Broadway night, Les Miserables

Well, it really has been a long time since I've posted.  The past few months have been hectic to say the least. Ontario had a Provincial election last week and for four weeks prior to that I worked in the election office as a recruiter. I do this every election.  It is four weeks of long hours and hard work, but it's worth is in the end. (More on that later).

Our finale of the Broadway event went off really well. Wendell was Jean Valjean, Rebekah played Cosette and Andrew & I were in the chorus (Andrew was the flag waver as well as singing!)   Here is a photo. I had been through makeup already, but Wendell hadn't. They did a great makeup job on him and he looked so old and sick!

Wendell let his hair grow and also grew a beard for this performance. I don't know who was more anxious for him to shave it off - him or me!!  But it did add to the character though.

I don't have any with the kids yet as I didn't take my camera, so am waiting for Rebekah to send me some shots.

It was a lot of fun to do and I was very proud of my husband and daughter for their performances.  Wendell nailed it and so did Rebekah!!!

So regarding the election work.......the money earned from it is paying for a two week trip to England in October/November, for our anniversary.  We always go to Maine for our anniversary, as many of you will know, but we found a little fisherman's cottage on the Yorkshire coast (in Staithes) online a year or so ago and said that one day we would love to go for our anniverary. Well this is the year!! We also have a place booked for a couple of nights in Derbyshire and we will also stay with family.  We are so excited about this and feel like a couple of kids.  We are busy planning the itinerary already!  Of course, our two weeks in Maine at the end of August comes first.  Can't wait to see Norah on the beach this year!!

Spring has sprung.......finally!

After weeks of reading British blogs and looking at all your lovely flowers in your gardens I can finally say that Spring has come to Ottawa.  We are no longer looking at white, but things are beginning to green up!  It feels like it's been such a long winter.  Oh wait a minute - it has been!!  We have had snow on the ground since this post (please note the date of Nov 27th!!) That's a few days shy of five months! This has been a long winter for more reasons than one as well.  Having this frozen shoulder really set me back a few months and I felt caged in for most of the winter.  Now don't get me wrong - I do love to hibernate in the cold months, but I like it to be on my terms - not the fact that I CAN'T drive or go out.

But all is getting better every day and with physio it continues to improve. At least I can drive now and have a lot more mobility.  I cleaned the house from top to bottom in the last two days and the windows are getting a good clean inside and out on Saturday.  We have the kind that pop out to clean so I won't be climbing any ladders (I wouldn't do that with a good shoulder!)

To celebrate this lovely sunny weather we're having, I decided to whip up some new napkins yesterday. I like the bright sunny colours

I put some lighter bedding on our bed too

Gotta love Spring!

We love basketball in our family. All three of our kids played it when they were younger and Wendell coached all three as well. Each March the NCAA has a tounrament which is televised and it has been a long standing tradition in our house..Andrew & Kelsi don't have cable TV so they move in for three weekends in a row so that Andrew can watch with his Dad.  We have a lot of fun and this year Norah was old enough to watch a little and cheer the teams on.  Here she is on her Grandad's lap.

And on Grandma's lap looking out the bedroom window (See all the snow)

She came into our room every morning and joined us in bed.  Then after I'd made it one day she played in the pillows!

What a cheeky face!

For Easter weekend we went to Palmyra in upstate New York with Alex & Rebekah to go to our temple there.  It was such a nice weekend.  The sun was shining and we enjoyed being together. I love Easter and the newness of life it brings.  How grateful I am for all that I have because of the events of Easter so many years ago.  An event that changed history forever.  I hope you enjoyed the weekend however you celebrate.

Long time no see!

I have heard from a few of you through email and I think you were wondering where I'd got to. Well it's been a combination of life things.  Mainly I just haven't got around to blogging for a while, but here I am now and we'll see how we go.

Our stay in Maine was wonderful.  We originally had planned to leave Ottawa on Thursday and stay in Vermont overnight before arriving in Maine on the Friday for three nights.  Well, as it happened, Vermont was due for a huge snowstorm on the Wednesday (18 inches to be precise!) so not wanting to drive through that, we decided to leave on the Tuesday and get ahead of it.  We stayed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in a Marriott hotel in Concord , New Hampshire.  Our church has a temple in Boston which is only a little over an hour from Concord, so we went there on the Wednesday and when the storm hit Concord (not nearly as badly as it hit Vermont) on Thursday we hit the exercise room, and hot tub and played board games all day while the snow fell.  It was very relaxing.  When we arrived,our fridge wasn't working so they upgraded us to a deluxe room with a jacuzzi tub right in the room.  That was nice.

Friday we left for Maine and below is the view from our balcony.

We had our own private hot tub outside on our balcony and it was wonderful.

We lay in it nice and warm while the temperature outside was slightly cooler to say the least!

It was so good to see our litle town in winter at last!

Even more deserted than the Fall.

My sweetie putting the milk away.

And the view from our bedroom balcony and window.

It was a much needed break for both of us and we ended up staying an extra night. so a short vacation that started out as Thursday to Monday became a week as we came home on Tuesday.  The pace was slow and we drank it all in, walking on the beach every day and loving every minute!

The Billowhouse puts fresh cookies in your room every day and when we arrived, Judi had left this little message for us - it truly is our second home!

Our little Norah celebrated her second birthday in March and Adam & Alicia came down for the celebration.

She was a lot more interested in her presents this year!

The hit of the day was a litttle "Dora the explorer" She carried it around with her the whole time.

Life will be busy for the next few weeks as we are involved in our annual Broadway show at church in June and rehearsals are just beginning.  Wendell & Rebekah are Jean Valjean and Cosette in the finale of Les Miserables and Myself, Andrew & Kelsi are in the chorus.  It is always fun to be involved.  Don't think I posted photos last year, but Rebekah & I were in the finale which was "You can't stop the beat" from Hairspray.  We danced and sang and had an absolute blast!

This was taken in the dressing room just after our performance

 And this was after the show with "Alpheba" and Mark Mitchell who is the genius behind the show.  He writes the music arrangements and conducts the orchestra and pretty much puts his life on hold each year for a few months to do this.

So that's life in a nutshell for now. Hope life is treating you all well and you are enjoying Spring.  I feel like I come alive every year at this time of year1

Seaside here we come!!!!!!

We just booked today for three nights in our lovely Billowhouse!

This is where we were supposed to go for Valentine's day but due to my injury and also the weather (bad snowstorm) we had to cancel.  We were throwing around the idea today of taking off tomorrow for a long weekend and thought about Maine, however, they are expecting a bad storm on Monday (the day we would come home), so we didn't want to risk that.  We have booked for the weekend of the 14th and hopefully the snow won't be so bad then.  We will leave Thursday afternoon and stay in Vermont for the night so that we only have a 3 1/2 hour drive on Friday (half way) and will have that much longer at the ocean and we will drive home on the Monday.

Oh how we long for the beach.  It doesn't matter what time of year it is.

I can almost smell it now!!

Two weeks from today!!

In the bleak mid winter

 February may be the shortest month of the year, but in Ottawa where we don't see grass from December (or this year, late November) until mid to late March, February seems pretty long.  In October I bought snow pants so that I could go play in the snow with Norah.  However, with this frozen shoulder of mine, that will have to wait until next winter.  We had Norah for a sleepover on Friday and Granddad took her out in the back garden on the toboggan.  We have a small hill in our garden and he even built her a snow fort!

As you can see, we still have a copious amount of the white stuff.  Wendell had to dig a path for her to walk as it was near impossible for her!!

Lots of reading as usual

and smiley face pancakes for breakfast. Sleepovers are the best!!

P.S. For all of you who have been asking (thank you so much), my shoulder is improving slowly but surely. It is a long raod, but the cortisone shot really helped and now we can start the rehab.

Happy Valentine's day

I saw these cookies a few days ago on Jennifer's lovely blog.

I decided to make some and told Jennifer that I would post a photo.  They are really good and if you want to try something sweet for the day of love, give them a try.

Have a lovely day with your sweetheart and help yourself to a cookie!

"Oh Canada!"

I love the Olympic games.  Last Summer's in London was wonderful.  The last winter games in Vancouver were excellent (didn't hurt that Canada killed on the medals!!) I'm not sure if I prefer the Summer or Winter games.  I love them all really.  I do enjoy watching the figure skating.  As a young child I loved it as well and loved to pretend that I was a figure skater.  We had an open area at the back of our living room which was my "skating rink".  I would put talcum powder on the floor to make it slippery and slide around.  I never learned how to skate as ice rinks were few and far between in Manchester in those days (don't even know if we had one). But in my imagination I was a champion!

Go Canada!!! Ten medals already!!

Thank you for all the comments about my shoulder.  I did see the Sports medicine specialist yesterday and after much deliberation, had a cortisone shot.  It can take up to a week to feel any difference in pain, so we will just have to see. I am still able to do things around the house if I am careful.  Vacuuming is harder and also ironing, but I do it slowly.  I am not even able to drive Wendell's automatic transmission car, as it is still too painful.  I will be glad when I can drive again as I feel very dependant on Wendell to get me places.  He is so good about it though and doesn't mind.