Wedding Win

Momentarily giving in to the Royal Wedding fever...
Sisters & Such are happy to extend our well wishes to the Royal couple
Will & Kate


I'm not sure what the exact statistics are, but I think their wedding
cost something like 360 million dollars, and
2 billion people world wide tuned in for the nuptials.


Mind-boggling statistics and fanfare aside.....in my books the
"Best Wedding of the Year Award"
goes to
Andy & April*



Their wedding stats include.....
less-than-24-hours between proposal & ceremony
the hand-full of family & friends who attended were told to come to a
"fancy party"
Andy asked nearly every guy who came to be his best man.

Andy & April win because at the end of the day love is love,
and (humbly) I can think of a couple better ways to spend 360 million dollars

Sister, forget the pomp and circumstance.
I truly hope that (if you so desire) you will find the kind of love where you think...
"He could propose with a piece of string for all I care, and I'd say 'Yes!'"

*I fully realize that Andy & April are a fictitious couple, but all credit goes to the script writer who dreamed that a love story like this is possible...
photo of Will & Kate from here
photo of Andy & April from here

This Just In!

Breaking news from the front lines of the election campaign! This latest development may actually swing the vote, as Canadians across the country get the chance to look at the truth behind what the Party Leaders have been saying. See for yourself here:

There you have it folks! Tomorrow we talk to real Canadians about their real concerns for the upcoming election.

Music Monday: Road Trip Home

A Very Good Friday

I love coming home to my parent's farm in Winfield. There a few things however that make this trip more awesome than the past few times I've come: Driving up here with my sister, picking up our niece and nephew in Lacombe, getting here before the sun went down, and waking up the next morning to find that it is only Friday.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

A weird family tradition that we have for Easter was started by cousin Joel. He had always wanted to sleep under the table, apparently, and when he came to visit one Easter weekend he convinced our parents that it was family tradition to go to sleep under the table, and when you woke up in the morning there would be eggs to find everywhere! ... Even though he wasn't being truthful, the notion has stuck!

So I know that this post is laterish in the day, but I have enjoyed being around my family and I'm sure you all have as well. But forgiveness "is exactly how this grace thing works." and I am ever glad for the celebration of that ;)

With such a fantastic start the weekend can only get better! I hope all of you enjoy wherever you are right now, and that your traditions for this holiday are as wonderful as you remember them. Tonight there will be children sleeping under the table in this house :)

Time to Party, Peeps!

We're throwing a party for our blog

Sisters & Such is turning ONE

and we like you all to be a part of the celebration!


If you live a long way away and are not able to make it to our party-party,
we would love for you to send us a photo of yourself along with your
2-Cent Review
Feel free to be creative with your review, let us know your favourite post, something that made you laugh, or something you would like us to talk about....
For every review you readers submit we, the Sisters, will make a 2-cent* donation to the
Good Shepherd Agricultural Mission
(or as we've come to call it "Kelsey's Orphanage")
Make sure to give us your "2-cents" by end of day on May 5, and we'll let you know how much you readers have raised in our Friday, May 6 post.



If you live close by you're invited to join us for the
Sisters & Such Experience: Live!

May 5, 2011 at 7:30 pm

Engineered Air Gazebo at Heritage Park
(where I first found out "we" had a blog)





We will unveil and administer the very first punishment for our blog,
(are you ready, Sister??)
Cupcakes will be served!




*monetary value of a "2-Cent Review" is actually $5.00

Music Monday: Food Glorious Food

This one has been a long time coming! While I was on The Farm one of the other volunteers wanted to teach the kids the song "Food Glorious Food" from the Broadway musical Oliver! Nick got me to help a little with the conducting while he worked hard on getting the kids to memorize the words. Before he left (around the beginning of November) we taped a practice run, but the big performance and what all the hard work was for wouldn't take place until Danny arrived right before Christmas.

You see Danny is the person to know when it comes to theatre in Launceston Tasmania. His production of Oliver is set to go up later this year and in celebration of that "Food Glorious Food" was prepared as a surprise.

Now the most incredible achievement in my opinion is that Danny and Caitlin arrived at The Farm in the morning... we weren't able to perform it until AFTER lunch!!! This means that the children had to keep quiet! Something that is really hard to keep track of when there are so many of them. To their credit, THEY DID IT!!!!!! Our guest of honor had no idea, and I'm sure that this was a pretty good Christmas surprise for him. Therefore, here is a handful of the kids from The Strong Farm singing "Food Glorious Food"!


A big shout out to Nick, who was so passionate about organizing all of this, and to Shelma, for taking over the video camera for me when I had to use my hands to conduct :D

Playoffs

Can you feel it??
The buzz is in the air!

A sure sign that spring has arrived.... the playoffs are here!

As you know, I'm not really in to regular season hockey, but when the playoffs arrive and our brothers start growing "beards" I am all-in for our team!

Chant with me:

Here we go, Oilers, here we go!!!

oh wait...
what???
Ah, that's right, not only did the Oilers not make the playoffs this year, but they also came in dead last in the league.
I suppose the only consolation at this point is that the Flames didn't make it into the playoffs either (mwahahahah...)

So what's a kid to do during spring playoffs when both the team you cheer for, and the team you cheer against are busy golfing?

It's time to pull out the

lego

imagination

and help from the aunties & uncles

to invent the most epic Oilers vs Flames hockey game of all time....

It turns out that Lego hasn't quite caught on to making sports team sets, but that didn't stop us from building the entire Coliseum out of lego blocks. From this jumbotron view of the ice, you can see the fans in the stands, team boxes, penalty boxes, and the Zamboni
driven by none other than StarWars' star Chewbacca

Helmets are mandatory in the NHL, and with weapons instead of hockey sticks, it's a good thing!
There's even lights on the back of the nets!

Last minute addition of the "Away" and "Home" scoreboard.
See the little tiny puck in the middle of the ice?

At the start of the third period the game was still tied 0-0

Now we can cheer:
Here we go, Oilers, here we go!!!

See the "cameras"
they're little white 'eye' blocks on orange towers on the fan stands

YAY! The Oilers scored with a few moments left in the third period.

The teams shook hands to prove no hard feelings.

The owner, manager, mastermind was quite pleased with the teams performance.

Thank goodness our brothers won't be growing peachfuzz on their faces until this time next year!

*special thanks to Uncle Kevin for the finishing touches, playing the Flames team, a all the amazing photos!

Signs of Spring

I may be speaking prematurely here, but I am very excited for spring! I went home to our parent's house this past weekend and the yard was flowing with water making it's way up out of the frozen ground and down the hill to the ponds! I woke up to the sound of chickadees singing their song, and the sun already bright in the morning sky. People, I believe that spring has arrived!

I know that it is very dangerous to say such things living in Alberta, because usually there is at least one more winter storm that hits around mid-April. I however, cannot help myself from dreaming. I find that I am searching Google for gardens here in Calgary and impatiently awaiting the day they'll be open to the public. Or at least bloomed enough to go visit.

My favorite find so far has been The Lougheed Gardens located on the 2.8 acres of the Lougheed House grounds.

This year the theme for the gardens will be "Patchworks", and their aim is to make the gardens look like the patterns of log cabin quilts. Quite an endeavor I know! I for one, can't wait for the flowers to bloom!

Music Monday - Skip the Charades

I realize this might be earth shattering for some,

but the honest to goodness truth is that

I don't really like Starbucks

I only keep going there - you see - because of this one redeeming quality

music.

I'm a sucker for the albums they put on display at the till. I can't count the number of artists that have benefitted from my impulse purchase as I order a grande-vanilla-latte.

I've come to accept the fact that my cup of coffee at Starbucks costs me about $19.00.... easily justified with a mental note "free album with purchase!" and the thrill of unwrapping a brand new album.

The other music bonus at Starbucks is the "pick of the week"

So clever.

Every Tuesday Starbucks gives away one free song to their customers.

These little cards with their codes are a tiny little love letter from Starbucks to me!

I feel the love, but felt like I was busted for my habit when Skip the Charades by Cold War Kids was the pick of the week - as if Starbucks was saying...

"You just come here for the music, let's not pretend our relationship is anything more than that. Drop the charade of buying coffee and admit that you're just here to meet your next musical interest..."

...at least I don't have to pretend anymore!

and I'm happy to introduce you to my most recent fling*

*it sounds best while sipping coffee ;)

Starbucks counter photo from here

Pick of the week photo from here

Magic For Friday

One of my most favorite things in this world is the existence of books that open up whole new worlds that you get to create, with adventure, danger, romance, and of course... magic.

I'm a fan of almost every type of fiction novel, but for some reason the fantasy genre always holds the majority of my interest. Perhaps it is because of my imaginative, and creative personality, but I choose to believe that it is because of a deep rooted love that began when my parents would read The Chronicles of Narnia to me before bed time.

They did this with all four of their children (save Jordan apparently. Being a middle child, he claims he got skipped over half way through the series because of his little sister...), and I am ever grateful for their dedication to accomplishing this task.

I connect easily with Lucy. Being that she is the youngest in her family, basically has the same relationships with her siblings as I did growing up, and that she's always right, even no one else listens to her. Right siblings? ...Sorry, sometimes I'm a brat... Changing the subject! I hear that our parents had a few fights over who got to read at certain parts! It was a very competitive job.

Anyways, my point is this... I love magic. I love fantastical worlds. I love unsurmountable odds, strangers who turn out to be best friends, chases through thick forests, long-lost royalty, and the fact that good always wins. No. Matter. What.

It's part of what makes me relate to Lucy so well, we are both optimists. Call me nieve, an idealist, whatever! But I choose to believe that these 'fantastical' aspects are a part of the real world. And that beauty, gentleness, love, kindness... magic, all these things outweigh everything else.

Photo from here

Bring a little bit of magic into someone else's day today.

Grounded

Sister, as I write, you and I are having this discussion

(below is a paraphrase)

Ailen: (sigh...) I don't like my blog post.

Kelsey: I thought you planned out your posts for the next month

Ailen: ya... I changed my mind, and now I don't know what to write about.

Kelsey: Well.... you could write about this past weekend; the baby shower, Red Riding Hood, the hockey game, the bowling alley, the birthday party, the concert...your favourite children's book.... What are you writing? Are you just writing everything I've been saying???

Ailen: Keep talking...

Kelsey: ...you could talk about your Art Final Exam on Thursday....

Ailen: ...shhhhhhh..... don't remind me....

Which reminds me...

I should be studying.

But writing my blog post is more important.

I know I'll regret not studying more.

But we reviewed the exam questions in class today, I'll ace it.

I really should focus for a few hours and at least review a couple of things.

....there's lots of time tomorrow.

I'm pretty good at arguing with myself.

Much like Rapunzel when she stepped foot on the ground for the first time...

...I'll be grounded too if I don't do well on my exam.

(sigh) I'm off to study.

Music Mondays: Adele

My sister always gets mad at me for not introducing songs to her. It's not as if I intentionally do this, I simply... forget! The most detrimental example of this being that one time when I didn't show her "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. I think she still holds a tiny grudge in her heart against both me and our eldest brother for that one! Hey! At least you know it NOW right Ai?

Anyways, moving on to the topic at hand, the amazing musical talent of singer/songwriter Adele... Ailen bought her latest album "21" on Friday and we haven't stopped listening to it since! Instead of posting one of her new songs this morning, I've opted to post an older one in the hopes that I will not get penalized for neglecting to show it to my sister earlier. See I had asked Ailen if she knew this song, she replied with a "I think, maybe...? I don't know." So to stay on the safe side, we all win by my posting of "Chasing Pavements" by Adele:

Favourites & Friends

Ask me what my favourite colour is.

I dare you.

Well since you asked.....

The truth is, it's taken me a long time to figure out that I don't have a favourite colour - I like all of them! My eyes need all the colours, and it's impossible, in my mind, to set one of them up on a pedestal over the others.

This thing about not picking favourites doesn't just apply to colours, but I have the same difficulty when it comes to picking any sort of favourite; movie, book, song, food, city, mountain, friend....

I've never had a "best friend" - I need all my friends! All of you that bring such amazing moments of heaven on earth to my life.

for all the moments I think of you....

....and the way those thoughts make it seem like you live closer

the feisty discussion over why you liked that author and I thought... meh.

when my random adventure ideas are greeted with "Okay! I'll come!"

when you left that voice mail message that still makes me laugh

for your expert know-how when making coffee

when you suggest a song you know I'll love!

for every day asking "how was your day?"

how lucky I am that you are my sister

for a meal or a moment shared

for your roaring laughter

for your wisdom

for your tears

I need you all.

photo from here