Lethbridge Lodge

I have to admit... it does seem a little weird that although all of us "Vanderveens" are from Calgary (minus the Brandses from VT) we all pack up and come all the way to Lethbridge to have Christmas in a hotel... but, its tradition, and we've been doing this for as long as I can remember.

Mark and I got here a day later than everyone else... I had to work Thursday night from 3:00pm-11:30pm and then again Friday morning from 5:00am-1:30pm. So we drove down as soon as I was done (needless to say I slept all the way here!!) Once we got here we went for dinner with my family and the Brandses to the Cheesecake Cafe and then a quick dip in the pool. (Where Mark took down both Kyle and Ryan at the same time!) Then Mark and I called it a night after falling asleep watching TV.

The inital plan was to open presents late tonight, but due to an unfortunate closing of the pool (someone decided to leave a nasty little Christmas present in the pool), we opened them this afternoon. Mark and I both got new sweaters and movie passes from Grandpa and Grandma. Then after all the cousins had opened their presents the adults did the gift exchange. Mark ended up bringing home the same gift he brought, a box of golf balls... and I got a new cake dish FULL of my mommy's Mars Squares. Yum Yum!! The most popular gift was probably the giganitc tool set Grandpa brought or the bottle of Baja Tango. The least popular gift definately had to be the man thongs my dad brought!!

After all the presents were unwrapped and the yummy snacks eaten, everyone sort of broke up for a while and did their own thing. Mom, Robyn, Rachel, Jamie and Kaitlyn went and saw Charlotte's Web... most of the guys had naps or watched TV... and Mark and I went to the Wooden Shoe (the Dutch Store) so I could load up on dropies! Now a bunch of the younger kids are back in the pool (which they loaded up with chemicals and re-opened) and the men are watching the Flames play San Jose.

We were having a hard time trying to find someone to watch Duke for us... so we ended up just taking him along. And he has been SO good!! He loves playing with all the kids, and our room is perfect for him!! He goes out onto the patio and watches all of the kids play in the pool. He even gets his own bed!!

Tomorrow morning we are going for the usual Christmas Brunch Buffet then packing up and going home. I will have to post pictures from the weekend when we get home.. as no one brought their computer cords for their camera, and Mark and I forgot our camera!!

Bad Dog!!

So, you will still need to suffer through the occasional blog about Duke... especially when we come home to surprises like this:

Apparently, Duke had decided that he didn't like the hibiscus plant and wanted to destroy it entirely. This is what was left of our dear friend....

Mark was very, very, very furious and it took him quite a lot of time and effort to get it all cleaned up.

Needless to say, Duke was severely punished and disciplined and will be locked up from now on while we're away... atleast until he makes friends with the other plants!

The culprit... who is very mopey now.

We're coming out of the closet!!

So, you all might have been getting sick of posts and pictures of Duke. Up until now, he has been our baby. However, never fear, the end is near! Mark and I are finally coming out of the closet and going public....

We're having a BABY!!

It is still a little early for us to be sharing the news... seeing as how I am only 8 weeks along (and most people wait until at least 12 weeks, if not longer, to share their exciting news)... but I am a horrible secret keeper and am too excited to keep this all to myself. I am due July 18th. (Sorry, no twins. There's just one in there - trust me, I made them double check!!)

It has been a rocky road thus far... lots of trips to the doctor for unexplainable cramping and bleeding, but I have been reassured over and over that everything is fine and that the baby is healthy. Right now all of the books and websites say our baby looks like this:

Now obviously this isn't my baby, let me tell you... the ultrasounds don't look ANYTHING like that!! It's just this tiny blob with a little flickering thing (the heart). Mark and I were pretty unimpressed after seeing Kristina's 4D ultrasound of her 5 month old baby (now that was cool). But nevertheless, we are still both very excited and can't wait until the little one comes along!

Yay! Christmas Tree!!

We FINALLY got to put up our Christmas Tree!! I've been looking forward to this since the beginning of November, but Mark made me wait until it was December to pull it out. I am so proud of it!! We went with a cranberry red and silver theme (to match our house) and have all white lights. Now we just need to pull out the rest of the decorations (Mark's mom gave us a bunch of her old ones to sort through) and put up the Christmas Lights on the outside of the house.

Duke isn't as interested in the Christmas Tree as I thought he would be. When we initally took it out of the box he sniffed it a bunch of times and tried to eat the box... but now that its up and decorated he couldn't be bothered to go near it. Which is a relief! I had nightmares of him pulling the whole tree down. Now we'll just have to wait and see how he reacts to all the presents Mark is buying me (heehee) under the tree.

Fun for Duke too!

I forgot to mention in my last post that Duke also had a fun evening!! He's been having a blast playing with Peeka & Boo all weekend. Since Mom is in Edmonton watching Robyn play volleyball, and Dad is in Phoenix golfing, Mark and I have been puppy-sitting Peekaboo. Three dogs is a little overwhelming!! And man is it hard to walk all of 'em at once!! But they need to get out of the house every once in a while or they will tear it to peices... it's wrestle-mania 24/7!!!

Couples Evening

It's 12:24 am and Mark and I are just headed to bed now. Talk about a fun filled evening!! TJ & Kelly, Alex & Leanne and Kristina & Drew came over to watch the hockey game (which we won!!! GO FLAMES GO!!) and play Catch Phrase. If you're ever looking for a action packed, competitive game, Catch Phrase is your man... well... game. The first couple rounds we played boys against girls.... unbelievably... the boys won! (Which Kelly and I blame totally on Kristina and Leanne.... what newbs!) Then we switched up the teams so it was the red heads (TJ, Leanne and I) & Drew against everyone else (Alex, Mark, Kristina and Kelly). Again, for some strange reason, my team lost! I lost every single game!! And some how Mark won every single game! I think he was cheating, thats the only explaination I can think of... or thats he's just amazing. HaHaHaHa... yah... he cheated. Kelly is so much fun to play games with... she gets SO into it, jumping up and down yelling out random words until she gets it right. Anyways... to sum things up.... fun night!!

Edmonton

I know this post is a little late, seeing as how we were in Edmonton LAST weekend... but better late than never!!

Saturday morning, Mark, Justin, Jessiya and I got up super early to head up to Edmonton. The first part of the day was spent at the Water Park in West Edmonton Mall. I had never been to the waterpark before, so I was super excited. We went on a ton of slides and had fun in the waves... until everyone in the entire park started hating me! (The lifegaurd had to temporarily shut down the slide while bandaging my bleeding ankle, so everyone in line was getting pretty impatient and ticked off with me! And then another lifeguard had to come help, so he shut down his slide too! Oops!!) We stayed in the park until we were so hungry we couldn't take it anymore.

We went out into the mall and grabbed some lunch in the food court. We walked around the mall and went Christmas shopping. Justin and Jessiya were much more successful than Mark and I were. The only thing I bought was a bag full of dropies!! (Oh, and a Beauty and the Beast night light for Robyn... but that wasn't for Christmas, I already gave that to her.) Mark bought a Christmas present for himself, a CD, "Ten Second Epic". If I had known we could buy our own Christmas presents I'd be wearing the coolest Abercrombie & Finch hoodie right now!! HeeHee.

We headed over to our hotel, The Holiday Inn; The Palace. It wasn't as fancy as you'd expect from a hotel with a name like "The Palace"... but it was still really nice. The rooms were big and clean and there were hot tubs and a fitness room that kept Mark and Justin occupied. (No, they weren't working out... they were turning the treadmill up full speed and dropping their shoes onto it, seeing if they could make them hit the wall behind the machine.) The only negative thing about the hotel was the Zellar's Christmas Party that was taking place directly below our room. The music rocked us all, but Jessiya to sleep.... she had to rely on homemade ear plugs made from toilet paper to fall asleep.

Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and headed over to King's to visit Robyn. Justin met up with his new pal, Tanya, and they played vids for a bit while the rest of us hung out in Byn's room. We did manage to briefly meet Brian, Robyn's boyfriend... but I think he was a little confused as to who we all were. After we all went to BP's and had lunch, caught up with Robyn and then headed home.

What a busy and tiring weekend, but lots of fun!!

"Everyone we know is just giving out Candy???"

Wow, our first Halloween together as a "family"!! When Mark got home from work we dove right into the Halloween spirit. After sitting on the kitchen counter for two weeks, our rather large pumpkin finally got carved. Man, I really don't remember pumpkins being so much work!! My mom or dad must have always done the hard part of scrapping out the pumpkin guts, luckily Mark was here to do that part!! After some sweat and tears our pumpkin was successfully carved to Mark's scary-standards and we were both pretty dang proud of it. (However, both Mark and I agreed that when we have kids they'll have to go to Grandpa and Grandma's to carve pumpkins.. there is no way we're doing that again!! What a nasty job!!)

Duke however was not a big fan of Halloween. He hated his Halloween costume!! Everytime I dressed him up in his cute Kitty costume he would just lie there and mope with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes. He did however love it when all the kids would come to the door. He got several compliments on how cute he was and he even managed to sneak out of the house a time or two.

The cold weather and snow sure did take a toll on how many trick or treaters we had. We did manage to see a very pretty Tinker Belle (Janelle), a rather hungry Spongebob Squarepants (Matthew) and the cutest little chicken you ever saw!! (When I asked Brett if I could take his picture to show Robyn his costume, he blatantly told me, "No Mandee, there's no time! We have to get more candy!!")

After only about 20-25 kids we are still left with a HORRENDOUS amount of candy and chocolate. What a shame. What are we ever going to do with so much candy?? Now with Halloween behind us it's time to look forward to Christmas!!

We got dumped on!

What a nasty surprise we woke up to this morning. SNOW!!! It's everywhere!!! And it keeps coming!!! Mark woke up extra early so he could go out and shovel the sidewalks; half an hour later they were COVERED in snow again!! Needless to say that put Mark in kind of a grumpy mood. Duke loves the snow. On our morning walk Mark and I were freezing, but Duke just wanted to keep on going. He especially loves to eat it! I am worried about how the drive to work will be tonight, but even worse, the ride home at midnight! Good thing we ran out to Canadian Tire to get some snow brushes!! (Shhhh don't tell Opa that we went shopping on a Sundache.... you know what I mean.)

Update on married life...

Well, it's been about two and a half months since the "big day" and everyone keeps asking, "So, how's married life?" To be honest... its pretty dang easy. Mark and I have hardly found the time to see each other, yet alone bicker and banter over silly things like squeezing the toothpaste from the middle (which is how all the cool people do it by the way), or someone's annoying habit of leaving ALL the cupboard doors open (cough cough, that's MARK!!)

Mark leaves for work (Wagenaar's Moving) every weekday at 7:30am. He likes it a lot, and is getting to drive more and more. By the time he gets home, I have usually already left to go to work at WestJet. My shifts usually start around 3:00pm-4:30pm and end around 11:30pm-1:00am. I am really enjoying the people there and the job itself; but man do the hours suck!! Hopefully in November when repreferencing comes around I will be able to change to a day shift.

We have pretty much settled in to our new home. Majority of the pictures and curtains are hung and it is starting to feel like home. We are living in a duplex off of 49th Street in Glenbrook. Considering most of my family lives within a five minute walk, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else!! (However, it does kind of scare me that Jeff and Laura can see into our kitchen from their living room!)

Although the house is very small, both Mark and I were finding it very lonely when we were home alone without each other. So, we've added another member to our family. Meet Duke. Duke is a Golden Retriever; he is so adorable and we love him to death. And boy is he smart already!! He is only 9.5 weeks old and already he knows how to sit and he barks at the front door to let us know he needs out... but maybe he only seems smart because I'm comparing him to Peeka and Boo. heehee.

So that's what is new here with us. Hopefully I will be pretty faithful at updating this!!