Thursday, March 4, 2010

So Far....

...so good!


On the first day of travel, we had a storm. When we left Nova Scotia, it was just rain, but by the time that we reached New Brunswick it was a slushy mess! We watched the car in front of us spin off the road into the ditch. We ended up giving him a ride to the town our motel was in...about an hour or so away--in normal driving conditions. The drive ended up taking us around 2.5 hours. The roads were horrible! We saw about 6-7 accidents along the way...cars flipped in the ditch, off the road, ...way off the road. The police even had traffic re-routed around a semi-truck that got jackknifed in the middle of the freeway. But, we made it safely enough.


Above is the worlds longest covered bridge, located in Heartland, New Brunswick. This was a fun stop! Very fun to cross...

The next night we stayed in Quebec city, just right outside of the old city walls. We ended up on the 18th floor of the Hilton! The place only had one entrance, and valet parking...because it was in the middle of the city. We had to bring our dogs in the main entrance, past the restaurant, past the hotel lobby bar, past the check in...and use the main elevators. Weird enough, nobody seamed to care...

The above 2 pictures were taken from the panoramic window of our room at the Hilton... The first one is of old Quebec city and the wall, and the second one is the Parliament building. Me and the dogs just sat there and stared out the window...Quebec city is a wonder for the eyes...and taste buds!

The pictures above are taken from where the dogs had their "poddy breaks"....what a view! We were right downtown.

I'll try and post the rest of our trip tomorrow...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Goodbye Nova Scotia...

It's official! The papers have been signed and, tomorrow at 8:00 am, our pack will officially be homeless....
Parting is such sweet sorrow...
Today Ryan and I cleaned the entire house.

It's strange to see the place without our things in it....but, it still looks and feels like home.

It really is a beautiful house.
....even when it's empty, it's still full of love and memories...

Yesterday, the movers loaded everything on the truck.

And, on Tuesday, they packed up our entire house.
Our WoNdErFuL neighbor, Donna, took everything that the movers wouldn't take...like liquids, perishables, and such. We will miss her. She has become family to us, and it is always hardest to leave family.

Goodbye to all the great friends that I have met. Goodbye to all of the beautiful places that I have walked. And goodbye to all the wonderful stores that I have shopped....

I couldn't have imagined a more wonderful place to call home for the past 5 (!) years.

The Journey Begins...

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Just when I thought Spring was almost here....

...Mother Nature went and dropped over a foot of snow on us!



But, I shouldn't complain. Our little Polar Bears love the snow, and it's worth all the shoveling and wet feet just to see them bum-scoot around in the snow. They are a riot!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

New Lamps!

Our new lamps arrived today. Well, actaully, one was on my doorstep when I got home yesterday evening, and the other arrived this afternoon.

They are absolutely fabulous! I love them.


The shades are made from marbled ivory and dark blue glass. They are really pretty, and I love the design of the shade. It remindes me of a starburst.



...and they cast a beautiful glow. They really cozy up the room.



....now, if I can only keep my two bad little girls from knocking them over....

Friday, January 8, 2010

Home for Sale...



We listed with a realtor this morning, and we should be online (mls.ca) sometime next week.



Ryan and I spent the rest of the day taking a ton of photo's of the house....we probobly took around 150-200 of them! I think I sent 40 or so to the realtor to pick and choose from.






Anyhow....at least that is done! I never thought that it would be as hard as it was to choose a realtor.


...notice that the bathroom is no longer BRIGHT PINK, much to my dissappointment...

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!


We rang in 2010 last night in the usual way...sushie and cheesy Kung Fu! This year I got us a bottle of Nova Scotia sparkling wine instead of the usual champagne, and was it ever good! It was so good that I drank the whole bottle! ...as per normal, Ryan took one sip and gave me his glass...disgusted with the taste. He then moved on to virgin ceasers...



Every year we make our own sushie. This year we used smoked salmon and prawns.

Mmmmm.....

We start our meal every year with Sunomo Salad.
(very thin rice noodles in a sugar/vinigar mairinade, garnished with cucumber lemon and prawns...)


We watch our cheesy Kung Fu while we make the sushie...and then we watch the first half of King Kong while we eat. ... we like to leave it there, and imagine that King Kong got to keep his bride and live happily for ever after on his island.
Happy New Year!!!!
May your 2010 be full of beautiful surprises...
I look foward to seeing everybody a bit more this year!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

My Paintings...

The semester is almost over. Next Friday (Dec 04th) is the last day of classes. Then Finals on Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday (2!).

I thought that I would post my paintings from my watercolor class that I am taking. Each week we had a different 'theme'.

I will post them from my first painting in class to my final painting.



1-Experimental
This was supposed to be an abstract,
but I really wanted to paint a tree...so I did.

2-- Reproduction
This was a painting that we had to reproduce from our text.

3--Abstract
We used a viewfinder (a small rectangular cutout of paper) and magazines to find an interesting design. Believe it or not, this used to be Maddona's Dress.


4--Floral


5-- Abstract
I don't really like abstracts, but the teacher loves them.
We were given geometric stensils to use for our design.



6--Landscape
Ryan and I were walking the dogs around the golfcourse one night, and I couldn't get over how beautiful it is at night. So, I tried to reproduce it.




7--Final Project

Painting the dogs wasn't even my idea. I had wated to paint a tree full of crows, but my teacher...upon hearing of how badly Ryan wanted me to choose them as my subjects, insisted upon it. I decided that this would be the one gift that I could give to Ryan for Christmas that he would actually be thankful for.

And that's it.

There are more little bits here and there of stuff that we did in class, but those were the "paintings".