Pothole Problems!

Nasty things they are...potholes! Seriously our city has some of the worst potholes I'm sure. They are always lying around in the road just waiting to wreak havoc on any unsuspecting vehicle. Well, yesterday one got me really good. 

I'm developing a pattern with cars lately... and it's an expensive one! 

Hopefully I can make a claim to the city for the following story:

I was driving along a normal route to get gas, when I came to a turn and a family was walking on the wrong side of the road. Normally I would take that particular corner sharply because I knew about the nasty holes in the center of the road, but this time I was too busy making sure that I was a safe distance from any little kiddos... THWUMPBUMP! What a sickening sound to hear and feel while driving a car...and I was driving on my rim for a little. So I parked in a nearby parking lot and called up my macho bro to help me change my flat tire. Now my poor car looks like a handicap with a little black doughnut replacing the front driver's side tire. Well tomorrow I'll be purchasing a new full set of tires and hopefully billing the city for some of the damage. Below is the evidence...check out that nasty rip! Not to mention the pothole!

Terrence

That is the name of my Bonsai tree. How did I come up with this name you ask? Well it took all of five minutes of rambling off random names and Terrence was the most suitable in my opinion. He looks like a Terrence :).

Visiting My Roomie

My roommate from first year at Bible College. She is awesome. We have managed to visit each other once per year since Bible College and it has always been a great time. My roommate is one of those people that, even though we live in separate provinces, is still a great friend. Her and I have a blast whenever we're together. I decided to visit her this past weekend! From Sunday evening to Tuesday morning...

What to do in Manitoba? Well it rained the entire time that I was visiting, but that didn't stop my roommate from helping me to be a crazy tourist. We decided to try and pack as many exciting things as possible into a rainy Monday and here is how it went...

First we visited the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Steinbach. There was much to see and I took way too many pictures (as a crazy tourist should!) but I only posted my favourites. The first is of a goat because I thought that he was really cute and he was posing anyways :). The next one is of the windmill which actually grinds all the flour for the museum restaurant! There was way more that I could have posted pictures of like antique cars, old buildings, old furniture, old tools, more interesting old stuff. This amazing museum visit was our Monday morning.

To begin our afternoon, my roommate and I headed to Winnipeg. I had heard about IKEA and mentioned that I had never been to one before and so IKEA was our second stop. I took a photo of the entrance to prove that I had been there although my roommate said that I should have taken pictures of the inside... I was way to excited about everything to take pictures though :). They say that you cannot get in and out of IKEA without making a purchase and I thought I was going to prove that theory wrong until I saw a cute little Bonsai tree and gave in...I guess it would have been possible if I didn't have any money... :). After seeing IKEA I've decided that the next time I go there I am going to have bought a house first to fill with IKEA merchandise. :)

 After chatting about all the things we saw in IKEA, walking through the entire Polo Park Mall, and stopping at Canadian Tire to buy a pot for my Bonsai tree, my roomie and I discovered that we had much more time to kill. So she did some research and we decided to go and check out the Manitoba Museum. It is totally worth the fee to get in! For one thing, they have a real ship inside the museum! They apparently strapped this thing on a truck and shipped it to Winnipeg from Seattle. See if you can spot the people in the picture below and you will see how huge this thing is. It was my favourite part of the museum for sure.

My second favourite part of the museum was this village replica of the old Winnipeg. It was really neat and the menu below came from one of the fake buildings which was supposedly an old diner. Judging by the prices on the menu it was a really old diner...nowadays it's rare that you find the option for just one waffle on a menu :).

Well, after the Manitoba Museum we went for supper. My roomie took me to Kawaiian Crepe and it was delicious! Look it up if you've never been there because I can't really describe my experience all that well because all I have to say is the word "delicious" at the moment... we also headed to Tutti Frutti for dessert, which could possibly beat Menchies except I haven't compared pricing yet. After dessert we finally headed back to Steinbach to play some cribbage and crokinole. Bedtime came and went and before I knew it, I was in the car and driving home. My weekend was fun and exciting and I absolutely loved it. I think I shall do this trip again sometime :) thanks roomie!!

Urbana 2012

I really should have posted about this a long time ago...but life moves fast and today I have some extra time to think so I shall use it to reflect on Urbana a little bit.

I attended Urbana 2009, which was the first time that I went. Back then everything was brand new to me. I was just starting to think about the future and what I wanted to do. I had already made the decision to attend Bible College but I only had a couple of ideas for the future after that. Urbana opened my eyes to the world in a lot of ways. God is working in all of the nations of the world. The biggest lesson that I learned that year was to be open to anything because there is a lot out there. This is only a tiny nutshell of my first Urbana experience.

The second one, however, is more clear in my mind as it was only several months ago.

It is an incredible feeling being in a room with about 20,000 other believers, worshiping God together. There is just so much spiritual energy, it's overwhelming in an amazing way. We sang together, studied the Word together, were challenged together, and had great fellowship together. 

The group from my church that went together contained 11 of us. We talked through a lot of what we had been learning together and spent a lot of time getting to know each other as we sought to encourage one another through the week. 

I have to say that I do not recommend being sick when you go to Urbana. It is a week that is jam-packed full of constant teaching and reflecting on what you learned. Unfortunately I got hit with the worst cold that I have ever had in my life. I was stuffed right up. My nose was constantly running, one of my ears was plugged, and I had a horrible sinus headache to top it all off. I thought that I was getting better before I left on the trip but the cold would stick around for a couple of weeks after Urbana. 

Despite my sickness I fought to learn as much as I could while I had the chance. My days were filled with great seminars and amazing opening and closing sessions. This year I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in nursing so I went with that in mind. I discovered that nurses are needed everywhere around the world which overwhelmed me with many windows of opportunity. Apart from nursing...there really is something for everyone. Missions opportunities are without limit.

Apart from the many notes taken, I came home with a number of books from the conference. Twelve to be exact. I have only read a few of them so far but I have to admit that I am a sucker for good deals on Christian books. Urbana is a goldmine for that. :)

I think I will cover one highlight of the trip. David Platt, a pastor of a megachurch in the states, gave an amazing talk which can be listened to here. And apart from two ladies in my row who kept on yelling "Preach it!" and mumbling about how amazing David Platt is, the whole room was silent as he spoke. I have since listened to that video twice and continue to be convicted by the fact that I struggle to surrender everything to Jesus. I need constant reminders of His sacrifice to put me in my place. This life was given to me, and it is a privilege that shouldn't be wasted for my own selfishness. By the grace of God I will learn to surrender everything. 

That's a slightly bigger nutshell of my Urbana 2012 experience and I hope to maybe attend Urbana 2015 if the opportunity is given. :)

Water = Need!

Ain't that the truth... I definitely proved it today.

I didn't drink any water all day until about 2pm this afternoon (not a normal thing, sometimes I forget).

Then I went running.

I was locking down my best time yet this year with 11 minutes 12 seconds at 2.5k, looking to beat my time of 25.34 for the full 5k.

Then it happened. 1/4 of the length left to go when my stomach started trying to kill me.

This was a familiar feeling and I knew that if I just sat down for a bit I'd be alright.

It was a really hard decision to make but my body forced me to sit down and take the intense pain for at least 5 minutes before I could move and get home.

It was really disappointing but I know now that I need to drink lots of water, especially if I am planning to run.

I'll beat my record next time :)

Water = Need!

Knitting

I haven't posted much about my hobbies. Mostly because I don't have much time to spend on them. One of my many hobbies is knitting, and I've been working on a "small" project for a while now. I call it "small" because it's a really complicated baby blanket. I am giving it to some friends who are about to have a baby boy, but I took some pictures because I don't want to forget this accomplishment. It is the first baby blanket that I have knitted successfully. Hopefully one of many in the future :)

My First Car!

That's right everyone, this one's officially mine! My Uncle sold it to me a couple of days ago and it is officially registered under MY name! I am so excited! I haven't named it yet or anything... but here are a couple of pictures of my first car! It's a 2004 Honda Civic Si.