Mum & Dad on the lam!

Busy busy busy! Murray's office had a paintball outing this afternoon and I got invited! Luckily it's Friday (Grammie day!) and I was able to do a disappearing act thanks to my mum's generosity and willingness to step in for me! Thanks Mumma, you're the best & I love you til the numbers are done! :)))

Murray picked me up & we got to the place for 2pm. Then we spent the next couple of hours crawling around in the woods shooting up the place. What a blast!!!!!!!! We had enough people for 2 teams and played several games and my team won most of the time. I can fully attribute these wins to all my faithful hours watching Jack Bauer on 24 :))) My time is never wasted ha ha! I do have several bruises so I didn't come out entirely unscathed but at the end of the day, much like my action hero, I was the last man standing! It was an intense afternoon, lots of adrenalin, lots of tense moments. This was way more fun than slogging it out at the gym, although I did that earlier today too.
The girls had a good time with Mum and they played for awhile and then had just started a movie when I called to say we were on our way home.
Since I'd decided to go at the last minute, I had nothing prepared for supper so we decided to go out to a Chinese buffet. Luckily they have a special rate for little kids because it was a total bust for them. Lovey was the best eater and tried chicken wings, spare ribs, chicken balls and was the most adventurous of the three. It was an odd situation but we just went with it!
When I called home to let them know we were on our way, I asked Mum to tell them to get ready to go to the restaurant and they decided it was a Princess Pamela Original worthy occasion and they were all decked out in this finery when we got to the door. Princess Pamela, if you have any of this material left, we could use an extra layer around the bottom so Sweetie doesn't flash the other restaurant patrons while she's sashaying around the dining area!!!!!!!

Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

While doing some whipper snipping, I spotted this guy hanging out in the sun by the garage and decided to put him in a box til the girls got home.

I expected a bunch of shrieking and then some running away. They were actually a little braver than that. Mind you, they fulfilled the shrieking and running part in spades BUT they kept coming back to check it out and eventually wanted to hold it. They confidently told me there aren't any poisonous snakes in our area. Murray pointed out that people have lots of weird snakes as pets and some of them get loose!

This guy seemed bigger than other snakes I've seen when mowing the yard but I have no idea what kind it is. If you recognize it, please leave a comment!

Honey was very concerned about the snake's happiness and wanted him put back soon after she got a chance to check him out. The other two took a good long while to get bored of him.

Double Dip

There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the pool got filled today! The bad news is that it's -472º in there! That didn't stop everyone though! We had two brave girls go for a dip, albeit a very very quick one :)

Honey jumped in first and was scrambling her way back to the ladder before she'd even surfaced. Lovey took up space on the ladder for a good long while before grabbing her flutterboard and taking the plunge.
The cold water literally took her breath away. I wish I'd captured her expression as she came up out of the water. The shock was so evident as she gasped for air. Sweetie decided not to risk it and stayed dry. I forgot to put the thermometer in so the -472º is just an estimate :)

Sweetie claimed she wasn't feeling well at the bus stop this morning so she stayed home. The rest of the day she seemed fine but when she wouldn't eat Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, I thought it must be legit. I got suspicious when she asked if she could go shopping at Walmart though! Evidently it was the real thing, she just woke up with puke all over her bed, in her hair, on her nightie etc. After a quick bath & a change of bedding she's all tucked back in & hopefully will feel better in the morning.....

It's Hot Out There!

The weekend was a warm one and since the pool's not full yet, they had to make do with a sprinkler. (rough life, I know!) It's been years since they've seen a sprinkler in action so it turned out to be pretty exciting! Lovey & Honey ran through over and over. Sweetie had opted for a bike ride with Murray. She took along her backpack so she could pick up bottles/cans that she has spied on the roadside on previous trips. This was a lucrative move on her part as she found 16 returnables! Murray said she has eagle eyes for this activity! She was constantly telling him to stop and he'd barely get the bike stopped before sh was hopping off in pursuit of her treasure!

Sweetie is very interested in money lately and is using an old wallet of mine that I got in Mexico ages ago. She gets it out often and looks at all the coins she has. When we were at M&D's, she had all her loot spread out on the carpet in front of her as she counted it up. Suddenly a loonie came flying through the air and landed in the pile, courtesy of Grandad. All she noticed was the sound of the coins hitting and couldn't figure out what had happened! It didn't take her long to find she was suddenly up a dollar though!
After supper they all went for rides with Grandad which was a huge highlight of the evening!

Sweetie figured out the steering and then Grandad opened things up and she loved the increased speed. Either that or this is her new "terrified" face!

Love this one of her peeking at him, soooooooooo sweet and that smile so genuine!

Lovey & Honey enjoyed it every bit as much but weren't quite as expressive about it.

Super Saturday!

Whew! another long day! I got up early to help out with a fundraiser the choir was doing & had to be downtown for 7am. *yawn* I can't think of the last time I left the house before 7 in the morning. and I'm not even sure what help I was. It was all about gardening. I am THE last person to go to for help with gardening. Since I was there for set up, I couldn't do too much damage carrying stuff. I steered all the questions to Uncle Ralph and stayed away from anything that looked complicated :)))

After that I caught my circuit class at the gym and got home in time for Lovey to head off for her violin lesson. She seems to be losing interest in it already and wanted to quit after her 2nd or 3rd lesson. Murray prepaid for 2 months though so we're making her stick it out til that's over. She always enjoys the lesson part and is always excited to show me her sticker when she gets home. This week I had the flu one day, she had the flu another and there was a baby shower another night so she didn't as much practice as usual. Misty noticed! She recommended having a regular time that she does it every day but she must have us confused with normal families who actually have a schedule! This week Lovey only got a small sticker so we'll have to try to do better. Quite often the problem is that she has to leave whatever fun thing her sisters are doing upstairs and she hates to miss any action! Lately I've been trying to use her practice time to have the other two do something not so exciting, like tidy up whatever mess they've left around lately. Luckily there's no shortage of those around here and there's still some work for Lovey when she's done.

After lunch the girls went to a birthday party at the neighbours and were gone for 2 hours. Murray headed out for a long run before they left and while they were all gone, I tackled three closets! Amazingly, I can now see what is in all 3 and got rid of a bunch of old junk like cheapo flooring tiles for the old entryway. Yep, I just let those go! Now if the rest of the house would follow those closets' good example, I'd be all set! I think I need to watch that Hoarders show & take a few lessons from their book.

Murray got home in time for supper. He got 31 km in and checked out some new paths in the woods but had to slog through some boggy, muddy spots that slowed him down a bit. I'd rather spend my 3 hours in the dusty scuzzy closet though!

The girls had a great time at the party! When they got here they were hot & thirsty so we had a small freezie outdoors. Then they helped me work on the pool spot and make sure rocks were gone. They also helped pat down the dirt as I raked & smoothed out some spots. They loved racing around in the dirt with their bare feet and were pretty shocked that I had let them take their shoes off.

Knowing they probably weren't going to eat supper anyway, we made salmon. I put one tiny scrap on each plate. None of them are salmon fans but have on occasion choked down a bit of it. Tonight there was Murray's homemade strawberry rhubarb pie on the line. I thought that might give me a big of leverage. Each girl had a piece no bigger than my thumbnail. Lovey wanted that pie so she broke it into microfragments and swallowed them with her milk. The other two were standing their ground and letting us know in no uncertain terms that they didn't like salmon, were not going to eat it, and we were never ever going to be able to make them. Lovey was the only one who appeared to be in the running for dessert. Then I gave her the rest of her supper, some rice and a bit of vegetables. I had thought the big challenge would be to get the salmon in. Nope. The rice is what got her. She couldn't eat plain white rice. She couldn't eat it with soya sauce. She asked for cinnamon on it but couldn't manage that either. She got the salmon and blew it on the rice?!?!? The whining continued until we couldn't stand it anymore and we told them to go to their rooms until dinner was finished. Murray & I both got pie :)))

Conversations.... with Lovey.

Lovey was on the phone with my aunt this morning. They were discussing the recent baby shower at her house.

AC: and do you remember the names of the babies?

Lovey: L & B

AC: who do you think the oldest person at the party was?

Lovey: GG!

AC: do you know how old she is?

Lovey: how old?????

AC: 91

Lovey: omigosh she's gonna die SOON!

AC: don't tell GG that!

Summer Fun!

Even thought it's still spring, we're having the occasional day of summer weather and we don't miss an opportunity for summer fun!

The girls quickly completed their homework in order to jump into their bathingsuits and get their water packs loaded up.

It was a free for all with no holds barred, despite Sweetie's many screeched requests "don't shoot ME!"