We're back!

Hi blog readers! We are back from Thailand - we actually came home about 10 days early due to some circumstances. I have posted pictures on my "Facebook" - it's way faster to put them on there. I hope you are doing well and enjoying this beautiful weather!!!

Better late than never?

Well, I do admit, I have been an extremely bad blogger...since this new "facebook" thing came along - I have neglected to blog - but I have realized I was mislead and I will start blogging again :) OK, so where did I leave off...

Summary of the last few months:
1) Quit my job - i am now a stay at home...wife? It has been fantastic! I can cook, bake, go for runs, go for lunch with my family & friends! It's a wonderful life!
2) Dan & I went to Kelowna for a marriage conference. It was great! It was a beautiful weekend in Kelowna - took in some sights & some sun!
3) Went to Canim lake for Easter. We ice fished while it was 20 degrees! That's a first!

I think that does it for the main events. Dan and I are heading to Thailand on Tuesday - so we will keep you all posted from time to time on here. Take care!



Cass, Janae, Rachel & I having fun with my Mac.

Almost Spring!

Well, we're still here! Life's been a little crazy lately...sorry about the lack of postings! SOON, i will have lots of time to update my blog :) Yay! I quit my job! It is my official last day of work on March 29, 2007. My doctor advised me that my job was making my back condition worse. I am starting a 6 week physio therapy program in April to hopefully help avoid surgery. I am really looking forward to this time off work to fix my body and to get some of the things done that have just never gotten done. After the physio i am hoping to stay off work forever :) I am planning on starting a business...so we'll see if that works out!

Cass & I just got back from a week in Phoenix visitng Erin. We had an awesome time! We drove a total of 55 hours in 9 days...that was alot of driving. I bought my new car there! Check out my new ride below :) It's a 2005 Scion XB. It has the TRD Package so it has a SUPER LOUD exhaust (we bought ear plugs half way through the trip :) ), wheels, rims, Sport Seats, Custom Front Grill, Xenon Headlights, sweet neon lights inside (hahaha), and a DVD System with Wireless Headphones. It's a pretty pimped out ride. I had to take the front window tinting off and take out the Xenon Lighs to pass inspection to make this car legal in Canada...so i passed on Wednesday and today i got the tint put back on (but a lighter shade), and i put he Xenon's back in. It's pretty fun...and funny...i laughed for the first 3 hours! I'm sure you'll see me around town sooner or later...it's the only one like it. Toyota doesn't sell Scion's in Canada...so you can only buy them from the states or from someone who imports them. Intresting eh.



So yah, Pheonix was awesome! Erin & Ryan live in a beautiful house in a beautiful city! It was an average of 80 degrees there and we were loving it! Erin took us to all the great malls and outlets...and i bought Guitar Hero! Best game EVER! They took us to some fantastic restaurants!!! The Mexican was AWESOME...and PF Changs was a close second. Erin & Ryan are amazingly generous people and blessed with the ability to make people feels right at home and so loved! You guys are amazing! We went to Vegas on the way back...it was definatly an adventure! We gambled in the Bilgio and browsed through the stores in Ceasars Palace. Crazy city! Fun times!

I think that's it...i don't remeber if i posted a pic of Dan's new truck...and i don't feel like checking back, so here it is again. It's a 2007 Ford F-150. Black is my favourite!



Here's one last pic for you of Cass, Erin and I in Vegas. Disregard the picture in the backround...i guess the lady that was taking the picture for us thot we really wanted to remember what Vegas is all about...dirty city!



Enjoy your weekend!

pictures

This is the last picture of our Nissan...we sold it on Friday. Good bye Xterra, besides the back door you were a great SUV. I'll post pictures of our new vehicles in the next few days...hehehehehe :) :) :) :) :)



Our front door :)



Our house in the night time. I'll take pictures in the day and of the inside soon!!!!! :s

I hope you all had a great weekend!!! Take care!

and one month later...

So, yah, it's been a really long time. Well we've been kinda busy these last few weeks! Here's a run down on the last month or so. I think it was the 2nd week in January that we got an offer on our house. We accepted the offer (it was perfect!), and 2 WEEKS later we MOVED OUT. THe packing and moving wasn't my biggest stress...but finding a house to buy was!!! 2 weeks didn't give us alot of browsing time. ANYWAYS, God is faithful, a led us to a gorgeous house in Abbotsford! It is a brand new house in Sandy Hill Estates. We purchased it with my sister Cass and her husband Joel. It's a beautiful 3600 sq. ft. house with perfect finishings and even a 3 car garage! We were once again blown away by God's faithfulness to us by providing this house in only 1 short week (1 week of packing and 1 week of looking for a new house!). Dan and I moved into the upstairs on Feb 2nd and we are all currently finsihing the basement for Cass and Joel! It is another fun adventure! So I FINALLY got my new computer and all the fixin's. I bought the whole set up for a video and recording studio, so i've been spending entirly WAY too much time in my office and way too little time unpacking our house :s OH well, fun times! In fact, they are all working, and i'm in here updating this blog ;) OK, ok now i feel bad so i'll go back and help. I hope you are all doing SO GREAT! Love ya!

Don't be scared - it's just Dan and I

The last chapter of 2006

Happy New Year! Sorry for the lack of communication! I always update my blog on my lunch break, but i haven't had a chance lately because i've been trying to get my GST rebate for our house finished. It takes a long time...and i'm STILL not done. W/E! I'm taking a break and i'll tell you about our holidays. :)

We spend the 16th of Decemeber weekend up in Enderby for our Born family gathering. It was so much fun! But lots of driving on really bad roads. It took us 8 hours to get up there on Friday night! Anyways, it was a great time!

Here's a pic of the steep sledding hill at the camp in Enderby.

My cousin Jamie on the pretty trail :) (she's taken) ;)

On Dec 21nd Dan and I had a little Christmas Party. I had TONS of fun cooking and making everything look pretty. It was a great time! I love pic's of food :)

On Dec 22rd we had our Falk Family Christmas! Below are my Mom & Dad and their grandchildren :) We had Goose and Ham...it was delicious! I love Goose!

Here we are probably ending our Gift Exchange Game. NOTE: The girl on the left of the picture sitting on the piano bench is my cousin Jared's FIANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are SO excited for them! Shanna is so perfect for him! They are planning a late June wedding! :)

Christmas morning (Dec 23rd) at our house! :) One of the presents I bought dan was new racing gear, he loved it! :) We had so much fun opening presents on Christmas morning! He definatly spoiled me this year!!! Dan's making my breakfast while watching a movie on our new portable DVD player (for our many travels!)Ahh, Dec 25th! Christmas! We went up to the cabin this year with my family! It was SO much fun! We spent lots of time Snowmobiling, playing games, eating WAY too much food and sleding behind the ATV's. What a blessing to have a white Christmas! Below: Christmas dinner Janae and Rachel in their FVDG hoodies :)

Dan and Colleen snowmobiling - it was only like -5ish, so that was nice! Sometimes it gets to like -30 up there!

Hockey on the ice rink. We didn't feel like getting the skates out, so we played in our snow boots.

Rachel makinga snow angle - what a cutie!!!

As well as all this fun stuff...we had a wonderful Christmas with Dan's family on the 24th! They came to our house for brunch, and then we went to a gathering, to church and then opened presents and had appys. It was so much fun! At around 7:00 pm we headed out and made the trek to the cabin. Boy was that an adventure. The roads were closed because of avalanches, but we snuck through anyways and drove through avalanches that were covering the whole road. It was fun...at times...and kinda scary at others. But the important thing is, we did make it, we didn't die, and we shopuld proabbly just stay in the motel next time :)

Anways, hope all your holidays were as exciting and filled with lots of love, smiles, and great firends and family! You are all dear to our heart! Sorry about the spelling mistakes.

Love you all!

10 More Sleeps!...

...until Christmas! Ah, Christmas. It is such a wonderful time of year...but as we get older, it seems to get busier and busier! May the Reason for the Season bring peace to us all as we quickly approach Jesus Birthday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sugar Cookies

Happy Friday! I am very excited that it is Friday...even tho I will be working all weekend at my house...oh well. So last night Jaci came over and we baked and decorated sugar cookies! It was very much fun! As you can see below we made some dirtbike shaped sugar cookies for Dan and Matt (Matt is Jaci's BF) Unfortunatly, this is where the picture taking stopped and I didn't take any pictures of the finished products! Whoops...i'm still getting used to this whole picture happy idea. Anyways, good times, good laughs, good cookies :)


I decided to post a picture of my kitchen...I love my kitchen. The backsplash is getting done early next week, so I'll post another one when it is done. I am really enjoying my appliances and my 2 inch higher counter tops...and especially my granite...it's my dream kitchen!

And now for the newest news of the Duecks. We are selling our house. You can check it out at http://mlslink.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=237594338&s=BRC&t=BRC . We have had some new opporunities come up and we are seriously considering doing something new for a while. I'll let you all in on the secrecy of that sentence in the next few weeks. Anyways, we've already had a few showings and it only hit the MLS yesterday...so that's kinda crazy! We are excited for what comes next!

Other than that...not much new. Dan & I are enjoying Christmas festivities in our new house and are really just enjoying life! It's lots of fun! I hope you are all doing well...i really enjoying reading all your blogs and keeping up on your lives! Hopefully soon I'll have something fun and exciting to post :) Love you all!

More happy days...

Hi! Well we are well into December and the snow has actually stayed around for more than 1 day...both are quite shocking actually. I am very excited for Christmas! We got our Christmas tree yesterday! It's 12 feet tall :) ... and no, we didn't have to chop a hole in our roof, our ceilings are 20 feet tall in the living room :) I still have to go buy more decorations (since i only have enough for a 7 ft tree...so once i do i'll post a picture. We went to the Christmas Tree farm with most of my family...it was so much fun! Below is a picture of Uncle Dan with his 2 neices...they are too cute! They love throwing snowballs at Uncle Dan or wispering in my ear to throw a snowball at Uncle Den so he will come tackle me. They are so sneaky! SO much fun!
We have been pretty busy lately. Hunting season is finally over (i didn't mind it the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th trip...but by the 5th and 6th trip...i miss my husband! But it's good! It's lots of good quality manly bonding time (in -30 weather...doesn't sound very fun to me...but w/e). He shot a nice 4 point...so we have meat for another year. While Dan was hunting I got most of my Christmas shopping done, and some much needed catching up with friends.

Last night we went to Dan's parents for dinner and took some family pictures.


Well, other than that...we decided we weren't busy enough so we're going to build a garage :s Sometimes I wonder about our lives...we're crazy. But here is some other news...we are selling our house! It should be hitting the MLS by Thursday! We decided we aren't quite ready to settle down and start and little hobby farm...we want to do some travelling and and some other investing with our money. So yah...our house, built with our blood sweat and tears (lots of tears and sweat...not so much blood thankfully)...will become a memory. Oh my, i have to stop writing about that now...it makes me want to cry. I do have one guarantee...when we sell, i will cry for weeks...and i won't be able to drive past it for atleast 2 years. I'm so emotional that way!

ANYWAYS...happy thots...ummmmmm...Christmas Tree. Yah. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your work Christmas parties and the packed out shopping malls...and worse probably the parking lots! Love ya!

Oh Happy Day!

Well, our house made it through it's first real storm! There were many points in the day yesterday when i would be watching our the window large objects flying across the field while the window would be flexing in front of my face against the intense wind. It gets horribly windy where I live because we live at the end of a huge empty field. I would have to say that I am actually suprised that I made it through yesterday with limited cuts and bruises. The addition that we built last fall onto our trailer is no longer standing...it blew off it's legs...so it's kinda standing...but warped and crooked. The wind was ripping the shingles off the roof of the addition and hurling them at 200 miles an hour at our house and across the field. The shingles would actually cut into the wood siding on our house...it was terrible! Whenever one would hit, it would sound like someone threw a huge rock at our house! I was running around outside trying to anchor things down so they wouldn't blow away while always keeping my eye out for flying shingles and debrie that could possible cause serious harm! Anyways, we had a wonderful evening in the candle and fire light. Joe and Sheila and baby Caleb joined us for dinner (i cooked a roast on the stove top...ahhh, the joys of Gas). This first pic is a current picture of the state of our house. Tonight I'm going to paint the door black...and then other than some clean up and some serious landscaping...we're pretty much done.

OK, now for some nicer less stressful stories. Dan went hunting this weekend...so i spent the weekend shopping and with my girl friends...i missed Dan, but it was a fun weekend! Sunday night Cass, Ange & Jaci came over for appy's and a chocolate fondue...good times with the pinapple hat. :) (good one Ange!)

My man is an amazing breakfast maker! He always makes me breakfast on Saturday mornings...he can cook an egg perfectly! Last weekend he made me eggs, bacon and french toast, it was DEElicious!
The next 2 pics are from a few Saturdays ago...a bunch of family came over and helped us get started on our rock wall...it was so much fun...but SUPER rainy and muddy! Good times! I think I already wrote about this.

Well, i think that's about it that has been going on. Dan and I are heading up to our cabin this weekend...if anyone wants to come, you're welcome to join us! We are leaving tommorow at 4:30 PM. Hopefully we will have snow! Sorry about the randomess of my blogging...next week i'm FINALLY getting a iMac computer at home, so i will be more consistet and organized...maybe...we'll see.

A NOTE TO MY BLOG STALKERS:

I give anyone who wants to read my blog permission to read it. So don't feel bad about it! I'm not too certain how safe this blogging thing really is...but whatevs! Please do not participate in my blog if you fall under any of the following categories:

1. You have a serious criminal record

2. You hate me

3. You're freaky deeky crazy

4. You leave JUNK MAIL COMMENTS!

Like what's with the junk mail comment I got! That's so lame! Don't people have anything better to do with there time!? Get a real JOB!

Anyways, catch ya on the flip! - rand

New Camera

HEY! We FINALLY got a new camera! It's a Canon SD600 Digiatal Elph - I give it a 5 out of 5! You can check it out at http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10072350&catid=22534.

Erin and Ryan are coming out this weekend! I can't wait! It'll be a bit of a change in weather for them from Pheonix to here...remeber your jackets! hahaha

Dan is going hunting this weekend from Thursday until Monday. Below is a pic of him in his new hunting jacket attempting to make a scarry hunter face. He'll probably come home with a big deer so we'll have our freezer stocked up for another year.

Last Thursday Dan rode in an Arena Cross practice. It was his first time on a track in 3 years. He had lots of fun! (He's the one in the middle). Now that he has a 450 he is going to wait until the outdoor races because his bike it too big and powerful for the small indoor tracks. I believe that this is going to become a permanent part of our lives! It should be fun! I told Dan tho that I need a camper so I can make myself some tea and relax instead of standing outside in the freezing cold for hours waiting for his turn to ride. (Thursday night was SO cold. I broke out all the snow gear. I'm not a fan of being cold)

THAILAND NEWS: Dan and I have decided to postpone our trip until later. Dan has the opportunity to do to school in March...so we have decided that it will be best for my to stay at my job until school is finished (June). That's the latest on our plans...but who knows, it could change. So MAYBE it will work for CERTAIN people to JOIN us hint hint wink wink haha.

Saturday we did a bunch of landscaping in the crazy pouring rain. Lots of our family came out to help...we were SO thankful! We all got nice and muddy and soaked...fun times! We still have lots of hours yet to go...great! I have pictures...i'll post them sometime :) We are building rock walls and putting rocks and landscape times everywhere...i quite like it actually.

OK back to work - take care!

More Pictures! Sweet!

This was our house last week...this week the shakes will get put up in the gables and the beam that is orage we are going to wrap with ceadar...the landscaping is slowing coming along. On right side of the house is our parking area...so we will be putting in a long rock wall along the whole side...too much work! But it should look good!

Check out the sweet helmet...it's my favourite part of the whole riding 'gear' (i got in trouble for calling it an 'out fit'. Hahaha

Ow ow, hot stuff!

So this is Dan's new baby! He is LOVING having a bike again. It's great! When something has been such a big part of someones life for so long it becomes a part of you! All you basketball players know that. It's good!

Have a great week!

Pictures

This is my family at my Grandpa's 70th Birthday Party! We fixed up his old tractor for him...he was SO excited! It was so fun!

May 2006 - our family went up to the cabin and built a cabana. It was so much fun with all the family there!...but LOTS of work :)

This is the finished result. I sanded and painted that whole door...it was too much work! Isn't it so cute tho!!! There is a little loft with 2 beds and one bed and a living area on the main floor. We are planning on making lots of trips up there this year...so hopefully you guys can come!

Dan & I & Buddy in the canoe and the cabin.

OK, have a great weekend!

TOP STORY!

CASSI & JOEL PHELPS are having a BABY!!!!!

They are due in June 2007 and are SO excited! If any of you know Cass & Joel, they LOVE kids and have dreamed of the day they would have her own...and now their dream is coming true!

Please pray for health and safety for Cass for the duration! Cass, my little Sister, you're going to be a Mom! We are SOOOO happy for you guys! Love you!!!

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some little baby Puma shoes - Cass LOVES little baby shoes! Puma is Joel's favourite brand - your baby is definatly going to have sweet shoes.

Dirt Bikes and Boys

Hey! I figured it was time for an update...i do not have any pictures to post SORRY, but i got alot of words and nonsense. SO, Dan bought a Dirt Bike! It's a 2006 YZ450F. He is SOOOO excited! I'm sure i'll have lots of pictures to post of him riding his bike since I'm sure it will be a very big part of our lives. Many of you probably don't know that Dan actually was a Pro Motocross Racer 3 years ago. He dislocated his shoulder and had to have surgery and got married...so he had to quit for a while. But now he's healed (and has recovered from the empty pockets after the wedding) and has been dying to get a bike for quite awhile...so Friday was the day. We already spent quite a bit of time at the track this weekend...it's been fun!

We went to AJ and Holly Williams wedding on the weekend...it was a very nice wedding! AJ & Holly are Dan's good friends from High School...so it was fun for him to catch up with all this friends. The food was SO good...lots of Seafood! Other than dirt biking and the wedding we WORKED ALL WEEKEND on our landscaping...i don't think the work never ends. AND we have a list 35 items long of things we need to get done this month. And these items are little...one of them is "Build a Shed", another one is "Plant Grass" (on about 1 acre)...oh boy. BUT one of these days we'll get to Thailand and spend 6 weeks on the beach :) I can't wait.

Tommorow we're going to a Cheifs game & other than that we're landscaping and building sheds and trying to check off as many of our 35 items as possible.

Take care! I'll try and write again soon and post pictures. Bye

Working

Well, since i spend 2080 hours of my life at work...i thot i'd share a few pictures of work.

This afternoon I had a 1 day old visitor...him and 19 other brothers and sisters were going to make the 8 hour journey to their new home...so cute :) This one had a better future than most of our ducks... :s

Fun times at the office...I do work...sometimes. Are my glasses always crooked like that? I should look into that.

Bonus Shot: I actually DO wakeboard :) This is probably after I landed a 360 or something...hahaha, JK! I didn't do any faceplants tho this year...maybe next year we'll have a boat that produces more than a 10 inch wake :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!