That's right ladies, and gents, the anticipation has ceased, as I know you all waited with baited breath to learn who walked away in victory, and I am proud to say that the 3 hours of wrapping wasn't in vain. It just goes to show that creativity paired with genius doesn't go unheaded. And as the song goes...I AM THE CHAMPION!!!! Here's are a few little snippets into this year's event...

3:58pm :

Notice the beautifully crafted wrapping paper...so innocent....so decieving. Gentlemen start your engines!!! Ready and......GO!!

4:09pm :

One whole newspaper (plus the ads) later, this is the first box that his gift was wrapped in. Notice the glimmer from the light on the box. It shows that it's wrapped in tape. Not just any tape my friends, oh no, it's packing tape. Durable, and very difficult to unravel. And do you think it's just one layer of tape??? HA! Of course not! It's 8.

4:28pm :

Aw, look at the OTHER pretty box....yes your seeing right, there is yet another box stuffed into the previous box, and oh look! It's wrapped in pretty paper too!! YAY!!!

4:33pm:
Wah ha ha ha hah ha ha!!!....Sorry, couldn't resist the evil laugh there, b/c yet another entire newspaper (plus the ads) later, and look again, is that yet ANOTHER layer upon layer upon layer of packing tape?? Why yes, yes, I believe it is.....only 5 layers this time though....

4:35 pm:

Just thought you'd all like to see all the wrapping paper that went into my evil masterpiece. Isn't it beautiful? And if you'll notice, he's still unwrapping...

4:37pm:

TA DA!!! There it is! I got him a belt buckle (he's been collecting them recently). I think I conceiled it pretty well hey? Yes and the total time that it took him to unwrap his gift? 39 minutes!

Old Record: 36 minutes New Record: 39 minutes

It's a thing of beauty

Song of the day : I WIN!!! - Me (I made it up when I won)

posted by Tennille @ 2:34 AM 6 comments

Barbra, We Love You, You're Like Buttah....

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I find that the Christmas season brings about so many traditions that we tend to cling to simply b/c its family tradition. Like for instance, in my family, wrapping Christmas presents has become more of a carefully crafted sport rather then just a simple necessity to keep the receiver from knowing which DVD it is (but they still know it’s a DVD).
See, the competition stands as this, we time each person as they unwrap their gift. Whoever takes the longest, the person who wrapped that gift, wins; no one is permitted to use anything except their hands in order to unwrap the gift. So, as you can imagine, with my brother and I being such fierce competitors, we have actually taken some pretty drastic measures to make sure that we are the year’s reigning champion.
Now, I must admit that as it currently stands, Jed (my bro) is the victor for 2005. However, in order to accomplish this, he took the competition to an entire new level by wrapping the entire gift in hockey tape, packing tape, AND duct tape, and if this wasn’t enough, he even melted the edges so you couldn’t tell where the tape started! SO this year, I have gone further than any man (or woman) has gone before. It has taken me an ENTIRE newspaper, ads included, to securely conceal his gift, 2 boxes, AND 3 roles of tape. I must say, I am quite proud of this years venture. He is going down baby!! Way Down!!!

Anyway, the reason for the title of this post is because as you all know (and if you don’t by now, wake up already! Seriously!) I love musicals, and am also a retro kind of girl. So the other night I was a little bored after having done all my work, and I decided to watch a movie, and what do you know? Funny Girl, starring Barbara Streisand was sitting there on the shelf, beckoning to me from among the vast array of entertainment choices. I hadn’t watched it in forever, so I figured, hey, why not? A little nostalgia never hurt anyone (my mom and I used to watch these movies together), boy was I mistaken! Now that I’ve watched Funny Girl again, I have this overwhelming urge to not only watch the 2nd part, Funny Lady, but also The Prince of Tides, The Owl and the Pussycat, The Way We Were, AND the Mirror Has Two Faces!!! I can’t stop! It’s like a drug! I am immersed in all things Barbara! I’m drowning, and even starting to talk like a dramatic Jewish girl from Henry Street, New York...and I like it!! Linda Richmond, Mike Myers HELP!!

Song of the Day: Don’t Rain on My Parade – Barbara Streisand

posted by Tennille @ 1:37 PM 7 comments

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, How Lovely Are Your Branches!

Friday, December 15, 2006

As the Christmas Season has been quickly nipping at our heels, and with little motivation to celebrate in our hearts (not a grinchy type inclining, but rather a no money, can't really do much type of frustration), we decided (actually I decided, he was dragged along begrudgingly) that we would not only go out and attain a REAL LIVE Christmas tree, but we would be woodsy and rustic and go chop down a tree out in the forest!
Now, the reason my husband may have been a tad bit apprehensive of this adventure is because as he has now been in our family for awhile, and has heard the family "let's go get a tree" quests into the woods where me and my brother, and our Asian student would go and watch and walk for HOURS as my darling mother (with all her style and class and taste) would inspect tree after tree after tree, and each time my ever-loyal fajah would go to chop it down, us waiting with bait breathe, she would exclaim "Wait!" and all of us would let out the collective sigh, shake out heads, and follow her deeper and deeper into the woods in search of the perfect Christmas tree (aka The Holy Grail). Since hearing these stories of us being out in the woods for hours on end, my darling hubby, having noticed I have many of the my mother's idiosyncrasies, was a little frightened that I may begin to display this same behavior when picking out a tree. I assured him I would not keep him out in the woods for hours. The conversation in the car on the way there went as follows :

Tennille: I'm SO excited, this is going to be great, and better yet it won't cost us anything.
Tom: Yeah for sure, um...Honey?
Tennille: Yeah?
Tom: Can you, um, well, promise me that your not going to be like your mom?
Tennille: What's that supposed to mean?
Tom: Well, I know you want to to be nice and everything, but maybe we should put a time limit on this.
Tennille: Oh don't worry, it won't be that long.
Tom: No, I want to hear you say the words, PROMISE me, you won't be like your mom
Tennille:...... I'm not promising that.
Tom: BABY!
Tennille: By the way, do you even know how to chop down a tree?
Tom : Yes I know how to chop down a tree!
Tennille: Just checkin'.

So once we had a few things sorted out, off we were on our grand adventure. We printed off our permit, and went off to the wild areas of unowned land to begin our search. We went up this deserted back road, and found a cluster of Christmas-like looking trees and got out of the truck. As we were walking towards them, Tom took one step into the snow, and it went up to his knee, he looked back at me and stated " Oh yeah, this was a GREAT idea. We could have gotten an artificial tree, but NOOOO." so on we trudged up to the group of trees, and Tom went and started cutting down the first tree he saw, and I quickly stopped him, to which he rolled his eyes, and stated "You Promised!" I quickly retorted "No I didn't", and stuck my tongue out. So mature, I know, but come on, even if he didn't want to admit it, he had fun. Needless to say, none of the Christmas-looking type trees spoke to me, so we kept going until we came upon another batch of trees, and to which none of them was "the one". We got back in our car and drove a little further up the road, and as we were passing a clearing, one lone tree stood alone on a mound, and I slammed on the breaks and exclaimed "That One!" Tom exclaimed "Thank God!" So we went out again and chopped down our tree (it almost fell on me), dragged it to the car, and had to become quite inventive in order to figure out how we were going to fit it into our vehicle, but got it in just the same.
As we arrived home, after quite a bit of haggling and persuading, the tree finally got up in our living room, and let me tell you she's a beauty! Cy and I decorated it, which was an adventure all on it's own due to a slight height issue. I did contemplate running and jumping at it, similar to Will Farrell in ELF, but the pine needles scared me off.
So there ya go, to those of you who have been waiting in anticipation to see when I would rise again with a post, here it is, and Merry Christmas!!!

Song of the day: All I want for Christmas is You - Olivia Olsen

posted by Tennille @ 11:29 AM 4 comments

About Me

Name: Tennille
Home: Kamloops, B.C, Canada
About Me: I pretty much prefer to let people draw their own conclusions...
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