Family Fall Photo Time

Time for our Family Fall Photo shoot.....even though most of the leaves have fallen :(

Since living here in Grand Falls, we've gone to a little camp ground with some pretty colours.  Sadly, this year most of the leaves were on the ground (and not even that colourful anymore).

Oh well....my disappointment matched everyone's mood as we headed out after church to make some family memories!  I had snarl remarks and many complaints as I tried to snap some nice photos.  Then, poor Jacques added the icing on the cake and made another snarl comment and I FREAKED.  Woops....

It wasn't pretty....and I told them that I was SO disappointed and I would walk home to burn some steam.  I mean, really...all I ask is for about 30 minutes a year for them to look their best and have their nicest smiles.  The least they could do (after ALL I do around here for everyone in this family) is just SUCK it up.

After I had a little (or big) meltdown, explained how I felt - they convinced me not to walk home (which really wasn't that far - about a 20 minute walk)....we managed to make some family memories. 

THAT SAID, each time I look at these photos - I will always remember the cost of getting them to smile like they cared!!!

All is well now....and I don't think our yearly ritual will not continue to be a head ache producing session!!!

Here are some sneak peaks.....the best we could get with a tri-pod and some dirt on the lens that I just can't get off!!! 

Feels good...

Wednesday, I decided it was NO SCHOOL day so we could go pick Jacques up from the airport in Fredericton.  We didn't have to, but we really wanted to!

Actually...I did decide there was NO school, but we worked extra hard on Tuesday and Thursday to get the work done for Wednesday.  Plus, Noah worked on some worksheets in the van on the drive.

We picked Jacques up and went for a nice lunch!  Of course, I stopped in and picked up some more jewelry supplies while there.  Then on the drive home, we stopped in at some friends that moved away last month. 

Now, life has resumed to normal and Jacques is home for supper each night (at least for now) and it feels good!!!

Off for a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, with SO much to be thankful for.  Mostly, for the 2 days and 1 night Jacques are sneaking away to see the Gaspe coast during my favourite season of the year! 

Happy Thanksgiving for all my fellow Canadians!

10th Anniversary Renewal of Vows

So July 1st was Jacques' and my 10th wedding anniversary.  We chose to celebrate our anniversary, NOT with big expensive gifts but with a simple renewal of vows.  Well....it started off to be simple!!

At first, our idea to renew our vows was a simple 'hey, wouldn't it be cute to renew our vows?'.  Then, it snowballed...in an adorable, crazy cute kinda way!!!  Everything just 'happened'....I guess it was supposed to be this way.  And our day was perfect, just as perfect as our wedding 10 years ago!

It started off with a haircut for Jacques and I, we got a few photos then headed to the church.  Much of our church family was there.  Two of the ladies had decorated the church, it was JUST adorable, right down to rose petals down the isle, ribbon falling onto a table of our own, a cake table with a cake for our special day.  Each table was decorated with candles and table clothes that were my favourite colour of green.  We had a cake that was not just YUMMY, but so adorably decorated.

I made Jacques and Noah boutonnieres and myself a little bouquet out of a $20 bunch of flowers from our local grocery store.  I, personally think these flowers were more beautiful than at our wedding!  They were adorable!

After the ceremony and cake, our dear friend, Amy took us to 3 different locations for photos! I wasn't expecting this - but SO glad we did (in fact, she had to convince Jacques to some degree)!!  She had us hiking to locations, ankle deep in water and walking through Canola fields - I can't wait to see the photos!!

In the end, I had just as much fun as our wedding and wondered 'why' did we spend SO much money on our first wedding - when we had just as much fun at our renewal!  I guess that's what 10 years does to you...gives you this wisdom!

What a fun day, and in the end *sign* it was all over!

THANK YOU SOOOO much Amy...you did a fantastic job (both convincing Jacques and taking the photos).

After our photos, we came home to get changed and took off.  We reserved a room at a romantic place called The Castle Inn in Perth Andover, NB.  IF you are EVER driving through New Brunswick and need a place to stay...I HIGHLY recommend this gem, nestled deep in the woods.  When we arrived, the manager/chef (knowing we had renewed our vows and that it was our anniversary) upgraded our 'room' to the 'ROYAL SUITE'. We WERE treated like royalty. 

First thing when we came to our room, we had a nap - which ended up being a THREE hour nap - eeesh!!! Reservations for supper were at 7pm.  We started off by having a drink in the  sun room.  Our meals were SO amazing - it was a 2 hour event by soft music and the best company, very romantic indeed!!!

We enjoyed the facilities of a new spa room after our dinner - relaxed in the hot tub and steam room for over an hour.  We came back to the room, and began what we do best - played some of our favourite card and other games.  We had a little tournament going on!  The loser gets to cook Valentine's Supper this year. Sadly, I lost EVERY game and I am the big loser!!  But...am I???  I have a wonderful husband who I get to cook supper for....hmmmm, somehow despite losing, I still win!!!

What a fantastic day and night.  *Sigh*, I can't believe it's over all over again.  Trust me, we've promised to do this on our 20th anniversary again.  We rarely (if ever) celebrate our anniversary considering it's on CANADA DAY, so we always join in the Canada Day celebrations.  So it was about time for us to celebrate our day!  Once every 10 years is good, right!!!

In the morning, Jacques and I headed back home to Grand Falls early to get a few things and get home to our boy (who wasn't even home when we got home - out with Grandma and Grandpa).  We are crazy like that...when we go away for a night, we miss Noah like crazy.  You may not 'get it' but at least we get each other!

Ten Years Ago....

I married my BEST friend, the rest of my life began (aka 'when I grow up,  I want to be a wife) and I said 'I do'.


THIS YEAR, we renew our wedding vows.


To remember our first 10 years, here is a video of the first 10 years!






I just can't wait for our next 10 years!

Weekend BLISS

I have such a great life...no complaints here.  OK, maybe momentarily but they never really last.

I do know just how blessed I am to have a great family, my health and really no worries in the world!

Our weekend has been such a great weekend..... let me share with you some of the details!


FRIDAY NIGHT:

Jacques got home from work and we made homemade pizza (including an amazing dough from a new recipe I got from a friend).

I put our new FLIP video camera to the test by videoing us making the dough & pizza - yay.  (only one problem, i can't figure out how to convert the video format over to an mpeg or mp4 in order to make a video using windows movie maker - any out there have any suggestions?)

Separate videos:

Making dough:

The boy's decorating their pizza:

The dough turned out fantastic (a little thick, but that's because we put too much in the pans). 

Noah enjoying our creations!

Mom's panzarotti.

The boys pizza!

SATURDAY MORNING:

We got up Saturday morning and got ready to go to Noah's basketball jamboree in Centerville (or so I thought)!  LOL  We arrived in Centerville, went into the school and went to pay.  I asked the man if we had to pay for players.  He responded with a funny look at Noah and said 'is he playing?'.  I said yes.  We continued to pay for Jacques and I alone and went past the table.  I asked the man if he knew where the teams were gathering.  He said 'what team does he play for?'.  I said, 'Grand Falls'.  He said, 'but Grand Falls is playing right now'.  Ummmm.....  He continued to ask, 'does he play for the girls or boys team?'.  I said, 'it's a co-ed team'.

Eeeesh....then I realized that I had probably made a mistake (considering Florenceville is very close to Centerville)!!!  It turns out, the tournament at this school was girls only.  This explains the look on the mans face when he looked at Noah and said 'is he playing?'!!

OK...so we got to Florenceville on time still but soon realized that the games were running about a half an hour late!  Feeeuuuu.

They played hard, had fun and came home with a metal (just for participation only).

SATURDAY AFTERNOON:

On the way home from the basketball games...we had to go pick up Noah's new guitar.

He starts acoustic guitar lessons on Wednesday and we had NO guitar.  We did have a little guitar that my dad had given Noah several years ago, but the bridge mysteriously went missing??  So, to fix it it was going to cost us almost as much than to get a new/used full size guitar with the case.  So, Noah is working towards paying for 1/2 the price of the guitar and is one happy boy. 

He is SO excited...he say's he is living his dream, that he has always dreamed of playing guitar.  I tend to think that these lessons may go better than piano lessons.  I remember for years now, he's been carrying around this little guitar that he got from Grandpa....check out this video from Dec 2007.  My little rock star!

As for his new guitar, he's awfully proud! 

His favourite part of the guitar was this little pick holder that came on the guitar!!!

March Break Madness...

Uggggh...it's March Break and I'm SICK.   Not a great feeling when I don't usually get sick.

To back track about our weekend away....Jacques finally arrived home around 3:30 pm on Saturday.  He is my hero.  He dropped his bag (from the week) in the door, picked up a new bag and off we went.

We arrived at our desitnation around 5:20 pm - just enough time to stop in at my favourite Christian bookstore.  Just enough time to get the bookmarks I had intended on buying and the book, So Long, Insecurity (by Beth Moore). 

Thanks to my blogger buddy, Angel (and this post), I knew I should buy this book as soon as I saw it!  Of course, it will probably be the next book I read as well.  Any of Angel's book suggestions (that I've read)....have really moved me, so I am looking forward to jumping into this book.  Hopefully it won't sit on my book case for 1 and 1/2 years like Dangerous Surrender, did! 

As soon as we finished at the book store, we went to Michaels Craft Store to get beading supplies, East Side Mario's to eat dinner then browsed the mall.  Such a romantic evening, huh?  On top of that, I started to not feel so great - but I made the best of it because we were together!

Monday - we had a 'get-to-gether' to make earrings.  Thankfully, our pastor let us use the basement of our church so we could have more women.  In total, we had 15 women and made 240 pairs of earrings.  MAN....am I ever thankful for all the help. 

One problem though, I think I pushed myself too much.  NOW I am really sick....lost my voice and struggling to breath (in the sense that it hurts my chest to breath).  I'm contemplating going to the outpatients tonight, just to make sure.  Last time I left it too long, I ended up with acute pnemonia (sp?) - so I don't think I want to wait that long.  I just HATE sitting waiting in the hospital thinking that I am wasting their time with a minor cold (thinking I am a wimp)!

So yeah...that's my March Break news :(

Update on our weekend away...

So Noah's gone to camp and Jacques is stranded in Quebec city with 7 other coworkers (2 stranded westbound in Riviere du Loup and 6 stranded eastbound in Quebec City) .  The highway between here and Quebec City is CLOSED.

His original flight from Thursday was cancelled, he rescheduled the flight to Fredericton for Friday but then when he discovered all the snow Fredericton was getting (late Thursday night), he rebooked to fly into Quebec City.  So once they arrived in Quebec City yesterday afternoon (2 hours late)....I was SO excited to know that he was home AND in the matter of 4 hours we'd be heading away ALONE for the ENTIRE weekend!

Then it all came to a screeching hault when they were waiting at the baggage check when they overheard people talking about highway being closed.

And SURE enough...the rumours were true.

After waiting hour by hour, they finally decided to check into hotels around 8pm.  The plan:  spend the night, get up in the WEE hours of the morning and hit the road by 6am (in hopes to be home by around 11am)...then we'd get on the road to go away by lunch!  I'm adaptable...and okay, I can't change it so at least we'd get one night alone, right?

WRONG.....

NOW......it's almost 9:30 am and at this point, there is NO end in sight.  The highway remains closed and looking at the weather forecast (red screen wind warnings for the entire day), my assumption is that they will be closed for most of the day.    I am so sad....I feel so empty and am SO let down by the circumstances.

I miss my husband and am so sad that we didn't get our weekend away and ALONE :(

I just....

I just want a weekend ALONE with my husband to go off without a hitch...it's not much to ask, especially considering it's NEVER happened and this year we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  Don't you agree?

It started off last Feb 28 - we had tickets to see the Montreal Canadiens plan in Montreal.  We were supposed to have our 1st weekend away and it got cancelled because we had a training course that weekend.  So we had to give away the tickets to someone else and cancel our weekend :(  We had all the plans - a doggy sitter and a sitter for Noah.

Then, we had plans to go to Las Vegas in November (6-12), piggy backing off of a business trip Jacques was supposed to go on - but the business trip part of it got cancelled and so did our personal part of the trip :(

Now this weekend we have our 3rd attempt at some alone time and it seems to be in jeopordy.  Jacques has been out of town all week, scheduled to arrive yesterday.  But he's not home...he's stuck in Toronto due to bad weather yesterday in Quebec - where they were supposed to fly back to.

So in an attempt to suprise me, he rescheduled his flight to Fredericton (where we'd be spending the weekend ALONE while Noah attended a winter, all weekend camp).  This way, I could drop Noah off at camp and continue to meet up with Jacques at the hotel in Fredericton, right?  WRONG...

Whether is tampering with our plans and with our minds!  Foud out last night that Fredericton was scheduled to receive 30-40 cm of snow over the course of Friday (5-10cm in the morning, 10-15cm in the afternoon then another 10-15cm in the evening).....eeesh.  Considering Jacques was supposed to be flying in in the afternoon and me driving in the evening - it didn't look too promising.

SO...in yet another attempt to get home to have our ALONE time for an ENTIRE weekend - Jacques has switched his flight back to arriving in Quebec City this afternoon - scheduled to arrive here between 5-6 pm.  The worst case is that Noah is late for camp and we have to drive slow to make it to Fredericton - but at least driving in these conditions in the dark doesn't bother Jacques as much as it does me!

Please keep your fingers crossed that our first ever WHOLE weekend alone will work out! 

Year End Bash

It was SO nice last night to see and spend time with Jacques as a family.

His boss had a get-to-gether at their sugar camp in Auclair, Quebec (about one and a half hours from home) with the group workin gall the hours and the auditors.

Lots of activities including tubing, skidooing, campfire, hot dogs & snow taffy.

We had such a great time so I made a video for the occassion!

Enjoy....we did!

A little Sunday drive

We decided to take a Sunday drive - ON Sunday!!! We had originally intended to go play 3 holes of golf at this 'really' cool park in Florenceville - where it's FREE!!!

We ended up driving to Hartland - to visit the world's longest covered bridge first, then to Florenceville.

After finished at the Covered Bridge in Hartland, we drove to Florencevile to a really cool park called 'Sam's Park'. It's an amazing park - with horseshoes, a huge play park, trails to walk, a huge fish pond and the BONUS, there are 3 holes of par 3 golf! So our intention was to take the kids golfing and play at the park.

After the first hole, we were sweating buckets and decided to finish the 3rd hole then get back home ASAP where we had a really nice cool pool waiting for us.

On the drive home, we picked up a pizza. We threw the pizza in the oven to keep it warm and jumped in the pool. We cooled off, ate supper then went to church.

WHAT a perfect SUNday.... I am SO happy for the warm weather we've been having! It makes having a pool all worth while!

See more photos with Isabelle: HERE (email me at tara.morin@hotmail.com to get me to add you to our private list)

Visitors

We LOVED having Owen & Isabelle for the evening on Friday night.

The boys got caught up. They went swimming, on the trampoline, inside....it was cute to see them play together a whole year later! Owen has grown up so much from what I remember (as has Noah, but we've seen the change in Noah and not in Owen).

They are still CRAZY cats!!!

Our Isabelle wanted to join in some swim time fun as well!

After our barbecue, we had a campfire. We roasted some spider weenies, made some s'mores.....

....and got told some scary stories by the 'big' Isabelle! Mostly about ghosts and scary events that happened. Noah & Owen listened INTENTLY and were quite impressed.

Poor Noah - our 'Mr. Fix-It Boy' - repeatedly tried to explain away to make the stories make sense or possible - all the while his sweet little face showed fear!

This particular story (as seen from Owen's point of view) was HILARIOUS....

The 'big' Isabelle went on and on about this scary stuff.......and at the end, it wasn't really a scary story, she was describing these scary boys which ended up being Noah & Owen....

When the 'big' Isabelle finally said this, this was Owen's reaction.....we had a good laugh!!! It was so sweet!

We had some left over sparklers from Canada Day that we let the kids burn.....

The boys slept in the tent. They went in the tent around 11pm and who knows what time they actually fell asleep.

Considering they wanted to get on the road in good time, we went out to wake them up around 8:30 or 9:00 am. We 'scratched' on the tent and walked around making noises. Check out the silhouette of the 'big' Isabelle in the top right corner of the tent!!! LOL She went over and started poking Owen to wake him up!

So glad to have had Owen & Isabelle overnight....thanks for stopping in!

Some more photos including Isabelle can be found on our adoption blog (it's private, by invitation only - if you wish to view, email me and I'll add you to the list).