Family Torture

After days trapped inside with paint fumes, I thought I deserved some fresh air and exercise! Silly me! I asked if we could go skiing and Murray agreed it was a good idea. Unfortunately we were in the minority. The entire time we were gone at least one person was asking "how much longer do we haaaaaaaaaave to ski?" or "can we turn back yet?". The constant whining somewhat diminished the enjoyment of the activity so we gave up after awhile. A for effort though right???

Road Trippin'

At the end of March Break we met up with one of our favourite families and hit the road! We visited a local flour mill. The tour showed us how they mill the flour and we also got to see their storage and all the products! There's way more than flour in there! I was surprised to find out their most popular product is actually oats, they sell over 8 tonnes a month! Quite impressive for a little mill in nowheresville!

At the end of the trip, these 2 tried the old "we're too asleep for this to be over!" The giggling gave them away though.

Room Makeover!

While the kids were away at M&D's I enjoyed a leisurely few days of bubble baths, bon bons and books. NOT! I had been prepping for this very moment for a looooooooooooong time! I redid Sweetie's bedroom in Dec 2012 and after hers was done, the other two finally decided they were ready to give up their teddy bear border!

After some intense discussions, they finally came to an agreement on a colour scheme. This is partly the reason for the long delay between their room makeover and Sweetie's!  They chose pink & purple and turquoise like Sweetie had in hers. I couldn't figure out a good way to work all three colours in there so decided to work with just pink & purple. Last summer I found half price comforter sets in those colours and snapped them up and stashed them away.

As March Break got closer, I started gathering my supplies and getting everything ready. Shopping during the last room makeover took too much of the weekend that they were away and I almost didn't finish in time! This time I was way ahead!

Or so I thought! Their room was so full of junk that it took the entire afternoon to empty things out of there! It took me the rest of the night to remove the wallpaper border. In the beginning it was a little sad "ohhhh this is what I brought them home to when they were released from the hospital!!!' and by midnight it had turned into "die you buggers, DIE!!!" Finally the room was empty and bare and ready to start painting Wed morning!

Taking a decorating break, I brought Murray to my circuit cardio training class at the gym. I thought he'd enjoy a change of pace in the exercise department and it's a fun group with an instructor that puts us through our paces. I'm always red faced by the end and it was nice to see Murray sweating hard too, he wasn't bored! After class we went to the restaurant next door for some delicious food. He got his precious salmon salad and I went for the steak and everything was delicious!

Painting on Wednesday was sloooooow! I forgot to have any crack fill stuff on hand to had to make one run out for that and then got started. I taped off the ceiling and all trim. Then I started blocking in my colours. Then I made a mistake on the layout and had two half walls the wrong colour. Then I tipped a bucket and made a biiiiiig mess. Luckily the disaster happened while I was standing on some plastic sheeting and the carpet was spared.... that time. There were a few direct hits with that hot pink but with some quick scrubbing and Varsol action, there's only a slight mauve tint in the bluish carpet and isn't noticeable without close inspection (don't do it! let's pretend it never happened!)

Around midnight I called it quits, I was tired and needed to get out of that wet paint smell! Murray had come in to assemble the bed and found the stink too much so by that time I'd definitely had enough.

This morning I put on the last coats of pink and packed up the paint supplies before lunch! Hooray! That only left a bit of decorating and I was home free! I thought I'd probably do some grocery shopping, then pick up a pizza and come home for dinner! Except that all those little things took longer than I expected and even with Murray making his own pancake supper, it was still 7pm before I'd hung the curtains and gotten some pictures for the before & after composites.

I asked Mum to have them get ready for bed there so they wouldn't need to do that after we got home. On the drive up I was excited but nervous too. I thought it looked great but would they???? Lovey is quite particular and hadn't approved the plans... could be dicey. Murray had gently cautioned me earlier, when I was just getting started, to not be disappointed if they didn't like it and to not take it too hard. With everything complete and all the hours and hours of preparation, googling, Pinteresting, and then the actual work itself, it would be impossible not to be disappointed if they didn't like it!!! I was sure Honey would be pleased, I'd included purple, that alone would rock her world. I'd left out the requested turquoise though and that could be enough to lose Lovey's vote! I decided that if she didn't like it, it was her problem not mine. That room was to die for!!! Once it was done, even Murray thought they'd both love it.

As I'd anticipated and hoped, Lovey dilly dallyed getting out of the van but Honey was first in the house. Perfect! I grabbed my camera and brought her down the hall and told her to cover her eyes and then I went to get in position! When she opened her eyes again, she was so startled that she didn't even see anything at first. It was just TOO different to take in at first glance. She wasn't long in deciding she loved it though and thanked me and hugged me repeatedly. "I've always wanted a mirror in my room!" she said. After a few minutes I scooted her out to the kitchen and told her to not say a word! Sweetie was on to us though and was loudly proclaiming "I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!! I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!!! CAN I SEE????"  Thanks for keeping it on the downlow Sweetie!

Finally Lovey got herself untangled from her boots and came upstairs and came to see what the fuss was about. She was in love instantly! and was thrilled with everything, the extra space, the tidiness and all the new stuff. The grin splitting her face was ear to ear the rest of the night!

Now I'm off for a good night's rest. I seem to have developed an allergy to being overtired! I've been sneezing like crazy all day. Lots to do tomorrow that I've been neglecting since starting the redecorating! Grocery day was supposed to be Tuesday and I think we're down to one piece of fresh fruit in the house and I've done no baking so Murray's lunch is looking pretty grim for tomorrow!

Here are the before and afters. Looking at them side by side, it's unreal how cluttered it was before. We should have gotten rid of the unnecessary long before this!

Sleepover!

Grammie & Grandad have been getting ripped off in the visiting department ever since hockey season started up again. Sunday night dinners have become just about impossible so we've tried a few workarounds but they miss us coming up and eating their food, making a mess at their house and traumatizing their pets with our dog. Luckily there was no hockey stuff for March Break and the girls had a chance to go for an extended sleepover!

Mum picked them up on Tuesday morning and we just went to pick them up tonight! They went for walks on the trail, had a visit to the library, worked on a stained glass kit, watched movies, read books, played iPod games and there maaaaaaaaaaay have been a few snacks involved... in other words, a GOOD time!

They weren't the least bit anxious to get back or homesick at all!

They had to do a family photo while play The Game of Life! Grammie used her handy dandy iPad to capture this lovely family!

When did hot chocolate become a whole meal? Oh yeah, since Grammie. :)))

Snow Picnic

To avoid a whole week of sitting and watching tv/playing on iPods, I thought we'd try a snow picnic! We phoned the neighbours, rounded up Miss E and Tulip and packed our grub and headed for the woods! We weren't very far in when they started asking "how much further!?!?!?" and "I'm thirsty" started even before that. I held them off til we got to the beaver dam and then we set out the feast. Of course, that's exactly when the biting wind picked up and gave us all instant frostbite! Ok not quite but it was COLD!

We decided to retreat into the trees and found a sheltered spot and started over. It wasn't long before our fingers chilled and our drinks froze in our glasses so we didn't linger! The way back over the pond was a wide open area and the wind had blown the snow in over Murray's trail. It was harder going since we couldn't use his packed surface so the kids took turns being the trailblazer and forging the new path. It was very organized and I was impressed! 

We took a shortcut once we got closer to the road and came home to find Boo waiting for us! She'd brought her skates again but we needed to get the chill out of our bones so we had a Minecraft break before lacing up and heading back out to the rink. 

Teena and I were able to have a nice visit and get lots of chatting in!

Collisions, Concussions and Contusions!

We got March Break off to a good start and hit the sliding hill on Saturday morning.

Good news/bad news: we haven't had any amount of light, fluffy snow for quite some time. The runs were well packed and no one else was there. Those runs were fast, and bumpy and not well cushioned! My saucer did nothing to soften that jarring ride at all! The hill was pretty much empty and there was no waiting. It was cold but the steep walk uphill kept us warm. We were with Boo and she & Daddy Dale (not to be confused with Uncle Dale) brought an inner tube! You can pile a lot of people on an inner tube and the more you have the better chance of staying on it over the jumps. (guess how we found that out? let's just say Sweetie's solo run made an impact!)

We got off to a rough start when Lovey was on her way back up from one of her first runs and stopped in the middle of the hill to watch Honey come down. She was so enthralled with Honey's descent that she forgot that she was in the middle of the path and just stood there as Honey zoomed straight into and then under her. It was like high speed bowling. Honey was slowed momentarily but had enough momentum to pick up speed and fly the rest of the way down. Lovey was upended and dumped unceremoniously in Honey's wake. Lovey howled and wasn't impressed and Honey felt awful! I explained that it wasn't her fault and Lovey shouldn't have been in the path. I had a hard time persuading Lovey to get off the track as the others were waiting to come down and I didn't want a repeat performance, the first had been painful for me to watch, never mind for Lovey to endure! Her leg was sore and it hurt for awhile but she was missing out on the fun so was soon back on her sled.

They took turns on the inner tube and I gave it a try as well. It was a much nicer ride, that air cushion absorbs a lot of the impact! Sweetie and I went down together and decided to try the jump! Great idea!.... in theory! We went over the first bump and that was ok, but gained a little speed, hit the second bump a little harder and faster and left our seat for a moment but managed to hang on... til the third and biggest bump. We went uuuuuup and the tube just kept shooting down the hill without us and then we came dooooown. It was a hard landing! My elbow is still bruised from landing on it. Sweetie was on top of me so she didn't hit the snow packed trail but it still didn't feel that great for her! Despite this crash, we kept going and had several more runs. Daddy Dale gave us a push on the inner tube once and we didn't stop til we hit the barbed wire fence. I was cringing as I waited for the *POP* but we didn't! whew! and thank goodness for the fence and trees at the bottom because we were nowhere near stopping!

Eventually the dare devils got a little too brave and crashes got more frequent. Finally Honey hit the jump (the one she'd been LOVING for half an hour) at just the wrong angle and tipped and landed face first in the hard snow and that was it for her. Luckily no blood or cuts but she was sore enough that she wanted to go home immediately.  She went to the top to wait for the rest and then Sweetie took a bad tumble and she'd had enough too. Lovey was already cold and still sore from her initial crash and I'd had enough jarring and bumping to last me awhile!

We went back to Boo's house where Teena had made us a yummy homemade macaroni and cheese lunch! Everyone wanted the good times to keep rolling so we packed up Boo and her skates and brought her to our house. They hit the rink for awhile, until Sweetie had to go to gymnastics and then they came in. While she was gone they loomed and Netflixed til supper. We curled up on the couch for movie night and capped off a great day!