Joy to the World

Trent doesn't have a duvet cover for his duvet. Okay let me rephrase, WE don't have a duvet cover because I donated the duvet cover Trent had to Value Village because
a) it's flannel,
b) it's solid cream (that I think was originally white),
c) it's old, and really
d) it hasn't actually been on the duvet in at least a year.
Last week I spent hours, and I mean HOURS, looking through duvets online. I've looked at Sears and Zellers and Home Outfitters and Walmart and Superstore and Winners and pretty much every store I went to last week, just in case I found a treasure. Then I visited Amy and slept under the most beautiful duvet.


So I fell in love with this duvet cover and really really really really really really really really really want it. Unfortunately, I discovered it too little too late. Had I looked sooner, Anthropologie probably would have had one on sale and I could have snatched it up. However now all they have is twin size left. Sad day. I actually measured our duvet just to make sure a twin cover wouldn't fit. I was desperate. I even e-mailed anthropologie just in case they had one hiding somewhere or in a store somewhere that I could pay to ship from. After I sent the e-mail, the thought occurred to me that maybe one had been sent back because it was damaged. I almost e-mailed them again begging them for even a damaged duvet cover.

I would like to take this moment to say that the hormones made me do it. As if I wasn't passionate enough, I plead the case that my birth control hormones are making me even more emotionally invested in everything. And I mean everything. Gameshows are my weakest link. I get really really happy for the contestants I like when they win. Sometimes I catch myself almost tearing up with joy and am like, whoa whoa whoa, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Oh wait, I am.


So I blame the pills for my desperate love of this duvet cover. I realize it's just a duvet cover. But it really is exactly what I've been looking for, for what it's worth. And where there's a will there's a way. And who can I count on to come through for me here? EBAY!!! I may not have found it for the full sale price, but I did find it for A LOT less than the original price. SOLD. So happy. Don't worry I wasn't moved to tears. But I am super stoked to come back from my honeymoon to a brand new, beautiful duvet cover!

love it

bringing in the season

So I was a little bummed that I missed my new family ward's Christmas party, because Christmas parties just have a special place in my heart and are a great way to kick off the Christmas season.
WELL
Not all is lost because while in Edmonton, Amy (who was kind enough to let me share her bed) and I got invited to Garneau YSA's Christmas party. In a nutshell - best christmas party ever. Why, you ask? Here's a little checklist of what made this party so great:

- rapping. not the kind you put around presents. the kind with B-Murder and C-Money in da house.(please re-read that last line with the whitest pronunciation you can muster). nothing says Christmas like a good rap. especially when the lyrics include, "sipped from the cup of damnation" and "I go hard"x20. really? really. Did I mention there were two separate rap performances. cuz there was. oh yeah.

- fantastic food. it couldn't be the best Christmas party without great food.

- some great christmas carols via flute, piano, and a capella. I love Christmas carols. so much. was it a little random to go from a flute duet of O Holy Night to a rap number? yes, yes it was. was that part of this party's charm? yes, yes it was.

- dessert competition. who doesn't love a little friendly competition to bring out the best desserts? so good.

- Brad Jones doing the worm while singing an unidentifiable Christmas song. 'nough said.

- grand finale of a rock n'roll version of O Holy Night. electric guitar, drums, and mad vocals included. SO good.

- skyped with the bishop. in mexico. projected on a giant screen. has that ever happened before?? I think I witnessed a first.

- Santa came. surprise? no. then Elf came running out of nowhere. surprise? yes. his costume and personality were perfect. and hilarious. and so unexpected. I killed myself laughing.

These are a few of my favourite things. Such a good Christmas party. And I got to see some good friends and answer the necessary, yet redundant, question - what're you doing here? about six hundred thirty two times. What would have made it even better you ask? Trent being there of course. He woulda loved the rapping. and Elf. Though it may have been that much more socially unacceptable for both of us to be at a YSA party. At least the fact that I was alone gave me some pity points.

Best Christmas party ever. Everyone at my table killed themselves laughing all night. I got abs. What a way to bring in the season.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Is that you Santa?

So I had to roadtrip back to Edmonton Sunday night for a doctor's app't on Monday. Since dermatologists are so hard to get in with, and I was supposed to see one in junior high and still hadn't, I figured I had better not cancel the app't on the account of marriage and just suck it up and make the drive. Trent's still writing finals so it wasn't like I was missing much at home. In fact, Trent's thinking about shipping me off for spring finals because he just doesn't study when I'm around - way not my fault, he just can't make himself study as hard when I'm around.
ANYWAYS
I go to the dermatologist office and get taken to a room and given a hospital gown to change into. Then I hear a knock at the door and the doctor comes in. Santa, is that you? In walks the nicest, and dare I say, jolliest doctors I've ever met. He didn't have a white beard and wasn't an old man, but his happy plump demeanor sincerely made me think Kris Kringle. Even past first impressions, he remained just super real and nice and thoughtful and explained everything to me so well.

I would drive 5 hours again any day if I needed another dermatologist app't. Which I might. My dermatologist is Santa. Awesome.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAYA!

love cathy

Potatoe Potato?

So Trent was watching over my shoulder while I was blogging and noticed the title. He also was aware of my old roomie blog titled the castle and thought it was one in the same. I explained that no, I created a new blog for my married life, etc you know why, and he doesn't miss a beat in correcting me. Our home isn't the castle - it's the bat cave. Since owning a castle is one of Trent's aspirations, you shouldn't be surprised that he also wishes he was bat man. A self made superhero, pure brains and brawn - and filthy rich. So our apt is on the ground floor, which may mean you go down a couple stairs to get to it, maybe supporting the cave aura... but we get plenty of sunshine through the kitchen window all afternoon! But I actually laughed out loud when he was so quick with the bat cave, he's thought about this before.

Potatoe/Potato... Castle/Batcave. No matter, I think I'm probably going to play with the name from time to time anyways. Who ever said a blog had to always have the same name? I'm sure you can watch for the bat cave somewhere around next halloween...


My Bruce Wayne.

Plumber Bum

Week One in the life of Mrs. Bevans...

Monday - I think the toilet is clogged, and when you run the bathroom sink, the toilet bubbles. I'm miserable because in my head I'm like, seriously? We just got married! Could I not have waited a couple weeks before plugging the toilet?! But I'm actually so sure that I didn't, so why why why is it plugged and I have to now tell my new husband that it is?! He's never going to believe me that I didn't plug it. And he didn't. So we buy a plunger and Trent goes to work. Then I hear him say, oh that is nasty. Oh great. I go to check on him and what do I discover is nasty? Thick brown liquid backing up into our tub through the overflow - that is nasty. Time to talk to the landlady. Good news is the plumbers were actually really prompt and came right over that night. Trent reallly had to go though so he was heading out right before they came; before he left though, he comes over and hands me a knife and says, "keep this close by while the plumbers are in the house." How sweet. Thanks hunny. After hours of work and going to get a longer snake and plenty of mess, they're done! Thanks boys. Oh wait, maybe we'll hold off on that thank you until we look in the bathroom. For the record - plumbers don't clean up after themselves. And our bathroom looked like civil war gone potty style. Trent is a good man though, he scrubbed and cleaned for over an hour. I love him.

Tuesday - I shower and the tub slowly fills up over the course of it and takes a couple hours to drain after. I also discover that the toilet still isn't fully flushing and it still bubbles when you run the bathroom sink. Super.

Thursday - My landlady asks if I'll be around for the plumbers to come. I tell her I need to go grocery shopping at some point, but I can stay in for a while so they can come. Plumbers come back. I explain what's happening and they get to work. They work for hours. And I mean HOURS. Finally the one guy comes and tells me they've discovered the problem... some dumb plumber broke one of their big metal snakes off in the pipes and left it there. Seriously? Who just leaves a giant metal snake in apartment pipes?! Whoops? Those things are designed to fill the majority of the pipe so that it can push through whatever is clogging the pipe. But no big deal leaving it behind, everything will just flow around it, no problem. FALSE! Plumbers. Fools. So we'll have to come back another time to fix it... with a jack hammer. WHAT?! I mean, oh okay, sounds super. I cleaned up.

Friday - Landlady knocks on my door again, will you be here for the plumbers? She has to go out. Oh, well, I still need to go grocery shopping actually, but okay if they're coming right now then okay I can go later. One prop I will give the plumbers is that they show up when they say so. One knock I'll give them is that they don't. Knock that is. You know the plumbers have been to your house too often when they feel at home enough to just walk right in. When I'm not dressed. Oh hey guys... as I scramble to get out of my silky nighty and into real clothes. That was at 1pm. Hours go by. No jack hammer, but also no progress. They try magnets and hooks and even take a couple of my metal hangers, but still just nothin comin. Sometime before dusk they leave and take forever to come back. Turns out one of the plumbers was jewish and couldn't work late. It's Friday. So plumber number two has to get another guy to help him finish. When we left at 7:30pm for southern alberta, they were still here, knelt over the hole where our toilet is supposed to be, thredding my coat hangers, watching the snake not budge on their little digital camera feed. Are we just leaving to random mid 20s guys in our apt with all our stuff? Don't worry, they say, we have a key. Oh super, well in that case, have a good weekend!

The good news: Sunday night we came home to a fully functioning bathroom.
The bad news: We had to clean up. Again.

I officially spent more time with the plumbers than my husband this week.
Married life is going to be fun.

The Bevans

I only have a sneak peak of pics so far, so you only get a sneak peak of pics so far.
But here we are: The Bevans. Est Nov.20, 2010.


Our wedding day was beautiful thanks to and in spite of a couple things:
1) Random weekend in November meant no other weddings so no rush and no disturbed snow.
2) There was a TON of wonderful white snow making everything pretty and glistening instead of brown and dead.

3) All I prayed for was no wind. I can handle all other weather, but please no wind. And it wasn't windy! (Thank heavens, it was cold enough without windchill)
4) Which brings me to in spite of - cold. It was a gorgeous, happy, wonderful day despite the fact that it was ridiculously freezing cold. We had to hold our breath for pics so clouds wouldn't cover our faces, our noses were all bright red,my poor bridesmaids' froze to death, and my photographer's hands are probably permanently damaged from frostbite. But I have a great dad who made sure I had the cozy cape on as much as possible so I didn't die.

Beyond the natural beauty of the day, so many people went above and beyond and really made the day perfect. I would love to name everyone by name, but I know they know who they are and I hope they know that the part they played, no matter what it was, didn't go unnoticed and I appreciate it so much and am so grateful! Let's just say I have a lot of people I love, and as it turns out they must like me a little too.




And we'll live happily ever after...

Welcome to my new life!

Introducing Cathy Bevans!


It's been 2 weeks and I actually still haven't introduced myself as Cathy Bevans or Mrs. Bevans, which sounds weird even in my head and in type. A guy from royal bank called me today and asked for Mrs. Frawsh, don't worry - I corrected him to Frake. Now don't think there's an ounce of me that doesn't want to be Mrs. Bevans, but I just don't see the point in explaining to the call center people that I got married and now have a new name. We'll be in our new family ward this Sunday so I guess that's when the introductions will really begin.

Now some of you may be wondering why this blog has the same name as my old roommate blog. In trying to decide what I would call my new married life blog, trying to choose something not completely cheesy, dorky, or just plain boring, I realized that the Castle Bevans is really quite perfect. Why you ask? Well because Trent wants a castle. Yep, that's a real aspiration. So why not have my blog be our castle for now? So my apologies for the lack of uniqueness, but why not move from one castle to the next? Any other move would just be a downgrade. Not for this girl. Not for Mrs. Cathy Bevans.

Cheers!