You have a nice 'bumpah'. Jamaica #2.

Day 3:
Since it was our first full day there we spent it figuring out what we wanted to do and lying on the beach.

And I got a sweet burn. I had carefully planned how I was going to go about getting an epic tan and that fit in perfectly.
Now, a funny story with the next part of the day.
My mother has a watch. Which she wanted to keep on Kamloops time so that every time she checked what time it was she could figure out what the little boys would be doing at home. And she thought she would just keep track of what time it was by figuring out the time difference whenever she checked her watch.
So. Hehe. We made reservations at the asian restaurant.
For 6:30. We got ready a little bit early and slowly made our way down..and got the the place. But the strange thing was nothing looked ready, and yet all the waiters didn't seem to be in any rush. They were just sitting around chatting away. And giving us very strange looks. We waited for a while..and a little more until finally one of the guys came over and asked us if we needed anything. We explained that we had reservations for 6:30 and after a little confusion they explained to us that it was 4:30 and they didn't even open until 6.
Ooops. We must have looked like total airheads. They laughed at us.
And we had to go find something to do for two hours while dressed up to go to dinner.
But when we ACTUALLY went back it was really good.

I had :
Vietnamese Pork Dumplings- Spicy Pork Dumplings in a ginger sesame sauce.
Tom Yam Koong- Thai hot and sour prawn soup ( My mother was very surprised that I ordered this. I am not usually one for seafoody type things).
And for main course I had Cashew Chicken-Chicken, Cashew nut, Sweet Peppers, Onions and baby corn. *picture below*
All in all I would have to say that might have been my top pick of the three restaurants although at the time I had chose the Asian to be first since I don't really like that type of food so I wanted to get it over with.




And since they had no dessert there we just walked over to the buffet and some there. Mmmm. The cheesecake was to die for. And so every night after that we made sure we checked back to see if they had it.
Their coffee? So either since they are not coffee drinkers they don't know how to prepare it right or the jamaican coffee actually tastes like that but it was not good at all. But as I am a true addict :) I drank it anyway.

Day 4:


So the brochure told us it was going to be a soothing, relaxing climb.
If you ask my mother she will tell you it was anything BUT soothing. We didn't know what we had gotten ourselves into. But by the time we figured it out it was really too late for mom to go back :).

"Climb the falls in a human chain led by experienced Falls Guides. Pause at the 'massage parlour' and experience the soothing effects of the water as it cascades to the sea. For the less brave - live vicariously. View the activities of the more intrepid from the "safe" vantage point of the terrace or deck."

So the idea of it was pretty simple. Holding hands with a group of about ten you scale the side of a waterfall.
I didn't like the part of holding hands. Not only because its with complete strangers and thats just weird but also because if I had done it by myself with only me to worry about I might have actually been relaxed and soothed by everything. But trying to find footholds on slippery rocks while the water it pounding away and you and there are people on either side holding your hand thus preventing you from putting out your hands to secure yourself..not the greatest.

But it was something new that I've never tried so that made it fun.
And having video'd proof that my mother partook in such a crazy adventure made it even better.

We had lunch at the Sunset Jamaica Grande Hotel in Ochos Rios. It's one of the sister resorts to Sunset Beach but boy, was it different.
And that must be when I started appreciating our little run down resort.
It was so big and impersonal and there was so many people it was crazy.

And the desserts were not great at all so that was obviously one of the factors in my decision against it.

But they had these cool watermelon sculptures everywhere.
These things are so sweet. Haha. A pun.
Anyways..



The rest of the day we must have just hung out and had supper at the buffet since I don't remember anything extraordinary happening.
Usually what we do is since we were so tired from doing things all day we would have supper, listen to some of the live music after and then settle down for bed by watching movies and reading.

And that's it for today, folks.

You look trash. Jamaica #1.

So, maybe I understood him all wrong, which wouldn't be hard with his deep accent but I'm pretty sure it went like this.
If you say," You look trash". It means you are looking good.
If you say," You look like trash". It means what it says, you don't look good at all.

Unfortunately I didn't have anybody tell me I looked trash. Oh well, maybe next time in Jamaica.

Day One:
We drove down to Kelowna giving ourselves plenty of time to get there and get settled without having to race the clock at all. Well, it turned out we didn't need to worry about being rushed since our plane got delayed a couple times and we actually had around two extra hours. Great. It really helps when you are in such a HUGE airport like the Kelowna International Airport, there is SO much to do! :D.

We sat. And sat. And had some Tim Hortons.


(Clown gingerbread cookies at TH. Who knew?)
I wish this trip could have been the Tim Hortons tour to see what different kind of things they have at each one. But, Apparently Tim Hortons is a Canada thing which I forget everytime. Maybe it's up to me to start my own in Montego Bay. Problem is Jamaicans don't like coffee. They are tea drinkers. Even though they have coffee plantations all over the place only about 5% of the beans are used in Jamaica.

We went through security and waited on the other side for a while.
I love the patience game.

One long flight and we were in Toronto. Now that airport was big. Too bad that my mother didn't not have a rolly suitcase. No, she had her old suitcase from the seventies which has to be lugged everywhere. Which got tiring after the first two minutes. Which did not make walking all the way to our hotel very fun. She even made me carry it for a while which I do not think is very fair since I had brought one with wheels for this specific purpose.

(Paper type things getting swirled around by a water current. My mother made me take a picture.)

We walk all the way to the hotel and we find that there is only one restaurant there and it's pretty expensive, but we didn't really have a choice so we just ordered salads and shared a dessert. The salads were actually huge, I don't think I even finished mine but that could have been since I added chicken ANYWAY I'm sure you didn't want to know EVERY detail of the trip :).

Day two:
The next morning we woke up, had showers, decided to skip the expensive breakfast and wait until we could find a timmies seeing as the oatmeal was like $10!
Tried to figure out how to self serve check in, (Things have changed alot since I last went on a trip) failed miserably, had to get attendant to come help.
Went through, found our timmies.
*side note*
Every time we went to TH on the trip I ordered a bagel.
Everything bagel toasted with butter and cheddar cheese.
EVERY time they gave me processed cheese. Even when I double checked to make sure they realized I wanted the real stuff not fake. It was so gross. I had to take it off every time. Not very fun.

Bought an awesome hat. Cause obviously I couldn't even wait to get out of the country before I started blowing my money.


And waited for while.
Plane trip. This is when I watched Fringe for the very first time people. I started Season two cause that was all they had, and it was a little confusing coming in without knowing all the back stories but it was still epic.
We get there and it's hot. Obvs. But not as hot as I thought it would be.
I was sort of comparing it to when we got off in Haiti. Which totally doesn't count since in Haiti we walked out of the plane onto the landing strip thing. Whereas here we walked into the air conditioned airport.

CUSTOMS!
Wow, that was a fun line.
It took forever. A bunch of planes had all arrived at the same time so it was a sudden influx of people. It was kind of fun people watching and racing people from other lines to the finish. (in my mind, of course. I would never actually engage in embarrassing behavior like that.)

Found our driver on the other side, waited in the bus for a while.
Driver told us all sorts of things. But seeing as it's hard enough for me to recall the day to day happenings of my trip I think it would be near impossible to remember everything that everyone said.
We were one of the last to get dropped off at our resort so we saw some of the other places first. Which made getting at Sunset beach a little hard.
Let's just say, Sunset beach was..aged. No longer in its prime. Which, at first depressed me a little bit. Haha, if you had seen me in the first hour or two it would just be an eyebrow raised with an unimpressed look on my face.
But as it turned out I ended up liking it alot better like that.
It was is one of the few family resorts which gives it a more relaxed feel, and really, do I need everything to look brand new? (Rhetorical question..please don't answer :).

(view from our room over looking one half of the resort. Btw, during the seven days I was there I did not see those tennis courts being used even once!)

Since we were pretty hungry when we first got there we went to the buffet to grab something to eat.
Note: When we first got there we were some pretty big newbs. It took us a couple days to get the hang of things.
We had the 5:00 tour with Kenijah.
And we just explored and hung out for the rest of the day.

End of day 2.

Maybe blogging TOO much now?

Haha, I have to laugh at myself sometimes.

First I was freaking out at work cause I thought I wasn't being fast enough but they told me I was pretty much the best.
And then today. I'm panicking cause I'm trying to remember how to do everything and I was worried that I was going to forget and do it wrong or have to ask my trainer how to do it like a million times but as I was working and he was watching to make sure I did it correctly he commented that since I was doing it so fast and without any problems it was as if I had worked at NRI before. :) I felt pretty good after that.
I just need to start chilling and remind myself that the job is actually really simple I just need to stop over thinking things so much.

My babies left me a present on the front steps today.
Who doesn't think a mouse head and insides are not the most amazing gift ever?
And if that wasn't enough as I walked a few steps further I found a birds feathers scattered all over the driveway and there was blood on the rocks.
Mmmm. Delicious. I guess thats his way of telling me I shouldn't leave him outside overnight.
It's not my fault though. I told him it was time to come in but he didn't want to listen.

Country Wednesday.

I think it is totally unfair for my car to start frosting up in the mornings already. I mean, it's only SEPTEMBER! It's not supposed to get this cold until like the middle of November.
Doesn't help that my rear defrost is broken.
Oh well, not like there is anybody on the road at 4:30 am :).

P.s. That has nothing to do with my post at all. I could see you trying to figure out what cold has to do with country.

So.Oh another side note:
I am skilled at sweeping..and cleaning bathrooms. And the weird thing is I actually enjoy doing the latter.
You should hire me to clean your house.

Okay, for cereal this time.
On Wednesdays instead of playing Sirius Pop or Sirius 80's, Jenn forces everybody to listen to Sirius Country. In the first hour I wanted to shoot myself. But eventually my mind numbed to it and it wasn't so bad. Heck, the last hour me and Barb(Yeah, that`s right, I have friends at work already.) were discussing big country artists like Billy Ray Cyrus(I heard `Achy, Breaky Heart` for the first time) and ..somebody else who is very famous but I have forgotten her name. Apparently she is coming to Kamloops.

OH! And I got `promoted` today! I no longer open boxes, scan items and put those items into different boxes. I now....................open boxes, scan items and put those items into different boxes! It`s totally different I assure you.

OH! And my boss called me into his office after my lunch break...and..told me I am doing an amazing job! Yay me. Apparently on Monday I was star employee and Tuesday was second place. And here this whole time I thought I was such a newb and going way too slow.

And tomorrow is Thursday which means the next day in Friday!! Things are looking up people.
I no longer hate life all the time. Just some of the time =).

Full of confessions.

Okay, maybe just one for tonight since it is already so late (*gasp* 9:20! Way too late for my new sleeping pattern.)

So, you might have noticed that I have not been up to my usual blogging standard.
There might be a reason for that.


TWITTER

It's not like I am addicted or anything. Hardly.
To put it in one hyphenated sentence:
Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

Rather than having the idea for a blog post, trying to remember it, finally getting to a computer but forgetting about it until a week later when I finally try and write out what was so amazing way back then..it just doesn't feel right.

But with twitter, you think of something funny or something else you would like to share with your little group of faithful followers and you whip out your phone, text it away and BAM! instantly it's out there.

Not saying it totally replaces my little writing thing I've got going on here. Come on, do you think I can say everything on my mind in less 140 characters sometimes? No way, jose.
But per usual with my generation I am taking the faster, easier, more efficient way out.

P.s. Remember that Jamaica post I promised you months ago? It's totally still coming =).
And I promise I won't put it into,

Haelle "Jamaica was amazing! Yeah, man. Keep the drinks coming! Nothing better than lying on the beach all day. Had so much fun." about 20 seconds ago via web

Open wide!

I have a confession.
I broke my diet today.
In a matter of speaking.

I promised myself that I wouldn't go to McDonalds for a while and I *may* have stopped in there this afternoon. BUT IT WAS FOR A GOOD CAUSE, I assure you.

A. My job sucks and I needed a pick-me-up.
B.I had planned on going to dairy queen but I missed the turn off.

The basic gist of it is this.

I went to the othodontist today.
And..they gave me fangs.


If you actually want to see it you might have to click on the picture to make it bigger.



In actuality, they glued these metal bars things to my front teeth so I can't bite down. Cause I'm wearing down my teeth and my jaw isn't moving fast enough and all this ridiculousness.
So, my molars can't touch anymore which makes it very awkward for eating.
Eating is in fact none existant right now.
Except..for the hot fudge sundae that I bought at McDonalds.
That's ALL I got I promise.

OH, and lucky me! I get braces right before Haiti! That will be the best.

BTDubs: For everyone out there(namely Jill and Ang cause you guys have asked)
I have a job.
Obviously I couldn't stay unemployed for long, I found it quite boring.
I work at NRI, for those of you who know what that is..pity me. For those who don't..I don't want to explain for the 100th time =D.
Let's just say...I can't wait until the end of October.


EDIT:
Heck, I didn't even mention the best part of this new vampire-like state..I talk funny! Yay. I though I sounded weird when I got braces..but now my 's's sound really strange. Please don't make fun of me next time you hear it.

TILT trying to put a happy perspective on things.

So. My life is a little joy free as of late.
Not that I want it to be that way, I'm just digging myself in a hole really.

But in spite of it all I'm going to record some happy things to try and boost a cheery mood.

1.Chai tea with milk and sugar. = my latest obsession. Usually I can't stand having anything in my tea, I prefer it black so this is a change for me.
2.

Tyler Ward in general makes my life a happy place.
3. Looking good. I'm sorry, but there is a nice feeling I get when I know I look super awesome.

4. My family. Aw. I love hanging out with them all. And I realize that we only have a few years left before we all get separated into our own lives so I'm going to try and make the most of NOW.

5. As much as it kills me to get ready and drag my lazy butt out of the house *usually* when I get out and hang out with people it turns to be really fun.

6. Waking up in the morning..
6.5. When I want to.
6.75. Preferably in the morning, but I'm alive cause I've gotten so much sleep and I feel amazing. Make sense?

7. Music. Definitely the highlight of my life right now.

It's what I like best.

I got in a mood today.
Good thing that usually my moods mean alot of time spent in the kitchen which was the case today.

I started off with cupcakes since I had a huge craving for them. But only white cupcakes.
There was no premade box waiting for me in the pantry so I actually had to make them from scratch!

Then I got sidetracked while looking for meatball recipes and discovered an easy Quiche recipe that looked really good.
Quiche has always been one of those things that I hear about alot and I've always wanted to try eating or making it but just never gotten around to it.
Well, it surprised me. Who knew that it was pretty much an egg pie? I asked my mother about a dozen times if I am actually supposed to be making a pie crust for this.
It had been ages since I made pastry but it actually tasted amazing.

Meatballs! Haha I had fun with these. I couldn't find a recipe ANYWHERE so..I improvised. Just tossing in things that looked good :) and did a basic sauce. Well, the idea of it was basic but there was a million ingredients. They tasted SO good. Too good in fact, I'm sorry to say but most of what went into my stomach today was either bacon or meatballs so after dinner I didn't feel so well.

It's a good thing I got around to all of this today because starting next week there are going to be alot of changes..stay tooned.

Das ist Leben.

Sometimes I pretend I'm cool. But then I realize I'm not.

EAT

I am a firm believer that everybody is entitled to fat days.
Mine was today.

Having a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast to go along with my chocolate peanut butter icecream.
And then going for a nap an hour and a half after I wake up. Not cause I really need it..but because I don't want to do anything.

Watching tv show reruns on my computer for most of the day in my bed because I don't feel like doing anything.

Eating. Eating. Eating.

A second nap.

It has been great.
Although in case you think I am a total slob I will say one thing,
I am sick too, k?
That has to count for something.

Epic Fail!

Haha, so Summer Goals.
I would like to say that the excitement and effort that I had for the first..2 days should count for something!
And I actually did go out of my way to try at least a couple times for all of these things.

But here we go.

1.Sixpack
2.Travel(Yay, the only one I actually accomplished!)
3. Make my own CD
4.Learn Spanish

So, 1. I started with the right attitude by buying myself a pass to the gym in Valleyview but you know, I did work full time all summer..and I think that gym is creepy..so no, it didn't get done.
2.Yay I went to Jamaica! 'nuff said.
3. Make my own CD..haha I tried to write..a couple times I promise..I think this is going to be more like a 5 year goal.
4. I bought the book. :D

So. Hannah is not a quitter. When Hannah does not get it done on time she gives herself more time.
1. I have now started up a routine..and so far it's held up for three days so I'd say I'm doing pretty good. I've also cut out McDonalds and Carbonated Beverage. All for the greater good of getting myself in shape.
2. Done and Completed. Although I could count Haiti as bonus points.
3. I'm narrowing my goal to writing one song and actually getting it recorded at a studio..I've got contacts so the recording it part will be easy :D.
4.Now the book will be put to use..I will say my goal is to actually be able to have small conversations.

It might look like these are small, but I am only giving myself 'til Christmas to accomplish them(I mean I have to get these goals out of the way so I can make new ones in January!)
So I hope since there are only 3..and they are pretty small it will be easy to focus and get 'er done.

Beware the groove.

So first of all I'd like to say that Emperors New Groove is probably in my list of top ten favorite movies. But of course I've never sat down to figure out that list so I'm not totally sure.

I was just reminded of it this morning so I think I'm going to watch it today.

Anyway.
I woke up at 7:30 this morning for no reason.
So I'm making cookies.
And drinking coffee.

And telling you guys a story that just came to mind.

So at camp every day the leaders are allowed to have roughly $1 worth of tuck(candy).

*pause* Noah has to go feed the chickens so at the moment he is banging a spoon against a pan to scare off the bear. It makes me laugh.
*play*

And I absolutely love coke bottle candies so every day I would get 20 of those. But the thing is when it's comes to candy I like diversity as well, so every day after I got my 20 coke bottles I would go over to Brandon(one of my best friends) and I would trade him two of my candies for two of his watermelons.
Every day.
People asked me why I didn't just get 18 bottle and 2 watermelons, and I could have...but it was just a nice little routine we had.

So now every time I have watermelons or coke bottles I think of him.
Aw. :)

We had many great 'adventures' together.

One time his mom sent him a bag of cookies..this huge bag..
And we spent the entire day lying on the couch watching movies and eating those cookies,.we must have had like 20 each.

Or the time Me, Brandon and Annalisa got stuck on the wrong side of the lake overnight because of the fire so we bought a Hannah Montana icecream cake and watched 'Parent Trap'.

Or the time we hung out in the yarn shop together.
Haha, I miss that boy.