Introducing Goldie.......

Terry and Chris (Lloyds parents) sent Abigail some money for her birthday this week....and as Abby has been talking about getting a fish for a while (just like Franklin the turtle!!) we thought today would be a good day to go and get one....as the older three were busy with friends.....

So we went into town and collected my pictures (wow they came in a BOX I ordered so many...... I've never got a BOX of pictures back before!!!!) and then went to Timmy's for lunch before going to the pet store...

Abigail chose a specific fish she wanted and the sales girl spent ages trying to catch THE one! Finally she got it and we chose a tank and a few necessary bits and pieces.....

Abigail held Goldie in his bag all the way home and spent the ENTIRE journey asking me questions about fish....

Do fish sleep?
Can fish breath without water?
Can my fish have babies?
Do fish hump? (yep she has older brothers so knows all those kind of words yikes!)
do fish poo?
do some fish have big tails?
does my fish need breakfast ,lunch and dinner?

I patiently answered all her questions and she then tells me that I know a LOT about fish :)

So she named her fish Goldie......original huh? I'm not sure how long Goldie will live...I feel a bit like the dentist in Finding Nemo...I feel like I have given this poor fish to that 'child' in the cartoon who is 'over-kind' to fish and shakes them and kills them.........

Poor Goldie........

Sunday and plans change again......

Sunday morning.....I sat in bed reading for a while and we watched a nature show......slowly got up with the plan to wait until Susie got home at 11am and then head into town to pick Laurie up.....

Lloyd spoke to his parents by phone and then I phoned my Mum to find out how she is doing after her op.....she said she had a nice get well card from Lloyds parents.....

After I said goodbye, Laurie called to say he wanted to sleep over at his friends AGAIN tonight........and then Susie arrived home and asked if she could go swimming with her friend AGAIN and then go to their Grandparents in Barrhead for the evening (where is Barrhead???).......and then her friends brother asked Chris if he would like to go too and watch his hockey match......so off they went and won't be home until 9:30pm.....

So it's just Lloyd, Abby, Sam and myself AGAIN today......so we are going out for lunch :) OMG all we ever do is eat out!

Although last night Lloyd cooked at home and made the most gorgeous butter chicken and we had that with garlic naan and poppadums.............boy was it good!

When we go into town for lunch we are going to swing by Coscto and collect the 300 pictures we took to be printed yesterday......Woohoo!! Then while Lloyd is doing our accounts for tax season, I plan to scrapbook our holiday again :)

Tomorrow we pick Laurie up at 11am.....so hopefully we will finally get to spend some family time on FAMILY day......but the kids will be so tired that I think we may just do the family movie thing here at home rather than facing crowds anywhere.

Anyway...off out for lunch now! Byeeeeeee!!!

You're tagged!!

What is your earliest memory? sitting in my stroller as my Mum walked my sisters to school...I was humming and liked listening to the noise and feeling the vibration of my voice as the stroller went over the gravel and bumpy road....


What will you remember about today? Coming home and finding Derek scraping the ceiling in the hallway and seeing all the dust covering everything.....it was as if it had snowed in my house!


What is the weather like where you are today? Cloudy and grey...not too cold...I think it was about 0c when we got home....


What is your favorite weather? a thunderstorm at the end of a really hot day....that refreshing coolness that breaks the heat.....


What do you like to do during a rain storm? fling the windows wide open, listen to the rain and smell the fresh scent...it doesn't rain very often here.

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What do you like to do during a snow storm? Curl up in my arm chair with a mug of tea and watch the snow fall...preferably with all my family here so I know we are all safe and off the roads.

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What do you dislike about bad weather? How limiting it can be...how dangerous it can be on the roads..


What was the last thing to make you laugh out loud? I don't know! I laugh out loud a lot....often at Lloyd and the funny things he says....usually at my expense lol! Or maybe it was the extremely politically incorrect jokes we were making about something as we walked through the parking lot this morning.....at another lady's expense....which lead to us remembering a joke we made at Universal studios.....


What was the last thing that scared you? Lloyd is constantly jumping out at me to scare me...so it was probably him....he laughs because he says my eyes get really big when he scares me....apart from that it was probably the flights to Orlando...that turbulence was really bad :( Tower of Terror was horrible but it wasn't frightening.......I just hated the feeling.....but the flight to Orlando scared me.


What was the last thing that made you shiver? Lloyd kissing the back of my neck.


When did you last make a wish? On holiday when I threw a coin into a pool.


Did it come true? so far.....


Do you believe in angels? Yes.


Why? I just do...I've heard too many stories not to......


Do you believe in ghosts? yes although I think 'ghosts' and angels are the same thing in many ways...I believe that both are loved ones who have died and watch over us.....


Why? I have lived in a haunted house and had a 'ghost' put their hand on my shoulder......I've also heard them calling and walking through my house.....not this house but a house I lived in back home...it was built in 1901.


What did you dream last night? I dreamed that it rained soooo hard that it washed all the snow away and we woke up to green green grass.


When was your last nightmare? I've recently had several dreams about bears attacking me......over the last few weeks I guess....

Ok everyone who reads this is tagged! Either post in your own blog or ion the comments section here :)

Saturday...errand day....

It's been a fairly busy day already....Lloyd and I went to out for breakfast and then to Costco this morning to stock up on groceries......we needed EVERYTHING as we haven't been shopping in like FOREVER!!! I also picked up 4 sets of photographs or various things....but the set I REALLY wanted wasn't ready :( Lloyd is going back later and will also drop the 5 disposable cameras AND the cd of pictures to be printed .....

After that I went to the scrapbook store to buy supplies for my Disney/ Florida album......I am so happy with the embellishments I bought...they had a great range of Cars supplies too :) And a FAB Mr Incredible.....they also had Sea World stickers AND Its a Small World..... so yes I am happy and excited to start! I just need the rest of my pictures..

Oh I had a 7 x 5 picture of The Tower of Terror printed and got some great papre to go with that! I think I will do that page tonight :) It was kind of the highlight...in a scary way...of my trip :)

So we got home to find Derek here scraping the ceiling in the hallway...OMG the mess!!!!! White powder and crumbs EVERYWHERE......it will be worth it when they are done but for now I could have cried.......it was noisy and chaos...so I hid in my bedroom and lay on the bed reading 'The Girls'. Derek always cleans up really well afterwards though so by the time I cam eback down it was all quiet and clean and tidy again :)

Oh and then the phone didn't stop ringing and so Susie is going swimming with a friend and then sleeping over there afterwards...and Laurie is going into town to have his hair cut with Lloyd at Regis and then going to his friends to sleep over and give them the gifts he brought back from Florida for them......and Chris has a date tonight...he is taking a girl from his class to the movies! OMG my kids social lives are sooooo much better than mine lol!

So Abigail is heartbroken that she will be alone with Sam AGAIN...so I will have to find a treat for her I think.....maybe she could scrapbook with me :)

So thats our Saturday...I still feel like I am starting with a cold....I have a bit of a temperature and my head feels achy and weird...

I hope you are all having a great weekend......I am hoping for a quieter day tomorrow but I have a feeling it won't be........

Just don't understand...

A man in Montreal has been arrested for 'child luring' over the Internet....he pretended to be a teen and then managed to get a 13 year old from Edmonton to get naked in front of her web cam....and then he threatened her and made her do it again.....

Thats terrible yes BUT what on earth was a 13 year old doing with the Internet and a webcam in her bedroom?????? Obviously unsupervised.............

How irresponsible was that of her parents?

My view..................

Here is my view this morning from my front window.....it's still snowing though not as hard now.....but its grey and dull and we really don't need any more snow :( yes it's pretty.....well actually it WAS pretty back in October when the snow first fell but after 4 months of it it gets a little tiresome.....

Luke!

The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark was one of my FAVOURITE books when I was at school. I borrowed it from the school library so many times and our teacher read it to us too! I always thought Plop was a funny name!

Laurence read a book about Owls last year called Hoot which he really enjoyed too and we bought a kit called 'Owl Poop'. Owls eat little birds and mice but they can't properly eat all the little bones and fir so they sick up a 'pellet' which is like a lump of bones and fir...... the kit we bought had two pellets and we soaked them in water and then pullled out all the bones....we had a book that told us what all the bones were! It was a great project (but it was really really smelly!)

I like owls...they have such amazing eyes! I always wonder what they are thinking when they are looking at me!

I've attached some pictures of Laurie, Susie and Abby sorting through the owl pellets last May!

I never learn!

I should learn NOT to make plans...whenever I make plans they never turn out! Most of my plans this week didn't happen.....oh well...nothing that can't be postponed....

This morning I was going in to town to Parentlink with Sam and Abby for a while...but it has been snowing fairly heavily all morning and as its a little warmer, the roads and snow are all slushy and slippery.......Hwy 14 is really bad and there has been a big accident between here and Sherwood Park....there was freezing rain this morning in Sherwood Park too.......so I will stay home.

I think I have a cold starting too...I have popped some Cold FX and will have raw garlic for lunch today with cheese and crackers....and more Cold FX later......my throat is sore and I am all achey :(

I HATE colds :(

Chris was supposed to go to Rock and Ride tonight with friends but has cancelled - I'm glad if the roads will be bad, as Lloyd was driving them. Rock and Ride is when they close off the indoor amusement park at West Ed Mall and it is for teens ONLY...they get security checked as they go in and it is a very safe environment..the local radio station has a dance floor and plays music all night and its just a fun time...they get to ride all the roller coasters and have fun with no adults or small kids there......Chris has been a few times.

We haven't decided what to do on Family Day yet...I was thinking maybe we would go bowling...or maybe if the weather is bad we could just buy a couple of dvd's and curl up with some treats to watch some family movies.....we're still kind of getting over our exhausting holiday.....

Next week I have a meeting at the school about a trip they are running next year to Quebec City......the boys have the chance to go to Quebec City for a week at Spring Break.....It's for Social and French I guess.....so we are going to the meeting to find out more about it. I may drag Lloyd along too.....Laurie says it may cost about $1500 each so we need to find out about that first...with two of them wanting to go, I guess we need to know whether it will be worth the money first....we'd like to go down to NC next Spring really...househunting maybe :)

Lloyd picked up dinner at Joey Tomatoes last night.....he had the Thai chicken stirfry bowl and I had the Diva Salad.....I am sooooo glad I picked that because it was DELICIOUS....I haven't had it in a while but was really in the mood for it and it was a good one! I gave the big crispy thing to Susie, and I had the garlic bread instead....so much for our plans to not eat out much this year......it seems we never eat at home!!!

Well, I don't feel well at all so I am going to curl up and watch Nanny McPhee with Abigail and Sam and maybe read a while.........watch the snow fall and maybe snooze...

Oh I forgot to say...as we turned into our driveway on Wednesday night, a HUGE Owl flew out from beside our little bus shelter...it had a mouse or shrew or something in our feet and was level with the hood/ bonnet of the car...its wingspan was enormous and it just flew straight in front of the car....all lit up by our headlights.....it was amazing....it had lots of flecky grey feathers....many of the owls around here fit that description so I guess it could have been any one of them....

At last!

I forgot to say how nice it was to give and to receive Valentine cards to 'Husband' and 'Wife'.................

:)

How special those names are........

Angel of the heart......

Lloyd just called and asked if I had found his gift yet....so he gave me another clue and I found it :) The children were helping me look too...

Here she is.....Angel of the heart....to go with my other Willow Tree ornaments.....I had the lady holding the baby for Mothers Day a year or two ago.....the man holding the baby was gift to Lloyd from my Mom when she came to stay after Sam was born.....the couple were a gift from Lloyds parents for Christmas and now I have my angel too :)

I like that they each mean something. I think collections are best if each one means something to you..from the person who gave it or the place you bought it.....

I used to know a lady who collected Boyds Bears ornaments but instead of waiting to receive them as gifts or for special occasions, she would just order them and buy them as soon as they were available....to me that collection was meaningless.

I collect snow globes but I would never order them from the web or anything...each one has been a gift for a special occasion or I have bought during a special trip....or has hidden meaning within it from someone special.....

I'm not big into collecting really and the Willow Tree ornaments just seem to be turning into a little collection piece by piece.....

This above is my altar...my place up high for special things of mine.....out of reach of little hands :)

Lloyd - thank you baby, she is beautiful :) Happy Valentines Day :)

A Valentine Sunset for you.......

Last nights sunset for you......I took a break from getting ready to snap these pictures......Lloyd was nagging me to put the camera away and get dressed to go out :)

Birthday cake time....

Abigail with her Spongebob Squarepants cake on Tuesday - her 5th birthday.

grit...

I am fed up with having grit all over my house.....we have a large mud room and don't wear our shoes and boots in the house but somehow..maybe on socks or slippers....grit seems to work its way constantly into the house.....I figure its from the grit they put down on roads and in parking lots when its icy......it drives me crazy and its o tiny to sweepm nwell so you HAVE to vacuum it up...

In winte it's grit from the roads eveywhere and in summer it's sand from the play parks andthe sand box everywhere.....one day I will NOT have gritty floors!

I wonder if I will miss it.

Brit Fish and Chips

Last night was date night AND Valentines Day.......Lloyd and I decided not to go to any of the busy restaurants but instead thought we'd go to Brits...the British style fish and chip shop in Edmonton.....Lloyd had been before but couldn't remember what it was like or hat they did but I was really excited to try a taste of back home.....

We got there and put in our order at the counter...it was very authentic really.....kind of like Palmers in Yeovil where you can eat in or take away....we found a table though and waited for our order....and waited...and waited....and waited........an HOUR later they brought our food!!! Lloyd had kept saying he was going to say something but I didn't want him to and told him to just enjoy the time with me (lol) but after 45 minutes we were both fed up.

When the food arrived...it was ok.....the battered sausage was nice (Mum they do mushrooms in batter too!)Lloyds steak and kidney pie was mircowaved which always makes pie pastry HORRID (yuck!) the chips were ok - kind of like a not very good chippy would serve back home...but they were as close as I have had here I guess....

Portions were not very big and it cost $30.....which although it is not much for a meal out, for sausage and chips its a lot.

Anyway...I'm glad we have been but I wouldn't hurry back....it was fun reminiscing about the chippy back home.....but thats about it! And we hadn't gone to Joeys because we would have waited for a table but in the end we probably waited longer for our food in Brits!!!

I have to say also...we aren't used to eting greasy food like that any more.....I can't say I actually 'enjoyed' the food.....when you can see theoil coming out like that it puts me off!

Lloyd gave me such a sweet Valentine card.....I still haven't opened my gift though...it's up high somewhere and I haven't found it! And when we got home last night we forgot! I guess I will open it tonight :)

Thursday flying by......

Lloyd left for work late today so he stayed and had coffee with me before he went....thats always a niceway to start the day compared to waking up when he has aready left...

I took Abgail to preschool and ten went into town with Sam to get a few things...we stopped at Grandma Lee's for chocolate milk and shared a cinnamon roll before heading back to Abigails preschool for the Valentine party.....Sam and I jined in with the parachute game at the end.....the frut platter I made for the party went down well -there is hardly anything left :) ..............Abgail came hme wit lts of treats and Valentines from he friends......

once home my Dad called to say that my Mum had her op yesterday and came home today! Still a little groffy from the anaesthetic!!!! I guess they needed the bed!!! So Dad is playing nurse I guess.....Mum had assumed she ould be in for the weekend! Dad said her tummy s very brised...hope you feel better soon Mum!

I did some laundry and vacuumed (I vacuum almost every day at some point...it's my favourite chore! and tidied my bedroom...cleaned the kids bathroom......spoke to Lloyd on the phone who met Darren for lunch today.....no news or gossip though!

Then the school phoned to say Laurie had a migraine so I drove down and picked him up and we just got back....he seems ok now and just made a tea for himself and a cup of coffee for me......

Lloyd is going out for drinks after work to say goodbye to a colleague who is leaving....they are going at 4:30pm but he only wants to stay an hour so he will only be a little late...he's picking dinner up for us on the way home :)

I bought some Disney and Florida scrapbooking supplies today so I can get started on our trip scrapbook......

Today has been a good day..I feel so much better...it was above freezing today woohoo!!! I went to twon in a t-shirt!!!! It's funny but back home you can't go out in just a t-shirt at 0c......but here after -25c 0c feels like a heatweave and all us Albertans head out in t-shirts and no jackets :)

It would be so nice if this was IT for winter.....but we still ave March to come and that is when we normally get the most snow.........so we can't put away the coats and snow boots just yet :( No matter what the Groundhog says!