Plunging Into Debt

We are officially the proud owners of this tank.  It had been something we had talked about for several months now.  Doing the two car thing to do family activities to include William was getting pretty old.  I was also tired of going to church in two separate vehicles.  We can now happily seat eight peeps in one place...this 2013 Pilot is very roomy and fun to drive too.  It's got a few bells and whistles such as a back up camera that have been fun to use.  It's our very first NEW car....the inside smell is lovely.  I wonder how long it will take to smell like 'eau-de teen & child'?

The biggest thing that prompted this to happen over the weekend is that we found out that some issues that our CRV was having, were going to possibly be expensive to fix.  It also needed new tires and brakes.  Now was a good time to trade it in....even if we had to say good bye to our new hitch and roof racks!  

The dealership gave us a great trade in value (shocking) and with $5000 off the price due to clearing out the 2013 stock we timed it just right.

Hello car payments!

Above and Beyond

Nate walked into my office on Friday afternoon and presented me with three lovely roses.  I was rendered speechless!
After I found my voice, I interrogated him....of course.  I can't really enjoy a 'moment' until all the details are explained!
I found out that his English/French teacher offered to help Nate and a group of his friends buy roses for their moms.  The boys thought this was a grand idea and a plan was hatched.  Needless to say I love this teacher.  It's not the first time she has proved to be a teacher that goes way above and beyond typical teacher duties.  BTW, she was the teacher that pulled the 'kissing' prank on Nate last fall!
Nate even gave me a hug and kiss in front of everyone in the office.  That boy is so confident in himself and rarely embarrassed.  I love him to bits!

He Remembered

While cruising, I mentioned to Keith on more than on occasion how much I liked turn down service.  So on our first night home he provided it.

Awww....he's a keeper!

 

Dad's Surprise Birthday!

I am not the only one in the family to have a milestone birthday this year. 

My dad had a very special 65th birthday on April 1st.  It was a day full of surprises!

It started with a men's only breakfast with his closest pals.  Keith was the emcee and they had fun roasting my dad who loves a good joke.

 Then that evening just us adults when for supper at Greek Islands.  It's consistently delicious there!

 

 My dad opened his cards not really having any clue the surprise inside.
My mother is literally trying not to spill the beans...just look at that effort!

 And the look of astonishment on his face was priceless as he read about his all-expense paid upcoming trip to Bryce Canyon, Utah next week which has amazing photography opportunities due to it's scenery.  He was speechless!

 

And then even though we were stuffed, we came back to our place for dessert.  Guinness Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Glaze.  Oh yes!

 

We're so glad we could make his birthday special....he deserves it because he's such a great guy!

Innocent Bride No More

 

Well, you can't go back but if you can still put on your wedding dres you're doing alright!  Actually since I was not a frail, skinny bride my dress still fits and is actually too big.  It was fun to put it on last night even though it reeks of mothballs and needs to be ironed desperately.

 

Keith surprised me with a Kobo e-reader for our anniversary.  I'm SO excited.  Now if I could only figure out how to borrow items from the library with it...help!

 

 

Punked!

 

Let me start off by saying that we are very fond of our neighbors directly to the north of us.  They are the ones that gave us the tip when this home went up for sale.  They are the ones that used to be my Sunday School teachers many moons ago at Highland Comm. Church.   They are the ones that I work with at MEI.  They are caring, friendly and we really couldn't ask for better neighbors.  Now, our neighbor whom I will call 'P' LOVES his grass.  He even re-sodded his entire front lawn this spring by himself.  He mows it faithfully, fertilizes it, trims it, edges it and waters it.  He waters it A LOT.  And even though he only waters it during the prescribed times by the city he doesn't follow his watering days.  Everyone on the street has a brown and crispy lawn but his is lush and green.  A certain someone and I decided it would be very fun to pull a prank on the lawn-lover.   

We wrote up a fake by-law warning ticket and put it on his front step on a Friday night.  Keith and I thought for sure he'd tell us about it because we often chat over the fence but all was silent over the weekend.  Since we were having the block party on Sunday we knew we'd have to 'tell all' before Monday so he wouldn't phone the city or anything like that.  Well to make a long story short, he thought it was an actual ticket and was all set to PAY it!  He even called the city over the weekend and left them a voicemail asking why he was being singled out for a ticket.  When we told him at the block party he simply could not believe we would do such a thing to him and he laughed and laughed!  He was happy to be out of the doghouse with his wife.  The neighbors all had a big laugh as well as 'P' is well known up and down the street for the love of his lawn.  We got him so good and now he warns us to watch our backs!  Bring it on...we dare ya!

 

 

Salt Spring Visitors

We don't get to see our friends from Salt Spring too often so I was tickled pink when my friend Jenn called up to say she was dropping by last week.  Her husband works for Randy Bachman so was working close by in Mission at the River Music Festival.  She and the kids tagged along on the road trip and they were able to make a stop at our house for a quick visit.  She's one of those delightful friends who remains dear to me even though the times we see each other are few and far between. 

Job Perk

One of the secretaries at MEI schools also works part time in the facilities department.  Part of her big job this past year has been trying to purge out the archives deep in the bowels of the high school.  She mentioned in passing the other day that they were shredding oodles of old, old school files and I asked if perhaps they might still have files from the early 1990's.  She said she'd check and I didn't think of it again.  After lunch I came back to my desk to find my school file which was started in 1978!  Sadly, it didn't have anything particularly juicy or intersting in it.  I think we keep more thorough files these days.  I would have thought for sure there would be record of the speech therapy I received for my lisp.  Nope.  It was mainly report cards (which I already have all neatly filed away in my basement) and Gates scores.  It was still fun to look through it.

 The form below is from my original pre-kindergarten interview.  This is my mom's hand-writing which looks exactly the same today.

This is my kindergarten report.  Funny how it's still a pretty accurate assessment of my grown up self!

Except I really don't draw nice pictures.

My Gates score.  Esentially this means I was reading at a grade 9.8 level in grade 7.  Nathan was reading at a post secondary level in grade 7 so every generation improves!  Funny, I always was frustrated at taking these tests in school. No one would tell you why you were taking them and they never told you your score.  I actually thought they were I.Q. tests at the time.

 And I'll leave you with my fantastic art work.  I don't think I could even replicate that sort of quality now!

Beautiful

I just love it when a random book choice turns out to be one of the best stories I've read all year.

Let me back track to a work day in June when I was heading to the accounting office which is located in the high school.  If you did not already know, the two schools are linked through the libraries.  This means I have to drag myself through TWO libraries and usually never stop to browse books as tempting as it is!  Once school is out the high school librarian, Sheila usually displays 'Summer Reading' books on tables to entice teachers and staff to read over the summer.  As I was walking through she stopped me and 'ordered' me to take out some books!  Wellllll...okay.  Since she twisted my arm.  I perused the choices and randomly selected some with interesting covers.  If you are a book worm you will already know that a good cover does not necessarily made for a good book.  I took my stack home and piled them in the order I was going to read them.  The first was pretty good...a non-fiction book on how to relate to Mormons (yes, I have an on-going fascination with the Mormon faith because it's just SO strange).  The next in the pile was the one you see pictured above.  Again...I was attracted to the cover due to the rosary as I will also admit a deep interest with the Catholic faith.  There is a part of my genetic make up that likes to 'do' and be told what to 'do'.  Evangelical Christianity can make me feel a bit lost in it's freedom of any sort of traditions or the like.  I like the rituals and liturgy of Catholicism and well, that's a whole other post. (please do not leave negative Catholic ramblings in my comments section....not interested)  Back to this book....it's a very well told story about a religious sister (different than a nun) that's written so beautifully that I kept putting the book down to savor the words and I also didn't want the story to end. It's more about the character's deep relationship with Jesus than any particular denomination.  It's a love story on many levels.
I look forward to reading more of Lisa Samson's novels.  I hope they are just as good!

Noodles

I just made my two 'new' kids very happy.  What did it take you might ask?
A case of these:

Five Becomes Seven

Our family is embarking on new unchartered territory.  It's a bit of a long story but to summarize we are having two MEI students come and live with us for a month...possibly until the end of the school year.  Mom is in a rather desperate situation as her husband who runs their business on the Island is quite ill and she needs to go and take care of him.  She asked MEI if there would be a family who could take in her kids while she does this.  Keith and I were asked and considered it carefully.  We decided we could do this as we have plenty of room and it would give us practice for  having an international student we are considering for later this summer! 

So another son and a daughter (!!) will be arriving today. Victor is in grade 7 and Melissa is in grade 12.  They are Canadian Koreans.  They seem to be very nice kids and I hope we can make them feel a part of the family.

I am excited, nervous and......eeeks!  Am I crazy?

This committment involves a lot of extra driving due to the amount of extra curricular activities they are involved in but thankfully it's all fairly close to home. 

I'll keep you all posted on the adventures that lay ahead!

Snow Day

This morning I had to be at school for early bird registration at 6:45 am.  It was difficult to put it mildly...getting up at that sort of unholy hour.  Anyhow, as I drove to work it was snowy madly.  We successfully registered 100 new students and learned that MEI was closing the campus for the day.  Nate was very happy to stay home, Liam was happy to have a 'mummy day' and Chad still had to go to school.  Who said life is fair?!  Anyhow, there is plenty more snow forecasted so maybe we'll repeat this again tomorrow.  Minus the early morning!

Perfectly Delightful!

It's always exciting to have the flower delivery van pull up to your house!  This lovely Christmas bouquet comes to us from our special overseas friends.  Thank you Hamm family...we miss you all!

Diamond, Where Art Thou?

I looked down at my hand this morning in church and discovered that my wedding set was missing a diamond!  Can you see that wee little spot....top left.  A bit sad but I suppose my own fault for not getting my claws checked in the past oh....8 years!  I haven't a clue when it went missing and there truly is no point in looking for it.  Maybe it went into the baking, or it could be at work, or somewhere lost forever outside.  I have two pairs of small diamond earrings that are missing their partners and another ring with small diamonds that I will bring to the jewler to see if we can fit them in my ring.  Not precisely an expense I wanted at this time of year but I think I'd better get the claws checked along with the repair as soon as possible!

R.A.K.

I just had the most awesome random act of kindness directed my way yesterday.
I went to the post office to mail off a Christmas present to my sponsored child in the Ukraine.  It was a small parcel so I didn't expect it to cost too much.
The postal worker weighed and measured it and then told me it would cost $20 for airmail and $10 for surface.  I knew that if I chose surface it wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas YET the airmail cost more than what was in the package! 
I reluctantly chose surface and said to the clerk:  "I guess getting a Christmas present in January is okay too".  The clerk then said, "I'm sure she'll get spoiled with gifts anyhow...it won't matter."  To which I replied that she is living in an orphange and probably won't get much at all.
The clerk paused a moment and then said, "Let me re-weigh this because I think you were just slightly over 250 grams which put the parcel into the next category in regards to price." 
Then to my surprise she put the parcel on the scale....but left half of the package hanging off the scale. 
"There!" she said....."Now it's 250 grams."
So with the new weight, it would cost me $10 to send it airmail and Lubya will get her gift in time for Christmas.
Thank you Clearbrook Post Office!  This is not the first time I have had a clerk at this outlet go above and beyond for me.

The cockles of my heart have been thoroughly warmed!

Lucky Me

My brother picked me an ice cream bucket full of delicious ripe blackberries today! What a nice guy. Methinks he's hankering after a dinner invitation!

Been Living A Lie

The other evening we took a lovely twilight walk over to my parents house. Nathan needed to do some 'bill collecting' for yard work and it's also nice to walk with a destination in mind as opposed to mindlessly strolling the streets as we usually do.

My mother immediately fed us (as mothers are prone to do) therefore erasing any calories we might have burned on the way over. Afterwards Liam trotted off to Grandad's cave of treasures (his office) and brought out the tape measure. Liam loves to be measured! His height, his belly, his arm....you get the picture!

This measuring bit led to us all getting our height checked. My Nathan now stands at a proud 5'6" if you can believe it! I asked to be measure too, just for fun. The results astounded me! I have (for as long as I can remember) told people that I am 5'8" (technically 5' 7 3/4") but NO this is not true. I have been horribly wrong and I don't know how this happened. I am actually 5 feet 8 inches and three quarters. Practically 5'9"! A giant. Keith is 5'9" and a quarter so he's just half an inch taller than me. So there you go. Get measured...perhaps you'll surprise yourself with an additional inch of height.

One thing for sure is that stepping on the scale would not be as fun. Stick to measuring your height for kicks!

It's Called Art

So what do YOU think about Abbotsford's newest piece of artwork located just off the freeway in the centre of the roundabout?

I'm not sure if I like or if it's just a bit 'clown-ish'? At least they put it near Abby Growers....that was apropos!

Surprised...Again!

The 'office ladies'!

So this year Administrative Professionals day came and went without any notice. I suppose we all (minus Carolyn who is new this year) knew that the admin had something planned. In fact, I was so positive it was going to be the next day that I slipped my camera in my purse and didn't pack a lunch. Turned out that it was a dud idea and it was just an ordinary day except I was extra hungry by the time the day was over! Cue the next week and I have completely forgotten about secretaries day. It was just work as usual when Heather announced to get our purses and head out the door as it was 'the day'! My tummy got a bit nervous because with Heather and Jeff you can never know just what they have planned....they are a tad crazy. It was Marci's day off but they punked her into a 'grad committee' meeting that she willingly attended....but was sitting in the boardroom alone. Hah! They really got me because I thought for sure it would be on a Thursday when all three of us work in the office. Marilyn (the lady I replaced in 2009) came and took over the office while we went off on our adventure!

So here's a picture of the three of us in the back of Heather's car. A bit tense...a bit nervous. Trying to guess just what the heck was going on. Then Heather started making phone calls to 'Agent Staples'.

After an interesting exchange of 'items' with Agent Staples in Coquitlam we ended up at the New Westminster Quay. They tied us up, gave us $20 and told us to find a coffee and buy ourselves some flowers. After seeing us stumble a few feet they untied us. I think that they didn't want any 'on the job' injuries! After finding a hot chocolate and wandering around the Quay (which is undergoing major renovations...will be really nice when all is said and done) Heather and Jeff steered us down a steep ramp and right onto a Paddle Cruise Boat!

What a perfect day for a cruise on the Fraser. We went up as far as the mouth of the Pitt River. Interesting commentary by the captain was given about this and that as we cruised. The sun was warm and the rain stayed away most of the day.

The cruise was filled mostly with seniors who stayed on the main level. We think that they couldn't manage the stairs so with that, we had the entire upper floor to ourselves. It was a good thing because some of us (Marci) can be pretty loud and rowdy!

Jeff and poor Carolyn who was just gob-smacked by this whole adventure. She cried to us: Why didn't you warn me! She'll be on guard next year!

Never mind life jackets....I had to make sure the fire extinguishers were up to date!

The cruise included a small buffet 'luncheon'. As we were eating Heather insisted we go up on deck and as we cruised by the Mary Hill Bypass area there were her parents holding up a sign that read 'MEI Secretaries Rock'! It was awesome. One of the men on the deck with us asked what an MEI was. Ha ha!

After lunch we were treated to some super yummy desserts.

They even let Marci drive the boat for a while. A bit frightening but she assured them she had her watercraft licence. Not sure if it counts if you buy it off the Internet Marci!

Below is Marci's (Heather's ) note in the guestbook of the boat.

The day was not over as we were given cards with the most lovely words written and an appointment the next day for a manicure at a local spa! Spoiled...you've got that right. I swapped out my manicure for a facial and it was absolutely divine.

Our fearless leader is quite a lady indeed. She is a hoot but I also respect her greatly. She is so accomplished and really runs that school in an incredible way. I cannot even begin to explain how grateful I am to know and work with both her and Jeff. It's been the biggest blessing for sure.

Something New

After setting up some field trips at school recently for snow-shoeing, I had the idea that I wanted to go myself! I told Keith that this would make a great birthday treat for me. So Keith made all the arrangements and we took ourselves up to Cypress Bowl on Sunday morning. It was pouring here at home so we hoped that meant lots of snow up there. It didn't. We got soaked!

We took the 2 hour guided tour which also included a stop at a 1920's lodge for hot chocolate and cookies. It was well worth it. The guide was so friendly and informative. We really enjoyed ourselves.

The trails were beautiful. It's not hard to snow shoe at all....easy peasy! It's an excellent work out...I really was huffing and puffing trying to keep up to the guide at times. If you go snow shoeing without a guide then you have to stay on the trails. Forging your own path in fresh snow was MUCH more enjoyable!

It sure was wet but all the trees were so pretty covered in snow.

My camera obviously had a few rain drops on the lens here. We had a great day out and ended it off with a delicious and well earned Chinese food supper.