Belize/Guatemala vacation!

Here's a look at my pictures from Belize and Guatemala. A blog with explanation will come in the next few days!

2012 in review!!!

It has definitely been wayyyy too long since my last blog, but this is going to be a bit of a catch-up. I'm currently still working at Portage College in Lac La Biche, I've been here since October of 2011. LLB (as I call it) is....interesting, but small. I've been lucky to meet a great crowd of friends. A group of people I truly call my close friends. I'm going to do a bit of a drive-by of 2012, but in reality it was one of the busiest years of my life (work and personally). I started off January of 2012 with some great friends playing farm-opoly all night. And by all night, I mean until like 7AM and which point i passed out. Over Christmas of 2011 and into January I was the project coordinator on one of the biggest projects I had worked on to-date. The custom airbrushing of our Heavy Equipment simulator mobile trailer. It turned out to be one of the most amazing artistic displays that I can add to my resume as the lead coordinator, and that is great! The beginning of 2012 saw me getting into the stride of things with my new position at the college. By April I was beginning what would be one of the craziest years of travel I have ever been on. In March I took my first extended vacation, in which i went with Brianna, a former roommate from SAIT, to Puerto Vallarta for a week. We had a blast. (I will be posting photos from that in the near future as well)!! A few days after I returned from that trip I also went to the Lady Antebellum concert with a few of my girlfriend's at Rexall Place in Edmonton. In March, we also celebrated National Water Week, as some of the most recent programming at Portage College is the water resources courses. We put on seven events throughout the week; the same number of events the City of Guelph also put on! That week also kicked off with the ribbon cutting of Portage College's Water Resources Training Centre. (If you want to check out more of what my department does go to www.portagecollege.ca and click on the Continuing Ed. button). At the end of March our college put on their annual Sports n. Ed dinner, where Grant Fuhr was the guest speaker. It is an event which takes place to raise money for our college's athletic scholarships. It was a ridiculously fun evening. In April I went to a number of trade shows to promote the college's Heavy Equipment Operator (HEO) program, and also took off to Washington, DC to get some updated website training with our college's website provider Ingeniux. April/May (I can't remember :S) I spend a number of days in Edmonton promoting some of our College's programming a the Provincial/National Trade Skills competition, where students from all over Canada participate/compete against each other in a vast array of trade skills. In mid May, I took a trip to Thunder Bay over a long weekend, where I visited Amber, my bff in Thunder Bay. We caught up as it had been a while since we saw each other (almost a year). We also took a day trip to the states to do some shopping :) Also in May, myself and a number of other colleagues went to Halifax, Nova Scotia to attend the ACCC World Congress - Lindsay, a colleague in my department and myself were speakers at this conference where we spoke on some of the most recent initiatives the college had been working on. In June, one of my great friends, Stephanie graduated from Portage College. It was great to see her walk across the stage (and all of the other graduates) and know that I am part of those people starting their future. June I spent a number of weeks on the road for work, taking part in one of the largest trade shows - the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary. It was huge! In June, I also attended a good friends wedding in Boyle, Alberta. He is a colleague from here at the college, and one of the closest friends. It was fantastic to see him marry Susan, who is also a wonderful person. In July me and a few friends took a road trip to Calgary where we took in the sites and sounds of the 100th Anniversary of the Calgary Stampede. It was the kickoff to one of the greatest summers I have had. Through out July and August I also went camping to Revelstoke (with my great friends from Myrnam), took in an Edmonton Eskimos football game and went to the horse races a number of times. In August my brother and I took a road trip, a rather long one to be honest, to visit mom in Kitimat, BC. We were doing this for a number of reasons 1.) Some much needed one on one bro and sis time 2.) We hadn't seen mom in a while. 3.) We wanted to see the rainforest of northern BC. and 4.) To see just how long of a drive it really was. It was 18 hours. Near the end of August, early September, my local friends from LLB and I went camping. This was another fantastic memory to one of the most enjoyable years in a really long time. September I also took off for work to Davenport, Iowa, the John Deere headquarters, where my boss and I got to take in the sites and sounds of the John Deere facilities. We got some updated information on the John Deere simulators that we have at the college, and also got to see the John Deere manufacturing facility in full swing. That facility was gigantic! When I returned from Iowa, I also managed to get some more Eskimos tickets, so a friend and I took off to that! September also saw me promoting the college at Oil Sands Trade Show in Ft. McMurray and a Pipeline Expo in Calgary. That wrapped up the most insane month of travelling (in September I was gone for three of the four weeks), but for the remainder of 2012 I also took in additional promotional events throughout the stewardship region (including trade shows, and radio spots). For Halloween I dressed up in some crazy neon athletic wear and everyone in the office got a kick out of my ridiculousness (which isn't out of the ordinary). The end of 2012 also saw me take part in the Star Wars: Identity "thing" that was going on in Edmonton, as well as the Metric concert. At the end of October I was introduced to a special someone and we are still together <3 November was a touch month on my body (for some reason). It wrapped up my first season back playing volleyball and also saw me on the last game of the season twist my thumb so far back that my entire thumb became bruised. My thumb is still so weak that I have an awfully hard time even opening a jar or a door sometimes. Oops. December I wrapped up some of my projects and at the beginning of the Christmas break, mom drove out to Alberta, to see me, and the rest of the family, knowing that I was leaving for Belize December 25th. It was great to see her!! December 25th, myself and Lindsay, a colleague from work, flew to Belize. An entire post will be dedicated to that trip. Hope this gives you a bit of an idea of what I've been up to! I will add in photo albums to the post (and future posts) once they are uploaded. They're taking there sweet time! Bye for now <3

Life

This is an apology post. It has been an incredibly long time since I've blogged. but I promise I'm going to get back into it. I have many adventures to tell you too, including my 2012 year - the most travelling I've ever done. 2013 also started off with a bang, celebrating the New Year on Tabacco Caye, just off the coast of Belize. Stay tuned over the coming days/weeks for numerous posts. There is going to be lots!!!! <3