Camping Pictures

Do you know how to annoy a van full of youth? I do. The supplies you’ll need are as follows: A tape deck(not a cd player, that’s too advanced), speakers(doesn’t matter what kind they are as long as they work), and a tape. It has to be a certain tape though. Psalty the singing songbook is the best. And you should try to keep it to theme. I, kept it to the camping theme and brought along my Psalty We’re going camping now tape. And yes we played it. Not only are the songs annoying but they get stuck in one’s head. Nothing made me smile more than hearing one of the kids singing “We’re going Camping now we’re on our way. We’re going to climb up a mountain and run and jump and play. And as we hike along we’re going to sing....” You get it. Every time I would start to sing it I would get the dirtiest looks, or a slug to the arm. It was totally worth it. Take a look at these camping pictures, I hope you enjoy them. Peace Out!

Camping Trip Part 2

Alrighty, I left you off at the part where we were sitting in the van for a while before we even took off to our first camping destination. Once we got the van a rollin’ we headed towards Kenora. Which is just on the other side of the Ontario/Manitoba border. It was beautiful there. I have to say though my focus was more on my project(Cross Stitching) than on the view. The van ride was beautifully sung about by our dear friend Joe. Seriously I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. Ok, I did pee my pants, but whatever...just kidding people, I do have my bladder control still intact except for that one time in Bible College, but we won’t go there.
We stopped for a late lunch in Portage at the Mc of the Dee’s. I laughed so hard when Joe asked if they still had free smiles. The girl said no. Then Joe slammed down his hands on the counter and said, “Well, see if I come back here again”. It made the girl give him a free smile. I wonder if she noticed that...haha.
When we arrived at the camp site we set up our tent. That was so much fun...I haven’t been “real” camping since I was about 11. I mean the whole tent bit. I was ready to get down and dirty. After we set up our tents we headed across the highway to purchase some beverages for dinner. (Also the washroom was across the highway...that’s right there would be no in the middle of the night pee for me....hee hee). When we got back to the camp site Scott made us some of the best bbq burgers ever!
After dinner we played a game with a ball. I don’t think it had a name, so I will name it “Throw the ball and bounce it off the fence” game. And if you went to catch the ball and missed you had to run and touch the fence before someone else could catch the ball and hit the fence. If they hit the fence with the ball before you were able to touch it you got a point. The person with the least amount of points at the end of the game won. It was actually a lot of fun.
After the game was over we all just sat around and talked.
The next morning we headed towards deeper Ontario. When we got to our next destination we set up our tents right away. Then we went for a walk down to the lake. We played on the playground for a while. The boys all got on the merry go round and were spinning really fast. I think I got motion sickness just from watching them. I played it safe and stayed on the swings. We then headed back to our campsite and just relaxed for quite a while.
Nicky and I did a lot of movie quoting. Our favorite to quote from was Bio Dome. I recommend that you watch it if you haven’t yet. (I’m writing about this trip about a month after it happened so please forgive me if I’ve left out some details...for those of you who weren’t there you won’t even notice if I’ve missed something so just forget you read this footnote).
The next day we woke up and had our breakfast. Sometimes the fire was created by using funny things. Such as, you ask? Pudding snacks. haha. Don’t worry pudding lovers, we ate the pudding first. But let me tell you, there is nothing like waking up to the smell of burning plastic first thing in the am. YUM! I have to say though, the cooking on this trip was exceptional. (Not even kidding).
We did a lot of relaxing and oh yeah, we went for a nice walk the first morning we were there. It was so beautiful there. It reminded me of nothing I’ve ever seen before... so really I can’t say it reminded me of something when there is nothing to compare it to. So yes people, I used the wrong word choice there. Cross out the “remind” and oh, whatever, it was really nice there ok.
The weekend was so full of relaxing and fun times. We went swimming one day. The water was awesome. You could see the bottom. I did a handstand in the water and when I went down I smacked my head into the floor of the lake. That hurt enough for me to call it quits for the day. I had a bit of a headache for the rest of the trip but it just reminded me of how much fun I was having. haha.
The Saturday we headed into Sioux Lookout to check out the town from which my friend Dave comes from. We went for ice cream and then went out to Dave’s parents’ house. It was amazing. I’d have to say though the Tonka Toys totally ruled over everything there. They were awesome. There was even a mixer truck! How amazing is that!?! So cool. The guys had a lot of fun with the paddle boat and the sauna room.
His parents even fed us while we were there. Yummy burgers once again. While we were eating them they had the TV on and that’s how we learnt that there was a Tornado warning for where we were camping. AWESOME!!! For everyone who knows me I’m freakin’ scared of storms. However, since we had that flood in Brandon last year, I’d have to say that I am not so afraid any more. Anyways, off topic, we were wondering if we should go back to our camp site. But the adventurous campers that we are we thought, why not. So off we went. When we were half way back one of the guys remembered he hadn’t closed his tent window. As soon as we got back to the camp site he ran and checked out the damage. Yep, soaked. Everything soaked. And the vent on the one side of the girls tent was open so a couple of things got wet in there. And the second boys tent, things were soaked in there too. So some ok, most of the people went to dry their stuff. Dave, Nicky and I all stayed back at the camp site. We had so much fun and indirectly met Dave’s brother. That was funny. We were sitting at the picnic table just talking when someone’s car alarm went off. Suddenly we heard a bunch of yelling, “Turn that **** off”. Then it turned off. (Dave hung his head and replied, “That’s my brother”. Then the car alarm went off again just a minute later, followed by Dave’s brother yelling “You have 5 seconds to turn that off”. Then he started counting down. It was so funny. What a good time. The wind died down and when everyone got back from drying their stuff we all sat under the tarps and hung out. (This is what you are suppose to do when you’re in a Tornado warning situation. Sit out in the open...totally safe). Afterwards we went to bed and the next morning was our last morning camping. It was a bitter sweet. I missed my bed, but I could handle the flat air mattress that Pastor Ruth and I were sharing..haha. One of the guys said to me, Michelle, we are camping you don’t need two pillows. In which I replied, I cut down pretty good I think, I usually sleep with 6 pillows. We all had so much fun. I loved every minute. Then we headed home. Joe entertained us on the trip back again with his awesome singing and playing of the guitar. At one point he had his pillow over his face while playing and singing. It was mildly muffled but still really funny. That was the end of our awesome camping trip. I recommend it for anyone who just needs to relax and have a great time.

Stinky Topic

poop

Miss me???

Where do I start? How about the beginning. Once upon a time there was a girl. Her name was Michelle. But she decided that on the back of everyone’s bills she would write, Thank You....Chelle-lee. Why? Because she thought it was cool since it included her real name just without the M and the I. One weekend Chelle-lee decided that she would go a camping trip with the youth group. This sounded like a fun idea, and boy was she right. She got home and packed her bags. Threw them in the back of her car. Ok, ok, it was one backpack and I’m totally lying. Let me start again.
After work on the Wednesday I headed out to my mom’s house. Why? (Man you ask a lot of really annoying questions) Because I needed someone to babysit my cat while I was away. So I partied it up at my mom’s house for the night. By party it up I mean I went in the hottub, watched a couple of movies and went to bed. Yeah! I mean it, Party it up at mom’s house!! Anyways, the next morning I headed back to Brandon. Tunes a blazing, me a singin’ It was a good time. You missed out, let me tell you.
When I got back to Brandon I had time to do a load of laundry, wait, there I go getting ahead of myself. When I first got back to Brandon I went to the mall. I had to get a new belly ring because the ball on the one I had in got lost. So I bought a pack of 4 for the price of one. Yeah, I’m the queen of bargain shopping. Then I went home and had time to do a load of laundry. So I washed the stinky sleeping bag my mom loaned me. It smelt like skunk seeing as it was out in the shed that is in the country. (I know mom, it’s called a bunk house but it’s easier for the people to understand shed...so that’s what it is in this story, ok?). So I washed the sleeping bag and man I’m sure glad I did because that thing was Stink-A. Stink with a capital S!
I headed over to the church. Me and all my excitement wrapped in foil. Ok, there was no foil but I thought it sounded awesome. When I got there I was the only one there. I was almost afraid that I was a day early or tragically a day late. But I was wrong. I was just early. When everyone got there we loaded up in the van. We just all sat there for a long time. I think it was 45mins. It was soo fun, and we hadn’t even left the parking lot yet. Want more? Stay tuned for the next part of the camping story. It’s gonna get more adventurous. It’s gotta, we haven’t even left the parking lot yet people. Get excited. Leave a comment! Do it, I dare you. There’s even going to be pictures in this story. YAY Pictures, ok. I’m just rambling on now. Someone take this keyboard away from me. Until next time. Comment!

Nutshell Weekend.

Wow, they must be getting sick of me here at the future shop. I'm very loyal though! haha. Anyways, this week hasn't been hecktic at all so I don't have any excuses to why I haven't updated. This weekend I went and helped out at the farm in High Bluff. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I got the nickname, Alice. I'll explain later.
To understand why I was out there I'll give you the very short explanation. A lady in our church has a daughter and she just lost her husband in a car accident. They were one week away from their one year anniversary. They also have a young daughter, who is almost 3 months old now. This accident happened just over a month ago. Well, this couple lives on a farm and just having a new born in the house is a lot to handle not to mention running a farm at the same time and all alone. So some of us from the church went out to give her a hand cleaning it up to sell. I got to use a pressure washer. SOOO much fun. My job was to wash the entire outside of the house. Well, it took me two hours just to do half of the front of the house. When we breaked for lunch they changed the nozzel and then it took me less than an hour to finish the rest of the house. haha. In the morning all the guys gutted the basement. It had flooded and there was mold growing in the walls. Not too safe with a new born or anyone living in the house. After lunch the men focused their attention the the deck while I filled gofer holes with dirt. So fun. After all was said and done the house looked good. When we came back to town I went home and rested. I was soooo sunburnt. I still am. Just call me Bob. (the tomato, from Veggie Tales). Oh, yeah I have to tell you how I got that nickname. When I was pressure washing the side of the house I kept falling into the stinkin' gofer holes and the guy who was working along side of me called down to me, how's your adventure in Wonderland Alice. haha. It was really funny.
When I got home my friend Lori came over, we watched Benchwarmers. So funny. Then I called my dad and talked for a while. I guess there were too many moments of silence and I fell asleep while I was still on the phone. I woke up and said, oh are you still there? My dad answered yes, what happened did you fall asleep? I had to be honest and told him that I had. So I hung up the phone and went to bed. When I woke up, in time to go to church I didn't feel well at all. I think I may have encountered heat stroke. I felt cold, yet I was sweating. Retarded body. So I went back to sleep. I didn't wake up until 2 in the afternoon. I woke up to Puss in Boots licking my shoulder. How endearing right? Wrong when you have a sunburn. I woke up in pain. So I got up and went shopping for a baby gift. I had to be at a baby shower at 3. I knew what I was getting her so I didn't need much time in the store. But of course as soon as I got to the photoshop in Walmart there was a sign saying I'll be back at 3. I was like oh gurr...that's what I get for procrastinating. So I went and got the other things I would need for the gift. Finally it was 3 and I went back and she still wasn't there. Errr!! So I went and doddled around the store for a few minutes. When I got back there I was greeted by a really uncheerful teenager. I asked her if they sold gift certificates. She said no we don't. I asked do you honour Walmart gift cards? She said no. I said, ok I want to give this package deal to my friend for her baby shower can I just pay for the time now and book the appointment and if she needs to change the time she can call down? Nope, (was her answer) you should probably just come in with her and pay for it then. GRRRr...I don't know why my logical solution wouldn't just work but whatever. So I went and got baby clothes instead. I really wanted to give her professional baby pictures but whatever. So I got in my car and headed towards the shower. Baby shower not actual shower, I had already taken a shower. Anywho, so I was driving towards the exit of the parking lot when this girl who wasn't paying any attention to what she was doing came barreling out of the parking lot. If I hadn't slammed on my brakes I would have been t-boned. Like a steak. Our cars came in less than a foot of eachother. Grr...time for some angry music. So I turned on my limp bisquit and my metalica. And away I went. I was told that the party was on Dennis street so I went up and down Dennis looking for a purple door. Finally an hour later I gave up and went to Future Shop. I was like Ruth do you know where Jenny lives. She said, I know but I don't know what the street is called. I said well I've gone on all the roads with names and I can't find it. So she called Jenny. 13th street. What the heck. So I got to the party after my little break down in Future shop. That's right people. I cried in a store. I was burnt, I almost got hit, had to deal with stupid Walmart girl, had heat stroke still, drove around in my car for an hour without air conditioning, and I was grumpy. So I cried. But it only lasted a couple of minutes. I pulled myself together and away I went to the party. When I got there Jay appologized for giving me the wrong directions. And then I got to hold the baby. She's soooo sweet. After the shower I went home and I went to sleep. I woke up about 4 hours later and played my farming game. It's sooo much fun to be a farmer and not have to deal with the smell. Then I went to bed again after talking on the phone to my mom, dad and my friend Miguel.
Today I woke up and went to work. It was fairly busy for a Monday and that made me happy. After work I went home and was greeted by a deceased cat in my driveway(which is in the back lane). This cat always visits my house and it is still really young. At first I thought it was just sleeping. Then I got out of my car and I knew right away that it was no longer with us. There were flies everywhere around it. So I went inside and looked up the Humaine Society. They aren't listed. So I went back outside and saw my neighbours. I asked them if they owned a cat. They said yes. I was like, um...what does it look like(hahahaha...I have a joke in my head that has a line like that in it and it made me laugh....can't really do it over the computer though so if you see me ask me to tell you the dead cat joke ok). They looked at me with a weird look on their face like, why do you want to know what our cat looks like. So I just told them out right I have a deceased cat in my driveway. They popped their heads over the fence and said nope, that's not our cat. Then my male neighbour said, I can get a garbage bag. I was like, no I have an old towel I'm going to wrap it up and take it to the vet. And that's what I did. Man that thing stank like poo. It was like an ongoing fart all the way to the vet. I had to turn my head out the window to get some fresh air so I could survive the drive. The ladies that the vet clinic were soooo nice. They took down my 411 and said they would call to let me know what was going on with it. So yeah, that's my life of the weekend in a nutshell. Hope you've all had a great weekend. Peace Out.

My Weekend Adventures

Howdy all from our local Future Shop. I don't really have anything new and exciting to write about so I think I'll just babble for a few minutes. Aren't you lucky to come across my written babble. Welcome to the inside of my mind(a very scary place sometimes.)
On Saturday night, after work, I went over to my friend Lori's pad. It was so much fun. We played old school nintendo. We played Wheel of Fortune and of course Mario Bros. What fun. After a while of playing I went home, it was around mid-night. When I got home I was headed for bed when I came across my cross stitching. No eighty year old trapped in a 25 year old body could resist that so I stopped in my tracks threw on the movie Anne of Green Gables and went to work. At about 2:30am my phone rang. I was like who on earth is calling me at this ridiculous hour. And what am I doing answering it. haha. Well it was my friend Jeremy. He was in town until Sunday night(he's from Red Deer Alberta). He asked me if I wanted to go for coffee. I was like, now? It's almost 3am. So of course I went. First I had to pick him up and then we headed for the world famous coffee shop, known as Humpty's. At Humpty's we caught up on a bunch of stuff and then he asked me if he could go to church with me in the morning. I of course said yes but we would have to pull an all nighter. So that's what we did. At 10am I fell asleep and there was nothing going to wake me up. At about noon Jeremy called me. This was funny because I was in my room sleeping and he was in my living room, about a whole 6 1/2 feet away from me. He didn't want to come into my room(so respectful) so he phoned. I woke up to the phone, so I guess saying I wouldn't wake up for anything is a lie, because apparently I would wake up for a phone call. Anyways, he phoned to say he was going to go to his mom's house. I asked him if he wanted a ride I would get up(it was about noon at this time) . He said he could walk and that I could sleep. But that wouldn't be very nice of me so I got up and gave him a ride. I dropped him off and headed towards the church to see if there was any glimmer of hope it running late and catching the end of it. No such luck. There was nobody there and the doors were locked. Oh well. So I went home and called Lori. I asked her if she knew if there was anything going on for young adults. She told me that they were all meeting at the church at 3 and going to the lake. Awesome I'm totally going. I went to get all my stuff ready and realized that I had left my full piece bathing suit at my mom's house and there was no way I was wearing a bikini in front of the young adults. So I went to Walmart. I knew they were having a sale on their swimwear. When I got there I had less than an hour to find a swimsuit and get to the church. All you chicks know that finding a swimsuit is hard enough to do in a swimming season but an hour? Let's just say I'm the shopping and bargain queen. Not only did it only take half an hour to find but it was a good deal too! And it was flattering. YES!! So I ran home with my prize purchase secured in hand. I ran in the house cut off the tags got ready and headed out the door. And because I'm such an eager beaver I was the first to arrive.
When everyone got there we went to Safeway to pick up some snacks for the day. Then we headed out to OakLake. So much fun. The water was really gross looking but once you got your mind past that it was refreshing and warm. I don't know if it was warm because the sun had been pouring it's heat into it all week or if it was due to all the children's warm deposits. Anyways, we had a good time. After soaking in the sun and the urnine, oops I mean the lake we decided we would try our hand at lawn bowling. I've never done this before and let me tell you it was fun. I apparently got a little too competitive and starting hitting the opposition in the head with bowling balls though. In my defense it only happened one time. And I didn't mean for it to happen. I was bent down to pick up the red bowling ball(my team's color) and my friend Dave was bent down beside me picking up a green ball. I didn't realize he was bend down until I was half way up and by that time I had smacked the side of his head with my ball. I felt so bad but he told me it didn't hurt enough for him to want to kill me. After I heard that relieving news we continued on with the game. I still feel really bad about it. Those things are heavy and not forgiving. We then headed back to town and finished our really awesome day at the beach. When I got home, you would think I would head home right? Nope. Instead I went over to Ruth-Anne's house. We were looking at her brother's wedding photo's (he just got married two weeks ago) when we could hear the newly weds in the other room. We listened to their conversation a bit and it was sooooo funny. They were playing with eachother and it was cute to listen to. Then Ruth and I watched a movie and then I went to bed. The end. Peace Out.

As you all know, I love countdowns. I remember watching Much Music on Friday nights just to watch the countdown. It’s not that I was necessarily interested in knowing what the number one video was, I just love countdowns that much. So, what is the 74 more sleeps countdown? You’ll have to wait a while before I get into that.
What did you all do for Canada day? Me? I headed out to my mom’s place on Friday. Right after work. Whew, let me tell you about work. It was suppose to be dead because it’s a holiday weekend right? Wrong. It was so stinkin’ busy that I couldn’t think straight. My bosses and I got a little heated with each other but got it straightened out. I have two bosses and they each told me to do something different and every time one of them saw me doing something else I would get yelled at so I eventually cracked and said to them both, ok. What do you want me to do. We all need to agree. So we settled that.
After work, on the way out to my mom’s house, Puss in boots(PB) was in the car with me. She apparently needed to use the facility that was unavailable. I had cleaned out her litter box, put it inside a garbage bag and flipped it upside down. Note to self, this doesn’t mean anything to a cat that needs to pee. She flipped the litter box over and used her litter box. Then she flipped it back over to resume it’s position. Except, there was pee in it. She was covered in her own grossness. Well, she got embarrassed and came to show me what happened. At first I was like, why are you all wet. Then I pieced it all together and started screaming. I was soooo grossed out. When we got out to my mom’s house(this only happened about 10mins away from our destination) I picked her up and started heading towards the house...knowing that everyone was out by the fire. My mom came over and said, what are you doing? I told her I’d be out shortly but I needed go clean up an accident that we had. I gave PB a bath. She screamed through the first part, then she realized she liked it and sat still. Whew. Then I scrubbed down my legs(she had rubbed against them). Then we headed out towards the fire that was blazing. PB was all wrapped up in a blanket. I didn’t think that it would last long (her sitting still). But to my amazement she was quite content sitting wrapped in a blanket basking in the glow of the raging fire.
After the fire grew tired(as did the rest of us) we headed inside and watched a movie and slowly each one of us fell asleep. The next day we headed into town after eating some awesome waffles. When we got to town we all realized that nothing was open because it was a holiday. haha. So we went for ice cream. Yum. When we got back to my mom’s house we all just relaxed outside. Well, Shawna and I relaxed, my mom started to work on her plants and stuff. After a while we got the Barbee ready to cook some steak. It was so good. We had steak with corn on the cob and potato salad, yum. After supper we all just vegged out and watched movies.
The next day was Sunday. My mom kept trying to wake me up to get ready but I refused. After I heard the door close and the car pull away I woke up and got ready. That’s right people, I’m a rebel. I showed up at the church five minutes late. Awesome! After church we all just vegged out again. It was awesome. And that’s how I spent my Canada Day weekend.
Now what’s up with the 74 more sleep countdown you ask? Well, it’s been asked of me to come back to ya’ll in BC and in 74 more sleeps it will come true. That’s right I’m moving back. And for those of you who can’t figure out what day that will be let’s just put it this way, 10 weeks and 5 days. Other of you who still can’t figure out what day that is it’s October 1st. Geez, do I have to spell everything out for you. haha. Can’t wait to see you all again. Until next time Peace