Fun Beautiful Weekend

The weather was beautiful this weekend, no one was sick, so life was good! We spent a lot of time outside, which was fun. Eric tapped the trees for this year's maple syrup run, so I'm looking forward to that. Took a couple walks in the woods and it was beautiful! Speaking of which, Jen and my challenge this week was "beautiful". I didn't take my camera on my walks, so I didn't get any shots during that, but I did get these during the week:

I love our view it's always beautiful to me!

Needless to say - Abby - Beautiful!

And of course Gillian. Love this photo
(can you tell? I've posted it twice!)
definitely going to print this one for the wall!

This was taken today, while playing outside

This one I took yesterday, which playing on the cushions.
Her teeth are slowly coming it, but regardless, she is stunning!

Friday night we had a nice dinner with my parents. Hopefully we didn't tire Mum out too much. She is doing remarkable well for having a knee replacement less than two weeks ago. Hopefully the recovery goes smoothly!

And here are a couple other things I did this weekend. A little photoshopping with old slides:

And came across this:

Me: in 1975, colouring

Which reminded me of this:

Gillian March 2009.
She LOVES to colour!!

I guess that's enough photos for today! Happy Monday!

Talk'in to India

So, our TV (satellite) has been out of commission for 4 days now - GASP I know, how are we surviving?!!?% In order to resolve the problem, I've been on the phone to our providers technical assistance (coughBELLcough) for the past 4 days. And that has been even more painful that being without TV. As you all know calling these places you are in fact phoning the wonderful country of India, a place that I have always wanted to visit and not "TALK" to while trying to make our TV work! It's the same everytime and I'm getting to know their script very well. How it works is that you call the 1-888 # you enter your phone number with which the account is assiciated (and this is my first point of confusion - why bother when they ask you two more times anyway). Then you select 2 for Techincal assistance, which is in fact not the technical assistance, it is the "screener layer" which I call it where they once again ask you for your phone number, what the problem is and your security pin (which I can NEVER remember). And then they pass you on to Technical assistance, where they once again ask you your phone number, your name and what the problem is again. This is of course all speaking with the call center located in India so along with all of this speaking comes the international phone line delay, where you say something and a couple seconds pass, then they say something and there is more delay... you know how it goes. Now comes the "Script" they first ask if they can call you by your first name, which for me is "Miss Christine" (not sure why they do that since I'm not a Miss anymore) , then they ask you the issue, which they try to resolve, and during the "dead air time" they always say "Other than the problem with your TV, so may I ask you how your day is going?" followed by "How is the weather" and they are all so good at acting interested in my responses to those questions. I actually asked one technician how the weather was where he was located and he said "Well you know I'm in India - and it's 20 degrees" (That surprised me because they rarely disclose their locations - not that the accents give it away or anything... :) ) Then they start into the sales pitch - "OH, I see you've been a customer with us for 5 years, that puts you into our preferred customer category....blah blah blah". Then the call ends with "What did you think about my service today, can you rate me from 1 -10, 10 being high". I always give them 10 since I don't have the heart to say 2...

Hopefully I don't have to call India again any time soon. I'd rather visit in person!

On another note here is the challenege that lays before me now:


This is a photo of Eric's Dad on the Santa Paula in May 1946 on is way from war torn England to start a new life in Canada (well his second time - but that is a story for later). The photo has a lot of damage: scratches, folds, cracks and rips... so it will take me a while. But stay tuned for the before and after... Can't wait to get started!

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.

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.

Never Say Never....

The rest of the week was busy at work, and a VERY late Wednesday night game... more like Thursday morning, by the time we got off the ice, meant not much blogging this week. Eric also had a golf tourney Thursday with dinner, then his hockey end of season party Friday, so I was on my own with the girls. Thursday night I basically went to bed as the same time as them... fun! Friday I made it a little later, but wasn't really in the mood to write or scrapbook. What I did do however, was have another go at the photo I had tried to scan for my Mum, but couldn't get an image from. I looked at the negative a little closer and noticed that there was some detail in my grandparents faces. So I fiddled with my scanner, adjusted a few things and got this:

So it makes me think what did I do?? But it also makes me think - Never say never when it comes to this stuff, there may always be a possibility!

Today we went to our friends house for a pool party. They had just build a new pool in their backyard, so they invited a group of their friends over, of all ages and had a party! Abby was excited about it. Before her nap she said - I want to go to the pool party, when I get up. So when she got up we packed her backpack, she got her hat and sunglasses on, and then had to wait because Gillian was still sleeping and Eric was at the Yacht club. It was so cute to see her and how excited she was to go. Of course while there, we couldn't get her out of the pool! She went in on three different occasions. By the time we left she was saying "I'm tired...".

I'll download the pool party pictures tomorrow, in the meantime I did this layout from photos I took at the daycare on Friday! More swimming....