Sunday, March 29, 2009

Earth Hour, Bob's Saws & Our Racing Nephew Caleb

So yesterday was Earth Day and for Earth Hour everyone was suppose to turn their lights off for the hour. We turned our lights out and decided we would go and visit my mom. We took photo's on our way there and were very very disappointed as there were lots of lights still on (sigh). When we arrived to mom's house, she had two candles burning. We sat in the dark for 45 minutes having a nice conversation.


Last year, before we put the house up for sale, we purchased a Mitre Saw. He went to use it last week as he is going to build small buildings for his train set. He came running up the stairs freaking as apparently the saw sparked and smoked and he took his finger off the trigger and the saw kept on running full tilt. He had to unplug it from the wall to get it to stop.

We had no receipt or box and called Canadian Tire where we had purchased it to be told basically they could do nothing without the receipt. We phoned Mastercraft direct and they were nice enough to issue Bob a RMA number. The instructions were to return it back to Canadian Tire, which we did on Wednesday evening. The store then told us they could give us a store credit (that had to be used right away) for the lowest sale price that the saw was sold for which ended up being $189.99 - wow, great!! Bob then purchased the following saw and used the credit and paid the additional $80.00 + towards it.

We looked at the sales flyer on Saturday that this exact saw was on sale $30.00 cheaper. I called Canadian Tire and they told me just to bring the receipt in and he would receipt money back on his card. :o)

Bob also decided to purchase (on http://www.kijiji.ca/) a Scroll Saw. The first time he tried it he thought something was wrong with it.




He then practiced a bit and got the hang of it and came up with this for me:



Today (Sunday) was suppose to be a lazy day. The phone rang just before 9am waking Bob and I up, it was his sister. She wanted to come over and visit and learn the secrets to blogging. We got up and did a major clean-up of the house.


Anne, Tim and the two kiddies Caleb & Sarah arrived just after 12pm. It was great to see them -- I don't think we have seen our nephew and neice since Christmas. Too long! While Bob helped Anne with the Blog, Sarah wanted to play WII FIT. Wow, Sarah was kicking butt! :o)
Now, to Anne' Blog. She wanted to start a Blog on her son (our nephew) Caleb and his Go-Cart Racing Experience.
So I am pleased to bring you: TEAM CHAOS RACING BLOG


Saturday, March 28, 2009

Helped Welcome another Fallen Soldier Home in Canada

Today was the day that Cpl Tyler Crooks of Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada was to arrive home.

He was killed on his birthday on March 20, 2009 in Afghanistan. Cpl. Crooks and three other Canadian solders were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near them during a patrol in Zhari District, west of Kandahar City, Afghanistan.

He was due to arrive after 3:50pm in the Town of Lincoln. We originally had decided we would stop on the Victoria Avenue bridge in Vineland to pay our respects with the Jordan Fire Fighters but got word my brother and his team of Fire Fighters from Vineland Fire Department would be at the Tufford Road bridge in Beamsville.

We had just got home from shopping in St. Catharines when two Jordan fire trucks and a police car passed our house. We quickly drove to Beamsville, parked the car and met up with my brother.


What we saw when we arrived.


At this point it was announced over the fire pagers that the ensemble of cars that were to arrive were in Toronto. We weren't moving.

Me waiting.

Bob waiting


Some of the crowd waiting


It was reported approx. 45 minutes to an hour later that they had hit Grimsby


The traffic started to get very scarce until there was no traffic at all on the highway in the oncoming lanes.


and then shortly later the lights appeared in the distance.


The group of cars with flashing lights got closer.....




It was amazing to see the opposite side of the highway traffic slow and pull over.



And they got closer and everyone on the bridge fell silent



Cpl Tyler Crooks -- thank you for what you have done for all of us!!!




Hands waved out of the limo at our bridge immediately following the hearse that carried Cpl. Tyler Crooks.









Bob and I were not able to attend the drive-by that happened for Warrant Officer Dennis Brown. This is the least we could do, pay our respects to another Fallen Soldier.

We LOVE Suitcase In Point - 98th Big Time World Theatre Awards



Bob & I REALLY enjoy going to the SUITCASE IN POINT theatre shows!



Bob introduced me to this theatre group when we started dating in 2005 - it was NONSTOP laughing which is a good thing!



We decided we would go to this event and invited our friends Heather & Xander along. Unfortunately, Xander could not make it due to work commitments.


After having a yummy pizza dinner at Heather & Xander's house, we headed off to the show as the Red Carpet was suppose to start at 7pm but ran a little later.






Bob, Myself & Heather






The Paparazzi showed up.





and then Sage & Rosemary arrived to talk to everyone who showed up. Deanna Jones & Natasha Pedros (Suitcase In Point) -- reminded me of like a Joan Rivers interview.






We got ourselves some drinks and some good seats and waited for the show to begin.





Our show started with Trevor Enns (Suitcase In Point) as Master of Ceremonies.




The show was awesome as they did it as an Awards Show, instead of having the "snippits" of shows / acts that you would normally see on a big screen, the actors each acted out the snips themselves live. :o)







Edwin Conroy Jr. & Deanna Jones



After the show, Bob found Joe Lapinski and I got to have my photo taken with him!! Really love his album SUNDRIES





And then I scored a photo op with Deanna Jones as she was serving food after the show. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm Mmmm good!!! (The food was provided by: The Spotted Calf, The Office Tap and Grill, Strega Cafe and The Merchant Ale House.)

We weren't able to stay too late, but we heard there was a wonderful after party complete with a band that Joe Lapinski plays with.


Here is a sample of what we saw at the show:


Hopefully next time I'll be able to get more photo's with people from Suitcase In Point. Sometimes it sucks to be so shy! (BLUSH)

MORE PHOTOS: CLICK HERE

Friday, March 27, 2009

So much for my One of a Kind Bag

I know I don't have the right to be angry, but I am a little disappointed to be honest. I had asked an Etsy seller to create a messenger bag for me as I knew Bob and I wouldn't have the knowledge or time to make one. She made it super quick and I was so excited. I had lots of compliments!!!!!

My Yellow Submarine Bag I had someone create for me.

And today when I was searching on Etsy for more Yellow Submarine items, I came across this...


Yeppers, same seller. She is doing a limited run. I guess I thought (secretly) I would be owning a one of a kind item. Bob was so excited about my bag that he was going to order one, but now I'm not sure what will happen with that.

I don't blame her though, times are tough, money is important.

I wish I had enough money to buy them all up. LOL!!!!! Oh well, I'm going to take it as a compliment that she really liked my idea and wants to share it with the rest of the world as she REALLY did an amazing job!!!!! So here is your chance to own one -- just click on the photo and it will take you to her store. :o) If that one ends up selling, she might make another one.

Maybe we could start a Yellow Submarine Bag club. lol ;o)

HELP WITH SEARCHING BLOGS like Blogger & Blogspot , etc...

Need help searching BLOGS or BLOGGER?

This makes it easy!!!!!


CLICK THE PICTURES BELOW



This one is so cool -- you can search by city (You can see who is blogging near you)

Then there is trusty Google Search

And this interesting Blog Search




And remember, you can always subscribe to blogs to keep up to date with what's going on. (Click on the SUBSCRIBE TO BLOGS LINK and ADD your favorite blogspot)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Woo, my first Train Car and Bob created new items for his G-Scale Garden Train Set

Bob has been in love with trains since before I knew him.

When I first met him, he showed me a train set he had created out of Lego. When we viewed the house we ended up buying it was right near a train track where freight & passenger trains race by numerous times during the day. When we hear the train horn he runs to the window to watch. lol Stay tuned as we are hoping to one day set up a web cam.


When we started dating there was discussion of starting our own train set but it would be HO, but then it was decided we would go bigger to G-Scale.


We certainly have the room at the new house location as the yard is a lot larger.


Bob has been busy working on his own creations for his train set.

His newest creation was with the little pallets he made out of popsicle sticks he then created tiny beer cases to go in his train car complete with wrapping over top.

Bob's passion is German Train Cars.



Watching the freight trains go by in the back yard made me think it would be so cool to have a CN train set. It would be awesome to copy what I see go by daily. Bob is very excited that I'm beginning to like what he likes (trains). So I purchsed my first train car.

A Grand-Trunk Box Car -- mind you, we don't see this in our backyard, but since it was on sale at a train store we were at, it was the perfect car to purchase.

This afternoon we went on another Metal Detecting Adventure -- click here to read up on it.
UPDATE: All G-Scale Messages can be found in our new blog www.gscaletrain.blogspot.com

Received my Yellow Submarine Bag, I love Ikea & Another Fun Day Metal Detecting

So, on Friday, I received my Yellow Submarine Messenger Bag which I purchased from a store on Etsy named HIPPIE STRIPS I had researched some stores that sold a Messenger Bag made of materials I liked and came up with her store. I told her exactly what I wanted and voila, she did it!!




On Saturday morning we got up and headed out to IKEA -- LOVE THAT STORE!!!!!!!!! The house we moved into is basically like a blank slate and we are thinking of idea's of how to decorate it. Bob's old house was full of colour and we want to do that with our new house.


The following are photo's of items that we really liked. Not sure if we'll incorporate them into the house we are in. We'll see.



First, in our upstairs "party room" we have a bar fridge. We were looking for something interesting to stick upstairs and put the fridge on.
Bob really liked the above but it is too tall.



This might work, but really isn't colourful.


This definately would need a staining or paint job.



We saw the following and instantly thought it would be in our kitchen if we ever had money to add on to the side and redo the cupboards.We loved the colourful dishes they had!


This was very cool -- they were pieces of fabric on Canvas.







Very colourful carpet!



This would be perfect for the front porch and has storage undernearth.





Again, very nice and colourful!



Since we don't have closet space, this would be perfect for hanging coats on.




Bob also wanted to look at items for the bedroom.



He really liked the colours here! It wasn't in our budget for this month.

This would be cool if I could paint it a bright colour!

This would of been good for the bedroom side table but it is way too short.




I LOVE this yellow cabinet!!!!!!!!



Some crazy throw pillows Bob really liked.





Some more fun colours!!

I actually overhead a man telling a woman how cool he thought my Yellow Submarine Messenger Bag was and another lady stop me to ask if I had made it. :o)


We then went home, packed the car and headed off for our Metal Detecting Adventure.