It is really exciting this is the 2nd anniversary of my blog. I look forward to keep doing it. It helps people understand that I can do things just like everyone else. I’m going to start this year doing more education stuff so hopefully you will sign up to receive my blog so you don’t miss anything.

On New Years Eve Day I colored my hair red. What do you think?! It was really neat to see the color before and after.

 

My roommate Theresa and I did face masks in our housecoats and watched Netflix.

For Christmas my Mom got me a really cool make your own bath bombs set. So we did it when I went there on the weekend. It was really easy for me to do. They turned out great. I can’t wait to try them.

We are planning my School Presentation’s for the upcoming months. We sent out emails and already have 15 classes that want to see me! I can’t believe how many schools I will get to this year! I am so happy.

In November I started working at the Camrose library. I can get inside the library with the ramp In front. There is also an elevator inside so I have access to go up and down. When I sign in, it is behind the desk for volunteer. Then I go downstairs and clean dvds. I have to look at the dvds and cds and see if they are dusty or not. If they are dusty I have to clean them till they sparkle! I use a cleaner, the cd goes in the top and I have to roll the cleaner on it. After 15 cd’s it beeps, that means you have to clean the machine. It’s a round circle and you have to turn it back on until you don’t hear the beep any longer.

On Christmas eve I went to Lloydminister with mom and dad. We went to my Grandma Sharons place. She lives in a village with a hall. Its all wheel chair accessible which is very nice! We had turkey dinner with the fixings! My mom and I made a mint cheese cake. It was amazing!

After eating all the food we took family pictures and played some games. We played charades and UNO. Uncle Wayne, Aunt Gail and cousins Ian, Eric and Eric’s girlfriend Amber.

After the games we went to my great grandma Jose. I never met her before. It was so sweet.  She’s 88 years young!

We went to great uncle Pauls and his wife. But dad to had to carry me up the stairs in there house. We went back home Christmas eve and had appetizers. We so were so busy!

On Christmas morning we had breakfast and opened gifts. I got homemade bath bombs , new clothes, markers, highlighters, find word book and I’m going to CARRIE UNDERWOOD!!!!! My brother bought me the Bret Young cd, he’s my favorite singer. After we opened gifts, we decorated gingerbread houses. Christmas day evening we watched Mr.Scrooge.

On boxing day I decorated sugar cookies at moms with my brother Luke.

On New Years day, my brother Joel and his girlfriend Ashley were at mom and dads house. We opened gifts again, decorated more ginger bread houses, took family pictures and played games. My mom made turkey and all the fixings. My mom made another cheese cake! It was cherry cheese cake this time!. It was the best Christmas I ever had!!!

 

On December 15, I attended the Rose Club Christmas party at the Norseman Inn. All my friends were there. Our Committee sang the 12 Days of Christmas accompanied by a slideshow of the members throughout the year. We also played Family Feud on a big screen TV which was fun.  After supper, I had strawberry whipped cream pudding for dessert. We also had a gift exchange and I got turtle chocolates. Every year we have a dance and this year we danced the night away!!!

On December 17, Rose Club went to Bethany care home to sing Christmas carols to brighten up their holiday season. I sang the loudest, as I have the best voice lol!!

On December 19th, I attended the Centra Cam Christmas party. In the morning we had a WII bowling tournament and played “Pin the beard on the Santa”.

In the afternoon, we had another gift exchange and I received a fuzzy blanket with pom poms. We sang Christmas carols again together and ate a turkey dinner with pudding.

 

 

I started reading chapter books every night before bed this month. This time I started a  new series called the “Dork Diaries”. I like reading outload and listening to myself.

On Wednesday night, I went shopping for the Christmas party at my home. Each year we do a Christmas gift exchange with my roommates and I’m all ready! We went shopping for the groceries to bake a New York cheesecake from Anna Olsen.

I can’t wait for the new year to start as my old staff will be back helping me write my blog weekly (so stay tuned) and completing my school presentations! I hope you all have a super, fun Christmas and very Happy New Year.

This Christmas will be different. My brother Joel is going to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan with his girlfriend Ashley. So, we are celebrating Christmas late this year as a family on December 30, 2018. Both my brothers will be there with their girlfriends, my mom, dad and me. My mom will still make a turkey with all the fixings that day. But I wait and fill up on dessert!

On Christmas Eve we will be at my grandma’s in Lloydminster. I will see my aunty, uncle and cousins that I haven’t see in awhile. My favorite part of Christmas is being with family of course. But my second favorite part of Christmas is seeing people’s faces when they open gifts. I also really love decorating the tree for Christmas.

The months leading up to Christmas are always so buys as we make homemade decorations at Centra Cam and at home.  Every year Centra Cam decorates a tree for the Festival of trees where everyone helps out with the homemade decorations. The festival of trees has tons of decorated tress to see when you walk in from many groups/organizations. They are all so different and its fun to try and figure out what group decorated it. The Festival of Trees also has lots of tables of things for sale and you can do some Christmas shopping while there.

The weekend of the festival of Tress was busy for me as I also went to a bowling tournament in Vegreville. We met a bus at McDonald’s before heading out. There was a banquet at the Vegreville senior citizens’ Sunshine club after the tournament with Christmas themed food, and I had a piece of pumpkin pie. While I was there, my Singables community choir performed on the stage at the Festival of Trees which I missed. However my roommate was there and got to sing on stage.

I am looking foreword to the holidays season and going to some Christmas parties at work, home, with my family  and with Rose Club.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

So, as you can tell I haven’t been writing for a while. But I’m back again doing my Blog!! It was the birthday bash at Rose Club. Rose Club is a group of people that plan events throughout the months. You get to pick the activities you want to do each month. So on September 15, we celebrated the all the September birthdays! Staff Derek brought his music so we could all dance!

Every October CAFCL has a Charity Auction to raise money to help fund the services they provide. You are invited to dress up and eat a beautiful meal prepared for you by the Camrose Casino this year. Every year has a different theme and this year’s theme was Super Heroes! Our tables were decorated with super hero socks and super hero pez dispensers to take home. There were so many people out donating to this good cause. My roommate and myself attended with my parents and sat together at a table. There were lots of speeches and auctioning off of prizes. I bid on some items, but I went home with nothing!! This is the first year I went home empty handed!

We picked up some Halloween crafts to decorate our house. We did some painting at our house and I carved a pumpkin with Nancy at Rose Club. I got to carve the pumpkin hand over hand and scoop out the guts! I like doing that every year. I decided to dress up as a nurse this year for Halloween. I got to attend two Halloween parties this year. The Rose Club had their party the weekend before Halloween and it was a fun dance party with a disco ball, which was very different. I have never been to  a party with a disco ball before.

 

 

Every Sunday I go home for a visit with my family. On this particular day, my parents taught me a new game. It’s called “King in the Corner”. I use a card holder for my cards that make it easier for me to play. There is a blue thing that holds some cards and you have to set it up with a black and red pattern of cards. You have red circles that go in the middle. The goal of the game is to make as many piles as possible starting with a king. This is a fun game and sometimes it takes me a bit to learn, but once I do it gets easier. This picture shows you who won!!!!!

 

At Centra Cam I have a learning board. Every month I make a different poster. This month I made a poster for Terry Fox because the Space and Science Center in Edmonton has a whole exhibit about Terry Fox’s’ life. So when we did my poster we went on the internet and we looked at  Terry Fox’s story. Terry had cancer and had to have his leg amputated when he was 18. He then ran across the country at 22, well almost, for the Marathon of Hope. He ran 3, 339 miles across 6 provinces. Terry Fox was important to me because he told us you can do anything, and that anything is possible even though you might not have the best mobility or be sick. I want to tell people that even though I have Cerebral Palsy I can do almost anything, it might be harder but I make it through  these everyday challenges.

 

We also did a poster on drugs last month. Centra Cam had a police officer come in and do a presentation on drugs and why they are bad for you. I knew this officer because he was my aide in highschools son in law. He also taught me D.A.R.E in grade 7 and 8. My poster had information about different types of drugs and why they are not good for you to take. It also taught that medicine has to come from your doctor or a pharmacist, so you can not take anyone elses, because it can make you more sick.

Every week on Thursdays at Centra Cam we do a drumming circle. This is held inside or outside depending on the weather. If it is inside we have a sensory room where we play. I really like drumming because it makes music and makes me happy. That is why I am so excited to join the SingAbles choir, because I love music and singing. I have a feeling it will be a great experience.

 

 

Saturday September 1st, we went to a friends birthday party at Centra Cam. It was the first really cold day, lots and lots of wind. The people hosting the birthday party couldn’t get the door unlocked, since Centra Cam is closed on weekends. We had to figure out the code so everyone had to wait in their cars, but other than this it was a pretty good party. At the party we played Monopoly, this set was pretty cool because it was in braille. There was a plastic part that set over the game, so Mellissa the birthday girl was able to read it, even the money was braille. Everything was braille so it was very neat. I cant imagine how hard it would be to be blind. You use your eyes for everything, I need to see to do everything. It amazes me how she is able to do everything still. Everyone had pizza, kinda like a pizza party, but I just saved my snack for cheesecake! I bought her an iTunes card for her gift because she has an iPhone and she really likes to buy apps so she was pretty happy.

On the 6th Craig played baseball with the Kodiaks. We went and supported him and watched the game. He is always good at sports.

Yesterday was the first snowfall of the season! It is way to early for snow, it is still technically summer! My roommate Teresa and I watched the “Muppets Christmas Carol” last night. While it was playing I made cookies with Becca. We made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for everyone in the house.  I cannot wait to see what next week bring.

 

Summer went super fast. It is already feeling like fall here in Camrose. Last Saturday was super busy. Everyone in our group home went to the Brewhouse, this was the first weekend that Becca was here as she was away for a really long time. She was taking some schooling. We had to put two tables together because there were lots of us. I got to have a dessert, I had a bumble cake, it was pretty good it had whipped cream with it, but I asked for ice cream instead. It is better that way.

 

After our Brewhouse lunch we went to Walmart. Me, Theresa and Kat bought coconut facemasks. Coconut is my favorite scent. All night we watched the High School musical movies. It was very crazy, because I have never watched three movies in one night before. So we had a girls night in, with our facemasks and our movie marathon.

I am so excited for this new school year because we will be doing more presentations and this is almost my fourth year of doing presentations. Because we don’t have a swimming pool anymore, a group of CAFCL is going to join SingAbles which is a choir. I did drama in school but this will be very different for us to do. This is a brand new program in Camrose and I am super excited to learn. And everyone is going to it!

 

 

This week I did something new! On Friday evening  Theresa, Levi and myself went to Safeway to get flowers for Marianne from everybody at CAFCL. There was a special party being held in honour of Marianne because she won a Gold and a Silver medal at the national Special Olympics in swimming! While we were there we had music playing and we danced on the deck. They had hot dogs and salads and fruit and the best of all chocolate cake and ice cream. The only problem with the party is that there were lots of wasps. I am so happy that I got to celebrate with Marianne and show her that she is my friend. I am so proud of her.

This is the pool in Antigonish NS where Marianne swam.

For my birthday I got a gift card to Studio nails, so I got to use it finally! I have never had gel nails before. This was a new experience for me. Nancy took me to go get them done and she told me about all the steps because she had done this lots. I went in knowing that I wanted lady bugs on my nails, but the lady doing my nails helped me decide on what other colours to do as well. We decided on green, with sparkles on the top that go down, then my ring finger on each hand is a lady bug! This was the first time that Nancy had taken me out of my chair, and put me in a real seat, because my legs kept hitting the table and it was very uncomfortable. She did a really good job. It took 2 hours to do my gel nails.

 

 

On Sunday Karli came over to visit with her baby Wren Charles. He is 7 months old already and I was excited that I got to hold him. It feels like he is growing up so fast but I am so excited to see Karli around again when she is off maternity leave.

Later on Sunday I went home to my parents. My parents had a wedding to go to this coming  Saturday so we had to go shopping for new clothes for my dad to wear and my mom needed new shoes for her dress that she was wearing. We went to Winners and I got a new lunch kit, it is a pink Nike one that has a Nike Symbol on the front of it and on the side it says “Just do It.’ Before going home that night we picked up ice caps and timbits from Tim Hortons. Then my mom and I went for a walk on the berm after supper, we just walked and talked for awhile before I had to go home.

Friday the 10th Centra Cam had a pool day in Wetaskiwin. The Wetaskiwin pool has 2 separate area, the first one has a waterslide, and a lazy river. This pool was pretty warm. My aid Kennedy and I danced in the water  it was really fun.

The other pool is a lane swimming pool, for people to practice swimming. So we got there at 11 and swam for an hour and we had lunch outside and then we went back in to the pool for another 2 hours. I went in the hot tub twice, because it had a ramp. It was my first time going into a hot tub since I hit my head in Camrose. Even though the pool in Camrose is closing for awhile, we are looking forward to a new pool  because it will be more accessible. They are planning on adding a new waterslide and lazy river, and best of all an accessible hot tub. So I will get to go in the hot tub after Special Olympics Swimming. The downside is that the Camrose Pool will be closed for a whole year.

Friday evening we had birthday bash with Rose Club. It was held outside on our driveway. Derek had music playing and we danced. There was also cake to celebrate everyone’s birthday in August.

Saturday afternoon I did my nails, I painted them pink with sparkles. This weekend I am going to Studio nails here in Camrose to get gel nails. This will be the first time I have ever gotten gel nails. I found a picture on Pinterest that is butterflies and flowers so I am going to get those done! I will keep you all posted with pictures next week!

On Tuesday evening I went to see Mama Mia, it was really funny, I went with Theresa and Craig, we all loved it. Tuesdays in Camrose movies are half price!

I am excited for this next week because tonight is Marianne’s celebration, she got a gold medal in the women’s Special Olympics Nationals in Antigonish NS! Tomorrow is Tara’s open house, she moved out of our house and into another Teams, so we get to celebrate with her. I was really sad when she moved out, she had almost been there for a whole year. Then on Sunday I am going to the new Costco in Leduc with my mom. So it will be a very busy and very fun weekend.