Pixie Cut!

You are probably aware of the big chop I just made to my hair!!  Ever since I got married I wanted to cut off all of my hair but I was too nervous... I kept flip flopping back and forth. Long hair like Rapunzel... or try something new with short hair.

So how short did I go? Pretty darn short... I was able to donate it again. I am sporting a pixie cut now, and I rock it... at least I'm telling myself that until I get over the shock.

I feel like I lost ten pounds though (ha there's a diet plan for you) and I keep expecting my hair to swing when I walk and to blow in my face when I go outside (Thanks again southern Alberta wind...) but it doesn't.

Thanks to pinterest, I was able to find many different kinds of short cuts. My favorite was the longer pixie cut style.

 I also had to keep in mind that I have a heart shape face so we didn't want to make my chin a focal point, but draw the attention to my eyes and smile.

If you are thinking about making a big cut to your locks make sure to:

Do it because you want to. 

Talk to a hairdresser who knows your hair 

Do it for yourself. 

Have confidence (you can rock anything if you just believe).

If you want to, do it. Don't let others decide for you.

No matter what you do, (to quote Taylor Swift) the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate, and people are going to judge you if you do it AND if you don't. So do whatever will make you the happiest. 

Not Enough Storage? Not a problem!

We recently moved into a basement suit and after house sitting for a senior missionary couple it was quite the down size. But as far as basement suites go, this one is pretty decent. The windows are large (according to Brad that's my selling point), it has three bedrooms and our own washer and dryer! Though the kitchen is was lacking in the storage department and therefore we had no where to store our pots and pans.

We wanted them easily accessible, not too high (so I can reach without a chair) and organized. Ultimately, we decided to install a pegboard and it is the best/cutest thing ever! I love how it's functional and decorative!

The pegboard cost like $6 at home depot, we used scrap wood to space it from the wall (make sure you line them up with the studs on the wall you are putting them... we tried.. but we had to reposition one anyway). I painted the board a light blue colour and we ordered hooks in bulk off amazon. 

 We fiddled around with the order and placement of pots until I was happy. I traced all the pots and their handles so I could paint their shadow later.

I love it! And we will never have to guess where each pot goes we just match it with its shadow!

Peach Pork Chops

For Christmas my mum gave us twelve jars of canned peaches and twelve more of apple pie filling. We love it and will love it for a while yet (until we run out...). Both Brad's and my mum's do a lot of canning, so we have quite a few canned goods! But now what to do with those? I love peaches, but I wanted to try something different then just eating them plain or on pancakes or with ice cream.
The other Sunday Bradley comes up with a jar of peaches and asks if we can eat this for dinner. I had already gotten out the pork chops that we would be eating but hadn't yet decided how to cook them, so I replied as a joke "Sure we can have peach pork chops". It was a joke because I had never heard of such a thing and didn't think it would work. Bradley, however, jumped on the idea and thought it was fantastic. He looked up a recipe and found this one.

It turned out deliciously that we wanted to share it with everyone else.




All you need is:

3-4 pork chops (cut off the extra fat)
some sort of oil (I used canola)
salt and pepper
peaches 29 oz canned with liquid
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger

1. In a frying pan (I suggest a deeper than normal one) heat up the oil on medium heat.
2. Add the pork chops and salt and pepper them. Cook them until brown.
3. In a separate bowl mix together the syrup of the peaches, brown sugar, and ginger.
4. Pour over chops and cook until boiling.
5. Add the peaches and cook for 15-20 min uncovered (or the juice has been reduced by half and is thicker) turning occasionally to get the flavour everywhere.
6.  Serve!

We served it along side mashed potatoes and vegetables and the peach syrup with the potatoes was surprisingly good!

Opening our Spiritual Eyes

The other day I was sitting at the institute waiting for Brad to finish taking a test. Having deleted all social media off my phone so I would be less distracted I had nothing to do. So I grabbed the December ensign and started flipping through it when I came across a story called Smiling to the Blind.

I briefly read it through scanning for nothing important when I found an answer/advice to a problem I went to the Lord with just 3 days prior. 

I was feeling alone, and deserted by my Heavenly Father. Even though I was doing everything I thought I needed to do, it felt like I was not receiving any help from Him. 

While reading Smiling to the Blind, a thought came to me (by the spirit, most likely) that I need to pray to open my spiritual eyes and see all the blessings and help I have received, either directly from Heavenly Father or from someone acting from inspiration they received from Him. 

The Lord is always there ready to help us, sometimes in ways we least expect it. Even though we may not notice it, he is right beside us, listening to our prayers and worries. We just need to humble ourselves, open our eyes and let him in to help.

Since I have been praying to be aware of the blessings all around me I have been amazed countless of times just how frequently his hand is guiding and lifting me up.

“Let him that is ignorant learn wisdom by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord his God, that his eyes may be opened that he may see, and his ears opened that he may hear;

“For my Spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite” (D&C 136:32–33).

The Token Economy

During this time of fast approaching finals, studying is all we ever get around to doing in this household. Dishes are piling up because we only take time to eat and then it's right back to studying. The kitchen table looks more like our textbooks threw up all over it than a place where you eat.

But luckily for us Brad is taking a course called learning and cognition where he learns all about learning and strategies to learn. It is one of these strategies that we have decided to implement into our lives and it has changed how we study and how we use our time when we aren't studying. We have been so blessed by the effects and to even feel inspired to start this that we decided to share our experience in hopes that it can benefit others.

The Token Economy
The first time I was exposed to this was in my grade 4 classroom. If we behaved correctly and did our homework we got what my teacher called "Wilson Bucks". We would then be able to trade those in to buy all sorts of goodies from her drawer. This is an example of a token economy. We took this idea and changed it for ourselves.

First, we decided what we would be rewarded for. Our decision ended up being 20 consecutive minutes of really good studying.

After, we chose to be rewarded simply by putting check marks up on the whiteboard by our name for each of those 20 minutes of studying.

Lastly, we needed to figure out what behaviors distracted us from studying and needed to be used as reinforcers to study. We came up with games on our devices, social media, and Netflix.
We attached a price (amount of check marks) to each thing. With one check mark equaling 10 minutes of playing a game or being on social media. A 40 minute Netflix show when watched together cost 3 each, but when alone it cost 5. A whole movie together cost 7 each and 10 when alone.

We decided to make the cost of stuff we did together cheaper because doing activities as a family is better than doing it alone. The effect of this is to make the tokens a secondary reinforcer and the primary reinforcer (the distractions) are then contingent upon the secondary reinforcers which are contingent upon the studying behavior. This leads to an increase in the studying behavior. Voilà!

Day Five: Roatan, Honduras

Our last day of shore excursions and we were tired. Luckily today's adventure was pretty laid back as we drove around the island a bit. Our tour guide showed us around in his van. The countryside was beautiful and I swear you can see the ocean from anywhere you are. The houses are so colourful, I want to live in every single one. 

Our first stop was to an iguana farm. As we made our way down the stairs we saw that these iguanas were just lounging around, we had to be careful where we stood because they were everywhere! Thankfully they are herbivores or else I would've been screaming louder when they started charging at me. The guy in charge would give us cocoa leaves and as soon as the leaf was low enough we were swamped with iguanas at our feet.

 

There was also a fish farm in the ocean with numerous fish that measured at least 2 feet long. When someone would throw a little fish into the water, those monstrous fish would anticipate where it was going to land and dog pile (or should I say fish pile) on top of each other to get it. 

Our next activity took us to another animal place where there were monkeys, a sloth, macaws, a weird anteater like animal, and even raccoons. They let us into the cage with the baby monkeys and we were bombarded with these creatures jumping on our heads and reaching into pockets and trying to play with cameras. Such playful and mischievous animals. 

They let us hold the sloth and she would grab our shoulders with her sharp inch long claws as if we were just a normal tree limb. 

There was also a little baby night monkey who was so cuddly and just wanted to hide her head in our armpits. 

Normally they have four macaws (two sets of mates) but only Jack and Rose where there. They each have such different personalities just like people. Jack was friendly and let us hold him when we had seeds in our hands. 

But Rose was just eyeing us up the whole time until the end when she flew across the cage and tried to grab a girls hair.

After, we got relax on the beach for a couple hours in this little area that had a barrier to block the waves of the ocean. I swear the water was as warm as the air, it felt like bath water. Before this trip I didn't realize ocean water could be that warm. 

When we got back on the ship we fell straight to sleep, after three days of excursions we were pretty tired. 

We peeked through the stores on the cruise, including the candy store; Almost got blown away when we were walking around the deck; watched a bit of the dive in movie and then played mini golf before going for dinner. 

They were serving escargots and I had to get some to compare them to the ones in France. I was a little disappointed because they didn't come with the shell on but nevertheless they were still tasty. 

We went to the theatre again for a magic show. Our seats were right up close so we were in prime position to be called on as volunteers. Brad raised my hand up and volunteered me first, but later he got brought to the stage to get a sword through his neck so it evens out. We won our second bottle of champagne, and gave it to Ryan and Tori, from dinner, I think they hang out with us because we don't drink and they want all our champagne we win. 

Day Four: Belize

We left the ship and got straight onto the first tender (a ferry) heading to the docks. It took thirty minutes before we arrived and as soon as the boat stopped we were hit with the heat. Each stop seems more and more hot. We met our tour guide and the other two in our group and she led us to her personal minivan. 

We were a little skeptical about the fact but once we got in it felt very professional. We booked through X-stream tours at www.belizecruiseexcursions.com and it was more than what we expected. She gave us the history of the country and explained everything we passed. It took about an hour to drive to the rainforest where we would do our cave tubing and canopy zip line tour. After getting all organized, we hiked for 25 minutes through the humid rainforest. Reaching the mouth of the cave we were astonished by the size of it. The water was beautiful and so refreshing of course. We tubed for forty minutes in pitch black caves, if it wasn't for our headlamps we wouldn't have seen a thing. Twenty more minutes under the canopy of the trees and then after getting all heated up we jumped in the river and swam for a bit before heading off to the zip lining. The tour from the tree tops was fantastic and exhilarating. (All of our photos are on the disposable camera) 

At the end we made our way back to the ship and proceeded to do our regular cruise things such as soaking in the hot tub, ordered room service, and waited for dinner. At each port they always have a special meal on the menu for the country. I tried cows tongue... just to say that I ate it. As long as you don't think of it as a tongue it's alright. 

We went to the theatre and watched a magic show and dancing. This isn't just a little stage. Every part of it moved in someway. Up, down, or around in circles. There was room behind stage for huge sets. And they had some complicated lighting. I was mesmerized by the quality of the act. We then went to an adult only scavenger hunt, we were in the same group as a couple (Ryan and Tori) we dine with. There was some crazy stuff happening and we laughed so hard.