Category: Family

Sunday with the girls

Not a lot of house progress this weekend, we spent Saturday doing chores around the house (cleaning, cleaning the cars, playing Starcraft 2 – all those important things) 🙂 Ryan also had to work a lot this weekend so I had some down time myself. I started taking some of the wood off around the back of the porch to see how much work this project is going to be. I’m not too worried about it, we’ll see if there are cement footings all around or not but the first corner had one at least.

Sunday my sister-in-law brought our nieces over for the day and we all spent the day playing with the girls. We went to the park and followed Emily around from one activity to the next. Her sister slept through the park experience but woke up later so we got to play with her too. It was a great day and I can’t wait to see them again! Emily liked all the fabrics I picked out for her quilt so now I can start on it for her birthday – finally a new sewing project!

Camping this weekend

We’re back from our weekend at Lake Pleasant and it was great. Even the 5 hour drive wasn’t that bad because the weather was amazing. We drove out Saturday morning and back Monday so Sunday was our full day there and we packed it all in. We played with our niece, we relaxed, we ate (a lot!) and I went fishing.

Ryan was laughing at me because I decided to take up fishing as a hobby 🙂 I borrowed a pole and some tackle for the weekend and in the evening friday i took the kayak out by myself and fished for an hour or so. I caught two fish – a whitefish (about 7″) and a pickerel (8″), neither large enough to keep but still fun!. I caught both with just a worm although I did try out some other tackle without any luck. And both were easy to release.

Now we’re back home and I took today off of work to relax and get the house in order. Laundry, cleaning etc. Although it’s so darn hot out I’m dying just sitting in the livingroom. I also need to change my oil and a headlight on the car – maybe it will cool off in the afternoon when it’s shady in the car park area and I can do it then.

Aimee’s house

We spent the weekend at my sister’s house, Aimee and I worked to skim coat the extra bedroom  on Saturday.


While the guys worked on trees. Ryan took down the pine tree by the road.  And they cut up another tree to take to the dump.

Tree all gone

And Sunday Ryan, Aimee and I continued skim coating, we just about got a single coat on all the walls and I got a second coat on one section.

It was a good weekend and once we got home we did some shopping for the bathroom. The bathroom should be just about finished up next weekend so we had to buy a shower curtain and some finishing touches.

Pig Roast

What a great pigroast we had this year!  More family came than I had expected and it was a great surprise.  The turnout was great and the pig tasted awesome.

The day after was calm but fun, I took a group of the kids up to the “tree” house to clean it up a bit and we had an “adventure” hiking around the woods exploring.

On the way home today we even stopped to see our nieces and Ryan got to hold our new niece for the first time!  The girls were adorable and I got a good 10 minutes of imaginary play in after holding the baby for a bit.  It was a quick visit, just a stop on our way home but we would have hated to miss the opportunity to see them since we were driving by.

Ryan holding his new niece for the first time

Tomorrow I have lots of plans for the house, Ryan will be in the office but I think I can manage.  Most important is to finish up the tile in the bathroom.  This includes some caulking, then some touch up painting (where I scuffed the walls), then finally sealing the grout and tile (shower, one wall and the floor).

After that I would also like to get the bathroom door stripped down so it’s ready to be refinished.  If I don’t get to that it will be because I’m outside working on building a compost bin 🙂  I’m looking forward to the day!

Late night

I was spoiled yesterday and got to leave work at lunch time to go play with my 3 year old niece. We played for hours, her imagination is wonderful and it was such a pleasant break to not think about work at all! It was also great to see my new niece – who is just so tiny it’s unbelievable really, and she is SO adorable. They are both such beautiful girls!

Tonight it’s back to the norm. I’ll be working late tonight and hopefully working from home tomorrow to squeeze in 2 extra hours that I usually spend driving. Hopefully this way Thursday and Friday can be normal days as I get ready for the weekend.

And this coming weekend I have so many plans…
First off – definitely want to finish grouting the bathroom (Saturday)
2 – prime the trim around the bathroom door (Saturday)
3 – prime the areas I touched up on the walls/ceiling in the bathroom (Saturday)
4 – start painting the bathroom (Sunday) – one coat on ceiling, one on walls
5 – strip the paint off the bathroom door (Friday and Sunday)

Is that too much? I’d also like to work in the gardens some if the weather is nice … hmm.. I better not plan on sleeping this weekend 🙂

Prom hair

Oh to be young again and looking forward to my prom!  I wouldn’t put myself through high school again for anything though.  I do however get to live vicariously through my cousin Hannah sometimes!

This Saturday is her prom and after deciding on a hairstyle that included french braids she thought of me – I was truly honored!  So Wednesday night on my semi-regular visit we did a practice run of hair styles to make sure she could get the look she wanted.  It was also a good chance to mark her dress for hemming.

First up we tried the inside out french braids:

inside out french braid - hair style 1

Wispy back - hairstyle 1

It was really hard to decide what to do with the back but we really liked a casual look which just worked out first try.

Then we switched it to regular french braids (pulling from only one side after the top was done) so more hair was left for the back.

Regular french braid - hairstyle 2
Other side - hair style 2

This time I tried a neater back, using more braids, we didn’t like it too much however, it was too tight, made the rest of her hair look weird.

Braided back - hairstyle 2

Then after we decided to go with regular french braids (hairstyle 2) with the back (wispy) from hairstyle 1 I got to play around a bit.  I curled Hannah’s hair – which is no small feat let me tell you – that girl has thick hair!  It sure is a beautiful texture and length.  Then I put it up, it was touch and go, we thought it would look really bad at certain parts but in the end I think it came out really cute.  It doesn’t go with her dress style for prom but it’s very becoming.

Updo - Hairstyle 3 (just for fun)
back of hairstyle 3
A princess!

And look she survived – no burns and no permanent knots 🙂  I can’t wait for the real thing on Saturday – I promise there will be more pictures.  Tomorrow night I’m going to hem up her dress really quickly so I’m ready to go!

Nieces

Thursday April 29th, our new niece Finley was born. 5 lbs 15.5 oz and 18 1/2″ long I believe. She was 5 weeks premature but doing well. When we went to visit her on Sunday she was very active and looked very healthy. While it was a treat to meet Finley for the first time and hold that little tiny bundle of joy, I had a memorable time playing with my other niece.
3 year olds have quite an imagination and the games we played ranged from go-fish (with a fishing pole) to pretend hop scotch, to dancing around to pretend music.
Now I’m 3000 miles away but still smiling when I think about the fun we had. Can’t wait to see the girls again soon!

Happy Birthday Ryan! (Vacation – Day 3)

[Editted to add picture of ryan’s gift]

A day of doing nothing – always great!  I got Ryan 2 new movies for his birthday – Where the Wild Things Are and Sherlock Holmes.  So the main goal for the day was to watch both and go out for dinner at Bugaboo.  Mission accomplished!

Here’s Ryan’s main birthday gift:

A new tablesaw 🙂

Now we’ve settled in with Sherlock Holmes and Ryan’s enjoying his birthday dessert:

birthday cake

Tomorrow the dumpster comes – oh demolition here we come!