I guess I'm a little behind! As I'm taking pictures off the camera I can update you all a little.
Halloween was fine, though wet like last year. C was some sort of wizard from a video game, H was a golden knight from Terraria (video game) and V was Merida from Brave. This was the first year they all offered to degut the pumpkins themselves, but I still did most of the cutting, though they had input into what they wanted. C & H asked for angel and devil Creepers from Minecraft (video game-are you seeing a trend?) V just wanted a regular jack o lantern.
I've signed up to be a Jamberry consultant. Jamberry nail wraps/shields are fun covers for your nails. The best part is that there's no drying time and they last longer than polish. Just sharing a few manicures I've done with them. If you want to try a sample, just let me know or you can order off my website in the US or Canada (if ordering from Canada contact me first as the shipping is from the US and I can usually combine some orders and save you some money!) www.jamberry.net just pick me out from the consultants on the last page and the prices will work out when you put in your shipping address. The wraps are $15 US/$17 CAN and are buy 3 get one free. I can get two manicures and pedicures from each sheet along with an accent nail or two left over. (Have you seen this accent nail trend? You paint your ring finger a different color. You can also do all solids with a print nail for your ring finger-though my trend-setting daughter just did hers with an accent pinkie!)
Ombre without the dry time!
I have been able to use my samples for Valerie
but she finally got her own at Christmas, though I don't seem to have any pictures of those! (They come in a smaller size for kids up to age 8)
Midnight celebration:
with metallic berry
Solid-they aren't all patterned....
Christmas
A very urban triangle and grey I did when I got back after Christmas
Carter's been having to work on his writing skills, so these are two writing exercises I had him do a few weeks apart. One at week 2 of lessons, the other a few weeks later:
September into October is always a busy time for us-school is starting up with all it's paperwork, money requests, new routines. As soon as we get through the craziness of school starting up, curling season starts! This year we're adding a kitchen remodel to all of this! But, we still value our sanity so we have decided to wait on widening our 1 car wide driveway until next spring.
Our biggest news is that I now have my permanent residency for Canada! I don't qualify for universal healthcare until mid-November, so we got some overriding coverage, but it will be a relief to be done jumping through the immigration hoops for awhile. I have to be in the country for 3 years before applying for citizenship. Every day away means one day less for that count and all the days I was here before then only count as 1/2 days. I have a little book I keep with my passport to note all the days I'm out of Canada to keep track.
Right after school started I headed to central NY for a scrapbook retreat, love having that break after the first week of school starts! I was able to catch up our scrapbooks with all our day to day and summer trip to WA photos. Shortly after I got back, I got a surprise delivery...
We sold our old electric mower which was about to need new batteries before moving to Ontario. When we got here, we bought another electric mower. It worked great last summer. I charged it up for the beginning of this summer and it worked ok, but the battery was definitely not peak performance like last year. I called the company after I discovered I was just shy of the 1 year warranty. After a few e-mails with a tech they decided I needed a new battery and charger. Over 8 weeks later and 3 phone calls I discover that the batteries are on backorder from the US, but have finally arrived. 2 days after that a brand new in the box mower gets delivered to my house!
I get back from NY and a few days later am headed on a very short plane ride to meet my college roommate in Montreal for a long weekend! I arrived Friday afternoon. Sitting in the airport waiting for my plane to take off I see on the news monitors that the Chicago airport where my friend is taking off from has a control tower on fire and is not releasing any planes. Arg! She was lucky enough to get on the only flight from Chicago to Montreal Saturday morning. After some exhaustion and heading to the hotel we got touristy. I'll put those pictures on another post since this one is a long one.
After Montreal I headed to OH Amish country for another scrapbooking retreat and was able to make a scrapbook for our trip we took over the summer to Europe as well as relax with some shopping and walking/running through Holmes County, OH.
Upon returning from Ohio, our long-awaited kitchen remodel began! We began the process of designing and finding a contractor back in May, but he was unable to fit us into his schedule until now.
The day after I got back from OH, Paul and I took down some of the cupboards. They were fairly recent additions to the kitchen from IKEA by the previous owners, but we suspect they were never meant to be permanent by the lack of paint/good countertop, etc. so we reused many of them in our laundry room (see previous post). The following day we took the appliances out to the garage.
My kitchen for 3-4 weeks:
The first day of renovation involved demolition-finishing getting cabinets and counters out, hauling them away, taking out the floor, etc. etc. The second day was to reframe the walls-we removed the wall almost completely between the kitchen and dining room and we opened up the opening to the living room/stairs as moved the opening over. To help traffic flow around the fridge, we nudged the opening over a little. Considering both entry ways into the kitchen were 29 inches before (the old fridge doors had to come off the hinges in order to make it out) I'm very happy with the new openings. Day 3 was to drywall. After drywall, they ran the water lines for fridge and sink. They mudded and sanded and sanded and sanded (these were 1/2 days of work as they had to wait for the mud to dry in between). Then tile (we found a natural stone on clearance!), then grout. The flooring was then covered up and Paul and I were given last weekend to paint. We waffled between a dark yellow and a spring green. Frankly, we thought it was easier to find a nice green than a nice yellow that wasn't took dark or light. Also, Paul's point was, "the yellow/golden color is more fall and the green is more spring. With our long winters and your disappointment with fall (I see it as the winter coming to get me!) maybe green and spring would be better."
Before:
Demolition:
Paul pretending we did some of the work taking the walls down:
Waterlines for sink (being moved) and fridge (so we can have ice/water in the fridge)
New opening into dining room:
New opening to living room-we had to move it so it's not lined up with the stairs anymore so that we could have enough room between the edge of the fridge and peninsula for traffic flow, but I think since it's wider it will look alright:
Monday was a quiet day, contractor stopped in just to check up and Tuesday the cabinetry was installed and I painted trim while Paul powerwashed the back deck (we never got around to the weatherproofing this year, so we're trying to get on it this week while we have a bit of a warm spell). A few oh, ohs happened.... 2 of the potlights are covered by the cabinet above the fridge and the molding, an outlet that was cut into the end of the peninsula wasn't wired up when the electrician was here. The contractor felt terrible and when he's here this week while the countertops are being cut (they were measured for on Tuesday, he's trying to get them here Friday) he'll fix and even paint for us those things. Also happening this week is ventilation. Our kitchen before had only the ventilation over the stove that "cleaned" the air and shot it back in. We want it to shoot outside. The bathroom on the other side of the wall that the oven vent will be in also has no fan, so we're having both done at the same time. Tuesday appliances arrive and contractor will get sink and dishwasher installed, so maybe as soon as next weekend I'll be in my new kitchen!
CABINET/COUNTERTOP
Speaking of bath fans. We had some other home improvements go on around here. The 2nd bathroom downstairs had had a terrible sound when the fan was running since we moved in. Paul tried to level it. He tried to oil it. To no avail. He finally ripped it out and threw it away and bought a new fan. We turn it on.... same noise. We either don't use it or listen to this terrible rattling for the last year. So I ask him one day to work on the fan again while the contractor is here in case we need to ask for suggestions on what to do. He pulls it out again. The noise still happens even when the fan is out! Finally finds the problem outside... a small little circular thing beyond the flapper is rotating and making the awful racket when the fan is on-pull it out and no more noise! We think the new exhaust was put on as part of the new siding in April 2013!
Paul and I also tackled a project together-after raccoons turning our deck into a buffet line with our garbage, we grabbed some pallets, a plywood sheet of treated wood and some hinges and made a raccoon (bear) box. So far it's working great! We keep the trash and green bin in there. Our recycling has always been in our deck box since those bins have no covers on them.
In the middle of all this, after adjusting to our move over the last year, we've decided to step it up a notch and add some activities. I'm now curling T/Th day ladies like last year, but added Club Championships league Monday nights and plan to do the Wed afternoon drop -in and sub on Thursday nights as well as bonspeils when I can and when they don't interfere with Paul's curling. Paul is again trying for a US National men's spot with a team from Rochester, NY. V is taking dance and swimming at the local community center, C and H are ice skating (first year) and curling (2nd year for C, 1st for H) H is also brushing up his swimming with V, but possibly only for fall, not sure if we'll sign him up for Winter as well.
Video taken with V's leappad of the boys ice skating. H is in the white helmet, black pants, his jacket is grey, red & blue; C is in the black helmet with dark red vest and khaki pants.
C is not usually one to join as quickly as H (the little guys would sign up for everything presented to them if we let them!) The first week of ice skating went alright, esp for 2 kids who had maybe been twice in their lives. But after the first week, C said, "my butt hurts from falling!" 2nd week, H goes out, skates as well as he can, C is so afraid of falling he takes 35 of the 45 minutes to get to where his class is at. It was like watching paint dry. He moved so, so slowly. He didn't fall, I'll give him that. Well, when the children are ridiculous, mom gets moreso. So I took 2 pairs of boxers he wasn't wearing anyways and sewed a pocket into them for a foam pad from our front entry way bench (see previous post). The kid loves them. He wears them just for skating and doesn't fall anymore anyways and is actually having fun. We call them his "confidence pants." I'm sure there's an incontinence joke in there somewhere....
Let's see... I also decided to sign up as a Jamberry consultant. I had sworn off direct sales, but when I realized that the sign up pack really wasn't that much more than just ordering more of their finger/toenail wraps I figured I'd try it out and get my stuff and see how it went. They are wraps that last a long time when applied with heat (a hair dryer works great!) in lots of fun solids and patterns. They come off with just some oil (I use dental floss to help matters) if you are interested in finding out more, I have a FB page https://www.facebook.com/groups/581730181954992/ and also a website you can order directly from in US or Canada http://coffeeandjam.jamberrynails.net/ .
Well, I think that catches you all up, I'll post some final kitchen pictures in a few days, though it may have to wait until I get back from a long weekend in WA state to attend the Creating Keepsakes scrapbook convention!
Lastly, these last 2 months have been a very big lifestyle change for us. The kids are all attending grade school full time, full day. I do miss them-our weekends and weeknights are very kid-centered so we can squeeze as much time with them as possible, but I also like that when they return I'm calm and have gotten all the business of our lives done while they were at school and I don't have to run them around to the grocery store, etc. etc. when we do have time together.
The other lifestyle change is that Paul is no longer working. The company decided to do some restructuring and decided he would have to choose between moving back to the headquarters or being laid off. He decided that being laid off would be better for our family. So he was given a severance package by the company and sent on his way. While it was a little stressful for both of us while we were making those decisions and settling questions/details like, "what about insurance? what about retirement savings?" things are now much calmer now that it's all settled. Not a ton has changed since he was working from home 3 weeks out of the month and at headquarters one week of the month, but in other ways things have changed. C summed it up much better when he told Paul this last week.... "Dad, you know when you talk on the phone in that higher voice because you are in a happy mood?" "I suppose" "Well, now you talk like that all the time. I like it." While we're not sure what our working future holds, especially now that I am legally allowed to work here, we're enjoying some time together.
People ask what we do all day. Well, we work in the yard and on the house. We walk to errands that are in town together as we chat about future plans. We do our grocery shopping/errands together. Hopefully we'll curl more together. We read, play video games. We curl on our own, go running together or apart & eat lunch together. We do chores together and split them up more evenly. Life is very relaxed and we're enjoying this brief intermission in our lives.
Other random thoughts/pictures:
H & V are probably each other's best friends right now. Weekend sleepovers and playing Xbox together and drawing pictures and playing pretend, esp with the dress up chest are favorites:
V rockin' H's hand me downs...
Fall is coming :( every day I can see more and more of the empty field behind us... we can't see any of it in the spring/summer because of all the leaves. Luckily for us, this area behind us will not be developed. Houses were supposed to be built back there in the next 5 years, however due to animal habitat, the houses are being built further south where the proposed development's Phase 1 is already built and not as far north as we are, so I'll get to keep my lovely view :)
My college roommate and I took a long weekend trip to Montreal. I'd never been and she speaks French better than I do. We took the trip the 3rd week of September. If you are thinking of going, I would highly recommend not going any later in the year. Many of the restaurants and shopkeepers told us within the next 2 weeks they would be shutting down for the winter.
Queen Mary of the World Cathedral (Marie-Reine-du-Monde)-modeled after St. Paul's cathedral in Rome:
Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal-We'd hoped to go to their evening light show, unfortunately it was not going during the time we were visiting... located in Place du Armes:
Note the 2nd & 3rd floor for parishoners, I believe something like 4000 people can be in the church...
Across from Notre-Dame is Bank of Montreal (the original):
Old Courthouse:
Marche Atwater-a smaller version of Pike Place in Seattle-outdoor/indoor farmer's market-also note: generally most shops are not open Mondays and even Tuesdays, so plan accordingly:
Ground cherries-pull open the leaves and they taste oddly like yellow cake!
Notre Dame de Bon-Secours was very interesting-sailors and their families would pray there for safety on journeys. The candle holders are all different ships:
View from the top:
We checked out the waterfront:
Marche: Indoor fashion and crafts market
Down at the waterfront K was introduced to the practice of pouring maple syrup on snow and rolling it on to a stick for a sticky treat:
We found many of the restaurants were open late, so we opted to eat our meals later to see as many of the sights which closed between 4 and 6 as we could and then eat after everything else was closed, so we were out many nights pretty late:
We visited the Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts) Museum- it was alright, but we didn't want to spend more than the morning there. But we were excited to be greeted by a Chihuly (Seattle artist) glass sculpture out front.
We climbed (hiked?) up to the top of Mont Royal which the city is named for, we were rewarded with some great views:
This giant cross is on the top:
We were sure not to feed any wildlife lest we suffer from "maladies"
We walked by the Olympic stadium, which many claim looks like a giant stapler:
as we headed to the Botanical gardens to check out the Festival Luminere (Festival of Lights) in the Chinese Gardens. We discovered the rest of the gardens were not well-lit and decided if we came again we'd come a little earlier in the evening and check out all the gardens, then see the Chinese gardens and leave rather than trying to wander around the other gardens like the Japanese, which had lights, but not a lot of great lighting (there were some tripping hazards)
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