Category Archives: Brittany Cooper

Happy Birthday to Jordon

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Project Red iPod Nano

Jordon turns 39 today.  I gave him a Project (Red) iPod Nano (and case) while the Mark gave him some Monster NCredible NErgy headphones to go along with it.  Oliver got him a Jose Bautista McFarlane action figure and a Jose Bautista Toronto Blue Jays shirt. Maggi gave him some speakers and I tossed in a copy of Contagious and a new field watch.

On Friday I invited a bunch of friends to Winston’s Underground Cellar (which is downstairs from Winston’s and only open on weekends). While Winston’s is the loudest pub in the entire world, downstairs was nice and we were all able to sit, chat, and make fun of each other.  Jordon got some great books from friends down there and everyone seemed to enjoy the Sam Adams Boston Lager.

Tonight we are celebrated with Lee and Brittany at Jerry’s Food Emporium on 51st.  The food was good, conversation was fun and Lee and Brittany gave Jordon a great birthday card and Sport Chek gift card.  Jordon used the gift card to get himself a new badminton racket for the cabin.  It’s graphite composite with flex weave technology that will be completely useless to him when I beat him this summer.

Christmas Day

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Jordon did a writeup of what went down for Christmas so I won’t replicate that here but it has been a nice day.  For tonight we are making a traditional Christmas dinner with Rosemary Roasted Turkey, twice baked potatoes, salads, dressing, and even some turnips.  

Tomorrow the plan is to avoid the malls, go for a walk along the Meewasin Valley Trail and enjoy some of the teas that I got for my birthday.  Hopefully the weather cooperates but it’s Saskatchewan so you know it won’t.

I was spoiled this Christmas.  Jordon gave me some iPod speakers & some perfume.  Mark gave me a griddle and electric skillet.  Maggi gave me a kitchen scale.  Santa brought me a new a knife set and the famous Edge of Glory knife sharpener to help rehabilitate some of my knives that aren’t getting used.  Mark also gave me a pink Zepco fishing rod and tackle kit.  Luckily for me fishing isn’t that great near our cabin but I am looking forward to sitting down in the north beach of Arlington over some coffee and snacks with the boys.

Lee and Brittany gave me a Dutch Growers gift card which I can’t wait to use.

The Holiday Season

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Oliver's Pogo StickWe are pretty well done for Christmas.  The last remaining gift to arrive is a kid’s pogo stick from Amazon.com and that should be here on Monday.

Oliver has been fixated on a pogo stick since the fall.  He has big plans for it and wants to pogo to the cabin, down the stairs, and even around town.  The problem is that he isn’t heavy enough to bounced a pogo stick and is actually quite terrified of one when Jordon showed him one at Toys R Us.  We thought that would the end of it but on the way out of the parking lot, he expressed confidence that Santa and his elves would find a way to work things out.

I was willing to let it go and just let Oliver’s hopes and dreams be crushed this Christmas but Jordon was surfing Amazon one night, he saw this one and ordered it.  It’s cheaper than a real pogo stick and yet fulfills Oliver’s need to pogo all over the place (we hope).  If not, we will just toss Santa under the bus.

In the past I was overwhelmed at Christmas but a combination of medication that seems to be working and Jordon’s organizational help, Christmas has been quite easy this year.  We started planning and shopping back in September so we were able to get what we needed early and since then have just been picking up some small stuff.  

We do plan to have a Christmas party just before Christmas.  I am working on recipes as I write this which should be fun.  As for Christmas itself, we are heading out to Lee & Brittany’s Christmas Eve to have a traditional Christmas meal of lasagna before exchanging gifts.  On Christmas Day we will be alone but plan to have a big breakfast and an actual Christmas meal with ham, turkey, and the trimmings.  In between the eating we will spend a lot of time hanging out with the boys.  Jordon bought Mark a Magic Igloo Maker so I assume we will spending part of Christmas day hanging out in an igloo.  Mark is out making it now.  We also plan to get some skating in, take some winter photographs, and watch some movies over the holiday week.

There isn’t that much to do between now and then.  My work doesn’t have a Christmas party as most of the long term staff are long gone.  Jordon’s Christmas party is on the 21st but other than that, we don’t have a lot going on which is a big change from when Jordon worked at the Salvation Army.  

Well however it works out, I am looking forward to the holidays this season.  It should be a nice one.

Christmas Shopping

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So we are pretty much Christmas shopping.  Oliver is totally done sans a toboggan and a hockey stick we want to get for him and Mark is down to one gift to get.  As for Lee and Brittany, they both are pretty much done.  While we need to get them a couple other things, we are getting them in Calgary when we go in a week.

We went out to Costco today and picked up a couple of things.  I will admit, getting things now is a lot less stressful than waiting for December.  

The last big person to shop for is Jordon and he is always the hardest but I even made some progress with him today at Costco.  The secret for me is to purchase to Christmas  gift each pay check starting in September until we are done.  I find that if we stay disciplined with that, we are okay.

Thanksgiving

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After Mark’s team won it’s seventh football game of the season (and is still undefeated), we drove to Arlington Beach and the cabin to spend Thanksgiving weekend.  We drove the remarkable 2013 Ford Flex (more on that later) and got in time for a late lunch.  After lunch Jordon cut and taped up some hockey sticks and changed a hockey blade on Jared Siebert’s aluminum hockey stick.  Oliver and Mark found some time to check out the road hockey rink and shoot the ball around while we chilled out at the cabin.

Oliver and Owen

I kind of lost track of Oliver and my friend Brooke took this great photo of Oliver and Owen checking out the hockey sticks.  They were both born the same day at RUH but Owen was a lot bigger.  Time has a way of evening everything out.

Later that night, I was showing Kath the Ford Flex and in doing it, the fob was in the vehicle and I was leaning on the door when all of the doors locked.  Now the doors are not supposed to lock with the fob inside it but it did.  We had no way to open it.  I’ll be honest, I panicked.  Jordon looked online and found out what went wrong and I called roadside assistance.  An hour and $133 later, a tow truck came and opened the door.

Our new infrared heater worked well and in combination with our hot oil heater, the cabin was quite warm despite the really cool weather.  While the temperature dropped below freezing outside, we were toasty warm.  We are heading back in early November and I expect it will be quite nice then.

Sunday morning Mark and I went to get some water and came back to an empty cabin.  Jordon and Oliver went “fishing” with Ollie’s new fishing rod.

Oliver fishing

Sunday saw me hanging out with Katherine while Jordon, Jared, and a couple other “responsible” adults by the name of Kelly and Adam decided to arm all of our boys with guns and slingshots and take them out shooting.  Including Oliver and Owen because according to them, four years old is a perfect age to shoot things.  

Later on Lee and Brittany came up bearing Ninjabread cookies.  We figured out Christmas (it’s at their place and we are having lasagna) and then had Christmas dinner at the lodge.  There was turkey, ham, potatoes, salads and most importantly according to Jordon, turnips.  Now Brittany and I need to plan a meal that has turnips and lasagna in it which is going to be hard as Lee wants lasagna with a side plate of lasagna.

Monday we packed up and headed back after coffee with Dennis and Wilda Camplin.  We were home in time to see the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Toronto Argonauts.  It was another great Thanksgiving weekend.  Hope yours was nice as well.

This and that…

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  • Oliver gave Jordon and I pink eye.  For that act of love we are actively shopping him to gypsies.  They sadly saw he had pink eye and ran away screaming.  A million eye drops later and we are all better.
  • Mark’s report card came out and he did well as usual.  He is off to his uncle Lee’s tonight to play games, watch television, discuss Band of Brothers, and male bond.  I feel bad for Brittany.  Both Lee and Brittany are wonderful to both Oliver and Mark and Mark loves his weekends out to Warman with them.  I think some breaks from Oliver makes life a little easier on him.
  • Oliver doesn’t think quite so highly of these trips as be is both jealous and misses Mark.  He was fine today but last time he wanted me to “phone Uncle Lee and get my Marky back”.
  • It’s the kind of relationship I once envisioned my boys having with my family but that’s never going to happen.  I am not sure even if we were closer and they didn’t hate me, it would happen.  It’s good that they have Lee though.
  • We are off to the cabin for the first time in 2012.  We are taking up some new pillows, some food, heaters, and a new grill up to the lake this week.  We may try to spend the weekend up there next weekend but it will depend on the weather as it is still a bit early.  The process of opening up the cabin starts.
  • Our watch repair guy is gone!  The process of finding a new one starts today.  Jordon is not a jewellery guy (although he has bought me some nice stuff over the years), he does love his watches and has some that need some work and cleaning.  We used the guy in Confederation Mall for years but he is gone.  Apparently there are a couple of good guys downtown so we will start there.

Out with the old

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Along with the decluttering efforts going on in my life, I have been upgrading some items as well.  This week I decided on getting some new dinnerware.  Bowls, mugs, plates.  This means that my old dinnerware is going to be packed up and donated.  I was going to ship them off to Value Village but then I found at that The Lighthouse can use them for their new tower.  The east tower are all affordable living suites which means that people who move in will have their own stuff to move in with.  That being said, we know from our own experiences is that we all didn’t have the best of all stuff and were lacking some things when we moved in.   So we are wrapping them up and giving them away.

I have been married long enough now that I am getting rid of some wedding gifts without any remorse.  Some casserole dishes that I have never used and some other gifts that because of how relationships have changed, I have decided to get rid of.   It’s a couple more boxes of stuff being tossed out and some more space in the house.

Tonight we are having a bonfire to get burn some of the stuff we have gotten rid of.  There are some old wooden chairs, three bookshelves, and quite a bit of other stuff that is now on my deck ready to be gotten ride of.   Mark is off to Lee and Brittany’s tonight (Lee and him are planning to game all night) so Jordon and I will drink some coffee and hot chocolate around the fire.

Boxing Day

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This morning Jordon and I got up because he wanted to look at iPad cases.  I bought the wrong one for him for Christmas and the one he wanted was sold out
(and quite a bit less money than I spent… doh!).  We went to Best Buy and it was insane there.  Long line ups as people were going crazy getting what they wanted for Christmas but didn’t.  Instead of hanging out there, we wandered across to Indigo! and used some gift cards that Lee had given me for my birthday and Kristi gave Jordon for Christmas.  I got SoulSpace: Transform Your Home, Transform Your Life — Creating a Home That Is Free of Clutter, Full of Beauty, and Inspired by You by Xorin Balbes and some tea while Jordon got an oversized Moleskine.  It was actually quite quiet in there, apparently readers are more civilized than electronic buyers and we had a nice time wandering around.

After Mark took me for lunch, we checked out Visions (zoo), Future Shop (end of civilization), Walmart (where we got Mark a floor lamp) and finally went back to Best Buy where the lines had subsided quite a bit and we picked up an iPad case.  It isn’t a smart cover but works the same way which is a cool perk.

After that it was back home where we ate a light supper and we started to take down Christmas decorations.  The tree is taken down, the decorations have been put away and now we are just doing a deep cleaning of our place.  It’s an odd Christmas tradition but a tradition none the less.  Tomorrow we are off to the Saskatoon Blades game with the Sieberts and Reimers.  It’s too bad that Credit Union Centre is almost half-way to North Battleford.

Tonight is the kind of official end to Christmas around here.  It’s not a bad thing and we love the New Year but Boxing Day always is the transitional day for us.  Tomorrow we start to wrap up 2011 and get ready for 2012.  Whatever works right?

Christmas

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Well it’s Christmas morning and the gifts were largely opened last night at Lee and Brittany’s place.  Christmas Eve started with us running out early to Wal-Mart for batteries and then chilling out a bit at home until we went by Jared and Katherine Siebert’s with gifts for them and the boys.  We bought the boys (and Jared) multi-tools which were promptly taken to their backyard start cutting down trees.  Hopefully none of them bled out.  Shopping for Jared and Katherine was quite easy as we gave them a couple of our favourite books of the last couple of years.   We got a wonderful card and gift card from them which we hope to share.  Jared did the impossible and got Jordon reading some science fiction in 2001: A Space Oddessy.  Jordon doesn’t read a lot of fiction but Jared had been working through the series which got Jordon interested.

After that we drove to Warman and saw Lee and Brittany.  Lee being Lee started to lobby that we open all of the gifts right away.  Brittany stopped him (and Jordon) and made us a wonderful dinner first.  After Christmas we exchanged gifts.  We gave Lee a Flip Mino HD video camera, a case, and a tripod.  Jordon got into the TV show MI-5 so we gave him the DVD of season one and an authorized history of MI-5.  Hopefully he enjoys it as much as Jordon did.  For Brittany we gave her some serving dishes, a spice rack, a book journal (she is an English teacher), and a hot chocolate maker with a plethora of hot chocolate mixes.

They gave me a Keurig coffee/tea/iced drink maker and gave Oliver a Thomas the Tank Engine railway track.  Mark was given a Denver Broncos hat that he won’t take off an a mini Denver Broncos helmet and most funny, a Denver Broncos iced Pilsner glass.  I guess that is for when the Broncos played like they did this weekend. 

Jordon gave me a Kobo Vox tablet.  He had to fight a bit to get it set up but it is sync’d up with my email, contacts, calendar, and now has a variety of apps on it.  Mark got me a case for it and a season on the Muppets.  Oliver got me the third season of the Muppets, Star Wars Lego for my Nintendo DS, and some Halle Berry perfume.  Jordon also gave me a book on the Titanic because we are heading to Regina to see the Titanic exhibit at the Saskatchewan Science Centre on Friday.  Along with my stocking came the traditional gifts of a ladies razor upgrade, some beauty products, and a new kick butt tooth brush.

We gave Oliver a Rescue Heroes fire truck and helicopter, a Lightning McQueen fishing rod for the cabin, some Nintendo Wii controllers for kids (with some games for him and Mark to play together), and some Toy Story action figures.  Of all of the gifts, he cared about the Fire Truck the most and was heard at 3:00 a.m. singing a song about how awesome Rescue Heroes are.  He had a iPad like reader from V.Tech and we got him a case for it as well as some more reading cartridges.  While shopping, we saw a V.Tech laptop for only $10.  We weren’t going to get it but the price was really good.  As I write this, Oliver is chilling out and “blogging” about his Rescue Heroes right now on it.

We gave Mark an official Kinsmen Football League football by Nike, Coleman field watch, a Husky football jersey (that we got really cheap on sale at the Husky Store), a remote control car that he really wanted, a nice multi-tool set, Modern Warfare 2, Wayne Gretzky hockey (along with Ollie), a magnesium fire starter and some board games for the cabin.  He was thrilled and promises to be the chief fire starter at the lake this summer.  I am not holding my breath.

Scott gave the boys a classic book series that his kids loved.  Mark is already digging it.

Because all three of the guys mocked for me for my Snuggie, all three of them now have Snuggies.  Thrilled is not a word I would use to describe their reaction Smile.

After we opened the gifts last night, ate some ice cream cake and then watched Elf with Will Farrell.  Bob Newhart and James Caan should have both done more Christmas specials.  Nothing like a silly Christmas movie with family to make the night a great one.

We are heading over to the Reimer’s today for Christmas dinner and to enjoy some more Christmas cheer with friends.  I hope your Christmas is a good one.

Update: Spent evening with the Reimers and Kristy.  We ate a great traditional Christmas meal; turkey and the trimmings.  Mark and Gloria played Jenga, Oliver locked himself downstairs, and Kristi is the alpha-nerd with a heated Snuggie that we gave her for Christmas.  It was a great night.  Oliver ran himself ragged on a sugar high all day and as he fell asleep on the drive home he said, “I love Jerry, Gloria, and Kristy” as he fell asleep. 

‘Twas the week before Christmas

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After three weeks of violently coughing, I am over the worst of it.  Finally.  I have no voice (I coughed it out last week) but I am not coughing so hard I throw up.  It seems like a big victory.

Here is what what is new around here.

  • I turned 42 and I was able to get out for dinner with the Reimers, Lee/Brittany and Jordon/Oliver.  Mark didn’t come as he has been ridiculously bad and is grounded to the kitchen table for a while longer.  This hurt me quite a bit as no one likes seeing their son struggle and it really hurt him but after some tears were shed, he is understanding that every action has a consequence.  He has promised to make it up to me and is taking Jordon, Oliver, and I out for lunch on Christmas Eve.  Reimers got me a great light/smell infuser while Lee/Brittany gave me a gift card for Indigo.  Lee promptly told me he wanted a Christmas gift from Indigo so it will all work out in his mind.
  • Jordon is feeling a bit better but is still quite ill.  It made for a quiet weekend around the house as Jordon really needed the weekend to rest up and get better.  His hearing still sucks and that is a concern but it is going to take a while to come back.
  • Maggi has ruined two Christmas gifts.  She apparently has a smell for chocolate.  Dumb dog.
  • Christmas shopping is done except I need to get some batteries and some more wrapping paper which I will do at Dollarama tomorrow.  We picked up a couple of last minute gifts this weekend but we more or less avoided the craziness that was the malls.  Jordon went into Cool Collectibles to get himself a Saskatchewan Roughrider lanyard and that just about drove him insane.  We went to Canadian Tire which was full of good deals and small crowds and Wal-Mart which was not nearly as scary as you would think this close to Christmas.