Waiting for Pinot...

The kids can't wait. They've even put the cage ("home") together, of their own accord. Still another five days before we become a family of 5...

Sabrina's birthday

Today we celebrated Sabrina's 11th birthday. It's amazing how much she's grown. I remember her as my little baby. She's now a full fashionista, book eater, sport lover, computer geek girl that I love so much. Happy birthday love.

Her favorite meal: Vol-aux-vents.

For her birthday: a purse, a bank account, Timmy Failure books and The 100s.

Bedrooms Project -- Done.

We finally finished the redecoration work on the bedrooms that began last year. New mouldings, new paint, new furniture, everything is looking so much better. Our bedroom is now more zen with a faint green on the walls, oak furniture, along with white and black colors for the linen and paintings:

Sabrina's room is painted a pale mauve, and the rest is in white, black and pink.

Mathieu's room is nautically schemed, with blues and whites.

It's starting so much to look like a very nice house. It's rewarding when a project comes to completion.

Perseids and family adventures...

Tonight we drove 30 minutes away from Montreal to see the Perseids. We parked on a deserted road  somewhere passed Varenne, lowered the roof and waited for shooting stars. We only saw a few meteors, but they were spectacular. The clouds covered the sky and it was time to head back home. It was the first time Mathieu and Sabrina saw real shooting stars. What a fun adventure.

We have a pool again

You know the feeling when you come back from vacation and the pool is green because the motor's blown. After hunting the entire South Shore for the right capacitor, changing the broken piece in the motor and a good long cleanup, it's blue again...

The culprit. For some reason it was really hard to find.

$10 instead of $250 for a new motor. Not bad.

This is how you change a capacitor. Thank you YouTube for the help:

A windy lunch, a submarine and a campfire with friends.

We left this morning for Metis-sur-Mer to visit Melanie, Francois and family. The great thing is, Suzanne's brother Daniel is down from Vancouver with his family and we're all travelling together.

We left pretty early this morning and had an eventless trip up to Kamouraska where we decided to stop for lunch. It's the first time we stop there and it's a beautiful village. We had a windy lunch on a pier. The tide was very low because of the blue moon.

We also stopped in Pointe-aux-Peres to visit the submarine at the Pointe-au-Père Maritime Historic SitePointe-au-Père Maritime Historic Site. We all have great kids they were so well behaved. Everyone listened attentively to the audio information guide. It's a very good exhibition.

We finally made it to Melanie and Francois. A great evening with great friends. It was a great day.

Meet Pinot

Today we drove to La Visitation-de-Yamaska to choose our dog, Pinot, a golden doodle. It's was a long hour and half trip made pleasant with the roof down driving places we've never seen.

The owner, a gentleman named Jean Béliveau is a real great guy who clearly loves his dogs. We were given a box of puppies and the family fell immediately in love with one. Meet Pinot.

Of course there was a lot of reading that day. Mathieu is almost reading as much as Sabrina. He's been reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and he's so much into it. A perfect read for an 8 year old.

Happy New Year From Bromont

This morning our little family went skiing to Bromont. The conditions were beautiful, the snow was fast and it wasn't too cold. The view was wonderful, the snowy hills contrasting with the somewhat green valleys.

I'm amazed at how good our kids have become. Sabrina is a beautiful skier. She takes her time, examines the slopes and goes down with perhaps a touch of fear maybe not for the hill per se, but for how her ski style is. Mathieu is not as worried about his style but attacks a hill with power and enjoyment, sometimes showing the signs of a future pro in his own YOLO (You Only Live Once) way. He's a lot like me and is a pleasure to ski with. We ended the day with a run on a double black.

Tonight: salmon tartare and ribs (yes strange mix but that's how it is).