A Good Investment!

As some of you may know, I have professional training as a personal financial planner (certificate, gold bar, the whole works). So I know some stuff! and let me tell you, two years ago, my mother made a solid investment that has been paying off ever since and the girls reap the benefits every summer!

Mumma found this (on sale of course, it's in our blood!) and brought it home. She had the girls over for a sleepover and got Dad to set it up. When they were 3 years old, this thing was monstrous! We weren't even sure they should be climbing on it, it seemed soooooo tall for little girls.

This is the 3rd summer for it now and the appeal hasn't lessened a bit. As soon as they knew we were going to Grammie & Grandad's on Sunday, they phoned them right up to ask if it was sunny up there. Once that had been established (it was), they wanted to know if the water slide could come out to play! Lo and behold, it was fully inflated and ready to go when we pulled into the yard. Now that's service!

I looooooooove how Honey is helping Lovey here ;)

totally safe.........

Toys R Us Will Never Be The Same!

On Friday this was a high traffic area! We had visitors from far away lands, or at least from halfway across this one ;)

The day started out a bit rough, Lovey was sick in her bed when she woke up! With company coming, the house torn apart (and messy to boot) and one kids down with the flu, I was bit stressed!

Aunt Janet & Uncle Ross stopped in before lunch and brought Crayola goodies! The girls immediately started ripping the packages open as soon as the thank you's left their mouths. They were window writers & glitter glue. They tried out the window ones right away and had some fabulous artwork up there in no time. I was a bit worried about the fervour with which they were creating their artwork, being goofy and pressing too hard & wasting the markers. Lovey & Sweetie took exception to Honey's aggressive colouring as she was pushing the tip right up inside the pen & they were getting ruined, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE THAT GAVE THEM TO THEM! Honey continued her exhuberant efforts and another colour was shot. I told her to leave them alone and take a break for a few minutes. She wasn't too thrilled but came and sat with me while we chatted.

Later on, after the guests had left, I cleaned up the "markers" and only then noticed that these window writers were NOT the same as the window markers we had. These ones were window CRAYONS. No wonder the tips kept disappearing!!!!! That night as I was tucking Honey in, I explained that I'd made a mistake and that she hadn't ruined the markers at all and that I was sorry. She looked at me very seriously and said "sank you for telling me this Mumma."

Our next round of company came just around lunchtime and we got to see my Aunt Marie and her friend Walley and the piece de resistance of course, Grammie! Aunt Marie visited when the girls were babies just a few weeks out of the NICU and worked her butt off here for her 2 week vacation. Crazy woman :)

As she was leaving, Aunt Marie gave each girl a ten dollar bill. It was a veritable fortune in their eyes!!!!! They immediately started thinking of things they'd seen when we were out one day and were chomping at the bit to go out shopping.

That night at supper they talked Murray into taking them to Toys R Us to examine their wares. I didn't go but I can only imagine the intense excitement, not the bit contained either! Lovey could be heard all over the store, exclaiming over everything as they dragged Murray through the whole place to make sure they didn't miss anything. They got home and came bursting through the door, hooping and hollering "Mumma come QUICK!!!!!! We've GOT to show you SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!" They couldn't have been happier with their purchases! Sweetie found a giant bouncy ball (about the size of a softball) that is clear and filled with water and a big load of gold glitter. Lovey & Honey had a bit of a dilemma at the store. They found something they wanted but it cost more than $10 and neither one of them could buy it on their own. Murray told them that if they shared their money they could buy the toy and both use it. Done deal. I thought they'd have a harder time with that idea but they didn't even hesitate or consider anything else. Once you see it, you'll understand the immensely irresistable appeal!

While those two hosers were having their 2 hour mermaid bath marathon, Sweetie had Murray all to herself. It took a lot of coaxing but he got her to go outside and look for frogs (never found any). Once he got her out there, she had no interest in coming back in. They played on the swingset, climbed trees, walked around, picked flowers and other stuff for hours. It even rained on them & she still didn't want to come in. She knew she had a good thing going and wasn't giving it up!

Junior Racers

Murray had a race recently and they also host a couple of kids' events too. Lovey & Honey decided they'd do one this year. They were interested last year but changed their mind when we arrived to register. When the race was over, all the kids got medals and a Tshirt and L&H were disappointed. This year they were determined not to miss out.

They were all psyched up and ready to go when it was time and it turned out we were a bit early and had some time to kill. Finally it was time to line up and they got into position. The concept of racing was a little over their heads but they thoroughly enjoyed it and were all smiles as they ran along with the others. It was a BIG thrill to get the medal as they crossed the finish line so it was all worth it!

Murray's race was a little longer than theirs and he beat his time from last year and placed 9th overall so he was happy with that. He & the 2 girls stayed for the lunch & awards afterwards but no one won any of the doorprizes.

Fun at the Beach!

More fun at the cottage! We spent hours down by the water just about every day. Our nephew, Mr Bojangles was visiting so he came down with us a couple of times. He was so content playing in the sand and walking around with us. As he got more and more tired (2 hrs in the sun makes a fella sleepy!) he preferred to be carried but other than that he did sooooooooooo well down there!

Sweetie took a liking to the jellyfish and got brave enough to pick them up, as long as she couldn't see any stingers. She had one that she dragged around all afternoon, giving it rides on a surfboard, building a jellyfish hotel for it (complete with a pool, campfire, towers and a bed with seaweed blankets!) The other two didn't want anything to do with the creature so she had it all to herself.

They were in the water as much as they could stand it and were great little swimmers, diving under, going through our legs and slashing around. As Melody from Little Mermaid II says "I just can't help it! I LOVE the sea!"

Out of the Frying Pan...

So the new hard drive thing was wrapping up nicely, everything pretty much moved over, programs reinstalled, my evenings should be back to normal! Yeah, I should have known better.....

Monday morning started off ok, I got the kids ready & we headed to the gym. As I drove down our road, I noticed a heck of a racket coming from the back. Was there a window open? The hatch not closed tight???? I pull over to check it out. There's the back tire, flat as a pancake. Great. So, for the umpteenth time, I mentally thank Troy M for humouring me in the summer of 1995 when I dragged him out late one night to teach me how to change my flat tire!

I dig out the gear and had the lugnuts loosened but was having trouble convincing the tire to give up its position. A man stopped and showed me how to give it a good boot and that solved the problem. Then he took over from there and we were on our way shortly.

Luckily I'd left early for my class and was still there on time. After class we went home for lunch & went to the tire place and got a new one (yayy road hazard warranty!).

Then the girls & I went strawberry picking and we got 17 boxes. The girls were little machines. They just filled basket after basket! They were having a blast & wanted to know if we could come back the next day :)

We got home & got supper ready and I started washing berries so we'd have that much done when Murray & I started making the jam later.

I don't remember why but I had to go downstairs for something. That's when I heard the noise. The running water noise. It wasn't coming from the sink or tub. It was behind a wall. A steady run and dripping. MUUUUUUUUUUUUURAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!! We hauled apart the wall around the hot water heater to discover a free running drip and who knows how much water on the floor. The kids were all excited, let me see let me see!! and we just want them out of the way of course! We got the water shut off started mopping up. Then we noticed that the closet by the laundry room is flooded.....

It was interesting when I phoned the plumber.

Him: Hello JimDandy Plumbing
Me: Hi, we're having a problem!
Him: Can I get your name please?
Me: Kelly Jones
Him (excitedly) Oh! Hi!
Me: ummm, you've been here before haven't you?
Him: (still too happy) Yeah! What's going on there NOW???
Me: well, nothing as exciting as the measuring tape
Him: (chuckling) oh well! You're out in Jonestown right?
Me: Yes
Him: it's Maple Street.... but I forget the number...

Ok, so, you know you've called on your plumber too much WHEN!

He offers to come right over but at $100/hr I told him `see you tomorrow!`

Then I got wondering about all that water that had been running for I don`t know how long... as I mopped that closet, it was seeping back in there from a different room than where the leak happened. With a subfloor almost everywhere, there`s no way to know how far it went, if it`s dried up or what! So I called our insurance company and they`ve taken it over.

Our floors are ripped up in quite a few places, the bathroom fixtures are all in the rec room BUT I get new flooring in the bathroom (yay!) and laundry room (not as exciting as it was only 5 yrs old & I really liked it).

So that`s what`s been going on here! Oh and Murray & I made 25 bottles of strawberry freezer jam tonight!

Hiatus

sorry about the lack of posts! my computer died and we're in the middle of transferring stuff over & setting up the new hard drive and it's a slooooooooooow process and I have to reinstall everything which isn't leaving me much time for just playing around! Never fear though, I'll be back, hopefully within the week! :)

Sunshine on You Tube

Ok, after a bit of searching here's what I was able to find for a link to the song I was talking about last time. I couldn't find the original artist with the same radio version I'm used to but this guy was the closest that I came across.

We actually have some sunshine here today so I hope it DOESN'T go away!