On Friends...

The past month (in which I didn't blog at all... oops! lol) was spent having fabulous times with my best friend in the whole, wide world... my sister, Jen. On September 6th she left for her husband's military posting in Cold Lake, Alberta... which, in my opinion, is WAY too far away from Comox. I will miss her terribly, and won't even begin to go into how much she means to me, as I will cry and it will get too sappy around here! lol

Instead, I will tell you about the fabulous month we had together, along with some of our other best friends. Jen and I started the month in Cold Lake, along with Nate and Dale, for their house hunting trip. And though Cold Lake is not a fabulous place to visit, we managed to enjoy making fun of weird hairdo's at restaurants, visiting the beach, having a blast at a kids playground (it's so great to have a baby to take as an excuse to use play equipment!) and a chat-filled 3 hour ride back to Edmonton.

When we arrived back from Cold Lake, our Dad had just arrived in Comox for a visit! Spending time with my sister and my Dad together is always a treat (and, luckily in a month I get to do the same with my Mom and sister! Yay!! :D), and we had some good chats and made good memories. We also put on a joint birthday party for Nate and our friend Laurel's son, G, who are a few months apart. It was cowboy themed, and we dressed the boys up in Cowboy hats and bandanas. Too cute! It was fun getting to plan everything and make invitations with Jen and Laurel.

I also fit in as much time as I could just hanging with Nate and Jen. Doing everyday, little things... like putting Nate to bed, eating lunch together, bringing Jen coffee, sitting and going over photos, teaching Nate new games and things to say/do, and basically just enjoying my family. We even got tattoos to go along with an inside joke we have and one of our songs. They are memories I will never forget :)

The last week that Jen was here was spent with our friends... we had a few different goodbye parties, which were a blast! It really made me realize what a great group of friends that I have made here. Jen and I have never really had the same group of friends to hang out with, so the past years with all of our scrapbook buddies (especially the past year with Rae-Lynn and Laurel) has just been amazing. The four of us have a blast together just chilling, talking about anything (and I mean ANYTHING! lol) and poking fun at eachother. I'm sure Laurel, Rae-Lynn and I will continue to be close (and, actually, i look forward to getting much closer to Laurel in particular, as I don't know her near as well as I would like) now that Jen is gone... but I feel it just won't be the same without Jen. We'll have to take turns now being confused ;)

So, before I keep rambling on and on... here's to my friends! Jen, Laurel and Rae-Lynn... I love you all, and am so glad that we all came together over the past year. I can't wait until Christmas when we can all be together again! *hugs*

<3 Gillian

P.S. Now that my sister is gone, i have WAY more free time, so i'll be getting back to posting photos and my scrapbook layouts here again. So check back ;)

Off on a House Hunting Trip

That's right! I'm off to Cold Lake, Alberta, to help my sister buy her new house. Her new house that is FAR too far away from me.... the new house that will have a little Nate in it every day, but no visits from Auntie Gill. :( It makes me quite sad, but at the same time, I'm excited to be a part of the HHT, because then at least I get to SEE the new house, and I will know where my sister will be living. Plus it means a week FULL of Nate time, which is just fabulous :) It also means time away from Brandon.. which isn't much fun, but I'll be bringing my laptop, and there will be internet. So we may get a little WoW time in, in the evenings ;) hehe

So, i've totally been slacking on my scrapbooking and my photo taking lately... and, obviously, my blogging! lol Stuff is just hectic trying to soak up every moment of my sisters last month here. I'm hoping while I'm away to get my photos (especially 365 shots) organized on my computer. Then when I get home I'll print them out and start scrapping lots again :)

I have gotten a few layouts done though, thanks to Lotus Paperie and the weekly challenges there! It's a good thing the kits are fabulous since that's all i've scrapped with lately! hehe You can check out this weeks challenge over there. It's an interesting sketch, sort of tricky, but it got me thinking and inspired!

Anyways, I will leave you with some of my fave photos from the past little while (ie. 3 months) that I JUST got on my computer now! lol

Adorable Nate during lunch with his Auntie!

I actually went for a 7km hike! I know! It's hard to believe! lol This was one of the shots I got while there.

Here are Rae-Lynn and I in our sexy traffic shirts while working in Merritt! Good times :)

Hope likes to take over Jack's bed when he's not in it. Too cute!

Doesn't little Jack look thrilled to be wearing his Roots camping sweatshirt? lol Trust me, he appreciates it on cold nights!

Happy Friday everyone!
<3 Gillian

She's going to do it!

I know I've been MIA for awhile... i've been busy, and relishing my time with my little nephew and my best friend. I also went a bit crazy at Merritt Mountain Music Festival for a week. That was good times too, and i'll update with pics next week. But i just wanted to share in my joy that my sister shared with me today.

She's going to get our 'matching' tattoos done with me before she leaves!! :D :D :D I'm so excited! I was going to get a tattoo for her before she moved even if she didn't, but I really wanted her to get one to go with mine. And she told me today, that as my 'goodbye present' she's going to get it done. They won't be identical tattoos, more like two pieces to the puzzle that is one of our little inside jokes. I'll explain the story when I have pics to post next month after the tats. WOOHOO!!

Now to finish designing and get prepped for the pain :D

<3 Gillian

P.S. Go check out the latest challenge at Lotus Paperie, it's a good one, and seems to be the only thing i have time to scrapbook for lately!

It's that time again!

Time to head out camping that is! This time we're going with the usual crew (Brandon's family and friends) down to a campsite in Nanaimo. I guess it's quite nice, and is on a great river that you can kayak and swim in. My sister and nephew are STILL not home, so I'll be bringing both our little chichuahua and the big beast, Turner. His sore is healing up quite nice, but it's still a large scab that needs to stay dry. So no swimming for the poor boy :( I'll try to make up for it in lots of walking and ball throwing though.

A week away from home means a week away from my scrap supplies... and it already seems like I don't get enough time for that anymore! I've been mostly working on projects for work and such. I need to get back to some good old scrapping of Nate photos! hehe He'll be back hopefully this weekend, so there should be lots of photo ops.

Don't forget to check out Lotus Paperie on Friday for the next challenge! It's an interesting one. Sorry for the photoless post, but after last time's pic, you're probably all thankful ;) hehe

Happy Wednesday!
<3 Gillian

Taking care of Turner

Well, this week has definitely taken a turn for the not-as-much-fun. I would say worse.. but it's not really THAT bad... just unpleasant. To start with my allergies are UBER bad at the moment! I'm one of those people who's allergic to the whole world... grass, trees, flowers, mold, dust, fur, feathers... and the list goes on. Normally I take one 24-hour allergy pill every day and I'm pretty much good to go. Not this week! I'm a sniffly, blubbery, watery-eyed mess! lol But I've got nothing on my poor puppy (okay, he's not MINE, he's my sisters, but I've been taking care of him for the last month) Turner. I discovered yesterday that he had a weird crusty spot on his cheek that was all bloody. I took him to the vet and turns out it's a 'Hot Spot', otherwise known as moist eczema. They had to shave half his face to allow the wound to get air and dry out. It looks SUPER SUPER nasty though :S And painful too. The poor guy is just not himself, he only chased the ball 3 times today.. which for anyone who knows Turner, knows that's just crazy. :(


There's a new challenge up over at Lotus Paperie (okay, it's from Friday, i just didn't tell you until now) and it's a pretty unique little inspiration piece. You should all go check it out!

In my final bit of news, Rae-Lynn is home!! YAY! And next week my sister and Nate will be home! All my favourite people back in the same town as me. Life is good! :)

Oh, except for the part where I get to clean an oozing wound off of a giant dog twice a day. :P

Happy Tuesday,
<3 Gillian

Wow...

how time flies! I feel like i just blogged yesterday and got back from my camping trip... but that was WEEKS ago! I'm a bad, bad, bad blogger! But the good news is that now at least once a week I'll have a great new challenge layout to share with you from Lotus Paperie, so that will give me an excuse to blog ;) Speaking of that challenge layout.... you can check out the current challenge (from last Friday) over at the Lotus Paperie Blog. It's a pretty good little sketch! Here's what I came up with from it:

There will be a new challenge up over there on Friday, so don't miss it! In other online scrapbooking news.... I was asked to step down from the Scrap n' Art design team.... apparently I wasn't keeping up with their insane amounts of work over there. And I was also told that my graphic design work wasn't right for what they were looking for in the eZine. I'm quite proud of my graphic design work and think it was much more professional and quality than what they were doing, but at any rate we weren't meshing. I'll leave my comments at that as I don't want to get rude :P

So that means that lately i've been able to scrap for just me, which is fun! I've noticed that my style has really become a bit plain lately... but i'm okay with that. I like it, even if each layout is pretty similar. I'll work on stepping out of the box later ;)

My life is still pretty boring! My sister and nephew are away visiting family, so I've been chilling with my man and trying to keep up my exercise program. I'm getting a bit burnt out with it though, so if you have any tips on keeping motivation high, let me know! lol I'll leave you with a few layouts I've done recently of my little man. I definitely have WAY too many pages with this guy on them! hehe





Happy Wednesday!
<3 Gillian

Fabulous Weekend!

I've been meaning to post all week about my fabulous weekend of camping, but life is busy when you're not on the beach just chilling :) So, it is Thursday, and a few days late, but it's here none the less for you few people who keep checking back!

So, last Thursday Brandon and I left to go to Quadra Island to camp with the family and friends for the long weekend. We go every year with Brandon's parents and a few of their family friends, and it's always a good time. This year was no exception!! The weather was just absolutely GORGEOUS the whole time, and everyone left with tans (and sunburns, unfortunately).


Also, Jen, Nate and Turner came up for the day on Friday, which was great. We went for a VERY long walk along the beach and through the woods and spent time on the beach. Nate had his first little dip in the ocean too, which was fun :)


Then that night Rae-Lynn, Paul, Logan and Tikka came to stay for the rest of the weekend. That made for some fabulous nights around the campfire, and some great days in the sun. And don't forget lots of napping.... there should always be napping when you're on vacation :)


There is not much other news going on right now, especially of the scrappy variety. I've done some great layouts, but have yet to take photos of them. That is my job for this weekend or next week on my days off. To post all my work from the past month and get caught up on all my EZine and work projects. So wish me luck ;)

Tonight i'm off to scrap at the military base with a few friends and hope to get some of my ABC's of Me pages done. Though I should probably work on my mini album for work... oh the great dilemmas of my life! lol

Happy Thursday everyone!
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P.P.S. There will be a great new challenge up tomorrow at Lotus Paperie, so check that out too!