Happy Birthday LiL Kate....

Hey girl - I know we had dinner to celebrate your birthday together - but thought I would be post a little picture and wish you a very Happy Birthday today.



Hope you had a great day with your family and friends. Love "The Stewy's"

Wow... check out this new feature...

Hi everyone. I was just reading about a new feature in Blogger. They have worked together with Picasa Web Albums so that every picture I post of my blog gets put into a photo album at Picasa. This means you can go to my photo album their to see all of my pictures in one album without reading all the individual posts.

They only have the pictures that have been posted since December but they are saying that the goal is to get all of the pictures that I have posted to the blog since the beginning.

You will find my blogs photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/Justaferrytripaway/JustAFerryTripAway?authkey=_LB3WaVLW4c

I have added a link on the right side of blog so you can go there anytime.

St. Patrick's Day Dinner

Now that we are settling into the Comox Valley I have decided to have a theme dinner every month. This month of course was St. Patrick's Day.

We invited our good friends and old landlords Bill and Dororthy over for our first theme dinner. Here are some pictures from our night.

As you can see we have green appetizers - all the veges are green, green dip and green olives.

Our dinnertable all set to go. Green green green

Even typed up an Irish Blessing for the table.

A walk back in time...

Awhile ago I talked about doing a post on some of the houses that our family has lived in over the years. Tonite I thought I would take a walk back in time.

When we got married we lived for about 6 months in an apartment building in Burnaby but after we found out we were going to have our first baby we decided to move into a bigger place. This duplex is in Newton (Surrey) and was Brad's first home. We lived on the left hand side and back then there was only a carport (no garage). My first 'Mother's Day' when Brad still in the hospital Tim and I went to a plant nursery and bought a few little shrubs for the front garden. I can't tell if they are still the same ones or not. Brad's room was the front bedroom upstairs (the window you see). Brad actually lived a few blocks from here a year or so ago.

When Brad was 2 years old we bought our first house. It was so exciting and we were so young. I drove around last summer and finally found the right street - check out the trees. It is actually quite a pretty street now with the trees so grown up. That is our house right at the end of the street.

The house looks pretty good up close considering it is almost 30 years old and didn't cost us very much money. We had a really nice backyard with some big trees for shade and some privacy. There was a half cul-de-sac at the end of the road and it turned right as you came to our house.

This next house is the saddest for me. This was a really nice house in a nice neighbourhood but no one has ever really taken care of the yard. Makes me kind of sad. Katie was born shortly after we moved in this house. And 5 years later the kid came along. Yes, that would be our baby TJ - I know, I know - he is all grown up now.

Looks kind of sad don't you think.. The row of trees along the right side are huge and should have been trimmed down and the front has no flower gardens to speak of.. sad sad sad. We built the garage in when we lived there because we need another bedroom when TJ came along. Brad had the bedroom right in the front of the garage.

This next house was probably the whole families favourite. We spent 15 years in this house.. we had some good times here.

Look at that nice green grass and all the flowers.. This picture was taken when the house was up for sale as you can see by the sign in the front. I think we all still miss this house in some ways.

Everyone should be so lucky to get to live in as great a family neighbourhood as this house was in. To live there all those years and have that stability of friends and schools was just such a blessing to us all.

History Continued...

But all good things usually come to an end. The kids were all finished school and I really felt that our 4 bedroom home was calling out for a young family to come and live in it. So we put it up for sale and that era in our lives came to an end.

The next house was something else. We bought it for an investment - it was a beautiful home inside (2 years old) but the outside was the saddest thing you ever saw. We wanted to redo the whole yard to make it as spectacular as the inside of the house was. The people who had built this place put all their money on the inside - which meant there wasn't anything left for doing the landscaping.

The front steps weren't even painted. We did get that much done and also Tim worked and worked on the back yard. The people in the neighbourhood would walk by on weekend while he was working and tell him how beautiful it looked.

These pictures were taken when we first moved in. The house had 4 porches on it. It really was something else. As beautiful as it was I never really felt like it was me so I wasn't sad when we sold it and moved. The big disappointment was that we never got the whole yard finished. Tim was well on his way to making it a very special yard.

Here are a few pictures taken when it was in process..

So now we have a new project.. We can hardly wait till the weather changes and we can get out in the yard. We will do this one as a team.. I don't do the building part but I am definitely going to be involved with all the yard work.

More pics from 'Family Week'

Our visit with all the kids was awesome. I have a few more pictures I wanted to post from the family reunion week. Chelsey was the master chef one night and her - oh so able assistant was none other than "The Kid". Needless to say the two younguns did a great job. Dinner was great.

Brad made dessert that nite also.. I don't have a picture of the dessert which is really too bad as it was absolutely delicious.

A picture of him and Kate.. oh my they are all growed up.

Chelsey brought a very special gift with her.. She painted a sign for me so that all will know when the enter "SHER'S BUNKIE'. I LOVE IT......

We found just the right spot for the sign.

Just so you all know.. Chelsey cut the wood out herself and painted everything on it - including the heart. We think she should go into business. Thanks Chelsey (I love it)

Snow in March... spring where are you?

Hi everyone. So I woke up this morning, the first day of March to snow. I took it pretty well actually - but the fact that the sun was shining beautifully all day did help quite a bit.

I took these pictures looking out of the windows in the bunkie.. I don't think I had ever shown you guys how long our driveway/lane is. This lane comes right down into our backyard and so that is why the garage doors face the back of the house and not the front.. I love not having to look at those big doors consuming your view when you look at the house from the front. It is a little long to shovel when the snow comes though.... These pictures were actually taken yesterday.

This one is taken from the window above the garage doors. You can see where Tim parks his truck. The fence isn't finished yet but it's coming.

This one is taken looking out the side window right into the back yard.

I took Jessie out for a walk this afternoon. That would be our 4th day in a row. I realized today that I am going to have to stop taking her on my big walks - it just takes too much out of her. I guess this means I have to go on two walks - a long one and a short one with the dog.

I am feeling bad tonite because she hasn't had supper and she is just curled up on the couch on top of the pillows and she is tuckered right out.

Poor girl... I feel so bad.