I'm Baaaaaack! :D

Hello!!! *gives all you lovely people a hug* I've missed you so much! Hope you're all doing well! How has life been? :D 

Goodness, has it really been over a month since I last posted? Where has time gone? I'm sooo glad to be back in the blogosphere, though I will admit, I really needed that blogging break ;) Got to tick quite a few things off my to-do list. . . and of course add things too ;) 

Talking about time . . . it's only about 2 weeks before the baby shows up!!! *squeals* (in case you didn't know or didn't see the blog cover *points up* *winks* - Mom's having her 8th) As was with every single one of their children, Mom and Dad did not find out the gender until after he/she was born. This baby is no different. Sooo... I thought it would be fun to put up a poll and see what your guesses are for the gender. You can enter on the sidebar. Pretty easy, really. Ya got only two choices. Boy or Girl. No in between ;) Oh yeah, and it's not twins so you don't have to worry about that either ;)

Okay, so now that that's been said, let's get onto the post, shall we? 

~ Life ~

- Celebrated Thanksgiving with family. All us cousins together can get kinda . . . crazy xP

- Caught up and finally understood how Biology Grade 12 works. (Yippee!!!!!) Not saying I completely understand all the content, just how the course works ;)

- Found and applied for a job at Tim Hortons. Annnddd.....got it!! :D *does the happy dance*

Oh and uh...just wondering you all do know what Tim Hortons is, right? I thought everyone knew what it was until I talked to some of my school friends from the US - and found out they had no idea what it was :P You can imagine my reaction to that. It's like not knowing what McDonald's is!! (now you've got me wondering, do you all know what McDonald's is?! xD)

- Spent time with friends at Awana and made these turkey-apple-candy thingies

Everyone's apple-turkeys. From left to right; oldest to youngest. And in case you were wondering, Toblerone's apple is bare because he ate all the candy in the car on the way home ;P 

- Took Driver's Ed. 20 hours of in-class lessons in two weekends. Which means 5 hours a day. I was the only girl in a class of four. It was - interesting :P
- Started preparing for the baby. SO exciting!!!
- Been practicing for our Christmas piano recital. Tiger Lily is going to sing The Call *gasp* Which is really big, 'cause she's always been against singing a solo on stage. But she's gonna do it! Woohoo!!!
- Got to know people better at the new church we've recently moved to. I will admit, it was kinda hard adjusting to such a huge change. It hurt quite a bit leaving the church we've attended for almost 7 years. Still hurts, actually, but not as much. God's taught me quite a good lesson in family, trust, and change lately :)
- Met a new blogger friend, writer, and singer! You know who you are ;)
- Read books (duh) Wrote some.
- Did school. Lots and lots and lots of it.
- Guest-posted on Faith's blog, Chosen by the Potter. You can see the post HERE!
- Took family pictures. Here are some of them, but I'm trying not to do an overload of pictures on this post. Trying ;) Which reminds me, I've updated the 'My Family' page, so if you have time, you can go check it out! :)

Behind the scenes :P
Photo Credits: Ironman

- Oohed and Ahhed over the fall colours this year. Seriously, they were soooo vibrant and so different from last year! Fall 2015 was a sad mix of yellows and browns. But this year, the trees outdid themselves with a marvellous burst of vivid reds and brilliant oranges, with a few yellow-oranges mingled in.

LOOKIT THE COLOURS!!!!

- Went apple picking

Photo Credit: Ironman

Toblerone and his 'babies'. He just loved the little tiny apples he picked :) 

- Bought a new camera!

My darling little puppy! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 
Photo Credits: Ironman

~Random Conversations~

And by random, I mean really random. I'm putting them on here mostly so that I'll always have them in memory, and if one of the mentioned people go, "I never said that" well, I'll just come on here and show it to 'em ;P

Tiger Lily's explanation for a bruise: When you bump yourself, all the blood rushes up to the skin because it thinks there's going to be a cut. But there isn't one. But the blood is too lazy to want to move all the way back down, so it stays where it is and turns purple. Sometimes even green. Makes total sense!"


12:00 am 
Dad: 20's too young to date
Me: You and Mom were dating in your teens!
Dad: That's different. We weren't homeschooled
Me: You didn't just say that
Dad: You girls can't marry until you're at least 30
Me: o_o
Dad: Just kidding!!


Ok, so one huge difference between the youth group at the new church and the one at the old church is that the majority of people are high-schoolers, not homeschoolers. So it's been quite interesting seeing the differences between a homeschooler and a public-schooler (is that what you call them? :P) Such as this one particular night:

Leader: "Reading and understanding the Bible does not need to be as hard as trying to understand Beowulf or Shakespeare."
Boy: "Isn't Beowulf a singer?"
Leader: "No, you're thinking of Beethoven"
Me: PEOPLE!!
xD

And another night, homeschooler-me made myself look super silly. . .
Boy: Apple products suck
Me: Make them yourself then! :D
Boy: How?
Me: Uhhhh ...you bake them
Boy: o_o
Me: OH you meant apple product as in iPod and iPhone not as in apple pie *facepalm*

~Books~

The Ghostfaces

Scorpion Mountain

Slaves of Socorro

The Invaders

The Hunters

They Called Her Mrs. Doc

The Lost Stories

Love Comes Softly

Straight to You

Blood of Pioneers

Just As I Am

The Kings of Clonmel

The Contest

Ella Wood

God's Smuggler

Favourite: They Called Her Mrs. Doc and Love Comes Softly. Totally my favourites from this month. LOVED them sooo much! And I really want to read the rest of the Love Comes Softly books now! :D Oh, and God's Smuggler. *shakes head* Can't believe I almost forgot about that one. It is an AMAZING book and if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely positively must! It's really good and it just left me awed at the mighty works of God! :) 

Least Favourite: Probably Straight to You. The storyline is . . . cute (there's really no other way to describe it) and the book in general is very clean and enjoyable. But there are certain things mentioned or talked about that just made me feel uncomfortable and I definitely would not recommend this book to younger readers. 

~Movies~

Actually haven't seen too many movies lately because of school and Awana being on movie night and stuff like that. But Tiger Lily and I have been watching When Calls the Heart. I literally squealed out loud when I found out that WCTH was on Netflix. Finally! Sadly, there's only one season, but still. At least we get to watch that! 

We weren't disappointed in the show at all. It's amazing and soooo beautiful! The way the scenes are shot are just gorgeous! Elizabeth is so funny and pretty and Jack is one awesome character. I also have a thing for RCMP's so yeahhhh..... ;) And Jack and Elizabeth ❤️ 

In which I now proceed to bombard you with the loveliness that is When Calls the Heart xD 

LOOK at that scenery. Just LOOK at it!!! :D 

"Sometimes we women cry when we're happy..."

"...sometimes we cry when we're sad..."

"...or for no reason at all."

"I'll never understand women."

Bahahahahaha..... xD

Ok, I'll stop the pictures now ;) 

~November Goals~

Read 8 books.

Post at least once or twice a week. 

Complete a tag or two.

Experiment with my new camera.

Comment on y'all's posts from the past month. Saw some pretty awesome posts...and a few vlogs too! :D 

Record a couple songs.

MEET THE BABY!!! 

And I think that's about it for now! Thanks for reading! 

How was your October? 

Have you watched When Calls the Heart? 

What are some things you would like to see in future posts? 

Oh, and before I forget, I'm thinking of doing a giveaway again for Christmas - is there anything in particular that you think I should give as a prize? 

Psssttt....don't forget the poll! All you have to do is click a button, one button, any button ;) 

Have a lovely November everybody! :D

September Highlights // I forgot my own blogiversary // Farewell

Time is flying by so quickly! I mean, it’s only 3 months away from 2017!!! :O 

Talking about time flying. . . my blog turned two years old. Ten days ago. I COMPLETELY FORGOT about it. *bangs head on desk* It’s been so busy lately *sighs* But more on that later. Onto this month’s highlights, shall we? 

So...you see all this stuff? ALL of this was under my bed. I have a loft bed, so there's kind of like a living space underneath, complete with desk, chair, and bookshelf. And this whole entire mess was crammed into every nook and cranny of my bed. I'm a packrat, in case you couldn't tell *guilty grin* 

Anyway, Mom started reading this book on cleaning, and there's this method called konmari. It includes throwing away a LOT of stuff. So I got under my bed, took all this out, and then started sorting through it. It hurts to get rid of so much stuff, but there were some pretty useless items there ;P I ended up throwing away two-thirds of that pile. My bed is now very clean. Excruciatingly clean ;) 

Dad had this weird idea that the cleaning method was called cuneiform. CUNEIFORM (you homeschoolers know what cuneiform is, right? ;) If you don't, go look it up!) When he mentioned that, Mom and I just stared at him in blank confusion. And then it slowly dawned on us what he meant and I simply died laughing xD 

Also, Tiger Lily and I had a little dispute over the word "prologue". Will someone please tell her it's pronounced "Pro-log" and not "pro-LOO-gee"?! 

Oh yes, and I did an Anna photo-shoot with a friend of mine. She made the dress herself, and it's absolutely gorgeous! Had sooo much fun taking pictures! :D 

My absolute favourite picture! :) 

Dad and Mom celebrated their 20th anniversary this year!! In honour of the occasion, they both went on a mini-vacation together and left Tiger Lily and I to man the house.

The first dinner we children all had together alone, we played Where No One Goes from How to Train Your Dragon on the speakers. We all LOVE that song so much! It was on repeat for quite awhile. But it was so much fun ;) (also while Mom and Dad were gone, coyotes came, two chickens died, I got a fever, and we thought Toblerone had caught measles. But that's another story. . . )

Our grandparents brought Tiger Lily and I on a hike, and it was so much fun! The walk was beautiful, and spending time with grandparents is always awesome :)

 Some of the girls from church also hosted a fundraiser for the church. Bake sale/craft sale, it was AMAZING. All of their hard work was so beautiful and delicious (the snacks, not the crafts ;))

And I bought a dress from Skylark Clothing! It's so pretty and I'm absolutely LOVING it. Just wish the weather would stay warmer a little longer so I'd have more time to wear it ;) 

We went to the amusement park again for the sixth or seventh time this year. And we got to go with our friends, which was SO. MUCH. FUN!!! :D

And of course, there was the blog hop/Literary Lodge/FFF/Book party this month! Which was SO much fun and absolutely amazing and fantastic! I added a LOT of books to my to-read list ;) 

Books Read

Martin Hospitality 
The Royal Ranger
A Rose Remembered
Halt’s Peril
The Battle for Skandia 
Dare
The Icebound Land
The Sorcerer in the North
Erak’s Ransom
The Graham Quartet and the Mystery of the DayMaid
The Siege of Macindaw
The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
Knight’s Fee
The Outcasts 
Letter of Love 

Journey to Love 
Betsy Was a Junior
Betsy and Joe 

The Tournament at Gorlan 

19 books. I honestly have no idea how I managed to do that. *silence* Okay, so maybe I do. Lots of midnight reading. . . But still. 19 books and they weren't all exactly that SMALL either :/ 

Blogging News

My friend Holly has started a blog! You can see her cute blog here: Holly's Berry Patch 

Let's give her a warm welcome to the blogosphere, shall we? :D 

Olivia is hosting a fun little giveaway at her blog!

Amanda released her new novella Befriending the Beast just last week! I haven't read the book yet, but I realllllyyyyyy want to!

September Goals 

Guest post on a couple of blogs, nope actually did not do that! I did write a guest post though, it will be coming out later this month :) 

Write reviews and post interview for Rebekah Morris' new short story Fitting In- check! Fitting In has now been released, so if you haven't read it yet, you totally should!!!!
Look into finding a job - check! Haven't gotten a job yet, but Tiger Lily and I cycled to town a couple days ago and I dropped into a few places. Now just have to get my resumé (or is it resumè?)  written ;) 

Participating in the Five Fall Favourites party! - done! It was, as I said above, amazing! And SO much fun!! (I don't think I can say that enough). If you weren't able to participate, that's ok. You can still see our Top Five books from the 12 genres from the party. You can see the links below to go to the hostesses' blogs or our Goodreads shelves: 

My Five Fall Favourites

Rebekah's Five Fall Favourites

Kate's Five Fall Favourites 

Sarah's Blog

Amanda Tero

Kellyn's Blog

October Goals

Ok, so now it's probably time to tell you all some news. I will be taking a break from blogging for a little while. I'm finding it hard juggling over 6 school courses without adding blogging to the list. I've tried it for as long as I could, but my school is beginning to suffer and my blogging is getting kinda lax. When I DO write a post, it takes longer than I'd like, and it steals time from school and chores and stuff. So, I'm going to take a small break for about a month or so. Re-prioritize! 

I'll still be reading all y'all's blogs, but I'm not sure if I'll be commenting. But even if you don't see any comments from me, be assured, I AM reading your posts! :D 

The "Counting Our Blessings" series will be put on pause, but it will start up as soon as I get back, promise! Same for any other series of posts that hasn't been finished (Liv!!! We gotta finish Adventure Camp!!!! xD) 

For those of you whom I have agreed to beta-read for, DON'T WORRY. I'll still be reading your lovely, crazily-awesome stories and I will get it back to you before the deadline :) 

And a shout-out to the people who have recently followed my blog! You are all so awesome! :D Thank you so much for joining me. I am SO sorry that I have to pause my blogging right after you joined, but I will try to make it up to you all when I come back! :) 

To all of you who have been following my blog for awhile, THANK YOU for your support throughout the past two years. I simply couldn't do it without you all! ❤️ 

Farewell for now! I look forward to catching up with all of you when I get back :)