41st Birthday!

Birthday Morning started out with boys and Chris ... best start to any day right?  They got me a Christmas triple pack of Toffifee!! (dangerous)...as well as a fun blow up lounger that packs down into a backpack - they know me well hey?  Chocolate and lounging?  yes please ....

As I was making my morning coffee, I had to snap a picture of this frame that is next to my espresso machine ... I look at it every day and it is full of my favorite friends and my sister .... within the first few hours of the day, each of these women had sent me a birthday message!  We are all so busy, and we don't see eachother as often as we would all like ... so that was a nice start.....

And then my sweet LA cousins birthday message within minutes of eachother ... it's funny, Carrie and I do this too . she will comment on someone we have in common and I will remember and do it a minute later, so i got a kick out of seeing these 2 close sisters doing the same thing .... excited to see them both next week!  We are staying with their folks later this week - so we will miss all the kids as they are all away at University ... but we have carved out dates to see them...

This is Eva!!  She has become my favorite homeshare provider at work ... and because it was my birthday, I decided to schedule her visit on this day!  As usual. she had tea all set up for our visit!

After Eva, Monet Spa was just down the road, so I thought I should go 'support' my friends business!! ;-)  Elizabeth had a sweet card waiting for me ....

I raced back to town after for lunch at Nha Trangs as my co-workers wanted to take me out for lunch!  Aren't they sweet?  Catherine V (to the left), had flowers on my desk when I arrived this morning, Catherine H (who is retiring in January), paid for my lunch (so sweet!), and Linda had a book wrapped up that she thought I would find interesting to read on my trip....I just feel so lucky to work with such nice people....especially since this job can be yucky sometimes ....

Racing to grab the kids to get them to their piano lessons for 2:30 and was rewarded with a quick cuddle!! Anyone who knows Elliot, knows these are few and far between!!!

Their sweet piano teacher ran this out to me after their lessons!!  It was funny to exchange gifts because I had a christmas thank you gift for her too!! ;-)

I dropped the boys at Noahs' house for the evening so that we could meet Steve and Nic for dinner .... So i had about an hour between dropoff and dinner and was supposed to meet Cristin for a quick visit ... but i just was so tired and running out of steam!! I had driven all over town today!  So that was sad, but I will see her and her family on Boxing day for brunch and a hike!  Nikki's house was close and she was home, so i went and crashed on her couch for an hour and she gave me a tea with Baileys!! ;-)  Definatly helped give me a second wind!!  

So this sweet couple had a Bellini and an amazing prawn appie waiting for when I arrived!!  Isn't that the best??  

Steve and Nic are one of our most favorite couples to hang out with because Chris and Steve get along so well too .... they are always busy doing something interesting and they are both good to talk to about life.  So a night without kids and just to kick back, was pretty great.

When we arrived home, our car doors hadn't even closed before Zalinko's came charging out of their house at us! Rachel had worked on a sweet painting of my boys hands for me, similar to the owl picture I had her kids do for her last year! ;-)  They were all pretty excited ... it was sweet......

And Rach gave me the best necklace ever .... inside it says "adventure"....I loved it!!

They stayed for a little while visiting, and these 2 were pretty sweet on the piano together ...both quite musical ... Max wants to learn piano, so Isaac is teaching him a few things here ..... nice friends..

SO that wraps up the day!  It was busy and good and full of so much love!!! What a LUCKY 41 year old!!!

Starting to feel like holidays ....

It's been a nutty week and an even nuttier weekend, so it was a low key Sunday morning after a long long sleep-in with my best friend !!

Feeling extra thankful this morning.  

We got out the decorations this morning and while the boys hung their stockings by the fire, Chris hung Christmas lights around the living room. 

Our very first decoration as a married couple! 

And a sweet decoration we picked out in Florida when we were at Cracker Barrel with the Winslows. Fun memories with that one too. 

And this one is from mom and dads cabin at Big White years and years ago!!

Ginger snaps like grandma !

Just sitting down with a latte ... everything is tidied up ... Chris wrapping a few things up at camp with his new website design, and the boys are hanging out .... 

We leave soon for busy afternoon so this is so nice!

89.7 Sun FM reunion lunch

2016 Sun FM annual lunch ...

2014 annual lunch ....

Pho with grandparents!!

After piano lessons we had dinner with Marg and Gordon.....Chris had said it had been awhile since we had seen his folks so we organized Pho!!

Cristin was dropping Olivia off at the theater so she joined us for a little while!!

Here is grandpa showing them a picture of a black bear in a super dark picture...Lol

It was a nice evening ...

Quick birthday trip to Kelowna ....

I have the best sister in the world. She flew me to kelowna to help celebrate my birthday and I felt so incredibly special. I didn't take a ton of pictures unfortunatly because I wanted to soak it all in!! But here are the few shots I did get. 

We did a little thrift shopping on our way home from the airport which led us to being hungry around 4!! And since dinner wasn't for another few hours, we stopped in at the wildfire pizza trailer!! Best pizza!!

Once home, we relaxed for a little while and had a hottub. 

But before the hottub, sister gave me a birthday presents!! A cool fleece shirt, cozy socks, and the best shirt she had made for me that said "I'm sorry I'm late, I didn't want to come"....

Then time for special birthday dinner at her local Greek restaurant. Here is mom using her flashlight to read the menu. Carrie and I found this cute and amusing. ;-)

My two favourite ladies!!

Our waitress was an interesting character. 

We were so full from dinner but still splurged for the chocolate mousse for dessert. It was amazing!! And we each had a couple of special drinks to celebrate.  So fun. 

Mom and I getting a quick squeeze in before we left the restaurant.  Love my mom. 

The next morning was sweet. Jack played piano, Ellie puttered around. 

She crawled into bed with me as a wake up call :-). She is just the sweetest little soul!!

We headed to mom and dads for breakfast!  Somehow my childhood raggedy Anne doll was there!!

The two chefs in the kitchen. 

The trip was over quickly but we squeezed a lot of face time into the time spent. I was able to get a good tour of the log cabin and all the work they've done lately around there. It's coming a lot so beautifully. Carrie has the sweetest little kids that I just love. It was nice to spend some time on my own. I felt very loved. It was a great birthday getaway. 

Prepping to leave for Kelowna Trip

As I was grabbing my passport on Thursday morning, I thought "ah, just for fun, will check everyone elses passports even though I think we are all fine" .... turns out this kids passport expired in Oct!!  Ack!!!  So, we race him to the photographers (he was stoked to miss some school and have a quick hot chocolate with mom before the photographers office opened at 9!)....

 

However, the passport photographer thought there was nothing wrong with the initial picture:

The kid looks like such a punk!!  "Choose your weapon"??!!  She even stamps the back and hands it to me with a smile .... I look at it and look back and her and say 'you see NO problem with this picture?' ..... she blankly looks at me ... lol, luckily she is a whiz at photoshop and photoshopped his t-shirt all black and re-printed it.

 

That day I had to be in Nanaimo all day, so Chris took the kids and the passport information to the head passport office in Victoria.  Thankfully, we are able to get the passport back on Dec 1st ... 2 days before we leave!!  We all met up for a few minutes before they headed for home and I met up with Aisha for a show downtown.

Aisha and I became good friends this summer, but she moved to Victoria and this was the first time we have been able to hang out since she moved.

We saw a show called "Lies our parents told us" .... so everyone had a story ... most were entertaining stories ... one was super sad ...

I didn't get any shots of Darlene, but I crashed in her livingroom and this girl kept me company in the morning while I drank my coffee before the flight.

Their new house is lovely ....

She also gave me a pair of Tom boots that she doesn't wear anymore ....