Pictures

I've had one of the busiest weeks yet! We finally get a "relaxing" weekend to try to catch up on a few things and try to get some much needed sleep! We had another week of exercise, but went lighter on it. We manged to get to the gym twice to lift and didn't swim, but still got our tennis game in. Of course, I've been taking Hayde out running each day as well. We've gotten a cold spell so it's sad to see those 60F sunny weather days gone. It reach 9F Thursday night and has been sitting around freezing the last day or so. Most of our snow is now gone. See pictures below from last weekend after we got back from Toronto. I've also had about a month or so of deadlines at work and hopefully next week will have our last big deadline(year-end). I ended up having to stay up all night Thursday night to get as much work done for a deadline yesterday. We start our new fiscal year April 1 and will get our next year's vacation days.

Below is the new light fixture we found for the kitchen. We had to wait a week or so for it to be taken down from display, but we did finally get it and Jeremy got it installed. I think it looks much nicer than the other modern fixture in our kitchen. Jeremy's currently, as I type, working on getting the old dishwasher that is between the fridge and oven out. We have an idea up our sleeve for more useful space for this small spot, especially since the dish washer is really old and doesn't work very well(we've never used it since the 1st week we moved in and had tried it a few times). The only problem is he's found a few leaky valves so has been spending most of the time trying to get those out and put new ones in(yes it's called for an emergency trip into town for some parts). We now have the kitchen and utility closet pulled apart. He's had a hard time trying to figure out where to turn the water off and what all the other valves do. We finally found it in the main bathroom inside the vanity.

Below are pictures from Toronto, the hotel we stayed at which was perfect - a few blocks from everything. We ate breakfast, in attached cafe both mornings. Friday night after we got there and checked in, we went next door to the bar for a snack and a beer.

We ended up getting a late start, had breakfast and headed to the convention center. It turned out we got there 15 minutes before it opened. We got our tickets and ended up waiting in a really long line before they opened the doors. We couldn't have unplanned that much better than we did. Below is the smallest part of the expo. We had to walk quite a ways thru the convention center to reach the other portion of the show. The next picture is of the Golden Whistle Retriever Trials that we watched at the show. It's 3 sets of tests where the dog has to retrieve three to five duck dummies on command in the correct order using only whistle and hand signals. This is the type of things Jeremy's been trying to work on with Hayde for hunting. We also watched the show before, Big Air, of dogs running and jumping off a platform into a pool to see how far they could jump. It was rather interesting and funny. I didn't get any good pictures from this.

After the show, we decided to hit the CN Tower, which was just around the corner from the Convention Center where the expo was. We got a lift ticket for the pod which takes you all the way up to the top part of the tower. We also got to go see a motion movie which turned out to be about a 15 minute movie/ride of logging trees. We then headed up the elevator to the disc part of the tower to look out. They also have resaurant there. After viewing at this level, we got another elevator ride to the top. On the way back down, we stopped at the disc part and got to go outside. Someone was kind enough to take a picture of us.
We then headed back towards the hotel while we looked for a place to eat.

We found an Italian place and had a very good dinner before we headed back to the room to crash. Below is a picture of the house when we got back from Toronto - much more snow is gone! The only snow that's left is in small spots in the shade. I took Hayde with me for 4 of my 9 miles I had to do once we got back. She looked tired so I didnt want to push her too much more. Apparently, she really was tired, as seen in the following picture I took after I got home and showered. She didn't even lift an eyelid. She had trouble getting up with us the next morning even. Good job Marnie for wearing her out and thanks for watching her while we were gone so she didn't have to go to the kennel.

Last night, we had our dinner party. I had helped Jeremy prepare the veggie spinach lasagna until 10pm Thursday night(then started in on my work) while he continued until about midnight preparing his meatloaf. Yesterday once we got home, we turned the oven on and just had to cook everything and finish cleaning up the last bits of the house. I had gotten a fold up table and folding chairs so we'd have enough table space for everyone. Candice and her friend, Verena (and Anthony) made stuffed portebella caps which were delicious. Chelsea and Brad (and Magnum) brought over the salad and Marnie (and Bean) brought the dessert. Kharren did eventuall show up and ate. Unfortunately, Bean wasn't behaving very well (she has some aggression issues) so Marnie didn't want her to play and kept her in the car most of the evening. Other than that, the evening was successful.

Today, we slept in and then stayed in bed even longer. Finally just before lunch, we got up. Ops, it is nice to get to do that once in a while. We took Hayde for a walk thru the park, then worked on cleaning up the dishes and the kitchen from last night. Jeremy then started in on the dishwasher and it's now 10:30 and the dish washer is in the garage and Jeremy's picking up the last bits and pieces from the mess this has made. Tomrrow, we'll have to go back into town for some more supplies so he can work on building the replacement for the dishwasher. Then, maybe I'll finally get a clean kitchen again! We're hoping we can plan out what we want to do with the bedroom and figure out the supplies we'll need so we can pick those up for next weekend. We keep forgetting we'll have 3-day weekend. I'll post this in the morning since I'm waiting for a movie to hopefully load. Off to get ready for bed and hope for another good, longer sleep since I'm still feeling pretty exhausted from Thursday night. I have a 5 mile run for tomorrrow so it shouldn't be too bad.

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MONDAY -

I didn't get this posted yet so I'll add what else I can to this quick. I'm hoping to still get this movie posted, but it's too long to post as one movie so I've split it into three and am trying to upload it. I've just given up for the time being. Sunday, we made another trip to Home Depot, not an emergency this time, to get some supplies for the small kitchen reno. We also picked up paint and carpet for the master bedroom so hopefully this coming long weekend, we can get the bedroom done. I can't wait!!!! Finally I hope to get all my bedroom things out and enjoy my own room. Anyway, Jeremy started work on a kitchen counter/cabinet extension to fill in where the dishwasher was. We are lacking counter space and he came up with this idea to add a pull-out counter/cutting board. He managed to get it put together and installed by 10pm Sunday night (he's now done with Fri and Sun hockey!). Below are the pictures. We just need to find a cutting board to attach to the top shelve and figure out a cabinet door/covering that will suit.