Summer in the City

Saturday afternoon happenings with the Dewing's. A paddling pool cool down, some singing, watering the flowers and a football game in Edmonton for the boys. 

It is the first hot day here in the city: a breezy 28. :)

Charlie looks to be on the mend after suffering from a horrible ear and throat infection, which produced a steady 39.4 fever for over 24 hours, and a canker sore that was from the trauma to her mouth after her face plant at the wedding last weekend. Between the two, getting her to drink to stay hydrated was a challenge. But after 72 hours she's starting to come round. 

Filling the days this July keeping the kids from getting too bored may be a challenge with no yard and so I picked up some cheap alternatives: extra bubbles and some bubble guns, a small paddling pool, a cheap playhouse made out of vinyl and PVC pipe, and some coloring things. That should get me thru a week. :)

 In the meantime I should have some very clean gravel.

 

Banana Cream Cheese Loaf

I made this today seeings how it was a good day to have the oven on...the easterly wind was cold all day!

Banana Cream Cheese Loaf

Yields: two loaves

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup chopped pecans

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Cream the butter or margarine and cream cheese together. Gradually add the white sugar, and continue beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, and soda; mix until batter is just moist.

In a small bowl, mix together chopped pecans, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and cinnamon.

Divide 1/2 batter into two greased and floured 8x4 inch loaf pans. Sprinkle pecan mixture over batter in pans, top with remaining batter.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

If u have a convection oven like mine turn on the convection..it cooks everything so evenly. :) Tastes really good and it's moist from the cream cheese. Enjoy!

Nice Day For A Wedding

On Friday we travelled down to Melfort for a family wedding. The drive was long (and longer still due to many stops for various child related issues). Everything about the weekend was nice: the weather, the wedding, the food and the visiting. The weather behaved despite forecasts that said otherwise, and the kids had an absolute blast. Until three dances into the wedding dance when Charlie fell on her face, resulting in her teeth going into her upper lip.

Back to the hotel she and I went after icing it up in the bathroom. We iced it some more and snuggled while she watched a movie and fell asleep. At least she had fun! I learned later that one of her main concerns that kept her crying was her vanity: "I don't want to have a fat lip...I will be uuuuuggglllyyyy" as she sobbed on my shoulder. :) Lucky for her, she found out how generous mommy can be with mouth injuries..she got to have a nice cold Popsicle before brunch!

After the weekend we were ready to go home, and when we did we realized that the hotel staff had thrown away a bag of clothing they I guess mistook for garbage.  When we travel I like to keep the dirty laundry separate. Seeings how Mike brought the luggage inside the house and tossed the laundry in the baskets I didn't notice how little laundry there was until I took it down to wash it. My dress clothes and Charlie's new party dress among other things were missing and I had that sinking feeling. 

We really aren't surprised. Hotel wise it was a nightmare and we stayed at the worst hotel we have ever stayed at. Mike told me to pick it and I chose it for the swimming pool and the "continental breakfast". 

Really I won't go into it all except to say a few key points:

*no toilet paper

*moldy coffee in the coffee pot (twice,seeing as we changed rooms the night we got there because the room was so dirty)

*dried pee and pubes on the toilet seat

*washed plastic breakfast cutlery

*charged our card twice for the wrong, more expensive room and couldn't figure how to refund it back. 

That last one took the cake and the manager got an earful. Not to mention the troubles our family had in their rooms as well. But hey, it was all a part of the adventure and all around it was great to get out of town for a while. 

The bride was beautiful and Riley was all smiles. It was a great wedding.

 

Thanks Tyra for letting me use your pics as mine weren't as good as yours. ;)

Peace, Quiet, and all Alone. :)

What a great view while cozying up to my hubby on a fine early summer evening. Sharing some "us" time due to the booming house market keeping him away almost every night. :)

Finally Getting some Things Done!

I have finally been able to do some things around the house. After an entire week of Croup for Charlie, I was able to relax with a tea and rent a movie with my wife-deprived husband. It was such a glorious feeling knowing Chuck was on the mend thanks to the ER trip for some steroids to open up her airways. So we totally vegged-out and munched on some BBQ chips and laughed our buns off watching "Identity Theft"--highly recommend btw. 

Today I was able to go to the store to restock up on our weekly staples of fruit and veggies and milk and I even got in some lunch hour time with my mom. I got some things rearranged at the house, did laundry, made supper and washed the floors. Now as I sit here blogging Charlie is sitting with me, a snack on her lap and she doesn't look like a zombie anymore!

What happened was an adverse side effect to her meds that was causing extreme anxiety, restlessness, sore legs and head, super grouchiness and she was very very exhausted. It was so out of character that I stopped the meds. I personally don't feel she needed antibiotics anyways, but if a secondary infection starts to rear it's ugly head we will head back. AND ask not to ever be on Azithromycin again. :)

So the pics above are things I was doing in the house today. Hopefully soon I can take some good pics with my camera and really show the house off. 

Gallery Wall

Slowly buy surely we have been settling in. It's a work in progress, shall we say? Things have been moved and rearranged a few times but we are getting comfortable in the routine of where things belong.  Pans in this drawer, pots in that one. That sort of thing. 

My favorite things so far? The whisper quiet dishwasher that I have to put my ear on to see if it really is working, the washer and dryer, and my master bedroom double shower. 

My least favorite thing....I could have handled my bedroom being a bit bigger.

My new favorite work in progress is the gallery wall:

 

I'm really loving it. I do have a few more pics to print out..some black and white ones of Mike's mom as a baby and so on. Then it will be complete. I just love it.