Dan Dan Anyone?

Today after church my family and I went to the new restaurant Wok Box in the Wal Mart plaza. I have been there before, and this was my second time going. The food is always fabulous. Today I decided to have the spiciest thing in the restaurant and ordered Dan Dan. Now, I am a spice person and can tolerate spice to a pretty high degree. I just love spicy food. This Dan Dan was so spicy that I actually had a tear run down my cheek, made me drink 2 glasses of coke and half a glass of milk. The wonderful taste kept me coming back for more! It was delicious. I had probably eaten 1/8 of my Dan Dan before I decided that I would save some for later. If you haven't gone to Wok Box yet, I would suggest you go and try it out because they continue to amaze me! 

I'm Ready

The tree is up. I'm all dressed up. The Christmas baking is lined up on the kitchen counter. The fire is going. The shopping is done. I think it is pretty easy to say that me and my family are ready for Christmas this year. The wait is finally over! It seem like Christmas came SO fast this year, but my Grandpa yesterday said "It came as fast as every other year." In about half an hour me and my gang are going to head to the church for the first Christmas Eve service of the night. At 6:00pm we will make our way up Mt. Washington with Jay and Kels to go to another Christmas Eve service identical to the first one. Did you know that throughout our 3 campuses there are all together 5 Christmas Eve services? (Including the one up the mountain.) I don't know about you but I am pretty excited about tomorrow! And if you're not excited (Ebenezer) well you are just going to have to deal with going through a lovely morning opening presents with family and finishing the day off with a well cooked turk. Mmmm! After the services tonight we are going to have our Christmas Eve tradition: eat snakies with friends and family. Then after everybody else goes home (the people who don't stay at our house anyway) all the kids, meaning Emerson, Hudson and I, open up brand new pajamas. 

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas celebrating our king! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

The Eve of Christmas Eve!

Tomorrow... the day we have all been waiting for... IS CHRISTMAS EVE! Well, actually we've been waiting for actual Christmas day, but Christmas Eve is pretty wonderful too right? Well I think so. Today was great. I finished my shopping (except for the people I will have to buy something for AFTER Christmas) and I feel pretty good about that :D oh, but right now I have to go because somebody that will remain un-named has to finish shopping and I offered to go along with that person so TTFN! 

SNOW DAY!

Today is our first snow day of the year! It is pretty amazing because it isn't that snowy here, but in Merville, its crazy! So yeah I am pretty excited! I am planning on going Christmas shopping today too with Mik. :D That should be fun... other than the fact I am blowing all of my money. LOL just kidding :P. So yeah that is my day so far! Until next time!!!

Let it Snow!

It is finally snowing! Its mid-December and we are in the midst of our second snowfall! I have been waiting for this for so long and now it has finally come! Snow amazes me, it is so cool to know that no two snowflakes are the same! God is just to awesome to make the same thing twice! Wow. When you think of that, there are 1,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000's of snowflakes, and NO TWO ARE THE SAME! It is so hard to wrap our human brains around it. But if we could, we would be God, and well WE ARENT. So anyways, last night was the all nighter at Comox Pentecostal Church. We had their youth group and our youth group together and it was pretty awesome! There was, a service, games, a movie, sleep time NOT! So yeah it was really great. Oh yeah, we also had a secret santa/ legal steal game with everybody and that was fun too. I ended up with a 5 dollar bill. And that, I can tell you is better than a chocolate bar with almonds in it, especially if you are in my case: Allergic to almonds. :D Well I have to go 'clean my room' or as my dad would say it: "You have to do something Mercedes, and it rhymes with clean your broom" So bye bye blog readers, until next time!

Today...

I always LOVE Wednesdays because we have 3 easy classes out of 5. Here is my Wednesday Schedule : Math: Drama: English: Music: HCE:

So it was a pretty amazing day and it is not even over yet! This morning at 5:57 Amy's water broke, she is in labor now and I am so excited! Tonight at youth, we have Deanna leading worship which will be amazing! And Daniel is going to preach, its going to be so awesome! So anyway as some of you know, our family just recently got a new espresso machine. I don't think it has been posted on anyone in the houses blog yet so I am going to put up a pic. It is so nice! Its also really easy to use because you don't even have to use tamps (its the thing that pushes down the espresso so that it is firm so that that shot it nice) it automatically does that for you and the shots are SO nice! So yeah just a glimpse of my day :D

Toodles!

Creative Project

So, today is already the 9th of December. WOW. Okay, well in Bible class we have to do this project creatively and present it in front of the class. And I am in a group of three (Me, Mik and Chels) We have been working really hard on it and I think we have a pretty good shot at getting a good mark :D Everybody in the class is doing a project based on one of the B-Attitudes (Matthew 5: 1-9 or 10...) Our group is doing verse 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." So I can probably explain it more once we have written our explanation for the presentation, and I think I would maybe get clobbered or something if I put up pictures now :P SO maybe after we present I can post some up. 

iPhone what an amazing device

Well tonight me and my family went to The Three Stooges house warming party, and so we got to go and basically look throug h their new house (Randy, Ryan and Matt) and eat food! So me and Chelsea were just sitting down and talking and we were talking about iPhones and then she asked if we could play around with my moms new one. So I ran and got it and we had so much fun playing with it for like literally 45 minutes on the stairs downloading free games :D Our favourite one that we downloaded was an air hockey one were to sides could play and it was really fun. Even though we were accused of texting boys.... we still had a bunch of fun!

Well hello all of the world (actually not all of the world, only like your office or den or lap or desk) Today was a fabulous day. I have nothing in particular that I wanted to blog about, well actually I kind of do. On Tuesday, Laurel (one of me buddies) turned 14. It was also Cadre and we had this great little (BIG) party for her where my cake did look the best if I do say so my self... (Sorry Samantha :P) So yeah I told her I was going to blog about it but I didn't really get around to it until now. So, lets start my day in complete order I'll try to remember everything well not everything but as much as I can you know, remember.

6:30- My alarm goes off for the first time and I hit it the average 2-3 hits per day
6:50- I finally lug myself out of my fantastic bed that is just SO much cozier in the morning for some strange reason...
7:41- I start making a chai nisto with gingerbread, but it end up taking m like 9 minutes... and then me and my brothers have to hurry out the door so we don't miss the bus...
AVERAGE BUS ARRIVAL TIME- Well we did end up waiting for some time in the freezing weather because even though we have to "be at the bus stop at 7:50" she does'nt even get there until like 7:57 so my siblings and I, Steph and Mellissa have to wait in the cold for a whole 7 minutes (except on days like this one)
8:45 Aprox- We (the bus) arrive at the school and start watching the life of Jesus for devo's
9:15- We start learning about triangles
After math we then moved on to english....
Then we moved on to french where I was reminded that laughing/giggling in french is ' rit'
We then had lunch break, and then me and some of my friends (Mandy, Mikayla, Laurel and Chelsea) Skipped around the chip trail singing the song we made up while leaving Ms. Baileys room. It goes something like this...

Why?! Why are you leaving my roooooooom!? Why are you leaving my roo oo oooom oooo ooo oom oh why!

We always try to harmonize it but it never really turns out the way we want it to. :D
Then back to English! Where I was kind of distracted talking to Chels.
THEN BACK TO MATH for the SECOND time today. By the middle of the class I couldn't really seem to focus, and was giggling about nothing and saying I was sick of math and couldn't wait until Jan. (We end our grade 8 math 'adventure' then)
2:50 - We pack up and load onto the bus and I sit down with Mikayla and we talk for the whole ride straight. If you have never been on a bus that is what you do with your friends for the 30-45 minutes you are aboard.

I got home, messed around with my hair, then went on facebook (duh) and then the Craig and Shanda Millar's came for dinner with Alexandra, Anika and Alaina and it was fun! We played with our new coffee machine and well it was yummy... I am going to go now because well I am just plain bored with telling you guys about my day. Maybe another time

FINALLY!

Its finally here! The Christmas season has finally come from inside of the rubbermaid bins in out attic, to our living room, kitchen and upstairs bathroom and landing! The more decorations we put up, the more excited and anxious I get about Christmas coming! I love how the mornings are getting colder, and the nights are getting darker, and the Christmas music is being heard more and more! I am sooooo excited! But I know that with all of THIS, it can become quite a distraction for me because I just love the season, sometimes I don't think of the real reason we are even putting up these decorations. Im sure you all know about the real reason I am talking about and if you don't... GO AND GET SAVED! Haha no just kidding. But umm yeah, the real reason we are celebrating Christmas, and why Christmas is so important is because it is the birthday of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And well, without him being born and all, this whole exciting, fun, celebrational (I think I just made up a word!) day on our calendar would not have happened. So yeah all the other stuff is pretty great, but we can't let that become a distraction and a focal point of Christmas to us and we need to remember the real reason of it all. 

Christmas Cookies

I started baking the first batch of Christmas cookies today to get into the Christmas feeling. They are called Snowball Cookies, and seriously when I was eating the dough, it had the chalky, soft, melty kind of feeling in my mouth! They just came out of the oven. Here is the recipe:

Crunchy pecans, vanilla and powdered sugar become delicious decorative Christmas treats for kids and adults to enjoy. Serve up these festive white Snowball Cookies for your next winter fete.

INGREDIENTS

-1 cup butter or margarine
-1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-2 1/2 cups flour, sifted
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-3/4 cup pecans, chopped - optional

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream butter in large bowl. Add sugar, cream until light. Stir in vanilla. Mix in flour and salt. Stir in nuts.
3. Shape into balls.
4. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
5. Roll in additional powdered sugar straight out of oven. Roll again when cool.

Servings: 36 cookies

Hope you enjoy! Top: Yeah those are the ones I... ME MYSELF AND I baked. Not some dumb pic on the website... I mean in our familys.... old...generational cookbook...... ha

:(

Well the awesome really cheap shirt was not found in the inventory today! It was there one day, gone the next... well I still found some really cute stuff for a good deal :D thats always good too :D 

What a Bargain!

Hello, I just have to share this amazing news with you folks! I was searching through Aeropostal clothing, and found this really cute top for NO JOKE only 2 dollars!!!! I am hoping that it will add to my 'bag' easily because I have tried like 30 times and nothing has happened, well whatever, it will work soon

Toodles!

AHAHAHAHA!

Okay, I know your probably all thinking "Mercedes, why the heck would you still be blogging! This is your third post in like half an hour" but do you know what I have to say to that? "Well thats just to darn bad!"

Okay well, you know if you go to your profile it shows you how many times your profile has been viewed? Well, I was in the mood for some popularity, and clicked
'back' then 'view profile' on my dashboard a couple of times. And miraculously my profile views were going up like a rocket! So, if you are feeling low, and need a self esteem boost, click 'back' and 'view profile' a few times. I mean, right now, I am feeling pretty ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

Okay sorry about that it wasn't supposed to be that spread out, the preview thing was not working and smushed up all my blog post, so I had to keep spreading it out and KA-BLOOWIE! All of my blog post was spread out by like 5 spaces!

CONSUMED! [one]

Well, tomorrow is the starting point of this years youth conference CONSUMED!!! I am super excited,



1. Because they are so life changing and wonderful

2. I get to wear this really cute top (Thanks Mik!)

3. I just love CONSUMED!!!

4. I know that God is going to do so many great things this weekend!



We are having some awesome speakers come to you know, SPEAK and we are going to have our wonderful Northgate Worship Team!!! Woooo! Yeah so I am super excited, I just cant contain it!!!! Tomorrow, once I get back from school, you know how much time I am going to have to kill before I can enter those church doors? LIKE AN HOUR! But I know that God will keep me occupied so that the hour doesnt seem like eternity :D Hope to see a bunch of ya there!



Toodles!

Remembrance Day

Ok, sorry about the header thing, I hate it too, you know how it hangs off the side... I'll have it figured out soon. Well, today is remembrance day and me and my family like every year, attended the cenotaph. One thing that really made me think this year, was my monologue  that I had to present at my school's remembrance day presentation. It is part of the story/testimony of Eva Braun:

"When I heard about freedom, I was also very frightened. What would we find? 

We had survived, and we had to return to civilization, but how did one behave 

  in a normal world? We were two young girls who had nothing. Who would look 

after us? What would we do? 

 

There was excitement, but our feelings were mixed. We were afraid. It's hard 

to describe and explain these feelings of simultaneous fear and joy. That was 

our next stage. Now, after liberation, what were we going to do? We had 

nothing. We were frightened that we might not have anyone left in the world. 

We needed someone to look after us and take care of us. And to a great 

extent I was looking after my little sister and another girl. More than anything 

else I wanted someone to look after me and relieve me of the burden of caring 

for the girls, so that I wouldn't have to be responsible, so that I would be under 

an adult's protection. It's hard to explain it, but I wanted someone to look after 

me, I wanted someone to lean on. It turned out that freedom is relative to a 

very great extent.  

Worry about the future weighed heavily on me. We had to build our future, but 

how does one build a future?" 

This testimony made me realize that so many children have stories like this one. Their parents leave and go off to war, they fight and die, and their children are left in the world with sometimes no one to look after them. I am so thankful for the sacrifice that so many men and women made, so that our country can have the freedoms it does today. Today we remember. 

A New Revelation

In the past two days of my life I have become a Canucks fan! I have never thought of hockey as something fun to do... well I still don't, but I like watching it on tv! Anyway I thought I would just put that out there, because I am pretty proud of myself!

It's Been a While...

Well, it's been a while since my last blog post! Sorry, it's just my life isn't as eventful as some one say like, Christy Miller, because she has like the most perfect life anyone could ask for! By the way Christy Miller, I highly recommend! Very interesting and eventful stuff and all about God! I got the first 3 books during the summer, and I finished them in about 4 days. I read for hours everyday! I just started reading the second college one, and it had me up to 11:45 it was so good! So, if you get your hands on one of these... READ IT!!! Ask anyone who has read them and they will probably tell you they were the best books they have ever read!

Tonight's Cadre Meeting

Tonight we had the second cadre meeting and is was just as good as the first one! It was awesome! I have two great leaders (Samantha, and Lindsay) And they are really doing a GREAT job. I am already starting to get closer to some of the girls that I am an "acquaintance" to and we have a great time of building relationships, and just talking about whatever seems to be on our minds (which is really fun :P). Tonight we each shared our testimony to our cadre, and the three girls that were there, all grew up in Christian homes, and later on in life realized that Christianity is real and that it really meant something to them, and they got into a more serious relationship with Christ. Samantha even brought cupcakes! And since only a few girls were able to come, the three girls that came got to have lots, because she made 12. I love the idea of cadre groups and I am so excited to get closer and closer to the girls in my cadre. I am really looking forward to the next meeting!

Hello! Well, I have finally made a blog! Well not finally, but from the advice from some of you, you suggested I create one of my own. Now I can talk about recipe's and other fun stuff without it bothering my dad (even though I had a lot of fun doing it!) Im going to start off with another FANTASTIC recipe which we received from Ruth Graeme for pastor appreciation. Its called Cookie Dough Truffles. The name says it all. FANTASTIC! I know you are all going to love them!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 1/2 lbs dipping chocolate

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Gradually add flour, alternately with milk beating well after each addition. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Shape into 1" balls; place on waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Loosely cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until firm.

2. In a microwave melt dipping chocolate until smooth. Dip balls in coating, allowing excess to drip off; place on waxed paper lined baking sheets. Refrigerate until firm about 15 min.
YIELDS: 5-1/2 dozen