I've Said it Before...

...and I'll say it again, every weekend should be THREE DAYS LONG!

This past weekend we were lucky enough to have a three day weekend, and it was fabulous!  Monday was a holiday, Victoria Day, better known as May 24 (that's not May 24th, but May two four!).  The weather can be a little sketchy on May 24, but this year it was AMAZING!  It was in the high 20's all three days, and it was great to have all that heat and sunshine.

Saturday we got an early start to the day - we went to Kingston to do some shopping and run some errands.  We made two stops to do some shopping, Golf Town and Costco!  Curt and I each got ourselves a little gift - he got a new putter and I got the Anne of Green Gables 5 Disc DVD Collection.  I've picked the box up at least two other times when in Costco, but both times decided to put it back...but not this time!

I haven't taken the time to sit down and watch any of it yet, but I love knowing that I can now, whenever I want to! 

And, from Costco it was on to a former co-workers house to pick-up some furniture and stuff.  One day at lunch, she was mentioning that she was going to list some stuff on Kijiji...she went on to say that she was getting rid of a desk and an elliptical...so, I told her that Curt and I would be interested in taking them off her hands!  Well, when we got to her place, we ended up with not only those two items, but also a storage cabinet and a wooden box.  The wooden box isn't much right now, but we have big plans for it.  A few months ago I saw this on Pinterest, showed it to Curt and asked him if he could make it for the basement...he said he could, but that was the end of it....

Luckily, when he saw the wooden box in Kelly's garage, he saw the potential of turning it into this! 

Once we got home, the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent working around the house - Curt was doing yard work, and I put our new storage cabinet to work in the mudroom.  It has become a place to store sports equipment - mostly golf related, actually, mostly golf balls!

Sunday we had plans to meet some friends who were camping at Sandbanks, so, we got up early and went to church in the county, that way we were closer to the beach when church was over.  It worked out well, and we ended up having almost four hours of beach time.  I didn't actually go for a swim, but did spend some time in knee deep water throwing a frisbee around with Curt, and the water was surprisingly warm.  

We had to cut the time short because we wanted to be home for the annual neighbourhood bbq and fireworks.  This year, Dave and Sarah and the boys, and Kevin, Susannah and Stella came for the fireworks. 

One of our neighbours is a volunteer firefighter, and he always takes the lead on the fireworks display.  This year, some of the other volunteers came early and brought a truck with them.  All the kids had a great time climbing in, and on, the truck.

Luke, Isaac and Noah taking in the view from the front seat.  Just after this picture, Noah got to play with the horn...by the time he hopped down from the drivers seat, he was grinning from ear to ear!

We enjoyed another great fireworks show, although little Stella wasn't too sure about them...she thought they were too loud...quote of the night, Stella in a serious voice told her dad that she thought she should go home because it was 'almost past her bedtime'. 

 Stella did enjoy the sparklers though!

And Monday, after sleeping in, we had a pretty low key day.  Curt played golf in the afternoon, and I spent the majority of the day reading on the back deck! 

After proof reading this post, I feel like it sounds like a rather boring weekend, but it was actually perfect in my books! 

A Birthday Celebration

This past weekend, Curt and I went to Acton the CELEBRATE - Princess Abby turned two!

We left on Friday, but had to drive separately...Curt didn't come home on Sunday evening, he had a course to attend in Toronto, so he was there until Tuesday evening.  I, of course, had to be home for work Monday morning.

Things got off to an early start on Saturday morning - the boys went to Nolan's lacrosse game, and had to be there for pictures at 8am.  The girls got to leave a little later, we went to Abby's gymnastics class and had to be there at 9am.  For those of us with no kids, that's early for a Saturday morning!  But, it was totally worth it - Nolan got his first assist at lacrosse, and watching Abby 'do gymnastics' was hilarious!

At this point in her life, Abby's not too sure about gymnastics :).  Krystle mentioned that she seemed a little off that day, and is usually at least a little more interested.  The class lasts 45 minutes - it starts with a warm-up and stretching and then the group gets to use various gymnastics equipment (a small beam, parallel bars and a trampoline)...at the end, the kids get stamps on their feet and hands.

Here is Abby after about half an hour....sitting in the spot the kids go for their stamps :)

 and looking for her coach (she's probably thinking "get over here, give me my stamps, I'M OUTTA HERE!) 

Poor little thing was all tuckered out after her strenuous workout!  She really tried to stay awake on the drive home, but her eyelids were just TOO heavy!

Unfortunately, the short ride home was the only nap Abby took the whole day!  That made everyone a little nervous because that afternoon was her birthday party...but, she did really well and wasn't too grumpy.

It was a beautiful day, so we were able to be outside - Nolan and Abby were the only little ones, but it was still good for them to have lots of room to run around while the adults visited.

The birthday girl, all dressed up...sitting at a picnic table and playing with a truck of some sort :)

 And later, opening presents.....

Abby really liked her princess towel...the face my mom is making is the mirror image of Abby's face...

The birthday girl LOVED her cake...well, she LOVED the icing!

I didn't get a picture of Abby as she opened this gift, but I took one on Sunday - this is the Pinterest inspired gift that I made for her...and, that is chocolate on her face :)...

Abby was recently moved into a new room, her 'big girl room'...I thought this might be a nice addition.


And, one last picture...another birthday gift, a bikini that Abby was super excited to wear in the hot tub on Sunday afternoon!

We were so glad to be able to go to Acton to celebrate the little princess' 2nd birthday! 

Household Changes

Another change around our house happened in our living room, but, it's a result of plans we have for the basement.  As soon as we started talking about using the basement for ourselves, we agreed that we wanted to move our upstairs furniture down there, and get new stuff for upstairs.  We got our living room set when we got married; we bought a couch,a  loveseat, and a chair, and The Brick was having a promo that included a TV; and although it's still in great shape and we LOVE it, we wanted to change the look upstairs.  Our original set was....BIG.  And, the TV was...BIG (it was great having a large screen, but the whole thing is big!).

So, way back on Easter weekend, we went furniture shopping!  Our first stop was The Brick - they were having another great promotion.  We found a couch and chairs that we really liked, but it was a big investment, so we didn't feel right buying from the first store....so, we checked out a few other stores and did a little comparison shopping.  But, in the end, we went with our first instinct.

And, here is what we ended up with...

An ivory couch and two red recliners, all leather!  Curt and I were both surprised with ourselves when we went with these colours...and leather :)  Curt has always wanted a reclining chair though, so that part was no surprise.

And, another look.....oh, and notice a small section of the rug, that's new too!

And, one last picture so you can see the new TV!

That last picture makes me want new curtains!  And, it makes me realize I probably should have turned the TV off when taking pictures ;)  Oh well, just keepin' it real.

Our 'old' furniture is set up downstairs and we've enjoyed having separate TV's on a number of occasions, namely, during hockey games!  There is still a lot of work to do in the rec room though, so there are no pictures of that room. 

So, there you have it, another change that took place around here while I was taking my unplanned blogging break. 

I'm Back!

I don't know where to start!  It's been soooo long, I really don't know how three weeks went by without a single blog post?!?  There have been things to blog about, and I've definitely thought about, I just never actually got around to writing a post.  April got off to such a good start too - I had written six posts by the 11th!  I must have overdone it, because ever since then, I just haven't felt like writing.

But, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things here, and I have a lot to catch up on!

One of the noteworthy events around here (and this is old news, but I haven't talked about it on here) is that our tenant moved out at the end of January, and we're starting to make use of the basement!

A little history here - when we built this house, we put a two bedroom apartment in the basement, and we've had tenants living down there for the past four years.  We have been very lucky in terms of the tenants we've had down there, and that extra income was a great help, but we're ready to make use of the space ourselves.

So, after sitting on it for almost two months, making sure we weren't going to change out minds and get a tenant, we've started doing some work down there.

Last weekend I took on the project of painting the bathroom - we had to go into town on Friday night, so we went to Home Depot to pick up the paint, and I spent most of Saturday painting, and a good part of Sunday too.  When we were at Home Depot looking at paint chips, Curt made the comment that we have 'officially lived in this house for too long, we're repainting'!  ha! 

So the bathroom, let me say, I'm glad I got that room out of the way first!  It's the smallest area, but it had the most 'stuff' to edge and paint around - the vanity, toilet, shower and two doors!  I LOVE the colour though, and am really happy with the results.

Here are some before pictures....

Standing at the main door, looking in at the vanity and the second door.  The second door was locked off when we had tenants; we put it in though so that if/when we used the space ourselves, we would have quick access to the bathroom from the garage and outside.

 Still standing at the main door, turned slightly to see the toilet and stand-up shower.

Now standing near the toilet, looking at the main door and the vanity.

And the after pictures...I still don't have the towels and decorations yet...but, that may take awhile, so I'll go ahead and post pictures...

Ahhhh, doesn't that look so much better!  I am still trying to convince Curt to get a new shower unit - it looks OK in the pictures because the doors are in decent shape, but the walls and base are a little discoloured, and I really think the paint colour makes the white 'pop'...so, the shower should be WHITE, right?!?! :)

So, I'll keep working on that, but in the meantime, it's on to Bedroom #1, which we'll be turning into an office for Curt and Three Hills Engineering!

Skating Wrap-Up

Well, the skating season is officially OVER!

This will be a little boring for most people, but I want to write this for my own memory, so feel free to skip this post...if you do read it, I'll understand if you don't make it to the end :)

First, I have to go back to March 20th, when five of my skaters attended a test day in Stirling.

I want to make sure that I mention this test day because it was Alyssa's FIRST test day!  She tried her Dutch Waltz and Canasta - unfortunately she made a little mistake when doing her Canasta (she started to do a progressive instead of a swing roll), which resulted in a retry.  Poor Alyssa is such a hard worker, and isn't used to failure, so she was pretty heartbroken with a 'fail'.  I'm always sad for my girls when they have to retry tests, but it's part of testing, so it was a good lesson for her.

Leah tried her Swing and Willow - it was the third time she tried the Swing, so we were all relieved to see a 'pass' on that test sheet!!!  Unfortunately she'll have to retry her Willow, hopefully not two more times though ;)

The other three girls, Jillian, Britteny and Kate all tried the Ten Fox - Jillian will have to retry, but the other two are moving onto the Fourteenstep!

To be honest, I was disappointed with the overall results from this test day - only four out of seven tests passed - the girls all did their best, I guess we just had a tough judge?

Now, I had submitted four other tests to the Stirling test day, but they didn't get in due to scheduling problems.  So, after returning from Florida, I was back on the ice for a test night in Tweed.

The results were a little better at this test night - Jillian passed her Preliminary FreeSkate, Leah passed her Junior Bronze FreeSkate and Britteny passed the elements portion of her Junior Bronze FreeSkate (she only tried half).

Britteny also tried her Junior Bronze Skills (for the second time), and unfortunately has to retry them again.  She tried them back in December and failed, and she was so nervous to try them again, I think she actually skated them worse this time.

And, finally, we had our year end Awards Banquet on Thursday, April 7th.

A picture of me with seven of the eight kids I coach (the eighth skater couldn't make it)....

 Left to right: Keegan, Ella, Britteny, me, Alyssa, Leah, Jillian and Hannah.  Kate is missing.


Three of my skaters won awards: Ella won for Pre-Junior Proficiency, Kate won for Sr. Achievement and Britteny won for Sportsmanship!

The skaters vote for the Sportsmanship award, and it's the second year in a row that one of my skaters has won - makes me a very proud coach!

Here are some of the award winners...

Front Row, Left to Right: Jamie, Leigha, Mykelti and Sydney
Back Row, Left to Right: Kara, Madison, Ella and Britteny

Normally I would have a post or two about the year-end carnival too, but it happened while we were in Florida, so I didn't actually get to see the show.  I was still involved in the preparations before going away, I just missed the big day itself...which was kinda nice because I always find that day VERY stressful.

So, I've put the skates away...for now!  I have at least one skater interested in doing some summer skating, so if the schedule allows it, we'll be back on the ice in July or August!  Until then, I'll be enjoying the time away from the arena...but missing my girls (and my one boy)!

Easter Weekend

A four day weekend, what a GREAT thing!

We usually spend Easter with my family in Acton, but because we just spent a week with my parents in Florida, and then saw my brother and his family on the way home, we decided to stay at home this year.  And, although I would have loved to see the family again, it was nice to not have to do all that driving.

Friday, after church, we spent the day with all of Curt's family - getting together with them is something we don't do often enough, so it was great to see everyone, especially the nephews.

My mother-in-law turned the get-together into a bit of a work-bee; over a year ago, my father-in-law helped build a tree house, and apparently it's been bothering my him that it still isn't finished, so we got together at Dave and Sarah's house so the boys could finish it up.

There wasn't much to do before they could say it was DONE - some shingling, installing the soffit and fascia and some other little finishing details.  So, with my father-in-law, two brother-in-laws, husband and four nephews working on it, it didn't take long to get it done!  :)

I wasn't outside at first, so I missed pictures of the boys in their hardhats and tool belts, which was really cute!  Joshua, the oldest, was out there helping the whole time (which was a few hours); the others didn't last that long, but they were in and out checking on things.

Curt and Mark doing some shingling.  That tree between them is huge and the tree fort is actually built right around that tree, it's pretty neat!  Curt is also pretty proud of the hand railing, which was his idea - they used small branches from around the property as the spindles.

Once the work was done, we had a great BBQ dinner and then called it a night - the boys were all pretty tired after being outside all day!

Saturday was a good day - other than vacations, this is the first Saturday in months that I haven't had to coach!  I took full advantage: slept in, had a late breakfast (Curt made French toast!), did a little shopping (our purchases will get a post of it's own soon!), went out for a late lunch/early supper and then watched The Masters!

It was a great feeling going to bed on Saturday night knowing that we still had two more days before going back to the office.

We had a great start to the day on Sunday - we skyped with my niece and nephew!  It was great to actually see each other in that way, I could see how excited the kids were about Easter and they got to show me all the eggs they found, and the ball they each got.

After the skype call we got ready and went to church; and I have to say, that after missing a lot of church over the winter due to busy schedules, it was great to attend two services this weekend - I didn't realize how much I was missing that worship time until we started singing in the Good Friday service!

The rest of Sunday ended up being a total write-off - I was glued to the TV to watch The Masters...which got a whole post on its own.

I had all these grand plans for Monday, lots of little things I was going to get done around the house - but I ended up waking up feeling under the weather (I have an annoying sinus cold), so I didn't get much done.  It was nice to have that extra day off though!

Masters Sunday

I've been working on a post about our weekend, but we still have tomorrow off, so I can't finish it until our weekend is over!  So, I am going to do a quick little post about this afternoon...watching the final round of The Masters.

Coverage started at 2pm and didn't finish until after 8pm...and, I was pretty much glued to the TV that whole time.  I did a few things around the house, but whatever I was doing had to be within sight of the TV :)

I always enjoy watching the Masters, but this year was different - it was all the more exciting because Bubba Watson was in contention.

I mentioned in my post about Florida golf that we got our tickets through Angie and Bubba Watson, I didn't really explain how that is possible.  Here is a quick explanation: Curt's friend from high school, Henk, married Amy...Amy has a sister named Angie...Angie married Bubba...simple, right? 

I met Angie at a wedding shower for Amy and then met Bubba at the wedding...in the years since then, we've spent time with Angie on a few occasions (when she was in the area visiting Amy, or when she was following Bubba during his round at the Canadian Open).  When we went to Arizona two years ago, we were lucky enough to spend time at Ang and Bubba's house (they weren't there, they were on tour, but they allowed us to use their pool!).  So, that is how we have a little connection to the Watson's.

When we visited with Angie at Bay Hill two weeks ago, she was talking a little about their plans to adopt - we knew they were in the process of adopting, and she mentioned that they had recently completed the 'home visit' portion of the process, so from there, they just had to wait.  Well, we were pleasantly surprised when news broke the next day that they had adopted a little boy!  We were so happy for them as this was something they had been waiting for for years.

Then, fast forward to this weekend, and Bubba is in contention for, and goes on to win, the Masters!  Can you even imagine the emotional rollercoaster this family has been on over the last few weeks! :)

Bubba won in a play-off against Louis Oosthuizen - they both finished at -10, went on to tie with a par on 18, the first play-off hole, and then Bubba parred the 10th hole, the second play-off hole, while Louis bogeyed!  The second play-off hole was not short of drama - both players missed the fairway, with Bubba going into the trees and having to play off of pine needles.  I literally jumped out of my seat when Bubba's shot from there hit the green (Louis' second shot was just short of the green).  And when Bubba sunk his second putt, the tears started flowing!

I know it's not the closest connection, but it's enough to make the win just that much more exciting!

The Green Jacket couldn't have gone to a better guy!  Especially considering he's the kind of guy that sends  tweets like this after his round on Saturday:  Thanks everyone for the support! 3 reasons tomorrow will be #awesome, 1. Jesus has risen 2. See my new baby boy & my wife 3. Masters Sunday and this: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Congratulations Bubba!  The green jacket looks good on you!