Hair Cuts, Wild Cat Days and Deck Guests

Spencer had gotten to the point this week where his mop was a little long so we stood on the deck the other morning and I cut his hair. He always looks so much better without the ragamuffin hair do!


Here in Elkford this weekend, we're celebrating Wild Cat Days. The whole town has lots of fun events and activities for everyone to attend. On Friday night, I took Spencer down to the "Kids Bouncy Castle" area for some fun time on the bouncy castles.

He loved climbing up the steps and then sliding down the numerous slides on this particular castle. They had 3 different bouncy objects for the kids to use and the took 5 minute intervals and never put kids of different ages groups together for safety purposes.

On Saturday morning, I took Spencer down to the pancake breakfast above the arena. Todd was supposed to be off this weekend as part of a planned mini shut down of Fording but he ended up working both days anyway. So Spencer and I went, just the two of us.

Today, Spencer and I went for a short drive and came back to a deer trotting off from around the deck of the house. It looks as if he had been sleeping in the tall grass at the end of deck. So I let him trot off into the gully behind the house before I got out of the Jeep. Here he is having a snack in the gully off the back of the house....


When he did finally trot off, I opened my door and hopped out of the Jeep. I turned around to open Spencer's door and realized there was another LARGE male deer still resting under the deck. So I shut Spencer's door again and carefully tiptoed across the grass and to the stairs to the deck. The male watched me carefully and as I took my second step up the stairs he got up and trotted off under the deck and to the gully too. Here's a quick picture of the second deer under the deck...


He was a lot bigger in real life! Let me just say, I wouldn't want to tick one off if I was standing too close! They've been known to charge at people if they feel threatened. Ouch!

Works going well. I'm working two days of the four that Todd gets off. Right now I'm scheduled to work 8 housr on Tuesday and 6 hours on Wednesday. I enjoy working with all the staff there. So far, they have all been kind and helpful.

Rainbows and Resting Places

The last 4 days has been a little rough with me working and poor Todd having to look after monkey boy! But it all came to a beautiful end point last night with this across the valley....

We could see both ends! Did you notice the double rainbow (above)? It was SO vivid and in some places there were TWO blue and violet strips on the main rainbow!


I have been busy this morning catching up on some of my computer work. Spencer is watching his "Four-Four" channel (Treehouse) and hanging out INSIDE his toy box....


He's got the box sitting on the couch and he's watching tv while curling up in it! He's just plain weird!!!

So while catching up on my computer work, I happened to glance outside the window beside me and I saw that we had a visitor. She was laying in the shade of the neighbour's bushes in our back yard. So I grabbed the camera and creeped on to the deck to take some photos of her.


I snuck back in the house and was about to sit down again when I glanced out the kitchen window to see her fawn stroll up and lay down beside her. So I snuck back out to the deck and took a picture of her and her fawn having a quick rest.

No sooner did I return to the house again and a buck walked up to her, nudged her on the nose and they all rose from the ground, grazed a bit on the tall grasses and then walked off together just the three of them.

I'm still waiting to see an elk baby yet. The females are off in their birthing grounds right now and only return to the herds once their babies are born and are a few days old. Can't wait to see a baby elk!

We saw 2 moose just outside of town last week. They were out under the power lines in between the highway and the river in the valley. And wouldn't ya know it... I did have my camera with me!!! Grrr!

Goodness I love this place!

Off to Work I Go!

Well today was the first day of the new job. So I put on my new fashionable T-shirt and my brand new uniform and off I went to work I went.

The shift went fast because the restaurant was nutty busy. I got to re-learn a lot of stuff from my multi-restaurant career and some new stuff too. Working in the restaurant and food industry certainly pays off! I ended up staying almost an hour and half extra just to sit down with my trainer/supervisor because we really didn't get a chance during my scehduled shift to do so.

While I was at work, the boys took off the hard top on the Jeep and set up the soft top. With a crack in the hardtop and it still being under warranty, we are delivering it to Lethbridge to the Chrysler dealer there for repair on Monday. Todd wanted to make sure he could put the soft top on and get a feel for what we would have to do on Monday after the hardtop comes off. The windows in the soft top are tinted just like the ones in the hard top are!

We ended the day by calling Dad to check up on him in Ontario and then we walked to the variety store just over the hill for an ice cream treat.

It was a pretty good day! Hope tomorrow is even better!

Maple Syrup, Hummingbirds, Crying "Pee" and Job Training

I had a really bad week last week and I was in need a "friend-intervention" so I had called up two of my girl friends one day to vent and to talk my way out of my anger about something. While this was going on, Spencer decided he was going to raid the refrigerator for fun and amusement. He managed to bite a chunk out of the cold pound of butter in the fridge door, bite 2-3 processed cheese slices IN their wrappers and then take the maple syrup out and DRINK if from the container! YUP... DRINK it! OY!!! And that's NOT all he decided to do with the maple syrup..... he decided that my vacuum needed a little sweetening and poured it inside the plastic holes attached to the side of it, the place that holds the 2 extra pieces of my plastic hose AND also pour it DOWN the hose of the vacuum. Needless to say I was LIVID!!!!!! I did manage to clean it all up before SUCKING it UP my vacuum and wrecking it though!

We now have a deck on the front of our new home here in BC. When we were moving stuff into the house last weekend, I had a couple of hummingbirds buzz by me on the deck so I thought it might be fun to hang a hummingbird feeder up off the deck so I could enjoy them. So I found a cheaper hummingbird feeder at a local store, along with some ready-to-mix hummingbird food so I bought it. I brought it home, mixed the sugar solution up and added it to my new feeder. My husband was nice enough to find me a nice big bracket to hang it off and he installed and hung up the filled feeder for me off the deck. I can see the feeder from my computer desk and my kitchen window. I was so excited! WELL.... Spencer decided to investigate the new contraption hanging off the bracket while playing outside the other day. He somehow managed to DRAIN the entire feeder of it's sugar solution and the EVIDENCE was all over his FACE! Grrrr! I was so ticked off!

The EMPTY feeder....

Yesterday we drove to Lethbridge to get a few more things for the house and to also find some appropriate shoes for me for work.

On the way home, the weather was off and on rain/sleet but we caught a glimpse of the sun trying to cast it's rays on the Earth on one of our MANY stops to "pee".

Spencer was playing with Todd and I by randomly picking moments to call out "I gotta pee!" to make us stop the Jeep. He thought it was funny.... not funny at all! We even had the RCMP come up behind us on the highway to see why we had stopped. We just explained that we hd a 3 year old that had to pee and off they went. It was kinda funny.... they both nodded, smiled and drove off. Being at the stage in pottty training and us not knowing how long he can REALLY hold it for, you just automatically assume he needs to go.

It's been COLD here. We have had a few nights filled with new snowfall. This is a picture of the Kootenay's coming across the prairies before Pincher Creek. See all that snow? Our furnace should have been turned off weeks ago but it's still running.

With my initial interview for my new job last Saturday, I have been working on my on-line training modules; a neat on-line training resource for new A&W employees. It's been fun and I'm glad to know that all the training that I used to do for my employees at John Noble and St. Joe's has still remained in my brain! I'm now all set for my first official day of on-site training. I think I am working a shift on Saturday but have to call the restaurant to confirm. It's nice to have some non-scrapbooking and non-family related goals to achieve right now.

Home Sweet Home!

Here she is.... our little piece of BC. She's not the prettiest mobile on the street or even the oldest but she's ours. The actual mobile sits on about a 10 foot high wall and concrete footings. She's about 40 years old and has 99% of her original insides intact and in reasonably good condition for 40 years of age. So yes.... I have a beautiful pair of GREEN appliances in the kitchen along with beautiful *cough* wood paneled walls!


We have a nice sized pie shaped lot that backs completely on to green space. No one will ever build there!

We also have some nightly visitors walk through our back yard too!

I stood on the deck one night and took some photos of the mule deer feeding in the backyard. They took one look at me and went on eating. The large light brown building in the photo below is the back of the high school and the elementary school sits to the left of it looking this direction.

Our green space view.....

It's been COLD here in BC the last few days. This morning we had fresh SNOW... yes... you read that right... SNOW! We had it on roof tops and lawns! The tops of the mountains that were completely bare of white yesterday have dustings of snow once again today.....


I had a "starter" interview for my new job this afternoon so the boys waited for me in Sparwood and then we went to Fernie for a quick trip and then came back home.

We made a mini detour to Grave Lake before returning home today to see how full the rather chilly camp ground was over there. This is the mountain just above Grave Lake... pretty birches in new leaf and fresh SNOW on the mountain behind!

We have really begun to appreciate the flexibility of having the Jeep out here. We can go almost any where and there are SO many back roads to explore here just between Fernie and Elkford.

We stopped in the middle of the bush to explore around us a little bit more. I found some pretty wild flowers that I still have yet to identify....

We found these pretty purpley-blue flowers on a vine. They look like a simple clematis flower. This one particular flower had a funky spider living inside it's bloom.

Close up....

Todd's been busy the last few days putting up more lights down stairs in the storage area. With only 2 original lights, the space is a little dark to be doing any work down there.

Spencer's been hard at play too. He has this fascination for making sand angels in the driveway! He comes in dirty from head to boot!

Mail has been extra slow in arriving here. It seems to take an extra day or two just to travel up the highway from Sparwood to Elkford, only 35 km.

Phone Issues & a Job Offer

Just wanted to send a quick note to everyone. Our home cell phone has died. I have to locate the charger for it before I can use it. So if you need to get a hold of us, send an email with your phone number (if I don't have it) and we'll Skype you back.

Sorry!

Other good news today.... I got a call back on a part time job. I start with an introduction on Saturday at the A&W in Sparwood. For now, it's a job and a little extra money in my pocket. Cool huh?

A Little Sad

I guess I'll just wish myself Happy Birthday since my own husband didn't. Happy Birthday Ally! So disappointing....

A Lot of Work!

After two and half LONG days of moving, cleaning, fixing and organizing, we are finally here and moved in. We still have a trailer FULL of stuff parked out side and a whole bedroom full of stuff to put away but we're here and we're in.

On Friday we got the keys to the new house bright and early. We made a trip to the new house and got set to getting it ready for move in quality... sort of! We proceeded to pitch most of the furniture from the previous resident out the front window into the front yard. The previous owner didn't bother to remove any of his furniture or anything from the kitchen cupboards. What a pain in the BUTT! Todd and I, and even Spencer had fun throwing stuff out the window... hehehe!

We managed to bring 2 trailer and Jeep loads up on Friday and moved that all in. We made a point of bringing up all the "to store" stuff first... like tools and bikes and stuff to get them out of the old foyer in the old house.

We spent Saturday clearing the remainder of the house of it's larger contents like couches, beds and other larger furnishings. Luckily we had a wonderful neighbour who allowed us to borrow him and his truck for transporting the larger items to the new house.

The couches and some of the mattresses where too large to fit through the front door due to a "sharp corner into the hallway to the living room". They managaed to take out the window panes of one of the side windows of the mobile and then lifted the furniture up and into the house. Not fun when the window is 12 feet off the ground!!!!

On Saturday night we stayed here at the new house for the first time and Todd got into the shower at the end of the day. All of a sudden, there was water every where! All over the bathroom floor, in our closet and in the second/spare bedroom. CRAP! A leak in the piping! GREAT! So Todd managed to discover that the pipe between the taps and the showhead had a one centimeter crack in it! So he cut the failed pipe out and replaced that yesterday night and we're now good to go! Thank goodness for handy men! He fixed the pipe, hooked up all the tv and stereo equipment, hooked up the computer and also my washer and dryer. Poor guy was TIRED after the weekend!

So needless to say, we are here but far from organized! Time will take care of that. Our phone numbers haven't changed since they are all cell phones and we mainly use Skype to call out anyway.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Off to unpack something... maybe! My calves and feet are killing me and I look like a duck when I walk. TOO many stairs to climb when unloading stuff here!