looks like a tornado passed through it still. But there was some outside stuff around the house that we needed to get done before it got cold. First we had to build a fence to keep our two dogs from running around Stirling. Tim also took our little balcony out back and made a huge deck for us. We had to (yes, had to) get our hot tub pad ready for our hot tub (I brought it with me from Lethbridge) and Tim hooked that up too. And that was our July. We got the house set up (and had my birthday).

Then onto August. We needed a break so we took a week off of work and headed to Las Vegas (it's a very long drive). We had a great time with family and then we spent two days on the Strip. It was soooo hot there though. When we got back to Canada I thought I was going to freeze to death and it was 27 degrees here. I guess I got used to the 45 degree in the shade in the desert. On our way home from Vegas we stopped in Salt Lake City for a day. We were able to go camping only once this summer. Shauna had a baby boy, Thomas. He's a cutie. However, Tim and I are now really falling behind on the baby count.

Now it's September and Fall is here. The summer seemed to fly by. I forgot to mention that Tim also switch jobs in August as well. He's still doing the same thing, electrical, but now he works for a company here in Lethbridge - Midland Electric. This winter he'll have his ticket and we'll be all done with the apprenticeship. Me...I'm still working for the Government. I really like my job (as far as jobs go anyways). The Mad Cow problem so far this year as well as the Anthrax outbreak in Manitoba this summer has kept us super busy. Keeps things interesting, right?

Still Trying

Well I'm still trying to figure this things out. It won't let me post a picture on our profile. Testing, testing, one, two, three...

Blogging???

I really can't figure this thing out. It won't let me post pictures. Hmmm....

First Try

So, I'm not a "blogger", but I thought I'd give this a shot. I thought it would help in keeping everyone up-to-date with what's going on in our lives. Here's my first try at it. I'm going to see if I can post a picture of our puppies, Diesel & Dexter. Hope it works.