Surprise!!!

I gave my family quite a surprise last night... I called them from Red Deer and told them we would see them in 90 minutes... My mom met us at our car outside of my sisters house, she went to the passenger door to greet me... but to her shock and surprise she found Chris there instead!! She yippee'd for joy and came racing around to the drivers side where I was sitting and exclaimed 'You're driving!!!! Are you really Driving??' and yes, yes I am!!!

I'm so glad I was able to keep the secret that I have my learner's permit from everyone - it was really cool to surprise them like that... Now I just need to surprize the In-Laws, maybe next weekend under the guise of bringing those birth announcements for Danielle.

A little background info for those that don't know... I have been getting pestered my my MIL and some members of my family to get my licence. I don't know why I waited so long. I think I was afraid I wouldn't be a good driver - after all it is a really big responsibility and a lot of young people take it for granted and think they should just be able to drive (*poof*) as soon as they turn 16!

I really like the graduated licence program... I think for most people it will make them better drivers and really take driving seriously. It will only really suck for people who live alone and have no friends or family that can be your driving partner - although I'm sure there is a program or something out there for those people.

Random obvious driving thought: You never realize how bad some drivers are until you are learning the right way to drive - Example, you're supposed to turn your signal light on (in the correct direction) BEFORE you change lanes (so that the other drivers around you know what you're planning on doing) ... BUT ... I've seen a lot of people who don't change lanes properly... even one person who changed into the right hand lane and then halfway into the lane turned on his left hand signal lights and left them on for about 20 seconds...

Ewan James Kerr has arrived

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have just brought a beautiful new life into this world. His name is Ewan James Kerr and he was born early this morning (on proud grandpapa's birthday) and weighs in at a healthy 7lbs 4oz and with a length of a little over 21 inches. Mom (Danielle) and baby are doing well. I'll post a picture as soon as I have one!!

I'm designing and producing the baby announcement cards which will be done by next weekend when we will go to Calgary to visit and see our newest nephew. I'll post a picture of the birth announcement when its completed too.

Congrats to Danielle and Jeremy on their new bundle of joy!

Get out of the gutter!!!

BANG! BANGBANGBANGBANG!... Bark! Bark! Howwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl! Whine! HISSSSSSSSSSS!

And now I'm sitting straight up in bed with a fully poofed up orange cat at my feet wondering what the heck is going on!! BANG! it dawns on me that today is Saturday and our gutters must be getting reattached to the house now... so much for sleeping in today!! I look over and there is my darling husband... still fast asleep!! Being the loving wife I am, I decide that if I have to be up this early, so shall dear darling husband. I gently pull out his earplug - apparently I snore or something - and await the next bang... the roofer does not disappoint!! BANGITY BANG BANG! Dear darling hubby is now definately awake!!! LOL sometimes its fun to be a little mean!!

We're up... now what? ah, yes Giz must whiz...

9/11

Its been 7 years since the 9/11 attacks and still every September 11th the news and radio relives and refreshes everyone's memories of the event. When do we stop looking back at the past and start living for the future again?

I admit that I've moved on and that might be because I was in Calgary at work the morning of 9/11 and it didn't really hit home for me because I didn't know anyone who was on the hijacked flights or in the Twin Towers. I was saddened by it and I suppose if I had someone who had died or been injured in the attack, or lived in NY it probably would have been harder for me to get over. Yes - terrorism is bad but isn't the War that ensued because of 9/11 worse? 9/11 claimed over 6000 innocent lives... The War on Terrorism has claimed much more than that - men, women, children and so many soldiers - and it is still going on... How many more have to die until 'revenge' is fulfilled?

It's bad enough that every year the radio and news reminds us all but when companies put up advertisements selling coins etc. that have been minted from silver retrieved from Ground Zero... that bothers me... There are people out there that are profiting from this trajedy and that really gets my goat!

I know people are morbid by nature - they want a souvenier of events like 9/11, they want to feel like they are a part of it... but its kind of sick at the same time.

We have to learn from our mistakes, but we also have to move on... Its been 7 years, I think its time.

Yard messy - me not so happy

So Adrianna (our landlady) and her boyfriend came by tonight to clean up after the roofer... but they were working in the dark for half of the time and when I went out a few minutes ago to put Gizmo in his pen (y'know for the pooping etc) I still see a lot of debri - most of it small, but to Gizmo I bet all of it looks super tasty... especially those lovely 2" nails scattered about!!

I'm not such a happy camper right now - I was really hoping that I'd be able to let Gizmo run around the yard again, but since he eats anything he can fit in his face (yes even rocks too... ) I can't until we clean up the yard again (front and back).

Some good news - our roof does look very nice and Adrianna said the roofer would be back to put the gutters back up on Saturday!!

Roof... and no that isn't the dog

Our landlady finally got the roofers to come and reshingle our house... We came home to a complete mess in the front yard today - the roofer just tossed everything over the side of the roof, and onto my garden!! Now I didn't do a lot of planting this year, as it was our first year in this house and I wanted to see what would pop up... turns out there were two flowering bush-like plants and a really nice peony, along with some nice lowbrush greenery (I'm not sure what they are but they're rather nice to look at). And ALL of it was under the roof garbage!!! If I was a cartoon character steam would have come out from my ears! My hubby tried to calm me down by saying that the roofer would be done in a day or two and when he was finished he would take all of the garbage away at the same time.

I heard him banging and thumping all day Saturday as I was trying to design the birth announcements for my sister-in-law's baby that is due on the 20th of this month and while watching the puppy who did not like all of the noise!! Chris, lucky him, was at work trying to get the server to do its proper backups...

It took the roofer until Monday evening to finish our roof, we met him as we were taking Gizmo out to the pen in the back. Chris and the roofer chatted it up and he told us that our Landlady would be by on the weekend to clean up the mess and that someone would be back to put the gutters back on the house...

The back yard and front yard look like our house had a drastic haircut and no one has swept yet... I really hope our landlady comes sooner rather than later!

Collage Time

A collage of Gizmo... he's so cute and loving and awesome!!