It's my parent's wedding anniversary today - 26 years together! Here is the card I made for them:

And here's the card I made for my dad on his birthday but didn't get around to posting:

It's such a beautiful day outside!! Hope you're all enjoying the summer. I have to get going to the doctor's now, boo!

Happy Birthday Dad!

No, he's not much into celebrating this year, but we had a party nonetheless for him on Saturday (but today is his real birthday). His mother and sister even came over (which hasn't happened for a very long time), and all went smoothly. It was a beautiful evening - the temperature was just right, the food was amazing as always thanks to my mom (who always outdoes herself), and the company was nice. We even had a nice little ambiance thanks to the new fire.

I just thought I'd point out this little gem of a movie that Patrick and I watched a few nights ago. I wasn't expecting it to be so good. Good story line, solid acting, just funny and cute all around, and with a good soundtrack too. There's a really catchy indie song on there too that I just have to have. You'll know which one when you watch the movie. Totally worth it.

I haven't felt much like blogging the past few week or so, mostly out of laziness. Things have been so-so family wise, good workwise and relationship wise. I've worked every day at the daycare, but on a schedule that is arranged always at the last minute, which is somewhat annoying, but I've grown accustomed to it over the years.

Last weekend, which feels so far away now, Patrick and I went biking together to Chambly, which was about an hour and a half ride there and back. It was good exercise and a nice day, so all in all, a fun time. That night we had a nice steak dinner with my parents and brother, and then tried out the new gas-burning fireplace my mom bought. You wouldn't think so, but it's really nice and natural-looking.

Sunday, we went for a hike on Mount Royal with Patrick's parents, his sister, and her boyfriend. It was super hot and I wasn't so sure we would make it all the way to the top, but we did, impressively. Afterwards we came home and went swimming, then had a bar-b-q. Overall, a nice weekend.

I've also spent some time with friends this week. I helped Julie peel off wall-paper on Monday, which was bizarrely fun. I told her it was as rewarding as popping a giant zit or peeling off dry skin (which I love doing, yes, I know I'm weird). Then Tuesday we had a scrap night with Julie and Alex, which was fun as always. Thanks for the blueberry muffins!

Yesterday I was exercising and encouraging my dad to so as well. He did quite a bit with my help, which is really, really good for him. It is hard to keep at it all the time, but we keep trying. That's about all I can say at the moment. I bought him some puzzles to work on today. One little thing at a time.

Patrick is having a "boy's night out" with Dave - they're off to an Alhouette's game, leaving me all alone to complete projects, which are mostly scrap related. I made a sketch book to store all my loose sketches in one place. The loose sheets were really getting out of hand, and needed to be organized.

I came up with this solution. It was a pain to have to take the covers and papers all off the binding and then put them back on, as was cutting and gluing the many sketches and sorting them into categories. But it's done now and I can just put sketches in here right away now, instead of shoving them into my drawer and letting them pile up.

I'm also going to decorate juice cans with paper - they're becoming my new pen holders. I seem to be wanting to change a lot in the decor department lately. I also have the huge urge to re-do my room. You see, our dishwasher leaked water through the floor and in through the ceiling of my room. It damaged the paint and plaster in one corner, and make my shelves swell up - they look really bad, but you can't really notice unless you know it's there. However, this event has made me realize that I haven't updated my room for over 6 years, and I am dying to do repaint it and rearrange everything. I want new furniture, new paint, new art work, etc. It probably won't happen - I'm just dreaming. It would also be stupid to start any projects now considering that I will most likley be moving out within a year or two. But I still have that urge! I really want to get new bedroom furniture that I can eventually bring with me to my new place. But my room is so small that it's next to impossible to fit a whole set in here. So I will just let it play out as a fantasy and focus my efforts on things that are actually doable right now, like scrap-related projects.

Also: Yay, I don't have to work this weekend, or any weekend until the end of August thanks to many banked vacation hours at the library!!

So here are some photos from yesterday. I forced everyone to pose on the lawn like that and I think some thought I was crazy. It's all in the name of fun photos to scrap with, come on people! Julie and Alex were naturally good sports because they wanted good photos too. I think that their neighbors thought we were very, very loud and strange English people... we wanted to sing the national anthem very loudly as a group but we were afraid that people would through things on the property, ha!

Worked all day at daycare and we were enjoying the sun for the most part. Neve has finally learned how to say my name, it's so cute, but it became slightly annoying after she repeated it fifty times in a row. Ha, gotta love 2 year olds. I also did spinning on break, which was well-needed after all that I ate yesterday.

Pat and I will likely go swimming later at his place, and probably watch more of the Office. Love that show. Not in much of a mood to formulate complete sentences with "I" in them, but whatever, it's the summer, it's slack, it's all good!

Happy 141st Birthday Canada!!

I found this photo on flickr, cool no? We're going to celebrate shortly at Alex and Ryan's place - they're having a bar-b-q. I didn't make the GPK parade this year, nor will I be making the fireworks, and I kinda feel like I'm letting my home town down. It's a tradition to go down to the arena and catch up with friends you have known since elementary school. But not this year... sniff, sniff... but we will probably have more fun at the bar-b-q anyways, especially since the festivities are becoming more and more "french" and lame each year. And then there was last year's sad "laser" show instead of fireworks... and the fact that the police started forcing the crowds out of the fields at 11 pm. So yeah, I guess in the end, I'm not missing much.