First block with the new toy

Playing with my new drunkard's path die. Clearly I need a lot of practice sewing curves, but how fun!

Woo-hoo!

I won a giveaway on the delightful Katy's blog- an Accuquilt GO baby! And 3 dies! And it came today! And I'm freaking out a little 'cause it's sooooo cool!

I'm going to dig through my scrap bins and play :)

A new quilt

I put together a simple little stacked coins lap quilt, 52" x 62", made from a couple of packs of charm squares from connecting threads and a few coordinating scraps from my stash.

It's very lightly quilted with 'organic' wavy lines, so it's squishy and cuddly :) I think this will live on our family room couch.

Pool time!

Kids were soooo glad to return from camp and find the pool fixed and opened!

This one is a daredevil...

I never expected I'd see this one jumping off the diving board without a floatie or life jacket! My how he's grown...

Date Night #4

Date Night #4 at Jean Albert's Soul Food, in Ottawa. Yummy! C has been dying to try this place for a loooong time, and it was definitely worth the wait. Fun, laid back, down-home atmosphere; friendly, attentive service; and super delicious food. What could be better?


(Our appetizers: "Chik-n-waffle", perfect chicken breast piece on a stick, battered in waffle batter, deep fried and served with table syrup. Yummmmmmmm!)

New pool liner

Yes, it's finally done. The new liner is a grey pebble print, the pool guy tells us it will get 3+ degrees warmer from the sun than the royal blue we had before. I also gives the water a turquoise-y look which is a bit strange to get used to :) It took 8 hours to empty, remove, replace and refill, way longer than pool guy was anticipating. But it's done.

Straight out of the truck the water is a 'balmy' 68F, Brrrrrrrrr! Hopefully it'll warm up quickly...

Date Night #2

Dinner at Mongolian Hot Pot. Broth fondue with all of the ingredients buffet style in large coolers lining one wall. We talked and ate and talked and ate, and I was SO FULL afterwards (but we were there nearly 2 hours so no wonder!). No one played with the burner controls on the table. No one had to go potty 15 times. No one whined 'I don't like that'. No one spilled anything (though in the interest of full disclosure I somehow managed to splash myself in the eye with the broth. The little Chinese waiter was horrified. Can't take me anywhere). Another fabulous date night! I'm enjoying this!

Date Night #1

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. In 3D! With popcorn! No one talked at us through the movie, no one needed to go potty 15 times, no one spilled anything. Perfect date night!

Camp bound

My babies are off to sleepaway camp, both of them! Oh my, 5 whole days of no children in the house... whatever will we do with ourselves??? ;)

They're actually booked for 2 weeks, but they spend the weekends at home (they get on the bus Sunday and come home Friday). We have to squeeze all of our 'date nights' into the first week because I'm just not 100% sure that Jonah will make it both weeks (or even this entire week frankly, I'm holding my breath and panicking when the phone rings....)

Pool Talk

***A long and fairly whiny explanation of why there have been no pool pictures yet this summer***

We have a fairly large in-ground pool in our yard (a definite selling feature when we purchased our house 3 years ago). Last Spring (2010) as we prepared to open the pool we noticed that the liner had torn around one of the jets. Called the pool company in, they recommended vinyl 'welding', which they performed on May 10. $350 for the weld, plus $700 to top up the pool (the water level had to be dropped to below the tear for it to be fixed). It was fine for about a month. Then the water level started dropping. We spent July/ early August trying to keep the pool level high enough to run the pump (having another $350 water load delivered, running our hose as frequently as our poor well pump could manage). Eventually we gave up and closed the pool a good 6 weeks early.

Fast forward to this year. We had the pool people come out, again, in late April to give us a quote for replacing the liner. We discussed and crunched numbers for a week, then called the pool people back to say yes, we were going to go ahead with the replacement. The girl on the phone insisted 'we're not going to do anything until you sign the contract and pay 50% up front' (just like that too). Perhaps that should have been my first clue. Nevertheless we said of course, can you book an appointment for one of the technicians to come out, take the measurements needed, write up the contract, etc. He came out May 13th. Stayed over an hour, so we assumed he'd gathered all of the information he needed. Took a $2,000 deposit (not 50% of the total, just 50% of the cost of the liner) and told us it takes about 2 weeks for the liner to come in from the company at which time they'd call to book an appointment for the installation. Sounded perfect, it'd be ready in plenty of time for summer. Right? Wrong.

2 weeks came and went. Then a third. Then a fourth. I was starting to get anxious. Multiple calls and multiple messages yielded no results. I finally reached someone in person on June 8th (the same snotty girl from above). She said they were missing some measurements and would have to send a technician back out. Uhm, WTF? You haven't even ORDERED the liner yet? You've had my money for 4 weeks!! Oh, she says, well all of this rain has the guys really behind schedule. YOU CAN'T FAX AN ORDER IN THE RAIN??? I stayed calm. She promised to send the technician the following morning (June 9). I told her I couldn't be there, she said no problem, just leave the pool gate unlocked. I said fine, but please have him lock the pool up afterwards (there's still a couple of feet of water in there and lots of small kids in the neighbourhood). She also booked the installation for June 20th.

We got home from work the next day and found the pool gate unlocked. We immediately called the pool people to see whether he'd simply forgotten to lock the gate. Left a message. Left 2 more messages the next day (a Friday). Left 2 more messages Saturday. Left more messages Monday. That evening, at 6:08pm, while I was making dinner, the doorbell rang. An email I sent out directly afterwards:

---OMFG - the pool guy JUST SHOWED UP. TO TAKE MEASUREMENTS!!! I knew he didn't come last week. I'm so angry I could spit nails, that means the liner STILL hasn't been ordered.---

June 13th. Exactly a month after they took the deposit money and 7 weeks after giving us the quote they showed up to take measurements. Not just 'a couple of missing measurements'. THE WHOLE DAMNED POOL! It was their 3rd visit this year, apparently they didn't take measurements when they came to do the quote, nor when they came to write up the contract. Thankfully C dealt with him because I was furious with f-bombs flying. He spent an hour measuring everything, then told us he'd put a rush on the liner and it'd probably be there within a week.

You'd think after that fiasco they'd be quick to call us and keep us abreast of everything. But no. More calls and messages left unanswered as we tried to ensure that this time the liner was actually ordered. C finally reached the technician on June 23rd and he assured us that he'd ordered it, and said he'd call the manufacturer to get a status update then get back to us. Of course he never did get back to us.

June 29th, with both of us at the end of our rope patience-wise, C finally reached the girl at the pool company (I should say, we know her name, and the names of the technicians, but this is a small community and I don't want to 'out' them, especially when I still don't have a pool liner) who said that the liner 'had just come on the truck that day'. Sure, that's convenient. So she booked us for a July 5th replacement.



We'll see. I'm not holding my breath. Right now there are tens of thousands of tadpoles living in the couple of feet of swamp in my pool, the pump and filter have been dormant for 11 months (so who knows if they'll start up easily or need some TLC) and I'm not optimistic that even if they do come Tuesday 10,000 gallons of fresh ice-cold water will heat up in time for us to get any use out of the pool (we have no heater nor solar blanket).

Pool fun!

It's been hellish waiting for our pool to be repaired (latest promise from the company is Tuesday, July 5, we'll see) but today we were able to go hang out at a friend's house and enjoy her pool. Perfect day for it too, sunny, hot, low humidity, the quintessential dog days of summer...

And later...

Fireworks at the community centre to end the day.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day! It's perfect here, hot, sunny, low humidity. We spent part of the day at the community centre eating hamburgers and riding ponies. We'll head back there again soon for fireworks. Good times :)

Wills and Kate

I couldn't get close enough to get a decent shot, but I'm nerdy enough to admit I was thrilled to see them anyway :)

Their brief walkabout and wreath-laying ceremony occurred just 1 block from my office - I simply couldn't miss it even if I was behind so many people there was no hope of me really seeing anything.

Besides, my boss was there too, in the crowd, craning for a glimpse. We were all a bit mental :)

(The grey haired man beside them is Prime Minister Harper and the lady in red is his wife. The secret-agent-looking dude up front is a secret agent dude. Seriously)

Basting

I really need to try that spray basting some time, this pinning is awful for my knees. Putting together a stacked coin sort of quilt, just 'cause. I had 3 tiny (20 piece each) charm packs from Connecting Threads, added some matchy bits from my stash and LOTS of white and voilà, a quilt top. A nice chunk of fabric for the back and two leftover batting bits sewn together and it's nearly a quilt. Going to quilt it in 'organic wavy lines'. Or that's the plan anyway.

Ribfest 2011

Ottawa RibFest, 2011! It rained on and off but that didn't deter me from partaking of some porky goodness! I got a half rack from Camp 31 (for $13) and they were amazing!

Giant Poofy Peonies

Giant poofy peonies. These grow in the back, between the garage and the house, so they always bloom a little later than the ones out front. Most of this bush is still closed up tight.

Coffee Cup Cozies

These look so crooked in the picture. They're not in real life. Apparently I'm a terrible photographer.

Coffee cup cozies from Erin's awesome tutorial as end of school gifts for the bits' teachers. There are Tim Horton's gift cards inside the cups (natch).

Weigela

This used to be a tiny, sickly half-dead thing that we nearly dug up when we had to do work on the house 3 years ago. It's come back with a vengeance now!

Another birthday

Yup, little J was born 2 days after my birthday, it's kind of neat to 'share' a birthday with him (especially since I grew up 'sharing' my birthday with both of my parents, who were born 7 days before and 13 days after me)

My last baby is 8. That seems so old! We ceremonially threw away his car booster seat (8 years old is the magic number in Ontario), and we gave him an electronic drum kit and an MP3 player for his birthday - both awfully grown up gifts I must say!

Happy birthday Wookie!

Another trip around the sun

This year is a year that ends in a 9. I feel like I should be making a '40 things to do before I'm 40' list, but why set myself up for failure when the culmination of this year is likely to be depressing enough?

Pink Eye

We've been visited by pink eye. I'm kind of amazed, it's been a year at least since the last bout by either of them. We started the drops Friday but by Sunday his eye was so swollen he could barely open it so back to urgent care we went for something stronger. Hopefully this'll clear it up quickly...

Spring has definitely sprung

Princess inspecting apple blossoms.

The whole yard has exploded in bloom, in large part because of the enormous amount of rain we've had! We took advantage or a few minutes of sunshine to go out and inspect...

First Communion

Today marked the first communion celebration for both little bits. It was fairly low key, like everything at our church is. All of the kids were completely adorable in white robes over their white dresses and Sunday best shirts and ties. Each child got to do a portion of a reading, and all of the kids sang together. The church was bursting with proud parents, an almost electric atmosphere.

It rained, so I didn't get any outdoor pictures, but it was otherwise perfect.

Candy sushi

The little bits look so forward to their big brother's visits home!

He made 'candy sushi' with them today... rice krispie squares for the sushi rice, fruit by the foot became seaweed and all manner of gummy candy became the fish and vegetables. They had such fun together (I even played a little too) :)

Blooming

The fruit trees in our little 'orchard' (what C calls it, but I don't think 6 trees really counts as an orchard :) ) are starting to flower. It's one of my favourite sights! The sour cherry tree (pictured above) is in full blossom (though I have to say there appears to be fewer blossoms this year, which doesn't bode well for a good crop of sour cherries) and the plum is in blossom too (we've never really gotten fruit from the plum, a couple of tiny plums last year, almost more like olives). The crabapple is just starting to bloom and I imagine by next week the apples and pear will be blooming too :)

Tulips 2011

Tulip Fest 2011, Major's Hill Park, Ottawa.

Took a little walk at lunch time to enjoy the sunshine and check out the earliest of the tulips. They definitely did not disappoint! Amazing!

Museum of Nature

Mother's Day trip to the Canadian Museum of Nature.