Day 66 (March 7, 2010): Listening to the birdies

First of all, I am happy to say that Telemiracle raised over $4 million!  I don't know the exact total but it is somewhere in that neighbourhood.  YAY!  Thanks to everyone who supported it.

Our "different thing" today just presented itself to us first thing in the morning.  When we were starting to wake up Ken asked me if I could hear the birds chirping so I listened for a moment and there they were, softly chirping song birds outside of our bedroom window.  We decided to lay in bed for 10 or 15 minutes and just relax and listen to the birds.  This was a luxury for us.  We usually have to jump out of bed and get ready to go to work or get something done on the weekend.  This morning was very peaceful and serene......until a big magpie let out it's screech.  We both laughed out loud at that.  It only screeched once and then took off and we got to listen to the song birds again.  What a nice way to start our Sunday morning!  After that it was a ususal rushy morning, we both had dentist appointments (Ken to pick up his nightguard and me to get fitted for mine) and then Ken went off to help his friend finish the hardwood floors and I had some shopping to do and then watched the end of the Telemiracle telethon.  Now I have to make supper and lunches for tomorrow.  Why does the weekend always go by so quickly?  I'm glad we took a few minutes to enjoy it this morning.

Day 65 (March 6, 2010): Hard Wood Floors and Telemiracle

Today Ken helped his friend install bamboo hardwood floors.  This is the first time he has ever installed hard wood floors.  He has installed laminate click flooring before but not hardwood.  They got alot of work done today and hopefully they will finish the project tomorrow.

Today I watched the Telemiracle telethon.  For those of you who don't know what telemiracle is here is a quote from their website: "Celebrating 34 years this weekend, Telemiracle raises money to assist people with special needs and those that require assistance accessing medical treatment."  Telemiracle is a Kinsmen fundraising activity in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada.  All of the money raised stays in the province of Saskatchewan.  The community that I grew up in, Sturgis,SK, is very dedicated to this cause.  We have our own radio-a-thon every year, called Mini-miracle.  This year was the 30th annual Mini-miracle in Sturgis. As a child I did fundraising and our elementary school sang at Mini-miracle every year.  They still do now.  My family and I always donate money to this cause.  My brother is a Kinsmen member and he helps with the fundraising efforts. So, as you can see, this is a cause that is deep rooted in my community and family history.  In fact, while I was watching the telethon today I saw my cousin, Cheryl Walker, answering phones.  CTV is doing a live stream to the internet so eventhough I am in Edmonton, AB, I am able to watch Telemiracle this year.  For those of you who read this over the next few hours if you want to watch Telemiracle the link is: http://watch.ctv.ca/clip271908%23clip271908#clip271908.  If you are interested in seeing the presentation from my home town, Sturgis, it will be done between noon and 2pm Central Standard Time tomorrow.  I would also really appreciate it if any of our blog readers would donate to this cause. Unfortunately, there have been families from my community who have needed to access this money for medical treatment for their children, so this is really close to home for me.

Thanks!!

Day 64 (March 5th, 2010): 80's Theme Surprise Party!!!!

Tonight was the big night.....the surprise 30th birthday party for our dear friend Audrey.   We had been planning this for weeks so we were so excited that the day was finally here.  As you know from our previous post we planned some great 1980's themed activities.  We also planned our outfits, decorations, food etc.

Here are a few pics from the party......

Here is some of the 80's gear that I bought for myself and Audrey. I wore the black lace glove and the green leg warmers.  I used the belt and the pink stuff to dress up the b'day girl.

Amanda brought a disco ball, gimp (to make bracelets) and multi-coloured nail polish.  You can also see some photographs on the table. We all brought pictures of the b'day girl throughout the years.

Her mom bought this shirt and we all signed it. It said "30 years of Heros and Friends" on it.  We all wrote a name of one of our 80's heros. Mine was Astro Boy.

"30" streamers

HAHA, my husband's 80's workout gear!  He's gonna need to work out after eating all of that dip in front of him!

Heather and I.  She has a great side pony tail with a multi colored scrunchie that matches her plastic earrings.  I am wearing my neon green, bare shoulder shirt, leather jacket, jean skirt and black leggings.  I also crimped my hair with my real crimper from the 80's.

Audrey opening up her 80's wear gifts.  She got the most awesome white star earrings from Amanda.  They looked great with her "Jem" t-shirt.  I also like this picture because Audrey looks cute in it.

BAHAHAHA!!!  This was my favourite moment of the night.  This is Audrey's "Get in Shape Girl" impression.

Cool sunglasses that Heather got her!

Rainbow Bright Ice Cream Cake from Heather

I had to include this photo because it shows Laurie's awesome 80's outfit!!!  Only a very loving mother would put herself through this for her daughter!

Blowing out the candles

Day 63 (March 4, 2010): Change of plans, a couple of times

Today Ken and I both got off work a bit early and it was our intention to go sliding or crazy carpeting because it was a beautiful day out.  Unfortunately it has been a bit too nice out.....all of the snow is melting.  It was actually quite muddy at some of the sliding hills.  This makes me a bit sad.  We still have quite a few "wintery" activities that we wanted to do before the snow melts.  I guess it is possible that we will get another snow storm before March is over.  This is Alberta afterall......

Anyway, we went to the sliding hill in Mill Creek Ravine only to discover the water running in little streams down the hill to a pit of mud at the bottom.  I just want everyone to know that we are not completely oblivious to our weather; we did know that it had been warming up and things were starting to melt.  I took my snow pants with me, not to keep warm but to keep me dry.  However, I really did think that on the hills in the ravine there would be a bit more snow than on the plowed streets.....

........I was wrong

See the mud pit at the bottom?

In this picture it looks like there might be enough snow to slide in some parts but it is a bit deceiving.  When you step on it, the snow is melting underneath.  It is so wet and soggy that when you walk your feet just sink down to the sloppy ground underneath. 

So after we discovered that we couldn't go sliding we decided to go for a walk in the ravine. We had never been to that part of the ravine before. We started to walk North down the ravine and noticed some firepits and picnic tables. I suggested to Ken that we could come back there in the summer time for a picnic because it was such a nice spot. Then suddenly I smelled something foul in the air. We looked over to see this structure and sign:

The sign says "MillCreek Spill Containment".  YUCK!!  It wreaked!

So off we went, back south. It was really a nice day but my feet were getting soaked eventhough I had boots on. We decided to leave the ravine for a dryer spot. We were close to one of the discount sports equipment stores and we wanted to see what they had in stock so we went there next. Particularly we are looking for snow shoes or cross country skis for next winter. We found some snow shoes that were quite a good price so we are thinking of picking those up for next year. However, they are the metal frame type. I was kind of thinking of getting the wooden ones. If anyone knows anything about snowshoes feel free to give us some advice!

A bright sunny day!

Eventhough our day didn't go as planned we had a nice afternoon and on the bright side we can still use sliding as one of our 365 different things on another day!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I changed the settings on our blog to allow comments from anyone, not just blogger users. So anyone who reads our blog online can now leave us comments even if they are not a member. We look forward to hearing from you!

Day 62 (March.3, 2010): Free online programs and apps

Today we found an article on msn.ca called "the best free stuff online". It was intriguing to me because I am not very tech savvy so I wouldn't find these things on my own.  Basically the focus of the article was free programs and applications that you can download for free from the internet.  It had all sorts of things from photo editing programs to antivirus programs, audio and video programs, social networking sites and some really cool applications for phones and computers. I particularly liked one of the desktop dowloads.  You can download a program to create a 3D desktop. It looked really cool.  I am still thinking of downloading it but so far I haven't.  What is holding me back is the fact that my laptop is sometimes slow so I don't know what will happen if I put more stuff on it..........as I said, I am not very tech savvy!  It still amazes me, all of the stuff that you can do on/with the internet.  I wish that I had more knowledge about it because it does intimidate me from time to time.  I know there are programs out there that I would find useful but for now I am sticking to what I know!

Day 61 (March 2, 2010): Learning about water droplets

Ken's mom actually sent us this link in an email. It is kind of cool.....one of those little things about life that we would never know if we didn't have modern technology. It makes me wonder what else I don't know about our world.

http://www.flixxy.com/water-drop.htm

Day 60 (March 1, 2010): 80's Music and Game

Okay, so previously I couldn't tell you what we did today because it was part of the planning process for a surprise party that was going to be held on Friday March 5th for our friend Audrey.  I couldn't put the info in this blog because she reads it! So here it is:

Today I had to work late so in the morning before work I searched the internet for all of the top 10 songs for every month from 1980-1989.  Our friend Audrey is turning 30 on March 4th and we are planning a surprise party for her on Friday March 5th.  Since she was born in 1980 we decided to go with an 80's theme.  My job was to find out the song names and artists that we wanted to download to make a cd for the party.  When Ken got home in the evening he did the downloading and made the cd's.  We also made a "Name that 80's TV Show Tune" game.  I searched different 80's tv shows and cartoons and made a list.  Ken downloaded them so we could play the game at the party.  It was really fun finding all of the tv shows that I grew up watching.  "Who's The Boss", "Perfect Strangers", "The Facts of Life", "Magnum PI", "Hercules", "Gummi Bears", "Alf", "Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers", "Fraggle Rock"  etc. etc. etc.  We made sure to include cartoons as well as sitcoms.  We got a ton of good ones.  I am so excited for the party!