It was the best of days and the worst of days

We've had a turbulent day. The good, the bad and the ugly. Several goods: Brian and Mike were totally incredible and somehow managed in one day to cut two huge window holes through the basement cement walls. They are huge and beautiful. It will be so amazingly wonderful in the rooms when they are done being built. Part of me wishes we had gone ahead and made the other existing windows bigger, instead of just replacing them, but then I saw all their work and it would have been more than we could do.

I took the kids to a halloween party Ivan was invited to. We felt very honored that one of the girls asked that he could come and her mom offered that I bring my other girls and stay during the party so that I could meet some of the other parents. They had a lot of fun, were shy and scared for some of it, but we were taken away by the beauty of the house (they lived on a lake) and they all three joined in for several games and especially the make a spider with chocolate cupcake, icing, licorice and chocolate to eat. At that point Ivan declared "thank you Alyssa for inviting me, this was the best party EVER!" I got to talk with a lady quite a bit there and she got my phone number, so maybe she'll call and we'll become friends- who knows.

But my heart is also very heavy because when I came home Brian said that we'd had an incident. While he was working downstairs, our neighbor and his daughter came by with a gift and Saba bit her. Her dad takes the blame, he said that he could tell that both the dog and his daughter were really nervous, and he was trying to get her to pet her. He was feeling horrible for it and so are we of course. She needed 3 stitches on her lip. Dogs are put down for things like this and this has always been a worry of mine coming up here with her since she has always been a nervous dog.



Pray that we will know what to do. She has been so amazing for us, and was doing so well here, and is great with the new kitten, they were really liking each other. I would really hate to put her down, but we do have lots of kids over and want to make friends with all our new neighbors and the neighborhood kids. I'm very sad right now over it all and I'm hurt over our dog, what if that was my child? And we were just getting to know our neighbor, which he is totally taking the blame and invited us to dinner even.

Our plan is to go over as a family with a card for the daughter and also to discuss with them what they want us to do. Don't know if she can be trained to be more docile or if we will have to put her down or what.

Some hate the snow, Ivan hates the sun

These pictures are from the family visit last weekend when my parents, sister- her family, brother and wife came to see us, celebrate birthdays and see where we now live.


Our first snow started the other day and quickly progressed into a fairly major storm. It is not that cold relative to what Saskatchewan can dish out, but the wind has been brutal and we are not used to dressing appropriately, so it felt really, really cold. Things became icy quite fast and I postponed my trip into the city again due to the weather.


That was good since I found out that the highway is iced over and was actually closed down, the conditions were so bad.

My cousins were telling me not to even try to drive out, that some people had to stop and get a hotel instead of continuing on the road and my cousin actually got her van stuck on a road while trying to get to her dentist appointment, that she later found out was canceled.


I've been mostly at the house, thankful for a warm place and feeling like I could comfortably hibernate all winter, but I did end up leaving the house when I started to make muffins and realized I had no eggs. The first thing that hit me- after the icy wind, was how beautiful it is here. The hills are now blanketed in white with ribbons of trees, the sky was vast and the sun peaked over the horizon.



I've been laughing at all the facebook comments over this storm. Half the people are hating the snow and the other half love it. After Dominique and I walked from the van to Ivan's school through the biting wind- me wondering at what we'd gotten into, we pick up a disgruntled Ivan. He declares "I just hate this sun!"


"Why do you hate the sun?" I ask a little stunned by his statement.

"Because it will melt the snow and I want to build a snowman."


I try to reassure him that there will be plenty of snow again, even after this batch melts this coming week, as they are predicting.


We had hoped for a warm end of the week, so that I could get into the city. The worst, apart from my huge shopping list getting incredibly long, is that they've run out of pumpkins in town and I always buy several and cook them up to use for the rest of the year. At least that's in my realm.










In Brian's realm, he is hoping it warms so that it is not so miserable to cut the holes for our new windows this weekend and so that he can drive out next week to drop his truck off in Texas.



So do you love or hate snow and icy weather?

yummy snow and Tinker

What is the first thing a kid does when he/she first gets to play in snow?


Tinker hides from Saba and Emora. She may be just a wee bit intimidated in her new, aggressive, hyper, in her face environment.

1st snow and new family member!

We had a VERY exciting day. Night after night, the kids have spent their evenings trying on their snow clothes and wishing for snow. This morning, their long awaited dream came true. We had our first snow at our new home on Craigleith.

I had planned a day ago to drive to the city today for some shopping, but decided to be a wimp my first year back and not try the highway. Brian said that was good since they were reporting on the radio that all of Southern Saskatchewan was very slippery. It's supposed to warm up and melt in the next couple of days, so I'll venture out then.

In other excitement, Ivan was invited to a halloween party by one of his classmates Sat. The mom offered that I could stay and bring the girls too, so that I can meet some other parents. Ivan wants to be Darth Vader, so today, Dominique and I painted a box from one of his gifts black and made it into a Darth Vader mask.

Also in honor of our first snow day, I made bread (in the bread machine!) and soup ;)





And last, but not at all least, another good way to celebrate a first snow day is to add another warm body to the house. Ivan has been wanting his own pet and we had planned on getting another cat anyways, so he now gets to care for it! We told him a kitten was part of his birthday gift. The girls and I went to the pet store early in the day and played with the kittens, then Brian, Ivan and Dominique went after school to buy our new pet. There were about 7 kittens, but only 3 were female and one of those was long haired, which I didn't want, so that left 2 tabbies that looked about the same. He named her Tinker and she is so sweet- sitting right now on my lap- away from Saba who is at my feet, poised to follow the newbie relentlessly.

Emora totally loves the cat too and so far, out of all our names can already pronounce "Tinker" the best. This is actually the first time we have had a kitten. Our other two cats were teenagers when we got them. It's so cute how she runs all around and plays with things.

Our second birthday party of the week

My parents, sister with hubby and kids, brother and his wife all drove to see us and celebrate with us for our birthdays. It was Andrea's birthday on the 19th (my sister-in-law), then on the 20th, it was my aunt Mary, Ivan and my birthday. We like to simplify it for everyone and just have all the birthdays together? Sheena graciously allowed us to bombard her home once again and we partied into the night. We had a John Deere cake that Andrea made and decorated. Presents, stories and music provided by Arwen on the violin and Ivan on his new toy electric guitar.

Our traditional birthday picture

We've been taking this picture for 6 years now! I could find some of them though, so this is what I did find.

We love looking at the pictures and seeing how much they've grown. Ivan you are amazing! So smart and talented. We love having you as a part of our family and lives. You make us smile. You make us scream, but mostly give us joy. (He's reading this as I type it!) I couldn't have imagined this moment 6 years ago if I had tried. Being a mom ROCKS!

a bit of an unusual birthday gift

I'm not sure if this was a house warming gift, a birthday gift or a we're here in town with you gift, but Lin told us before she arrived that her man, who was accompanying her is also a plumber and she volunteered that he would LOVE to help Brian with anything in the basement. Well, we have lots of things for the basement, but the latest thing Brian was working on was installing a sump pump. He was working with a guy in town building a deck, so while Brian was out, Darrin checked out our pump and bought supplies at a hardware store.
Part of our evening plans was to return home from Ivan and my party for the guys to work on installing the sump.


Today, Brian cemented up around the corners. Sorry we haven't taken a picture of the end product yet.

More fun birthday pics in the blog posts to come!

Birthday bash #1

Ivan and I enjoyed a great birthday, he turned 6 and I turned a bit more. He was born on my 31st birthday, so you can figure out the math. Part of my gift included a visit from Lin, her daughter Jac and Darrin. It's been so long since we've seen each other that she hadn't met any of my kids and I hadn't met Jac, so that was extra special. They drove "only" 9 hours to come see us. Darrin works in Fort McMurray which is 16 hours from where they live in Yellowknife, NWT. If you are an American reading this and don't know where that is, you've got to look it up, it's WAY up there! He makes the commute every 2 weeks, so to them 9 hours was a hop and jump over. They only got to stay the day, but we managed a big cousin party while they were here. Sheena and Ian are Lin's 1st cousins, so Lin is actually my 2nd cousin, but she lived in the same city as I did most of our growing up, so we spent a ton and ton of time together from junior high through high school. Part of her treat was to also get us an ice cream cake from dairy queen. The dairy queens in the states make them different from the ones here (we know, because we tried it my first year there). My family traditionally gets an ice cream cake for birthdays and after 12 years, I had one of the good ol Canada made ones for my birthday once again.

The girls, who NEVER let me do their hair were of course delighted to let Lin do their's.



Ivan had a special program this morning before school that he really enjoyed Monday, but decided to opt out of so that he could have those last minutes with Jacqueline. In 24 hours, she had become "my best cousin ever!" But I'm sure by the weekend, Imogen or Arwen will move back into that title again.

I have a bit of a cold and I always forget how freezing it can be at the beach, which has about taken my voice away. We lasted long enough at the beach to watch the flock of Canadian geese take to flight, for the girls to each have a few pushes on the swings and for them to throw a few rocks in the water before we were frozen. The weather is actually very nice in the neighborhoods, but get into the open with the wind whipping off the lake and it gets pretty nippy.