NUNSENSE - A-MEN @ the Port Mansion

I was inspired to paint this after seeing

NUNSENSE A-MEN
at the Port Mansion Theatre

in St. Catharines, Ontario, CANADA

and plus I love Raving Rabbids. LOL

Bob was in this show for the month of October into November.

It was HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CURRENTLY SHOWING AT THE PORT MANSION IS SINNERS

CALL AND MAKE A RESERVATION FOR SEATING!!!

905-934-0575 ext 226

PORT MANSION THEATRE 12 Lakeport Road, St. Catharines

Halloween Paintings

So, as you know, Halloween is fast approaching. It was coming faster than I was prepared for. In September I started back to painting class and started on a HUGE project, which you will get to see at the end of this blog entry.

In the mean time, with Bob in rehersals for the musical Nunsense along with the show starting, we thought it would be neat if I started whipping up some Halloween decorations myself.

Here is my GHOSTBUSTERS painting I did in an afternoon. :o)

Then came another fun project. I had done some research on the internet for some interesting Skeleton creations and came across these SKELANIMALS.

Here is a kitty I painted.

and a Bunny..........

and a penguin..........

and a mouse and bird.

I have a lot more to paint, but time is running out and so are the scrap wood pieces.

The forecast is calling for rain on Halloween evening along with this week leading up to it, I don't think these pieces of wood will hold up.

On Sunday, October 25th, Bob and I had our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. We had one last year the month after we moved into the house, we had approx. 15 people back then, this year we increased the size to over 21 people.

Bob is in full swing with the Nunsense Play/Musical and the night before a whole bunch of us got together to go and see it at the Port Mansion in St. Catharines, (Interested?? Click the NUNSENSE PLAY/MUSICAL link to see a write-up on the show or click PORT MANSION to go to the Port Mansion Web Site and book tickets to see the show). OH MY GOSH, what a hoot, it was one of the most funniest things I have seen!! A great time was had by all!!!

Because Bob was in the play again on Sunday, that meant I had to hold down for the fort while all our guests arrived. My mom had come over a day before to help me set up all these tables and chairs.

It was a complete success. We had a no-show (as Dave, one of our friends) was tied up with a fire call in Niagara On the Lake .

It was awesome, everyone seemed to bring extra yummies for the party, including this awesome cake creation by our friend Heather. (Heather's husband Xander was in the musical Nunsense with Bob).

Since we knew Bob wouldn't be able to carve a pumpkin on the Pumpkin Carving Party day, him and I worked on our pumpkins the weekend before. This is Bob's pumpkin along with the photo he was going to use.

The unveiling of his pumpkin happened after he returned from the show on the day of the Party.

Here's Bob's pumpkin on the day of the party.

Here is my pumpkin. Yep, I cheated, I painted. lol

Here is the result of the party. Everyone's pumpkins before we OFFICIALLY lit them.










and here they are lit. :o) It was a sight be behold!!!

And finally, here is my project I worked on during painting class. Five us in class worked on our own pieces. My painting is on a huge chunk of wood, I just need to seal it and then I will be able to put it outside for Halloween. :o)

Thanks for looking!

Hope you have an amazing safe, spooky & fun Halloween!!

UFO Spotted in Niagara Falls, Ontario, CANADA October 2009

It was reported on the news this morning that some people spotted something incredible above Niagara Falls last night or a few nights ago. Something about a metal shiny thing that hovered, reflected light off it or had lights on it.

ROBERT TANOS - director of ABOVE NIAGARA wants to hear from you.

If you or anyone you know actually saw this thing, please email him at: pstudio@cogeco.ca

Here are some links I found about the sighting this week:

LINK 1 - CLICK HERE - includes video clip

LINK 2 - CLICK HERE - Niagara Falls Review article

LINK 3 - CLICK HERE - Niagara Gazzette article

LINK 4 - CLICK HERE - Lockport Journal article

Happy Thanksgiving

This past weekend was a long weekend for us here in Canada - it was Thanksgiving. That means yumba meals, craft sales & sleeping in.

This weekends chefs were Marnie & Mom VanderValk. Each made an amazing meal which was to rave about. Bob and I are really trying to watch our portion sizes and it made it VERY difficult for us to only go with one plate of food but then of course we had to have one of each dessert. I'm truly scared to step on the WII FIT tomorrow morning. I had managed to maintain my weight loss which means I'm stuck at 169 (I've lost 10 lbs).... (aiming to get back down to 152 which is what I was when I met Bob) but with this weekend, I'm sure I've probably shot up 5 lbs. lol Bob's been doing awesome! I think he reported a loss of 20 lbs so far, but I'm sure the dancing he is doing in the musical he is in is contributing to the weight loss.

We were able to hit the Vineland Public School Craft sale. ALWAYS love looking at the creative ideas of others wishing I had a tonne of money to buy everything I see. lol I was good, I only purchased one Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup... last year I think I bought 6 and proceeded to eat every last one while I was wondering around = Upset tummy. :o)

So today was awesome but started out really funny. Slept in and woke up and decided to hit Timmies for a XL Triple Triple. Bob decided since we were going to do through the drive-thru he would just go out in a pair on thermal underwear (which were too small) so he put on some long black socks and tucked the ends of the underwear into them, so I'm sure you can imagine what that looked like. Me, I would normally opt to do that, but for some reason I just put on a pair of jeans, it was cold outside. We started driving and a short while later I could smell something burning, but we had figured some farmer was burning something outside. We got almost to the entrance of Timmies and heard this really bad noise. THUMP THUMP THUMP, Bob pulled to the side of the road and we got out of the car, ugh............. flat tire. Bob grabbed the spare and his little jack and tools and was about to proceed with taking the tire off when a large TIRE TRUCK pulled up (one that frequents the highways looking for Transport Trucks that have flat to sell them a tire and change it for them). He offered to help Bob for free since he had nothing better to do and turned on his large yellow flashing light on the top of the truck. I started laughing as I noticed towards Timmies, the light was attracting attention and everyone was looking over to where we were. LOL There was Bob in all his glory in his thermal underwear HAHAHAHAHAHA Poor baby! :o) THANK GOD I was wearing my jeans. lol I would of froze. We offered to buy the guy a coffee (he had just bought one) and then offered him $5.00 but he refused, I thanked him and wished him a VERY Happy Thanksgiving. He smiled and wished us one too. What an Angel. :o)

Once we returned with our Timmies in hand I decided I wanted to paint a Halloween Decoration.

Here it is:

I REALLY love the Ghostbusters Movie, so I just had to paint a cupboard door with the logo for myself. Bob really likes it too. I love lazy painting days, I don't get too many of those. Bob worked on some stuff for the G-Scale train layout.

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A WONDERFUL LONG WEEKEND TOO (for those of you who were able to celebrate Thanksgiving) :o)

YELLOW SUBMARINE 3D MOVIE - OMG WOO!!!!!

GRAPHIC USED ON WEBSITE: http://www.teaser-trailer.com/

(CLICK THE ABOVE PHOTO TO GO TO THE WEB SITE AND READ ALL THE INFORMATION THEY PROVIDED ON THIS UPCOMING MOVIE RERELEASE!)

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!!

The Beatle's YELLOW SUBMARINE movie is coming back in 3D!!!!!!

Tell me how cool that is!!!!!!!

Next we need a live theatre show!!!!! That would be majorly incredible!!!!!

I hAvE nOt FoRgOtTeN mY bLoG - lOl

:o)

Hey everyone! No worries, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth yet. I haven't forgot about my blog. We have been VERY busy and I haven't kept up with the photo taking. My bad!

So let me see if I can back up and remember the things that happened (and then when I can have time, I will repost with photos).

September 20th was Bob and my 1ST YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!!!!! We actually celebrated by going out with my brother, his son, his fiance, and my mom to Red Lobster. Yum yum!!!!! We were going to go to DJ's Roadhouse but they were closed until 4pm and it had to be a lunch meal as Bob is in rehersals for an upcoming play/musical he is going to be in this coming October. I'll reveal more about him in another blog post. :o)

September 19th was my Mom's birthday, so we had some people over for cake and to play WII.

WE GOT THE BEATLES ROCKBAND GAME on 9-9-9 - OMG is it ever cool!!!!!! LOVE IT! The first song is even YELLOW SUBMARINE. I love that in the video portion they actually come alive as the Yellow Submarine characters!!!!!!! Bob actually picked up all the extra guitars for the set. Bummer about not be able to use the 3 guitars, drum and mics all at the same time. At least you can have 3 singers at the same time in harmony. lol It makes for a wicked party game! Love it because almost everyone knows the songs.

I started back to painting class. We are all starting on a Halloween project. I decided to go big or go home but after the second lesson, found myself sort of falling behind because everyone else is painting on small pieces of tile or wood and my project is on a big honking piece of wood, plus the wood seems to suck up the paint so it is hard to shadow & highlight. I have decided to make the decision to bring that home and work on it while Bob is at rehersal and quickly caught up on a smaller piece of wood.

We're prepping for our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. Should be interesting as more people are coming this year. lol Bob and I are going to have to carve our own pumpkins the weekend before so we have room to do it. lol I'm REALLY hoping we can have it outside. Stay tuned for photos from that later on in the month along with some new jump photo's maybe? heehee, we'll see who we can get to JUMP.

Back to our Anniversary (yep, I'm jumping all around in this blog entry) we decided we would go to Stoney Creek Furniture and make a purchase. We originally went to look at BARS for upstairs and fell in love with a NEST --- lol, actually, it is a round chair that seats too, PERFECT for cuddling. Why? It's amazing for watching movies in, it will be perfect for the cold winter months, cuddling up in front of the TV with a blanket. We're placing bets how long before Trinity the kitty puts a rip in it. (YIKES)

Making a major decision with the house, last year we found out there was no insulation in the house when we had windows installed,, so we had that blown in before Christmas, so for a year our house has had ugly holes everywhere where they had blown it in. Mary wants to paint!!!!!!!! Big problem, we can't figure out what to do. It's basically light beige now and Bob and I are COLOUR people, so the ideas are endless. Time to take a stand. Also, I've been bugging Bob about possilbly (at some point) adding on to the house so we can enjoy the backyard. Right now we can only view it from a small kitchen window (the kitchen isn't one you eat in) and the Garden doors off the bedroom. For Mom's bday, she spent the night and we put the blow-up bed in the STANDING ROOM. When I was taking it apart to put away it hit me, wouldn't it be awesome to have our bedroom in the standing room, change the art room to our "Changing Room", the Dining room into the Standing room, leave the guest room as it and move the dining room into the existing bedroom and then we have our view of the backyard. Of course, when I came up with this idea, Bob was at rehersal, so three hours later he came home and I rambled for 10 minutes WHY we should do this and he just smirked and waited until I was done. YES!!!!!!!!! HE SAID HE LIKED THE IDEA!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! All it is going to take now is picking the colours and moving the furniture around. Mind you, it isn't your normal thing is it, but wow, what an idea!!!!

Now I'll talk about yesterday. I had to go to a Sinus Specialist. I've been having problems since the age of 15 with my nose, breathing, always stuffed, always running, I can't remember when I was last able to breath normally. Bob came and picked me up, good thing, I was really nervous. The Doctor was nice, and Bob, him and I were joking around, so that made it easier. I wasn't too thrilled about him sticking a camera up my nose (yiiiiiiiiikes!) Anyways, basically I was told my X-ray's were normal, my nose is definately crooked on the inside (which can be repaired with Surgery if I decide to go that route), that I have the beginnings of polyps (due to a possiblity of allergies) and he is going to send me to someone for an allergy test. In the mean time, to take this Steroid Sniffer thing named Nosex or something like that. So, there you go. It should take 3-4 weeks before I see any results, FINGERS CROSSED. lol

Oh, about a month ago they started some major road work, so they are hoping it will be done by the end of October.

Anyways, enough words for now. So this will keep you busy until I take some photo's to stick with these words and then I'll repost so you can see what I'm talking about.

Ta ta for now. :o)

Fellow Ghost Hunter has his own Radio Broadcast!

Funny story, we went on a ghost tour with Haunted Hamilton and were taking photos and ended up taking a few of Joe and his friends. They saw this when we posted the pictures on Facebook. Joe made a friend request and we started sending messages back and forth. Tonight he sent me an EVENT request and I see he does his own radio programs!! Check them out!!!


SCROLL DOWN AND LOOK ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE PAGE TO FIND THE LINK!!!!! JOE91 on Blogtalkradio

KINGSTON TRIP 2009

Our trip started on August 25th, we headed out in the morning and headed off to KINGSTON, ONTARIO. This is the cute little bed & breakfast we stayed in the first night, ABBEY MANOR INN

As you can see in the above photo, the bed was amazing!!!!

This was the amazing breakfast we were served the next morning. We had a delightful conversation with a couple from Germany who were sitting at the table with us.


We had to stop off at the KINGSTON BREWING COMPANY I had their Raspberry Beer and these deadly tasting wings, we ended up going back again the next day!

We did two ghost tours in Kingston, one was on the streets of Kingston and the next day we did one at the fort. This is one of the guides.

After our Ghost Walk we stopped off at one of the haunted pubs, TIR NAN OG
where we had some drinkies and this amazing garlic bread that had over 4 different cheeses on it. Yum yum!

The next day we headed to Fort Henry. :o) We took some tours, watched the Sunset Ceremony and afterwards we did the ghost tour there.

You just KNEW we had to take a JUMP photo eh? lol

We also posed for piccies in the jail cells.

We had a fantastic trip, looking forward to maybe going to Ottawa or Montreal next year. :o)

SHOPPING FOR FURNITURE & STUFF

First I'm showing off a FABULOUS dinner Bob took me out for of FRESH Lake Erie Perch at a place named DJ's ROADHOUSE! OMG is it ever wonderful!

Next we have a photo of an awesome unfinished pine bench I purchased off Kijiji for our upstairs. $45.00 was the price! I can't believe it. I'm soooooooooooo thrilled! Plan is to maybe stain it a funky colour or maybe leave as is. This is going to go beside our two curio's which contain the Booze. lol I want to put the bar fridge on it and store our bar stuff in it. SO HAPPY!

AND now here was have Bob posing with THE NEST -- we were watching a movie the other day and found it quite hard to actually cuddle on a couch. We decided to go to Stoney Creek Furniture and look around. We fell in love with this CUDDLE CHAIR which is called a NEST. We went home to think about it, as it is the price of a new expensive couch. Bob couldn't get it out of his mind and our first wedding anniversary is coming up Sept. 20th, so after receiving a 30% coupon from my mom we headed back and placed our order. It isn't due to come in until after Oct. 1 (apparently this is a big seller). We're excited!!!!

Finally, we have a photo of an awesome Wine Barrel we purchased off Kijiji - $40.00 thank you very much and a antique pump Bob purchased from an antique store up near Woodbridge for $40.00 and we're planning on making a garden ornament or placing it on the old well that has been cemented over. Another awesome fine!!

Tomorrow I'll try and post photo's of things we would like to use in decorating our house. We will have lived here for a year on Sept. 29th and we haven't been able to paint or redecorate yet. lol More to come, stay tuned!

Ahhh, finally a little fun for the first part of our Summer Vacation.

Well, we finally were able to take some time off for the summer. Three days to be exact (Mon-Wed) but we decided to start our day trips early on Sunday.

We got up and headed out towards Port Dover. We wanted to purchase some fresh fish and maybe sneak in a yummy perch meal. It was overcast and windy, but that didn't stop us.
We went for a small walk on the beach and one on the pier and headed off to a local restaurant for some lunch. We split a Perch Meal with fries. Yum yum!

We also went to a few shops and found these two cuties which are made of metal.

We then hit a few antiques stores in Port Dover and were told by a local to travel 20 minutes out of town to another antique place and picked up these!!

Bob also picked up an old black well pump.

Since Monday was only calling for 30% chance of rain we headed off to Canada's Wonderland.

We arrived just before it was to open and got in line. They let people in just before 10am and we rushed to the BEHEMOTH ride but were held up as they had not opened up that part of the park yet. FINALLY they let us in and a hoard of guests RAN to the ride, were got into the line-up and figured it should only be a 15 minute wait. When we finally went through the line-up and were third to get on the ride, they shut down due to technical difficulties. YIKES - we ended up having to wait an hour before they let people back on. We picked the front car, front seat, WHAT A THRILL. Love that ride.

Next we hit the Mindbuster only to have the car stop 1/2 way up the hill, apparently someone in one of the back cars had a video camera out. That's a no no.

Third ride was the Jet Scream, we were third in line again to find out the ride stopped working. Apparently it wouldn't let anyone off. You are held in by Hydralics and it wouldn't release. At one point the guy running the ride hit a button and the ride activated, people started SCREAMING in fear. The guy stopped the ride and within 14 minutes it let people off. The people in front of us chickened out so we were next to get on. LOL, it worked find for us.

We went on the Vortex next, it was freaky watching where the ride ends and all the metal bars started to sway. eek! We decided to take the LAST car and OMG that's even better then the first.

We then decided to break for lunch as the feet were tired and the tummies were hungry. We had some oriental chicken dishes. mmmm Mmmm! We then decided to catch a show, Endless Summer which was performers on a small piece of ice. I got to smack Scooby Doo's hand as he ran up the aisle. lol We then watched a trampoline show and headed off for more rides. We first did the Dragon Fire, then the Wild Beast roller coaster, Thunder run was next, and Bob was hungry for one of the huge hot dogs (bummer I didn't have a camera) and I had my yummy oriental chicken meal again and that's when we decided to head back towards Behemoth again. We decided this time we would take the last car. On this ride they take a photo of you, somehow Bob's head was cut off. I really wanted a photo on this ride so we jumped back in line and went for it again. We both made faces and this is the result.

Tuesday was MOVIE DAY! We headed out to see Harry Potter at noon and then went for a yummy lunch at London Arms. We walked around the Pen and came home for a nap. Gotta love naps!

That leads us to today. We slept in and headed off to Niagara On the Lake - stopped in at the winery named STONECHURCH and picked up a bottle of their new wine Quintet and headed off to a bunch of Antique Stores. We got caught up in the huge rain storm, but that was okay. :o) We don't melt!

PERFECT FUN SUMMER VACATION! Gotta love it!!!

Vampire?

Last night while we were making dinner, Bob was looking out into the back yard and started yelling "QUICK, GET YOUR SHOES ON, WE HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE?" "What!?" I questioned? I was thinking it was another baby bird he spotted. You see after getting home yesterday he had found two baby birds in the drive way, one dead, one still alive, it's feathers only just started forming. We placed that bird in a large recycle box on its side with paper towels in hopes her momma would come and find her.

As I scrambled to get my shoes on Bob said "It either is a giant crab or a giant spider" ??!!??!!? Giant crab? The only crab like things that are in our area are Crayfish and I doubt anything like that could get to our neck of the woods. As we went out into the back yard, I could see something black flapping around in the grass. IT WAS A BAT. I froze, why is there a bat awake in the middle of the afternoon flopping around on the grass. Does it have Rabbies? We quickly located a bottomless birdhouse in the garage and placed it over the bat. Bob phoned the local humane society to find out what to do. They suggested just leaving it there as it might of just fallen out of the tree. Bob started making dinner again and I went out with the camera to take a few piccies and remove the birdhouse. I lifted up the birdhouse and the bat was no where in site. Okay, maybe it escaped the hole in the birdhouse, then it hit me. I turned over the birdhouse and low and behold the little guy had somehow crawled up inside and was hanging upside down. (GIGGLE) I snapped a few piccies and propped it up on a planter near a tree so he could escape during the evening.

UPDATE: This morning the bat was gone and the bird was still alive. We moved the bird to the crotch of the tree we think it fell out of and he was peeping but didn't seem hungry. Hopefully momma will find him there.

Playing around with Windows Movie Maker and using JUMP pictures. Hee Hee Hee!!

So when one plays around with Windows Movie Maker, a sound file and some photo's along with video footage, this is what one gets. LMAO!

My PET SHOP BOYS dilemma!

Here's my dilemma.....

The PET SHOP BOYS, who have been my all-time favorite music duo in the whole world is currently on tour and I was so excited to see on their official web site that there would be a Toronto Date in August. Unfortunately, for the past few weeks, it has been noted as TBA. While I watched all the tickets go for sale on all the other places they would be playing, I've been waiting for the announcement of the Toronto ticket sales.

Annie, an internet pal of mine notified me a few days ago that the "Toronto" date had been announced, it ends up it isn't in Toronto, but above it, which is approx. a 3 hour drive from home. They are in the line-up for the Virgin Music Festival -- great!


There was an announcment on the site that one could purchase VIP tickets which would basically give one a chance to do the "Front of the Line" thing and get prime viewing. Guess what, it's $275.00 a ticket...... that means, $275.00 x2 plus finding accomodations for 2 evenings, gas, food, etc.... all just to see my fav. group int he world. Thing is, Bob and I can't afford such an outing..... I feel so sad! I've always support the PSB by buying their cassette tapes, Cd's, video's, merchandise, even joined their fan club for a while, and of course gone to their concerts when they came to Toronto.

I logged online to see if the VIP tickets were for sale at 12pm today (as noted on their web site they would be) and low and behold there weren't any VIP tickets for sale for the Ontario gig. See, I don't want to go all the way out there with just a "plane jane" ticket with the risk of not even being able to see them because I would be at the back of a crowd....

So, I went on TWITTER and sent the Pet Shop Boys a message....

and when I logged online today, I had a reply!!!!!!!

Now, what did their reply mean exactly....... "Still waiting for details" does this mean that they might not be playing at the festival? Maybe they'll end up playing in Toronto?? That would be great!! I could make it to Toronto! Maybe they could come to the Niagara Region???? (BIG GRIN) Wishful thinking, I know.... but a girl has to dream, right?

Michael Wainwright is living the dream!!!

Just giving you a little update on Michael Wainwright. He is living the dream!! He is touring with TEARS FOR FEARS!

Michael has given me permission to post some photo's he posted on Facebook.

Want to follow Michael too????? He's on TWITTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

CLICK HERE ---> wainwrightmusic

If you have never heard of Michael Wainwright - check out my other posts on him. :o) Quite the talented guy I must say!

CLICK HERE: ----> MICHAEL WAINWRIGHT POSTS

ADDICTED to a silly little game on Facebook titled RESTAURANT CITY

Bob and I are addicted to this silly little game on Facebook titled RESTAURANT CITY and for some reason I keep calling it Restaurant Kitchen. lol

You get to run your own restaurant and decorate it the way you want to.

You build up your menu items by getting ingredients daily and answering trivia questions along with making trades with your friends (who are playing the game on Facebook as well).

Here is mine:

Here is Bob's

Once you start, you can't stop! lol