Exciting News!!!

I'm so excited - we're waiting for our new Wheaton puppy to be born this week!!

We won't actually have him in the house for a while yet and you can be sure I'll post photos as soon as he arrives!

The new puppy is coming from the same breeder that we got our dog from 8 years ago, they are the same breed and the dad is the same as our dog's.

So they'll be STEPBROTHERS just like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly!!

Now we just have to break it gently to our 8 year old puppy that he has a little brother coming...

Any tips or advice from anyone who's introduced a puppy into a household with another dog before?

I know I HATE it too!

I haven't been posting much - I've been soooo busy with the kids' activities lately but I have a few more posts for today.

So please stayed tuned!

I really hate my blog layout right now but don't have the time to change it. Hopefully over the next few days, after I get all my photos uploaded, I can play with it and change the layout again.

Please bear with me...

How many bears???

We are now back from our weekend away at Whistler. It was mix of sun and rain (at times heavy) and very cold up there.

The cabin we stayed in was very lovely and comfortable. We had the furnace turned on and the fireplace going - it even had floor heating in the tiled areas!



We ate out a lot (even tried Fondue one night),



shopped (I got a new bathingsuit),



hiked (got lost in the pouring rain!) below is a photo of us after we took off our rain jackets,

soaked in the backyard hot tub,

and had a really nice home cooked Turkey dinner on the Sunday. Home cooked by my hubby that is!



But I have to say that the highlight of the trip was seeing the BEARS!! We thought there might be some bears around because we kept seeing little piles like this:

Another big clue was all the WARNING SIGNS!

But we did NOT expect to see any up close - But OH YES - we saw 3 bears on 3 separate occasions.



This first bear was eating berries in a tree at the corner of a busy street. Directly below him is a walkway and people were just walking by nonchalantly - that is until they noticed the bear!

The second bear we saw was right in the backyard! My daughter and I were sitting by the glass sliders when I saw the bear meandering by the backyard so I yelled BEAR! My daughter screamed in shock and wouldn't you know the bear turned around and looked at us!

The third bear was just strolling through the backyard again checking out what the last bear left. Yes there were lots of bear droppings - in the backyard!

The amazing thing is that there are paved walkways right beside where these bears were just strolling by. A lot of cars stopped to look at the bears but most of the hikers and especially those with dogs turned around and just avoided the bears.









And for those of who who have been reading my blog for a while I just want to say that I did NOT bring home any baby bears!









All in all it was a very relaxing weekend - No time for stamping but I've got a few classes coming up and I'll be stamping some samples up this week.

Going Away....

I'm working today and then we're off for a long weekend getaway so I won't be posting anything over the next few days.

Have a great weekend and if you're Canadian - Happy Thanksgiving!

You know you're getting OLD when...

...you FORGET things like birthdays!

I know we all forget birthdays but when you forget your own birthday - you know you're in trouble!!!

Yes, I totally forgot that it was my birthday this weekend!

I knew it was coming up but it kind of snuck up on me....I've been busy this week with the kids' activities, finishing up a swap, swapping out and mailing a swap, preparing for classes, and getting ready to go away for our 4 day Thanksgiving weekend up at Whistler. You guessed I've been doing laundry!

To top it off my husband decided that we should get new tires on our 4x4 BEFORE we go away. So I've had to squeeze in a few tire quotes and an installation too. I guess this would be my RUBBER birthday. Reminds me of the WOOD birthday I had a few years ago when we needed a new roof!

Seriously, it's not that bad - he asked me what I wanted and I said more COPICS. So he's giving me a gift certificate to the art store. He really is a great guy!

It's easy to see with all the running around that I've been doing how I could forget that my birthday is THIS Sunday.

However, yesterday I was pleasantly reminded of that fact when I received a couple of great birthday cards in the mail from people I don't even kow. How sweet is that? I must be on some US RAK lilst but not only did these ladies send me beautiful handmade cards, they got them mailed to me on time AND they wrote the sweetest messages inside.

BUT wait! My birthday is this weekend! My driver's licence expires and I'll be up at Whistler for a long weekend - a HOLIDAY weekend!!!

As luck would have it I just so happened to be driving by the Driver's Centre when I realized that I needed to get my drivier's licence renewed. Our BC driver's licences are good for 5 years so it's easy to forget when they need to be renewed but the government tries to make this easier by having them expire your birthday.

Happy Birthday to me!!!! I am soooo excited to be getting a new licence photo. You see my old one is HIDEOUS!!! I know lots of people say that their licence photo is bad but mine really was sooooo bad.

Unlike Posh Spice I did not have my hair and makeup people on hand the last time I had my driver's licence photo taken. I was sick with a cold, my eyes were droopy and watering, my hair (much shorter than it is now) was all curly and stuck to my head in places and to top it off it was raining that day and my makeup was running. Why did I go that day you might ask? Well I tried to wait but I wasn't feeling any better and I was already driving on an expired licence.

It was so bad that I was constantly apologizing to people that asked for it as ID. Can you imagine being stuck with that photo for 5 YEARS??? No one believed it was me - that's how bad it was. I always won the "my driver's licence photo is worse than yours" game. That's how bad it was. You get the picture?

So I popped into the Driver's Centre, took a number and had the whole thing done in 10 minutes. The man even offered to let me look at the photo and have a re-take if I wanted. I told him that even though it wasn't a "glamour shot" it was light years better than the one I had before.

He agreed... I told you it was bad!

Happy Friday!

I hope that you are having a great Friday!

I'm having a great day today....

1. The kids got up when their alarms went off.

2. The kids didn't fight over the bathroom.

3. My son found his socks all by himself (he's 12!).

4. My daughter (14) only changed her outfit once.

5. We left for school on time (actually early) and there weren't any incidents on the way!

6. I'm almost finished my first week of school volunteer duties.

7. I'm ready for the start of the soccer season tomorrow (I'm the age group coordinator for 5 boys' teams and also a team manager).

8. I'm feeling the love of stamping again and have new stamps to play with!

AND the best thing ever about today...

9. Before I even paid for my Starbucks Venti Iced Vanilla Latte it was waiting for me at the cash register. My favourite barrista was on duty today and he made it up for me as soon as he saw me in line!!! I'm LOVING that!!!

How is your day going?

She's at it AGAIN!

You might remember a post I did a while ago about my daughter who likes to tattoo.

Well she's at it again! This time she's only tattooing herself and has left her brother alone.

She offered to give me one but I declined. Too much to do to keep my arm, hand, leg, ankle or foot still long enough for her to ink me!

It's not a real tattoo only FAKE and totally washable. She uses a combination of sharpies, white gel pens, coloured gel pens, coloured markers and EYELINER! Yes that's eyeliner like the kind you put on your eyes! Anything she can get her hands on and will work she'll use it.

ETA: I talked to my daughter about not using markers and she tells me
that she is using only liquid eyeliner and eye pencils now for her
designs. Thanks for the safety advice and suggestions!

God help me! I think I've got a Kat Von D (from Miami Ink) wannabe on my hands!