Americanuck

Tom had to work late on Father’s Day (he usually pulls the 3-midnight shift on the weekends) so it wasn’t possible to do a nice Father’s Day dinner that day. We’d been trying to find the right time to go, when the Boys were here and Tom wasn’t working late and finally settled on today to go to the Olive Garden.

Tom’s work called early this afternoon asking him to come in. They requested he come in for the whole late shift but as we had plans they managed to find coverage for the earlier shows which still allowed us to go and give him time to get home, change and drive downtown to the station. The poor guy had to head right out after dinner to work though. He didn’t want it to spoil our plans, he’s such a sweetheart!

I discovered the seafood ravioli which is in a seafood sauce the last time we were there so I HAD to have it again.

It was super yummy, not quite as good as last time because the Chef was a wee bit stingy with the sauce but still very tasty. Tom ordered the stuffed chicken Marsala, Chris his favourite spaghetti and Sean a Shrimp and pasta dish.

It’s always nice to get out as a family and have a treat. We still owe Sean a DQ icecream cake for his Birthday. We did the Olive Garden that time too and everyone was too stuffed for any kind of cake so he decided to wait until other family day and we would do the cake. It seems every time we are out and about and are all together everyone is too full for the cake!

Chris drinking beer.. Rootbeer that is!

Mmmmm (root)beeeeer

Sleepy and full after the meal

My company offers this AWESOME perk of having a zero percent loan for Employees who want to A) purchase a new computer or B)upgrade their existing. As this computer is ooohhh ummmm around 4.5 years old it’s time this bad boy’s put out to pasture (otherwise known as donated to the Boys).. well mostly Chris cos Sean really doesn’t use a computer a whole lot. ‘

We are gonna get us a BRAND SPANKING new Dell Dimension 9100 . I love Dell computers, they have their shit together and let you pick what you want and they are nice well made machines and give you Windows Disks so you can reload your Operating system should you have an issue.

I have a hate on of HP like you wouldn’t believe. Tom’s piece of SH.. I mean previous computer was an HP. They Boys WERE using it before Chris infected it with some type of virus (umm don’t even want to know how). I go to reformat the HD and it turns out that HP images the Operating system.. Doesn’t even FREAKING give you a full version of Windows so you can yanno…not be tied to the pre-formatted CRAP that HP wants you to have…ohhh don’t get me started. Anyway.. the second disk of the set is corrupt sooo gosh NO OS on the system. Then I try to wipe it clean to forget it’s an HP to put an older OS on it, but no!! I swear they’ve got some satellite controlling each of them like the Borg…Oops I digress again… so in other words it’s a giant paperweight at the moment.

Chris on the other hand has embraced computers with the pure love and joy of a teenage boy. He’s always chatting with friends on MSN or looking up video game hints or tabs for songs to play on his electric guitar and lord knows what else. OH SHOOT that reminds me we HAVE to get him that amp for his Grad present yet (BAD PARENTS!!)

Speaking of the guitar, Chris is getting really good at playing. He just picked up a used guitar with some of his Christmas money a few months ago and has taught himself to play all kinds of things. He seems to have inherited the music sense that my Sister and a lot of my Mom’s family have. They all love to sing song and harmonize and play instruments etc. My Uncle and Aunt were in a trio that recorded their music and they even played on British TV. Two of my cousins are professionals in the music world currently. My Cousin Oli produces music and plays now and has contributed for a lot of different bands. His Brother Hans is also a very talented musician.. For that matter my Dad said that all his Sisters and Brothers (along with him) all played instruments and used to play together.

K.. what happened to MOI??? Somehow I was not invited to swim in this gene pool. UNFAIR because I love music. Oh wait.. so far Sean only plays video games, I’m not alone in the barren desert of no musical ability!! Ah well I used to sing in choir and I was pretty good I guess, does that count? SIGHHHH.

Chris playing his Guitar

Sean playing… his Nintedo DS

Here’s me…well writing this Blog entry!!

Ok weird… the angle I took it makes my head not look like it’s connected to my body hahaha! Self portraits are not my strength…p.s. pretend you don’t notice the messy desk. We are BOTH bad with having messy desks.

Hmmm gonna lay in wait for Tom and take his picture when he comes home and add it (shhh don’t tell) He should be home in ohhhh 20 mins or so me thinks…

Ooooh and here it is (heehee)!!

Later….

We are sitting here together at the old piece of ummmm crap pc after having a lil drinkie-poo all jazzed up ready to buy the damn thing and … guess what? Dell’s freaking site is down!! Instead of telling us up front…. they make us go through the whole, pick and choose process to find what we wanted only to say “Hey guess what losers the site is down temporarily and to come back later” NICEEEEE. At least they do allow you to back page and save your selection to your ‘wishlist’ otherwise it would have taken another few days (sorry Honey but that is a slam at ya haha) for us to go through the agonizing process of choosing the options to take.

According to Dell we are looking at around mid July for the shipping date hopefully from within Canada this time (see the whole Father’s Day present rant)

We had to boot Chris off the PC (see paragraph above regarding Chris’ attachment to the Internet) but mentioning letting us have the PC in order to buy the new one played in his favour. This way the old one will be his sooner.. haha.

“Sheldon”

Okay…I fell in love with the Serta sheep…Why? Because they are ugly and cute all at the same time. Tom knew this and a month or so back bought me one from a local Sleep Country outlet and I Christened him “Sheldon”.

Sean was coveting Sheldon and I took pity on him the other day and bought him one as well and Sean called his “Grissom” (we watch waaaaaaay too much CSI in this household!)

We got goofy last night and started posing the sheep with Tom. He being the good sport that he is played along.

Tom, ‘Grissom’ and ‘Sheldon’

Separated at Birth?

Whew.. I am POOPED too.. spent a good part of the day giving the place a good scrubbin. (which it needed badly!!) Chris cleaned the Boys bathroom and Sean did most of their room. I did the rest including vacuuming and floor washing…but I left our Bathroom for Tom (hate to have him feel left out!!) he’s got a day off tomorrow and Wednesday so he can take his pick when he wants to do it haha. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in laundry too especially to wash what appeared from under Chris’ bed. Boys are pigs… pigs, pigs, PIGS!!

Here are a few more shots of our place… still of course without any curtains… bahhh… I swear I will never find anything I like!!! Still need some more stuff on the walls, it still seems too bare to me. What I love is putting different kinds of woods together. Too many people are hung up on everything ‘matching’ without realizing that they can use different woods and textures together so nicely if they wanted to!

Comfy couches

(Oops you can see my Lemon Pledge and my water bottle!)

(The wooden horse belonged to the Boys as babies.. didn’t have the heart to get rid of it I loved it so much, so now it’s part of the decor)

The Dining Room (Still trying to find a Baker’s Rack to go in here)
that’s the clock Chris made for Tom on the wall

Our Hall of Fame where we put our awards..Tom’s “Emmy” and “Golden Mic” awards and my Recognition Night “Inukshuk” award etc.

Between us we have other “Employee of the whatever” awards too. We’ve included Chris’ Grad Certificate and Hat, and we’re waiting for his Communications Award to put up there as well which he still hasn’t received yet!! (geesh)Tom used to have his in a cupboard down in L.A. I say screw that!! Be proud of them and show them off!! (or I will do it for him *grin*)

Cinny on the table (and looking annoyed cos I was telling her to get off!)

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What a Great time!! I was a wee bit of a wuss… okay a BIG WUSS, but I did go on the two coasters and the Pirate ship which was about all I could handle. Tom and Sean went on practically every ride, Chris sat out a few because of nausea after all the flipping and flopping and spinning of some of those rides.

Waiting to ride the 47 Year old Wooden Coaster

Sean and Chris in line for the “Corkscrew”

Us in line for same ride

It was a very cool event though, it was a “private” party for those in the media and their friends and family which amounted to a Hell of a lot of people! Still the lines were way shorter than it would be if it were open to the public and it was lots of fun. They provided you with coupons for Hotdogs and popcorn/Candy floss (your choice) pop and free games.

Wussy Me watching everyone ride

I bought some of those fresh hot mini donuts which I loveeeee while the CRAZY men of the household (including Sean) rode the Hellevator which is this sickening ride that straps you dangling from this thing that shoots you way up in the air on a tower with a similar G force to fighter pilots or something crazy like that. THEN it drops you in a free fall.. I PASSED on that one!!

The H-E-L-L-evator as Sean Calls it (doesn’t like to even appear to swear)

There was another crazy-ass ride that lifts you up and spins you head over heels (while strapped in of course) over these fountain things. It’s hilarious to watch and impossible to photograph anyone while on it… as you will see by what I managed to get….

Pre-ride wait for Hell’s Gate

Uhhh… ok that’s Tom’s head and hand and the very tippy top of Sean’s on the left…blending into the chair…

The whole thing was 4 hours but we grabbed our free popcorn/candy floss between 9-9:30 and beat the crowd out of the parking lot. We were all pretty tired and it was a school day the next day with Chris having an exam to boot.

Terrific Family Fun Day!!

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Tom emailed me the other day about an opportunity for him to win a family pass for Playland some type of media event dealio where all is free and asked if I was interested, I said heck ya! Playland isn’t exactly a six flags or anything but it’s a fun place to take the kids for a while and has some fun rides. I haven’t been there in YEARS now. Every year there is the Pacific National exhibition on the grounds but they scaled it back some, got rid of some buildings and turned some of the park back into a greenspace which I guess is nice and all that but it kinds ruined it in my opinion. The plan was to move the fair somewhere else but that hasn’t happened as yet.

Turns out he won the passes so we are off to play at Playland tomorrow evening with the Boys yay!! It looks like they are keeping the park open for just the invited few because the hours posted are only until 5:00 pm for the regular folks. Chris took it all in with his characteristic laid back enthusiasm “Well I can’t say for SURE I will want to go.. for instance I COULD be feeling sick tomorrow and not want to go… don’t want you to think it’s a for sure thing” So I went “K you don’t have to come…” which changed his tune a wee bit…. TEENAGERS!! Like I told Tom I think he burned up all of his enthusiasm as a “smallie”…Sean however was excited, said it was “sweet” and used all those words these kids do these days haha..

Godddd is it the fricking weekend yet????????????????