I love Aldi!

I am sure many of you know about Aldi, but for those of you that don't, you HAVE to go try them. My mom is a loyal Aldi shopper, but until recently I had only ever been in there with her. Their prices are insanely low (ok I could be a little biased having lived in Canada where a gallon of milk is $4). However, I did manage to buy almost everything I needed for dinner for two weeks, including 6 gallons of milk and 4 lbs of butter, for $105. And this is dinner to serve three adults, including me, the prego one, and three kids. Several of my friends have asked me to do a blog about easy meals, and I am thinking I could do that, and maybe even do cheap and easy meals. Anyone out there interested in something like that? I was thinking I could post the following week's meals on say Friday or Saturday, along with the shopping list and then every day give you the how-to-make-your-life-easier meal plan. I am a big fan of prep everything when you buy it, IE I like to brown my hamburger for the week all at once, put it in ziplock bags by meal and freeze. When you don't have to chop onions or brown meat, it makes your prep go SOOO much faster. Plus I realize not everyone finds cooking therapeutic, but hopefully I can help you not dread dinner time every day.

The end is in sight!

I can't believe I have less than 5 weeks left! If Scarlett really loves me she will be a little early and not a little late. My mom says I should get used to the fact that it is all about her all the time and she will come when she is ready. I have SOOO much left to do before she gets here. I still haven't bought a car seat or a stroller, but I do have LOTS of newborn and size 2 diapers and clothes. I guess I should make the cars eat a priority, seeing as they won't let me leave the hospital without one.

I asked Adam the other day if he is ready to be a dad. He said no; at least he isn't going to be shocked when he thinks he has it all figured out and life doesn't go according to plan.

Currently taking bets on when Scarlett will come, how big she will be, and her eye and hair color....

12 weeks left!

I have been such a slacker with my updates! I blame Facebook for that. So let's see, since my last post: I found out I am having a girl (I am VERY happy about this, Adam wishes it was a boy), Adam finally got surgery to fix his hernia and is feeling MUCH better now, and I am in GA for the birth of the baby and probably until end of May-beginning of June when Adam gets done with oil rig work and can help with the move back up North, I think that is it. I know, I lead a sad and boring life. Oh yeah, her name is Scarlett Emilyn. Scarlett because I love the name, and Gone with the Wind, and she is being born in Atlanta. Emilyn was my maternal Grandma's middle name. She hated the name, but since she has left us for Heaven she can't complain about it. :) Hope you are all having a fabulous day!

It's a....

Yesterday I gave Adam a possitive pregnancy test for Father's Day. I had a dream YEARS ago that I would tell my husband about my first pregnancy for Father's Day, and low and behold it worked out! Adam and I are expecting a baby! At least that had better be what is making me sick every day, I will be very dissapointed if it turns out to be something else growing in there. I had my first OB appointment on Tuesday of last week, and my first ultra sound is tomorrow. They think I am 10-11 weeks, but it could be closer to 7-8 too, we will have a better idea tomorrow after the ultra sound. I will be sure to post the ultra sound picture after I get it scanned. So far I have experienced the joys of morning sickness, well into the afternoon, this is seriously no cup of tea. I will post more as I know more!

Crazy Canadian weather...

I go walking with some friends every day at 11:30.  My friend lives down a long dirt road off the high way, about a mile long, and we walk to the highway and back.  Yesterday was absolutely beautiful.  Amazing weather all day.  High in the 80's.  Today at 11:30 it was a little bit chillier, but still not bad; I was wearing capris and a thin shirt with light cardigan.  About 2 hours after our walk, SNOW.  We have about 10 CM of accumulation so far, and it is still snowing.  This is just sad and pathetic.  I was talking to Adam as I was driving through this snow, and his comforting words were "It's only April, of course it is going to snow."  I told him where I am from, snow doesn't happen, and in most parts of the world it isn't snowing in April.  He admitted that I had a point, but it didn't make the snow stop.  Sigh.  I will post a picture tomorrow when I wake up, hopefully there won't be much more piled up. Thank goodness for friends getting married in Florida!  I leave May 2nd to go back to the Sunshine state for some much needed defrosting.  I hope when I get back to Canada the snow has decided it has had enough until at least October. Probably not, but a girl can hope right?

Adam has joined in.

Update:  Adam has decided the blog is pretty cool, and he was my motivation to write yesterday's blog.  In fact before we even made it back home he was asking me if I was going to blog about the weekend's adventures. It is fun that he wants to input what he thinks should go into the tales I post. Takes the pressure off of me to remember everything and come up with what to write on my own.

How Adam managed to Kidnap me...

This weekend Adam kidnapped me, took me back to America, and let me shop!

Wednesday afternoon Adam asked me if I would like to go to Glacier National Park on Good Friday, spend the day in the mountains, take some cool pictures, and then go back home.  Just a day trip. I thought "sure this sounds like fun" and agreed to the trip.  We left around 9 AM Friday morning, and we got back last night, Sunday, around 10 PM.  Our day trip slowly turned into a weekend trip.

When we got to the boarder, 3 hours from home, and they asked us where we were headed, Adam told the guy we were just going to spend the day in the park.  The boarder patrol agent looked at Adam and said, "Well you won't make it in very far, all the roads are closed until Mid May or later. (There is still LOTS of snow in higher elevations)  As we drove away from the boarder I asked Adam if we should just turn around and go visit the carriage museum in Cardston, which is about 15 or 20 minutes from the boarder on the Canadian side. Adam is not a fan of the carriage museum because, in his estimation, he has been there a million times. He decided we should just drive around the outskirts of the park and take pictures.  After about 20 minutes Adam says, "Why don't we just go to Kalispell and go shopping."  I consulted the map; Kalispell was still at least two hours away.  I am not a fan of car trips.  Especially car trips I have not prepared myself for, but the temptation of shopping got the better of me and I agreed. 

For those of you that are not from Canada, let me explain that shopping in Canada is not fun.  It is ridiculously expensive, and there are no good stores.  I am a fan of Target, Ross, Bath and Body Works, Victoria's Secret, JC Penny etc. and none of those stores, or even any comparable stores, exist in Canada.  Actually, I hear they opened a Bath and Body Works 4 hours north of here, but that really doesn't count since I am sure the prices are crazy high, like everything else in Canada. Anyway, I digress.

So once we figure out how to get to Kalispell, our first two road options we discovered were closed when we got to them, it actually took us about three hours to make it there.  While we were driving through the little mountain towns of Montana, we discovered an amazing little trading post on the side of the road and spent the better part of an hour in there talking with the man that owned it.  Turns out he used to own a little trading company in Kissimmee, FL...small small world. 

We finally made it to Kalispell's "mall".  I use the word mall very loosely, because it really is closer to an enclosed bazaar. Those of you that have ever been in a small town mall that has one option for the food court, one or maybe two old department stores (you know the ones no one thought were still in business), 5 or 6 chain clothing stores that your grandmother would love the clothing from, several mom and pop type gift shops, and LOTS of empty store fronts, know exactly what I am talking about. Their saving grace was that they did have a Bath and Body Works, and this location accepts any coupons from Bath and Body Works, regardless of how long expired they are.  I made out like a bandit.

This mall also had a little cell phone store that was an authorized Verizon retailer.  I went in there to ask the guy about my phone, I have the Storm and it has had some software issues. He told me he can't help me, I have to go to the Verizon company store, which is about 10 minutes away....in front of Target.  Score! Next to Target was Ross, I was in Heaven.

Once in the Verizon store, I  told the manager who greeted us at the door why we were there. Luckily I had already spent most of Wednesday morning on the phone with Verizon, and they had determined that I needed a new phone, so I didn't have to re-explain to them what the issues were.  That being said, it still took forever for the ditz behind the service counter to figure out how to switch out the phones. She did suggest a great place for us to eat though.

After we scored some sweet finds at Target and Ross Adam tells me he doesn't think we will make it back across the border before they close at 11. He has some friends that live in Missoula, another 2 hours and some change south of Kalispell.  He calls them up and they tell us to come on down.  After eating at this great this great BBQ place, I then had to go back to Ross, to find some jammies and underwear since I hadn't packed anything for our "day" trip, and made a trip to the Dollar Tree for toothbrushes, deodorant, socks etc.

Side note, I LOVE American dollar stores because they are exactly what they advertise.  In Canada you have so called dollar stores where things can cost more than $30...really they are just overpriced junk stores up here. Anywho...

So after we finish our last minute pick ups we head south again. This drive was miserable because the roads were under construction, and it is only a two lane road. Our trip to the boarder has now taken us 5 hours south of the boarder. 

The bonus of all this is that I did get to meet the Muller family. Adam met them when he was on his mission, and up until Kalispell I didn't know they existed. Saturday morning as I was getting ready to go to breakfast with everyone, the Muller's daughter, Amanda, shows up in the doorway of the bathroom, asking me if we can stay for Easter.  I told her that was up to Adam because he had to work on Monday.  She informed me that Adam had sent her down to see if we could stay.  Nice work Adam, send the kid so I can't say no.  Really it turned out well though, we went shopping in Missoula (they have a real mall), had an Easter dinner on Saturday afternoon, and then we went to a bonfire out at a ranch Saturday night. Met some great people and had a great time.  Sunday morning we dyed Easter eggs, and then had to head back to Canada.

We decided that rather than going back north through Kalispell, to hook around the mountains to the East and go back up through Montana to the other border crossing we go through when we go to Great Falls. Our friends the Weisners live right outside Augusta (this is who we visited on the last trip, see below) but we didn't have enough time to drive out to their property and say hi on our way through Augusta this time.  As we get to the edge of town and Adam turns right onto the main road, he looks to the left and says "Hey I think that is Cody"  Cody is JT's wife. He turns around, and sure enough, it's Cody.  She was walking her mother home. The Weisners were at JT's mom's house for Easter.  So we stopped and hung out for a bit before heading back on the road.

Once we were back in Canada, about two hours from home Adam keeps looking at this little VW golf that is next to us on the road and saying, "hey I think that's Ryan!"  Turns out it was in fact Ryan, who Adam worked with several years ago at Lawn Master. Through mime motion while driving down the road, Adam explains that we are headed home and that I am his wife.  

Despite being an unplanned weekend trip, this weekend was great fun.  I realized on our trip that these weekends won't work once we have kids, so I should let him have his fun for now.