on monday this week, we celebrated martin’s birthday. he decided he wanted a new york style cheesecake with double crust for his birthday cake, so I baked one up for him, blew up some balloons, made a card, and we went to the keg for a yummy, meaty dinner.
then on friday, which turned out to be a beautiful, warm sunny day, we were sitting out front on the porch enjoying the sun when I suggested we should go for a drive. so martin and I jumped in the car, and away we went.
when we stated heading out of welland
martin said “where are we going?”
and I said “for a drive”
when we got well outside of the city
martin said “are we going far?”
and I said “yup”
when we got on the highway
martin said “where the HECK are we going?”
and I said “you’ll see”
when we drove past the turnoff for hamilton
martin said “we’re going to TORONTO?”
and I said “yup”
once in toronto, when I put the blinker on to turn into the medieval times parking lot
martin said “we’re going to medieval times?!?”
and I said “yup!”
when the medieval greeter dude said “m’lady, what name is your reservation under?”
I said “hamilton”
the medieval greeter dude said “hamilton, party of 14?”
and I said “yup”
and martin said “I don’t even KNOW 14 people!”
it was awesome.
here’s the bar inside the building, where you could grab a mead before the show, check out the horses and falcons, and watch people get knighted. oh, and buy all the medieval swag at the gift shoppes.
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once inside and seated at our tables, I rummaged around in the huge garbage bag martin hadn’t noticed me dragging in, and doled out some cheap party favours for everyone.
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the guests included the birthday boy, of course…
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ryan and lisa…
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rob and karla…
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paul and lindsay…
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lindsay’s mom and sister, who were pinch hitting for deanna and pete, who unfortunately couldn’t make it…
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dana and amanda…
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and mom and dad…
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on with the show!…
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go blue knight, go!
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after the show, rob and the coat of arms had some words…
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but rob clearly won…
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after the show, ryan, lisa, mom, dad, martin and I went to a bar for some extra drinks, some karaoke, and lisa gave martin his “it’s a gift you can really USE” birthday present…
…and then martin and I drove home.
dana and the ham fam drove to welland the next day and all but dana spent the night. we went for dinner, had some old school dairy queen, played poker, and had a yummy breakfast at our favourite cafe this morning before they headed back home.
so it turns out I’ve had these SNOWMAGEDDON photos uploaded to the blog for weeks now, but never got around to writing a new entry for them. typical speedyness of yours truly. sorry for the extreme delay.
so to set the stage – it’s about a week and a half before christmas and we hear that snowmageddon is on it’s way to niagara, and pretty much the rest of ontario too. so martin and I decide hey, let’s drive to hamilton for the night, stay over with dana, and go out and shake some cans. so we did. when we woke up the next morning for the usual 1 hour drive back to welland, well, it was a tad snowy. and the 1 hour drive took 3 hours. here is the aftermath:
my new house with snow and christmas lights a-blarin…
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martin shovelling (but not smoking, I’d like to point out)…
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me coming in from the snow…
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the view of the snow from the porch windows…
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and the snow in the backyard…
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the snowbanks were HUUUUGE before we left for our christmas holiday in ktown. HP helped to spread the snow around onto the street…
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and apparently we have snowplow tractors for our neighborhood snow removal needs. here’s the tractor after pushing all the snow from the intersection into our yard. the snowbank on that corner was massive…
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and here are martin and HP being very productive…
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and then after that, for the next 3 days… more snow…
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so after the snowstorm(s), we packed up the dogs and the car, and off to kingston we went for our christmas holiday. here I am on one of our pit stops along the way…
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and a cool rusty old sign we found at said pitstop (it was the pitstop to nowhere!)…
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here are lisa and I decorating the hamilton family christmas tree. very tinselly.
christmas was fun. this was the first christmas in YEARS that I’ve spent with my family. we never got together over christmas when I was in vancouver because the weather out here is just too unpredictable at that time of year, and you almost always see news stories of people stranded in airports for days on end because all flights have been cancelled. and I was never keen to end up being one of those stranded people. so visits were mostly limited to the summer months.
we had turkey and fixins again, which was AWESOME. we did the whole present thing, and got lots of swag. it snowed a lot, but then again, it snowed a lot EVERYWHERE over the holidays. on sunday we were originally going to head back to welland, but there was another snowstorm on its way and up to 100 km/h winds, so we decided to sit back and relax and head back on monday.
so on monday we arrived back in welland around 5:30 or 6pm, just as it was getting dark. I told martin I’d put the dogs in the backyard so that we can unpack the car easier. I swung open the back gate and peered into the yard as the dogs rushed in. hmmm, strange.
I sez: “hey martin?”
he sez: “yeah, go”
so I sez: “ummm, the shed is gone”
so he sez: “what do you mean, gone?”
so I sez: “I mean: gone.”
so we investemagated.
this is what we found…
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and this is what martin ended up doing the next day…
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so no more shed. and it was no small shed either, it was pretty big. as you may recall…
aw crap.
but I don’t think we’re going to get a new one this year. I’m planning on putting in a veggie garden and hopefully start a flower garden, and we don’t have anything other than a lawnmower to put in a shed right now (except we don’t actually own a lawnmower yet either, but we will once the grass starts to grow!), so I’m going to wait until (a) they go on sale next fall, or (b) I miraculously come up with the extra cash.
and things have been not-terribly-exciting ever since.
except I found out the other day that we have a neighbor who brings his dog over to our house when tasha is out, so that his dog (and presumably tasha as well) can get some excercise.
apparently they do this for 15 or 20 minutes.
I call it tasha’s treadmill…
that’s all for now folks.
next up: the new aquarium!
and I promise it’ll be up soon.
