august, 2005

august 23

sorry, no time for blogging - i'm reading the latest harry potter and don't like to pause for anything while i'm reading a book - which makes me a very obnoxious reader and is the reason i try not to read too often. [it's great by the way but then i'm sure you've all read it by now].

saturday we moved some sofas, played on the new ea soccer field [not to mention beach volleyball, basketball etc.] and did some car shopping. sunday we waved dani [and her many many worldly possessions] off on the train to college in ontario after spending some time at granville island.

in order to fill the void left by dani leaving home, nikki took aly back to victoria with her for the week. aly hasn't had time to call or anything but i'm sure it's a very horsey filled week.

toby and i are having a quiet week - eating and drinking all the things aly doesn't like and doing golfy stuff.

august 15

had a great weekend - we went camping in golden ears provincial park at last. actually, golden ears was full so we were at a campsite just near the entrance to the park. toby liked hearing the motorbikes and trains go by and aly liked being able to hear the stream and owls hooting so everyone was a winner! we left on saturday morning, set up camp, played at/in alouette lake, went to buy a flashlight [we're always so well prepared!] then bought a roast chicken dinner from swiss chalet which we ate outside the tent. i bet all those people roasting hot dogs over their bbqs were jealous ;-p we figure that in about 5 year's time, our one night per year camping will justify perhaps buying something to prepare food on! we DID roast marshmallows on the communal campfire which is good because aly informed us that the bernstein bears said that's what camping is. saturday night was one of the least comfortable night's sleep of my life. both air mattresses went down within half an hour of getting into bed leaving only the comfort of the very rocky ground. the fact that the children had spent the afternoon leaping around on them probably hadn't helped of course. we had only brought half the number of blankets we should have so it was cold [surprising since it's been so hot and dry here for the past month or 2]. however, there were regular kicks in the head/back/eyes etc. from the kids to get the circulation flowing again throughout the night. next year i think we need to have a kids tent and the adult's tent will definitely contain a big foam mattress! did i mention how much i love camping?

sunday we took the kids to a splash park and the creek, then went to show the children the mazda 5. we only had to mention that they'll be able to see out of the windows and they were pretty much sold. we were back home by 12.30pm. remarkable for us considering we don't usually leave the house on the weekends much before 2pm.

this week is going to be a strange week at work. my boss has just come back from a 2 week vacation which is nice. tomorrow i have to leave early to take the children to a creative movement class, wednesday i'm leaving really early to take toby to a golf lesson and then i don't have any childcare for friday so will work from home with the children. i was going to leave early to take the kids to gardening club on thursday afternoon but i think that might be pushing it!

so we seem to have a house sorted. i'd better get my colour-coded squares and ribbons out as per the flylady's recommendations and get packing!

august 7

things seem to be slowly getting back to normal. i think sascha's working hours might be more reasonable at least for a week or 2 now. the house survey/building inspection went very well, so hopefully we should have everything signed tomorrow ready for a move in on september 29.

the children got the chance to try tae-kwon-do this week with their child minder. apparently they both enjoyed it but aly was more cooperative than toby. i'm going to go to watch them this week to decide if i'm going to sign them up or not. i've decided i'm not going to do it unless both kids enjoy it - otherwise it will just add more chaos to our schedule.

today, the children were invited to a birthday carnival at someone's house and my very kind neighbour offered to take them which left sascha and i with a few hours together. we opted to go preliminary car shopping. we've finally succumbed to the fact that we might just need a minivan and mazda [who we love] have just come up with the mazda 5 which is a basically a regular car which seats 6 people which would be enough space for when my parents come to visit, or for when sascha's dad/sister or niece are here. it was very weird to drive because it's basically my car [a mazda 3] but stretched upwards. i know i will miss my mazda 3 because it's very sporty but i have to concede that the mazda 5 is probably more practical - the kids would actually be able to see out of the windows for a start! the gas mileage is actually very similar to the sedan. one of the reasons we had been resisting minivans/suvs had been on environmental and financial fronts. i'm really not a big fan of the way minivans look and this one is not exactly great but alas... priorities have to change at some point. we can also flip cars relatively easily because we're at a good point in our lease. we'd have to pre-order which is a bit of a weird concept for us - we're more used to thinking about maybe getting a new car in the morning, turning up at the dealership in the afternoon, trading the old car in and driving off in a new one by that evening.

speaking of spontaneity, we tried to go camping last night. we decided to go around 4.30pm, threw everything into the car at 5 and arrived at golden ear provincial park around 6. of course there wasn't a hint of any camping spots left - there or at the other 2 sites we tried. it's canada for goodness sake - how difficult can it be to find somewhere to pitch a tent for the night. 'very' in the middle of summer apparently. oh well - i guess we'll have to try to plan ahead and maybe leave the house before 5pm next time! we did manage to take a boat out on a lake instead so it did feel like we'd vaguely been away.

today after the car dealership we went for drinks at one of the many local golf courses. it was a lovely golf course - a strange combination of a british pub and the most beautifully manicured pitch and putt [it is actually a proper golf course but has bridges, waterfalls, and water wheels galore]. very satisfactory. when we went to get the kids, aly had had a better offer so toby, sascha and i hit the driving range for an hour or so. a very nice weekend all around.

august 1

so the house is lovely. we went to take another look at it today with sascha's dad since we've bought a place with a 1-bed suite so he has no excuses not to come for prolonged trips. [the invitation is also open to all you friends/family around the world who might fancy a trip to vancouver]. the suite is on the ground floor so we just have the laundry room and one bedroom [or office or scrapbooking paradise] downstairs and then upstairs we have 3 bedrooms, a nice open plan living/dining then an open plan kitchen/dining/family room. the people who lived there miraculously had a great deal of taste. [i say miraculously because we seem to have been looking at a multitude of revolting chandeliers, cheesy gold fireplaces and strangely sponge-painted walls for weeks prior to this].

canada's house buying system seems very bizarre. after agreeing on a price all parties sign the contract subject to building inspection/financing/deed search etc. but then you only get a week to have all of those things ticked off before there's no backing out. we managed to stretch our date to august 8th which is longer than most people get but it is still going to be a frantic week next week - especially since tomorrow is a public holiday and sascha rarely seems to make it home for more than a couple of hours sleep at the moment while he's in the middle of finaling his game! we will have actually bought the house on september 26 but are not allowed to move in until september 29. odd. very odd. perhaps to air out the smell of the previous family? i dunno. anyone got any other ideas? there's also a very canadian tradition where your mortgage has to be approved by one of 2 companies [neither of which are the companies providing you with the mortgage]. anyway, i'm determined we will stay in this country - hopefully this province - for at least one more house purchase. everywhere else we've finally figured the quirky rules out only to buy the next house somewhere completely different.

i had the best staff meeting of my life on friday. we had lunch at someone's house. fortunately the someone had a nice pool and hot tub so after sitting around the pool for the meeting we were able to dive in. when i'd just started to get a bit burnt, it clouded over and we headed to the hot tub. a very refreshing afternoon :-) it's been a very nice week with lots of team building stuff but in doing useful things rather than pointless exercises. unfortunately i didn't manage to get through my backlog of work and now my boss is away for 2 weeks, the mountain on my desk will only get bigger but i'm sure i'll get there eventually.

speaking of work, my current work issue of the day is the fact that the fence i have a team of volunteers coming in to paint next friday was found to be completely rotten. doh! oh well, it beats last week's mothball crisis.

back home

	Enter your search terms
	Web www.petawilliams.com Submit search form