Just a little sneak peak of 40...

Lots of pictures to go through. But it was a night for the books.  Here's a quick preview of this steller night!!!!  Having my sis there nailed it!!!

Imadene Christmas party .....

Long drive to nanaimo, a performance review that went well, a baby shower, the best airport pickup ever; 

Last week I threw a complication of pictures of Jax and Elliot up Instagram all envious that I didn't have a friend to play with me in a onesie!! Enter best sister ever!!!!! "Here to PLAY for your birthday!!!!!"  Seriously best ever. Love my sis. 

So we drove home, had a quick hottub with sis and it was time to head to Rentons for the staff party.

Jennie Lynne made the best dinner ever!! It took her days to prep and plan and all day to prepare - we were totally spoiled....and I got to cuddle on our favorite chair together with this girl which was the highlight of the night for me. 

It's 10pm and we're in bed. Good night. 

Mary's meeting and Rachel's birthday!

Was able to weezle our way into creating a meeting where Mary had to come to Duncan to meet with one of my agencies to answer some questions about being an individualized funding Host agency.  The meeting was good and she answered questions better than I could have!  So now, because I sat in on this meeting, I've been appointed the office lead (or expert if I may use the term!! Lol) yup.... Scary stuff!  I did listen closely ... So we will see!  Anyways ... After the meeting, the real exciting part of the day arrived!! Lunch together!!!  I took them to a local Indian restaurant that opened a few years ago in a heritage house downtown. Definite highlight of the day!! Time with Mary is so precious .... I love Denise too.., super nice girl. But Mary is my person and we are both so busy but live for these quick lunches together. 

Bought this lovely lady some flowers on my way home from work today for her birthday.  She made this amazing chiffon chocolate cake from scratch with chocolate whip cream! It was amazing. 

It was also our night to say good bye to Madi. She and AJ are moving back to Australia in a couple weeks.  Her crazy spirit has often reminded me of yanin .... So I think Rachel had a fun birthday evening. I texted her boys mid-afternoon to go into our kitchen to get the painting for their mom.  I had wrapped it that morning before I left for work.

She said she loved it. How could she not? Such sweet boys!!

How to title these days?? Here's Monday.

Actually was excited to get back to work on Monday!  4 days off work was enough and I was ready to have everyone back to routine .... We purposely had no plans this past weekend because next weekend will be so busy and Chris was still not 100%. But I love seeing people and my friends, so Monday morning began with coffee with Nikki before work.   She is quickly becoming a really good friend ..... Then work was busy .... I arrived to work to this birthday bag on my desk with this lovely card:

Linda had gone out and bought me the cutest little bathing suit coverup. I tried it on tonight and I love it!  Such a sweet gesture.  She used to spend a lot of time in Mexico so we talk about it a lot. I wish she got to go too. She works so hard.

Catherine, Linda and I went out for lunch together to celebrate my birthday. It was a sweet farm cafe run by Catherine's friend. After work I headed over to see Mel.I hadn't seen their new place!  I texted her this shot and asked what she'd prefer. I love that within 3 seconds the response came "cheesecake!!!!!"..... Love it!!  

Q gave me a tour of their beautiful new home !! I was going to say how spoiled they are to have their very first home be Ocean view!! But then I remembered that our very first home was ocean view too!! And actually just over a few streets from them!! Crofton is a great starter place to launch into real estate .... They have a beautiful home. I am glad they are able to be in such a nice place. 

Boys had taken the bus home as I had a painting class tonight. So on my way to the painting class from crofton in the dark and the heavy rain, my wipers stopped working!  Pretty sketch to try and find the shoulder on those country roads ... I had to pull over 3 times to turn the car off and back on to reset the wiper motor!! It was 5:31 when I pulled into the Dodge dealership and everyone had gone home except the service manager and the owner of the dealership named Todd (our kids go to school together and we have a bit of a history; first radio customer back in the day to make me cry (still haven't forgiven him for that), and I buy cars from his sleazy sales guys.  That's a whole other blog post!!  Anyways, service guy tries for awhile to find me a car to get home in but can't find a car for me and then figures I can take the shuttle van home but can't find the keys to it!  Which I find amusing ("water water everywhere but not a drop to drink" runs through my head more than once as I stood surrounded by cars! Lol)....in the end, and I do attribute some of this outcome to the color of my hair (and my sparkling personality I guess?), I went home with Todds vehicle.  Anyways .... I drove off the lot in his car and took this 2015, intoxicating new smelling, car over to the wine bar for paintnite. Nikki and I met for a glass of wine and some appies before class.  By now, I'm exhausted and just want to go home. But Katrina and Luke were joining us too.... Katrina and I worked together at Qwanoes, going on almost 20 years ago being friends. So that was fun to badger her through the night. Nikki hated her painting ... She kept looking over at everyone else's and getting mad. Lol. I finally punched her and said "Eyes on your own paper!!"  True it was a tougher painting ... And at one point I looked at her and mumbled "was it really just this morning we met for coffee??" .... This was one, very very long day. 

I got home and kissed my family and crawled right into bed. They loved the painting. :-)

Merry Christmas mom....

As promised, if you like it, it's yours when you have a place to hang it. Xox

Sunday night ....

Pretty excited to get back to work tommorow .... It's time.

Tonight's highlights; Jax went home to change into his onesie to match his buddy.... We had a little photo shoot. 

Jax is just so sweet.... I really like him. Actually all the Zalinko boys are starting to grow on me abit more these days ... Nice to see some of their personalities emerge.  My favorite was Marty looking at me the other day and saying "Sharon, you are so fun" .... That won me over!

And tonight I chatted with Pa as he sat on his boat drinking coconut rum, as I watched in envy. Lol ... We had a few laughs... One laugh was I commented on how much I love coconut rum too, but I feel pathetic drinking alone.... Only then realizing, he was drinking alone!! He laughed and said he had no problem with that!!  Excited to join him for docktails in a few weeks. We have a loose plan to cross with them over to the Bahamas to get their cruising permit if the weather works ... That would be such an adventure!!!! Love my dad so much!!!  He's so great. 

Sunday ....

Isaac found a new editing program that he had some fun with ....

At some point in the day, we took a break from being cozy in our house and went for a walk ....  

Sunday Haircuts; Before and After!!

Fridges, Stoves, Recliners, and Games ....

This morning I was just looking over the local online classifieds when I came across a woman selling her fridge and stove.  They had just moved into a place and were purchasing new appliances.  I thought that for a couple of GE brand appliances, she wanted $350 for both fridge and stove.  I figured it could make a good flip....a little extra cash for the holidays .... I mean, ours are working fine ....

When Chris saw them, he said he wanted them for our house!  Turns out, Paul was about to be heading to Crofton to pick up a leather recliner ... they have been looking for ages.  So, the two of them went together ... recliner and appliances ....

I admit, this is our first full size fridge of our married life.  We bought a new fridge for our new condo when we were first married .... that was almost 17 years ago!  We had to take a cabinet out for it to fit, and the stove is quite lovely too ... has a warming tray down below, its convection and self cleaning too!!

These kids were pretty happy with their dads find too!!

Today is Susans Birthday ... I had put it into my phone as an alarm to call her mid-afternoon.  Sounds like she had a nice birthday and was heading out for dinner with Mike that night ....

These guys were heading out for a big night on the town ... they don't go out too often, so I headed over to take a picture of them all dressed up for the theater!! They were going to see the Elf musical at the Chemainus Theatre.  Turns out, Paul was the only one dressed up!

Tonight, this kid got TWO quirkles right out the gate!! I couldn't catch up!  The kid won, but only by 10 points ....

He told me that Minecraft Steve was rooting for me .... (while drinking his egg nog)

Chris delivered the old stove and fridge to a man helping out his mom .... got $50 .... not bad considering we were going to drag them out onto the road tomorrow!

TGIF ....

Goodnight everyone .... 

Some good things I saw this morning!!!

Awesome movie! And true story too....thank you Netflix!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34WIbmXkewU

Hilarious handshake that I wish I had a friend to do with me!!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1uBnt2V0V0

Early birthday present!!

Started with lattes at a new place we checked out this morning. Then headed to Nikki's studio. She chopped and colored my hair. Super great!!! Love our time together. 

She did a great job!   I'm a lucky girl to have such a nice friend. Here's the after shot. 39 for 10 more days!

Did a little shopping after and really liked this shirt. 

Didn't buy it but did pick up a bag from Nikki and purged my own closet in preparation of the clothing swap we are having at my party next week!!

Should be fun!!! (Not that I need any more clothes actually!). 

Bennett takes a tumble ....

Little Bennett fell off a chair tonight and his folks thought he bit through his lip so they headed for the hospital. We were just settling in for the evening having just finished dinner when JL texted for someone to come watch the kids. We bundled up and all headed over. 

The kid is a trouper ... Had a great time at the hospital! (My kids all do that too ... Monkeys!). 

Leleini was super sweet tonight. Wonderful host, helpful, nice kid. I don't often get to be with her on her own, so that was kind of fun.  Elliot entertained them for awhile showing them his designing program.  They were both pretty interested.  Elliot was designing a rocket car at this point, I think. 

Everett loves Chris. And Chris definatly wins the points at stopping a tantrum faster than I do!  Ahh 4!!  I think my kids got past 4 alive because of Chris!  Here he is reading to the kids, that's Everetts hand.  So sweet.  

Home abit after 9 and cleaned up and all climbed into our bed. Elliot telling jokes and riddles and Isaac went and got his toque on ... Sweet kids. 

Today's highlights.....

First the low lights:

Poor Chris is still sick. He was getting better but then took a ride in the cold and mouldy camp truck and he took a turn for the worst. 

The dekaral liquid that the doctor prescribed to help protect stomach liner while in Mexico turned out to be $100!! Each!!! I walked away .... Too pricey!! We will be careful and pray/hope for the best!!

The highlights!

Listening to Elliot sing "Do you want a build a snowman" (thank you awesome music teacher!)

And hearing so quickly from our doctor that Isaacs ultrasound came back totally normal.  

Hopefully Chris heals up quickly and all will be good!  Leaving in 12 days!

Tuesday!!

We had the Rentons for dinner tonight.  Weeknight dinners are weird; not bad not awesome, because everyone is tired from the day but it's a chance to do real life together - the good, bad and ugly. These kids are pretty funny. They stayed at the table for most of the night picking at their dinner. Once they finished though, they got ice cream, which they polished off in record time!!

Chris telling a riviting story about a show on the history channel he is loving these days. Not sure how riveted our company was! Lol

Here is Elliot keeping me company. He's in the middle of telling me a riddle!!  He's getting really good at jokes and riddles!

And this guy has been been working tirelessly for two days on a 3D minecraft figure with perler beads!!

Such fun kids .... Never boring around here. 

Chris and his pennies...

Chris excited us all tonight by saying he was going to stay home and not go out metal detecting! This is how I found him tonight, behind closed doors...

Isn't he adorable?

Hello Monday!!

It was a big Monday with lots on the go today!!

I had a dr appointment at 11am.... I love my doctor.  She admired my new boots, gave me a website for a good bread that could help me poop (yes please?!!), a website to look up a friend of hers in Mexico, gave me the papers needed for bloodwork, walked me through how I stand on my iron, cholesterol and cardiac health (apparently I have the heart of a 37 year old and a 2% chance of having a heart attack).....

Back to work for a nutty 2 hours before picking Isaac up for his ultrasound ... (Just a precautionary check on some pain "down there"). Grabbed both boys early (Elliot was tickled)....however he had to do his homework while waiting !

Isaac was very matter of fact about the whole thing .... Not squirmy at all which surprised me.  All business. We both found it pretty interesting to watch the screen.

 After it was time for a quick snack

And then time for their test for yellow belt at Self defense.  Both flew through!!

Then a couple hours in the pool!! 2 hours to be exact!!

We came home to chris making a really nice supper of BBQ chicken and veggies.   We were so hungry!   

Then homework, piano, lunches.... Day is almost done!!!