29 again

Yup, it's my birthday, another year in the books. C took me to the scrap store and set me loose, then I got a gorgeous digital photo frame from him, then he made me bacon wrapped chicken shish kebabs. Then the day ended with the most divine lemon cheesecake. Heaven.

Friendship

I'm privileged to be part of a little coffee klatch of interesting ladies at work. This week 3 out of 5 of us celebrate our birthdays (Geminis, we tend to congregate), so the other two treated us to a pizza lunch, complete with these divine individual little birthday cakes. At the end of a stressful week (in the middle of a super stressful few months actually), they have no idea how much I appreciated this.

The meaning of life

We had to be out of the house over dinnertime, again, for another showing. This time we took a picnic dinner to the park, ate outside in the sunshine and afterwards walked over to feed the ducks. It's the little things that make life worth living.

Replacement

Couldn't go too long without a barbeque. C assembled this new cutie last night. Can't wait to fire her up!

To thine ownself be true

I gotta be me. Love McD's hamburgers, like cheese but loathe cheeseburgers. A strange little quirk of mine (actually I dislike cheese on any sandwich that has meat on it!) So, I order the two cheeseburger meal - hold the cheese :)

Sparks

Fourteen 5 to 7 years olds... it's like herding cats.

In full bloom

My gorgeous lilacs, fully opened and the smell, oh it's heavenly!

Melted!

A bizarre flare-up of some kind melted the dials on the front of our barbeque (can you see how they've slid down the face?)

Needless to say, not only did we have pizza for dinner but we're now in the market for a new barbeque.

Official

It's official, we're selling! Cross everything for a speedy sale, this keeping the house tidy stuff is going to kill me!

Holy Korean Martyrs

In my periodic series of interesting Ottawa churches I bring you Holy Korean Martyrs Parish (in my head I'm hearing 'holy Korean martyrs Batman!'). Prior to 2001 this was Eglise Christ-Roi, built in 1930 and cute as a button, tucked away on a quiet, leafy street less than a block from arguably the busiest street in Ottawa.

Victoria Day

What else to do on a rainy Victoria day than bake (and of course decorate) sugar cookies?

I want candy!

I'm such a sucker for buying the kids treats when papa is out of town. This foul sugar concoction was called a triple push pop (I think). Very sticky whatever it was...

These are the days of our lives

The rain held off long enough for a lovely stroll though the wooded area between Hog's Back and Carleton U. We fed the ducks and chipmunks, and enjoyed the beauty of Spring.

As I watched the kids laughing, climbing trees and throwing crust after crust for the poor, overstuffed mallards, I realized that these are the days I want to remember. The trips to amusement parks are fun, the museums are nice, but the plain, ordinary days of unfettered togetherness are the ones that stay with me.

Big boo-boo

Poor Wookie took a header off a tricycle at the daycare and landed on his elbow. A not-so-quick trip to the ER confirmed that there were no broken bones, but he was a sad little guy when we had to clean all of the dirt and gravel out of the wounds (which don't actually look all that bad in this shot).

The first lilac opens

The rest are still shut tight, but this early bird near the bottom has bloomed ahead of his brothers. I love my lilacs!

More tulips

Honestly, I never tire of tulips, they just seem to smile at me :) These are at Major's Hill Park, and you can see the Notre-Dame cathedral basilica in the background.

Junk jewellery, extreme close up

Playing with my macro again, looking at the facets of this incredibly cheap dollar-store junk pendant.

Tulips in the sun

C took this picture, I love it, the tulips look like they're worshipping the heavens. Middle weekend of the Tulip Festival, 2008, Dow's Lake on an absolutely perfect Mother's Day afternoon.

Babies in the closet

The drawer that my beloved SU stamps normally occupy needed to be cleared, so my babies have been temporarily relocated to a pair of boxes in my closet. Fear not babies, I'll rescue you soon and we'll have many more fun times with ink and cardstock. ;)

(C saw me packing these up and said something that rhymes with 'goalie fit'. I have lots of stamps :) )

An odd discovery

We're doing more renos (heaven help us). Today C pulled an old, built-in towel bar down and found instead of a proper anchor it was held in place by plaster and old newspapers. How old? Here's the date on one of the pieces (the business section from the Toronto Star). Weirder still, the build date of our house (as listed on the title) is 1975. Did the contractors who installed this towel bar really bring year old newspapers from another city?

Burgers

I missed my barbeque so much the long, long winter it spent buried under many feet of snow.

Taken with my camera phone.

Bitty flowers to be

More of my lilac, it's growing so fast, and there are SO many more flower buds this year.

Karsh Wannabe

Typical shot taken by all Karsh wannabes in Ottawa (myself included ;) ). The tulips are just gorgeous right now, or so I hear. I've only had a chance to see a few of them, too much going on at work and with life in general right now.

Be still my heart

My favourite picture so far this year. They're just so unbelievably sweet (and adorable all dressed up for grandmaman's birthday brunch).