An Interview

How old are you?
2

When is your birthday?
September 8

What is your favorite color?
Purple!

What is your favorite animal?
A cat

When is your bedtime?
I think...its 5:00

What did you eat for breakfast today?
Some milk, some toast, some pancakes, some pretzels...some rice... and some graham crackers!

What is your favorite thing to eat?
Fruit Snacks! Can I have some fruit snacks, mama?

What is your favorite fruit?
I guess its a blueberry.

What is your favorite vegetable?
Carrots and green beans

What is your favorite song?
'All Around the Mulberry Bush' and 'Old McDonald Had a Farm'

What is your favorite book?
The Wild Things

Where is your favorite place to go in a car?
Children's Museum

What is your favorite thing to wear?
My princess dress, crown, ruby slippers and magic wand

If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
A cat! Meow!

What is your favorite movie?
Meow, Dora, Meow.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our anniversary! It was definitely one of the more memorable ones we've had. I primed our wall downstairs for Mike, and he planned a surprise picnic on the beach for me. He picked up some salmon, hake, and scallops but we ended up eating everything before we could pack it away for the beach. It was amazing. Mike's scallops are really unbelievable.














So after dinner, we grabbed some wine and chocolate (really good dark stuff) and headed for the beach.














It was perfect.















Claire stayed with Meghan and Jason (friends, neighbors, and Meghan is one of Mike's co-workers), and it sounds like she had a blast watching movies, eating hot dogs and jumping on the couch. She even 'helped' Jason mop the floor. She and Jason are getting to be pretty good buddies. He always has a popsicle for her, and she usually has one for him. Its definitely a good match.

Where have we been, huh?

The days are flying by. I can't believe its almost August. Mike is just finishing his emergency medicine month, and its been really nice. A few of the other interns started off on much more difficult months with lots of call and 36 hour shifts. The kind of thing you usually think of when someone mentions residency. We'll get to do that stuff this winter. It is so nice that the best months of residency are what he'll have all the time when he's finished.

Other than that, Mike has been doing a great job downstairs, last night he finished the mudding of the walls. It really looks great. I'm really looking forward to having a room for him, and only for him. A place where he can keep all his stuff, I mean, his really important medical documents, books, journals and supplies. He definitely needs an office. And aside from that, we've been giving the outside of the house a bit of attention as well. Since we moved in, we've been really focused on the inside. Now we are pulling weeds, Mike is cleaning out the gutters, and we are trying to come up with some kind of plan for what we want to plant and where.Other than work, we've been taking advantage of the great weather. Things really cooled down for us, and the humidity went away (for now). We took Claire and her friend to a park with a wading area complete with fountains to play in.


































We went to Peaks Island, and last night we spent a good four hours sitting on the beach. And every day, Claire does this:



















and then says "I wish there was a letter for me." I used to be able to pass off the junk mail as letters sent to her, but she's figured that out. So if anyone wants to send her a card, she would love it.

What's in Your Mailbox??

This study is probably the funniest thing I have read in a long time. It was published in 2000, and I seriously doubt the findings would be the same today, but its a riot to read.

Enjoy!

Postal Experiments

More Basement Pics

Today we put up drywall, Monday we mud and sand (With Tim the Tool man's help!).

I mean, we had to make sure it was strong!

Conversations

As I got into the shower yesterday:
"Mom, do you want to come to the Carnival? Please?"
"I can't come right now, I'm getting into the shower."
"Its okay Mom. Its a naked Carnival."

Upstairs jumping on the couch:
"Hey Dad. Watch this. Watch these feet leave the ground."

At the grocery store:
"Mom is that a banana?"
"No, its a squash."
"What?"
"Its a squash."
"What?"
"Squash. A Squash."
"What?"
"Its a vegetable, its called a squash."
"What?"
"Squash."
"What?"
"Squash."
"What?"
"Claire, its a squash,"
Laughs from from the cart.

Ug, Me Make Wall

Before.....



Action....(yes, Claire took this picture!)



After.....

Pretending Can Be Trouble

Claire was playing in my bedroom today while I was folding some laundry. At one point, I looked over at her, and saw that she was squatting. I looked a little closer and realized she was peeing, just a little bit, but it was clearly intentional.

I said, "Claire, what are you doing?" She hasn't had an accident in forever.
"I'm going potty."
"I see that. Why are you going potty on the floor?"
"I was just pretending I was sitting on a potty chair."

Ah. And doing a great job of it, too.

Privacy!

I finally finished making the curtains! I guess it wouldn't have taken this long if I hadn't completely lost interest half way through. But what counts is that I'm done and now we will be able to walk around the house after dark without the neighborhood knowing about it. So it was a pretty crafty day.



















You may remember a post a while back with a picture of the painted dining room. Notice the naked windows and walls? Here is how it looks now:













Finished roman shades and some stuff on the walls. The bookshelf still needs a bit of work, but I'm taking it one day at a time. I've got a version of the Peasant's Wedding painting in full view of the kitchen, in true Ironwood style. And a new favorite I found while unpacking, four leaves laminated and identified by Mike when he was in grade school. They fit in with the room so perfectly, I love it.














See that curtain rod?? Its electrical conduit. The previous owners of the house took everything when they left, including the curtain rods and brackets. So I went to Target and bought everything I needed, and it came to $300. So I returned it all and went to Home Depot where I bought electrical conduit, some C hooks and couplings for a total of less than $12. Perfect. And once I trim the excess, you won't even be able to see the conduit. I used it in every room, and it worked out especially nice for the living room (below) since the window was about a foot and a half longer than the longest curtain rod I could find. It was longer than a single piece of conduit as well, but thats what the couplings were for. I'm really happy with how it all turned out, curtain rods, fabric and all.














I really love this sheer stuff in the living room, it lets in air and light but its just enough to make you feel like you are separated from the sidewalk (yes I made a liner that isn't see through as well!), and it has just enough of a design in it that its interesting to look at. I actually really enjoyed making everything.

On to the next project!!

Home Again.

What a trip. We had a blast. Lots of sun, family, laughs, fun ... and stairs. (Like these led up to our chalet.)



















Lake Okanagan Resort is built into a mountain side, and its been kept pretty natural. There are beautiful views no matter where you look and flowers everywhere. Claire loved all the 'flowery gardens' that were around. Everything was so green, I was surprised the region is actually semi-arid, but it is. Every day was sunny, hot and dry, perfect for growing fruit, which the area is known for. Its actually where Sun-Rype products come from. The weather was quite a change from the completely saturated and cooler East Coast. Anyway, you can get around the resort by car, but the roads have to wind around so much because of the steep hills, that you save a lot of time by walking. The actual distance from the beach to our Chalet wasn't much, but it was almost completely stairs, and at noon, in the hot sun, it was quite a trip. Most of us had to stop for breaks along the way.



















And when you weren't walking up or down the stairs, there was plenty else to do. I played my first ever nine holes of golf, and did pretty well, if I do say so myself. I can compete with Mike if you count only putts. There was also a Golf Tournament that was classic Wild West, complete with cheating.














There was tennis, and you could chase down your opponent with your racket to try to fix the match. Obviously, there are different rules for sports in Canada.
















On the lake there were three water trampolines, water skiing and tubing. There were also nightly games of ball hockey on the basketball courts. Everyone was very active, and Mike and I commented a few times on how incredible it was that nobody got hurt.

The trip itself was a long one, but Claire did very well. By the time this picture was taken, we had been going for about 15 hours. I was feeling pretty tired, but Claire was doing her "I'm in Ca-Na-Da" dance. She was fired up, to say the least. On the way home it was the same story. I was almost falling asleep by the time we reached Boston at 11:30pm while Claire was running around in circles for the joy of hearing her shoes click on the tiled floor.















We really had a great time. It was so nice to see everyone again. Coming home exhausted from all the fun is the best kind of exhausted. I remember four years ago I heard rumors of the reunion being in Western Canada for 2006, but I didn't hear anything this year for 2010. Did anybody else? I'm already looking forward to it. By the way, click on the picture below to see my Kelowna Flickr set.