This is looking out the kitchen window at my sweet wife working soooo hard. 

Just a shot of the cool architecture in the master bedroom. 

This is the little bed nook in the master bedroom upstairs. Looks out onto the back yard and garage. 

This is the sweet little number in the Master bathroom at the top of the stairs! Pretty nice! 

Archway from living room hallway and stairs 

Living room with another cool arch into the Kitchen, nice hardwood eh? 

This is one of the cool arch ways from the back door to the front door, the arch on the left goes into the living room. 

This is a shot of the small back bedroom to the right as you walk in the back door 

The longest grass I've ever seen! Also the first grass I've mowed in at least 10 years! 

Still In Michigan

I'm still in Michigan. Funny, so is Rebeca! She's off with her Mom who is getting some tests done at the hospital and I'm sitting at home with the dogs (one bitey and one not) and her GrandMom (who is watching the soaps....save me Jeebuz!). The weather has been really crappy, rain and cold. The birds, colourful and plentiful, don't seem to mind the rain much and last night a possum wandered up the driveway and helped himself to the seed and feed fallen from the bird feeders. We spent a large part of yesterday and again today trying to get the wireless rig here to work. It is working now but without security so that's a bit of a problem. I'm not sure how much since we're out in the country and the only people who might use the connection appear to already have one of their own. We did the rounds of the stores in search of hard to find (and cheap) Star Wars crap. I managed to find a few figures but none of the big stuff. I'm on my way back to Ottawa on Thursday, hopefully my new laptop will arrive on Friday (bless employee purchase plans!). Cross your fingers for nice weather for the Memorial Day weekend.

Visiting Michigan

Here we are sitting in Michigan. We took the train to Windsor and Rebeca's Mom came across the border and picked us up. the dude at the border asked us where we were and waved us on, it took us about a minute, we must be the right shade of beige. The traffic is still insane and fast, still lots of roadkill. We visited with a dozen or more of the family yesterday and it's out for dinner tonight. The weather sucks, both here and in Ottawa, rain and cool. I'm back in Ottawa on Thursday and Rebeca comes home a week later. Hopefully the cat is behaving. How did everyone spend their Victoria Day?

Jenn, You Still Out There?

I noticed the other day that one of our "members" had disappeared, or at least turned into XXXXXX. I think that's Jenn. Did something happen to your account? I can resend the invite if you'd like to rejoin.

We're home

Hi, All,
We got home late tonight. I just down-loaded the e-mails...24 and it took quite some time.
I'll go into more detail about what we did out in Blairmore tomorrow!!

I'll read the e-mails tomorrow.

Happy Anniversary, Jennifer and Blaine.

Good night!!

Skype

I'm not sure if any of you have heard anything about VoIP (voice over IP) but I figured I would drop a quick note to give you an idea of what it's all about. Think of it as free voice chat. Simple and smooth. How it works is this: if you have a broadband internet connection (sorry Mom, that's not you) you download and install Skype, add a user (that would be Rebeca or me) and you have the voice equivelant of internet chat using your pc. You speak through your pc microphone and listen through the pc speakers. We've tested it and it works like a charm. If you'd like to try it and need some help setting it up give a holler. :)

Last, but not least, a photo of the island just off the Cummings Bridge on my way home from work. Right at the corner two Canada Geese have set up a nest. This is the second year they've been there but there didn't seem to be any baby geese last year. Today on my way home I saw six or seven of the little blighters poking around while ma and pa kept an eye out for them. I'll take the big lens tomorrow and see if I can get a better shot. 

Here's a photo I took the other day of Maman. It's pretty cool up close. I took this one on my way to work last week, it was terribly cold so I snapped a few quick then went back up the street past the US Embassy (Fortress America as the locals call it). 

A shot of the War Memorial a few days after the VE-Day ceremonies. That's the Chateau Laurier to the right and the East Block of Parliament Hill on the left. Directly behind the Memorial and across the street is the locks leading down to the Ottawa River. 

Congratulations to Blaine

This is Nursing Week and Blaine was voted by his colleagues on Unit 22 as their "Hero Among Us". At the Annual Nursing Tea he was presented with a flower, a certificate and a Tim Horton's coffee mug. After he came home he said "Hmm, this makes me wonder what the people I work with think of me". I'd say it's mighty good. He was chosen by the two dozen, or so, staff that work on Unit 22.

I thought I would leech this from another blog because I think it's a good photo of Steve and we haven't had any photos posted in a while. 

Xeriscaping

Hold the sod/grass seed, Jessica and Steve!!!! The front yard sounds like a good candidate for xeriscaping.
We'll get some stepping stones, perennials (with some annuals for all-summer colour), maybe a garden bench and some little ceramic animals....none of those cement frogs and such.....and we'll turn the scruffed up part of the front yard into a mass of flowers. We'll bring some of the perennials we have here...irises and daisies (not Shastas which will invade the yard and lawn and neighbour's lawn on the other side of the hedge when nobody is looking) and we'll see what we can do.
Tesarowskis, how does that sound? A lot of yards in Regina are redoing the front yard so there's no grass at all. I've been very slowly doing that here. Our yard has waited while I worked in public garden spots for Communities in Bloom so things I'd like to do are still only on paper.
The Ironside girls have given me some books that I will now be able to follow up in garden designs.

Money in the Mail

I got an email a few weeks ago from some marketing firm representing Adobe (the folks that make Acrobat Reader and assorted graphic and photo software) and Macromedia (people who make really groovy web design software). They wanted me to take five minutes of my time and fill out a questionnaire. Sure, why not? I filled it out, put my addy at the end and today in the mail was a new, crisp, American $5.00 bank note! That's $6.18 CDN! Score!!

the new neighbours

Well, Steve and I met a bunch of the new neighbours, and they seem like a really friendly bunch! We went over yesterday afternoon to do some yardwork. The front yard was completely dug up last summer due to a line break 15' under ground. The whole lawn is covered in weeds; old dead ones from last year and new green ones! Ugh. We picked weeds for about 3 hours and at hour 2 one of the neighbours came across and introduced himself. He knew who we were though, Graham the bank manager has all of them prepared!

So he offered his rake, then he went and brought us extra garbage bags. Then he suggested we roto-till the lawn. (he came in today just before lunch to say that he's found a roto-tiller from another neighbour that we can trade use for with a couple of sandwiches!)

After he came across another guy showed up who owns three houses on the street. He seems nice too! They are both named Dave. (that'll be easy to remember!)

Anyways, there are tulips and raspberries and some other bulb flower that's coming up but we don't know what it is. Maybe irises? And we found a tennis ball and golf ball that Mook had fun with while we worked away on the weeds.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy [early] Mother's Day to Grandma, Mom, and Aunt Jennifer!!! I hope everyone has a great, relaxing day.

A New Bike!!

Ok, so it's not nearly as exciting as a new set of teeth or a new house but it's cool just the same. I got a call from Phil, the dude at my LBS, who says my new bike has finally arrived from Vancouver, they've assembled it, and I should come and pick it up. Technically, I'm supposed to be studying this week but I think I might be able to squeeze in a few kilometers on the new ride and perhaps take a look at the new war museum.

Keys to the House!!!

I'll bet there's excitement in the Stone's Throw today!! Are you going to drink a little toast to the house when you go over? Drink one for the Tesarowskis and one for us and we'll all be there in thought. Maybe we'll drink one from here so skip ours....we'll do it oursellves. That sounds like more fun.
Dad just got himself a Worther's out of the cupboard and in a jiffy, CoCo was out here. That's what he always does before he gets his coat on to go for the mail.
Dad is getting ready to hit the road for the city so I'm going to go do the same thing.
Take good care of that house until we all can get out there.
We were thinking of going out the end of next week but we'll put that trip off a few days.Tell you why on Monday. Ulp!!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope you have a fabulous day.

The Yearbook

I think this should have been a post and not just a comment so I hope you don't mind Dawn if I move it up top so it doesn't get missed by the rest of us who read regularly. It really is a super accomplishment!

Jen said: That's a well-deserved honour Dawn. How many kids in the school yearbook? I'm just wondering how big a project the year book is. I'm sure it's similar to Mom's foray :} into the Town of Wolseley History book.

And Dawn replied: The yearbook is 116 pages this year. We have 24 color pages, a custom art cover, and I've ordered 840 copies (about 700 personalized copies are sold already). We collected $1800 in ads and have a total budget of about $27,000. There are about 1000 kids at the school so we have a very good buy rate. As chairperson, I dealt with the school, the yearbook company, the photography company, the students and the parent volunteer photographers and page layout people. The pages are all submitted in digital format. Everything is done except for distribution and paying the last bill.

New Job

Blaine has a new job at the hospital. It's only a big change is shifts. He'll be guaranteed 2 more shifts per month and will be working days, evenings, nights instead of nights, days. He probably won't start this new job until after August 1st, so he can cover summer holiday shifts. He also wants to be able to go to take Dana to camp/pick her up.

Test

Just a test

Blaine

I couldn't see how to click on for a comment....
That is really very special news about Blaine's appointment.
I'm going to send an e-mail to Nancy to tell Shelley. Shelley will have some years to go before she gets the same news but it will show her that it's in her future.
We never thought he'd get any other news but good. So much stress is out of your lives now. He enjoys his job...not like the dairy farming.
You have so much going for your family now. Enjoy life.

Milestone for Another Special Person

Congratulations to Blaine

We were in Edmonton yesterday for his annual cancer clinic appointment. His doctor told him he doesn't have to come back anymore. He can just see his family doctor for his meds and be done with it all. Even after all these years (9) these annual visits were stressful for both of us. Now he's done.

Wow, What a Special Person!

The Middle School's PTA gives out surprise awards each year to especially deserving parents and teachers. This year, they awarded four people... and guess who won the Very Special Person Award!!
Mom won it for working on the yearbook and the bookfair, and volunteering, and the list goes on...

However, this ceremony was on Tuesday, the same night as her choir rehearsal. So, Dad told her that Andrew was performing his monologue. He knew Mom had felt bad that she had missed it when Andrew did it the first time at Open House, (in front of a roomful of people!!) and so she definitely wanted to come!

[Ew. Mom just let in a big flying bug]

The lady who presented her award is also Canadian, and she made a nice speech about Mom, and she got all embarrassed. Then she got a cute vase of flowers, a certificate, and a PTA pin.

Yay!

It's cookie season!

Sweet, sweet cookies! The girl guide kind, I mean. We bought 4 boxes today and are already down to three. We did share with customers! It's not like we snarfed them down all by ourselves!

We are hoping though, that the Tesarowskis will freeze some of their numerous Girl Scout varieties and bring them in July. We can only hope!

(ps: we just ate the last bag of kettle corn from the Scouts, and it was as delicious and fresh as the first bag!)

Dad's eyes

Yesterday Dad got a letter re his appointment with the eye surgeon. It will be July 4. His op will be 6-8 months after that likely.

Happy Birthday Shelly!!

Happy Birthday Shelly, have a great day!

Crowsnest in Bloom 

Fundraising

So I'm the vice-chair for the Communities in Bloom fundraising committee. So far we've had two silent auctions that ran the duration of our last two meetings that raised about $165.

I know Dawn has lots of experience with this...any pointers? I remember the balloon popping thing that they had during the intermission of The Secret Garden we saw at Katie's school. That could definitely be put to future use here.

We don't really have a set budget, but I'm sure if we could come up with a few thousand dollars, it would go a long way. I see a lot of things being donated for this program (extra bedding plants, dirt, fertilizer...things that are worth more to us than their dollar value). We just need the 'seed' money.

I was just on a government website about hosting fundraising events and it gave me a good laugh. Some of the suggested prizes were: trip around the world or a new house, with runner up prize being his and her's Porsches. Uhhhhhhh, ok. Those wacky government fundraisers! Such a zany sense of humour. :/

No suggestion too small, let's hear them!

Wanna See Where We Live? Where You Live Too!!!

I'm not sure if you've tried Google Maps yet but you should! Type an address in the search bar and it will take you to a map, click on the Satellite link in the upper right corner of the page and it will show you a satellite image of the location. You can zoom in and out and drag your mouse around the image to see the rest of the photo. Here's our place. Never been to Parliament Hill? How about Foster City? Try it out. Not all areas have the same high resolution images but it is cool just the same.

Here's a photo I took just the other day down the road from us at the edge of the Rideau River near the Cummings Bridge. They cleared the ice away to keep the river from flooding but it had rained pretty solid for about two or three days. The bike path will be flooded in several places all along the river. 

Update on Reggie

Hi All,

Reggie had his vet appointment and it looks like he's not having any pain in his tooth. That was a relief. He's on a dental dog food ($$) and we've bought him his own toothbrush and supplied him with lots of bones to chew on. Hopefully that will work some of the plaque off. Otherwise, the vet says he'll need a dental cleaning which is about $800.00. Yikes. He goes back on the 14th for his booster shots, so we'll decide the tooth thing then.

Reggie is a lovely dog. He's very funny and loves to play. He and Spike are getting along famously. They had some rough spots the first couple of days, and there have been a few foot incidents, but Spike has forgiven Reggie. We've noticed Reggie has a little arthritis in his left hind leg, so we'll get that checked by the vet. He loves to go for long walks, but is a bit of a lump on the way home, so we're going to have to shorten the route for him. Spike always wants to keep going, but he's also about 4 years younger that Reggie.

We're all doing well. We're in the middle of dental, medical, eye appointments. Shelly and Blaine have new glasses and I go today to get mine. The girls both need dental cleanings and Blaine has to get some work done there too, but then we're all done that. It's nice to have Blue Cross so we can get some work done (finally).

Shelly and I went in this weekend and got our hair done. Shelly just had a wash and set (a nice treat) and I had mine all cut off. They cut off about 18-24 inches from the back. It's shorter in the back and longer in the front. It looks cute and makes my face appear slimmer. Shelly was a little shocked as she saw the stylist cut off so much, but everyone loves the new look.

The girls both did well on their spell-a-thon and know-a-thons. Dana got 27/30 and Shelly got 87% on the know-a-thon. We're really happy with how well they are both doing at school this year.

Blaine's job is going great. He's been doing night charge for a couple of months now, and they are asking him when he'd like to do day charge. They want him to be day charge so he can work lots of holidays this summer. It's nice that he's being asked to take on more responsibility. A few of his co-workers have also suggested he look at being trained for ER. It could mean a change for him. We'll keep you posted.

Just a Photo

April Fools?

Did anyone have any good tricks played on them? We had just two, but they were both good and they got us hook, line and sinker!

One good friend of ours stopped in to say that another friend's garage had caught fire and he lost all of his quads & kayaks. This is a guy that Steve's gone out quadding with a few times, so good gag. He was crushed! And fooled.

Another customer stopped in for a coffee then came back about 20 minutes later to say the cream had gone sour. (this has happened twice before, so it's not a stretch) Then he went on to say he barfed. Well, I was mortified! And fooled.

Anyone else get got good?

Willow was feeling left out. All the photos of dogs and not a single cat to be seen. 

What the Heck is Under That Taxi?

No job promotion for me and no new dog to talk about. Sorry. My post for the day is somewhat less exciting but it does have a happy ending.....I hope. My desk at work is on the fourth floor and I face out onto O'Connor Street. In front of the building across from us is a taxi stand. There are usually four taxis lined up waiting for the many civil servants to climb aboard and zoom off to important meetings and inquiries about scandals and such. There's also a police parking spot, as there are at least two embassies in the building (the Australian and the Israeli).

Around lunch time I noticed people gathered around one of the taxis bending down and looking at something under the taxi. Two of the drivers were busy pointing and discussing and assorted passersby were stopping and watching for a few moments then moving on. Two RCMP officers wandered over to see what was going on. They discussed and pointed and discussed a bit more, one of the taxi drivers got his ice scraper out of his car and reached under the car. Finally one of the drivers got in the taxi and, while the other guided, slowly drove forward. A lady standing on the curb reached under and pulled out a small cat. How and where a cat came from in downtown Ottawa I don't know [actually I do know, there is a colony of them on Parliament Hill] but anyway the lady who pulled the cat out from under the taxi sat and held it until the Ottawa Humane Society rescue van arrived and took it away to the shelter. Downtown Ottawa = non-stop action!

Promotion

I gots me a promotion yesterday. WOOOHOOOO! When I arrived at work and checked my mail on Friday (I only work Friday, Saturday and Sunday at my full time job) I found that there was a position open for the job that is one step up for me. I thought "Hey! I would much rather be doing that". I threw my name in the hat and an interview was scheduled for 2pm on Tuesday.

The interview went very well and I was informed that there was a 'technical' interview on Wednesday which ended up being a person giving me 3 scenario's and I had 30 minutes to 'resolve' the 3 problems. Mine was the last of the interviews and I found when I arrived for mine that those had gone before me were stressed out and had used every second of the time alloted. Me, well, I rock!! I finished early and when I went and chatted with my coworkers that had also applied for the job, I found that I was the only one that was able to resovle the last scenario. I was feeling confident but was still really surprised when I was notified that in fact, I was the lucky recipient of the job promotion.

Soon I'll no longer be working 2 jobs 6 days a week and I'll have weekends off with Mitch again. I can't wait!

New addition to the Ironside household

I'll try and post this again. The first one went - who knows where.

We've adopted another doggie. His name is Reggie and he's a 5 year old Bassethound. He's very cute www.reddeerspca.com and was in need of a new loving home. He has been at the shelter for 20 days and no one was interested in him. He's very, very thin and has some dental problems too. We went to see him yesterday and we all fell in love with his beautiful face. Spike seems to like him too, so far. Reggie sees the vet this afternoon, so we're hoping the dental work won't be too extensive. We'll also ask the vet for the quickest, healthiest way to put some weight on. His coat is so nice and clean and soft, but when you pet him all of his bones stick out so much. It's just the saddest thing. Poor guy was stray before, so we don't know much about him.

After one night we've learned he doesn't enjoy a squeaky ball (Spike's glad about that), and he's learned about Spike's tender toes. He's also claimed one of the big fleecy floor pillows, so he had a comfortable first night. He's a very energetic dog and loves to run and play. He and Spike wore each other out yesterday afternoon. No more trips to the shelter for us now. I'll update everyone after his first vet check. We're hoping all will go well and he'll only need one tooth pulled. We aren't sure if his teeth are causing him pain, but it could explain how thin he is.

What happens when we say ?Cheese!? 

Pictures from Wolseley

Happy Easter!

Katie here, on Grandma's username. ( I messed up my blog invite.. whoops..)

Here are some pictures of Grandma, Mom, Andrew, and Laura playing scrabble. I had a bit of trouble getting the flash to cooperate, and when I turned it off, it was too dark! Oh well, you can still see who everyone is.

The last picture is with our "muppet smiles", because muppets smile with their mouths wide open. Grandpa carved those masks.









Laura says hi. Right now, she's in the living room with Grandpa, and knitting a scarf.

Mom also says hi. She's in the kitchen, knitting a scarf, too.

I say hi, too. If I wasn't on the computer, I'd probably be knitting a scarf.

Grandma says hi, but she's a rebel. She's knitting mitts.

Andrew, the self-named Scrabblemaster (yes, that's one word), and Grandpa, the Whittling Wonder, refuse to knit. They're such party poopers!!

Since we've arrived in Wolseley, we've visited Bizzare William's, and Laura built Fort Sprague, which has mostly melted.

I'd better go. There's another scrabble game starting!!

Happy Easter!

We took a three day weekend to celebrate! Yahoo! We went to Sunday brunch today with some friends from here, friends from Calgary that drove down as a surprise, and Steve's mom. It was lovely. They had these mini creme brulees in tiny ramekins...Yum! And eggs benny. oh god. so good.

And.......*drumroll*....we are the proud new owners of a '94 Toyota Camry! That's pretty exciting too. The Hyundai was doing some strange things this past while. I'm not sure what we'll do with it.

Now we have two more days off, what to do? We are certainly going to make the most of them, because there aren't any other holidays like this we can take advantage of before our holiday in November.

I hope everyone else's Easter is spent the way ours is! Relaxed and taking it easy in Blairmore.. :)

Spring Has Arrived in the Nation's Capital!!

Not to rub it in or anything but I think we've crossed the line from winter to spring. The temperatures are just above zero and the snow has begun a serious melt. The other sure sign of spring in Ottawa: the annual blasting of the ice on the Rideau River has begun!! I'll see if I can get some photos when they reach the Cummings Bridge. It's supposed to go up to 7°C this Friday so I think the bikes will have to come out of hibernation and hit the road.

Nice house 

Maybe I should save this for Dawn, but...........

Dawn and David put an offer in on a house in Blairmore! I'll see if I can post a picture...

Crisis Averted

Only a few [read:many] dollars later and we now have tickets on an Air Canada flight instead of Jetsgo. I'm thinking we need to check the ownership of the airline next time before we purchase tickets.

Jetsgo? Not So Fast.

Guess who bought tickets on Jetsgo to fly out West this summer.

Happy Birthday Steve!!!!

Happy Birthday Steve!! I hope you get to spend part of it eating cake, part of it riding your bike, and part of it with a celebratory pint of your favourite beverage!!

What's new?

Not much here...the cute house sold! The realtor told me today that the people buying will likely use it as a revenue property. I guess essentially that what D and D would have ended up doing, but for parents! Aw. Too bad.

Tomorrow is Steve's birthday and he is excited about entering his early 30s. Not much exciting planned for tomorrow, but probably dinner out.

We had Mook out yesterday on a hike with us and encountered 3 moose. She was very well behaved and didn't take off after them. We were happy she listened to us instead of the call of the wild! She's really good with the bikes too. We had her out on Saturday and Steve pedalled as fast as he could go and she just ran her butt off to keep up. She had a big happy panting grin on her face after that!

Cozy living room! Can't you picture mom and dad watching the National here? Can't you just imagine all the back issues of old crosswords under that couch cushion? Yes, me too! 

Mook's mug 

New digs?

So I looked at the cutest house today and I can totally picture mom, dad and Coco puttering about in it! It has a nice heated shop in the backyard (sound familiar?) and mature trees, all kinds of mystery shrubs and plants, a dog house, a wraparound deck, lots of handpainted touches around the house that I just LOVE (and so will Mom) and just a ton of character all around.

Wendy suggested we get an inspection done, so I'm just waiting for official word from either of the interested parties...but I'm bursting, it's so cute! *squeal*

Too bad for bloggerbot, or I'd post a dang picture! :)

On the Mook front: she's got the 'high five' down pat! I can't believe it. Steve's calling me the trickmaster. What do I teach her next?

Shake!... Shake!... Shake!... C'mon, shake!

If only I could post a picture! I will have to reinstall the download and give it another shot. In any case, if you didn't already guess, we are teaching Mook to 'shake'. She is slowly getting it, and it's too funny to watch. Don't believe what they say about old dogs, she's picking it up just fine! It helps if I have some tantalizing meat slicer remnants to entice her with.

Edited to add: After spending 15 minutes trying to post a picture I officially give up. Hello, Picasa and Bloggerbot are all conspiring to not let me post a picture of the dog. I just don't get it! AAAAAAAAAArgh!

This ice sculpture sits in front of the tourist info centre on Wellington Street directly across from Parliament Hill.  

Our copy of the Mountain Freedom guide arrived in the post today. Very nice!! Well done Jessica!!

A photo from last summer. This was taken on the front lawn of the Parliament Buildings. 

Happy Birthday Mitchell!

Happy 41st cutie putootie!

Guess who I passed on the street this morning?

Here I am minding my own business walking from Parliament Hill down the street to work when I see someone that looks familiar. I take a closer look and think, "Wow, he looks sooooo familiar." HOLY COW! It's JACK LAYTON!! My eyes almost came out of the sockets but before I could accost him he had passed.

That's the closest I've been to a brush with fame and I tell ya, I was pretty excited! Sadly, when I tried to brag to everyone at work, no one knew who he was.

People!! Pay attention! :)

Happy Groundhog Day!!

Digital Camera + New Dog + Blog = Post of Photo of New Dog on Blog

Tap, tap, tap....is this thing on?