Return of the strawbears (or... Strawberry Mania!)

It's strawberry season!  So we found some strawberries at the local berry picking farm.

And we cut 'em up.

And we Jammed 'em up.

And we bagged 'em up.

And we pie'd them up!

(When I was mixing up the dough for the pie crusts, This is how much shortening I was short for the recipe.  So I went to the grocery store to get 1/6 of a cup of shortening!)

It's a good thing we live really close to the grocery store!

Now we're looking forward to eating 'em up!

School's Out For Summer!!!

We made it!  Summer has arrived!
and there's not much more to say about that.

We're gearing up for our summer "plans".  We keep saying that we don't have any definite plans.  But really, we do.

Plan #1 got started this weekend.  We started moving the office down to the basement.  The office will soon be converted into the nursery!  We were lucky to get a crib, dresser, and change table set from Zellers for a relatively small amount of money.  Now I gotta assemble it... (Plan #2).
The problem with our office is that we have a lot of books.  And we never have less books.  Always more...

As a side note - Our recent readings have been a little more in the grown up category lately.  I've been firing through Charles Dickens's works... A Tale of Two Cities (excellent and recommended for anyone who knows anythings about the French Revolution); Oliver Twist (good); Great Expectations (also good); now I'm reading Hard Times; and soon after that I'll read David Copperfield.
I have no clue what Steph has been reading... mostly Christian Romance...

Anyways, Plan #3 is our bathroom renovation.  I think it needs to happen sooner than later.  The toilet isn't supposed to be a recliner, and there shouldn't be a gap between the front of the toilet and the floor...

We have a number of other plans, but they're less pressing for our time.  Camping, landscaping, relaxing, and visiting the beach would be among those plans.

But the fridge is stocked.  So here's to summer!

Surprise!

I was waiting for Steph to write something up about this... but she hasn't yet.  So I might as well tell you how things went this past weekend.

I decided to throw Steph a surprise birthday party last saturday.  The big surprise being that her birthday had already gone by 2 days before Saturday, and the bigger surprise being that I have never even attempted a get-together for Steph's birthday, let alone keeping it a surprise.

She tells me that she didn't know what was happening.  Which means I disguised things well.  OR, she's lying. 

Anyways, I, being the creative genius that I am, planned it perfectly.
Her birthDAY came and went.  She got a gift from me.  And that's all she usually gets. 
Two days later, it was Saturday.  And it was supposed to rain all day and all night.  The rain never showed up.  So Steph finished her report cards, and I cleaned the house.
We had planned that I would take her out for dinner on Saturday afternoon.  So we made reservations for 5:30.  (I didn't quite realize how long dinner would actually not take...)(By "not take" you might get the drift of how the 'surprise!' went down...)
I had told everyone else to just let themselves into our backyard and start without us... intending that we would show up after 7:30 and find everyone in the backyard already....

Yeah... not so great planning on my part...

Dinner was done by about 6:45 after I made sure to get Appetizers BEFORE dinner, and Desert AFTER dinner.  (amazingly enough, Steph was still clueless that I had nothing up my sleeve...)
So I took her to Canadian Tire.  But Canadian Tire closed at 7.
So I gave up.  I'd already spent enough money, and took her home to the house.

I feel bad for Aaron.  'cause we had just come home, steph had gone upstairs, when Aaron knocked on the door and asked "So do I just go around back?" to which I said "yep".

Steph came back downstairs, and started realizing something was up, now.  And then asked - "What's Aaron doing walking around our backyard?"

Aaron came around and knocked on the back door... "So I guess I'm the first one here, eh?  well... Surprise...!"

Not quite the surprise I wanted to give Steph... Next time I'll plan dinner extra late.

Postlude -- The evening went well.  A good number of friends showed up (Thank folks!).  The rain held off until we had the fire going in the backyard.  We ran inside.  Had DQ ice cream cake.  The rain stopped.  We went back outside, started the fire again, and had a late night.

We don't know what this is!

Steph and her mom came home with this plant from the greenhouse one day, last summer...

Last year it stayed short (like 6 - 10 inches short).  This year, it's already close to 3 feet tall. 

But we don't know what it is!

Gardens -- Entrances

Here's a few pictures of what's happened at our house lately. 

First, We ripped out a big bush from the side of our house.  Then we had to replace it with something more aesthetically pleasing to our occular functions.  So if you look closely, you'll see a Purple Sandcherry, among some flowers of an unknown description to me (david). 

We also discovered a Rose bush growing between our Peonies, which I think I remember buying last fall, and Steph's Mom thinks she remembers us having ever since we lived here, and Steph can't remember a thing about.  But we'll see how it grows, and enjoy it!

This is our entrance now!  We find it is a little more open.

And when all that was done, it was time to relax and enjoy a bit of the shade.

This year we've planted beans, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers, and we're trying strawberries from a hanging basket or two.

Thanks Mom and Dad VandenDool for your help with the bush and garden!  It's looking good!

May: Spring and Baby

Thought it was time for an update!  The last few weeks have slowed down considerably in our lives!  We're enjoying our renovations and the beautiful weather.  I've been enjoying the slow-down at school, although pretty soon that should translate in me attacking the HUGE pile of marking I have since report cards are coming up!  Dave's been working every day and baseball season has started up again, so that's fun (for him, and social for me!).  We had a midwife appointment this afternoon.  Everything is going well!  She found the heartbeat right away--it was about 148-150 bpm.  And we have the ultrasound next week Tuesday, which we're really excited about!  So that about sums up what we've been up to.  We went out yesterday to take some new spring pictures--Enjoy!!

Enjoying the "lilac den" at Sunnidale park

Apple Blossoms

Baby Belly at 18 weeks and 4 days

Some tulips and purple sandcherry bushes (which I'd like to add to my garden!)

April is done!

The month of April has come and gone!  And what a month is was.  Extra-Curricular activities, done; renovations, almost done; and now we have time again (I think....)!  Time to do all the other things that haven't been getting done!

We thought that we'd post some pictures of our new bathroom and vinyl floor, which we're really excited about.  We're still working on the walls for the bathroom (a mirror, etc.) and the trim is all cut and in place but not all nailed down yet.  But we're loving how it all looks and the amount of space we have in the bathroom!

The bathroom and floor look a million times better than they did before!  We love them!

The flowers were from the school as a thank-you for being one of the directors for the school play.  Very beautiful flowers--even more beautiful now that the play is done!!

Oh and Dave and I are even now.....he spilled apple juice on the laptop (which we still have to bring in) and I just spilled pomegranate-wildberry juice on the carpet (which took 15 minutes of scrubbing to get out....).  Life has been way too crazy over here!  Looking forward to slowing down!