What a Weekend!
As you can tell, blogging was not high on the priority list this weekend. There was just WAY too much other stuff going on!
Friday night:
Jason's new employer, the DMI Pulp Processing Mill, held a banquet for all employees to celebrate 2 years with no lost time accidents. This was Jason's and my first "date" since Jabin was born. We dressed up, dropped the kids at the Burdicks, and we were off. It was held at the local ski chalet called "Misery Mountain" (I have no idea why it's called that, but I bet there is an interesting story about it somewhere.) The place settings were ultra-formal, the centrepieces were gorgeous and jungle-like, but too tall to talk through, and the food was fantastic! Even on my "traditional" diet, I was able to gorge myself and not do it on foods that were bad for me! (Although, I will admit to being guilty of consuming about half a piece of cheesecake. Hey, at least it had cream cheese in it, right?) Top notch party.
The cast:
The table we sat at had an interesting mix of characters. We were invited to sit there by Clint and Robin, a young couple we didn't really know, but I had met Robin a few times in the nursing mom's room at church. They are quite the talkers, and we found out we had a lot in common: Clint is a total computer nut, and Robin really enjoys scrapbooking. They also have two little girls that are close in age to our own kids.
Unfortunately, they were on the exact opposite side of the table from us. Across the jungle of a centrepiece. Eventually, I switched our centrepiece with the empty table next to ours, because theirs was marginally shorter. Then, we wondered if we would "get in trouble" because we messed up the colour scheme--the old centrepiece was based on burgundy to match our napkins and chair scarves, and the new one was based on black to match the other table's. However, the Party Police must have been negligent, because no one noticed.
Between us and the Neufelds sat Scott and Nicole on the right-hand side, both of whom are employees of DMI, and they have been dating for four months. They should have had their own room. Jason said he almost made a comment--they were practically making out at the table.
On the left-hand side was Herman, an older gentleman without a date, and Lana, an older lady, also without a date. While we tried to include all other people in the conversation, Herman and Lana were both pretty quiet and introverted, and Scott and Nicole were too busy making out to want to make polite conversation, so the Neufelds and the Winters proceeded to shout our conversation over the (very cool) giant centrepiece. Parts of the evening were awkward, but the best part was that we made new friends, with whom we have already agreed that we will be having Sunday dinners and other get-togethers before much time has passed.
Saturday:
When we got up, this Saturday was promising to be nothing out of the ordinary. Jason had plans to mow the lawn (which hadn't been done in about 3-4 weeks, due to the fact that Jason hurt his back, so it looked a little jungle-like, too. Maybe I should call this "The Jungle Weekend.") I intended to do a whole heckuvalotta work on my stalled kitchen reno project. So, we proceeded about our separate tasks.
Around 12:30 I got a surprise call from my lifelong friend Tegan. This is how it went:
Tegan: Hi, Talena!
Talena (gushing): Hi, Tegan! What are you up to?
Tegan: Well, we just bought a truck in Fairview. [Fairview is about 45 minutes away from here.]
Talena (excitedly): You're in Fairview?!!
Tegan: No, we're actually in Peace River right now.
Talena (starting to jump up and down with excitement, having a hard time speaking): WHAT?!!! Where are you at?
From there, we managed to get them here for lunch. Chris and Tegan have been friends of ours since, well, forever. Tegan and I have been friends since grade one, and that means people have been getting our names mixed up for over two decades. As soon as Chris entered the picture, I knew he was a keeper, and I was honoured (no pun intended) to be the Maid of Honour at their wedding. When Jason showed up on my side of things, we all just blended--it's so nice when you can be friends as couples with someone you've been friends as singles with, too.
Sadly, Chris and Tegan have always lived far away from us. It seems we are always just missing living in the same place--they moved to Calgary not long after we moved away. They have just recently moved to Sylvan Lake, now that we no longer live there. Hey, Chris
& Tegan, it just occurred to me--you're not avoiding us, are you? *wink* So, a surprise visit from them was AWESOME! Unfortunately, they could only stay for lunch, then had to head home so they could feed their parents' starving pets.
After they left, I prepared to go back to Plan A for the day. I ran out to the paint store to find a new chip, as we had decided we didn't like the colour we had been thinking about for the main area of the house. When I got back, Jason told me that my Aunty Joy had called while I was out--she was in town helping her cousin move, and was wondering if she could stop by for a visit. (I was suddenly really glad I had managed to get the carpets vacuumed this week!)
Hers was also a short visit--about half an hour. So by five o'clock, we had had surprise visitors twice, Jason had mown the lawn, I had done very little work on the kitchen, and there was still the whole evening! What a crazy day! Other than my mother and her husband, these were the first people not from here that had visited us since we moved up here, so it was a really nice treat.
So, I actually did quite a lot of the work on my kitchen yesterday afternoon and evening. I am happy to report that the beadboard part of the project is nearly completed--stalled temporarily since I ran out of paint last night, and of course the paint store was not open on a Sunday. Also, we'll have to wait until we get paid on Friday to buy more. However, there is not much left to paint, and nearly everything is nailed where it should be nailed.
Today, my goal is to finish sanding and mudding the pass-through window, and I'm hoping to be completely finished by the end of the week. So, this might be a slow blogging week for me--we'll see.
For reference on this kitchen project, see the post "If You Give A Pig A Pancake...". Yes, I've been working on this since April--it is high time to be finished, already!
Have a great day, mes amies!
Friday night:
Jason's new employer, the DMI Pulp Processing Mill, held a banquet for all employees to celebrate 2 years with no lost time accidents. This was Jason's and my first "date" since Jabin was born. We dressed up, dropped the kids at the Burdicks, and we were off. It was held at the local ski chalet called "Misery Mountain" (I have no idea why it's called that, but I bet there is an interesting story about it somewhere.) The place settings were ultra-formal, the centrepieces were gorgeous and jungle-like, but too tall to talk through, and the food was fantastic! Even on my "traditional" diet, I was able to gorge myself and not do it on foods that were bad for me! (Although, I will admit to being guilty of consuming about half a piece of cheesecake. Hey, at least it had cream cheese in it, right?) Top notch party.
The cast:
The table we sat at had an interesting mix of characters. We were invited to sit there by Clint and Robin, a young couple we didn't really know, but I had met Robin a few times in the nursing mom's room at church. They are quite the talkers, and we found out we had a lot in common: Clint is a total computer nut, and Robin really enjoys scrapbooking. They also have two little girls that are close in age to our own kids.
Unfortunately, they were on the exact opposite side of the table from us. Across the jungle of a centrepiece. Eventually, I switched our centrepiece with the empty table next to ours, because theirs was marginally shorter. Then, we wondered if we would "get in trouble" because we messed up the colour scheme--the old centrepiece was based on burgundy to match our napkins and chair scarves, and the new one was based on black to match the other table's. However, the Party Police must have been negligent, because no one noticed.
Between us and the Neufelds sat Scott and Nicole on the right-hand side, both of whom are employees of DMI, and they have been dating for four months. They should have had their own room. Jason said he almost made a comment--they were practically making out at the table.
On the left-hand side was Herman, an older gentleman without a date, and Lana, an older lady, also without a date. While we tried to include all other people in the conversation, Herman and Lana were both pretty quiet and introverted, and Scott and Nicole were too busy making out to want to make polite conversation, so the Neufelds and the Winters proceeded to shout our conversation over the (very cool) giant centrepiece. Parts of the evening were awkward, but the best part was that we made new friends, with whom we have already agreed that we will be having Sunday dinners and other get-togethers before much time has passed.
Saturday:
When we got up, this Saturday was promising to be nothing out of the ordinary. Jason had plans to mow the lawn (which hadn't been done in about 3-4 weeks, due to the fact that Jason hurt his back, so it looked a little jungle-like, too. Maybe I should call this "The Jungle Weekend.") I intended to do a whole heckuvalotta work on my stalled kitchen reno project. So, we proceeded about our separate tasks.
Around 12:30 I got a surprise call from my lifelong friend Tegan. This is how it went:
Tegan: Hi, Talena!
Talena (gushing): Hi, Tegan! What are you up to?
Tegan: Well, we just bought a truck in Fairview. [Fairview is about 45 minutes away from here.]
Talena (excitedly): You're in Fairview?!!
Tegan: No, we're actually in Peace River right now.
Talena (starting to jump up and down with excitement, having a hard time speaking): WHAT?!!! Where are you at?
From there, we managed to get them here for lunch. Chris and Tegan have been friends of ours since, well, forever. Tegan and I have been friends since grade one, and that means people have been getting our names mixed up for over two decades. As soon as Chris entered the picture, I knew he was a keeper, and I was honoured (no pun intended) to be the Maid of Honour at their wedding. When Jason showed up on my side of things, we all just blended--it's so nice when you can be friends as couples with someone you've been friends as singles with, too.
Sadly, Chris and Tegan have always lived far away from us. It seems we are always just missing living in the same place--they moved to Calgary not long after we moved away. They have just recently moved to Sylvan Lake, now that we no longer live there. Hey, Chris
& Tegan, it just occurred to me--you're not avoiding us, are you? *wink* So, a surprise visit from them was AWESOME! Unfortunately, they could only stay for lunch, then had to head home so they could feed their parents' starving pets.
After they left, I prepared to go back to Plan A for the day. I ran out to the paint store to find a new chip, as we had decided we didn't like the colour we had been thinking about for the main area of the house. When I got back, Jason told me that my Aunty Joy had called while I was out--she was in town helping her cousin move, and was wondering if she could stop by for a visit. (I was suddenly really glad I had managed to get the carpets vacuumed this week!)
Hers was also a short visit--about half an hour. So by five o'clock, we had had surprise visitors twice, Jason had mown the lawn, I had done very little work on the kitchen, and there was still the whole evening! What a crazy day! Other than my mother and her husband, these were the first people not from here that had visited us since we moved up here, so it was a really nice treat.
So, I actually did quite a lot of the work on my kitchen yesterday afternoon and evening. I am happy to report that the beadboard part of the project is nearly completed--stalled temporarily since I ran out of paint last night, and of course the paint store was not open on a Sunday. Also, we'll have to wait until we get paid on Friday to buy more. However, there is not much left to paint, and nearly everything is nailed where it should be nailed.
Today, my goal is to finish sanding and mudding the pass-through window, and I'm hoping to be completely finished by the end of the week. So, this might be a slow blogging week for me--we'll see.
For reference on this kitchen project, see the post "If You Give A Pig A Pancake...". Yes, I've been working on this since April--it is high time to be finished, already!
Have a great day, mes amies!
