The Greatest Man Alive

I’m sure everyone is getting pumped for the playoffs and this is a video we found on utube. Gotta love Iginla!

 

saddened by the loss of another leading lady

On Monday afternoon arlen’s grandma, Millie Foster, passed away. And we miss her so much! She was so loving, gentle, caring and inspiring.

The first time I met her we were having a family Easter dinner at the farm. Arlen took me over to her and introduced us and she gave me a great big squeeze and a kiss on the cheek and said “well hello dear!” Just about every greeting between the two of us after that time went the same way. This was the first weekend I had met all of Arlen’s family. I hadn’t known any of them (other than arlen obviously) before then and they all made me feel so welcome – Grandma was no exception. She was interested in my life and where I had come from and where I planned to go.

Arlen has always been full of stories and memories about his grandma. I’ve heard so many of them over the years (I guess only 4 since that’s how long we’ve known each other). But this week I’ve gotten to hear even more as he reflects on his precious moments with her from the time he was a little boy up until the last visit we had with her. Last night he was writing up something little to be read at her celebration of life on Saturday and he talked about how when he was little, he knew that if he was sick at school he would get to go to his Grandma’s for the afternoon. That meant cuddles, cookies, and sometimes tv shows. And so he took advantage of that more often than when he was actually sick. In more recent visits with her he would enjoy walking into her room and seeing the look on her face and the light gasp she let out when she saw his mountain man appearance. One time she told him he looked as though he’d just rode out of the Australian Outback. I tend to think he took that as more of a compliment than it was maybe meant to be. Later in the visit she told him he should clean up for his wife! ha… but then by the end of the visit she would always tell him how handsome he looked. It didn’t matter what he looked like, he could really do no wrong in her eyes. If only she could see his recent grad pictures….I have no doubt that would bring about one of her classic gasps. And then she would hang it proudly on her closet door with all of her other beauties.

One of my favourite memories with Grandma Foster was visiting her in the hospital after she broke her hip last Christmas (07). It was a few weeks later and Arlen and I were in Dauphin for the weekend. We took a couple of hours to go up and visit her and I will always remember that time. I did not ever have the pleasure of meeting Grandpa Foster as he passed away before Arlen found me. I hear from his kids and his grandkids about what a great man he was and I know it’s true. But sitting there that day and talking to Grandma about the “old” days (she is 93, so they were a while ago) I could see a love in her eyes that could not be denied. We were blessed with stories right back from when they met, to their wedding, and their cold ride back to the farm after their honeymoon, wrapped in a buffalo skin blanket to keep warm in the passenger seat. She had funny stories of their early days together, and stories of raising their 10 children on the farm. Can you imagine? I certainly cannot! The sparkle in her eyes as she shared these memories was inspiring to me. She had such amazing love for her husband and kids and beyond that to their spouses and kids and grandkids. I thought my family was gigantic! And she had room in her heart for all of them, plus me.

As we remember her life I am also reminded of the life of my grandma. Arlen and I were sooooo blessed to have been loved by two such amazing ladies and I feel extremely blessed to be able to look to their lives as examples and models of how I want to live and love. Their faith, their love, their smiles and their sparkly eyes will never be forgotten. Their hugs and kisses and kind words and stories will always be missed!

 

my dream

this isn’t actually about my hope for the future or anything like that if you got that impression from the title.

instead it is about my dream that i had a couple of nights ago.

It was the best dream I’ve had in a long time. I got to hang out with gramma. We were in a huge place watching curling. That might not seem very exciting but it was because Gramma loved curling so watching it with her was always a blast. And in my dream I could even understand what was happening as we were watching (which is pretty different from real life… i dont usually know much of what is happening. I always ask grampa, “is that what he meant to do!?!”). But then after the curling ended we picked up the figure skates that were sitting on the ground beside us and put them on and laced them up. Then we headed down to the ice and started figure skating to Abba music. I can’t even skate in figure skates, and I know that you aren’t supposed to skate on curling ice, but it worked perfect and we had a blast. We laughed and danced and skated all around. I’m pretty sure by this time the huge crowd of people was gone. AND all the curling ices were attached, so we didnt just have to skate up and down one strip. It was so much fun.

And then I woke up.

 

this week

this week has been a good one. i got to do some fun things with some fun people.

last weekend arlen was in edmonton at the oilers/flames game with my dad and brothers. lucky duck. go flames go. while he was gone i locked all the doors and tried not to hear all the noises. then on day two tori, sharon, becky and bryan came and hung out with me. we ate cookies and watched the hockey game.

arlen brought a new truck home from edmonton. so that’s fun. well it’s not brand new but it’s new to us. becky saw it last night and was pretty impressed. I think her words were “wow, i expected a dumpy, boxy old farm truck” and it’s not like that. we are quite happy with it. although i haven’t gotten to ride in it yet. My mom is bringing our licence plates next week. they will be polar bears. the best kind.

our friend jena graduated from the RCMP on monday so we got to hang out with her and her family that we love and also take in some of her grad festivities. She’s moving to Spiritwood to start working this weekend. She might be the smallest RCMP officer you will ever see but she’s feisty so watch it.

school was decent this week. it’s starting to pick up like crazy though. Less than two months til my grad. I can’t wait. Now hopefully we can find jobs. Perhaps graduating during the first year of a recession is not the best timing – but we are hopeful. And not too worried. yet.

sharon and i went to He’s Just Not That Into You on cheap night. That’s the only night I go to movies. The other nights are complete rip offs. Plus i get to go to girl ones then because arlen has night class. We had some good laughs. Probably mostly because there was an inappropriate older lady and her husband sitting near by that were making us uncomfortable with their comments and all we could do was share an awkward laugh… Then we went and played broomball with some friends. Good times. I wore my special Sun Ice Neon Pink pants. Trust me they are special.

On thursday I got to hang out with my great friend (+twin) chelsey and her daughter eva. we had a great time colouring and laughing and saying “absolutely!” I’m so glad that I got to spend some time with them while they were visiting from calgary. I dont get to see them nearly often enough and they are both REALLY great!

Also on thursday arlen has boy night every week. They usually go for burgers but due to some recent food poisoning they switched it up and went for cheap ribs. I had becky and sharon over for pizza and we had fun. I’m gonna miss them when i move. We can laugh together a LOT.

Today i got to get my haircut which is always great (except for one time when they gave me blunt baby bangs and dyed my hair orange. that was awful). then instead of driving all the way home and having to go back to pick up arlen after school i thought i’d go to starbucks/chapters and hang out. I got a lovely black tea latte and wandered around for almost 2 hours. It was awesome. I love books. I hope my mom brings me some when she comes to visit next week because I can’t buy any right now (remember we just bought a truck). And my mom has lots of books. She likes books too.

Now it’s the weeeknd. Which is exciting. But it feels a bit wierd because I feel like it is our last calmish weekend before our lives get completely crazy until school ends.

My mom comes on wednesday and my dad comes next saturday. EXCITING!

arlen gets his haircut in 15 days. the countdown is on.

so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to.

 

I really like the new hockey song. i voted for it twice.

so… I haven’t written in forever, once again. Just thought I’d put up a little update.

Summer has ended, which is actually okay. While there were many wonderful things to enjoy this summer, it was also the hardest summer i’ve ever experienced. I still miss my gramma every single day. I definitely thought i’d have her around to learn from for many more years. However, I find myself learning so much from her as I reflect back on her life and am continually inspired by the life that she lived. I could likely go on forever about my gramma, but right now it’s still hard for me to put it all into words. I just really miss her.

The rest of the summer was basically full of weddings. Each wonderful and beautiful, although Arlen is especially glad that wedding season is over for another year. The end of the summer was my busiest when it came to weddings. I was honored to stand up for two of my greatest friends and share in their days. Carly had a lovely wedding on the Bow River in Calgary and we had a blast. A few of the groomsmen got us lost once or twice and traffic was unbelievable, and the bridesmaids and bride were about half an hour late but it was all good. We had so much fun. Becky’s was a week later in Regina and so it was another busy week getting ready and whatnot. We (the bridesmaids and bride) stayed in the penthouse at the Delta. The groom and his men forgot to drop a vehicle off for us at the hotel so we were 45 minutes late for the ceremony, but once again we had the bride so we didnt miss anything. Becky made me do toast to the bride. I was a nervous mess. The night ended with a fabulous dance. I couldn’t walk properly for 3-4 days after. That’s how good the dance was. Then my brother Joel and his beautiful Darla got married. It was lovely. The tent tried to blow down but it failed. It was a laid back, awesome day. And I got to see lots of friends from Yellowknife that I hadn’t seen in forever.

Since wedding season has ended we’ve been busy with school (well at least Arlen has). We’ve been to Dauphin a couple of times to visit his family. Tori and Sharon came with us last weekend and we had a ton of laughs and good times. I also went to Saskatoon with Kelli and Melon and we met up with the McMillans and Leann, Heather and Jeremy. The girls hit up the Reba and Kelly concert. It was AMAZING. I got goosebumps. It was that good. For the rest of the weekend we went up to the Olson Lake House at Emma Lake and enjoyed some relaxation in a gorgeous place.

The coming weeks will be busy with school mostly. I have a block class coming up, Arlen is in the middle of some vicious midterms. 6 months from now we’ll be done. We can hardly wait! And then we move to Yellowknife.

 

1 Thess 5:16-18.

the last few weeks and especially days have been tough for me to say the least. Lots of things feel so uncertain to me and if it weren’t for being surrounded by the most amazing people – friends, family, and especially arlen I would feel so lost and confused. I am continually grateful for all the people that are in my life.

The other day I was laying with grandma on her bed and her Bible was there. I picked it up and started flipping through it. One part that was highlighted really stood out to me: “Always be joyful.  Never stop praying.  Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

While this is extremely hard for me to live out right now it is something that I strive for and cling to. It is a verse that I need to be reminded of continually these days.

 

Kurtis’ Life – A Movie

So Im in Yk now and I’m having a GREAT time. Although I do of course wish that Arlen was here too. 

Tonight after we got back from Wal-Mart, Darla, Kurtis and I planned out the cast for a movie about Kurtis’ life. It was a pretty good time and we think we’ve got an all star cast so I thought I would share it with those that are interested…

Doug Ashby played by Tom Selleck

Cindy Ashby played by Diane Lane

Joel AShby played by Seth Rogan

Darla Kemp played by Ellen Page

Brianne Foster played by Sophia Bush

Arlen Foster played by Adam Herschman

Kurtis Ashby played by Zach Braff who just barely beat out Adam Brody

Kaleigh Ashby played by Ashlee Simpson, pre pregnancy

and 

Bailey played by Toto, a Gremlin or an Ewok. Anyone of these will do. 

 

It’s going to be an awesome movie. I can tell. 

 

 

 

Oo-de-lally

It’s been forever and I’m sick of seeing arlen’s rant about apple so I thought I’d write a quick one. For the record most of our apple problems are solved.

Life these days consists mostly of studying, writing finals, a couple DL papers, a lot of hockey watching… and we’ve managed to get in a few visits with some people that we like, which is always nice. There has been lots of family coming for visits lately which has been awesome. Grandma is definitely a loved lady. I love her, that’s for sure.

As for coming plans, we finish finals early next week and head to dauphin. We’ll hang out there for about a week. I’m hoping it’s hot and sunshiny so I can lay on the grass in the yard and have naps… with sunscreen. It would be awesome to not get a one arm sunburn this year. After that we head to calgary to hang out with friends and family, but especially to attend my cousin Laurie’s wedding. Should be a party.

After that I head up to Yk to do my internship for a month and Arlen heads back to Regina for summer school (sucker). That’ll be crazy, I’m going to miss him a lot. I am, however, looking forward to my time in yellowknife. After that I come back to hang out in my parking lot swimming pool and go to weddings.

 

Mainly I Hate Apple

So this is sorta a rant. You see Brianne & I splurged on a new imac last November. At first we thought it was the greatest thing. Then after about a month of enjoying this apple dream it shut-off. That’s right, the stupid computer just started randomly shutting off, in the middle of writing a final paper. I was quite livid and phoned apple-care to see what they could do. They ran about an hour of tests over the phone/internet and said the problem was fixed. But the next day, same thing, it shut-off again. So I phoned apple again and they told me to take it to a service center. They promised that it would be covered under warranty, but when I went and picked the computer up, they asked for $60.00, apparently no software problems are covered by the warranty! So I paid the money, got home and about an hour later the dang thing shut-off again! I phoned the same apple guy that i had been talking to the whole time and he apologized and said how about we give you triple the amount you paid and send your computer in again to get fixed. So finally January 29 our computer is fixed and apple has bought us a new ipod stereo thing for the APPLE ipod I got for Christmas that just randomly shut-off the other day!! No joke, but this time I blame it on the -50,000°C weather. Oh and also, our awesome “APPLE Wireless Mighty Mouse” won’t scroll up, the friggin scroller button is busted. I have a love-hate relationship with Apple I think. but mainly I hate them.

 

Did you know there is a tunnel under the #1 for cows to walk through?

Yesterday on my way to school I saw this ginormous animal on the side of the road, between the two highways, but on the edge of mine… not quite in the ditch. At first I thought it was a big pile of brown dirt, but as I got closer I saw a face and then all of a sudden I was past it. I’m pretty sure it was a bull. I’m not sure how it got there. There were no traces of blood on the highway. I think it either wandered away from it’s nearby farmyard and was having a nap or had frozen to death OR it had rolled out of the back of the trailer on the way to the market and that is where it landed.

I tried to look for it on my way home from school, but it was late and dark and there was snow blowing around. Also the oncoming traffic didn’t appreciate my brights. brites… whatever.

Maybe it will still be there tomorrow.