Thursday......

Chris is at work today....Lloyd took him in and I am supposed to be going into town later to run some errands and pick him up......but Abigail is still sick (since Monday night) and is hacking away :( and Sam is tired (although happily eating his way through an entire packet of Rich Tea Biscuits) and I feel crappy so I suggested to Lloyd that we go tonight instead......then at least I have help.......because we have to take the kids for shoes and also for passport type pictures.......and I am not sure I have the patience to tackle it all on my own with sick and tired kids.......

Laurence has been practicing magic tricks all morning...from a show he watched.......he did this cool one where he got me to snap a q-tip and then he made it all fixed again.........and now Abby is making a marble disappear ;) magic must be in the air because Christies DS loves magic too....mine have all gone through the magic craze in the past.....a few months ago it was ALL they did for weeks.......but they haven't done any for weeks.....

And now Susie has been flicking through her recipe magazines and found the 'perfect' sugar cookie recipe so is busy baking in the kitchen...........I will add the pics later............right now the vanilla smell is very strong so not sure how much she used ;)

Tomorrow we are off to Daisy's Halloween party so long as we are all well...please be well everyone as I really want to go!!!!!

house value????? Wanna guess????

Anyone want to guess how much our home is worth??? We are having it valued this week.......

2200 sq ft cape cod style home with front porch....5 beds in all....3 baths.......large mudroom......heated garage.......16.08 acres......close-in to The Park....not far off hwy direct to Edmonton....kind of backs on to Northern Bear gold course (not touching but basically it will stay as is......large workshop, chicken coop,

we have NO idea what its worth AT ALL.....it will be interesting to find out! House prices further out are not rising as much as the city but I would imagine it has still gone up since we bought a year or so ago as we bought before the boom hit.......I keep looking on MLS but never find anything to compare it to......so really don't have any idea.......

my ghost story for Halloween - true!

I lived in a Victorian house in England for a while...it was built in 1901......the previous residents told us that they had felt something in the house but it only seemed to effect women.......

One night I was in the bathroom and I heard a voice yell Oi! down the corridor in a womans voice but no one was there.......then another night my sister was staying and we were sat downstairs when we heard heavy adult footsteps walk across the floor above us.....we went to check but no one was there....and my DH had not heard a thing!

Another night I was in the upstairs room we had heard the footsteps in (my bedroom) and I was sat on the bed writing my journal when I felt a hand on my shoulder.......it was very much a hand I felt and it was wonderfully comforting and supportive........

My DS had an 'imaginary friend' in that house too...an old lady who visited him at night...he called her the 'yellow lady' and he would draw pictures of her......he liked her......There were cold spots in the house too and my dog would growl at things in corners etc.......

I felt so safe in that house though....it wasn't frightening at all...I felt safer there than anywhere!!!

Brown brown brown....................

In England, grass is green in January, its green in June, its green in OCTOBER........

But here in Alberta, because of the cold, grass is green in the summer (if it rains enough) and the rest of the year it is BROWN.....normally it isn't so bad because for much of winter there is snow to hide it....but this year and last there is lack of snow so it is almost always BROWN........

In fact if we don't have a white Christmas, they call it a 'brown' Christmas!

The grass has been brown for at least a month now and to be honest I am fed up with BROWN!!!!!

Roll on snow......or Springtime ;)

Starry starry night........

We are lucky to live far enough out of the city to have a wonderful view of the night skies......and my bed is underneath the window......I wouldn't normally choose to have my bed there but due to the gabled dormer windows we have it is the only place the bed fits.....

Anyway, I can lie in bed and stare up at the night sky before I sleep......and last night was cloudless and the stars were incredible........IO couldn't get to sleep so I just lay there staring up at the stars for hours........

Christies visit................

Yesterday afternoon Christie came over for a few hours with her 4 children....it was such a great afternoon...the kids had a blast out on the trampoline and just hanging out........and Christie and I chatted.......we took Sam and Axel (and our mugs of tea) for a walk through the woods.........we then headed down to the studio and I took LOTS of pictures of Christie and her children.......they came out great and I sent a few of them to her yesterday and will sort the rest this evening and put them on CD...the photo shoot was so much fun and ended with all the children dressing up in the various dres up clothes for pictures!!!

I am going to add piccies here of a few of them- I hope thats ok Christie!!!! I have a few of Christie and all four children but I haven't saved them to the pc yet.........I will add those later ;)

OPM.............

Last night was date night and after reading so any great reviews at LP, we made reservations at OPM at South Ed Common.........we booked for 7pm but actually it was really quiet there last night so we could have just walked in.....

Firstly we went to Best Buy to look at stereos but ended up buying some CD Roms for the kids....a grade 4-6 one and a kindy one.....and I can claim the cost back on homeschool funding which is always a great thing :) free shopping :)

Then we headed to OPM for dinner......the food was wonderful......its a very urban style restaurant....asian food...a mix of Thai, Chinese styles and Japanese.......large portions to share or take home in those cute take out boxes you see in the movies....

It is a very modern restaurant....lots of black and very linear.....very Japanese in style......

It wasn't very 'cosy' or comfortable...I can imagine having business lunches there but it wasn't particularly romantic......I would go there with friends for dinner but probably wouldn't bother on date night again unless I was craving asian food.........or maybe take-out as the food was good....

But for a romantic dinner it wouldn't be my favourite choice..........


We ordered the dumplings, vegetable rolls, Bangkok curry (Lloyd) and Drunken chicken (mine!) Lloyd likes his hot so he had 12 hot chillies added to his curry......I don't like coconutty curries so I didn't share his ;)