Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Today we enjoyed the lovely warmer weather and took a walk to the park, and had a quick trip to Ikea to look for basement furniture.

Here's a riddle for you... If a train leaves the station at 8am and I make 8 orange frosted cinnamon rolls for breakfast, then Ben eats one, and Fiona eats two, how many do I end up eating before my post-vacation diet begins tomorrow? If your answer is "however many were left" you'd be correct. Shameful, I know. But ooooooh so good!

This evening Ben put the rear speakers up in the basement and we finally got the electronic dartboard we've had for a few years hung up. We didn't have a good spot for it before, but now we do! After some super fun darts matches on vacation I am determined that the next time I play with other people I will be less bad than before ;-)

Here's the new practice area (and speakers)...

Fiona chowed down on the chocolate egg Michael and Julia (and the cousins) gave her. She was so excited to eat this! She didn't eat the whole thing, and I am trying my very hardest not to sneak into the cupboard and munch on the leftovers myself... If the picture makes it from Ben's phone to my email before I am done, I'll include it :-)

So far, they have not. I'll post those tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Basement!

We began working on turning part of our basement into a habitable space back in early 2009. It took a long time, but now the walls are built, the ceiling is in, painting is done, the carpet is here! The basement finally looks like a real room! A real room with some questionable furniture, but a real room nonetheless!

Here is a before picture (from before we moved in) (you can read the post and see the pics from way back when we started here).

And here's how it looks today:

We plan to replace the ugly folding table with a desk and put a bookcase behind it to hold the various toys that are bound to migrate in here. The projector and screen need to be hung and the speakers need to have something complicated done to them. Clearly I need a real chair, and the walls need some artwork. But that stuff could take another two years, so for now we're basking in the joy of having a space that doesn't feel like a haven for hundreds of centipedes who are waiting to pounce. I'm so happy that we're finally here! Phew!

Anniversary # 6!

Today Ben and I have been married for six years. Last year it was only five years, and now it is six. To celebrate we started by enjoying the warmish morning by walking round the lake. The actual photos from today are on the camera, so in the interest of finishing this tonight, here's an artist's impression of the event:

(The walk today was identical, except for finally having significantly less snow, and Fiona wore different tights)

Then lunch, nap, cleaning and off to Grandma's house!

Fiona loves visiting Grandma and Grandpa and as soon as we got there she told us we should get going. Actually, I think she said we should go away. We're really teaching her how to be polite and well mannered :-/

Still, with Fiona's blessing Ben and I set off to enjoy our anniversary date.

This weekend is the last chance to go to the parade of homes (a showcase of new houses). I love the parade of homes in large part because it satisfies my voyeuristic tenancies - it's really entertaining to wander around inspecting someone else's house! We only go to houses that cost a massive amount of money and the one we saw today was $2 million and more than 7,000 square feet. It was opulent and ridiculous with features such as four garages, two sets of laundry equipment (one on each floor), and a water tap above the stove (presumably so you can fill the pasta pot right there and not have to go to the trouble of carrying it 4 feet from the sink). So much fun!!

After that we enjoyed dinner together and a stroll down memory lane. On the cocktail list was a "Mug O Tanqueray" which I imagined would be slightly larger gin and tonic than usual, and appealed to my Scottish self as a pretty good deal but in reality was a VAT of Tanqueray. Never one to shy away from a challenge I did my best, but better judgement prevailed and I left defeated.

(Yep, that's 23oz of gin right there. And a little tonic.)

Now we're home, the girls are in bed, and it's time to go downstairs and help Ben paint the basement.

We're finally almost done with making a family room down there - all that's left is paint, trim, carpet, and probably 74 other things I have not thought of. Still, we're close. So I should go and help. Or at least sit with my feet up and point out spots he misses. I'm just helpful that way :-)

Adventure in a shopping trolley

Today we went out and ran some errands. I got a super secret item in a super secret location (it's father's day tomorrow), and then we went to Home Depot to get paint for the basement. We're trying their new 'no voc' Freshaire paint, which is free of 'volatile organic compounds'. According to the EPA, VOC exposure can cause...

Eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination, nausea; damage to liver, kidney, and central nervous system. Some organics can cause cancer in animals; some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans. Key signs or symptoms associated with exposure to VOCs include conjunctival irritation, nose and throat discomfort, headache, allergic skin reaction, dyspnea, declines in serum cholinesterase levels, nausea, emesis, epistaxis, fatigue, dizziness.

Sounds lovely, right? The VOC's also remain in the air for a significant time after the paint has been applied, and continue to compromise the air quality. So in our continued efforts to live a greener life, we're trying the no VOC paint, and it had better be awesome, because if course it costs four times as much! (Although, to be fair, the cancer and birth defect causing paint - and yes, these warnings are right there ON THE CAN - is only $11, so it's not like it cost that much, given the added benefits!)

And now that I've shared all that useful information with you, here's the cuteness section... Fiona got to ride in the cart (trolley) that has steering wheels like a car, and she LOVED it.

She was kind of grumpy before, but as soon as she got in, she started laughing and steering. The pictures are with the old camera, because oddly I didn't consider bringing the fancy camera to the hardware store!

And now Ben is painting and I'm blogging. It's not Father's day yet you know! But I suppose I should go and bring him a cold beer and mop his tired brow. Or at least point out some spots he's missed...

Ben's Movie Room

Since before we even moved into our house, Ben has always talked about how much he would love to have a movie room. His plan was to have a big screen and projector, and a good (read - LOUD) sound system. This was always one of those may or may not plans, until Fiona was born.

As it turns out, waking a baby with a movie explosion is not a good idea. Baby gets upset. Movie gets paused. Louise deals with baby. Louise gets upset. Not a good situation. Since Fiona was born, Ben has been 'managing the remote' which involves predicting when the movie is about to get loud, and reducing the volume accordingly. This drives Ben crazy. Ben gets upset. Not a good situation. We've been avoiding movies and only quietly watching reality t.v. for months. Something had to change.

So the movie room plan was hatched. 

For the last month, Ben and his Dad have been building walls to make a movie room in the basement, and it is going really well! (No, of course I am not surprised. I had the utmost confidence.)

This is how the basement looked before we moved in:

This is my version of the plan for the renovation (to help the next pictures make sense). The red lines are the walls that are being added. The blue things are doors. Yes, I took art class in school. Yes, I passed. Thanks.

These are a selection of pictures illustrating the basement progress so far..

Removing the wood under the stairs to put up a wall. 

The frame for the new wall:

The other framing:

So it's really coming along! The heating man is coming tomorrow to put heat in the room, and then it will be much more habitable! Stay tuned for updates!

And of course, Ben being Ben, he has already purchased the electronics required for the ultimate movie system. We're just waiting on tenderhooks for the projector to arrive. No walls, no heat, no problem. We've got a really big screen.