Jan 2, 2007

Just me....




About the only picture of me taken Christmas day......my Son Laurence took this and all the others he took are blurred so this is about the only ok one......

little footsteps



A picture of the tiny tracks the shrews make in the snow - they make little holes through the deep snow to their homes and then you see the little footsteps that barely make a mark in the snow......occasionally you see them scuttle across the snow in front of you - its amazing how something as small and delicate as a shrew can survice the cold winters here........

Grandma on the quad!!!!







Lloyd loved taking his Dad out on the atv's - they both had so much fun out there and Lloyds Dad just LOVED it :) On the last day Lloyd took his Mum out there - her work colleagues had told her they wanted a picture of her on it - so she planned to just sit on it for a picture but once she had tried going around the house on it, she LOVED it too and was soon speeding along the driveway ;)

Terry and Chris on our Boxing Day snow walk.....






A few pictures of Lloyds parents during our walk on Boxing Day......

Happy BIrthday Rosie!!!!




Rosie is 1 today :) here she is with her big sister Amber (2 1/2 )

First sunset of 2007



Here is tonights sunset picture - my first of 2007.

Pink Flamingoes and guilt free chocolate!!!



Lloyd has meetings in various buildings downtown...his office is in CWB but he has to attend meetings all over the downtown core with companies like Fujitsu, IBM, Captial Health etc etc........

Some of these meetings are in one of the Telus towers and before CHristmas, Telus (The Canadian version of BT ) were giving out gifts - plastic pink flamingoes that come with poles to stand them on...and bars of chocolate that are labelled 'guilt free'.........so of course Lloyd grabbed 3 of each to bring home - and I now have three very tacky bright pink flamingoes (like on the Telus commercials) to go on my pond this summer!

We still have the choccy bars surprisingly - especially as they are so obviously guilt free :)

Yay!!



I'm excited......Lloyd brought home series 2 of Greys anatomy on dvd so we have an evening of that to look forward to :)

Can you tell I am a little obsessed??? I haven't enjoyed a tv show this much for a LONG time!!!!! YEARS!!!!

Whats the point?

Ok what is the point of your husband having a really sexy voice if it doesn't lead to anything?????? Lloyd has the most amazingly sexy croaky voice right now......WOW but he also feels like crap and has a bad cold, sore throat and is ill - so the chances of me taking advantage of his sexy tone are......NIL :(

Good job we are spending the evening with Dr McDreamy lol!

The Grandchildren............



And here are the pics of the children........

a few more :)



Lloyd and his parents and also Lloyd and I.......

Lloyds parents.............





Some indoor pictures of Lloyds parents that I took to go in a 'generational' picture frame that we gave them for Christmas - there are three spaces in the frame and they are labelled 'Grandparents', 'parents', 'grandchildren'. So I took pictures of each for the frame!

Dance class open house...











The girls dance class held their open house just before Christmas....Lloyd had taken his Dad to a hockey game that night, so I took Terry with me to see the girls dance...it wasn't organized very well as they had the younger class dancing upstairs and the older class dancing downstairs - at the SAME time!!!!!! Several parents had girls in both classes so we were all running up and down the stairs trying to get glimpses of all our children - CRAZY!!!! Afterwards there was a party style buffet and the children all got treats before we went home.....

We bought the teachers each a gift for CHristmas and the girls went up to the teacher to give them the gifts - and all they said was 'oh put it on the table over there'....how nice is that????? NOT!!!! Susannah commented on how rude that was! I'm so glad she noticed because we were able to talk about it! Next year I just won't bother!

Porcupine................


We saw this little guy pootling along the road in Elk Island Park on Boxing Day.....we got out of the car and got fairly close and he didn't seem to mind at all......we were very aware that he could throw his quills but he really didn't seem bothered by us ;)

Lets Play............












On Christmas Eve we usually take the children to Lets Play for a while - its a chance for us to sit and relax after a busy few days while the children have a blast and tire themselves out so they go to bed early :) It works wonderfully :)

We had a nice couple of hours there and the children had great fun on the slot machines too.....Susie made a friend there very fast and they played for a while.....Laurie had fun on the slide with Sam and Chris and Terry enjoyed seeing the children play!

Cranium Cadoo.......





Christmas Eve evening, we put The Polar Express on tv and then we all sat and played Cranium Cadoo.....it was great fun - Terrys impression of 'bubbles' and mine of a vampire and a pirate (Susan you would soooo NOT have been proud of my pirate impersonation lol - they thought I was the hunchback of notre dame instead of captain Hook lol - its hard to be a pirate and make no noise!!!!)

It was a fun game and Susie won both games - with different partners but she won :)

We were all in bed by 11:30pm - waiting for Santa to arrive!

Failure to launch

Failure to Launch - what a useless movie...I am not a fan of Matthew McConaughey anyway but this film was really AWFUL :( It is like a bad version of 'How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days' - makes me wonder why on earth he did this movie......

zero stars out of five for this movie.

In Praise of Slow....

I am currently reading Carl Honore's book 'In Praise of Slow' - its excellent and I spend my time nodding in agreement constantly.....

One thing that really stood out to me was the question:

To what extent is slowing down a luxury for the affluent?

Hmmm this really did get me thinking a lot - Christie I would especially love your thoughts on this (because you have experienced this from both angles and I think you have managed to live a slower life no matter what!) - but everyone that visits my blog - what are your thoughts?

I do think it is possible for anyone to slow down their lives and downshift out of the 'rat race' but I do think it is easier to do when you have a certain level of financial security....

I think for me at least it was easier to opt out of city life and move to the acreage because we could afford to - perhaps it wouldn't have been so much fun if we didn't have the vehicles, toys and comforts that make this lifestyle more enjoyable.....and Lloyds job and salary allows him to be at home more and have a calmer slower family life away from the office.....

But it isn't just money is it? Sometimes money can work in the opposite way if you aren't strong enough to stop it. At the weekend we drove around some of the expensive subdivisions in town - the million dollar homes on their 2 acre plots........

These are people with BIG money....yet it would be MORE difficult in some ways to slow down and downshift living there - there is so much of the 'keeping up with the joneses' philosophy in those subdivisions...........how easy it is it to go against that?

I am glad we opted NOT to live in a subdivision and I am glad that over the last 5 years we have managed to step away from the competitive ratrace......now we do things because WE want to - and not because its expected of us or society demands it.....we don't rush around for classes for the children and we don't over-schedule our lives......we take things SLOWly and its nice to read a book about a movement of people globally, who are all doing the same ;)

Everyone should read this book!

dishwasher

Our dishwasher is dying......noisily!!! Actually you could say it was murdered as it just never recovered after Lloyd pulled it out last year! It is very LOUD and drives me crazy......today I have emptied it and it is going through a lightwash empty with some cleaning product or other inside it to make it sparkle - you would think with the amount it is used in this house, that it would sparkle naturally but I guess not - I think we will have to get a new one......

We are also getting a new furnace and air conditioning put in - the furnace guy is coming on Thursday.....it will be so good to have air conditioning this summer.

Lloyd says that we will have two dishwashers in the new kitchen - he's right I guess - we need them - our dishwasher goes on several times a day.....maybe thats why they never last!

It's a cracker!!!! ;)











And only Brits will 'get' my title for this post lol........

So a big part of our Christmas dinner is the Christmas crackers - we pull them before the meal and everyone wears their hat during the meal :) I like to pay a little bit more for crackers so you get good things inside!!! I got a little silver tin with a sewing set inside.....

Here we are in our hats - except no one took a picture of me in my hat :) Maybe Lloyds Dad did and will send me a copy when he puts the picture onto the computer.....and Lloyd refused to look at the camera while wearing his lol! We always buy extra crackers and have them Boxing Day and at New Year too...........
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