Random Stuff...

Well, the baby's room is nearing ready status. The border is up (and is quite cute) along with some wall hangings. The change table & crib are up and in position. About the only thing we need to do is get a curtain for the closet and Little Yostie has a room all ready for him / her. Pictures will soon follow.

Besides that, not much to report. My parents are out safely and doing well at the cottage and my mom has been buying cute outfits!

We are in week #33 now, not too much more time. Reality is setting in and it is quite, um, terrifying in some ways....

This is for you Kustra...

Well, we have been busy with stuff lately but Kustra called and told me to post again, so I will damn it!

On the family front, not much has happened. Rowdy though has hacked up his ear by scratching a bug bite way too much and we have been busy piling km's onto the van by going to Clear Lake & Kenora the past 2 weekends. We also bought a new couch & chair for the living room with a sofa bed so we can host more people.

In other, more baby related, news we have begun prenatal classes and have our 2nd class tonight. The teacher seems nice and is a nurse at HSC. She wore a creepy shirt the first class with a drawing of a baby in utero on the shirt... We saw some diagrams of what happens to the insides of a woman at full term. Looks quite uncomfortable to me! Beyond that the baby room is coming together. I am contemplating instead of buying a new light for the room, just buying a new light cover and there are some interesting looking ones on eBay. This week we have to move the changing table back in b/c my parents are coming over (perhaps for the night) and we need to make the bed a wee bit more accessible.

Swelling continues to be a major issue for Cara, but she has really been sucking it up lately and been doing some good work cleaning the house. As she said, "I'm going have to do all this stuff in a few months even if I feel bad, so I may as well start now".

Oh yeah, and congratulations go out to Warren & Lindsay who got married in a beautiful service a week ago last Sunday!

We are officially old...

Well, we realized the importance of getting a new vehicle after Cara picked me up from outside the School of Dental Hygiene. Some background first, on Sunday we wanted to take Rowdy out for a swim and were driving to Jeff's cottage so we decided to stop by the old fisherman's shack to let him swim. There is a parking region in there and a few cars were about. While it was a rough looking gravel road, I didn't think it was too rough... We heard a "CROINK!" which I can only assume meant that the car's undercarriage hit a rock! The next day the car sounded like a souped (sp?) up thing, but I couldn't see anything wrong with it.

Right after being picked up, the car's loudness increased 10 fold after sitting at a stop sign... In the interior it went from someone fairly quietly blowing air though their lips to an amplified Harley. We drove the whole way there and Cara said she never felt so much like white trash. We got on the lot, thanked God and then noticed that the exhaust pipe was dangling from the front!

In the end we went with a low end, normal length Chevy Uplander with the extended warranty (Uplander LT1 - with traction control & remote starter for those who care). In the end the difference between leasing and buying was $75 and an extra year, so we went for the purchase.

That actually was the last regular wheelbase on the lot as they had a deal on them, with a $3500 rebate coupled with 0% for 4 years (or in our case 2.9% for 5). We also got a $1000 automatic credit for owning a cavalier, our trade-in (which wasn't much seeing as the noise plus the cracked windshield, dented panels & trunk, broken trunk, excessive kilometers (just under 200,000) and general mess) and as recent grad we get the first 2 payments on them...

As I said it is white, and drives nicely. It was room for seven and NOTHING else, but the back seats individually fold down or can be removed. Looking at the engine it appears as though even changing the battery could require a trip to the shop, as everything is packed is so tightly. The vehicle has room for Rowdy and Little Yostie and all there stuff which is what we were looking for. It was a stressful day, but fortunately it went smoothly. Cara was very nervous about driving it around yesterday but is OK today.

We're off to Steinbach....

To look at vehicles. Oh joy.

As my parents might point out I still haven't even started paying off the first one...

*SOUPIR*

Long Weekend @ Grand (and it was...)

Friday after Cara was done her work we went straight out to the cottage... When we got there it was incredibly hot in the cottage so we opened it up, put our stuff away and got ready for a nice steak dinner. I immediately noticed that the work has yet to begin on the cottage, but the Evans later told us that they have to wait a little longer for the variance. We forgot potatoes, so I drove off to Doris' and was stopped on the way out of the Park and on the way in by patrol officers wanting to see my driver's park pass and registration. I asked "why" and was told, and I quote, "Because we can". I told them they made a 5 minute trip for potatoes into a long trip and drove off. This led me to thinking how many people can say they've been pulled over three times in the same day, had to show license and registration AND not been ticketed? The evening finished when I went down for swim with Jeff who was staying over at his uncle's cottage.
By the way the fishflies were out early and were thick at night...

Saturday morning Cara and I took Rowdy out for a walk. We took him down to the Grand Marais Pier for a swim. Rowdy enjoyed climbing on the rocks in the water and swam his heart out. This reminds me, the pier now has a new staircase that is sturdy (either that or I forgot about it). We checked in on the bakery which is still undergoing renovations, but will likely be open this weekend and will have bakery stuff (I asked). On the way home we stopped by a few yard sales, but more on that near the end. By the time we got home we could tell that the day was going to a scorcher, and we saw a few pelicans swimming about. In the end the mercury touched 32C... We went over to Jeff's and went out on the quad and then got ready for the beach. Jeff and I went down to the front beach for a few hours. I neglected to put sunscreen on, which proved foolish as I got a burn that got worse as the weekend progressed. Sadly though we had to leave for the Bombers game at 6:00. I did though stick around long enough to take a few pictures of the front beach... Look at the crowd!

The Bombers game was great! Any time your team puts up 600+ yards of offence against the defending champs is a good day. A 46-10 rout was exactly what we wanted! Everything clicked, although the defence was a little soft but they made the stops they needed. From the Stadium we could see a thunder storm to the North, although the ground was dry as we drove home.

Sunday we got up and drove to church. Cara can't deal well with the heat so we can't walk anymore. The priest was interesting and energetic. Joe was there singing, so all was well. I made sure I had a pleasant day. With a sunburn on my shoulders, I applied sunscreen and kept my shirt on all day. We took Rowdy out to where the fisherman's cottage used to be to swim in some waves. We went down to the front beach as it clouded over, and began to rain. The crowd was as thick Saturday but it cleared out. After about an hour the skies cleared and the sun was scorching again. It turned into a beautiful day with a beautiful sunset so I took a few pictured, which sadly don't show the sun's redness.

Monday we got up and I saw some waves that were building. The waves were growing, so we took Rowdy out for a walk and Cara swam him in the lagoon as I went to the front for a swim. I caught a couple of OK rides, and then went to see Cara scolding Rowdy as he ran off to chase some beach goers. At home, we played with him in the front yard and had a lot of fun, followed by a later return for another swim. The second swim was amazing! I was stunned by the number of excellent rides I got. We went home and got ready to go.

All in all, the weekend was great. I got sun, a Bombers romp, played a pile of cards (and did well) and some fantastic waves! Oh yeah, and the yard sales had some nice finds. Some old juice glasses Cara liked that will end up as liqueur glasses, a puzzle roller (which I promised Cara for her birthday), a hard cover collection of 5 Poirots, and a couple of baby clothing items. One was a Winnie the Pooh sweat shirt & jeans set (12M), but the other was this amazing sleeper. Wally should love (and it is mildly ironic)... A future Jets fan.

Baby Room

We've been working on the baby's room for a few weeks now. We have in fully painted in a greenish colour, and the border will be going up whenever Cara & Myrna have some time. The theme will be (is this a surprise?) Winnie the Pooh. As you can see, we have also put up a new, non-hideous blind.




Monday night, Cara's folks dropped off her old cradle that was used by many different family members. It will one day be found in our room...







And as you see, the closet will not have doors, but the dresser will be in it. We need to install some drapes, and we are already amassing some neat stuff. Phil & Lindsay already gave us a car load of stuff too, so we will be keeping it all in the basement until we are fully ready for it. For some silly reason, the picture didn't want to rotate properly...