Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween!!

BBBrrr...it's cold...I hope those Vancouver parents know how to make a costume that will accept multiple layers (including a snowsuit if necessary) because it's supposed to drop to below zero tonight...

yellow mumssee the frost on the petals!!

My flowers are sad and done for the year....but that means WINTER is coming!!! (they're blurry cause it was cold on the deck with no coat or hat or mittens...)

pink mumspink mums...on their last legs...

blurry fucshiablurry, sad fucshia....

Happy Halloween...especially to all the trick-or-treaters out there!!!

Monday, October 30, 2006

look how tall I am!!!

and how LONG my legs are!!!

shadow shannon

early hallowe'en

Tomorrow night I have a class until 9:30, so when I finally get home sometime after 10:00, the trick-or-treating will be over. Lucky Alex gets to work the morning shift for the first half of this week, so he'll be home tomorrow and HE gets to hand out treats to the cute kiddies (at least until his bedtime at 8:30!).

Last night we decided to get the pumpkin ready for display and Alex was in charge of the camera...UH OH...seems he takes almost as many pictures as I do!!! Here's Hank...our resident pumpkin

making hank part 1making hank part 2making hank part 3ALL DONE!!!!

shannon and hankShannon meet Hank, Hank meet Shannon (Have I created a monster?!?!?!)

introducing Hankintroducing Hank

hank's temporary home
Hank is going to live in the corner of the kitchen until tomorrow night...so he doesn't become pumpkin splat in the middle of our street...

Sunday, October 29, 2006

beautiful fall day

After last night's crazy wind storm, today was beautiful...okay, and cold. There aren't many leaves left on the trees in our neighbourhood, but the ones that are still there are stunning!

from the front doorthe view out the front door

ooooohoooooh....

ahhhhhahhhhh

wow!!!!

mr lyonsback lit Alex

windblown Shannon

one at all

The One Campaign...you know the one, the Make Poverty History Campaign, they have the white jelly bracelets and Bono is one of their spokespeople...well, there is this pretty cool, rather new blog called the One At All Project. They are trying to get one writer from every country in the world to participate...anyway, it's pretty cool...

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

oops...

I totally forgot my manners...

THANKS HEDDY

fun stuff from heddy...

okay...so maybe it's just fun in my world! I added the yarn...It's from our weekend trip to the 'burbs.

new needles

knitting basket

Heddy rescued these super duper needles and basket from her aunt who was going to THROW THEM AWAY...but they will be well used at my house!!

holy cow...

I LOVE the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty...they've got some great videos, especially this one.

they're right..."no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted"...

This one is good too...sad...

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

nice people out there...

one is Heddy who just gave me something very cool...photos when I get home...

another is lady in front of me at the coffee shop who gave her change to the girl at the till and told her to use that to pay for part of my coffee...just because she felt like it and wanted to see someone smile...

there are good people out there...these two just made *my* day!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

it's beyond me...

why a nine year old boy would abandon his knitting when his big cool uncle got out of bed...

trey's abandoned knittingto play TABLE HOCKEY?!?!?!

trey and alex playing table hockeyOkay, okay, I'm just kidding...I get it...I probably would have abandoned my knitting when I was nine for table hockey too...

YAY...Trey was knitting...now I just have to work on his uncle!

OZZY is here...

Trey came to stay with us last night and met Herman. He wanted his own pet, so our menagerie now consists of Herman and OZZY...

Check him out!

Leaving the big city...

Alex and I left the big city yesterday and went for a little excursion to the 'burbs.

While Alex pampered himself at the spa, courtesy of a birthday gift certificate from his brother, I had to find other ways to amuse myself.

knit cafeknit cafeSo I decided to feed my yarn addiction and made my way to the local yarn shop. Once I'd browsed sufficiently, I went in search of a wireless internet connection so that I could do some work. I didn't find a connection, but I found this lovely example (although, very blurry...ummm, yeah, blurry to disguise the identity of the poor children) of bad hair styles in the local Seattle-based, soccer-mom, mega-coffee shop. Both of these children are sporting scary rat tails...

scary BIG BAD rat tailsAfter Alex and I spoiled ourselves, we met Alex's brother and nephew for lunch...which happened to be at a restaurant near the giant "M" craft store...which was good because clearly I NEEDED more yarn.

growing the stashWhat a nice Saturday...it ended with a visit to Alex's parents and his nephew, Trey, coming home with us for a sleepover.

Friday, October 20, 2006

old friends

I just got home from a horrendous day that turned out just fine! What started as a bunch of hassle and frustration was totally forgotten as I sat at a table on a patio in a restaurant downtown with an old friend.

She was in town for a conference and we hadn't seen each other for almost two years. There has been some sporadic emailage, telephone conversations, and Christmas cards, but no face to face visit for a long, long time.

Funny how, even though time has passed and for a number of different reasons we're both in completely different places than we were two years ago, we managed to pick up right where we left off.

It's always been this way with her. We shared an apartment at university and because I spent my life after university gallivanting around the globe, our visits were always few and far between, but what they lacked in quantity, the quality was always exceptional!

We left this time with plans to meet up at least a few times before Christmas...and that could be a challenge because we live in different communities and we're both busy...but I think it will happen...

I guess that's one of the signs of a good friend...the friendship can sometimes keep going even when there's no "communication." It came up at dinner that things (read:people) don't really change, they really are pretty much always the same, they just evolve.

Ahhhh...there's nothing like good friends!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

weekend in Calgary

Friday morning, Alex and I flew off to Calgary for the weekend to attend Christy's wedding. We stayed with my cousin Melissa, her husband Neil and her son Carsen. Yet another weekend that was over FAR TOO SOON...Oh...and I guess I took a lot of pictures...

We arrived at the airport SUPER EARLY because of the security measures and got to eat with plastic knives, although we got real forks and spoons. Alex was also very happy to be able to watch the sports...

calgary boundlet's go! let's go!

sports on TV!thought bubble: I wish we had a tv with sports on it at home...

security knifesee the lover-ly plastic knife?!?!

The wedding was beautiful. Christy and Rob both looked so happy! They were surprised to leave the church and find Christy's Swiss dancing ladies waiting to greet them and a horse drawn carriage to take them to the reception. Christy's sneaky dad waited until she went on vacation before the wedding and arranged with her colleagues for a police escort too!

west jet adLeaving sunny Vancouver

the rockiesThe Rockies

flat calgaryFLAT Calgary

carsenCarsen with his new cars

carsen, alex and harelyAlex and Carsen playing with the pumpkin balloon (and Harley, the dog, sulking cause he didn't get to play too)

the navigatorAlex was the chief navigator...we made it everywhere we needed to go, even when we made the directions up on our own!

christy and her dadChristy and her dad, Hans

mr & mrs christenMr. and Mrs. Rob and Christy Christen

police escortSURPRISE...Police Escort

see you at the receptionsee you at the reception...

alex and christyAlex boogieing with the bride

waitingAlex happy to go home...look he's got the paper and Starbucks...what better way to wait out the snow is there?

snowingsnowy, foggy airport

deicing the planede-icing the plane

Oh and by the way...I still want to be a paleontologist (yes, I know these aren't fossils, but they are dinosaurs!) and I DID go to Calgary too...I'm just not in very many of the pictures...

i want to be a paleontologistpterodactyls

i was there too
see, here I am...double chins and all

Friday, October 13, 2006

Leaving on a jet plane...

We're going to Calgary for a(nother) wedding and get to catch up with some family while we're at it...It's going to be great and it means two days off work for both of us...I know we can both use that break.

We're leaving this (courtesy of www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca)

vancouver weatherFor this... (also courtesy of www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca)

calgary weatherIt's not too bad and not too cold for us West Coasters...Hopefully the showers on Sunday won't turn to snow and the periods of snow on Monday will hold off just long enough for us to get home again.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

knitters of the world...

look at what happens when you knit too much...oh Finnish animation

Three Beautiful Things

Okay, so the next blog button isn't the only one that helps me procrastinate...

I found a wonderful site because it was chosen as a "blog of note" by Blogger. This wonderful site is called Three Beautiful Things and its author posts three beautiful things each day...

and they are beautiful...some of them obviously so and some of them you might not think of as beautiful until they are pointed out as such...

so that's my PSA for Three Beautiful Things....

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Happy Birthday Chandra...

Oooops...I didn't really forget, I just got distracted by my family's arrival on Friday...

I met Chandra last year when she was filling a mat leave position in a unit completely separate but also completely inseparable from my unit. We got to know each other when she came to my rescue the day that there was threat of a general strike, but I still had to get to work and somehow that one day of carpooling turned into a regular, Monday - Friday Chan Shuttle every morning and some afternoons.

Chandra was also the driving force behind the beautifying of the back deck...yeah, yeah, I would have got there eventually, but she arrived on my door step with a postcard bearing a certificate for beautiful things for my deck for my birthday. So we spent a wonderful afternoon making the deck a beautiful, livable place.

Anyway, if you haven't met her yet, you should, because she'll make you laugh, she'll bring you tomato soup cake for a getting-ready-for-Christmas party treat, she'll help fix your stupid computer, she'll listen to your woes, she'll pick out pretty plants for your urban garden, she loves postcards and she's a great friend.

Happy Birthday Chandra!!! Hope you had a great one.

ok, so they're not IDENTICAL

but the title of Crazy Aunt Purl's blog today matches my post from October 2...

and yeah, the content is pretty much DIFFERENT, but they're both about the bus...right...

So...small things make me excited. It's that kind of day.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Postcards...

So...as we all know, I like postcards...I'm not the only one who likes
postcards...some of my regular readers also enjoy a good postcard, like
Chandra for instance.

Somewhere in my NEXT BLOG travels, I discovered someone (yeah, yeah, I've forgotten who it was, random next blog, remember?!?!) who was blogging about Postcrossing...basically you get a random address from someone who has registered and you send a postcard to them with your address (so you get a card back) and a code that you enter into the website so that they know you've kept your end of the bargain and sent the card and then you can receive a random postcard...

Sounds like a great way to get fun mail (and not too expensive either) but as always, cautious me is wondering about the security factor...

Guess I'll have to ponder it...thoughts anyone?

Thanksgiving is for family...

Last night Alex and I hosted our first ever turkey dinner and invited both our families.

Preparation for the big day started a few weeks ago when my Mom picked up some pretty Thanksgiving napkins and sent them our way (okay, really I guess preparation started longer ago than that, because it think we decided to have Thanksgiving at the blue house back in July).

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and my parents came over and my Mom and I made stuffing and roasted the turkey while my Dad hung the curtain rods for the not-yet-completed kitchen curtains. We went on a brief excursion to Sophie's so that we could all fuel up on non-turkey food so that we'd be ready to prepare a turkey dinner and also so that Rebecca could pick out a puppy to be her imaginary pet.

the puppy rebecca wantsThis little girl really wanted out and thought she could lick her way through the plexiglass cage or the big green wall.

more of the coveted puppy
There were some hard working people at our house and it would have been difficult to pull off our dinner without their help. (Not pictured is my Mom...she was working so hard, she only showed up as a blur on the camera)

alex sweeping
punk and the flowers
dad carving the turkey
We had some pretty flowers

the flowers
pretty flowers
Alex and I got a house warming present from Grandma Ina (and yes, I'm super cheesy).

house warming present from Grandma Ina
We had lots of smiling faces and everyone went home with a happy tummy full of food and armed with care packages of leftovers for tonight.

grandma ina paul and colleenGrandma Ina, Paul and Colleen

treyTrey

fraser steve and kelseyFraser, Steve and Kelsey

shannon rebecca and larryShannon, Rebecca and Larry

joan and alexJoan and Alex

mulvi girlsthe girlies

Ahhhh....time to relax until next year!