We got to visit with my dad and step mom Friday night on their way through Calgary.  It was quick, but my dad got to see his Grand daughter and we got to hear about their holiday and catch up.

Saturday I took Taylor to a friends, daughter’s 3rd birthday party. It was a blast. The Mother is very creative and crafty. She had a Monster themed party with face painting, an amazing cake with little monster’s on it. Monster cookie decorating. She also made sock monster stuffed toys, and monter playdough for guests. She’s an inspiration for when I plan my daughter’s first birthday.

We headed home for a nap and to prep for our next adventure, Curling!! I love the smell of ice, wether I’m curling or skating on it, love it! Watching our friends slip and slide around is a blast too. Taylor loved the ice . We all took turns hanging out with her on the side line in between sweeping, playing skip, and shooting!! It was a great time!! I appreciate my friends that organized it.

Taylor fell asleep after curling and we went to Brendan’s cousin for a visit, it was a great time!!

The following day, Brendan woke up with Taylor while I got to sleep in. I love hearing them laugh and chase each other around the house.

That night we had Brendan’s cousin and his gf over for Turkey burgers with guacamole and a movie.

After cleaning our hot tub this weekend and turning down the temperature we had a family hot tub after dinner tonight. I love seeing Taylor kicking her legs like the doggy paddle comes naturally and reaching out to her dad and I. It was so much fun!! She giggles and splashes and screams. It was a blast!!

These quality times and memories will now never be forgotten thanks to odacava.

Please feel free to share your quality moments.

Change, sunshine, and my family

My eyesight. I need to wear contacts or glasses. I’m not sure what I would do without them. What do some people do that don’t get the chance to go to the eye doctor? What did people do before there were glasses or contact lenses? I had an eye appointment today and it made me thankful I have the opportunity to get my eyes checked and to see this beautiful world we live in.

TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More). Working together with my husband, we achieve more. Taking on any goal with a group of people and working together,  possibilities are endless.  I’m grateful for my soccer team. I’ve been with the same soccer team for about 4 years. It feels as though we are really gelling as a team. We’ve had a successful season so far as we’ve played against a lot of teams we are better than. It has given us the opportunity to improve our passing, shooting, communication on the field, and to get our confidence up. Tonight, our opponents were strong and played very well. We were tied throughout most of the game. It was tied at 3 all near the end of the game. Our team pulled through together and got the 4th goal to win it.  We were really tested tonight and this win felt incredible!

Family dinners – Quality time with family, amazing food, fantastic conversation, I loved every moment.

Creativity. I believe everyone has the capability to be creative. Artists, sculptors, writers aren’t the only creative people in the world. A teacher, a financial planner, a janitor are all creative. They can be creative in how they do their job, in finding solutions, or they express themselves. I love it when idea’s and creative solutions come at unexpected moments.

Our treadmill. When my husband originally proposed getting a treadmill I shut it down. I did not see us using it. Thankfully, he ignored my concerns, found a great deal on Kijiji and got  a treadmill. After being pregnant and having a baby, I am loving it!! There are a lot of days I can not make it to the gym. But if I get on the treadmill for a half hour (as early as I can in the day) I feel great.  I am energized, I see clearer, I am calm in my decisions,  and I have better focus through out my day. I am not a great long distance runner. I try to run as long as I can, when I get a cramp I just walk uphill on the steepest incline my treadmill goes to. I sweat it out for half and hour.

A night in to myself: Alone chill time is healthy every so often. I am loving it tonight!!I’m going to go to sleep

I am also grateful for old/new friends. We have friends that my husband has been friends with since they were young boys. We rarely see them since we moved to Calgary, however they are moving here!! So now it feels like we have new friends We had them for dinner Sunday, it was great to visit with them and we played the board game Ticket to Ride.

I made spiced chicken with mango salsa, here is the recipe:

6 servings: The sugar in the spice rub caramelizes as the meat, forming a delicious brown crust.

Mango Salsa:

1/2 cup hot jalapeno jelly
3 TBS fresh lime juice
2 1/2 cups chopped peeled pitted mango (from 2)
1 1/4 cups chopped red bell pepper
3/4 cups chopped red onion
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno chile, minced

1 TBS ground cinnamon
1 TBS ground coriander
1 TBS sugar
1 TBS paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
12 4-ounce beef tenderloin steaks (each ~ 1/2 inch thick)
Olive oil

Whisk: jelly, and lime in large bowl to loosen. Mix in next 5 ingredients. Season salsa to taste with salt and pepper.

Prepare: Mix cinnamon and next 5 ingredients in small bowl to blend for spice rub. Brush chicken breasts all over with oil, then sprinkle each side with 1/2 teaspoon spice rub (I drowned the chicken in the spice, it was great!).  Cook chicken at 350 for 20 mins. Serve, passing salsa separately. I served this with sweet potato fries and spinach salad with mandarin oranges, almonds and craisins.

I am also grateful for adventure. This past Family day our friends took us ice fishing. It was quite the adventure, I appreciated every moment though. Here is a photo on the lake, mountains in the background. The weather was awesome!

I am grateful for community. Every Monday and Wednesday morning our town hall has a drop in for toddlers and parents to come play in the gym from 9:30 – 11:30 am. I’ve tried to take Taylor to this since the New Year, but she naps at this time. Today, she slept in and I was finally able to take her!! It is great to get out of the house give Taylor the chance to interact with other kids and for me to visit with other parents in the area.

I am also grateful for the mountain views from Calgary. On our walk to to the town hall we took a path that has a high elevation. Luckily it was  a clear day, with blue skies so we could enjoy the majestic mountain view.

Lastly I am grateful for movie nights with my husband. I have a long to do list but my hubby got me to put it aside and chill out for the rest of the night. I had a terrible sleep the night before (coffee at dinner time was not a good idea) so I fell asleep as soon as the movies started. Laying in my husbands arms is the best feeling.

Please feel free to post what you are grateful for too!!

Like Terry said when I featured him on March 8th. When you feel gratitude and I’m positive when you express your gratitude, the universe just keeps on giving you more. So I’ve decided to create a category called ODACAVA Gratitude. Please feel free to join me in expressing ODACAVA Tude.

I’m grateful for:

• the sunrise shining through my windows in the morning
• the strength to have plans and the ability to live in the moment
• my husband, family, and what it feels like to love someone or something
• a clear sky so I can see the mountains from the city
• red wine and cheese
• Yoga and Thai chi

What are you grateful for today?

Cheers,

Krista

It opened with Lady Antebellum – They all have amazing voices, especially Charles Kelly. He has a very unique breath taking voice. I’m sure Keith played a part in picking the opening act, and he picked well. Lady Antebellum are going to go far!

Kieth is very talented, he has many hits, so of course he started the show off with two, get out of your seat and dance songs. He continued to mix it up with slow songs and high energy songs, it was so much fun!

At the end of the second song he played guitar while walking all across the floor to the back of the venue. He had a mini stage set up and played a few intimate acoustic songs at that stage. Later, he played another show on a mini stage in the first level stands!

He took it back go the front played a couple hits from his new album. I honestly didn’t know them, but they were great, high energy, and I’m sure they will be my favorite songs soon.

Lady Antebellum came back out to sing a song with Keith – it was great! You could tell Hillary Scott was beside her self, she was thrilled to be on the same stage as Keith. So cool.

When Keith introduced his band mates, he had pics from when they were children, told us what instruments they played (each played numerous difficult  instruments), and they each belted out a hit! All of them had very  handsome voices!

Keith brought out the craziest guitars. there was one that had neon lights, I don’t know what it is I love about neon lights, probably that light game from when I was a kid. You know the one that had colour pegs to  stick into black paper with patterns on them and light up from the background light. Anyways, back to the guitars – He had another guitar that must have had diamonds on it as it reflected light back into the crowd. Another guitar with a pattern that looked like cracked dry soil…but Black and silver. And of course amazing acoustic guitars.

At the end of the show, Keith was very appreciative for all the people that came out and found the money to buy tickets in a tough economy. Then to top it all off he ended the show with a an inspirational song and told everyone to believe in themselves. I loved it!

So of course, I personalized this show. I have to admit, I’m not on track (yet). The last month has been hard, I was sick with some sort of flu for a week, not long after I got over that, I got shingles. Now I am fighting canker sores that have taken over my mouth and tonsils. I haven’t been able to talk with almost starting tearing up or eat solid foods in almost a week. I’m on numerous different types of antibiotics, and home remedies, but they aren’t leaving. Since it hurts to sing  to Keith Urban’s songs, I had some time to think…. I thought about dreams I had that I was convinced not to pursue, I thought about times I almost walked away from my relationship with my husband, I had some dark moments during the show. But hey, I’m sure that’s why Keith is very successful. He tugs at our emotions. He then has some very positive songs, I thought about how how my husband and I have been through some hard times and got through them together, I thought about the promise we have for our future, and I thought, I can do this, I can achieve all my goals and dreams. It was great, it was exactly what I needed!

Thank you Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum!

Cheers,

Krista

Side track, it drives me crazy when people complain about summer being over and that the weather sucked. It isn’t over yet, the forecast is great for the next week, and it was a great summer. Maybe if people were a little more grateful and took the time to enjoy the summer they would realize, it was a great summer.

This summer has been life changing, I feel as though, at 26 I have become a woman. I feel as though I am the most confident, and independent I have ever been. However, at the same time I have also joined my husband Brendan in marriage which in a sense we have become one. At times I feel as though we are one, we know what one another are thinking and we balance each other out. In that same sense, I feel as though I have found a balance of oneness and independence and that makes me proud to be a woman and be where I am today.

However, not gonna lie, I fell a little off track lately, it happens. I confess, I am addicted to making myself too busy. Sometimes I make myself so busy trying to please everyone else, I forget about numero uno, me!

I am human, but sometimes the best thing is the feeling of getting back on track. Today, I went to work (financial needs) early, went for lunch with a girlfriend (social needs), and I left on time to give myself the chance to go to the gym (physical needs). After the gym I came home to spend me time! I cranked the music, opened a bottle of wine, and made sushi, all while making this blog post (mental needs). I believe these are the basics of human needs, and everyone’s individualism needs to have a mixture of these with their passions. What is your passion? What makes you tick? What keeps you in check and balanced?

Cheers,

Krista