It was Neil Diamond night and each AI performer choose two songs to sing. During the first round of songs the only two I liked were David Archuleta and Syesha and during the second round they were all good except for Jason Castro - I think he may be going home tonight.
Here are my picks for best to worse:
David Archuleta - I actually liked his performance of ‘Sweet Caroline’ more than ‘Coming To America’ which was the Judges favourite. David actually sang an upbeat song and did well and he even smiled during his performance!
Syesha Mercado - Syesha sang ‘Hello Again’ and ‘Thank The Lord For The Night Time’. Syesha is a wonderful singer but I wonder how big her fan base is. She was amoung the best performer last week and still ended up in the bottom two.
Brooke White -Brooke sang ‘I’m A Believer’ and ‘I Am … I Said’. The first performance she looked like she was having fun but it really wasn’t her style, the secod performance was just perfect. She looks like she has her confidence back!
David Cook - David sang ‘I’m Alive’ and ‘All I Really Need Is You’. His first performance was alright and is second was very good. He is starting to grow on me.
Jason Castro - Jason sang ‘Forever In Blue Jeans’ and ‘September Morn’. Both performances were boring and just not as good as he is capable of.
My husband has been bugging me for awhile saying how much he wants a new computer. I was surprised that he cared more than I did since I use the computer a lot more than he does but when I went to my parents house I noticed they had a new computer and I went on it for a bit and it was so fast. Now I am with my husband wanting a newer, faster computer with a bigger ram.
I don’t care about having a new computer anytime soon. Maybe we can buy one during black friday? It would be nice to not have to wait for the computer to warm up before using it.
My trip to BC was short but fun and relaxing with moments of tension which is expected on any vacation.
My husband got off work early at 2pm and we left for BC at 2:30. It was a nice drive up there and the border line was only about 15 minutes. Just after crossing the border Rebekah threw up, the last time we drove to BC Sariah threw up while in the 1 hour border lineup. (note to myself: buy something to prevent motion sickness before driving to Utah).
My twin sister arrived with 2 of her friends from Edmonton early saturday morning. We had a picnic at Bear Creek park with them and White Rock Beach that night. We went to a Greek restaurant by the beach to celebrate a friends birthday. Getting to the beach was awful, we had no idea where the restaurant was and my mom and my sister’s friend who was driving forgot that we were going to follow them. Since it was a saturday night and the weather was warm it was really busy on the beach so it was hard getting around, finding a parking spot and we had to ask a lot of people where the restaurant was before someone was able to tell us where it was. Sariah eded up getting poo all over her clothes before getting to the restaurant so I had to get her cleaned up and since I never brought a change of clothes I made a temporary dress out of the baby sling. After the restaurant we walked around the beach which I really enjoyed.
Sunday we went to church and relaxed. We left to go home at 8:15 pm and got home at 12:30 am. The border guard had us pull over and go into the customs building where we felt out of place amoung all the teenage and 20 something boys they were questioning. They wanted to verify that I have applied for my permanent residency card. I still have the conditional status (which I needed to have for 2 years) because I haven’t recieved my interview date yet eventhough I filled out the paperwork and paid for it back in October. They told me to wait until we move to Utah then start bugging them for an interview.
When we arrived at the ferry terminal Sariah figured out we were going back home and then began waving behind her saying bye-bye and naming off everyone in my family she saw. Rebekah cried pretty much the whole time and finally fell asleep 10 minutes before we got home. So I am really dreading the drive down to Utah in 2 weeks.
I recieve a ton of spam comments on my recipe blog, there have been many times I have logged on to the site administration to find over 1,000 spam comments which are mostly related to diet pills. I really don’t want to waste my time reading that “Fenphedra can help you loose 30 lbs in 30 days” 100 times. I uploaded a captcha plugin onto the site which helped just a little bit so I got rid of that plugin and found another plugin where commentators just need to answer a simple math question. I still get around 100 spam comments a week which is a whole lot better than 1000 but I wish I could find something that could totally stop the spam.
I am excited about today! First of all after awful weather all spring it is a beautiful day today and I love fridays because we get to go to playgroup which Sariah just loves going to and seeing her love something makes me happy.
After playgroup I will do some last minute cleaning and making sure we have everything ready for our trip up to British Columbia to visit my family for the weekend. I am especially excited about this trip because my twin sister is coming from Edmonton and I haven’t seen her since Christmastime.
I have to say that I am not too happy about the choices we have for the next president of the US. To me they all seem like snobby wine club members. After Romney left the race I thought that Obama would be a good choice (after all he was going to CHANGE America and unite the conservatives and liberals!). Now that the world actually knows more about his past and associations with racists and terrorists I would actually rather have Hilary Clinton for president. Obama preaches so much about helping the poor but he gave less than 1% of his income to charity while Clinton gave about 15% and McCain about 25%. Obama also speakes out against hate and promotes racial equality while giving most of his charitable contributions to a church that preaches so much hate towards white people and America in general.
I think out of the three McCain would be the best choice for president. He is probably not going to change anything but things staying the same is better than things changing for the worse.
It was Andrew Loyd Webber night, the broadway theme was perfect for Syesha and David Archuleta but probably hurt the most for Jason and Brooke.
Here are my thoughts starting with my favourite:
David Archuleta - David sang Phantom Of The Opera’s ‘Think Of Me’ and turned it into a pop ballad. I thought he was the most original of the night and despite what Simon said I thought it sounded pretty perfect.
Syesha Mercado - Syesha sand ‘One Rock And Roll Too Many’. She had a lot of fun with this song. Broadway is definitely her Genre.
David Cook - David sang Phantom Of The Opera’s ‘Music Of The Night’ and proved that he really is a very dynamic performer. My husband thought he should have dressed up as a vampire. I think only Jacob Hoggard from Canadian Idol would have done that.
Brooke White - Brooke sang Evita’s ‘You Must Love Me’. Apart from Brooke stopping 8 seconds into the song then asking to start over again, She sang it well. The last few performances she has been so nervous I don’t know what happened. In her earlier performances she seemed relaxed and upbeat. She is my favourite contestant so I do hope she stays.
Jason Castro - Jason sang Memory and I really didn’t like it all. Broadway is definitely not his style.
Carly Smithson - Carly sang ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, she did well I just really didn’t like the song. I think a song about Christ should be more reverant, not a rock song. Just my opinion.
I predict the bottom three will be Carly, Brooke and Jason with either Brooke or Jason leaving. I will be sad if Brooke leaves
Sariah has now been two for a whole month. She is still learning a whole lot each day. She loves to sing song that have actions like Popcorn Popping, 5 little ducks, head and shoulders. It is so cute to see her do the actions for these songs. I need to buy a cable to connect my video camera to the computer then I promise I will post a video of us singing Popcorn Popping. Another cute thing Sariah has learned this month is how to say everyone in my family’s name. She calls my parents Oma and Opa and my siblings Craig, Alex, Miky and she will call my twin sister Sara-Jayne “Auntie”. I am now working on getting her to name the people in my husband’s family.
Rebekah is 9 months old now. I am sure that family members will remember how much Sariah got into at this age (Christmas 2007) well if I remember correctly Rebekah gets into even more than Sariah does. Rebekah loves to play with toys and will even rock the baby dolls. An exciting thing that Rebekah has done recently was stood up without holding onto anything!
A family Budget is essential in determining what you really should be spending your money on. As we enter a recession reducing our spending may be even more important to us.
The first step to starting a family budget is deciding how you want to keep your budget such as a computer spreadsheet (ie excel), budgeting software, or a notebook and pen.
After you have decided on the method you will use. Have one coloumn to list for all your sources of income and what you expect to earn over the period that you want to budget for (week or month) and what you plan to spend on donations, food, housing, utilities, transportation, clothing, insurance, paying off debt etc… and what you will put into savings. Being sure to budget spendings less than what you earn if at all possible.
Beside that column then list your actual income and expenses. Overtime you will gain a better idea of what you are able to spend on each item.
It really is very simple once you get the hang of it.
It is often said that Diamonds are a girls best friend so what woman wouldn’t love pretty jewelry for free? Jewel Elegance is giving bloggers a chance to hunt for gold and diamond jewelry to win for themselves for the next 4 weeks. The first hunt begins on Monday and the prize for this hunt will be a 14 K gold anklet which would be nice to show off during the summer! Here is a picture:
If you would like to join in the jewelry hunting sign up with payu2blog.com and win something nice for yourself or a special woman in your life!
It was quite entertaining seeing Kristy Lee Cook barely survive American Idol almost each week for the past couple months. She seemed like the least emotional girl to leave yet and was able to give a good ‘exit’ performance. One reason for that may be that is looking forward to grabbing the saddles again and riding horses.
Another thing that Kristy has to look forward to is getting married - yes she is engaged! Her boyfriend proposed to her on the American Idol stage as she was finishing her exit performance. The two have been planning an engagement for awhile and she wanted him to propose on the show.
I think it is great that she is putting some of the money she earned being on American Idol towards creating a non-profit organization for kids and horses.
26 years ago today my parents were married in Calgary, Alberta. They now have a family of 5 children and 2 grandchildren. I wonder if I will have any grandchildren after I have been married for 26 years, it could also be possible for me to have a couple grandchildren on my 26th wedding anniversary as Sariah will be 24 and Rebekah will be 23. I just can’t imagine them being my age but for some reason I can imagine myself being my parent’s age.
Here is a picture of the family (my parents, siblings, me, husband and my 2 children):
