Cariboo not accepted here....

So I decided to do some laundry in the basment of the apartment. It is a coin operated laundry machine. I looked through my quarters and found that I was short one american quarter. I was debating going to the store to get change when I had a genious idea! Why not use some of my Canadian quarters that were currently collecting dust? (We found that through all the sorting and moving in, we found some Canadian change that adds up to about $9) So I brought all my laundry downstairs (a load of whites) and put it in the laundry machine with a dash of bleach and put the quarters (and the one Canadian quarter) in their respected slots. Well that did not go over so well. After jamming it up and trying several times to just try to "slam through it"....I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. So.....I took all my laundry out and had to bring it to the laundromat. By the time I washed it the bleach had destroyed our duvet cover, and left some marks on a swim suit, and my favorite capris.

I attempted this quarter exchange last week, yesterday I checked on the washing machine and it had a sign that said :

"Washing machine broken... (coins jammed)"

Well I am certainly not going to complain about the broken washing machine. The brutal part is that the people who run these buildings know that Steven and I moved here from Canada and if I was to complain it would be too easy for them to put 2 and 2 together......

So I have to do my business (laundry business anyway) at the laundromat now....and I don't try to slip any Canadian Cariboo quarters in anymore... I learned my lesson.

Happy Friday!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding besides some of the ones with Steve of course! Nobody looks bad, everyone looks good!

So today is friday. Fridays are pretty sweet.....even when I had to work them they were good, and now they couldn't be any better! Steven and I try to do something new and exciting on the weekends and I don't know what exactly we will do, but I know it is going to be fun! Last weekend we went to the waterpark.....during this week we went to another waterpark. Maybe this weekend will also have another waterpark visit. It really beats the heat like nothing else. Anyway. I'm just excited. Weekends are the best. Steven and I bought two season passes to a place called "Union Station." It is an old train station that has been restored beautifully and has a space and science type center, an Imax screen, a planetarium screen, (the dome type screens), restaurants which we now have a discount for, gift shops, and other tours. So we think we will watch a 3-D movie about the ocean. I can't wait. Should be crazy! Other than that, there are so many fun things to do around here! I'm not feeling as homesick lately because I know that I am going back soon enough.

p.s. 12 more days till I'm back in Edmonton!

UPDATE. This is the latest Jessica and Steven news.

It is hot here. Seriously. Everyday I go outside and I just think "what the heck." The people here say that August is a horrible month. Apparently you just don't go outside. It's just so hot.

hmmmmmmmm. Sounds a little like Edmonton in January. With reverse temperatures of course.

Anyway. The past events of this week have been this:

Last tuesday (June 3rd) : A birthday celebration in the morning for two of the women who came down from Canada with us all. Cupcakes and coffee were on the menu.
-Later on that evening a crazy storm hit us with wind, rain, and hail. It hails here pretty much once a week. People get golfball size hail and never have I seen so many dented vehicles from hail. (This storm happened during our small group time.)

I can barely remember the rest of the week at all actually....
oh yes. Thursday. I went to the zoo with Shauna. It was so hot. Not only was I a sweaty mess, but I drank 3 big water bottles full of water. So I also went to the bathroom 4 times in the span of 2 1/2 hours. Next time I go to the zoo, I go in the morning. We didn't see to many of the animals, I guess they didn't want to be outside either.

Friday Steven, Tim, Shauna, and I all went to a Chinese place called Blue Koi. No Chinese people were working there at all.....But then again we aren't in Edmonton. I have noticed that I rarely see oriental people or middle eastern people here at all. Edmonton is more culturally diverse.

Saturday Steven and I went to see the Chiefs practice, kind of a rally for the fans. That was fun. Then we went to an outdoor waterpark in Independance. We put on lots of sunscreen so we weren't burnt. Then we were really tired and went home and watched a movie. It started raining and hailing again. Good grief. It's too bad we have no place to park our car inside!

Sunday was church, and then Steven and I cleaned the apartment, organized and went through everything we brought down and threw a few things out. We also discovered a few things we wished we wouldn't have brought down and have decided to give it away to Good Will or whatever they have down here. This apartment is small. Which in a way is good. Because we can only bring back what can fit in the Cavalier anyway! At the end of the day, (surprise) a storm with crazy lighting, thunder, and rain came, but no hail this time.

I have the countdown to come back to Edmonton on. 15 days now. Can't wait! That means 19 days till Amy and Aaron's wedding! Woe. That is crazy. I bought a dress yesterday at Target! So I am ready to go!

Homesick right now.

Hey all! I haven't been up to much lately. I booked my flight back to Edmonton at the end of June so that is exciting. It is really hot here today. 30 degrees and humid. But it is not that enjoyable when you have no one to enjoy the heat with (during the day.) Although we haven't been alone for long as Dirk and Bea left on Tuesday morning this week. I was pretty sad about that. We did many touristy things with them and had a lot of fun discovering Missouri. I am a official tour guide of Missouri if anyone ever wants to come down! I know the best places to go! You will never be bored.

Yesterday I went to Shauna's apartment's pool. Shauna is a girlfriend to one of Steven's coworkers. It was nice and warm yesterday too. We just swam for a bit and read books and magazines when we weren't in the pool.

I have been really wanting a job lately (weird). I always find that summer is a very motivating time for me to want to work strangely enough. I guess the heat never gets to the extreme like it does here where it actually debilitates you from wanting to do anything. I just want to be home right now, even though there is no such thing as home right now. I feel comfortable here enough because all of my things are here and I have my own space, and I know that I don't have that in Edmonton. Steven and I both have been quite homesick since his parents have left.

So the weather is calling for some pretty extreme weather. Tornado warnings and type weather are being called for all regions swooping south under missouri to the east and north east of missouri. (That is what I watched on good morning America this morning.) If you want to watch what I watched, go to this page and watch the video.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Weather/wireStory?id=4961421

This web site gave an interesting fact, and maybe a little bit of a scary fact: "With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year's storms seem to be unusually powerful."(http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4941803)

Soooo, weather is a little scary today with the super hot day today and the intense storms predicted for tonight and the tornado warnings sweeping the mid-west. We were going to go to a baseball game tonight but I think that we are not going to be doing that anymore!

Back to the Blog

Sorry for the delay! I really don't have an excuse!

Soooo, nothing really all that interesting or blog worthy has really come up and so there isn't much to write about. On friday it was "girls night out" and us ladies went to the "power and light district" down town. It was pretty fun but rediculously expensive. On saturday Steven and I went to "First Watch" (you will see a lot of these if you come down here) they are breakfast brunch and lunch restaurants and they don't serve supper. then we went to "Ace-West Hardware" and on a wim added a new member to our family! An impatient that is going to be our new windowsil plant! Well, it was full of flowers too many to count and so we lovingly bought it some fertilizer sticks for indoor/ outdoor plants. We asked the worker about what would be a good plant for inside and 3 hours of sun and this is what he suggested. Well. That guy I just don't know about him. Because 24 hours after owning this plant all of the flowers have fallen off and it looks wilted and so sad. I think that I have the opposite of a green thumb. Even when I try, I still end up killing plants.

So the first picture at the top of this blog is what impatients are supposed to look like and what our plant looked like when we first bought it. Then somehow we destroyed it. Possible reasons it is doing so poorly is that we put in the fertilizer sticks right after we got it. But the fertilizer stick package recommended that we pout 4 of the sticks in our flower pot. Well, we decided to put only one in and break it into 4 pieces....because I was very wary of the fertilizer sticks.....I don't know, maybe they are the culprite.

2nd thing that we might have done wrong is that we set it right next the window....I don't know why that would be bad. But it has almost kicked the bucket and we are concerned parents!

We have done no over watering what-so-ever! It was very moist when we got it and stayed that way until the next day. So I watered it a day after that even though it was still wet.

The container has holes in it at the bottom so it can drain....

I don't know. But it looked so nice on saturday and now it doesn't! This impatient needs your help! Post a comment for your expert advice on this (apparently) indoor and outdoor plant. Because otherwise the life of a helpless impatient plant will be forever gone! Not to mention this gardener's confidence will be shattered....

Bruno!

This is the dog that we were dogsitting! He is very funny but not very nice to people he doesn't know....I promise I will write a longer post later but today I don't really have time!

A fraudulent scheme and a rat to redeem....

Last night Steven and I scoured the internet searching for pets that wouldn't require as much responsibility as a dog. I have been really wanting a dog since we got here, but it just doesn't seem to make any sense with all the travelling that we need and want to do. A cat would be the perfect fit considering their independance and their need for attention being much less than a dog. Except that my whole entire family is allergic to cats and to have them over to our house would require them to be on allergy medication....making them not feel good or like themselves.

The pets we looked at (and laughed at) were birds and rodents.....we first looked at parrots, and then doves, a canary, and even a pigeon! (coo coo coo!) Then we were looking at guinea pigs, hamsters, and ..........RATS???? What???? Here in the states you can own rats as pets??!!! Oh yes you can! And they are extremely intelligent! Apparently, according to Wikipedia and other information on-line, you can train a rat to come when it is called, do tricks, and be litter trained! Apparently it is common to have pet rats that do not bite you and so you can sit and cuddle with them! (lol) So, Steven looks at me with this totally interested face...and I was a little shocked because I know what he is thinking! He wants a rat!

Apparently they are sanitary because they are domesticated and looked after. They are bred in clean sanitary conditions and are not picked up off the street or anything. The wild rats are different than these pet rats (according to Wikipedia) So they get their shots just like dogs and cats do! You still keep them in a cage and bring them out to run in their ball and hold them just like you would treat a hamster....except that they come when they are called! (how cool is that??!!) I am thinking I would like to have a canary.....I'm not totally sold on the rat idea, not totally against it either. But we would have to sneak that rat into Alberta! We would have an illegal pet! Sounds kind of on the dangerous side......

Your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated!