quick update

Had a pretty chilled weekend, snow is slowly melting in these 12C temperatures. Today its practically tropical out there.

Heres a pic I took on Friday of all the snow piled up in Bedford

We gave in and put the outside Christmas lights on last night. Compared to some houses its nothing but they are our first external lights and we are excited about them. They were my yard sale bargain which also makes my day.

Today I am missing nothing about the UK except a couple of friends and my lovely father in law. One of my FB acquaintances who lives up the road commented on a FB photo of the snow by saying “bbbr, looks cold, lovely and mild here in Surrey” and I had to hold back from writing a reply along the lines of “It could snow 365 days of the year here and I would still rather be here than where you are” but I managed to refrain.

We experienced our first snow storm yesterday, apparently snow wasnt due to start falling until late aftermoon but the first flakes were drifting lazily down at 8.30am as I drove into Waverley.
By 9.30am the road outside was thick with it and I was flat out amazed, they were teeny flakes, the kind that melts on impact with the road in Blighty.

The snowplow came out at work and there was the maint guy driving up and down the parking lot having a high old time, on the radio by 9.30am they were reporting 30 accidents! 30!!! Thats worse than the UK. I was flabbergasted that this province would have that many accidents in the first snowfall.

And the snow kept on falling.

At 1pm our boss said "shut her down"! He loves being dramatic like that. And so we all left in the middle of the day.
Outside there wasnt a snowplow in sight, or grit or salt. Snow lay thick everywhere.
I drove to pick up Lily in a winter wonderland and then onto home on quiet beautiful deserted roads. I decided to steer clear of the highway.
Here is a pic of my drive home, snow was coming straight at the car:

The second one is the Highway2 through Fall River.
I got home after about an hour and got the girls who then spent a good hour playing in it in the fading light:

It continued to snow until well after I went to bed, I have no idea when it stopped. I cleared the driveway and so did Don and then so did Paul and then he had to do it again this morning at 4.30am after the snowplow had gone past and buried the front of the drive

Today, Chloes school is shut so she is having a snow day at her babysitters and Lily is playing at her babysitters:

The drive in today was ok, a few icy patches on the road and bits that were thick with icy chunks of snow. Its chilly and sunny out there right now.

Parade of Lights

Last weekend I took the girls to the Halifax Parade of Lights. First we had to navigate some traffic of the likes that I have not seen since we were in England. Thankfully I took them with my neighbour Bev, had Paul or her hubby been there we wouldnt have gotten to see them. We came to realise that men are not cut out to sit in any kind of traffic.

Well the parade was magical, 1.5 hours long with 200,000 people. There were loads of floats and of course Santa. I was rather impressed at the quality and the ambience. Here are some pics of it that I found online, I havent had a chance to upload any I took yet:

The girls just loved it and so did I. The lady I was standing next to told me that they always book a hotel in Halifax for the night and swim in the pool and have dinner out as part of the whole night, I was rather taken with that idea and plan to look into that for next year.
This was clearly a fabulous idea when it took us 1.5 hours to get home, 45 mins of that was spent stationery in the multi-story.

The rest of the weekend was pretty mild and I spent all of Sunday baking and cooking and just chilling at home. The girls played nicely all day together and I just had to remind them (only about a hundred times) to keep the volume down as Paul was on nights and therefore asleep.

Its getting decidedly colder, this morning I took Dukie for his stroll at 6am in -7C, I had my PJs on, wellies, coat and hat and I was ok, must be toughening up!
Tomorrow we have a snowfall warning in effect with apparently 30 cms of snow due to fall - I am slightly freaked out about this.30cms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After work today I am going to get Paul and I some snowboots and the girls some snow gloves, we need them and I cant put it off any longer.

9 years!

Yesterday I had a complete healthy eating urge kick in (thank goodness) – its been sneaking up on me for a while, I have changed my milk to Silk Soya (LOVE Silk Soya) and trying to get enough vegetables into one meal that I can. Yesterday lunchtime found me buying three punnets of raspberries (3 / $5) and consuming a whole punnet with my lunch.

Yesterday was also our 9 year anniversary and after feeling pretty rough the day before I was feeling as the song goes “like a brand new chick!” and had a great day at work.

To top the day we went to Stayners Wharf for dins where I had zesty Chicken wings to start which hubs and I shared. They were nice but I could tell that they had been in the fryer which isn’t my favourite. Oven baked are far nicer

Then for main I had the Panfried Haddock and OMG it was bliss on a plate. I simply love this meal and savoured every bite. Hubs had the Selfish Shelfish pasta (say that after some drinks!) and he was pleased that there was way more seafood on his plate than pasta.

For desert I had the New York cheesecake which was scrumptious but I sadly couldn’t fit it all in. All this was with a glass of cranberry (only allowed at restaurants to save my teeth!) and a Fall Breeze (fabulous cocktail)

This was Pauls serious look!

We drove home in the pouring rain and found that the following had happened when Bev had put Lily to bed.

At bedtime – Lily – mummy lets me read as long as I want. Bev – Nope, lights out.

5 Mins later – Lily comes down for more water

15 mins later – Lily is singing in her room. When Bev went up she got from Lily “oh you woke me!”

Such a precocious little madam! Bev told her to snuggle down with her lion, when we went to bed, there she was with her arms wrapped around him.

Chloe had of course gone up to bed without a murmur, little star. I love my children. I love my life, I love my husband!

Remembrance weekend

Well we just had Remembrance weekend which meant we in Canada have Remembrance day off. Apart from that being an outstandingly good idea I came across two new things in my life:

Driving home on Thursday night, every business had a sign outside with sayings like “We will remember” and “Lest we forget” – that kind of thing really gets to me.  How respectful!

Having a Friday as a holiday is much fun and not what I am used to, was a little more exciting than a Bank Holiday Monday

I am so very thankful for all those men and women that make it so that I don’t have to live in fear or in some Iraqi existence. I love living a Western life.

We knew a storm was coming for Friday and I went to bed late (midnight) on Thursday night after some drinks with the neighbours. I was lying in bed with the window open as its been so mild thinking how fabulous it was that it was Thursday night, and that I could sleep in till at least 7.30am as Paul would come in at 5.30am from work and take Duke for his walk round the block. That of course did not happen and that euphoria was a little shortlived when I woke at 3am to major rain and wind with gusts that sounded a little like a plane taking off in the garden.  After that little sleep was had as I listened to the weather raging outside.

On Friday I was a little cranky to say the least but got over my self and went with Don to the remembrance service in the wind and rain that nearly blew us away. We then spent the day cooking and playing scrabble as there was little else to do.

Saturday dawned bright and clear and COLD. It was hard to want to do much as it was so cold, we went to Costco and that was manic. It was a naff day really with just grocery shopping pretty much.

Sunday – oh how gorgeous was that day. It was warm and sunny and just gorgeous. We took the girls and met Rubes and co at the wildlife park with Tim Hortons finest and we had a lovely stroll amongst the bears and cougars and arctic foxes. I so love that place. Paul even scratched a raccoon behind its ears, I am too jealous!

After our little outing Paul and Don put up the external Christmas lights, I am on a mission this year to get the house looking like the Griswolds!

Today its our anniversary  - 9 years of marriage. Its gone by so quickly and so many things have changed in our lives.:

We have two adorable wonderful girls who I love with my whole heart and am driven bonkers by simultaneously

We now live here in Canada – hurrah! Living the dream!

We have lost a very good friend who passed away 2.5 years ago, I cant believe that on our wedding day we didn’t know that we had less than 7 years left with him. We love you Alex

Tonight we are going out for a meal together at Stayners Wharf – oooh the panfried Haddock!!!

deodorant update

OK, so I went to the Body Shop and purchased the deodorant and a teeny weeny 50ml tube of moisturiser for $18! - $18 for the moisturiser only, the deodorant was $5 (it had better last ages and work!!!) anyway whilst browsing the store I saw an Aloe face starter pack (moistureiser, mask, cleanser etc - teeeny bottles I might add)- it had its UK and US/Canada price tag on and get this - in the UK its GBP12 , in the US/Canada its $25
Since when did the Bodyshop believe that one would earn double here than you would in England!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like writing a letter!

getting ready for winter

We have been in winter preparation mode. Both cars now have winter tires on, I drove the G6 into work today for the first time with its tires on and it both sounded and felt different to before.

Yesterday I went to Canadian Tire to pick up some bits – slush mats for the car, this was after a throw away comment by Rubes to the tune of “well you will wish you had spent the money when the bottom of your car rusts away” and a brush and scraper combo for each car.

The whole little lot came to $79! And yesterday I realised that the pathetic summer mats in the van wont stand up to much. So slush mats are needed for that too.

Canadian Tire had about 20 aisles devoted to Christmas – it was just fabulous and prior to choosing the oh so important mats I spent a very contented 10 mins wondering around in a Christmas daze.

I did this in a lunch break of warm air, blue sky and blinding sunshine. Hard to believe that winter is coming.

Paul cut the grass yesterday with the leaves and Don and Lily stacked more wood in the front porch, it was sweet to come home from work and see the little crew at work.

Halloween decs are now all stashed away till next year and Paul has been tasked with hanging 500 twinkle lights around the eaves of the house – we will work towards looking like the Griswolds!

I am still on the hunt for deodorant that actually works and doesn’t stain my white tops a nasty yellow. I have been told that the Body Shop does a nice one that also paraben free – always a bonus – so I am going to hunt that out this lunch break.

This morning when I drove into work, I saw this funky cloud, I love the sky here. There is so much of it.

Its rememberance week and we have Friday off, got to love a bank holiday Friday.
I am going to buy poppies for everyone, it always amazes me how much a military family will give up to give us Freedom. Thank you!

Halloween

OK so this Halloween was officially the best ever! We went out at about 5.30pm with my friend Ruby and two of her little ones. The road was packed! Cars had to thread their way slowly through, so many houses were decorated and so much candy was flying around.
Here are some pics of the kids and our house:

Chloe was a zebra, Lily was barbie, Emma was a princess and Nik was the grim reaper. It was a great night and we got loads of goodies! Had to take the parent tax, of course, and so now our eves when the girls go to bed include rooting through their bags for chocolate that they wont like!

Duke is also settling in, we have morning walks when its all crispy and white with frost and the sky is black with so many stars. And here are some pics of him:

Look at those adorable puppy eyes!

With the change in weather, I have noticed that the lakes steam as I drive past them and make their own fog bank, yesterday I decided to take some pics on my cell phone on the way in, its hard to capture the whole scene but here are some:

This is my daily commute! Sucks to be me- right!!
The -2C at the start of November freaks me out a little, I feel like I am awaiting winter to descend with trepidation!