The Most Popular House

We have become The Most Popular House On The Street this week. And this is why:

Yes, we got the trampoline put together on Sunday. It only took C and I between two and three hours to get it put together. It probably would have taken less time if we had put some of the parts together the right way the first time. C did the hard part of pulling the springs into place. S was happy she got to help by retrieving springs from the box for us.

Once it was done the circus began. First one kid and then another and another showed up in our backyard. I had to start timing bounce sessions so that everyone was getting a turn. We started out with just one kid at a time but we bumped it up to two kids because it was taking a long time for everyone to get a turn even with the timer set to two minutes. Many children went home very tired yesterday evening.

Today as soon as the kids got home from school they wanted to go bounce. S's friends came over to bounce with her and then J's friend came over too. Things were going well until it was time for J's friend to go home. I was trying to get supper started and J's friend couldn't find his bike helmet. We spent a good 20 minutes running around trying to find his helmet. Finally he walked his bike home and discovered he had left his helmet there. Oops!

Things went back to being calm for a few minutes and then more kids showed up to use the trampoline while I was trying to make supper which made it tough for me to supervise them. But then C got home and he was able to keep an eye on the kids while I got the food ready.

I've already decided that the trampoline will be closed tomorrow. Both of my kids need a break from jumping and S has soccer. I want her to have energy for running around and jumping on the trampoline wears her out. I have a feeling the neighbourhood kids will be disappointed the trampoline is closed but the kids do need a break.

It was a busy day for me today. I went out and got us some camping supplies for our camping trip in a few weeks. Then I went to the fruit and veggie market and then to the grocery store. A new fruit and veggie market opened near us a few weeks ago and so far I've been impressed. Their prices are lower than the grocery store and the quality of their food is as good or even better than the grocery store. And I like supporting local small businesses.

After putting away all the groceries I had to take my car into the dealer to find out why it was making that awful rattling sound. It turned out to be loose heat shields. They ended up removing the back heat shield and adding clamps to the front one. Problem solved! The other day the tire pressure light had come on and I asked them to check that out for me. I'm glad I did because it turned out that I had a nail in my tire which they fixed after they took care of the heat shields.

Shellac update - I am incredibly impressed with the shellac. I figured my all my nails would be starting to show some wear or be chipping by now, especially after helping put the trampoline together yesterday. So far only one nail has had any problems:

The pointer finger on my right hand has a chip in the bottom. You can also see where the split in my nail has opened up. I expected it to start chipping around the split but it hasn't. My nails are starting to grow so you can see a small space at the bottom of each nail, which is expected. I am very happy with how well the shellac is holding up with all I do with my hands every day.

J is for Jump!

Surprise, surprise! This morning I received an email telling me that the trampoline was ready for pickup. I was sure that I wasn't going to ever get that email so I had planned to go over to the store today and look for one. Now I don't have to. I figured the box was going to be either too heavy and/or too large for me to move by myself so I made the wise decision to go to the grocery store before going to pick it up. I chose wisely because the silly thing is heavy! Luckily two strong guys carried it to my car and loaded it for me. C was able to slide it out onto the garage floor by himself and then 'walk' it across the floor. It will get put together this weekend.

I also received a call today from S's school. The administrators met with the parent of the boy causing trouble on the bus. They decided it was best for everyone if they moved him to a different bus for the rest of the year. I am happy with the decision and I know my neighbour, whose daughter was the main focus of his attention, is happy with the decision too. She was going to pick her daughter up from school today but when her daughter found out the boy wouldn't be on the bus today she decided to ride the bus home. I'm very pleased with how seriously the principal, vice-principal, and teachers at the school took this incident and I made sure that they knew that I was happy with the way things turned out.

S starts summer soccer tomorrow - provided it doesn't rain! She is a little disappointed she's not on a team with her friends from our street but she does have another friend (a fellow rink rat) and a current classmate on her team. Also, there is another boy on the team whose name sounds familiar so I think it might be a classmate from preschool last year. The people running soccer this year decided to split the teams up into two time slots and it is a good decision. There will only be 6 teams on the field at a time rather than the 12 teams they had last year. It should keep the chaos down to a minimum, I hope.

This evening I decided I wanted grilled chicken for supper. Last time we grilled C gave me a lesson in how to start the fire since I really hadn't done it before. Well, tonight I did most of it (with a little help from C). See, fire!

And since I forgot to post this last week, here's the fire in the fire pit.

Last night we decided it was a bit too cold out to sit by the fire pit. There was a freakin' frost warning for last night! In June. Sigh. We stayed in and watched some TV and I got a lot of knitting done. Tonight isn't suppose to be as cold, so we may have to go light up a fire after the kids go to bed. Maybe tonight we'll break out the Smores kit. :-)

A Beautiful Monday

Yesterday was just one of those days when I really didn't feel like being at my computer. The day started off with all the neighbourhood kids out in our friend's driveway playing. They had such a good time and all us parents got a chance to just sit and enjoy the sun and chat. It got warm enough that the kids were all ditching their coats and it was sunny enough that sunscreen was necessary.

When lunchtime rolled around we decided to head downtown to find something to eat. We were very happy to discover that one of our favourite seafood restaurants was now open for the season. I had a cup of their seafood chowder and a lobster roll, which was delicious. I've been craving a lobster roll recently so it tasted really good.

After that we went to the pet store and S picked out her new red betta fish, Bubbles. She had a hard time picking one out but I think she made a good choice. She's the special helper at school on Friday and wants to take Bubbles to school. She agreed to just take a picture of him for her show and tell. I'll try to get a picture of him tomorrow, both for her and to post here.

Today was another beautiful day. On our way to soccer they were saying that the temperature hit 20C which I think is around 65F. Add in the sun and it was just a lovely day. We took a drive while the kids were in school and went up to the beach at the national park. We stopped at the harbour where another of our favourite seafood places is. Of course it wasn't open yet but the ice was gone from the harbour so hopefully the lobster boats can get out soon and start bringing us fresh local lobster. We were going to go for a walk on the beach but it we forgot our snowboots...

That is what the beach looks like. I also did a panorama picture (below) to show that it goes all the way down the beach. I don't think we'll be building sand castles any time soon!

The white at the bottom is snow and then there's a strip of sand and the rest is sea ice that has washed up on shore. Out beyond the ice there is water with chunks of ice floating in it. Seeing how much ice is still in the water makes me think that the water this summer is going to be colder than normal. It's already pretty chilly which is great on a hot day but I expect it will be extra cold this year. We'll just have to wait and see. The weather is suppose to be warm this week so hopefully a lot of this snow and ice will melt.

Most of the snow in our yard has melted too. There is a tiny patch in the shade of the fence and a larger patch on the other side of the back yard. We're suppose to have a little rain tomorrow so I expect that it will melt the last of the snow in our yard. J played a little whiffle ball out in the backyard today with C. It was the first time since the major storms that the kids have really been able to play out back. I think we're going to get the kids a trampoline for out there so they won't whine so much about their backyard being boring. I'll keep you posted on that one!