Bryan Adams weekend

Had THE most amazing weekend. The weather was amazing which meant that the girls hung out in the garden ALOT with Dukie and had a lot of fresh air. We went to our first bonfire of the season at Luc and Lynnes and were there till late, the girls came and so did Dukie, great evening.

On Sunday I left at 3pm and Ruby and I went for our girls Sunday. First stop was check-in at the Delta Barrington and then we caught a cab to the Titanic Gravesite where they were holding a ceremony. We walked about a bit and saw as much as we could, it was uber packed. I saw J Dawsons grave, it was surrounded. Press everywhere, even a reporter from Oz.

We went for dins at Stayners - panfried haddock and cocktails and then made our way to the metro centre. It was still warm but getting a little misty, it was beautiful though, I so love Halifax.

Bryan Adams ROCKED the metro centre! He was flat out amazing, sang for 2.5 hours and it was just excellent! I loved every minute and was so sad when it was over. His voice was so strong and he sang continually, just switched his guitars, he has incredible energy - truly 18 till I die!

Awesome version of "I'm ready"
Bryan Adams ~ I'm ready ~ Halifax Metro centre April 15,2012

We got back to the hotel and 10.30pm, Ruby was famished and spent ages perusing her dine in options, her pizza turned up at 12.30am! I had to try it, it was Donair Pizza which sounds awful but was actually really nice!

Had a whole 4.5 hours sleep and then had a lovely expensive hotel breakfast - oatmeal, blueberries, English muffin - $20! I have dragged myself through work today and want to do it all again

a brand new weekend

We have a Keurig coffee machine! I am super pleased about this as now I can indulge in Cinammon Pastry coffee whenever my little heart desires. 

Its Saturday, girls are playing, I am considering breakfast options and todays housework.

Lilys Little brown tongue - a little evidence of choc Easter egg snack I think!

Sunny Saturday!

Paul is bending my ear about making a grocery list and tomorrow Ruby and I are off for a funpacked afternoon and evening:
Titanic gravesite
check into the Delta Barrington Hotel
Stayners Wharf for Panfried Haddock and a Fall Breeze
Bryan Adams in concert at 8pm!

Coolio!

a spending update

Had a marvellous trip to the dentist yesterday to get an old filling replaced. They were most concerned as to my comfort level and even gave me a pillow! I now have a white filling in place of the old metal one and it was ok. The injections were the same as Brit ones but the time taken and consideration far outweighed any British dental visit.

Last night was our second Lantz recreational meeting and I now have a budget to prepare for the year - shouldnt be TOO hard as I have all the actuals by month for last year and some control to take over banking etc. I LOVE being part of a little community like this thats coming together to look after our local ball fields and pool. It feels good to volunteer. Obviously I would much rather volunteer in something exciting such as Search and Rescue but being an accountant seems to have more use currently.

We have been able to tick off some items on our to do list, as seen here:
sunday-planning

So far we have got a new water heater in- tick
Bought a vanity and mirror for the bathroom - tick
Bathroom due to be fitted in the late Spring once tax rebate has been received - almost tick
Fencing is to be purchased for the yard this weekend and the planned installation date is the weekend of the 28th April - Dukie will be free to run in the garden after that -almost tick

So our credit card has taken a pounding just lately and its lucky that we can pay it off.

So I am feeling pretty good about being on time target with required spending on home improvement.

Once these little babies are dealt with we can then buy the next load of winter fuel in the summer to be stashed and pay for some summer camps and save like Billy-o towards our next March trip to the Keys.

Easter in pictures

I finally got round to uploading some recent pictures, these are pretty much of Easter weekend.

Lily spent some time on Saturday arranging her princesses into a school outside her bedroom door,I think they both view the landing as an extension of their bedrooms.

Note Dukies bed with sleeping bag pillow in the corner.

And Chloe spent some time playing on Charlie and Lolas webpage

And Dukie spent some time careering round the yard, notice all the unused wood pile behind him ,disguised as a blue whale

I spent some time cleaning but didnt get any pics of that - of course.

On Sunday we woke up to baby Easter eggs that required hunting:

 And all this gorgeous white stuff, we knew it was coming but it was still a bit of a shock

All that snow was gone by lunchtime

Easter and mis-mogs

Well Easter went well, and so did Titanic. Chloe was amazed by it and all she has talked about since is Jack and Rose and can we go and see the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean – pllleeeeaasse!

I put all the Easter eggs out at 10pm Saturday night once they were safely asleep and then silly me stayed up for a while reading. I thought that since they had gone to sleep reasonably late that they would wake up a little later, I was so wrong. Chloe was up at 6.45am bright as a button and then woke Lily and then they set off around the house before I could drag myself out of the covers.

It was all white outside due to a lovely dump of snow. I had to chuckle at some people back in England asking wtf was wrong with the weather here!!!! I wanted to send them the link to my “snow in April” pics taken in Surrey one year, not that long ago either. Dig dig dig at Nova Scotia by those people that believe its always cold here, they are the same ones who go rather quiet when it heats up in the summer and they are stuck with typical British summer time.

We had a fabulous Easter dinner with Doug and Stephen and the girls had a good time, I was super proud of them, they were so well behaved.

I have got the mis-mogs today and I have had chats with myself, firm ones in fact as all the things making me feel like this are out of my control and much worse things happen.

·         I cant change people, I need to move on

·         What happens with Pauls job can be dealt with by him, hes perfectly capable of this and doesn’t need my zealous input.

·         Sometimes I feel a little narked that we don’t have closer relationships with our parents and have childcare on hand. I mean I know we moved away but even before we did that, we didn’t have that support anyway. Grandparents to our children have never been the type to drop everything for them, my mum is too far away, my dad was…. Well not the right person. Pauls dad has been the best but even he was often not available. Maybe its just as well that its like this, maybe if we were all uber close then we wouldn’t have been able to emigrate.

So, I need to pull myself out of this funk of all the above and take more notice of my surroundings, brown and ugly as they are. Maybe Springtime in NS will always have this effect on me, Spring is terrible here, everything stays brown for SO long. COME ON Summer! At least I know that will be lovely and long and followed by a wonderful beautiful Autumn.

Bring back the ciccadas is all I can say

Easter weekend plans

Its been quite a busy week so far. Yesterday I did my Easter Egg purchasing at Walmart. I got a whole bunch to make a little trail around the house for Easter Sunday, I tried to stick to chocolate I know that the girls like - Lindt and Kinder and not too much of the North American stuff which we like the least in this house - tastes a little like doggy chocs. So anyway thats all squirrelled away for the weekend, I just need to get some baskets now for their little egg hunt.

Its the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic on April 15th and they are showing the movie in 3D currently. Chloe and I are going to see it on Friday with my friend Tracey and her daughter Lauren. Lily is going to hang with Laurens little sister Emily, all the girls are pals so its going to be good. I personally love the Titanic movie and Halifax has all the grave sites so I am looking forward to checking them out. Chloes very into the Titanic too, I am hoping she will be ok with the film, I think she will be. Theres also a museum here. I am not a museum person at all, but I shall go to this one at some point.

Last night the girls made their birthday party invites. Lily made Tinkerbell ones and Chloe made doggy ones complete with paw prints. It was good fun to actually make them, I am not sure it was cheaper but it was fun and we wrote them out with sparkly gel pens.

Also last night Paul joined the Hants Search and Rescue team and went to his first training meeting. I wanted to do something similiar but managed to land myself the treasurers role at the recreational committee. I am committed as I believe in the local amenities like the ball fields and the public pool but of course this is more sitting on my butt! Damn!

Going running with Dukie tonight and then a hair cut at 7pm - really looking forward to both. I am going to attempt to crowbar in some time between the two to eat Pauls spaghetti bolognaise as its just so good.

I am aware that I am behind in the pictures of us all area of this blog, I am going to attempt to rectify this soon!

Spring weekend

We started our Spring cleaning this weekend, I say we although to be honest Paul did most of the planned cleaning on Saturday as I was needed on the phone.

We completed the family room which included washing the covers on the couches and all the throws and the curtain and doing the long awaited ceiling fan cleaning.

We decided to target this room as it is not really impacted by the wood stove at all and as we cant really Spring clean whilst we are still using that, we figured we would start in this room. It was nice to actually do this work and of course it led to some re-arranging and discussion on replacing the sagging built in shelves at some point and repainting . It’s the only room we haven’t yet attacked with a paint brush.

Chloe went for a sleepover in the early afternoon and Paul, Lily and I took Duke for a walk around Grand Lake via a quick trip to Global Pet Foods to get his name tag. We also stopped in Canadian Tire (one of my weaknesses along with Old Navy , Gap and Banana Republic) for a couple more ceiling fans for the girls rooms. Lily doesn’t have one and Chloes is old and knackered. We also spied and purchased a red parasol for our outdoor table. It is beautiful.

Duke just loved his walk, he stayed with us, ran with Lily and even swam in the lake. He was so exhausted that he slept in the van all the way home. There was no one at the part of the lake that we went to and it was so lovely to have this time.

On the way home we decided to eat out at a local haunt called Bitars, it has mainly Italian food but we had never been there, so after a quick shower we set off out again and had an awesome meal. Paul had the Thai curry, I had the panfried haddock and Lily had fish and chips. I missed Chloe being there but she was hanging with Ruby and co and watching a movie so I knew she was fine.

Sunday was another gorgeous sunny day and I had breakfast out on the deck and then ironed my couch covers out there too.

The sun was warm and the air was fresh so it required some fluffy boots for ultimate comfort and a fleece.

We caught up with Pauls dad on the phone and then Chloe came back after lunch, Ruby and I head out to a Lia Sophia jewellery party and when we returned we all had some roasties – sweet potatoes and parsnips with some amazing barbeque pork and sausages. It was a good meal and a good day.

Easter is next weekend and I know exactly what to expect now from a Canadian Easter. Its good to be in a territory of some familiarity.