Sleepover

Our Christmas gift to Karin and Josh was to babysit their daughter. So, this past weekend, we picked her up Saturday morning and brought her with us to Local Heros for breakfast. She surprised by eating a huge pancake! It seemed like a lot of food for a little girl. Then I dropped Reuben off at home and took her grocery shopping with me and then we went to the library. At home we had some lunch and then she slept for 2 hours.This is part of Elyssa's lunch. Yep, half a lemon...she doesn't even flinch.

These are the books and movies we got out of the library.

After her nap, we played playdough and made a train out of some nesting boxes.

We had my parents over for dinner and then had some vanilla pudding for dessert. Here, Reuben is trying to bond with her but she just gave him one of her famous withering looks.
She went to bed alright...if alright is crying herself to sleep for 1/2 an hour. Karin said to leave her for 1/2 an hour and that was exactly how long it took for her to fall asleep. Amazing! The next morning, she woke me up at 5:15am...apparently, this is sort of normal. It probably didn't help that she had a racking cough. I tried to get her to sleep a little bit longer and then Reuben took over and helped give her breakfast while I caught a few more winks.
As you can tell, it's the wee hours of the morning here.

We love you, Elyssa...but maybe we'll wait to have a sleepover until you can stay in bed later than 5:15am. I don't know how my sister does it....she's amazing!

Winterlude 2010

No renovation updates this time...although, Reuben is slowly but surely finetuning the surface of the walls in the foyer...it's Winterlude season here in Ottawa.

It's always a bit of a struggle for me to don all that winter wear, head downtown and really enjoy myself in the cold, wet winter but with my hubby by my side, it was actually really fun!Us on the canal.Reuben being his goofy self.

Us on an ice sculpture.My favourite snow sculpture. That evening we enjoyed a Basia Bulat concert. She's the one sitting down. If you get a chance, you should give her a listen.

Some other highlights of the day include my joining the group on an ice slide...thought I was too old to enjoy such things...but it was a thrill! And eating a beavertail with freezing cold hands...the only way to enjoy them.

We had company last weekend too. Reuben's sister and her friends. Sorry, I don't have any pics of them. They are a good group. Reminded me of Winterludes in the way past when groups of my friends would come to Ottawa and we'd stay up way too late...I think we stayed up way later than these kids (oops, no, they are not kids!) did:) They are a good group and we hope 2 of them will end up here for school;)

Next on the event list, babysitting my 2 year old neice, Elyssa. We'll be picking her up tomorrow morning and her parents will pick her up after church tomorrow. That's right, we'll be taking her to church with us. Wish us luck!

A relaxing day

Today was a great day! You might wonder what exciting thing we did today to make it so great. Well, today was so great because we did nothing exciting. In fact, we didn't even leave the house. We slept in. We made a hearty egg and bacon breakfast. We did dishes. We did the second coat of "rhubarb" on our walls that had been needing it for so long. We did some vacuuming and general tidying. We put the door back on the bathroom. We added some grout to our new floor where it was lacking. We prepared for Bible Study. We did some laundry. It was such a relaxing but productive day.
To top it off, we finished watching this great tv series/DVD called "Long Way Down". It's about these two guys who drive their motorcycles from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern tip of Africa. It's just extraordinary. Besides the scenery, the wildlife and the people of Africa, I just love hearing their Scottish brogues through the whole thing. If you ever get a chance, please do watch it. It will inspire you to travel for sure!

Hope y'all had a great Saturday, too.

Foyer and Bathroom Floor

Our house renovations continue with laying down a new floor in the front hall and powder room. First, here is a picture of our old door...so you can see the improvement. Although it's from the inside.

Here's the pictures of what our floor looked like. Lovely pink ceramic tile and white tile in the bathroom.
Under the pink tile was a layer of laminate flooring.



After Reuben got the floor down to bare plywood, he screwed it down all over to minimize creaks and squeaks. Then we cut out and lay down this Schluter product that helps to level the floor.




Our friend, Carl, helped Reuben install the Schluter under flooring and the new ceramic tile. They grouted it on Saturday and it looks great!