Back to Urban Life

Well, we were never really far from all things urban, but I was without Internet for six whole days. The shakes got pretty bad by Sunday, but I made it! The maiden voyage with our new camper was a success...

We had a fantastic time camping. The weather was good (and bad), but the rain never dampened our spirits, or our appetites.

We ate, played, ate, fished, ate, swam, drank, ate, had campfires and ate. Plenty of fun, and TONS of laughter. Cindy and her family were there, Pete & Claudine's family, the Browns, the Mackies, the Dickeys, and the Hryciws. The meals were collaborative feasts mostly held over at Cindy's campsite.

The kids got along great with each other (for the most part) and all the other kids there. It was very relaxing to be able to give the kids a little bit of freedom to run around between the campsites, and they were such angels (seriously) when visiting the other campsites. Many times I found them quietly watching DVDs outside at the other kids' campers, or eating their food (when they wouldn't eat what I gave them!)

I have a few pictures that I will post later but I had to check in since it's been a whole week!

Oh, and we'll definitely be going camping again. Carter's already been asking since we came back!

Oh What a Beeyooooteeeefullll Dayyyyyyy

Wow. I'd just been saying to myself, when are we going to get a cloudless day? And today, we got it. Clear, blue sky, gorgeous hot temperature (I don't even know how much but it was fantastic!) An occasional breeze just to keep you from roasting. It was fabulous.

Chris and Uncle Cliff worked on wiring the Jeep and the trailer for lights this morning. Each morning Chris has been going to Tim Horton's so I've been pretty spoiled. The boys played outside on and off all day. My favourite activity is making bubbles. Fun stuff. I spent the day washing linens and things. It was so nice out that even in the evening when the sun started to hide behind the garage, I was able to dry the duvet on the clothesline. I had a couple duvet covers out for just a little while and they were only slightly damp after. I chucked them in the dryer just to fluff them a little and get the lint off. They were dry in no time.

I did some shopping today. Plenty of groceries. Kelly had stopped by on her way to Wal-Mart so I just went along for the ride and loaded up on plenty of things. Mom and Dad and Uncle Cliff and Auntie Lurdes stopped by after they were out for ice cream. They visited with us a bit and Uncle Cliff brought us some great blocks he made for us to put under the trailer jacks so we can get it level without their sinking into the ground. Chris was chatting with our neighbour that has been working on a new deck. Chris ended up helping and a couple of Chris's friends stopped by to visit and ended up helping finish the whole thing. The neighbours gave the kids some kind of popsicles with red, white and blue. The mess from that and all the bubble stuff and dirt the kids had gotten into all day really made them dirty! I seriously couldn't resist taking this picture of Cooper's feet, because I sincerely don't think he's ever been this dirty in his two and a half years of life thus far!

I had picked up some red hairspray the other day. This goes back to Carter's wanting to have red hair after seeing Kelly's son Ben with blue hair last month. So I finally came through and Cooper was more interested this time than when Kelly did the orange and green on Carter's hair. I put a few dabs in Cooper's hair and coloured all over Carter's hair. Aside from a few wayward dribbles, it looked pretty cool.

The boys were sort of winding down and I brought them in for a bubble bath. The water was reddish (and dirty!) when they were done. I had to really scrub all four of those little feet, and shampoo both boys' hair very thoroughly! I gave them snacks and warm milk and eventually they went to sleep about an hour ago. I got Carter to go collect Chris next door by asking him if he could come home and tuck him in.

I worked on some birth announcements for Seija and Ian today and had a blast doing a 'pink' project. I can't wait to see which design they choose! With their permission I'll post them here one of these days.

Well, I'm hoping for an encore of today's weather tomorrow...maybe I'll just go say a few prayers and include that while I'm at it. Good night! :)

We've Hit The Weather Jackpot!!!

This and other news later. Stay tuned!

Shoppy McShopperson

My laundry verve has slowed down a bit but I did have a busy day today. I got my rear in gear relatively early (and had my first call from the office at nine o'clock) and went on a quest with Cooper for a new microwave turntable. Awhile back I was warming up some milk for Cooper and it decided to split in half. I'm thinkin' that it might have been related to the time that Chris microwaved some popcorn for oh let's say a half an hour (yes, exaggerating) because it turned into an ugly, STINKY, acrid, charred mess. But I'm not sure. Regardless, there has been no rotating glass tray in my microwave for some time and it's annoying.

First I went to Home Hardware. I don't even think they sell microwaves. Next stop Canadian Tire. Nope. I stopped at the dollar store (no, not thinking I'd find one there) to look for some of those scrubby things for the bath. Nope. They only had the long ones with the handle. My shopping quest thus far was quite unfruitful. I did find a really pretty gift bag for my friend's baby gift though.

We went to Extra Foods and I picked up a few more gallons of bubble stuff. Seriously. Super cheap. Bought in mass quantity. We went over to Wal-Mart and I had already looked for a microwave turntable but this time I enlisted the help of the friendly sales associate. He said someone else had been looking for one recently but we came to the conclusion that since microwaves are so inexpensive nowadays that it's likely worth it to buy another one. Well that sucks. I just bought ours maybe a year or so ago. ::sigh:: I really don't want to buy a whole new microwave. I'm going to at least look for a used one on the classified ads and see if I can get one and just use the tray. I did, however, find some bath scrubby things.


We came home and hung out for a bit. I had planned to go visit Seija and Baby Aila around one o'clock. I got this bright idea to make her a gift certificate with the graphics from the gift bag I bought. I scanned the bag and it worked great and was very matchy-matchy! I took Carter with me to visit figuring he'd be easier to entertain while visiting than Cooper would. Cooper was napping when we left, making it easier for Chris to continue painting the garage.


I had a WONDERFUL visit with Seija and her beautiful daughter. She was sleeping when we arrived, and continued to do so, much to my dismay. She semi-woke up about a half hour later so I grabbed her. She stirred a little then continued to sleep on my lap for about an hour and a half before we were ready to go. I received word from Seija that she slept until four o'clock! Hopefully you got that much-needed nap, Seija! :)


We came home and I had forgotten to mention to Chris that Mom had invited us for supper. Carter had fallen asleep at Seija's and was still asleep. I played outside with Cooper to occupy him while Chris continued to paint. Then Mom called and I did one of those sharp inward gasps as I remembered we had planned to go out early so the kids could play outside. But I totally ran out of afternoon! Chris scrubbed his hands quickly and we bolted off to Mom and Dad's.


We had an awesome supper and their neighbour Tracy was there with her two boys Brandon and Carter. Yes, two Carters made for a little bit of fun confusion. It's been a few days since I last had the camera out so I definitely took pictures of the four little clowns having a good time together. Here they are in my parents' storage bin on the deck where they store their patio chair cushions. Made for a great fort! :)

I also took a few pictures of Carter in his new short/t-shirt set I picked up the other day. He was posing gorgeously, and added in some goofiness when Chris coached him to show his muscles and the 'which way to the beach' posing thing.

In that last one he looks so grown up! Scary stuff. So back to the dinner and visit...supper was AWESOME. Delectible meatloaf and to-die-for scalloped potatoes. Fresh tossed salad and garlic bread. Yum. There was some apple pie and ice cream too but I skipped it. We had a great visit while the kids played outside on the deck, and Uncle Cliff and Auntie Lurdes stopped by since they were in the neighbourhood.

After we all visited for awhile, we headed home so Chris could have a shower and I could start trying to wrangle the kids to bed. Oh, I rented movies yesterday. Last night, we watched The Bank Job with Jason Statham (yum). Good action movie. Apparently based on a true story. Very interesting.

So we had one more movie to watch and it was College Road Trip with Martin Lawrence and Raven Symoné. Cute and sweet; okay for the whole family. Except Cooper fell asleep and Chris was outside the whole time wiring the Jeep for the trailer. I was on a chat tonight at the DSAG (Digital Scrapbook Artisans' Guild) and had a bunch of laughs with Amy and the girls there. Carter was still awake watching Garfield again. (I had also rented it along with Jimmy Neutron for the kids to watch while we watched The Bank Job.)

I decided to head for bed, but not before stopping by to blog and backing up my stuff from the other computer. Carter crawled in beside me and zonked out after I played a couple songs for him on the computer. Now it's my turn. I'm out.

It Has Begun!

Yesterday morning I hung out with the boys until Chris came home from work. Both kids pooped on the toilet, much to my delight. (Yeah, delight in the small things...I'm also going to work on getting Cooper to pee on the toilet; he's tried a couple times and it's funny because while he's not quite tall enough he can stretch it a little to make it into the bowl.) Chris pumped up the pool outside for the kids and they played and splashed for awhile. Cooper kept pulling down his swimsuit and peeing randomly. Which, while funny, I'll need to make sure he doesn't just do that anywhere we go! It was nice enough out that even I put on my bathing suit (oy vey that's a lot of pasty white skin to flash around. I bet if the Google Earth people were taking satellite pictures there would have been a white light shining from my yard!) and went out to lie on a blanket for a few minutes until the kids were freezing and wanted to have a warm bath after their cold swim.

Before I let them have a bath, I gave each one a haircut (no pictures yet). Then they had a warm bath and splashed until every molecule in the bathroom was saturated. I got ready to go (sort of...I put on just enough make-up to make it look like I wasn't wearing any make-up) and brushed my gross hair and put on some lipstick. I was planning on taking Carter with me to Wal-Mart but Chris wanted to go too so we all went.

We picked up some camping stuff for the camper. Like bug stuff and medicine like Benadryl, utensils and cups, towels, a bunch of cute t-shirts with matching shorts that were on clearance, and other miscellaneous things for the camper to the tune of three hundred bucks. One thing I was looking for was bubble stuff. Would you believe that Wal-Mart is either completely run out of, or has put away all the bubble stuff? And summer? IS JUST STARTING AROUND HERE! We were eating lunch at Wal-Mart when we realized it was five o'clock! I guess it wasn't lunch after all!

We came home and Chris and the boys washed the Jeep. I did a couple loads of laundry. Chris has been asking for a haircut for a couple weeks but we haven't ever gotten around to it. So by cutting everyone's hair I probably saved us around fifty bucks, which I think is pretty cool considering I don't really know what I'm doing. But hey, it works! I had three happy customers. (But no tips ;) ) I think Carter was asleep by about eight-thirty, and Cooper was about an hour later.

I planned on going to bed early (even Chris was saying Huh? It's only ten o'clock!) But I figured, it's vacation time; anything goes! He joined me and I suggested we watch a movie on the laptop. We put on the movie Sideways (I've had a copy for years but have never watched it). But he was asleep practically during the opening credits and I lasted maybe another ten minutes before I realized I was missing five minute gaps of movie watching. So I shut 'er down and zonked out.

This morning I remember Chris getting up but I promptly dozed off again. I think he had a bit of a panic thinking he was late for work. Hee hee hee. What a great feeling to know WE DON'T HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE! I had intended to go to church this morning, but I need a complete overhaul in the hair department so that's unfortunately not going to happen. Carter just got up a few minutes ago and Cooper is still in bed. (8:15) I'm going to try to work on curbing the nap situation these next couple weeks unless the kids start driving me crazy by mid afternoon, then it's still a go. We'll see what happens.

Well I'm off to the basement to tackle the laundry demons once again. One of my to-do list items is to do every bit of laundry and get rid of any clothing that we don't want or that doesn't fit the boys anymore. Wish me luck; I'm sure I'll need it!

That's the News and I AM OUTTA HERE!!!

Ahhhhhh. Let the sunshine commence. And stay. Non-stop. 'Til at least Christmas. (Pretty please?) I am officially on vacation. Chris just has that pesky half-day left then it's smooth sailin'. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I tried to get as much done as possible today so there wouldn't be too many loose ends or piles of stuff to do when I return.

After work I picked up the boys and stopped by Kelly's. She had a Pom-tini chilled on ice when I arrived and we went in her back yard and lounged in the gazebo. The kids had plenty of toys to play with and we had a relaxing visit. I was unwound in no time!

We came home and Chris was home. I had gone to the dollar store at lunch time with Kelly and picked up some cheapo toys and games to take camping. I grabbed some cool bubble wands with lots of holes in them and a long handle. They come with a dipping plate and they make zillions of bubbles at once. Cooper enjoyed trying it at the Teddy Bear Picnic a couple weeks ago, so it's cool we have them now. Except, he smacked his on the driveway and broke it within about three and a half minutes. ::sigh::

Carter was tired. I took Cooper with me to Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart. We needed an o-ring for the propane tank and milk. Oh and we stopped at the dollar store again so I could grab a few more of those bubble wand kits. Seriously cheap entertainment. For a buck-fifty, the kids are entertained for a long time or until it gets broken, whichever comes first! When I got home Carter was asleep. Not long before he went to sleep, he apparently succeeded in slamming his own thumb in the camper door. THE SAME THUMB AS BEFORE. Good Lord I'm going to get that kid some Kevlar gloves. He seemed fine much like last time. He never complained about it once all evening. What a trooper.

We never got around to supper tonight, but I was glad since we planned to go to the drive-in to see Wall-E. They have a great fast food counter with plenty of deep-fried goodness available. Chris ordered some sort of snack pack with cheese bites, egg rolls, fries, battered mushrooms and maybe some onion rings or something. It didn't last long enough for me to really have a good look ;). I ordered a couple hot dogs (with cheese and bacon! mmm) that I shared with Carter. We also had mozza sticks and battered mushrooms and popcorn. Dinner was SERVED! Seriously...going to the drive-in is as much about eating as it is about the movie!

The movie? Was adorable. (Theresa, I loved your review of it and our reactions to it were just like yours.)
Amazing how they can make a computer-generated robot so darned human-like (even without any conversations). He was 'humaner' than the humans in the movie. There had been no humans on Earth for seven hundred years because the planet was reduced to a wasteland. Humans were basically reduced to non-walking blobs that were electronically connected to their 'world' and floated around on hovercraft chairs. They sent regular probes back to Earth with the intention that if they found sustainable life again that they would return. Wall-E made a friend and it was really sweet. That's all I'm telling aside from the fact that it's really worth watching.

Carter sat up front on my lap and Cooper sat with Chris. But Cooper was fiddling and farting around too much with stuff with the freedom of not being confined to his car seat. Before the movie started he was really exploring. Then when he sat with Chris he kept trying to mess with the windows and door locks and at first it was cute he sort of pretended to be driving but then he kept honking the horn once he discovered it. He quickly got tired so I put him back in his seat. Which he wasn't completely thrilled with. So I crawled into the back seat and wedged my formerly-childbearing hips between the two car seats. Bear in mind that a Jeep Liberty is not any more spacious than the average small-to-mid-sized car. I felt like one of those humans in the movie.

Cooper insisted on sitting/lying ON me and in a few minutes he was awkwardly draped over my arm sleeping. I cuddled him for awhile then I smartened up and put him in his car seat once again. I moved Carter's booster seat to the front for him and once Chris tilted up the rearview mirror, I was much more comfortable with a much better viewpoint. We came home and I think Carter thought it was pretty cool to be outside (at midnight) in his pajamas. Oh and he's still up, nearly an hour later. These kids must take some marathon naps during the day!

One of my coworkers lent me the movie Calendar Girls today, (the movie is from a few years ago but I've never ever rented it) so I'm going to go to bed and see how many minutes I can stay awake to try and watch it.

Stay tuned for many more fun-filled vacation posts! :) :) :) :) :)

Fresh

Today was GREAT. We're getting a new colour copier at work so I went to have a peek at it at the store to check the size and decide where to put it. Turns out it's not a whole lot bigger than the old colour laser printer we had in the copy room a few years back.

I did some serious spring cleaning in the copy room. Yes, I can say spring cleaning, because summer clearly isn't here yet for more than the following reasons. 1) We are getting many many April showers. 2) We're still getting May flowers. 3) There are still plenty of ''May Flies'' around. These are goofy little bugs that we also call fish flies, that usually arrive and die out in May.

Anyhoo, there is now room for the copier and I purged some junk, as well as tidying up some surplus crap that has been sitting around. Now if I could just muster up the guts to tackle this in my own house I'd be laughin'! ::sigh::

Our summer student helped me finish up a project that I've had on the burner for awhile while I worked on another. Fantastic! By day's end tomorrow I'll have no loose ends to fret over on the weekend. Yay!

Mom called in the afternoon and invited us for fresh fish for supper. Um. Let me think...OKAY! I picked up the kids and they had a good day at the sitter. Chris came home from work and showered and we headed out to Mom and Dad's. We had a beautiful supper of fresh walleye, beans (ick but everyone else likes those), crisp golden French fries, fresh buns and a tossed green salad. Fantastic.

Mom played outside with the kids after supper and of course they quickly gravitated toward the lake. Being the cool Grandma that she is, she let the kids go in the water, (fully-dressed might I amusingly add), and they had a blast. Somehow she got them to come back to the house and she stripped them down to undies to put their clothes in the dryer, since I hadn't brought any spares. (Even though I did slightly suspect that such a thing would happen!) The boys did not care that they were running around in damp underwear/pull-up.

We sat and visited for awhile then we came home. Cooper was still up past ten o'clock. Carter was engrossed in Batman Forever or one of those Batman sequels that I've never watched. He's probably asleep now. I had Cooper nearly out in his room watching a movie and I sneaked out. But I figured I'd blog on the laptop and crash right after so he must have rolled over and noticed I was gone and saw the glow on my face in my room from the laptop. He crawled up beside me on the bed and promptly zonked out.

Not sure if I'll manage to do any scrapping tonight but if I do I'll try to come back and post something.

Caffeine ROCKS

Well it's been AGES since I stayed up late and did some scrapping. And if I ever attempt anything on the computer while the kids are up I often have one of them on my lap. So last night I drank an extra large coffee. Carter ended up staying up until after two o'clock this morning. I finally pulled the pin and went to bed and brought him with or I'm thinking he would still have stayed up.

Today I had lunch with Mom and Auntie Lurdes and Kelly. We had Chinese buffet and it was gooooooood. I didn't eat supper because I just wasn't hungry yet. Now I'm getting the growlies but I'm going to ignore them and go to sleep right after I blog.

Work went by kind of slowly today. But I'm working on a big tedious project that has my attention whenever I'm not pulled in another direction. So far so good. I'm hoping to be finished it this week. After work it was crappy and rainy. Yeah, AGAIN. And AGAIN and AGAIN. Carter still wasn't feeling well most of the day and didn't eat anything. I brought the boys home and fed them a little kids' meal from Gerber. What a great little team. Cooper ate all the peas and Carter ate almost all the noodles aside from a few I gave to Cooper.

After supper we played and I managed to do a couple more pages.





After awhile when the boys were sleeping for awhile, I noticed a few flashes outside. Another thunder storm. And it turned into a real good one. I shut down the desktop computer and headed for bed with the laptop. There were a few loud claps of thunder I was sure would wake the boys but they just kept on sawing logs right through the whole storm.

So that was Wednesday. Now I'm off to bed. Oh. Just one more thing. I received a call from the hospital to book my mammogram appointment. So I can douse myself in caffeine for almost a month before I'll need to detox for my appointment. I don't need to make it hurt anymore than it already will!

Poor Mr. Sun

Well the weather is trying hard to resemble summer, but it keeps getting mucked up with clouds and thunderstorms. Very tiresome. I'm just praying that it's waiting for my vacation. Not that I want to wait. These kids LOVE to play outside.

I had to make notes on the whiteboard last night 'cause I fell asleep really early with Cooper and wasn't conscious enough to blog when I woke up hours later. The boys were able to play outside briefly after supper. Supper was great, and both boys actually ate some. I seasoned some pork medallions and made some roasted chicken-flavoured rice (that I nearly burnt!) and steamed fresh snow peas, which the boys ate quite a few of before I cooked them! The boys enjoyed quite a few fresh, plump blueberries for dessert.

Here is a picture of the boys playing outside after supper. I had run to Wal-Mart with Cooper after supper and replaced their broken water guns with new ones, along with picking up some milk and other essentials. They aren't allowed to put water in them until we go camping, but they sure had fun pretending anyway.

I've been having a hard time getting Cooper to bed, and keeping him in his own bed. I gave him some warm milk as usual and as usual he wanted more. So I gave him more. A little while later he complained of a tummy ache (which he does EVERY time he chug-a-lugs two drinks of milk). But this time, he had that look. I picked him up and he did not want to be held. I stayed in the kitchen (linoleum floor) and almost instantly he barfed a big huge barf that resembled blueberry yogurt. Yeah, EWW. I was holding him in such a way that he completely missed (1) my hair, (2) his and my clothes, yet made a nasty big splash on the floor.

Chris briefly arrived on the scene from the living room. I got him to keep Cooper away and I switched to vomit patrol. I ended up mopping the whole kitchen, which it needed anyway. I gave Cooper a little gripe water because he told me he was sick, which I knew he really wasn't, and I figured it would help his tummy feel better anyway. He didn't end up going to sleep until at least ten thirty. Ugh.

So when he crawls into our bed at all hours of the night, I'm not usually conscious enough to get up and put him back in his own. At least he's improved a little as far as being a bed-hog, but I still don't want him to rely on it too much. This morning I put him back to bed around four I think, and it disturbed him enough to get him whining about not wanting to sleep in his own bed. I stayed with him just long enough for him to go back to sleep. Carter surprised the heck out of me. He came into our room at three twenty-five. I figured he wet the pull-up I had on him but he was dry. He told me he had to pee! Yay! He peed on the toilet and went back to bed.

Then when I got up this morning he advised me he had pooped in that very same pull-up. ::sigh:: So I removed the offending undergarment and gave him a shower. I washed the remaining colour off his scalp from the hairdo Kelly gave him last week, and hosed off any remaining residue off him and sent him on his way. I had to wash and iron my hair this morning so then it was my turn for a shower. Of course by this time Cooper wanted to get in the water so he and Carter shared a bath after I was done. The water was on for about twenty-five minutes in total. Good thing I only shower once a week! (But seriously, I do bathe as well!)

Today was a very bizarre weather day. It was cool but relatively nice out this morning, then we had a torrential downpour about mid-morning. By the time I had my lunch break, it was BEEEEEYOOOOOOTEEEEEEEFUL outside. Clouds still moved around for most of the afternoon but the kids played outside a little again today. We had ''Toonie Tuesdays'' from Kentucky Fried Chicken that Chris picked up on his way home. Chris moved the camper into the driveway so it's easier to prepare. The back yard is so soft it became impossible to push by hand to turn it so I helped him guide the Jeep to pull it around to move it out.

Luckily I remembered I needed to bake a cake this evening (which I was going to do yesterday...duh!) for a coworker. I'm going to turn it into Death by Chocolate, but I'll finish preparing it in the morning. I ran to Wal-Mart while the cake was baking to pick up chocolate mousse and THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY. I really didn't want to go to Safeway, so I opted to use Cool Whip for all the layers instead. No biggie. I remembered my mixer got thrown out last time I nearly electrocuted myself with it so whipping the mousse would have been some serious manual labour anyway.

I've actually done a couple scrapbooking layouts lately. The kids have been going to sleep later and later lately so by the time they do, I'm either asleep with them or not far behind. Makes it hard to get stuff done in the evenings! I'll have to develop a new dinnertime espresso routine or something to be able to burn the midnight oil like I used to. Carter just got up and he's not feeling well. He's as warm as toast so I gave him some Motrin. He just zonked out again, so I'm going to transport him to his bed and keep an eye on him for a few minutes then I guess I'm going to go crash too.

Here are those layouts:
(you can click on them to enlarge them and see credits for each)

Making Some Headway

...in the laundry department. Since last night I did probably six loads of laundry. Our dryer is still a bit wonky so it takes a forever to dry stuff but I still kept with it. It was crappy and rainy all weekend (or just plain cold) so hanging stuff on the clothesline was NOT an option. I still have a mountain of sheets and towels and stuff that I'd like to take to the laundromat and get all done at once. Maybe one evening this week I'll do that. I'm sure the kids would be quite entertained there.

Saturday Chris worked until noon. I hung out with the kids all morning. After work Chris helped the neighbour a little building their new deck. The weather didn't cooperate of course. I had a chance to nap with the kids then by the time we got up Chris was in and having his own nap.

Today we went for supper at Laurette's place with her family. She spent the weekend building a ginormous feast. Her kids and grandkids (and I believe one great-grandchild!) were there too. It was nice to see them all, even though we'd already met some along the way. Chris's Grandpa came too. The kids had fun checking out the place and did a little running around outside. And for the first time in AGES I forgot my camera at home. I had been uploading pictures to the laptop the other night and left it on my nightstand. Duh. It's back in my purse now where it belongs.

We had a lovely visit then left around eight and rented a couple movies on the way home. Super Heroes was absolutely ridiculous (but what do you expect from a Leslie Nielsen movie?) It was mostly a takeoff of Spiderman but the dude was bitten by a dragonfly instead of a spider and had a hard time figuring out his powers.

The other movie was 10,000 B.C. I started dozing off with Cooper then once he turned into a little oven I had to go put him to bed. I backed up a few things between the laptop and the desktop. Picture this...sitting at the computer with another computer on my lap. Geek much? But there was plenty of stuff I'd done on the laptop that wasn't on the desktop and vice versa.

I just put Carter up on his bunk and I'm ready to crash. I might do a little surfing since I have a really strong internet signal at this moment. Then I'm out. Oh, and Seija, I'm not sure if you still get to read this now that you're a busy Mommy and all, but I got your message last night! Please let me know when I can come meet that darling little one of yours! I can't wait!

Rain Rain GO AWAY

We haven't had more than a couple nibbles of summer so far. A day here, a day there. I'm really hoping that it's been crappy out just to wait for me to be off on vacation. We'll see. Major thunderstorms here today.

Last night was a decent evening. Kelly and Doug were having internet troubles with their new wireless router so I was going to walk over with Cooper to have a look. Chris and Carter came along too, much to my surprise and delight! Unfortunately the internet problem was beyond my fixabilities, and Doug had already done all the same troubleshooting I tried. We had a visit anyway, and Kelly dug out her coloured hairspray she had mentioned she had ever since Carter saw Ben's bright blue hair last month. Carter has been telling me he wants red hair ever since.

So Kelly took Carter in the bathroom with two cans of coloured hair spray. Cooper went to supervise but didn't want any on himself. Kelly expertly divided Carter's hair into two distinct halves. I wondered how she divided it so perfectly, and she admitted to having used a piece of cardboard to get such a straight line. Of COURSE I took pictures; here they are!



He was reeeeeeeeeeally happy! That smile is his real real smile. Love it. We walked home and drove to Dairy Queen for ice cream. I had a hot fudge sundae (sort of...she filled it so full with ice cream there was barely any room for fudge.) Of course I ate it anyway. We came home and watched Spiderwick Chronicles again, and a rerun of House after the kids zonked out. My internet wasn't working either, and I wasn't sure if it was a global problem or if Shaw had cut off my internet. I called to tell them I wanted to cut back my cable for the summer down to basic cable. (But keep my high-speed internet of course!!!) Anyway, she advised me that they have a 'summer retention' program where they will discount my cable to $19.95 per month (leaving my internet at regular price)...BUT NOT CANCEL ANY OF OUR EXISTING CHANNELS!!! Huh? Seriously? That rocks bigtime. So for July to September I'll save thirty or forty bucks on our cable bill without any decrease in service. Weird. But good!

I carried Cooper to his bed and left Carter in the living room with Chris. I'm not sure what time Chris came to bed but he left Carter sleeping on the couch. By morning Carter had switched positions on the couch. So on one armrest of the couch there was a big orange blotch and on the other there was a big green blotch. It was hilarious. I ought to have taken a picture of that. The first thing Carter did was head for the mirror to check if his hair was still all cool. He did lose a little on the couch but there was still plenty left!

He was pretty proud to show Alana his nifty hair when we got to her house. I took the Jeep in for an oil change this morning and got dropped off in their service shuttle. Work was good. So many people are on vacation we were reduced to a skeleton crew so one of our nurses suggested we have a pizza party at lunch. Everyone who was there participated and we ordered pizza for delivery. I picked up the Jeep after lunch and brought lunch to Chris.

The afternoon was quiet much like the morning. I picked up the kids after work and we stopped in to see Chris. I stopped at 7/11 to pick up some chicken chunks for the kids and we came home. I changed my clothes and Kelly picked me up for BINGO! We met up with Mom and traveled through the pouring rain to the Bingo hall. Yes, of course we had fun as usual, but we didn't win anything. Which...sucked.

I came home to check our lotto tickets and that wasn't overly fruitful either. A few free tickets for next week. So stay tuned to find out if I become a multi-millionaire next week. In the meantime I'll be returning to work on Monday. ::sigh::

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully it will get nice out at some point this weekend so we can do something fun. I'd really like to get the camper ready, but I do have a mountain of laundry to do, and on our way back from Bingo, Kelly and I stopped at Safeway to pick up on their super duper laundry soap special. Liquid Tide...buy one get one free. It took us awhile to find the right size and display but we loaded up to our limit of three per customer. Seriously I have absolutely NO excuse not to get some laundry done this weekend!

She's Got Her Baby Back Baby Back Baby Back

The day started off great, with a stop at Tim Horton's, though they did forget Kelly's bagel and we didn't bother going back. The drive was going fantastically until that silly policeman decided to blast a quick u-turn and pull us over. Crap.

My dear friend Kelly has had a bit of a lead foot the past year or so and has had a couple speeding tickets. We were in the rental car still, on the way to pick up her vehicle in Winnipeg, by the way. She handed him her license and registration (for HER vehicle, not the rental) and he commented on the Manitoba plates on the car compared to the Ontario vehicle registration she handed him. Hmmm. So she explained that it was a rental car and he proceeded to request from her the rental car agreement. Which she had no idea she needed, and it was at home. Crap. Apparently when you rent a car you're supposed to keep said document with you at all times.

He took her license back to the cruiser and she could see him reach into the back seat to retrieve his ticket book. Crap. After awhile, he came back with a ticket in his hand. He said he was going to just give her a warning for the speeding...WHEW!!!...wait for it...wait for it...BUT he was going to give her a ticket for 'failure to produce' the registration information. Crap. Oh well. Still better than a speeding ticket. That would have been $139 and four demerits. This ticket was $110 and no points taken away. So crap but not as much crap as it could have been.

We carried along on our way and it was a beautiful day for a drive. We arrived at the rental car place thanks to my expert navigation. (heehee thanks Google maps!) The rental car people drove us to the car repair place and there was Kelly's shiny shiny vehicle.

Reunited and it feeeeeeeeeeels so goooooooood!!! :)

Everything was fixed, and Kelly had phoned the dealership where she bought the vehicle to find out the mileage the last time she was in for service (about a week before it was stolen). When we got in the vehicle, she noted the thugs couldn't have driven it more than about one or two hundred kilometres, which was good to know despite the fact that we have no way of knowing how the vehicle was treated by those little jerks.

The next order of business was to push the OnStar button. They greeted her with the name of the previous owner of her vehicle, and she corrected them and proceeded to register for Onstar. What an amazing, great service they provide (for a monthly fee of course). Seriously too bad she didn't have it registered at the time it was stolen. Hyuuuge bummer. Anyhoo, she's all set up now, though she'll NEVER EVER EVER drive that vehicle to Winnipeg again. If she ever needs to go there again she will be renting a vehicle.

Next stop was Ben's dentist appointment. We went early hoping he'd be seen early. We found a close parking spot in an indoor parkade and walked to the dentist office. We waited about a half an hour and leave it to geeky ol' me, I brought my laptop with me again! I never let it out of my sight all day and actually used it a few times throughout the day, mostly to upload pictures from the camera. We left the dentist office and went to Red Lobster (how predictable was THAT?) and we pigged out. We even sat in the same booth we did last month when we were there. After a delicious (and awesomely garlic-soaked) lunch, we dropped off Ben and his buddy Jared at the shopping mall and drove down the street to Costco. I was terrified for Kelly's vehicle. Again, I brought the laptop with me and it sat right there in the shopping cart like it was my baby.

We did a bit of shopping and called the boys to meet us back at the shopping mall entrance where we left them. Then it was time to gas up and go. We stopped at a Burger King for a last minute pee break and I grabbed a Triple-Whopper meal for Chris (no Burger King in our town!) and we hit the highway. We had seen at least seven or eight police vehicles this morning in Ontario alone and never saw another for the rest of the trip. (Yay!)

I got home and the guys helped me bring in my Costco stuff. Carter and Cooper were sound asleep. I'm wide awake from all the caffeine I had today. By the time I finally get around to sleeping, I'm sure one of the kids will be up.

A couple more pictures...we had to stop for construction on the way home and while we did we were quite entertained by this beautiful rainbow. My camera did not do it justice. It was a double rainbow with layers and layers of beautiful vivid colour. The other picture is of Ben and Jared during the same construction stop.

So all in all, a pretty good day. Kelly's got her baby back!

Just Run Me Over With the Jeep

I had a checkup at the doctor this morning. I got up extra early to make sure I was perfectly 'groomed'. I managed to get the boys fed, dressed, and to the sitter on time and get myself to work.

My check-up was thorough, including the obligatory pap test. Right when it was time to bare my...uh...soul, my leg bumped a button on the wall and I heard a doorbell sound. I was worried it would summon someone while I was exposed, but the doctor assured me it was just an intercom button for the next room. Whew! The laughter was a good tension breaker for me and the rest of the examination went fine. Apparently all my stuff is still generally in the right place. Bonus! I had made a list of things to discuss with him, and we made it through the whole list with many of my questions and concerns answered. Next stop was the lab where I had some routine bloodwork drawn.

Because of some family history, I'll be having my first mammogram in the near future. Oy. I joked with Dr. Dove asking if they make a mammogram machine small enough for my size. Apparently it's one size fits all, and he suggested if I wanted to practice to just drive over my boobies in the driveway. Niiiiiiiiiiice.

I went back to work and the rest of the morning flew. The afternoon did too, since I had the late lunch hour today. After work the boys and I picked up Chris from work. We came home and Chris stayed outside for awhile to work on his truck. The boys and I had mini pizzas for supper and we hung out.

Hopefully Cooper will have a better night than last night. He was coughing his little guts out last night. I rubbed some Vicks on his chest and the soles of his feet and it helped a little but he still had a rough night, therefore so did I.

I need to get up early again so I can accompany Kelly to pick up her vehicle. (Finally!) I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell about that adventure tomorrow night.

Intense - Funny and Serious

Work was quick today, like most Mondays are. At lunch I visited Chris and brought lunch with me. We ate a quick bite together then I headed back to work.

After work I picked up the boys. Carter had napped but Cooper (oddly) hadn't. Seems they're switching places in the napping department lately. Weird. So Cooper fell asleep shortly after I picked the two of them up.

We all came home and Cindy stopped by with two out of four of the kids. They had eaten at Pizza Hut and had a spare pizza to bring us. Sweeeeeet. I had planned on concocting something for supper so she pressed the easy button for me. And it was gooooood too.

The kids played for a bit then they left. Cindy also had brought over a couple movies for us to watch. Chris went out for coffee so I started watching Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson) before he came back. He came back about a third of the way through and we watched it. Carter fell asleep on the couch with me, but Cooper was playing on the computer. He loves playing on the Toopy and Binoo web site. Somehow, he zoomed in and the little gloved hand that acts as the pointer on the screen was humongous. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I went into a fit of laughter. I'm not sure if it was the movie that got me started, or just Cooper's reaction to the gigantic hand on the screen, and Chris's pointing it out. Either way, I giggled for awhile. Oh and the movie was pretty good. I hate bullies and it was good to see the little guys win. (Eventually.)

After we watched Drillbit Taylor, we watched Vantage Point (Dennis Quaid). Wow. I went from intense laughter to intense suspense. Excellent movie. Non-stop action. Very well put together. I loved it. Fantastic detail and excitement from beginning to end. Just Wow. I don't think I blinked for about two hours.

Cooper fell asleep at some point during the second movie and I just carried him to bed a few minutes ago. I've been reading a few blogs and having a few more chuckles. Now I'm getting sleepy so I'm off to bed soon.

Teddy Bear Picnic!

What a fun, fantastic family weekend!

This morning we got up (at Mom & Dad's) and gathered (almost) all our belongings and got ready to head home. You wouldn't believe the STUFF we bring for a one-day and/or a one-night excursion. Seems I forgot our cooler bag somewhere there, which I could have used for the picnic. ::Sigh::

We came home and hung out for awhile then got ready to go to the Teddy Bear Picnic. A few years ago a coworker of mine held one for her daughter's birthday party, then after the success, completely revamped and enlarged the event to make it a public event for the whole town. She found volunteers to help set up the completely free event. Now a few years later this has become a very popular occasion!

We brought Carter and Cooper and had a blast. I took a few pictures, and they will pretty much tell the story for me. Carter chose to have his face painted like a tiger but Cooper wasn't interested. The pony rides were surprisingly a big hit with both kids. After we were done (though there was still plenty of stuff to do!) we came home. Both boys were sound asleep by the time we got home. We transported them into the house to their designated napping areas and Chris and I watched a movie. The Eye with Jessica Alba. Sort of a thriller thing where this girl is blind from the time she is five years old, who goes in for a double cornea transplant. The donor had premonitions and died a horrible death, and the recipient immediately started having all the same visions. It was a bit weird but it was alright. The part I didn't like was how they portrayed the spirits that came to collect people when they died as very dark and angry. I figure they should be peaceful beings of light, but apparently in this story these beings are ticked off because they can be seen by this girl.

I had a little nap with Cooper after the movie for about a half an hour. I realized we were nearly out of milk so I did a quick Wal-Mart run. I picked up milk and soy milk, salad dressing (less than half the price at Safeway so I picked up extras), barbecue sauce (98 cents for Kraft...at least three times more at Safeway) so I grabbed four of those. Should get us through the rest of the summer! I also picked up some mini pizzas for the boys to munch on.

I came home and made myself a cold taco wrap using the leftover ground beef from the taco salad I made yesterday. Cooper seemed interested in trying it and had quite a few bites of mine. Carter got wind of the tasty snack and wanted some too, so I made one for the kids and fed it to them. Surprisingly, they ate the whole thing. I fell asleep cuddling Cooper and Carter was up pretty late. He was still up when I woke up and for awhile when I worked on a couple projects.

Here are a few shots of our fun day at the park:

Just About Out

I'm all set to fall asleep but since I'm in laptop land I figure I should post about this beautiful day. Chris worked until noon then we started getting stuff ready to come out to Mom and Dad's for the day. Their neighbours have an annual fish derby and fish fry that we join them at.

Today was theeeeeeeeee most beautiful day of the year thus far. Hot hot hot. LOVING IT. I sure hope this is our official beginning of summer! I just checked the weather network and it's still twenty-five degrees out there. Dad just turned on the central air for the very first time, and what a perfect day to try it out.

The kids played outside in the lake most of the afternoon. The supper was fantastic. I brought over a taco salad and there were so many other things to eat. FRESH, deep-fried walleye and fries, baked beans (eyewwwww but everyone else seems to love them with fish), assorted salads and OMGEXCELLENTDESSERTS!!! We definitely pigged out.

We called it a night early and brought the kids in after playing in the lake for awhile again. Mom cuddled Carter for about five seconds before he passed out (seriously) and Cooper was still going strong for quite awhile. Both of them didn't nap so I figured they'd go to bed early. I mean, I DID let Cooper have an ice-cap fromTim Horton's today (a small) and he drank the whole thing in under ten minutes but that was around one o'clock and I didn't think he'd still be up from that. He did also have some brownies that probably perked him right up again.

Anyway, I brought our portable DVD player and was winding him down with a movie when the neighbours started lighting a bit of fireworks. Cooper got a kick out of that. My Dad lit up a few of them too, and when they were all done, Cooper had a few swigs of warm milk and zonked out watching his movie. I moved them both into the spare room. They slept well together last week in Thunder Bay so Mom figured it was a good spot for them on the hide-a-bed. So far so good.

Chris and I are staying nearby on the couches in case the kids wake up in unfamiliar territory and freak out or head for the stairs.

Here is a picture from today; I hear the distant rumbling of thunder so I'd better get this done and unplug this thing quickly! By the way, I picked up some super soaker-type water guns for the kids for the first time and they were a hyuuuuuge hit!

It's Not Attempted Mariticide, Honey, It's Just a Bit of Exercise

After work yesterday, we all came home. I ran a couple errands then came home. The kids stayed outside to play while Chris mowed the lawn. I came inside and dyed my hair. My highlights were looking drab so I coloured over my whole lid. Much better.

Next we took the kids for a walk in the stroller. (I nominated Chris to drive it.) The main goal was to walk downtown to pick up some hairspray, but I had plans to go for a nice walk along the river and find something to eat along the way. I had apprised Chris of my intentions but he still wore his flip-flops. Silly man. We walked along the path (didn't take pictures this time because they'd have been the same as last time) by the river and looped back around with a stop at Dairy Queen. We hadn't eaten supper yet, just a few snacks for the boys, so we ate there. I had a grilled chicken salad and a few of the boys' onion rings. Chris had the Ultimate combo and the boys (sort of) shared a cheeseburger. And oddly we completely skipped any form of dessert.

We continued on our little trek (with Chris taking more frequent pauses to flick the rocks out of his sandals and making comments about how far we'd walked) and came home. The boys wanted to watch a movie, so I set them up and it wasn't long before they were both zonked. Did I say both? I mean all three. Chris fell asleep shortly after too. I must mention that while Chris doesn't enjoy going out for a walk, it's not out of laziness (that would by MY excuse) he just works a very physical job all day and considers that his exercise regimen. I don't blame him, but it's really nice to get all of us out of the house together. This morning before he left for work, he said he really enjoyed our walk last night. I just smiled. :)

You Know You're a Bad Blogger When...

Your parents start commenting it's been awhile since you blogged!!!

Well it's been a busy week. And I have only distant memories of my activities of the past week since I blogged. I do know that any contact with my computer has been for projects for other people. And now that I am caught up I can have some fun this weekend.

We had a great (and quick) trip to Thunder Bay to attend my cousin Debbie's wedding last Saturday. On Sunday we stopped at Kakabeka Falls on the way home and we took some great pictures that are still awaiting an upload.

With Canada (Me) Day on Tuesday being a national holiday, the week has been split up in an odd way and here we are almost at Friday. Tonight I went to Bingo with Mom and Kelly. Kelly won once, split with another winner and then with me, so it wasn't a complete loss! Yay for yelling Bingo!

Not sure what our plans are for the weekend but the weather is looking up. I'll be sure to blog all those pictures later too.

Happy Birthday Tooooooo Meeeeeeeee

Oh yeah, you too, Canada! I might be 37 today, but I'm 104 years younger than you are!

Puh-lenty has happened since I blogged last week. We took a trip to my cousin's wedding, we celebrated Canada's and my birthday, and plenty of stuff in between. I've taken a googol of pictures too, and I promise to post and scrapbook a big handful of them. But not tonight. This old girl is going to bed.

I'm not even sure if they went ahead with the fireworks after the thunderstorm this afternoon but we skipped it again if they did. If they postponed it, we'll be all over it when they decide to go ahead with it.