Around Here

We kept ourselves busy puttering around the house last week. By puttering, I mean cleaning up the painting mess (our spare room was full of paint cans in varying stages of fulness), putting away all the stuff that hadn't been put away. I discovered that I have three dust mops, three brooms and three floor mops! Lloyd did some touch-up painting as well. The biggest job though was pulling staples out of the hardwood floors before we can sand and refinish them this weekend. I guess the previous owners of this house thought they'd never want to see the beautiful maple hardwood again so when they carpeted the whole main floor of the house, including the kitchen, they didn't hesitate to use staples to anchor the underlay. Pulling staples out of hardwood is not an easy job! It took us several days to get them all out. Of course we only worked at it for an hour or so at a time, but even so...

In between times we enjoyed spending time with the little grandsons we don't see very much - Kenny and Alex...fun little guys...although Alex (1 year old) went home with a black eye yesterday after knocking a chair over on himself and falling on his face a couple more times! Here they are playing before all Alex's accidents. Kenny is blurred because the little guy is a constant motion machine!

Emily and Allan stopped in for an overnight with us on their way home to Edmonton from their visit with Mary in BC. We visited the Japanese Gardens with them and Mike's family.

Before going to the Japanese gardens though we had a big breakfast for Mike's family, Emily and Allan. Kenny loves to help in the kitchen so I let him butter some toast.

The little boys really enjoyed the walk through the gardens, especially all the waterfalls.

We also got my dining room set out of the garage and into the dining room so we celebrated by having a barbeque with friends Cory and Cara Rasmussen. Emily and Allan arrived in time to join us.

Cory and Lloyd shared the cooking duties. The steak was delicious.

This is my dining room table. The runner on it was made by my sister Wendy from material she bought earlier in the year in Arizona. It's very southwest looking. I love it.

We did quite a bit of shopping. Among our purchases is this beautiful solar lighthouse. It sits between two bunches of lilys along our fence.

I'm not taking too many pictures of the house because it's relatively empty awaiting the refinishing of the hardwood floors. Then we'll be able to add some furniture and make it more homey looking.