Merry Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, but it was great spending time with family and remebering the gift that we have through Christ.
Josh and I spent our first Christmas in Lac La Biche for Christmas eve and Christmas day. We stayed at his grandparents house and did lots of visiting, eating, playing games, eating and more eating. Got to love Turkey dinners :)
Then we (Josh's parents, Jared and us) headed back to Bonnyville to open up our gifts to each other. Here are a few pictures from the eventful evening...

These stockings were a gift from our wedding. Josh was a little worried he wouldn't be able to fill them because they're so big. But he did just fine :)
Look at our fun stocking stuffers.

Josh's parents John and Tammy....all excited for Christmas :)

We hope that you all had a wonderful holiday full of God's blessings! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Josh's Birthday

It seems like I've been posting a lot of birthday announcements and I have yet another one to annouce. It was Josh's birthday this Friday which makes him 22 so....Happy Birthday Josh!
It was a great day. I had a few little surprises up my sleeve for the day. I just love celebrating birthdays. Josh, however, doesn't like birthdays very much so my goal was to change his view.
I had asked Josh's boss for the day off so he got to sleep in, which I'm pretty sure he liked. I also got him some Oiler's tickets (a game against the Canucks to prove that I am a true Oiler's fan!) I then made him French toast (well secretly I made it more for me because I love it sooo much) and we headed off to Edmonton for the day. We went to West Ed. which was crazy but Josh wanted to see the new Mel Gibson movie on opening night. It was a very gory movie but had a good storyline. Overall, the whole day was lots of fun!
I love you Josh and I'm incredibly blessed to have you as a husband! Happy Birthday...

Random...

Random thoughts and pictures from the Phillips...

Josh and I had a "date night" last Saturday. It was so nice to go out for supper and a movie. We watched the James Bond movie which was very good... This other picture is from our deck. I just love the view we have. It's beautiful in the summer and winter.

The other day I opened the door to our deck and thought this was pretty funny, and it's only gotten worse. Too bad it wasn't our front door, then we would technically be "snowed in". I've always wanted to have a "snow day" but that doesn't happen very often in Northern Alberta.

I can't believe tomorrow is December first! This year Josh and I are spending Christmas here with the Phillips clan. I'll get a few days off work so I'm really looking forward to a little holiday. Well that's it for now. Thanks for joining in on my random thoughts and photos...

Happy Birthday Shelley

My sister Shelley is in Africa right now experiencing a big milestone in her life...she turned 30 today! She's been in Africa for the past six months but comes back to Canada in 1 week! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I'm sure she's thinking the same thing. I just wanted to wish her a happy birthday. Here she is with her boyfriend, Jackson. Yup, she met him in Africa. Aren't they cute... :)

Things...Humor in a Box

We have become obsessed with a crazy game called "Things". I had never heard of it until moving here but it has now become the highlight of most of our weekends! We've played almost every week with our College and Career group for the past month and we never get tired of it! You cannot play this game without laughing!
I hope all of you can one day have a chance to play. It's so simple, yet so fun! I can't wait till I can play this with my brother. He would be so funny to play with! I'll have to bring it to Vernon next time I visit...

Happy Birthday John

Well my lonely week has come and gone. Josh got home on Friday, Yippee! I'm definitely not a big fan of him going away. I spent most of the week with Josh's wonderful parents. (Is that better Tammy:) Josh's brother, Jared, was also home for reading week so I got to visit with him. Then this past weekend we celebrated a big event in the Phillips family...John (Josh's dad) turned 50! We surprised him with a party on the Saturday night. In all Weglo tradition, I presented him with a birthday chocolate bar card. The chocolate didn't last very long, we were already into them that night :)
Here are some pictures of the eventful evening...

The chocolate bar card that I made.

John receiving his birthday cake with 50 candles. It was pretty smoky when he blew them out. We were all surprised the smoke detector didn't go off :)

This was a yummy idea Tammy had. It was made by stacking cream puffs and then filling in the holes with whipped topping and drizzled with chocolate sauce. It didn't stay this pretty for very long.

Josh and I gave John a miniature chain saw. He opened it up right away and looked to see what he could start cutting. He got a lot of good gag gifts along with a "Cher" like wig. He must of liked the feeling of having hair again because he even wore it on Sunday afternoon :)

Youth Retreat

Josh and I have been working with the church youth group this fall and it's been such a blast. This past weekend we took a group of our youth to "Ignite", a retreat in Wainwright. The weekend was packed with rally's, great worship, great speaker (Dean Yurkewich), good visiting, fun games, but not too much sleep. Here is a picture of our youth that went.



On Saturday night, while it was freezing cold, we played a game called Black Ninja. The leaders got to be the ninja's and wear masks over our eyes. Now there were good ninja's and bad ninja's. The good ninja's gave away certain objects and once a group of youth collected all objects they would win. But then there were the bad ninja's who would steal objects from youth. Well I was a bad ninja and I could only steal balloon's. Halfway during the game, I realized I didn't like being a bad ninja so I became a half bad half good ninja. I would give back balloons that I had stolen from other kids. I guess you could call it cheating but it was still fun :) Here's a picture of some of our youth girls and me in my mask. Josh kept saying I looked ridiculous...

Playing some games in a gym on the Saturday. Good times:)

Me and the girls chilling at the church.

Now I'm back a work, quite sleepy and missing my hubby. He's gone for the next week for a course in Edmonton. It's the first time we've been apart and I'm already missing him. I know I'm pathetic :) I'm filling up the week with lots of visits to the in-laws and lots of girls nights. It should be fun!

Edmonton Oilers

There are certain perks to working in an oil field office...you get free tickets to NHL games! And not just any tickets I got sky box seats to last night's game against Phoenix! Even though we were so high up, the view was amazing!
Rachel, I know how much you're missing hockey so I thought I'd bring the Oilers to you...
Here are some pictures of the game.

Now let me tell you about what it's like to have a sky box. We had our own entrance with an elevator taking us right to the sky box. When we opened the door, there was an all you can eat buffet and our own waitress to bring us non stop drinks! (don’t worry mine were all juice and pop) After grabbing a plate of yummy food, we then sat in our seats overlooking the whole arena. It was an amazing view! In between the 2nd and 3rd period a group of us went exploring and we found out that we could go downstairs right by the dressing room. It was crazy! I felt like a little kid at Christmas time. I was taking pictures like crazy. Here is one of Staios and Lupul to prove that I was actually there!

And to top it all off, the Oiler's won the game! The final score was 5-2 as you can see from the scoreboard!

It was so much fun. We didn't get in till 1:00 in the morning but it was all worth it! I wish I could have taken Josh with me, but it was only for the employees of our company. I'm sure he'll have a chance to see them sometime this year. I have other pictures, but the computer is being silly. I'll try and post them later. Go Oilers Go!

Our First Snow Fall

Josh and I woke up this morning to white street, and icy roads. I'm surprised that we haven't had snow yet, since we live in Northern Alberta. I'm sure it won't stay for long because we didn't get too much...we I'm at least hoping it won't stay. I remember when I was younger, and I would be so excited to wake up to a fresh snow fall but now that I have to drive in it, it's not as fun. There definitely is beauty to everything being white. So I guess I don't hate snow too much :)
Josh and I are heading to Edmonton for the weekend to see my youth group from Vernon and visit with my mom. I'm really excited to see everyone again. Here's some pictures of our small little town covered with it's first snow fall.

These were taken outside of our apartment before going to work and outside my office window.

Thanksgiving

Josh and I had a great Thanksgiving weekend in Alberta. Josh's brother Jared and his cousin Amanda and her boyfriend came up for the weekend from PRBI. We had a lot of laughs playing games and visiting till the wee hours of the morning. It was great to spend a weekend with family and friends. God is so so good!

Josh's little cousins also came to visit on Saturday. They are all such cute kids. The oldest two were our flowergirl and ringbearer. These are the younger two, Alex and Sabrina. So cute!

Josh had a lot of fun playing on the trampoline with the boys. We also brought out a big box of lego for the kids...well by kids I mean Josh and Jared who were digging around and building lego houses and cars and having more fun building then the kids were! I'm starting to learn that Phillips boys are all kids at heart. I see this in John, Josh's dad. Almost 50, but he's just like a big kid :)

Here is a picture of Amanda and her boyfriend, Ryan. It was great to visit with him and get to know him a little better. He's a great guy and they are so cute together!

Josh was in charge of making a dessert for Thanksgiving dinner. So this year, along with pumpking pie, we had the pleasure of eating "Death by Chocolate". It was soooo good. You have a layer of chocolate cake, a layer of chocolate pudding, then whip cream and pieces of Score bar. Repeat each layer and voila, you have a 300 calorie per serving dessert. Not that anybody was counting :)

Update From Us

Well there's not much new in our life here in Alberta. Josh has been going to school for the past month for his first year apprenticeship. He goes for another month and then continues to work at the Ford dealership for the rest of the year. And me, I'm still working at an oilfield office and I'm loving it!
Josh has started to count the days till Hockey season. How many? Let me ask him...12 more days til the Oiler's start. I have to say that I have become an Oiler's fan. Not too many friends and family from BC are happy but I have to be a submissive wife to my husband...right? Here's a picture of us at Christmas time after my mom had bought us these shirts for our family. She bought Oilers for us, Flames for Sarah and Brad, and Canucks for Jason and Darcy. I've also been blessed with a brother in law who is obsessed with hockey. Can you tell?

Meet our New Pet

Josh and I bought our first pet. A fish. His name is Rupert, Sir Rupert to be exact. Josh came up with the name. We were at Wal-Mart last week and decided we wanted a pet. The only pet our apartment would allow was a fish. So meet Rupert. He's still alive after 5 days but we've almost killed him once. We went away for the weekend and thought he'd be ok for a day without any food. When we got back he was swimming side ways on the top of his bowl. He would swim down and then float to the top. So we've been feeding him lots! If he dies, it will probably be of over feeding.
Now I guess you could call us official newlyweds because we have our pet.
Even if it's just a fish :)

Missing Vernon

I'm still here in Bonnyville but there are certain days that I miss Vernon so much. I miss my family and being able to hang out with my sister whenever I wanted. I also really miss my small group girls. This is a picture of some of the girls. From left: Sabrina, Hannah, me, and Kyla. This picture was when I went down to Vernon for Carey's wedding. It was soo good to see them but made me miss them so much more! Maybe someday I'll convince Josh that Vernon is a fun place to live. Or maybe everyone should just move to Alberta. (hint, hint Sarah)

Our Honeymoon

This was our room and the view of our whole resort. It was so beautiful!

Josh and I went to the Mayan Riviera for our honeymoon. It was so beautiful. We arrived on the Monday and stayed for a full week. Josh wanted to get a good tan to show that he had been in Mexico. So on the Tuesday, we went out onto the beach and I gave him some tanning lotion. BIG MISTAKE. Josh was white as a ghost to start off with but it didn't take long for him to turn bright red. The poor guy got the worst burn and he blames it all on his wife for giving him the tanning lotion. I guess I should have known better. So that put a damper on Josh's holiday but I still soaked up as much sun as I could.
It was a great honeymoon!

Our Wedding Party

Our groomsmen: From left, the handsome groom :), Jared Phillips, Danny Biette, Simon Ghali, and Dustin Mckay. They were a lot of fun!

My beautiful bridesmaids. From right: Sarah Rempel, Shelley Weglo, Laura Davison, and Leah Campbell. They all looked gorgeous!

Our Wedding Day

The day was perfect. So stress free and so much fun. The weather was great, photographer was great. We were so happy that so many friends and family came to share the day with us. We are so blessed.

This is one of my favorite pictures. It wasn't even posed. I can't remeber what Josh had said but it must have been funny to me.

These are some more favorites! The photographer was amazing which made the day that much more fun!

We were just driving and saw a field of yellow flowers. Right after taking this picture the photographer told us to walk away from her. While we were walking, we both stepped in a cactus. Josh had needles all up his leg and I had a big bunch on my dress. We were still pulling out needles that night. It hurt, but was pretty funny.

Well I'm going to try out this blog thing. It looks like a lot of fun.
Josh and I have now been married for almost 4 months. Crazy how the time has flown by. I'm loving the fact that I get to be with Josh every day and I don't have to say good-bye to him for months at a time. Only every morning, which isn't so bad.
We've finally settled into our apartment and we're starting to get busy. We both have full time jobs and we're in charge of the C&C program at the church and are becoming youth sponsors in the fall. I'm sure our weeks will fill up very quickly. We're both pretty excited about it.
Well that's the update for now.
Chow.