Happy Ho Ho!

Well, I haven't been posting much lately because I'm so stinkin' busy these days, but I couldn't let Christmas come and go without wishing you all a happy Holiday! So to all my blogging friends out there, I wish you all the very Merriest Christmas and a Happy New Year from the bottom of my heart. My life has been enriched having had the privilege if getting to know you all. To my Uncle Curtis, I hope you are feeling better and have had some well deserved R and R. I wish you lived here in my neck of the woods so that you could come and share Christmas with us! Take care, my friends:)

My alarm didn't go off!

I opened my eyes yesterday morning, let out a satisfying yawn, stretched my arms, leaned over to see the time and..."The alarm didn't go off!" I yelled as I flung the covers off and flew out of bed. It was five after nine in the morning and I had to be on the squash court by nine fifteen! I frantically grabbed at yoga pants and runners... socks and tank tops... ripping through drawers and brushing my hair... brushing my teeth and grabbing my racquet...
I ran out the door with a bottle of water tossed into my bag and hopped into the car. The court is only down the street, but I was already late and my squash partner was waiting. I wasn't even awake fully when I pulled into the rain-soaked parking lot of the community center. I flung open the door and took off running across the puddled parking lot. As I approached the automatic doors, they slid open for me and I ran by the front desk. I turned right at the fitness center and as I did, my wet runners slid out from under me! I almost flattened a beautiful woman, dressed very nicely, and her toddler. Before I hit the ground, I caught my footing, but my runners were still slick, so the foot that had found the floor also slid out from under me. Luckily my other foot found the floor as I was falling and I caught myself for another moment before, it too, slid away from me. I'm telling you, it was slippery!!! I could see the whites of the little toddler's eyes. Even at his young age, he knew I was going down. It felt like I was slipping and sliding, trying to catch my footing for about ten minutes. Finally, I had to accept the fact that I was going to fall. I must have looked so funny fumbling around trying to get my balance, so I stopped trying to save myself and landed on my but. The beautiful woman was standing over me asking if I was okay. She had a very concerned look on her face. The woman at the front desk was wearing a horrified expression, thinking I must have broken every bone in my body. The trainer, who was in the fitness center ran out to see if I was okay. The only thing injured was my pride. I felt like such a tool! I'm 36 years old, and I apparently don't know yet not to run in the halls. Especially with runners that just came out of the rain!
Well, I got to squash a few minutes late, a little shaken up, covered in sweat from the adrenaline pumping through my body as I was trying to prevent myself from falling, completely humiliated...but all in one piece.

Happy Birthday Sophia!!!

These are the big chocolate eyes and gorgeous smile I've been looking at for the last couple of weeks. My brother and sister in law brought my beautiful niece to spend her first Birthday with us. The funny thing is, this is always how the babies look when they are rested and refreshed...







then, after a long visit with gushing relatives, just when you want them to give you their biggest smile...

They look more like this...LOL Hm. Not impressed. Not at all.



It was great having them here and to see little Sophia almost walking on her own. She is right there where she holds one of your fingers for security, but doesn't really rely on it that much for balance and strength. She'll be walking on her own within days, I know it.

Alicia decorated this cake with Sophia's favorite character. Dora the Explorer. For those of you that aren't familiar with her, this is quite an impressive likeness.
Then it was party time, and the de Konings know how to par-tay!
























But wait...the Smith's know how to party too!






LOL! I love my goofy family.
Here's Mom trying to cut her way into a package of blocks. Not the easiest task.
Loads of prezzies...
And lots of beautiful smiles:)

I can't wait until January when I get to visit with them again. By then, I may have some luck in getting the little one to say, "Aun-tie Sha-ron." Believe me, I have been drilling it in hard. LOL But it's not easy, cuz I have so much competition!!!

He's a lover...Not a fighter

Well, by now, if you read my blog, you know I have a little furry poodle named Frisky. This little guy has been part of our family since he was only ten weeks old. Alicia got him for her sixth Birthday. Now Frisky is twelve and Alicia is turning eighteen! Hard to believe...

Anyway, a couple of months ago, we drove into Maple Ridge to visit Kelly's parents and his Aunt and Uncle. In Kelly's family, they always take the dogs with them when they visit, so we decided to take Frisky along. When we got to Kelly's Uncle's house, where we were all meeting for a visit, the dogs (Frisky and Angel) frolicked in the yard sniffing each other's bums and peeing on things. Tails were wagging and all was well. When we went into the house, everything went to hell in a hand-basket!

We went into the side door, which happens to go right into the kitchen. The dogs both pranced into the kitchen and around the island where i couldn't see them, when suddenly, there was a screaming sound coming from behind the island. This wasn't just a little yip, it was serious animal in distress sounds. So I ran around the island to see Kelly's Uncle's dog (a four year old boarder collie) biting Frisky in the throat, and pinning him to the floor. Feeling particularly territorial, I guess, she happily bit and stomped on Frisky until she was pulled off of him by Kelly's Dad. It's a good thing he was there first, cuz otherwise, I couldn't be held responsible for tackling Angel (don't let the name fool ya.)

Poor little Frisky was beat up pretty good. He shook like a chihuahua for hours. His ear was bloody where she bit him, and he was badly bruised. You couldn't touch him on the neck where she was biting him or he would let out a scream, and even petting him anywhere else hurt him. Usually this dog drives me nuts following me around and demanding affection, but for the next week, he didn't want to be touched. It was heartbreaking. I would just pet him lightly on the top of his head and he would slink away and go lay somewhere else. Thank goodness he recovered within the week and is back to his normal self again. He's no spring chicken, so you never know how these things could go. Also, we didn't know the extent of the injury to his neck.

Anyway, I couldn't bloody wait to get out of there that night. I can barely remember anything we talked about because I was so worried and preoccupied with my puppy. I'm not one of those people who equates pets with children, but I have raised this dog for twelve years and feel very affectionate and protective of him. I love the little guy. Angel, however...well, not so much.

Kelly's parents were so great with him that night, spoiling him and such. His Mom tended his ear while he sat on my lap and his Dad fed him ice cream from a plastic spoon. Awe. His Uncle was sweet too. That made me feel good that they cared because, the weird think is, not one of Angel's owners said, "Angel, NO!" If my dog attacked another dog like that I would smack him and say "NO" That's how they learn. His aunt was like, "Oh, Angel doesn't know what she did wrong." Where I'm of the opinion that she doesn't know because she's never been scolded. I later found out that she has been involved in similar attacks on other dogs...Kelly's sister's dog included. Anyway, he's fine now and I just know not to bring him back there. You should have seen the way Frisky was looking at me that night...like I betrayed him!

My sweet baby niece Sophie

This little girl is such a joy! This is my adorable niece Sophia. I haven't seen her since last Christmas, but she will be coming in September to celebrate her first Birthday with us. I can't wait!!!

I'm not feeling so hot today, but I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd just do a short one about my little niece. I look at pictures of her with my brother and sister in law and I can see how happy they all are. I've never seen such peace and happiness in my brother's eyes than since Sophia came along. It's wonderful. And seeing pics of my Sister in law, too...there's something in her face that says, "I am content and at peace."

And of course the smile on that baby's face says it all about how loved and happy she is...what a blessing:)

Our little Anastasia

So we picked up Kelly's daughter on Friday and when we got to our usual meeting place, Anastasia had to go pee really bad. So I walked into blendz with her, her mom, and her mom's boyfriend. While Ani and her mom were in the ladies, I chatted with the boyfriend about work and stuff, and we had a few laughs. This is the first time in a year and a half that I've seen him comfortable enough to crack up laughing. It was a side of him I haven't seen. Usually he appears very shy and introverted. He's very petite (I could snap him like a twig) and is always pleasant, but rarely seems a hundred percent at ease. Now I don't know Anastasia's mom very well, but Kelly does. I know he's the ex and that might color his opinion of her, but he's always maintained she can be humorless and controlling. I've seen both those things in her just from our brief encounters every second weekend. Remember when I first posted about her and she was so moody and bitchy? Very hot and cold. Anyway, after Anastasia went to the bathroom, we were standing in line so her mom could get a coffee. As we stood there talking about a play that Ani was going to be in next week, her mom says to her "what time does your play start?" Anastasia, being a ten year old, kind of had her head in the clouds and said, "What play?" Her mom responded by asking her to look at her. When she did, to my surprise, her mom took the palm of her hand, fingers up, and thrust it into her forehead! Now, I don't love everything about this woman, but I've always thought she was a very present parent for Ani. Very diligent about bedtime, rules, cleanliness, rules...if you get my drift. I also notice that, though she shows her affection, she often is insensitive to her feelings and that there is a certain element of fear in Anastasia when it comes to displeasing her mom. I don't want to give you the impression that she is an abuser or anything, but I was very taken back by her smack to the head for such a non-reason. The sound it made indicated that it was excessively hard, and it made her head snap back. Afterwards, Anastasia's little hand went up and rubbed her head where she was smacked, and her body language was that of humiliation and at the same time, trying to somewhat laugh it off. I really hate it when parents do things like this to kids. Not only was it mean in my eyes, but degrading. I was shocked, and I don't get shocked that easily. I didn't say anything to Kelly when we got back to the car where he was waiting for us because I didn't want to say anything bad about the ex in front of Ani. But later that night I felt compelled to tell him. I struggled with it for about 30 seconds wondering weather I should worry him, but my rule of thumb is: If you have to struggle with it, that's reason enough to say something. I would want to know. We had a busy weekend, so I didn't have time to have a heart to heart with Anastasia, but I would like to sit down and talk to her about how that made her feel, without making her feel as though she was throwing her mom under the bus.

PARTY!!!

Well, Kelly and I decided to throw a party with a really eclectic group. Some of the invited guests were old friends from Kelly's past, some old friends from my childhood. Some came into our lives more recently, and I even invited a couple of clients, Wendy and Val. I know what you're thinking...they have nice hair. tee hee

One of my friends from childhood is visiting from Australia with her fiance!
That's Donna, my dear childhood friend with the happy couple from down under!
It was great to see them all together. I didn't intend on having a balcony party, but we all ended up out there. We had the balcony reinforced a few years ago, but I have to admit, the notion of us all ending up in the carport did cross my mind.


My beautiful Sister Sheryl and our gorgeous friend Andrea sharing some laughs.

This is Shannon and Jan, who I met in high school.
This is my neighbor, Moyra and Jan's hubby Kev breaking it down on the shag carpet. We were going to wait to have the carpets replaced before we threw a party, but we decided to just have one now while it's still Summer. We just invited them all to come and "shag" with us...

Then it got a little weird...LOL This is Kelly's good friend Evan. The funny thing is, when I take night time shots with my camera, you can't really see through the view thingy. It's too dark, so you just have to guess and then the image comes out nicely lit after the pic is taken. So I was just trying to get a nice shot of two old friends together when...

Too stinkin' funny! Poor Kelly, though, because just a couple of short hours later, Evan was trying to get a nice pic of Kelly and I when...

Hmmm...disturbing...

Some of you might remember me talking about my friend Kiki who lives in Greece. The gentleman getting fresh with Kelly in the above future blackmail photo is Kiki's boyfriend who lives here. After fifteen years or so, Kiki is finally coming home to Canada! I can't wait to be able to invite her to my next party! She came to visit a few months ago and didn't want to leave:) Here's a shot of her with Sheryl and Andrea from her visit.


But I digress...

When Evan was trying to get a picture of Kelly and I, he couldn't see through the view thingy so the first couple of shots turned out like this...


Then, as I was describing to the rest of the gang how he was getting only the top of my head, he snapped this...
This has now been dubbed "the de Koning salute" by my bud Andrea. I think it's flattering. lol We never did manage to get a nice photo of us that night.
Here's a nice one of our friends Heather and Andy, though!


And a nice one of Moyra and Ken from across the street. Coincidentally, Ken used to play on my ball team years ago before he moved into the neighborhood. Then three years ago, he became my neighbor without even knowing it. Small world, huh?

Anyway, I hope you are all having a great Summer! I wish I could have invited you to come "shag" with us too!

Did I scream like a girl?

From the front of the house, this just seems like an innocent little bush. It may not be the most neatly trimmed or shaped, but you wouldn't think that within this bush lurked grave danger...

Kelly took the day off on Monday and we decided to do some yard work. Our bushes desperately needed to be tended to. So while Kelly did the weed eating, I took out our electric hedge trimmer and began to trim the front and top of this bush. When Kelly glanced over and saw me laboring to reach the top, he immediately came over and offered to finish where I couldn't reach. He's such a gentleman. A few moments went by and I heard him say, "Ouch...I just got stung by a wasp." But being the big strong man he is, it didn't really phase him.

In hindsight, I suppose we should have seen that as a warning, but we didn't. A couple of seconds later, I heard, "AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" and saw Kelly fly down the path and around the house, ripping off his shirt!
"Are you okay?" I yelled as I ran around the corner after him.

As you may have guessed, the other side of that bush looked like this:



Well I must have agitated the little guys something fierce while I was hacking away at the other side of this bush, cuz they were pretty upset. Thank God he only got stung three or four times...It could have been so much worse had the electric trimmer sawed right through the middle of their happy home.

It wasn't long before my neighbor came over to see if Kelly was badly hurt. She and her husband had heard him yell and thought he'd lopped off a limb or something. After she had gone back home, I was saying to Kel how sweet it was of her to be concerned but Kelly's biggest worry and only question was, "Did I scream like a girl?" LOL I said, "No Sweet heart, you screamed like a man."

We gave them a good spray with some wasp killer last night and will probably do another dose before we remove it. Those little buggers mean business!

finally!!!

It was lovely...but it's finally over. After dresses and make up and tickets and shoes, ceremonies, diplomas, report cards, boat cruises, winter formals, rides here, rides there, finals and deadlines, grad pranks, up-dos and hand bags...Alicia is finished her graduation. She had her final grad event on Friday night when she went to the four seasons hotel for her dinner dance and then at midnight was bussed back to the school where they partied until five in the morning. She looked so beautiful.

this is a picture of her up-do that I did for her. What a princess...
Her make-up was done beautifully at estee lauder, but the lady took an hour and a half to do it. I swear it took ten minutes to put on the foundation alone. Though she told me it would take an hour, we ended up running very late. I had been doing other up-dos during the day, and Alicia's was planned for two oclock. Her make-up appt was for three and she was to be at the school to catch the bus with her fellow graduates between five and five twenty. Well after waiting forever for her makeup, we whipped home, got her changed, and ran her to the school. Sadly, because of various wardrobe malfunctions and some disorganization on my darling daughter's part, we made it to the school about five minutes after the last bus departed. Sigh. We were going to the hotel anyway because the parents were invited for the first hour to take pictures and to have the first dance with their child. Kelly was really looking forward to dancing with her and I was stoked to get pictures of it. Anyhoo, that was a bust since the traffic was so heavy, we got there right after the first dance when all the other parents were leaving. I could have cried, but there was nothing that could be done to change it so I made them stand like they were dancing and took a picture. LOL




below is a picture of the two of us with Alicia's friend. They all looked so beautiful and grown up.

Now she just has to figure out what she wants to do with her life and jump in with both feet. I can't believe that when I was her age I was just getting ready to bring her into this world...

Summer

Well, we've seen the sunshine here and there, so I guess it's almost Summer. LOL Last weekend I went to one of my dearest friends' Birthday party. It started out a beach theme, but people started changing their clothes when it started to get chilly. Here's me and the Birthday girl!

As usual, we got home and to bed as the sun was coming up the next morning. I think the clock read 4:30 when Kelly and I laid our heads down on our pillows. The next day was a write-off, but we usually relax on Sundays anyway. My sis and I have a Sunday ritual of watching coronation Street together and now that Kelly is in the picture, he comes and watches too. He was hooked after one episode. LOL




We're getting ready for Alicia's grad now. It will be at the end of the month, but they have a winter formal, which has already passed, and a boat cruise, which was a couple of weeks ago. These pics are of Alicia with
her new black hair and her friend Tenby with HER new black hair. I guess black is the new blond.
I had sewn a shawl for Alicia that was the same color as the cream on her dress. I carefully sewed fine tassels on each edge of the shawl and was still sewing the morning of the event.

There they are driving away when I suddenly realized that she had forgotten her boat cruise ticket on the cork board on the fridge! So, like any crazy person would, I chased them down the street. They must have been wrapped up in excitement, because they didn't see me waving my arms around like a lunatic. So I ran inside and called her to come back and get the ticket...and by the way, she forgot the wrap that I so lovingly made her, too!

Here they are coming back for the ticket AND the wrap...there was no way she was getting away without that wrap!!!There's Frisky in the corner with his ears up.

Hmmm

It's so hard to think of something interesting to post about when life is uneventful. Do-de-do...hmmm...Nope I got nothin'. Sigh...

On the other hand, no news is often good news. My car is running, so I don't have that to bitch about anymore...I could bitch about sitting on the phone with Fido for an hour on two separate occasions this month, but I'll spare you all the details on that one...all in all, everything is running smoothly, but the thing is, I'm kind of bored. Not that I want bad things to start happening, but I need to shake things up a bit. The problem is, with the aforementioned car problems we had in the past, we don't have a lot of coin to play with. I'd just go to the casino like my Uncle Curtis does, but I don't have a big ole horse shoe up my bum, so that's not gonna work. I'm running out of colors to dye my hair, so I can't keep changing it just for the sake of changing it. I keep saying I'm going to start working out aside from the two days a week I already play squash, but I'm pretty undisciplined about that kind of thing these days...

Oh well...I guess I'll just go down stairs and finish up the client I'm doing. I'm sure I'll think of something to get out of this funk. Until then, I'll just have to count my blessings, of which I have many.

My beautiful girl

Well, I guess she's not a girl anymore, but a young woman. My girlfriend, Kiki, pointed out that the night she and I had our grad pictures taken, Alicia was there with us. I had just found out I was expecting. In some ways it seems like yesterday, and yet, in other ways it seems like a hundred years ago.

What a beautiful life I brought into the world, and how she has blessed my life, I could never put into words. I sit here welling up with tears while I type this. Sigh...what a sap.