Fixed Photo of Big Dad, Hockey and Leaves.

I started playing with this a few days ago. Here is the before and after side by side. (click on image for larger view).

I decided to go with a sepia tone, but plain black and white looks good too.

We played our third hockey game today, and won - thanks to Beth's goal! Way to go!! Now we are scheduled for the finals on Friday! I hope we win!

The leaves they are a changing! It's almost there:



That's all for today folks.

Hockey and a Few Photos

We started the United Way Campaign Hockey Tournament today. It's a lot of fun because I get to play with Beth, and some other girls that I play with on my other team. It's also fun because I get to leave work (don't worry everyone, I took personal holiday time to do this) and we won! Tomorrow is our second game, I hope we win so we can go to the semis and/or finals!

I'm just doing a quick post of some cute photos I took.

Gillian has learned to say "Cheese"
I pull out the camera and she immediately says it and
gives me these smiles! I wish they always did that - forever!

Then they get all serious. Abby here wanted
to show off her outfit!

Saying Cheese again, showing off her big stack of blocks.

Stacking in action!

Fun and more Fun!

I took yesterday off, and as the title said I had fun! And in more ways that one. I spent most of the morning working on a chapter in my restoration book titled "Dust, Mold and Texture". It taught me how to remove dust spots, and minor scratches and marks using the spot healing brush. It was neat and worked really well! Luckily the photos I was working on weren't too damaged, so it wasn't taking much to fix them up. It was fun to learn another new trick to add to the cool list of tricks I've amassed since picking up this book. I can't wait to be able to tackle a serious job, where parts of a photo are missing. Luckily most of the family photos I have are in very good shape. The challenge I have is trying to restore colour in a badly faded or discoloured photo or slide. But I haven't even tackled the colour chapter in the book.

While working away on this I took the time to flip through the newspaper, and I came across the Future Shop flyer. I saw that the Bamboo Fun Tablets were on sale. Not a huge discount but enough to get me interested! I had always wanted one and was planning on asking for it for my birthday/Christmas. So I checked the on-line store and noticed that I could order it and pick it up at Gatineau, without being charged shipping... so I did it. Very impulsive, I know, but it was FUN! I went out, picked it up, grabbed some groceries on the way and rushed home to plug it in. I love it so far. It's so neat. It's got a mouse and a pen stylus, I've been only using the pen mainly to get used to it, but also because it was easier than I thought. I'm looking forward to getting the chance to do some touch up work with it.

This morning Gillian was up at 5:30!! So early! I tried to get her back to sleep but it didn't work, Abby woke up shortly after that, and then Gillian was up for good at 5:45 or so. I really hope that she starts sleeping in because this is killing us! Abby had her first gymnastics class today. I really prepared her for it, because it takes place at the local French school and the parents go in for the first 5 min of the first class, but then we aren't allowed in the room. They banish us to wait in the hall for 55 min while they take them through the circuit set up. Abby kept saying, no "I don't want you to leave" but I kept repeating that she would have fun and she is a big girl now... when I left the room she was wailing in the head instructors arms! But when I peeked 2 min later, she was standing happily with all the other kids, arms links playing with rubber rings. She didn't cry once during the whole class - from what I saw anyway! We'll see how it goes next time, when she realizes what is going on. I'm hoping it was fun enough for her so that she is eager to go back. When we drove by the school later in the afternoon, she yelled out - "There is my school, school for gymnastics!" so that was a positive sign.

Off to bed early tonight, because I have to be ready to get up at 5:30 with Gillian tomorrow! So I won't be posting any photos today. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more of Big Dad and the girls!

Grandpapa - #99

In honour of what would have been my grandfather's 99th birthday (click on photo to view larger):

Bertrand and Frank T Denis 1911

FTD (far right) - (1928)
McGill Survey School for Engineering Students

FTD - 1932

FTD - 1945

FTD - 1958

FTD - 1950

FTD
Special Advisor to the Auditor General of Canada
1975

1985

Denis Family Christmas - 1988

I'm really hoping that my family, (Uncle Peter or Dad?) can verify and correct me on the dates, since many of the photos were undated. I also didn't do much restoration to them, they are just quick scans and posts...

Hope to have more tomorrow.

It's Tuesday and I don't know what to write...

The problem with going into work each day and doing what I do is that it doesn't lend itself to very interesting blog posts. I could gripe about work, but I'm not fed up with it enough to start doing that publicly and it would just bore you all!! I'm actually enjoying myself. I could write about a problem we have with someone on our team, but I don't want to get myself in trouble and it's not fair. My days are fairly boring in that nothing too crazy happens. I did get to go to Houston last month, and I will be going to Toronto in October, but not much traveling goes on for us. There is an interesting conference I'd like to attend in Las Vegas in Jan - E-Learning technology, but it may be hard for me to get the ok to go... but I'll work on it! But generally the day to day is just that, day to day!

For excitement I come home and hang out with the kids (although perhaps excitement isn't the right word!!) and then i get to play on my computer at night and scrapbook, scan photos, chat with Beth and read other people's blogs. What was really exciting for me, was this weekend my layout of Gillian was chosen as a spotlight for the Creative Inspirations blog I follow. It was exciting to read in Beth's blog that my layout had been chosen! I'm working on their next challenge, but finding it more difficult to put together than that one. Maybe I'll finish it tonight and post it.

Otherwise life is good, the weather is just perfect these days and the leaves are starting to change colour - my favourite time of year... stay tuned for fall photos! That's it for a regular Tuesday!

The week in bullet form

Since I didn't post all week (gasp!!) I decided to recap the week in bullets:

Mon - Friday

• worked
• kids had colds
• finally started using iTunes!! (I used a gift card from my parents)
• ate all the cookies I made last weekend
• went to spinning class
• got a pedicure
• worked a lot!
• scanned a few more slides
• didn't take any photos!!

Nothing too exciting just the usual - which is always nice!

The weekend was a little more exciting. Yesterday we attended Jemelee and Lee's wedding. For the event, I had ordered a dress on-line from J. Crew, but had to return it because it was too big. I had asked if it would arrive by the 20th and they said "yes!". Well, it arrived at about 5:30 Friday evening! Cutting it pretty close! I had already accepted that it wasn't going to make it, and I was going to head out Saturday morning to get one. I was very relieved when I got home and the box was sitting there.

The wedding was very nice, the weather was perfect and the party fun! We were happy to see Jem marry such a great guy, they will be very happy together, I'm sure! We also had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends.

The newlyweds!

My dress

Lola, Larry and Eric

Even though we went home relatively early - 10:30. I was completely exhausted today! It's not that I was sleepy, I just felt totally drained of life. So I was not in the best of moods. I couldn't think straight or make any decisions, so we just sort of stumbled around the house for the day, my only accomplishment being 6 loads of laundry. I did manage to pull my camera and take some shots of the girls - which is a challenge for me when I'm in a mood like that.

Abby

The Girls did some rock climing while Eric
built a fire.

It was quite cold this morning
so I needed to get the hats and mits out

Hanging out by the fire. It was cold
and boy do I look tired!!

And I figured to try and salvage this pathetic day, I decided to make steak and french fries for dinner... yummy!

I need a day off!

Work is busy, which I like so I'm not complaining. Life is busy. I can never seem to keep enough milk in the house, every time I go to get another bag out it seems like the last one! Things are starting to pile up in my office, in the kitchen and in the laundry room. Little things I'd like to get to don't. Like putting together a 12 x 12 book to send to Shutterfly, since I won a free book from DD. I've been wanting to put together a slide show of Gillian's First Year and Abby's first 3 years, which include photos and video all to nice music, I want to finish scanning my old family slides and get started on Eric's, I want to continue going through my restoration and retouching book... and the list goes on.

So I think I'll take a day or two off and get some of this stuff started, at least. I don't want to delude myself into thinking I'll get that done in two days, but get started would be good.
It would help if I could also get a good night's sleep before this reward of two days off, so I'm feeling fresh and creative for it. You know maybe I should call it a two day creative retreat, at my place! Maybe I'll do this around my birthday, as a little birthday present for myself, I usually use that excuse to buy something frivolous, but a day off would be great too!

I made these cookies yesterday, of course I added a cup of chocolate chips, which made them extra yummy. Abby helped me out, while Gillian sat in her chair playing with Daddy's Blackberry! While I was spooning the batter on to the cookies sheets, I felt like I was racing the clock, the clock being Abby scooping up an equal amount of cookie batter into her mouth. She kept giggling each time I caught her stealing another handful!

Martha Stewart's Everyday Food
Cookie of the Month - September.

Early day tomorrow, since I'm going to bike. I'm trying to stretch out the biking days until the end of Sept. Then I'll switch to the spinning class in the morning at work.

Anyway, off to bed!

All day Chat and it's HOT!

Yesterday was an all day chat even at Designer Digitals. It was fun, and they gave out freebies every hour, which Beth and I got most of, (thanks Beth for the 5-11 haul!). I did this page with some of it (I really hate this photo of me, but LOVE it of Abby):

2 days before Gillian was born.

Then last night was a 40th birthday party for our friend Wendy. It was a surprise party (although I think she knew in the end), and a good time was had by all - especially her, I think she will be in rough shape this morning! Again it was fun to see how close friends are so important in your life, just like the party last week.

Today we spent at home, only going out to have breakfast in Wakefield. It's very humid and hot today. It's so much cooler inside than out, that around noon, all of our windows started fogging up from outside, The temperature was up to about 26, and I think it shot up fast resulting in the fog.

We just spend the rest of the day playing (kids) and doing stuff that needed to get done, laundry, tidy up, organize the kids clothes (swapping some summer for fall/winter stuff) and baking cookies. I also tried to take some photos of the girls, while not many turned out, because they were blurry, these did:


Back to work tomorrow!

BA is the way

I'm taking a Business Analyst course. It's not terribly exciting material, but what is terribly exciting are the possibilities it may lead to. You see, BA work is sorely lacking in the work I do, it's like it is just skimmed over and really by-passed to get onto delivering a solution, which is what everyone one wants... I mean who really wants to sit there and plan what is needed in a car, lets say, why not just go out and buy the Porsche! What organizations are starting to slowly realize (and I mean slowly) is that the identification of requirements is essential to the success of a project in the end. But there is no organization dedicated to business analysis, like we have for project management (which is where I work). And that is why projects pay BA's so much money to do what they do! And that is where the possibilities lie!!

Just a Tuesday

I wrote this yesterday, but never got a chance to post!:


I say that because nothing really exciting happened today and it was just a Tuesday. It was raining cats and dogs when I drove into work at 6:00 am, I was racing to make it to the spinning class which started at 6:20... I was a little late, but did make it and got a good workout. Then worked like a nut all day, with a break for lunch at Ikea with the girls on my team, then raced home to pick up some food and the girls from Phylis' place.

The girls have been a little hyper this week, and I think it's because they've been stuck inside most of the day with the weather yesterday and today. So when we get home there is a lot of whining and screaming. And they also rough-house like boys. They both go after each other giggling, and laughing until one of them has pinned the other one underneath them - then the screaming starts. It's quite funny to watch, since Abby usually has the upper hand, but that won't be for much longer. Gillian is a strong little girl!!

Off to training tomorrow!

More scanning

I scanned a few more slides today. Here a couple gems, (my dad was a really good photographer - still is, but all he takes photos of now are birds!):

My brother (5) and I (3)

Good night!

Good weekend

Except for the rain yesterday it was a good weekend. I went to a friend's 50th birthday party last night, which was really fun. I have photos which I'll post later! I spent most of the time ogling at her 5800 sq ft house!! Holy Cow it was huge, and beautiful!! I'm not sure I'd be able to function with so much space. I'd probably never see Eric or the kids... we'd each have our own wing! Anyway, the party was fun, girls only so there were 14 of us ranging in age from 23 to 50+. It really got me to thinking about the importance of girlfriends and how important it is to maintain those relationships, no matter how hard it may be because of time or other reasons. It's not to say we have to do things together all the time - that is impossible, but maintain those ties and relationships, and keep them up no matter what is going on in our lives be it kids, work or whatever! I wish to be surrounded by those who have been important to me at my 50th, and I look forward to the good times from now until then and beyond! Anyway up for a spa night???

Anyway, one of the 2 most important girls in my life:

Abby with Gillian's new Raggedy Ann and Andy Dolls
from Aunt Loy and Uncle Peter.

Playing with Photos

Did a little editing on these two:

(subtle cross process NVan actions)

Off to a birthday party tonight!

It's 7 am and we're all up...

It's Saturday morning. It's pouring outside, and we are all up at 7:00 am. Gillian likes to wake up at 5:30, which is really just a tad too early for us, but what can we do. I tried to get her back to sleep, but she was having none of that! Now she is sitting beside me in my office playing with crayons. She is quite good at "colouring" in that she can actually get the colour ON the paper and just a little everywhere else. Abigail is happily watching cartoons, and Eric is reading the paper. Because it's raining, I'm not sure what we are going to do today, perhaps we should go and buy some bedroom furniture, finally!! And order some blinds for our room and bedroom - not that the house is built next door, and the leaves are going to fall soon, it's time to cover those windows!!

Here are a couple layouts I did this week that I never posted:

Update on Gillian and New Music

So I'll start with the not so good news. We visited the Pediatric Dentist yesterday. We were referred because of the strange things going on in her mouth (see this post for more details). It turns out that she has 6 incisors instead of 4. The two that are pushing in where her front central incisors are are the extras, so what looks like are her lateral incisors are in fact her central. and her lateral incisors are beside those. Her canines are pushing through normally and are just about to erupt. Because of this the dentist recommend that we pull the extra set out now, to give her mouth a chance to develop normally by the canines pushing in. He recommended that we pull the outermost lateral incisors because he didn't think that if we pulled the extra central incisors the canines would push the centrals in enough and there would be a pretty huge gap there until her adult teeth come. So the two extra central will become her new central and what is supposed to be her central will become the lateral (make sense??) Here is a picture of a normal mouth and the positioning of baby teeth to get an idea what I'm talking about:

So the procedure involves wiggling and yanking, and as much as it sounds quite unpleasant is quick and because she is so young shouldn't cause her too much pain or scar her memory too much. I just won't be able to be in the room when they do it... Eric will have to be the brave one. I just hope she doesn't suffer at all... Luckily her bottom teeth are coming in normally, and we'll have to wait until she is about 5 to see what her adult teeth may do. The Dr was really fantastic and I'm glad we were referred to him!

Anyway such is life. On a lighter note:

I discovered that I love the music of Colbie Caillat. Check her out!

Anniversary and weekend festivities

It was Eric and my 4th year anniversary on Thursday. I got him a watch while in Houston, and he got us tickets to see Wicked at the NAC, at nice cook book and a very yummy dessert from Les Fougeres in Chelsea. The photographer who took all the photos for the book, Andrew VanBeek, was our photographer for our wedding, so it all tied together nicely!

Saturday morning we just hung around the house, doing errands and working around the house. Eric got started on the screen porch door, and I cleaned and did laundry - fun!! Gillian found a fun game to play, called "Balancing Act", and discovered the sport of climbing:






Saturday night was the night we had the tickets, so we had Eric's mom come over to sit. We went for dinner at Milestones in the market, which was good as always. Then we headed over to the show. It was amazing! I'm sure all of those who have seen it can agree that it was a perfect mix of comedy, romance and wonderful singing! It was probably my second favourite show now, the first being Phantom of the Opera.

Sunday afternoon we went to our friend Mandy and Danny's cottage which was a lot of fun. Abby played with Ali and Mitchell and Gillian just followed them around talking "Gillian Talk"


Then today we had breakfast with our friends Steve and Lorna, who were visiting from Calgary. They were at the cottage yesterday and ended up staying over at our place last night. So we cooked up a nice pancake breakfast and had a really nice visit. Just before lunch the girls were going a little nuts, so we decided to take them for a walk in the woods, before Gillian bit off another piece of Abby's face (did I mention that Saturday was a big biting day for Gillian - she was out of control!! It was a tough day, thank got we got to go out!). It was getting close to lunchtime, so Gillian ended up falling asleep in the carrier, so Eric went ahead and just took her back to bed, and Abby and I did the "toddler speed" hike.







Finally I prepared a nice dinner for us all - Roasted chicken with mushroom artichoke wine sauce on a bed of couscous, roasted peppers and cauliflower, steamed green beans and a corn on the cob. It was very yummy! The only bad part was halfway through I dropped a small saucer and it shattered and sliced open my hand. Ouch! Maybe it wasn't so bad because then I didn't have to clean up, because I couldn't get it wet! But it's throbbing now, so I'll sign off and re-bandage it (Eric is no nurse....) and get ready for work tomorrow.