Twenty-Nine and Feelin' Fine...

Recently I became a year older.  Twenty-nine years ago an amazing women went through a whole lot of pain to let me on to this planet.  And for twenty-nine years God has watched over me and guided me and given me some pretty amazing gifts.

So here’s 29 things that made my 29^th year on the planet pretty terrific:

29.  I got snowshoes.

28.   I watched the original Star Wars movies for the first time ever.  Poor Luke had some father issues.

27.  I ate a lot of sushi from a Belleville All You Can Eat Sushi restaurant.  They tried to limit how much they brought out.  I told them, “Your sign doesn’t say, ‘A lot you can eat Sushi,’ it says, ‘ALL you can eat,’ now give me ALL I can eat!”

26.  The Canucks actually won a lot of games.  Figures I would miss the Olympics and the Canucks in the cup.

25.  Last year on my birthday Christina drove 2 hours after working all day in the scorching heat to bring me a birthday feast to enjoy with our Loyalist besties Chandler and TP.

24.   I got out of rehab.

23.  I made a lot of lame jokes like #24.

22.  I got a sweet job at an insurance brokerage…saving the world one renewal at a time.

21.  Will and Kate got married and I spent the morning with 8 middle aged women dressed in crazy hats whom I’d never met before.

20.  I met a lot of awesome people on my photo assignments and projects.

19. I ran my first half marathon.  Note: drinking from those tiny paper cups, then crunching them up and throwing them over your shoulder to look cool while running is harder than it looks.

18.  My first Sloan concert…with Sarah.  A long time coming.

17.  My first Yankees game at Yankee Stadium…with Dana  It was against the Blue Jays who won but we were too scared to cheer for them.

16.  My first Red Sox game at Fenway…with Dana.  With an epic Big Papi triple off the green monster to win it in the 9^th.  A women in the bathroom told us it was the best game ever.

15.  Barak Obama still president.

14.  I had some visitors that made life in Ontario a whole lot sweeter…ie. Dana, Rachel, Megan, and the Zandbergens.

13.  I was adopted by the Allen family who redeemed my dreary Belleville summer and made this last year pretty great.

12.  I watched the most Oscar nominated films ever before the actual Oscars. 

11. Christmas in Abbotsford. 

10. New Years in the Stoke

9.  Christmas Sweater Collection 2010

8. The Chilean miners were rescued

7.  I did a sweet internship at the Waterloo Region Record and loved every minute of it.  Except when I almost blew away in a mini monsoon.

6.  I completed the Photojournalism program at Loyalist College

5.  I made some amazing life-long friends at Loyalist College

4.  I cried in my final portfolio review at Loyalist College.

3.  I laughed a lot…thanks to #5.

2.  I got hired as a multimedia producer with Our Kids Media right out of school, saving me just in time from the ledge of the CN Tower were I was about to scream out at the top of my lungs “Bankruptcy!”…therefore, declaring bankruptcy.

1.  Jedidiah Tooks.

I guess I’ve strung you along long enough because I’m well aware that the reason most of you have even bothered to read this far is because you are curious about #1 and perhaps some mysterious photos appearing on a certain social networking site.

Well, he is #1 on my list for a reason.  In my 29^th year Jed Tooks unexpectedly came into the picture and “Tooks” my heart (yup, still got it!).   He is a foreign man, from a foreign land some may know as the United States of America.  This international man of mystery currently lives in Alaska where he is stationed with the Coast Guard (Not as flashy as working at an insurance brokerage for the summer in Belleville…but it works) and also best friends with Sarah Palin as well as the nephew of Will Smith. 

A mere hop, skip and 6558 km from Mississauga, Ontario, where I currently reside, I think just about qualifies it as a long distance relationship.  But I think he’s pretty great so I’ll deal with it.

I knew it was right when I found out he had the same Vibram 5 Finger shoes that I did that most people made fun of me for.

Last weekend I hopped over to Alaska for a visit.  And so here are some pictures.  I’m pretty sure we saw Santa driving a little red pick-up truck.  Naturally, his off-season transportation.  And then I ate some reindeer sausage at a near by restaurant.   Perhaps, THIS is the reason he is now driving a red pick-up.  Sorry Santa.

Introducing Jed Tooks…I sense a male line of Christmas sweaters coming on.

We tried to hike a mountain in our Vibrams.  You may be interested to know that these aren't the most appropriate snow footwear.  It's not so much the cold, more the fact they don't fare so well on slippery snow and ice.  But at least we can say we tried to hike a snowy mountain barefoot and lived to tell the tale.