We're buying a house

Exciting News...Josh and I are going to buy a house! We've been quite frustrated with the apartment we've been living in. We have random days with no hot water, gross smells, smoke and pot, and pretty freaky neighbours :) We've been very excited for when the day would come that we could move out and now the day has arrived! It works out perfectly because Josh's parent are heading to Europe for 6 weeks at the end of March and we'll be housesitting for them. So we gave our notice to be out of our apartment by the end of March. That will give us about 2 and half months to hopefully find a house and be ready to move in soon after. Now we're on a hunt for a house. We will keep you all updated on our progress.

God has blessed me with such an amazing job here in Alberta. I work with an oilfield company in accounts payable and I love it. When I was younger, Sarah and I used to play "office" because it was our dream job. We'd have little meetings and I'd be the boss and Sarah would always be the receptionist. Now I actually have my dream job.
I've also been blessed with the girls that work here. I've built such great friendships and we all get a long so well. It's funny how God works, because just recently my good friend Jesseca, who discipled me at PRBI, started working here as their receptionist. It can get pretty silly with her around but we've had lots of fun. Don't worry...we do work most of the time :)

Jesseca, Charity, and I in our office.

Josh and I headed to Edmonton this weekend for the PRBI girls and guys soccer tournament. It was so great to watch soccer again but made us miss playing so much. We both played on the Ambassador team our 2nd year at PRBI. We're hoping to one day join a team again here in Bonnyville when they get their sports center finished. We were surprised to see so many PRBI students from past years that also came to watch. It was great to visit with everyone again.


I am loving Alberta because they have random family days...so we all got a day of yesterday. Josh and I spent the whole day watching Lost, our new favorite T.V. series. It was a pretty lazy day, but so nice to relax and not do much.

Youth Alert

Sorry it's been so long since we last updated this thing. We've been keeping busy with life but there hasn't been much going on that was worth blogging.
Until this past weekend when Josh, John and I took some of our youth to Youth Alert. It was great to be back at PRBI again, but it made us miss being there so much. Maybe someday we'll go back as married students, you never know... :)
PRBI did such a great job with YA this year. The events were a little more simpler but were done so well. Here are some pictures of our eventful weekend...

On our way to YA... We had the wild group in our van, well the backseat was wild. Chantelle and Stephanie were a little out of it for part of the way.

Some of our youth playing extreme games at the Sexsmith arena. I was counting in my head how many years I've been to YA and I think this was my 8th year. Crazy!


Josh and I being silly at the Rally.

We got to see and visit lots of our friends. Here's my crazy roomates from first year. It was so good to see them and catch up.

When our Vernon group used to go to Youth Alert, we would travel all night to get there and have to travel all night to get home. It was a nice change to get home at 8:30 last night and not be too tired for work this morning. We did have an eventful morning though...Josh woke up and went to start our car. We haven't plugged our car in yet, which is probably pretty stupid considering the -30 to -40 degree weather. Anyways, of course the car didn't start this morning but not only that, we had left a Dr. Pepper drink in our car and it had exploded during the night. So now we have a car that won't start with Dr. Pepper all over our seats and windows. Now we know what we'll be doing tonight :)

Trip to Vernon

Well I'm back from my fabulous trip to Vernon. It was so great to see my family and friends again. Josh couldn't make the trip because he had to work. He was funny because he was so worried I would leave and not want to come back to Alberta. There were times when I wanted to stay because I never realized how much I missed everyone, but it was nice to come back to Bonnyville. This little town is really starting to grow on me :)

Here are a couple pictures from my trip...

I got to help my mom make the turkey this year. I had never done it before....

Here's Brad and Sarah's dog, Hudson, waiting for me to stop looking so he could start chewing on all the presents. I hardly took any pictures of our "Weglo Christmas"...I guess I was too busy relaxing. It was so great to be home eating all my mom's Christmas baking and good meals. We all played "Things" a few times which always ended up with lots of laughs. I love how you can play this game with anyone and laugh everytime. Well now I'm back at work, and back into reality. It's nice to get into our normal routine. Youth group's started up again and we've started getting together with the College and Career group too. I'm sure we'll be hoping for a break soon enough :)

Weekend Getaway

This past Saturday Josh's good friend Joelle got married! It was a whole weekend event that started Friday night and was finished Sunday morning. The wedding took place at a beautiful camp called Camp Nakamun. We loved the whole weekend idea because we got to visit with Joelle lots more then we thought and the camp had a pool and gym and other activities that we took advantage of. It felt like a little holiday getaway because it was so relaxing.
Here are some pictures from the wedding...Joelle looked gorgeous!

Cutting the cake

Our table at the reception

Our friend Jesseca Luciak was one of Joelle's bridemaids. She also looked gorgeous!

The beautiful bride

New Year's

Josh and I had a very eventful New Year's weekend. It all started off on Saturday night going to the Oiler's game (my birthday gift to Josh.) We had great seats, only 8 rows from the ice!

The game was against the Vancouver Canucks but sadly they didn't win. The score was 6-2. We were a little upset.

Then on Sunday, Josh and I got together with our good friends Ryan and Leah Campbell. We went out for breakfast and then spent the day at the West Edmonton Mall Water Park. I hadn't been there since I was 3 years old. It was so much fun! Here's Ryan and Josh taking a break for lunch.

Now we're back to work and our normal routine. Well until next week when I head off to Vernon to celebrate a "Weglo Christmas" in January. So I guess the holidays aren't over for me yet :) Happy New Year Everyone!

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.