What's New?

August 12, 2008

You might be wondering why the old blog has been kind of quiet lately.

I have to tell you that I just got back from our annual family vacation in Parksville on Vancouver Island BC.

We had a fantastic time and the weather was wonderful!

The kids ran around like wild things in their bare feet and bathingsuits and I had no idea where they were half the time. The other half of the time they were in and around our unit with a gangload of kids from other units raiding our fridge and just "hanging out".

My hubby had a chance to golf 3 times, took our boy twice with him and me and the girl shopped Coombs Market for "stuff". The guys also went fishing with my brother-in-law and nephews who live over there.

I had the opportunity to check out 2 craft stores while I was there and both times ALONE!! I can't tell you what a treat that was!

The first place I went to was Crafty Capers in Lantzville. I was so excited to be going to Lantzville and I'm sure everyone thought I was nuts - I couldn't help mentioning that on Tuesday I'd be going to Lantzville whenever I mentioned our plans to anyone.

Victoria was so sweet and showed me around her tiny store which was jammed packed with all kinds of goodies! TONS of stamps, inks, glitter, stencils and IDEAS!!! She generously explained how some of her cards were made and we talked about dogs - a lot.

She was expecting me because I had called her a week or so before to find out if she could get something for me. I was over the moon when she told me she could and it arrived just before we got to the Island!

I was "Jones-ing" for a specific Dreamweaver stencil that I could not find anywhere - except in the US and the one site I found would not ship to Canada!

I bought a TON of stuff from her (stamps, stencils, and Spellbinders!) which I'll be sharing with you at some point in the future.

I don't post photos of my purchases anymore - would you like to see photos of stuff like that? Let me know...

The other store I went to was Scrapbookin' Adventures in Parksville. I snuck out to this one while I was supposedly "grocery shopping". Good thing it's right near the Thrifty's!

Scrapbookin' Adventures is a small store (or so I thought) and completely different from Crafty Capers (mostly scrapbooking hence the name - duh!).

Jennifer showed me around the retail space and then into another area of the store where the classroom space is. WOW - what a space they have there - with all the latest tools! It's very deceiving because it's a house converted into a store.

She has a great selection of patterned papers and was unloading a shipment of Halloween and Christmas stuff that I'm sure will be snatched up long before those holidays! I bought some felt die cuts, a punch and some Thickers for my girl who loves them!

If you ever find yourself on Vancouver Island and have time to kill be sure to check out these 2 fabulous stores!

Puppy News...

The puppies were born last Wednesday and our new "boy" will be arriving sometime at the end of September.

We can hardly wait!!

But now comes the hardest part for us....

Agreeing on what to name him?

Both dogs are Irish Soft Coated Wheaton Terriers and our older dog is named Sam.

My husband is set on Max, I like Rory, my daughter likes River (so they'd be Sam & River - sounds like Salmon River!) and my son likes Piper.

Other names we're considering - Guiness, Mac, Flynn, Kona, Finlay, Quincy, Rufus and Brody.

Any suggestions from you all out in Blogland?

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!