Under construction

We are having quite the home reno summer! We're not quite ready to post before and after pics yet ...but soon..We promise!!

The bright side of renos today was discovering that the underneath of the front deck is actually solidly built with pressure treated wood and is in mint condition. The top and railing were built with substandard materials but that will be coming down ASAP. Instead we will build a smaller deck that only goes around the French doors instead of the full length of the house.

The lattice was in pretty good condition so we are spraying it black tomorrow and putting that around the stairs and mini deck int he back to enclose it for winter storage of patio furniture, toys etc...

So what we have accomplished in the last couple of weeks is painting more than half of the exterior (rain rain go away), all the trim has been repainted, fence repainted, new front and back outdoor lights.

In the next couple of weeks there will be : a project using wainscoting, laying sod, a red door (big smily face here), completing exterior painting, a tree planting/ rock garden and lattice installed.

PHEW! I'm exhausted just typing it out ;)

Stay tuned for pics!!!!

tennis pics

Here are the pictures that a boys dad took at the tournament. LOL...I look rather intense hee hee but pretty cool pics :)

Very sore...very tired...

This past weekend I played in my first tournament in about 13 years! I played 2 in Canmore...but that was basically one match to 9 games..not really the same thing as one with 266 entries and best of 3 sets :) hee hee

So round 1 in the 5.0 I played against my friend Gill. Who is fantastic, so much fun and soo nice. BUT I was literally a basket case. I don't tihnk I have ever been so nervous in my life! Then to make matters worse they put us on centre court..LOL So I kind of lost it. The first set was over in an instant but I kind of started to get a grip on things halfway through the second but unfortunately ran out of time. She ended up making it to the final and coming in 2nd for that category. At first I was really really disappointed in how I played, but the next day I was fine with it. I've only been playing again for about 4-5 months and playing a tournament takes an incredible amount of mental and physical preparedness. So the things I need to work on are so minor so I'm looking forward to playing her again sometime :)

So then I played on Satruday in the Open category (the top category, one up from 5.0) and I was really happy with how I played. I played against a younger girl from Calgary and she could realy hit the ball. Every single game went back and forth from deuce at least 4 times....the first game of the match took almsot 10 minutes because we went to deuce over 10 times LOL! But not being as tournament ready as her I was unable to capitalize on those points. I lost 6-2, 6-2 but I was really really happy with how I played. We were having a nice big slugfest out there jsut cranking the ball back and forth :)

Too bad for everyone..but the wind was terrible this weekend. I pulled my stomach muscle again going after some bad serve tosses that were getting carried in the wind. So by my match that night at 7pm I was hurting pretty badly. I took a bunch of advil, slathered A535 all over my stomach but it didn't help. I pulled it even worse at the beginning of my 7pm match and had to withdraw. I can actaully barely move right now. Can't really turn over in bed etc...So priority #1 today is calling a sports injury clinic. I need to get this figured out, its been plaguing me for about 5 weeks now off and on...

So all in all it went fine, I'm glad I have the first out of the way and I won't go through the crazy nervousness again. I'm hoping I'll be ready to play the next tourney at the end of July. We'll see what physio says. I was really flattered that so many people wanted to know who I was LOL! The tennis world on the prairies is quite small so appearing out of the blue was kind of fun haha.

I talked to my coach and he agreed I won't play 5.0 anymore..its just way to frustrating playing people gerneally quite below your level..because your level of game goes down so much. So it looks like I'll jsut be playing Open singles and doubles/mixed from now on. I'm really happy he wholeheartedly agrees with that. I'm doing this for fun and fitness, I dont' want to go and play patty cake out there..I want to slug the ball and run down big shots and make big shots :)

So at first I'll probably lose all the time in Open, but it won't be by much AND at least I will have fun doing it. I'll be getting an indoor membership asap and start dedicating a lot more free time to tennis, which wil msot likely mean me not playing vball this year. But I actaully feel okay about that. I didn't realize how much I missed tennis and how good it feels to be out there. (not to mention such incredible exercise)

Brett had his hands full with the boys so only Karlynn managed to snap some pics. Theres 2 on her blog at http://kadeandivy.blogspot.com/2007/06/tennis.html

A dad of one of the juniors was out taking pictures on the weekend with a lense as long as my arm haha, and he said that he took some of me. So if they aren't hideous I'll post them when I get them. So here are some I took of other people over the weekend. Mr baldy bald is my coach.( this was actualyl a memorial tourney for his dad who died of cancer and most of the entries go to cancer research. Carson grows his hair all year then shaves it at the tourney and we all pledge money so now he is bald lol)

Edmonton has a huge population of these massive jackrabbits. There were a bunch on the grass around the courts and Cooper thought it was mona. So arms outstretched he was running after them shouting "MOMAH!!! MOMAH!!!"

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day y'all. We spent ours getting full on pancakes and then heading to the Odyssium (Telus world of science) to check out the new Lost Worlds exhibit. Unfortunately that was a real disappointment. Brodie and Cooper of course still had a blast..but you know and exhibit is pretty lame when they need to keep pieces of the old exhibit there to fill up the space..incidentally the old Lego stuff was the only thing drawing any attention...Still a nice family excursion though :) (lighting was quite poor so pics aren't fantastic..)

**remember click to enlarge photo***

Bday Party and feel the love...

Lucky us were invited to Regan's 4th bday party last Friday :) We all had a blast! Cupcakes (so cute B!) were delish....Cooper's first taste of icing...and he likes it! ...He really likes it! (said in the most annoying Life cereal commercial voice..)

Regan got a doll stroller for her bday, and Cooper loved it so much I went and bougth a couple today..since buying one would be like throwing steak in between two lions and saying "share, play nice"...


Not sure if Brandy bargained on the tissue paper party when Brodie went to sit on her lap LOL.
Brodie climbed into one of the gift bags and Kade helped out by putting in the tissue paper, Lucky me got to open the present after. I've always wanted a Brodie!

Can't really tell in this pic but carters eyes are the same colour as the tissue he's holding!
Brodie and Cooper are so lovey dovey...just makes me want to cry everytime I see them be so sweet to each other :)
This is our back fence...I've been painting it all week. I took this pic before I finished the corner section so you could see the contrast. Unreal what $30 in paint can do! :) Soon before and after pictures will be posted of the house stucco painting!

Little Shop of Horrors

After talking about them the last couple of weeks we were thrilled to stumble upon a new shipment of Venus Fly Traps that arrived at Home Depot this morning. So cool! We have 2 plants with 7-9 "traps" on each. We saw two traps eat bugs today..so EW! Yet utterly fascinating! The ones that are closed are eating....EW....!!! lolHere is Cooper showing you the right way to each chips...




The boys re - enacting drumming from the festival on Sunday (see posts below)

Lots of pics

What a dirty face..Brodie is a kid that definitely doesn't mind getting dirty!

This is what your hsoue looks like when you can't agree/decide on an exterior paint colour *sigh*

We had a fun picnic a few days ago at our new fave playground. So much fun!


Boys playing at a water table in the backyard.

Enjoying gifts from Nan & grandad from their trip to Greece!



More Japanese Garden Festival.

Japanese Garden Festival

Sunday we went to the annual Japanese Garden Festival at the Botanical Gardens. So much fun! And a smoking hot day..

Brodie getting helped with writing his name in Japanese calligraphy.

We love the dummers, probably our favourite.

This year there was also dancing which was pretty cool.

Cooper, the rebel (click to enlarge)


Of course we had to stop at the butterfly room. One landed on Brodie's hand..Cooper tried to even things out by grabbing one! EEP!