What does Power Mean to YOU?

For me it means: Water, showering, flushing the toilet, light, cooking, TV, computer, heat, telephone, open garage door, daycare, work. All of which we went without for two days. The storm hit on Tuesday night and took out electricity for 20,000 people, us being one of them, as well as my in-laws, all our neighbours and the kids daycare. But on the flip side, what the power going out means is: time with the kids, candle lit breakfast, naps, early bedtime, building fires and going out for dinner. I just can't imagine what it would have been like during the ice storm. Eric's parents were without power for 3 weeks! that would have been impossible with the kids, I wonder what we would have done?

The morning after.
A week ago it looked like this.

Abby LOVED the snow. We got to
test out her new snowsuit.

Gillian HATED it!!
It was really more frustration from
not being able to walk!

"Didn't winter just end in June?"

It's crazy outside right now! The wind is howling, it's cold and it's snowing like mad! I just can't believe this is happening already. I know it will all melt over the next few days, but to have a big snowstorm already is just nuts. I'm not ready. As a friend said tonight, "Didn't winter just end in June?" I think it was more like July, but whatever, it wasn't that long ago! They are calling for 10 - 15 cm of snow, and it's going to make the morning commute hellish tomorrow, oh, that is assuming that I can make it to the end on my road....

So just to recap last winter. It started with a little snowfall:

Which some of us loved!!

And others didn't

And ended with this:
Ugh. No comment.

So, I guess I must just say deal with it Christine, get those winter tires on your car and start waxing the skis! It's going to be a long one.

Weekend Recap # 4

I have to do another "recap" post, because I haven't posted in a while. Friday was a work day, nothing too interesting happened, just the usual work, but we did get to go out for Thai at lunch - which is always yummy! We also had to have some of our nicest trees cut in preparation for the septic tank and new well installation that will hopefully happen over the next few weeks. It was quite sad coming home and seeing that our big pine was no longer standing. I hate cutting trees. But we had to do it, and so it was done. Eric had hockey, and I really just felt like flaking in front of the TV. But what really happened was that I fell asleep after putting Abby to bed. I was more tired than I thought so I passed out for almost two hours, work up to have a tea and watch Gray's Anatomy, then went back to bed. I was planning on getting ready for out chili party, but didn't!

Saturday was packed full of to dos, because we were hosting a big Hike and Chili party. Unfortunately the forecast didn't cooperate and it poured rain all day forcing us to cancel the hike. But of course, the chili dinner was still on. I went to gymnastics in the morning with Abby, then got started preparing the food. We were pretty organized and had everything ready by 4:00 giving us some time to dance with the girls in the living room (they were dressed up in their pricess dresses, so we pretended to be at the Cinderella ball. Daddy being the prince of course!)

Drizella attacks Cinderella for stealing away the Prince

After that everyone started piling in - we had 14 adults and 8 kids - which is a lot for us. At one point it was like a bomb had gone off in the playroom! Hopefully fun was had by all, we certainly had fun. It had been a while since we invited so many people over!

Today we are just cleaning up, doing laundry and Eric is outside busting his butt getting the property ready for the work. I have a feeling he'll be very sore tonight, so I should pull out the Ibuprofen now! And tomorrow it's back to work!

See all you bloggy lurkers later!

Getting Artsy!

I have been seeing many layouts at DD where the artist uses paintbrush stokes to create a clipping mask. Clipping masks really revolutionized my digital scrapping and I've never turned back (ie: trying to resize a photo so that it fits properly in a frame). So I saw this layout by Carol: Harry and Me which I thought was so cool and this layout by bjwtville (sorry I don't know your real name!!) Listen Up which was equally cool in her use of creating a clipping mask with Dripped Stains. Being so inspired I had to try it and I came up with this:

It was a fun one to put together. Now I just have to figure out how to "paint" in Photoshop, so it will actually look like natural brush strokes. If anyone knows how do this, please leave me a comment!

My dad saw an add for the Henry's Show in Ottawa. I'm going to try and go, maybe even on the Friday. I'm sure I'll be able to test drive a bunch of cameras and really figure out what would be best! I'm excited. I hope Dad wants to go with me..

Is it already Wed?

The week is flying by! I'm very busy at work and at home, with hockey and dentist appointments, I really need to work part time to fit everything in and keep sane at the same time! I am trying to get more organized so that life isn't so hectic and that includes actually using my slow cooker! I have used it in the past, but I really need to start using it more since coming home to a nice hot mean is fantastic! Last night I prepared a Chicken with Mustard BBQ Sauce and it was quite good. More importantly the girls ate it! I hope to prepare something tomorrow night for Friday.

I've also volunteered to run the beginners spinning class at work. I haven't been certified yet, but considering I've been doing it for 8 years, I think I can handle it. It's going to be low impact and easy for people to be able to try it out and start off easy. There only other option is to jump into a very intensive class which will simply scare them off, or injure them. So I have to find some suitable music and layout the first few classes.

Only two more work days to go, yipee! Off to bed!

Busy but fun weekend.

This is really just a boring update of our weekend! Nothing too deep or insightful here, just a recap with a few pics to illustrate!

I returned from a good trip to Toronto on Friday. It was quick and I was walking around a lot, but overall good. The conference trade show was interesting, however having to talk to sales reps all day can be very tiring.. it's hard to cut through the sales crap (no offense Richard, you of course never talk crap - you keep it real!). On Saturday night I met up with Richard, Deirdre and Evan (my cousins) for dinner at Sushi Queen. It was very yummy and I ate too much! Afterward I went back to their place to chat, which was nice because I never visit them enough so there is a lot to catch up on! What was really fun was that I got to play with his $8000.00 camera!! Wow, cool. I had dreams about the wicked fast shutter speed that night! 15 RAW files/3 sec or something ridiculous (Richard can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but whatever it's lightening fast!) Too bad they are so pricey!

I returned to Ottawa Friday night to three beautiful smiling faces (Eric was smiling because I could now relieve him and he promptly took off for hockey!!). Saturday morning was Abby's second gymnastics class. We switched to the earlier time, which was full initially, but all the traumatized kids dropped out, leaving space for us!! Yeah, separation anxiety!! It is not only at a better time, but it's also at the same time as her buddy Savanna. So I got to hang out with Phyllis (our daycare provider and her foster Mom) which was fun.

Sunday was packed full of visits, first Eric's cousin Chris, Beth and their kids William and Sophie came for a visit. They also live in Toronto and we rarely see them! William and Abby had a ball raking and jumping into the leaves! Again the pile was taller than either of them, and for a while we couldn't even find William because he was completely buried by the leaves!

Putting the kids to work raking up the leaves.

Suddenly William disappeared!

Gillian looks on in amusement.

Leaf jumping!

After Chris and Beth took off, we got ready to host dinner for our friends Den and Alexei and their children Harrison and Sophie. It was their condo we stayed at in Maine back in July, so it was a very belated thank you dinner for them! We had a yummy roast beef with mashed potatoes and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.

After they took off, we basically crashed! Burnt from a fun but busy few days!

Thanks for the photo Beth

When Beth came over for dinner last weekend, she brought her Cannon Rebel XSi for me to try. It was definitely a beautiful camera, and took some beautiful shots. Well she did, not me! But she was kind enough to leave me the RAW files to play with, and this is what I did:

Beth sure took a stunning photo of Gillian, and it was fun to play with it. Isn't she cute? :) Boy I can't wait to get my hands on a new SLR (hint, hint - b'day coming up!). Now don't get me wrong, I really like my Canon S5IS, but the XSi's depth of field is so much greater than mine, there is virtually no noise (the above photo was taken at ISO 800!! I can't believe it), and it's much faster. So I've been researching what to get and there is no question that I will get one, it's just when!! And you thought I took lots of photos before... just wait!

I also put this simple layout together tonight:

The premise of the page is that Gillian give lots of hugs! As soon as you pick her up she will grab your face and smooch in for a hug. If you ask her for a kiss, she'll plan on too, but it's the hugs she does without asking. It's just so cute!

I'm off to Toronto for the CSTD Trade show... I'm hoping to gets lots of good info for work and I'll visit my cousin Richard while I'm there. Be back Friday night!