Randomness and Pinspiration

      Whew what a week, it's still busy busy 'round here as we are still wrapping up end of school year stuff. One week today and we have our freedom for two months, I can't wait! But it also makes me a little sad because this is the last week that all my kids will be in the same school together. Next year will be Nyla's first year of junior high (or middle school) which is a half hour away,(that is, if  we decide not to home school, but more on that later!) They grow so incredibly fast don't they?!   Anyways, before I get carried away to maudlin city, let's move on! Today is my kids Fun Day at school and they are so pumped for all the fun to be had. The only bummer is that it is POURING rain (as it has been the last couple of days) and normally Fun Day would be outside think: slip and slides, games with water balloons and sprinklers etc. Oh well, I know the teachers have a bunch of fun indoor games planned this morning and then the whole school is having a movie day in the afternoon in the gym. I'm going to go there in a little while and help with the hot lunch (maybe I'll even get to make some of the ice cream sundaes! Yum!)
      Anyways, like I say it's been super rainy here (normal spring weather I guess :) so I've been feeling the crafting bug upon me, and even though I feel it I haven't been able to do all that much, I've sure been "pinning" up a storm on my Pinterest boards :) I looooooooovvvvvveeeee Pinterest, don't you?! And I have to say, it's especially convenient to have the Pinterest App on my phone, so when I'm waiting for the bus, or waiting for a ferry (long story) etc etc Pinterest, here I come! I'll just share a few of my current favorite pins lately but if you want to check out more of my pins and boards, just click on the board on the right sidebar.


I've been working on learning how to crochet this year so these were really inspiring, and I just love all the colorful colors!!!

                                     
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Are we done yet?

I had a post all set to go for today and then I saw this post by Jen and I HAD to share it with all you other mom's out there whose kids don't finish school till the end of June. It is hilarious!! It so perfectly describes how I (and I'm sure many of you other moms with school aged children)have been feeling the last week or so. I'm so done with making school lunches, the kids are ready for freedom (they keep asking to have "sleepovers" in each other's rooms) I tell you I was exhausted by 8 this morning (could have something to do with the fact that my eldest left for a four day school trip this morning!)

So check it out it will hopefully bring a smile to your day! Oh and by the way, the blog post got so much attention, Jen was on the Today show!

Check her blog post titled "Worst end of school year mom ever!"

You can check out the Today show with Jen HERE

Now, I'm off to deliver lunches that never made it into the backpacks this am :)
Solidarity, moms, solidarity!
Have a great week ;)

Something to Ponder

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The sun is shining and my freckles are out in abundance :)

Have a great week!

Penticton Farmers Market

Good morning to you! So I've been sharing a lot about my hubby and I's little vacation last week, and today I'm sharing a bunch of photos of my Saturday morning at the Penticton Farmers Market. Let me tell you, I was impressed! It was awesome! So colorful and fun, lots and lots of vendors of all sorts of things like scarves,

Our Little Getaway Part 2 {The Wineries}

    As I mentioned yesterday, one of the days we were away, I got to go on a wine tour of the Naramata Bench, and I have to say, it was fabulous! Now, I am by no means a wine connoisseur, but I sure had fun anyways :) I went with a bunch of other wives from the firefighter training weekend and I didn't know anyone else there, but it was nice and I got to meet new people, try new things, see new places. I also had a blast taking pictures (both with my iPhone and my good camera) of everything, so if you feel up to it, scroll down as I give a little picture tour of some of the wineries we visited. In all, we visited eight out of the twenty-four listed on the Naramata Bench Winery website and one other that is not which is called Ruby Blues. We visited La Frenz,  D'Angelo Estate, Hillside Winery and Bistro, Laughing Stock Vineyards, Black Widow Winery, Lake Breeze, Elephant Island, and finally 3 Mile Estate. Whew! That's a lot of wine! And a lot of grapevines! Go grab a cup o'coffee or tea (or maybe even wine!) and get ready for some eye candy   :)

The first one we went to was La Frenz and this is the entrance to the tasting room (I knew from this point on it was going to be a good day ;) Rustic pergola, wine barrels and acres of grapevines...

Our Little Getaway

         First of all I want to apologise again for another impromptu blogging hiatus, life has been BUSY! Of course it's that time of year, end of school, field trips galore, lots of house hunting etc etc etc. But, one thing hubby and I have been lucky to do this past week, was enjoy an (almost) week long getaway. On the 15th Pat and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary and it just so happened that last week was a B.C Fire Training Officers Association Conference in Penticton B.C. So, as my hubby is the training officer for his department, we got to go :) And it was fabulous! Although hubby was busy every day with training courses, I had a lovely time just soaking up the peace and quiet (we left the kids at home in the capable hands of their Gramma Sue during the week and Gramma Dusty for the weekend) and got to go on a lovely wine tour of the Naramata Bench with some very nice ladies and a couple handsome guys to drive us around. Tomorrow I will share with you a more in depth tour of some of the wineries we visited, so stay tuned!

We were pretty surprised when we opened our room and saw this loveliness, king size bed, fireplace, jacuzzi tub, it was fantastic! (sorry, bad lighting + iPhone = grainy photo)

At the far end of the room was some french doors that led out to a private patio and a central courtyard with a heated pool, hot tub, kid's playground, and pub.

 I should probably mention that my hubby and I haven't gone away together for more than one night since before our kids were born, and that's 10 1/2 years ago people! Even though Pat had his courses, we still got a bit of time to spend together, we went to see Ironman 3D (the closest theatre to where we live is an hour away so this was a real treat to go to a movie in a movie theatre!) As my first official 3D movie experience, it was an awesome movie to see! And even just having time to talk without a million interruptions  was heavenly  (I'm sure many of you parents out there can relate!)   :)
 Tomorrow I'm planning to share my photos and experiences of the winery tour I went on and later this week  some Farmers Market yumminess, so stay tuned!

Happy Monday and have a great week!

P.S. Anyone looking for more information about the hotel we stayed at can check out their website HERE

Mom's Day

I hope all you mothers had a wonderful day yesterday. I know I did! We had a very busy weekend and so I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, but I did take a bunch of fun pictures that I wanted to share with you.
      These first few pics were taken with my phone and didn't upload as clear on here as they appear on my phone :)

Such a cool big rock!

Something to Ponder

I've needed this reminder lately :)

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Creative Crop 2013

Did you know last Saturday was (Inter)National Scrapbook day? No? Well me neither ;) until I got a nice email from the people at Big Picture Classes informing me of this special day and inviting me to participate in their annual Creative Crop.


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Basically we were given 10 different "challenges" of different techniques to scrapbook and with each layout you submit a picture of, completing this challenge, you had a chance to win some pretty awesome prizes (well, pretty awesome if you are a scrapbooker ;) So, since my scrapbooking has been pretty non-existent lately, I decided to attempt a couple of the challenges, and you know what? It was great! I ended up finishing three pages, two are a double layout and one by itself. The double layout is a bunch of pictures I've been wanting to scrapbook for awhile, they are about Gabe's first solo ski attempts.  (the challenge with this one was, we were given a sketch of the layout we were supposed to use and then use our own pictures and stories within that layout)

I'm so excited!

Have you seen this magazine? I picked this up a little while ago, brought it home, and couldn't put it down! If you are an aspiring crafter (like me :) this will totally get you pumped to create stuff. I love magazines, especially most of the Better Homes and Gardens Publications and I know I should just look at them online or whatever, but nothing (yes even Pinterest!)  beats thumbing through a magazine (or a book :)

           I picked this up a little while ago, brought it home, and couldn't put it down! If you are an aspiring crafter (like me :) this will totally get you pumped to create all sorts of crafty stuff. I love magazines, especially most of the Better Homes and Gardens Publications and I know I should just look at them online or whatever, but nothing beats thumbing through a magazine (or a book!) 

I was really saddened a few months ago when I realized I hadn't seen one of my favorite mags for awhile.