So many things have been happening around here the last few days! I've watched at least seventeen hours of television, made what appears to be a permanent indent in our antique rust-colored couch, felt like I was going to pass out at least a dozen times, writhed with body aches the likes of which I have never experienced in my life to this point, and have not eaten nearly the amount of calories one should consume per day. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's official...I'm sick. But I hear poor Tommy and Mitch are both sick as well on the other side of the world, so I'm most definitely counting my blessings that at least I can lounge around in complete misery in the comfort of my own home with a doting husband who rents me Amelie and brings me ice water and smoothies.

But seriously, it can't be very entertaining hearing about me being on death's doorstep (possibly a slight exaggeration, but...) so here's the real news. I am no longer a blonde. Shocking, I know. It lasted for an entire two months and I loved every minute of it, once we got past the yellow stage into the white-blonde color. But, alas, all good things must come to an end as we were not too thrilled about the every-six-week-upkeep schedule the whiteness required. So I am back to brown, although I must admit it is a bit lighter than my natural brown. Another six weeks and I'll go back in to finish off the coloring and get it a tad darker. I must admit, it's kind of nice being back to a more natural me. Which is a good thing, since I'm planning on staying brown for quite a while now.

***

I actually wrote that part a few days ago and just never posted, so I'm happy to report that I have, indeed, recovered from the grossness of being sick, and in true lovers' fashion, succeeded in passing along the fever and body aches to my dear husband shortly thereafter. Isaac took it like a champ, though, and bounced back in only three days, whereas my recovery took a full four. In celebration of his renowned health, we disconnected our cable for the next six months. Isn't that a great getting better present? We got the cable last fall for (of course) football since Isaac is, after all, a boy, but he promised me when we purchased it that it would only be through the football season and then we could go back to our hippier lifestyle. And even in the three days since it's been disconnected, I've felt noticeably calmer and more relaxed. Evenings when I'm tired aren't automatically spent vegging in front of the telly watching Bear Grylls and Mike Rowe, but instead are spent reading, baking, yoga-ing, and relaxing to the tunes of David Bazan or Rocky. Life seems to pass by slowly and peaceably, like a trickling creek, and every minute is experienced as it's own special mark in the day. I like living like that. Brewing a cup of white pear tea, having a girlfriend over to chat, relaxing with Isaac on a walk around the neighborhood, making bran muffins and granola for the week's breakfasts. I guess all I'm saying is that I have a good life up here, with Isaac. Speaking of which, he's walking through the door right now...

The best Christmas Present Ever...

So, the other night there were about seven cop cars right outside of our house for several hours complete with searchlights and everything. We peeked out the windows on and off for a while, but could never see enough to actually figure out what was going on...so we chalked it up to some kind of massive manhunt that was taking place. Slightly freaky, but Isaac was with me so I wasn't too worried.

Fastforward to the following afternoon.

I am in the kitchen preparing to bake some fantastic spicy ginger cookies for that evening's festivities and Isaac is in the back room, when we hear a knock at our door. A very loud knock. Now the thing about our house is that there are three doors to enter before you actually get into our apartment. We live in an old house, so there's the external door that leads down a very short hallway and ends with the door of our apartment and the door of the downstairs apartment. If you go through our door, it takes you up a set of stairs where you then reach the actual door into our apartment. Now, obviously the only people who know this are those who have been to our house before, so the majority of our knocks come from the door at the bottom of the stairs. Only people we know come straight to the top of the stairs, but that happens only if we know they're coming over, so they never knock, they just come right in. All that to say, something is not right if there is a loud knock coming from our top door. Isaac asked me to get it, but I was a tad alarmed being that there was a possible vagrant on the loose via last night's supposed manhunt. Not wanting to just open the door to a murderer without Isaac in the room as backup, I called out a friendly, "Who's there?" When no one answered, the churning in my stomach kicked it up a notch so I turned my gaze toward the back bedroom and called for Isaac to come. But before he came out the knock returned, even more fierce than before. I called out again, "Who's there?" and again, there was no answer. Something was definitely wrong because I was only about seven feet from the front door and there was no doubt that whoever was out there could hear me, but was refusing to answer until I opened the door. I called for Isaac again, and then eyed the deadbolt, about to run over and flip it locked, awkward as that may be since they would most assuredly hear the sound of the door locking loud and clear and would know I just locked them out. I heard the deep tones of a man's voice behind the door now and became even more panicked as I racked my brain to try to remember where we had put the phone so I could call the police if necessary. And still there was no sign of Isaac (probably because Isaac doesn't get scared of anything, so I'm sure it never even occured to him that the person at the front door was possibly waiting to shoot me at point blank range once I opened the door). Then, to my horror, I saw the front door starting to open and I knew he was coming inside. I thought my heart was going to beat straight out of my chest and the words, "Don't come in or I'm calling the police," were at the tip of my tongue...

...when two long lost faces peered around the door. It took my frazzled brain a couple seconds to register the intruders, but two seconds later I was screaming and crying as I recognized Morgan and Tommy!! THE Morgan and Tommy who have been gone since September gallivanting around the world and who weren't expected back until the end of March! I know I can't convey our excitement at seeing them, but they're two of our best friends and we have missed them so much since they've been gone. And we had absolutly no idea whatsoever that they were coming home for Christmas. They surprised everyone, even their parents! It turns out, they really had wanted me to open the door without knowing who was there so they could see my surprised face which is why they didn't want to identify themselves. Makes sense, just makes the situation a tad scarier when there are dangerous criminals on the loose. Anyway, I recovered and we got to spend an awesome evening with them...and they're here for three weeks!

As soon as we had calmed down (okay, as soon as I had calmed down) we drove over to Justin and Alex's to surprise them. Isaac and I hid behind the bushes and Tommy and Morgan rang the doorbell and waited. I wish I could have seen Lex's face because all I saw from my vantage point was smiles and waves from Mo and To, and then finally Morgan's exasperated beckoning for Alex to come open the door. Apparently she had just been standing inside staring at them in shock because she couldn't believe they were actually there. So awesome! And then we called Justin up from the basement, but like Isaac, he doesn't react with the drama of us lovely wives. Just a huge smile and hugs all around from him.

Just thinking about it all makes me tear up again. So we have three wonderful weeks to spend with our friends before they head back to Asia for the duration of their expedition. The best surprise ever.

PS, if you're interested in following their journey, you can read about it all here. And they have hundreds of awesome pictures from their travels.

The day we got married...

Better late than never. We've finally got some of our wedding pictures rifled through and relatively organized into a pseudo-chronological display.

Want to see them? Go here.

Do enjoy.

Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising by Jean Kilbourne.

So provocative. She found a way to put into words the things I've been feeling for the past decade.

A handful of wheatgrass...

We live in a rather tiny apartment. One bedroom, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Which means no storage place. At all. No extra closets, no garage, nothing. So for the first year of our marriage, the home for all of Isaac's tools was a gigantic pile on the floor against the far wall of our bedroom. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining because we LOVE our little house, but I was also very thankful when Isaac's next project created a home for all of those tools. He got the idea to incorporate old milk crates as shelves and started the hunt for a broken down cupboard he could restore to fit the crates. A few days later, his project was born. He had to extend the back of the cupboard and fix it up quite a bit as it was a sorry piece of junk to being with. Then he covered all that work with lots of sanding, paint, and varnish, fit the milk crates in and - whallah, we have a mini tool shed. It's beautiful and matches the other cupboards he did earlier this year. And best of all, we have our far wall back.

And then there's his dream (our dream, really) of living in a place where plants rule the roost. Where everywhere you look inside, there are dozens of species of plants living among us. We have tons of plants in pots, but this time Isaac wanted to fully incorporate the greenery into the piece of furniture. So he purchased some old drawers from a torn down elementary school, fixed them up (of course), and then created waterproof indents in the top to house whatever it was we wanted to grow - wheatgrass at the moment.

Next, I want a new bed. He's been drawing up designs on and off for the past year for it, but weather, space, and lack-of-garage-sized-tools has put that little dream off for possibly a couple more years. Until then...

And then we went home...

One big holiday down, one more to go. We got to have two Thanksgivings this year - one with my family a week ago and one this past weekend with Isaac's family. The first one we rode the train down for, and that was an experience in itself. An extra two hours of travel time each way tacked onto an already long journey left us not quite sure if it was worth not having the stress of driving and traffic and such. But it was fun to at least do it once. We brought our laptop and dvds, books, and cards and spent a solid six hours side by side watching the beautiful fall colors sweep by. Dad picked us up in Vancouver and brought us home to see the star of our little Thanksgiving...Ava Grace! Or Olivia, I suppose, since no one else ever uses her nickname anymore. She's my sister's little daughter and she is cuuu-uuute. Perfect little spiral curls, a smile to die for, and all the adorableness of a two year old learning to speak like an adult. Of course, it was great to see mom and dad and we spent the evenings playing games with Debbie and Mike, but there's no denying we were all most excited to ooh and ahh over the littlest member of our family. Makes me want to have one...minus all the late nights and responsiblities that would come with it, of course. Highlight of the weekend - I taught Olivia to bat her eyes while asking mommy for something. I'm such a good auntie. Okay, so maybe that wasn't really the highlight of the weekend...there was time with the family, mom's amazing dinner she made, and the snow that fell on Saturday, but it's these little life lessons that must not go overlooked. All in all, a very nice family Thanksgiving.

Fastforward three days and we packed our Kia and headed back down south for the holiday with Isaac's family, which coincidentally also made me want to have little kiddos. Still minus the late nights and unending responsibilities, of course, but the little ones romping around the Hurst home are pretty adorable as well. Unfortunately, there were no pictures to document these events, but I will narrate them for you nonetheless. There was unending game playing, Thanksgiving dinner number two, a fantastic waffle party the following day, and unfortunately no snowfall to be seen the entire weekend. I got a treat Friday morning, though, when I visited Jolie at the Beauty School she attends and recieved the most amazing scalp treatment I've ever had (also the only one I've ever had, but nevertheless so nice). Then she ringletted my hair to perfection and I finished off the weekend a very curly blonde girl. We spent the night with Ian and Savannah the next night and got to snuggle and entertain Jayden and Daelyn the next morning. So cute. Then it was home to more games with the girlies, then back in our car for the long drive home. I could eat pumpkin pie every day for the rest of my life. Mmm, mmmm.

Alas, it is back to real life now in all it's glory. Eight to fours, grocery shopping, and no little ones. There is a bright spot on the horizon, though, as this week appears to be the week in which we shall acquire the Hurst Christmas Tree Number Two, which means more pumpkin pie, hot cider, and cranberry and popcorn strings galore. Christmas season? Yes, please.

Phyllo Creations...

If you're sensitive about your birthday being forgotten, special dates passing unnoticed, and Christmas presents being bought at the last minute, then I'm not the best friend for you. For some reason I can't keep birthdates in my head for anything, no matter how long or hard I try. And by default, remembering anything like an anniversary (other than my own) is completely out of the question. But I am blessed with a couple friends who are incredible at remembering all those special days, who will pop a little card in the mail wishing good luck on an upcoming final, who will send postcards to you while you're out of town on vacation, who never forget a birthday, Christmas, or anniversary. Not that I forget Christmas, but you know what I mean. Dear Morgan is one of those people...the Morgan of the Morgan and Tommy couple who is off gallivanting around Europe and Asia for the next several months. Now if I was taking an extended vacation, especially if it was one that spanned nearly a year's length, I would gladly use that as an excuse to not have to even try remembering everyone's special days back home...but not Morgan. Her brother's birthday was a few weeks after she and Tommy left town and I was emailed specific instructions on what exactly to make for him since Mo couldn't do it herself. And then Tommy's dad had a birthday last week and, once again, Morgan remembered will in advance and asked us to help her make it special for him. Mo and To were in Turkey at the time and wanted us to create Turkish Baklava for Tommy's dad so it could be like we were all there together. Lex took it a step further and made an entire Turkish dinner and we had Rick and Sherri over to Alex and Justin's to celebrate! There was a lentil stew that was incredible (no matter what Justin says), zucchini pancakes that had some other completely foreign name I won't even try to remember, greek yogurt, hummus and pita chips. A-mazing. Then there was the baklava for dessert. The only things that were missing were Morgan and Tommy, but we'll be with them soon enough, I suppose. Happy birthday, Rick!

The other thing you may have noticed is that I am now blonde. Very blonde. White blonde, in fact. And I have to say, I really love it. I won't be blonde forever...probably just a few months to get it out of my system and then I'll be a happy bruntette for the rest of my life. But until then, I shall very much enjoy the new look. You must gotta live a little every once in a while, right?