The Waterfront - Spring Pictures

Hardy Park

For a number of reasons I dragged my family to the waterfront this Sunday afternoon. I don't think they were properly impressed. However, I was excited to get there and take some pics.

Hardy Park Bandstand

Why, you ask?? Thank you. I love open-ended questions that make me chatter on.

Tunnel Bay Marina - empty boat slips. The big red building is the Boardwalk Landing. It's kind of a lone, modern pimple on our more traditional waterfront, but not for long. It is soon to be joined by the controversial Maritime Discovery Centre.

I have a new camera. It's not fancy. It was a great deal at the local grocery store where they had a tax-free deal over the weekend. Plus, it was already $10 off. So, -$10 + (-13%) = a good deal. My loving husband, trying to spend money for my direct enjoyment and pleasure, dragged me, kicking and screaming to the store for this camera. I told him we would just be looking. I like my old camera. It just doesn't work so well anymore. This means that with increasing frequency, the afore mentioned loving husband could be found at the kitchen table dissecting my mostly-dead camera. He would fiddle with it, shake it, remove a part here and there and then put it back together. Once, he even put back the extra screws he had from a previous tear-down. Good times. Loving Husband made the point that if I bought this camera, I wouldn't need new software, a new dock, a new and expensive rechargeable battery or anything else. This camera was an upgrade of my current model, yet a model the store is selling off to make way for the most current model. So, new camera for pictures.

Tunnel Bay Marina and Blockhouse Island Pier on the right.

Matt and Michelle in Korea have just attended a Cherry Blossom Festival in their Korean community. I have to say, I'm a little jealous. I think my favourite part of spring would be when the apple trees blossom, so I can just imagine the cherry blossoms. I needed to get out and collect some evidence for Matt and Michelle about the current spring-like conditions we're enduring in their hometown.

St. Lawrence River looking West

My less-than-enthused family also needed something to do on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Outdoors. because I said so. The Boy Child ran off and found a street hockey game to be part of so I borrowed a different boy child so The Girl Child would not be lonely during our outing. Just kidding. She had a friend over.

Along the waterfront portion of the Brock Trail and, below, the gazebo at the Yacht Club.

And that was our Sunday walk by the river. It was cold. The wind was out in full force. But it was bright and lovely and we all got a good dose of Vitamin D. Much needed after all the hibernation that's been going on around here.

That's all for now. Now we wait patiently and wait for Matt or Michelle to grace us with an anon Blogger comment.

♥Bonni

No News Is Not Always Good News

I wish I had some good, exciting news or photos to show off for you.

Even my update will be boring. But, here goes.

No kayaking on the weekend for me. Kids are still sick. I'm having a hard time getting this neck pain under control. Blog changes are progressing along in the background. Not as quick as I had expected, but I'm working on it. K is now an official 'babysitter'.

I had been remarking of late about the 'economic downturn' and questioning whether it would be so apparent in our small town as it seemed to be in the larger centers. Because in my little world, things had been ticking along all happy and regular-like. Leave it to me to open my big mouth. Last week a beloved cafe closed it's doors. This week, it seems the economic downturn will strike closer to home. It will take some time before I learn how the changes on the table will effect my extended family, but change is here and it is not welcomed.

We're all feeling a little sad, tired and discouraged. It will pass. One day at a time.

An Update, A Rant, News and Some Whining

Hello. Some Random thoughts for you all today.

First Thought Not only did R have food poisoning then a fever, he now has a cold virus to rival all colds. If it's not enough to have one male in the house who is ill, the other male in the house is close to death. I'm not exaggerating, he said it himself. I think he might becoming down with whatever it is that is 'killing' R.

Second Thought The city has made a decision to not hire beach patrol lifeguards this summer. Who cares, you say? I care. It seems I care a lot. More than I should? Last week I read an article that mentioned the Recreation Director employed by our lovely city thought it might be a good idea to get rid of the summer lifeguards, a savings of $18,000. Then, in the next breath, she wants to hire a full-time arbourist at a measly cost of something like $6,000. Of course, it's only $6,000 if we get rid of the lifeguards... I never thought council would actually vote in favour of ditching our only supervised waterfront. But they did. And I'm angry for a number of reasons. Perhaps I'll blog about it when I can collect my thoughts somewhat intelligently.

Third Thought I have whiplash. At least it feels like whiplash. Can one get whiplash from skating 13K? Goodness, I am so out of shape, every time I move I hurt myself. I'm not sleeping because my back and neck hurt. I even stepped out of my box and bought some muscle relaxants. Man, a dose of those can make one very dizzy! And it says to drug up with 2 pills 4 times a day. 4 times! Not very likely.

Fourth Thought Being so frustrated with hurting myself every other stair climb, I have decided to soldier though and take advantage of exercising opportunities. My dad has a couple of kayaks. He was thinking about going for a quick paddle this weekend so I signed right up for an early morning paddle on Saturday. Dad is not too keen on the idea. He's worried about me flipping the boat and succumbing to hypothermia in the icy river before reaching the shore, leaving the children motherless. A bit alarmist of him, don't you think? Just for the record, flipping a kayak usually takes some effort. I don't think I have the range of motion or the muscle strength to accomplish that at this particular time. At any rate, I will paddle close to the shore. Hopefully, I'll have some pics up Saturday afternoon for you.

Fifth Thought Once final upcoming blog change for me. I'm tired of trying to tweak things in html unsuccessfully. SO I have been prowling about for a template that I like. A template that I can put my own header into, or not. A free template that I will be happy with so that I can spend time on actual blogs and links, labels and archives. I'm so looking forward to it. I'm sharing this thought with you so that if you happen to pop by in the next couple of days and my blog is inaccessible, you'll know why. I don't want to do a live change. I want to surprise everyone with the new wallpaper all at once. It will be so exciting. So if you're reading this and you'd like your link in my new sidebar, leave a comment and let me know sooner than later.

Sixth and Final Thought of the Day On the homeschooling front, K, the girl child, will be participating in a Red Cross Babysitter and First Aid Training tomorrow. She will be joining a number of other homeschoolers and their siblings for the day. This will necessitate a trip to the store to procure brown-bag lunch trimmings. I think I will leave the dying males at home and K and I will head out shortly before I take any drugs. I think we will also pick up some ColdFx (even if it is too late) and other throat soothing remedies. I wish these males would drink tea. It would be so much easier. Oh yes, homeschooling: not much has happened here this week. K is keeping up with her math all on her own. Pleasant to see such mature independence on her part. The kids are keeping up with their book club reading - many of the selections they are asking me to read aloud to them. I'm glad they're not too old for that yet. I was going to say that we're taking an early March Break, but a little more likely is that the February blahs are occurring. That's be about right on schedule for me - I'm a notorious procrastinator.

♥Bonni

Missing M & M

Mr.M, my brother, and Ms.M, his fiancee are off on a year-long adventure. They are living it up as millionaires in South Korea.

Of course, I think most people are millionaires if they are earning a paycheque in South Korean won. But I digress.

Mr.M & Ms.M are teaching English to students for a year. They're also taking advantage of any and every travel/adventure opportunity that pops up.










The kids and I have been in regular contact with Mr.M and Ms.M (a fact I directly attribute to Ms.M as Mr.M has been known to be...well...we'll just say he focuses on the task at hand to fully immerse himself in the pleasure and experience of the moment). I am especially enjoying Mr.M's very colourful play-by-play descriptions of his Korean adventures to date. I'm sure he's showing his best betrothed behaviour for Ms.M.




M & M left just before Christmas, due to return in time for Christmas 2009.

Most recently, they've been able to post some pictures for us to see. Tiny Korean apartments are a good substitute for marriage counselling, me thinks. They'll know everything about each other well before they're due to fly home, I'm sure.




We are missing M and M very much.

We miss seeing them around town.

We miss having them coach R's soccer team.

R and I miss our Friday morning dates at the rink with Mr.M watching my other brother play hockey.

K is missing Ms. M's girly, trendy influence.

We miss seeing what sort of crazy local adventures they participate in.

We miss watching Mr. M at football and basketball.





As I'm sure you've surmised, M & M are great fun. I'm sure those Korean kids are having a blast learning copious amounts of English. Goodness knows, lessons would be fun if not informative.

Perhaps they'll be feeling altruistic and they'll let me share some of their travel notes with the blogosphere. Hopefully I'll have more to tell you about M & M in the days to come.

♥Bonni

Rideau Canal Skating

Thursday was remarkably Spring like. With very little planning, the kids and I, with my mom, jumped in the car and drove the hour and a bit to Dow's Lake Pavilion in Ottawa to do a little skating on the Rideau Canal. It's great the way they make skating on the canal so convenient. It lessens the blow of a $12 parking lot.

We stashed our boots in the white dome everyone is headed to in the pic below and we started out.

For those of you who have been so kind as to post pics of your adventures (Cristina and Marina) and your wonderful countryside (Dorothy) I figured I'd throw in some stark contrast. Having a scant 400 years of history in this country, there's little in the way of 'ancient architecture'. But, the canal itself is a marvel and the other bits are interesting.

Here we have the football stadium and below that, Lansdowne Park.
A bit closer to downtown you can see the YMCA tower to the left of the old Museum of Civilization 'castle' behind the bridge. There's another canal access point as well. They are all over the place. There's little to no official parking for the canal, but there's a lot of steps and seats and 'you are here' maps.

There's K skating by the University of Ottawa building. There's a big, lit up greenhouse on the top of the high rise.

I think anyone who has seen any advertising at all for the Rideau Canal Skating Rink has seen a picture like this. The roof line of the Chateau Laurier can be seen on the horizon.

Here we are in the heart of Ottawa. The Parliament buildings to the left and the old train station on the right. How I ever got to the ripe old age of 34 without ever eating a Beaver Tail, I don't know. But I couldn't let the same unfortunate thing happen to my kids. R's not a fan of sticky-sugary-sweet, so he held out for fries. I tell you, one Maple Beaver Tail is about as much stick-sugary-sweet as any one person can take. And that's saying something coming from this professional sweet tooth.

R eventually got his fries. Most of which were eaten on the go.

A kilometre from the end of our skate, all 13km of it, the kids took a brief break. The temperature had started to drop noticeably and we were definitely done. It was a great afternoon. Really, so easy to do. Living so close to Ottawa, it's really something we should do more. But, it's not to be this year. It was the last day of the season to skate. I'm glad we were able to fit it in.

Sickies

After our skating adventure on the Rideau Canal on Thursday (pics and blog to follow) we came home with an additional house guest. At least R did.

For 12 hours, he hosted the wonderful effects of food poisoning.

This was especially disappointing as R had a Friday night boys' night with friends planned - dinner and a '67s game in Ottawa. I called and cancelled for R on Friday morning. I wasn't very popular with anyone. I'm glad I did, though, as R certainly wasn't bouncing back very quickly.

R slept most of Friday away with a curious little fever. K made plans to get picked up by my mom and spend the night with her. They do girl stuff together like watch old episodes of Full House for hours on end. R and I hung out reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He thought he might like some gelato so we took a short car trip. He only had two small bites, but it stayed down. We were making progress!

K arrived home this morning, pale as death. She flopped on the couch and hasn't moved. No fever (yet?) but no appetite, energy or joie de vivre. Interesting.

I'd just like to note that when they were babies, the kids never got sick together. Any cold or other ailment was always spared the other until the first was mostly recovered. Most recently, this was experienced last Spring with the Chicken Spox. A lovely month-long affair.

R didn't appreciate being left alone in his bed while I was taking care of things around the house. K didn't feel up to moving over on the couch to make room for her brother. I was getting frustrated running up and down with pillows and water and the dog underfoot and can you get the curtains now mom and maybe I would like a straw now that I think about it and arrgh!

The cot! Years ago I bought a cot when the family bed was shrinking. It's come in handy over the years. Today I employed it in the living room.

So here we are on a lovely Spring-link Saturday afternoon. Cooped up in the darkened living room feeling very run down. R is perking up and is keeping down a generous helping (for a sick person) of soup. K just feels like dozing. Everyone is much more content now that they are lying down - separate but together. The dog is happier - and less underfoot - as well.


♥Bonni

Out Vacuuming. Be Back...Later

The Dyson has landed.

It's light. It's powerful. It's quieter than my last vacuum. Its hose reaches a full flight of stairs without having to lift the main unit off the floor. It sucks up things in the general vicinity of the powerbar. Amazing.

I'm busy vacuuming. When I can wrestle the silly thing away from others. I'll be back to blog once the novelty has worn off.

And, of course, I must post the requsite picture of the nasty bits we've been living with for who knows how long. There's less of these now.

♥Bonni

The Vacuum Is Dead. Again.

The vacuum is dead.

Again.

This is the third one in ten-years-minus-three-weeks. And I was trying to be oh-so careful with this latest model. Especially after B told me - in the gentlest terms possible - that I was a teensy bit hard on things, that I wasn't the most graceful housekeeper and that it would make his life complete if I could please, please be careful with the newest member of our appliance family. But that was a little more than two years ago.

I felt a little sick when the vacuum just sort of droned to a stop three quarters of the way across the rug. I felt a little sick when it wouldn't turn on even after I emptied out all the filters and spoke gently to it and gave it a time out and plugged it into a different outlet. I felt a little sick when B took it apart, right there in the living room and began stripping it of parts and wires. I felt downright nauseous when, two and a half hours later, B announced the vacuum was no more.

Not only can I be clumsy and graceless when cavorting around the house with a vacuum in tow, but I can curse myself. The day before this wretched event I was visiting with my sister. We were talking about house-y things when I told her that me next vacuum was going to be a Dyson. And that I was sure I'd get another two or three years out of my current model giving me ample time to save up my pocket change in anticipation of the big event.

Sure enough, 12 hours later, the Universe decided to have a big laugh at my expense.

So, after both B and I came to terms with the fact that the vacuum could not be economically resuscitated, we sat down to have another little chat. In all seriousness, it was a two sided discussion about investing in something that was going to do a good job for us for a number of years. Hopefully enough years so that when K flies the nest, she can load it up in the back of the car when departing for her post-childhood adventures.

Given our daily use of a vacuum due to our copiously shedding dog, we decided on the Dyson DC25. Works well on all floors, lots of power, large receptacle for dust and dog hair, not too heavy and a good long reach. I'm excited to try out the ball it rides on. I'm hoping it's manoeuvrability will mask some of my clunking around.

The vacuum delivery man, Mr. Purolator, is supposed to arrive with this precious package sometime this coming week. I'm very excited. B is excited that I am excited. I'm even more excited since I used the shop-vac on the living room area rug this evening. That was an exercise in patience if there ever was one. Why must the husky shed in the winter?? And why must each hair weave itself into the fibers of the rug? Is it necessary, really?? I digress.

I know you're all as excited as I am for the arrival of our investment, my birthday present, K's future housewarming gift, the dog-shed-containment-system. I'll keep you posted.

♥Bonni

Cooperation

I have great kids. Really. They're smart and creative, entertaining and introspective, thoughtful and loving.

However.

Sometimes they cause me to be speechless. Sometimes they pull a stunt that is particularly ridiculous. More than once I've called my mother-in-law to ask such things as: 'Is the child supposed to be able to scale such heights at this young age?' and 'But why does the child insist on surfing toys down the stairs...repeatedly?' and 'At what age exactly did your son stop talking without pause?' Because surely, such behaviour must be intrinsic to my In-Law's side of the family. Because otherwise, I'd be tempted to call in a professional. Mostly for my sanity as such things make absolutely no sense to me. And I had a couple of brothers and a testosterone-heavy set of older cousins.

It's been quite a while since any stunt-like implausible behaviour has happened. Sure enough, as soon as I let down my guard, R shows me the lump on his head.

A half hour after said lump was inflicted on his person. By a snow shovel. Wielded by his sister. Because they were 'play fighting' in the snow. What does a mother say to that??!

Who swings a snowshovel at anyone's head?!!?!?? No wonder he was lying down in the driveway he that he had supposedly gone out to shovel!

Anyway, as they say, 'all's well that ends well'. I found my words. K apologized and R was forgiving. It was cold enough out that any swelling had been kept to a minimum. Perhaps the bruise will be unnoticeable...there, on the middle of his forehead. <sigh>

The driveway did get shoveled and soon enough the two of them were holed up at the computer working on a project together. R dictates and organizes while K types.

So what is it? A small lapse in common sense due to burgeoning hormones? Were they stunned by the cold? Perhaps there is something to the 'violent video games = violent children' argument. Whatever it is, it's fleeting. As most of the time, it is just the two of them, holed up somewhere working on something, helping each other, putting up with the other. I think they would be lost without the other around.

K's 11th Birthday

On birthdays we have gifts as soon as the birthday person wakes up. 'Why not celebrate the whole day?' was our reasoning.

So, here is K, fresh out of bed on the 23rd of December. B took the day off work so we dragged him out of bed as well - to witness the beginnings of birthday celebrations: a couple of gifts.

K had been saving for a few months and was hoping to have enough saved for 1/2 an iPod touch. We had agreed to split the cost with her. As a bit of a surprise, we bought it early.

Amid the Christmas decorations, there are the traditional balloons and birthday banner.

K is modelling her birthday toque. It was a good find as she loves wearing hats and it matches her coat. She's a pre-teen now, she tells me, fashion is becoming fairly important, mom.

When asked what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday, she wanted to have lunch out with B's mom and her husband. Here are her and I at East Side Mario's. K ordered the pasta off the 'big' menu. No more of the rinky-dink kid's menu for her...or so she says.

After lunch, we picked up the pre-ordered birthday cake. The kids like to go to the bakery to pick out a sugar rush on their birthdays. A couple of years ago, K only had Christmas cakes to pick from. That was ok with her at the time, but she later confessed to secretly preferring a more celebratory theme. Therefore, we now pre-order. Actually, with K's newly diagnosed peanut allergy, I ask for the cake to be baked first thing in the morning when all the equipment has been freshly cleaned and before it's had the chance to be graced with any peanut particles for the day.

Happy 11th, K. Here's to many more.

Christmas 2008 Pictures

I promised I would put up some pictures for Uncle M. and Almost-Aunt M. who decided to go gallivanting off to Korea for a year or so. They managed to miss Christmas by about 10 days. Of course, we had a full-fledged Christmas dinner for them before they left. I hear that Christmas in Korea is a lover's holiday rather than a commercial gift-grab/religious celebration ala North American standards.

Without further ado, here's some of our Christmas pictures: full flash, no photoshop, taken on the fly.
This is a pic of the kids' first 'Christmas Pageant' (Dec.19/08). Together with a couple of HSing friends they learned a French carol and played out the Nativity. K got to be Mary as she was the only person able to provide a doll to be used as baby Jesus. We have a very male dominated HSing community!

Here's a pic of K in snow past her knees on the 21st. We got quite the blanket of snow just in time for Christmas. Of course, in the last week it has rained and warmed so much that most of it is gone.

A lovely pic of the kids in front of the freshly decorated tree. They're so co-operative.

Here they are receiving a lesson from B. in how to properly hang candy canes on the tree. Apparently there is a particularly successful technique that should be utilized.

More to follow...maybe tomorrow...

♥Bonni

Our First Real Tree

Oh, Fer Cryin' Out Loud.

Had a lovely visit last week with Jennifer. Had prepared a little crafty thing for her - just becasue she's always preparing little crafty treasures for someone else - yet the photos somehow disappeared between the camera dock and the PC.

Then we had a lovely whirlwind of a trip to see my extended family in Barrie, Ont. Took lots of pictures. Had a dress-up Christmas party. Spent 10ish hours in the car with my own little family. Took some more pictures. And the camera won't turn on. At least it waited until I had taken the party pics before becoming tempermental. I'm sure my tech support guru will work his magic, but geez.

Tonight we went out and bought our first real Christmas tree. Sorry, no photos. It's really beautiful. Really. Although the trunk seems to list to starboard. We're leaving it to settle tonight and tomorrow evening we'll decorate. Perhaps my camera will come out of it's tempermental little snit by then. We can only hope.

Holiday preparations are happening in enjoyable little chunks. You'd think I would be entrenched in some holiday gift knitting, but not so much. I'm knitting myself something and I'm considering knitting a penguin. R likes penguins.

K would like to remind us (mostly me) that her birthday is coming up. One week today. She'll be 11. When I was pregnant I remember thinking about how old I would be when she was ten. I thought that sounded old. I couldn't imagine being that old. Now, I can't believe how silly and young and immature and I was when I was preparing to parent. Thank goodness kids are resilient and forgiving.

I'm off to knit. Or maybe make some paper stars. Of which I would love to show you a photo. But I won't. Not yet.

♥Bonni

Christmas Cards

I like to send Christmas cards. This year, I'm very impressed that I got them in the mail 'on time'. I didn't make them - I like to make Christmas cards - but in the interest of getting them out on time, I made do with what I had in the Christmas supplies.

Although we are travelling to see family before Christmas, I mailed off the few cards to those we would be seeing on our travels. After all, if the weather is bad, the trip could be cancelled.

We also mailed off a special package to a new-found cousin in Germany. The kids especially love getting things in the mail, so they are so excited to send a little gift off to the other side of the globe to hopefully make someone else as happy as they are when they get mail.

I also have a stack of cards that we will hand deliver. I think we will pile into the car one night with a hot drink for everyone. We usually do a Christmas Light Drive, so in the interests of tradition and conservation, we will combine two trips into one. We will deliver cards while sipping drinks and searching out displays of holiday lights.

I am considering getting organized for Christmas in November next year. Usually I wait until December first to break out the Christmas bin of supplies and decorations. But i find I am saying 'maybe next year' to too many fun things. If I tended to the work and preparation in November, I could enjoy our December celebrations even more. Someone remember that and remind me, will you?

♥Bonni

Cookie Exchange 2008

Now that my brothers finally decided to join my ranks - those would be the Settled Down With A Significant Other ranks - there's quite a few people around during the holidays. This year, my Mom invited the ladies of the family to participate in a cookie exchange. We'd never done one as a family before. I'm still trying to remember if I've ever really done a real cookie exchange. I know K did a recipe exchange at Girl Guides one year. Those are fun too, but I digress...

K and I jumped on the Cookie Exchange bandwagon. K made gingersnaps. They are a favourite of hers. You have to under cook them a little so they stay soft and chewy. Apparently, crunchy gingersnaps are just not cool.

(R is composing the traditional Santa letter. More on that later...)

I made no-roll sugar cookies. I'm happy with how they turned out. One recipe made about 100 cookies. Perfect for when you're in a hurry and only have time to make one batch of something. Mixing the batter went quickly enough. I divided it in four and popped it in the fridge for two hours. Just long enough to clean up the kitchen and get a busy Sunday underway. Then I spent two hours getting the dough all baked up. Most of that was fiddling with the fussy wee decorations. Baking time for these little guys was only about 5 minutes.
We joined Mom, my sister, my sister-in-law and my sister-in-law-to-be for an afternoon tea party last Sunday. We lined trays of treats on the counter and filled our bags with a great selection of treats: creme de menthe squares, mini cinnamon buns, mini butter tarts, shortbread, chocolate covered peanut butter balls, chocolate chip cookies. Hopefully I'll remember to get a picture when I take them out of the freezer a little closer to Christmas.

So there you have it. Proof that we are enjoying the holiday preparations. I'm very aware this year that for me, the preparations are the celebration. If I can't enjoy the effort I put into our December celebrations, I find myself really disappointed and exhausted by the time the three days of Christmas roll around. I like that the kids remember the yearly traditions that have crept in over the years. It's nice to see that they are starting to feel the rhythm of our year.

I promise that there's lots going on around here. So much I could share but I'm - happily - a little out of time. Today for example, I could have blogged all afternoon, but I was busy building a snow fort with R. The last time I built a snow fort, I was maybe 6 years old; the snow banks were bigger than I was...and it was more of a slide than a fort. Thanks for checking in.

~Bonni

Happy December

Nothing is new. Move along if you are expecting revelations and exclamations.

Had a lovely visit last week with my wee nephew who ended up staying for the day.

We tried to keep him busy and entertained.

We were very successful. We even managed to get our school work completed. Wee Nephew decided he needed some book work as well.

We also sent him home with some new skills. I'm a firm believer in payback. This newly taught skill in response to a particular toy electric guitar given to K when she was 4 or 5. (Just kidding....kind of...)

This week we are staying on track with the school work while getting ready for the holidays. I'll blog about things as they come up because I like to remember them.

So far, I've got as far as having most of the household decorations up. I'm thinking they look a little sparse. I'm dwelling on some thoughts about this. I want it to look festive, yet not tacky. Since I don't have a very defined style, I'm having trouble deciding on further decorating action. I do like the natural side of the holidays: Apples and cloves and garlands and greens and fruit and light and snow and fire. Perhaps I can hone and curtail myself into a nature based holiday display. It's a work in progress, folks.

As well, I have a half-completed To Do For The Holidays list...it's in my head. I keep meaning to write it down, but....So there's baking and ornaments and celebrations and meals and gifts and visiting all mulling about in my head. Oh, and K's birthday. I'm planning that mentally as well.

B's work schedule this week is making for early mornings and therefore making for early bedtimes. Thanks for checking in.

~Bonni