Photos - BBQ & Beacon Hill Park

Here is a lovely Photo Story of two events......

a wonderful BBQ with food, friends and Volleyball!
Then a little walk I took with Sophie the other day...

along Dallas Road and through Beacon Hill Park.

Enjoy!!!

and as a bonus, some new eye photos... (guess who)

Favourite Childhood Toys?

Earlier today I had another oh-so-lovely-trip to my dentist's office for a few fixer-uppers and as I was laying there, staring at the white ceiling I tried to take my thoughts off the grinding noises and somewhere to a place full of fond memories and fluffy, light images.
What did I see in that half an hour of tension-filled prostration?
I found myself recalling my childhood days and some of my most favourite toys to play with.

Here are a few examples of my old friends:

My Little Pony - The BEST little girl's toy ever! I still have all of mine stored away for future use either when I have kids or for some really boring rainy day. :) I loved the Sea Ponies for bath time and the baby twin ponies, too!


Barbie - I had a few and the best part was dressing them up, doing their hair and setting up their house and whatever situation we were playing that day. By the time I was done setting up, playtime was usually over. (Thanks for the reminders and memories E!) Tropical Island Miko was my fav, I think it was her really long black hair and cool one shoulder swimsuit.



Cars - HotWheels & MicoMachines!!!! - Sooo much fun! Did you ever have the race tracks that you could put together and loop-de-loop? We did, but I think the racetracks got more use above the fridge..... (wink, wink, nudge, nudge!!) MicroMachines were awesome! And I always wanted more! It was always a bonus to get a helicopter or boat with a set of cars. Oh and the Micro Machines video games was so sweet, too!

Transformers - Though I think I only ever had one real Transformer, I also had one or two Go-bots - all were played with until they almost stopped being able to transform! The TV show rocked, too!!!! I always thought Bumblebee would have made a good buddy in real life.

Pound Puppies - yes, I have always been a dog lover and these cute stuffed animals were just my cup o' tea! I had one big one and one small one and always watched the Cartoon!



Cabbage Patch Kid - The craze for these round-faced dolls hit when I was about 5 and My mom battled the stores and first found me a lovely light brown haired gal, but after our puppy, Buffy, got a hold of her and chewed her face off (maybe that's why I don't like horror movies??) she found me another dark-haired CPK girl named, Teresa and she even held a crayon in her left had!!! How cool!! I collected tons of clothes, even had some handmade ones given to me. I still have her and her wardrobe packed away somewhere.

Another favourite toy-like item was all my 'book and tape' sets - I had a plethora of Cabbage Patch Kid stories, some Disney (Fox and the Hound!), some Bible stories (Blister the Lamb and Gregory Grub!!) etc etc. I loved these and wish I had held on to them.

Ahhhh, the good old days! I am SURE I will think of many more favourites as the week progresses.
But please, leave me a comment and tell me what YOUR favourite childhood toys were!!

HM+Van+Vic=BUSY!

Oh what busy weeks these last few have been.
Where to start, where to begin?

Well, after sweet little Hunter was born the next Sunday was his dedication along with his cute little cousin Sienna. I had been asked to video the event and you can see the lovely moment on Hunter's parent's blog here.

Then the next week was busy for me at work. I was getting ready to head off with the Youth group to Youth Convention, or as they call it now - HistoryMaker, 2007 held in the new location of Chilliwack.
Again I was having trouble sleeping with a lot on my mind...what to pack, what to bring, what not to forget...I ended up staying up until about 3:30 am on the Friday night before we left with my mind racing about the weekend.
The morning arrived, and after a couple hours of sleep I headed to the church for the pancake breakfast (but did not partake as I was not hungry for a heavy breakfast!). I was asked to go for the weekend to video the event and our youth in order to make a video to watch after.
I don't know about you, but I absolutely love road trips! I was so very ready to go on one, even if it was on a school bus with 60 teens and only to Chilliwack, the smelliest town this side of the Rockies. :)
Road trips for me are an escape from the mundane, a time to see new things, to get out, to let someone else take you somewhere different from your everyday life. Of course, I packed my trusty mp3 player in case conversation or noise rose above my threshold of tolerance and filled it with all my favourites like Snow Patrol, Avril, OLP, Garden State OST, as well as some fun extras like Dane Cook's comedy.
The trip went by all too quickly and soon we were navigating (quite haphazardly) around Abbotsford and Chilliwack to find the arena and our hotel. We had to wait to check in so we headed next door to Castle Fun Park, a veritable cornucopia of Chucky Cheese-type arcade games and activities, such as batting cages, mini golf, bumper cars (SO FUN!) and go karts. Though the place was smoking hot and smelled of sticky children, we had fun winning tickets and prizes and going on the inner-tube bumper cars and wearing hairnets on the go karts......don't ask......
The hotel (Ramada in Abbotsford) was lovely, and the area for the conference was large enough and our seats were great. The first worship band was Leeland, a young up and comer in the Christian band biz with a unique lead vocal with a Coldplay/U2/alternative type sound. Very God-focused and great to worship with. The speaker that night was David Nasser who amused and challenged us.
Once back at the hotel I took a jaunt with some of the youth and leaders down the road to whatever was left open that late for a snack. We ended up bombarding a small Panago Pizza and got a few yummy late night eats.

The next day we heard Desperation Band, more from David Nasser and enjoyed an afternoon in the park...int he rain.....well some of us did. Others of us maybe stayed at the hotel and enjoyed a quiet afternoon...um, maybe...yeah.
I did enjoy a small dance party with some fun females which included jumping on beds, iPod music and waiting for-ev-er for our dinner pizza......fun times!!

The evening service on Sunday brought us the star studded, concert-like worship from Starfire...I mean Starfield and a surprisingly funny and talented speaker - Reggie Dabs. A big black guy from the south, Reggie taught us some new slang ("Love the black man!", "A'ight!", "Awwww, yeah!" and "My G-O-D....is B-I-G!!") and played his saxophone for us. Weird, yes, but fun and unexpected which, I think, caught everyone's attention and captivated us through his stories to hear life-changing messages brought to us through Reggie direct from our G-O-D. I know it was an awesome night for many. I was particularly touched by the way Reggie had the Youth Pastors and their spouses surround the alter and the back for when youth and adults alike came forward to meet with God over serious issues. Many heard the truth about how God can release us from things that hold us in bondage and away from Christ. Even I had a wonderful and heart-wrenching 'God moment' and dealt with some things I needed to let go and to hear from God. Twas a good night.
I had an earlier night after patrolling the halls a bit to keep the noise down amid complaints from the floors below...heh.
Then at the final service on Monday morning, Reggie had us up on our feet rapping along with the other 3500 people in the arena. Me! Rapping! Wow!
We had a good end of the service as we got together as a youth group in a large circle and Andy led us in taking Communion together. I know many of our own youth still don't realize the seriousness of the communion symbol, or even realize what Christ actually did for them, but I was just glad some of them were there and able to see by their leader's examples what a positive impact God can have on their life.
The ride home was, in a word, short for me. Angus, who was driving his van full of all our luggage, drove me to Langley to my brother-in-law's music Store (www.act1music.com) where my sister was picking me up for 2.5 days of relaxing fun with her.
We hung out, watched a movie or two, went to Ikea twice (looove the bargain bins!!!!) and looked around at a few other neat stores. I found a sectional couch I want, actually I found two, but for now they are really out of my price range. "A girl can dream, can't she?" (-old funny family saying.)
Anyway, Angie came with me back over to Victoria, our ferry was uber late getting home since the 'ramps had malfunctioned' or something. And work for the last two days of the week was super busy as I tied to catch up on a few things my days off had me postpone.
Then Saturday I had an eye exam to update my prescription. Isn't that the creepiest thing to do? Sit in a dark room with some weird contraption against your face with some strange man right in front of you!?! Crazy! But my new eye guy was really nice and my eyes are apparently "a really good-looking set".
After the exam, I applied a bit of eye makeup (by the way, I LOVE my new MAC liquid eye liner!!! I'm afraid that I am hooked!), and had a lovely girl's only lunch with Angie and Mom at Mattick's Farm at Adrienne's Tea Garden. (just a tip, if you want their chocolate mousse for dessert, make sure they set aside some right away or else often they are out by the end of the lunch hour rush! Sooo goood!) Oh and the little shops are so lovely out there...so many cook cards and gifty things!

Anyway, my days have been busy but I am carrying on.
I hope you all out there are doing well and looking forward to many sunny days this season. I know I am!

The baby is breathtaking!! For Real!!

Yay! Baby Hunter Justin MacDonald has finally been born!
I went to the hospital to visit T, J and little H and got to hold Hunter for a while. He is THE cutest baby ever! Honestly! So good and cuddly and sweet!
And Tricia looks marvelous and glowing and Justin looked proud and calm.
I fell blessed to have such dear friends who have brought such a dear little boy into the world! I know he will be loved and cared for by his wonderful new parents! Congratulations!

To sleep, to sleep to dream....

Have you ever had a weird sleep pattern for a while?
Either lots of sleep so you are over tired and cranky, or too little sleep so you are...um...over tired and cranky...wait that's not a very good explanation...
What I mean is that sometimes our sleep patterns, for what ever reason, get out of whack and the results vary between affecting our moods, personality, feelings, and/or attitude, but what I want to talk about is how weird sleep habits affect our dreams!!
You see, lately, and by lately I mean over the past several months, I have been having really weird, vivid, colourful, crazy and sometimes disturbing dreams...not disturbing in a psycho-killer way, but odd images (like me rowing a boat and fishing for sharks with shoelaces) smashed together with daily, redundant things (like walking along a sidewalk with no shoes or feet on).
I have been waking up with a fuzzy head and feeling wary and weird as these images transition from solid, fast-paced video like imagery to faded, blurry figments.
I really don't like this feeling.
I know we all dream, and I have remembered bits and pieces of dreams before, some odd and some bland, but these dreams of late are so wacky and so out there that not only do I remember them but I remember the emotions that went along with them.
Ok.
Picture yourself standing on the top rail of a fence, a corral fence usually surrounding a pen of cows or horses, but this fence surrounds what looks like the Grand Canyon, but is much, much deeper, so deep that the bottom is black. Now also picture holding a child's Nerf bat, bright orange in colour, and while carefully perched on this top rail, teetering on the brink of the biggest chasm ever, trying to swat some sort of large, cat-sized bugs that are swarming all around you head. And all the while doing this, you feel not scared at falling to your death, or angry that these bugs might bite you or tip you over, but you feel panicky...you MUST hit all the bugs or else your place on the fence will go to someone else.
The panic overwhelms you...hit the bugs...hit ALL the bugs....whoops, almost fell, but hit the bugs.....
Does that sound weird to you?
That's just one of many examples of crazy dreams I've been having.
Others involve feeling sad that the colour green is gone, feeling despair that the noises you hear are not the ones you try to make with the large bottle-type object growing out of your hand, or feeling mad at the silent crowd of human-sized catfish that surround you in Times Square.
Crazy!
Maybe it's just the time of year, or maybe a lack of good sleep but almost every night I have these crazy dreams, that later come back to me and the emotions that went with the images hit me like a slap on the cheek.
Whack! Memory o f weird feelings, weird images and actions......
No don't worry, nothing yet has left me really disturbed or freaked out....the dream's feelings and memories pass quickly and I am simply left to wonder, "Huh, what in the world was THAT dream about??"
They all seem so different, so wild and so full of a variety of emotions that I can't see a distinct thread through them all; no message, no greater meaning. They just seem to be very vivid and memorable dreams.
Have you ever had weird dreams?