My love affair with the Coen Brothers

I like good films. Perhaps you knew thsi about me. Or perhaps you just know that I enjoy "wierd movies" like my mom says. At any rate, I must say that I adore the Coen Brothers. Why do i adore them? Because they are terribly creative, cinematrographical (is that a word?) geniuses, and make movies that are just plain wacky and wonderful at the same time. Of course you are probably hearing about the Coen's recently, as their film No Country for Old Men is receiving all sorts of Oscar buzz.

This past weekend I finally got a chance to see No Country. It was good. And definitely wierd in a way that is only Coen-esque. But it wasn't my favorite Coen film. So allow me to take you on a little journey through some of the oldies but goodies!!

It all began back in the mid '80s with Raising Arizona and Blood Simple

Perhaps you hadn't even heard of those films. I do recommend them, however! So let's go to something a little more mainstream. Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother Where Art Thou - i'm sure you've heard of at least one of these films!!!

And now to my FAVORITE Coen films, which also happen to be 2 of my favorite films EVER: Fargo and Barton Fink. I'm sure most people have heard of Fargo, and I know not a lot of people like this film, but I still love it, man the one-liners in this film are sweet.

Anyway, this was my little tribute to the Coen's. Don't worry, I'll be back with a "real post" about my life soon....it's just that I forgot my camera at work, and I had taken a bunch of pictures of our fresh snowfall, so those will come later this week!!!!! In the mean time, perhaps I've given you some ideas for some good movie watching this weekend??!!!!!

Laura and Pamela's Weekend of Fun!

Ok so the title of this blog is a reference to a Friends episode where they say "Joey and Janice's Day Of Fun!". This should actually be called "Laura and Pam and Steph and Mike and Jen and many others weekend of fun".

It all started Friday night when Pam and I went to see the movie "Juno" - fabulous, LOVED it!! We hung out at Starbucks and then decided to do a little late night grocery shopping.
Saturday afternoon, Pammer and I again fueled up with some Starbucks, and then headed into Vancouver for a little downtown shopping before going to Mike and Jen's for a dinner party!!

This next pic is a little preemptive, as it's more representative of the end of the evening - but before you freak out, allow me to explain. Mike and Jen are "extreme hosts" and are all about etiquette, which is quite fun, because lets be honest, until you're married and get most of these as wedding gifts, I think the chance of pulling off the following is quite rare: When visiting Mike and Jen, you need a different glass for each type of drink you consume. So below, you will see a representation of all glassware used throughout our evening - and let me preface this by saying that NO one person used all these glasses!!!! We had red wine glasses, white wine glasses, dessert wine glasses, beer glasses, scotch glasses, martini glasses and I know i've missed one but you get the point! Anyway, it makes you feel a little bit like royalty, with all these special glasses!!

A few pics from our evening
Our lovely hosts
Apple Martini's are served!!
Pam, Steph and I spent the night at Mike and Jen's, mostly because we knew that the BEST croissants in the world were going to be for breakfast the next morning

Mike persuaded me out of bed in the morning with the aroma of a freshly made americano...how how can anyone stay in bed with that right by your nose??!!!!
After breakfast, because it was such a beautifully sunny day, Pam, Steph and I headed down to the beach. It was a bit chilly but sun is a rare thing during a BC winter, so we took advantage of the rays! Here are a few pics from our beach stroll.

It was pretty great!! So there you go -- lots of pictures for you to enjoy!!!

Christmas recap

Ok so i promised a Christmas post once I got some pics emailed to me from my mom, so here we go. These pics aren't really in any particular order but rather just give a general overview of a few things that happened over the holidays.

The first thing that was different for us this year was that there were 5 of us for christmas, not just 4. My brother just got engaged in November, so his fiance Karen came to spend Christmas with us. Therefore part of our week was spend discussing wedding details and shopping for bridesmaid dresses. I would post a pic of my dress, but i'm not sure if I'm allowed! If you're in the Abbotsford area, come on over and I'll show you my dress...it's hanging up in my closet...lol

anyway, here we are playing a rousing game of Mexican Train, which is a domino-type game that's super fun. I gave this game to my parents for Christmas and if you've never played it, you should really try it out. We fit games of this in between games of Settlers of Catan!
Ok this pic was from right at the end of my week at home, this is when we went out for Thai food for my birthday. Me and my momma giving a Cheers!
And here's me with my parentals

These are all our stockings lined up Christmas morning...the kids get the sweet end of the deal, ours are the blue ones in the middle and my parents have the red ones on the end...you can see that ours are WAYYYYY bigger...lol!!! Hey don't blame me, my mom sewed them, so it's her fault!!

Here I am with 2 of my gifts, the new Harry Potter movie and my sweet sleek earmuffs that aren't really earmuffs, just more like ear protectors that are more stylish than the old school crazy colourful fuzzy earmuffs...lol remember those??!!
Family photo
And the classic photo that we take every year...."behind the tree"
And here we are giving a toast to David and Karen
There you go, a brief run down of my week. Between big meals, games and dress shopping, I also managed to squeeze in a 24-hour flu that gave me some time to catch up on my sleep. Because I got sick, I didn't get to do everything I wanted (like cross country skiing, or ice skating, or playing in the snow...classic Winnipeg winter activities) but oh well, try again next year!

Anyway, there you go, hope you enjoyed!!

happy birthday to me!

Hey all - well a Christmas post will come sooon, I'm just waiting for my mom to email me some more pictures, as I didn't take all that many this year. So in the meantime, let me share with you another recent celebration...my birthday!!

this is my birthday piece of cheesecake, that helped culminate a great evening of good food and good friends.
Pam, Theresa, Chad and I all went out for supper at one of my favourite restaurants, Sammy J. Peppers. Of course we start off with the yummiest appy ever, blackjack strips, which are chicken strips with a lot of kick and they are awesome!! And then for dinner I ordered my new favorite dish, cajun chicken linguini. It's amazing for 2 reasons: first, it's just delish, and second it's a giant portion so I get it for lunch the next day too!!

Here's me and Pammer at the restaurant
and here's Theresa and Chad -- they don't get out much
lol ok here's a better picture of them
After dinner I got the choice of a free birthday dessert or a free birthday shot. Since we had already decided to go pick up pieces of cake and cheesecake from Afterthoughts Restaurant (best cheesecake ever, and where I used to be a baker!!) i opted for the free shot. The waitress asked if she could pick it for me, so i said sure. She came back with basically a giant martini glass of whip cream, with a shot hiding within...mmm...whipping cream....

mmm....shot....I'm not exactly sure what the shot even was, I think it might have been something along the Bailey lines, but all the whip cream was slightly distracting! Anyway it was really good.
After dinner, like I mentioned, we picked up cake and cheesecake. Then we went pack to Theresa and Chad's to play with their family's new Christmas gift....Nintendo Wii!!!!!!!! Figured it was time to burn off a few dinner calories...lol. I'm sure most of you know what the Wii is, they're everywhere now, hottest Christmas gift ever. But the rundown is that you hold the controler in your hand and it senses your movements, so you play interactively with the tv. So like if you were playing golf, you would swing your imaginary "air club" just like if you were on a real golf course, and then based on the force, speed and direction you exert, the ball on the screen would react accordingly. it's pretty cool

We began with a fun game. Here's Chad in action. We played this game where you have to shake the hand devices whenever the bunnies land on a certain spot, so you can really get your groove on if you get into it, and getting the timing down can be hard!

Allie did not like the fact that the TV was getting all our attention and not her

See, i was really getting into the game. wooooo rock on bunnies!After taking on the bunny game, we switched over to a rousing game of bowling, so like i described above, you hold the controler like you were holding a bowling ball, and do the same hand/body motions like you were really at a bowling alley. You can put spin on the ball and everything. Sorry i don't have a pic of the bowling...next time i'll have to get one!

And that was my birthday!! it was lots of fun (despite being sick with a cough/cold...booo...being sick on your birthday is not enjoyable) and here's to the last year of my 20s being GREAT!!!