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Friday, August 24, 2007

Vacation time again!

Wow, did the last two weeks ever go by quickly...Everyone kept saying that I must be so eager for my vacation to be here. Well, yes and no! Yes because it's vacation, but also not so much as it means it's now the end of August which means it's the end of summer, boo hoo. (Okay, you nitpcikers, and you know who you are, will now tell me summer isn't over until September 23rd, and to you I say phfffflt!)

Other than going by quickly, last week was pretty uneventful. We played our last regularly scheduled softball game on Firday evening and called it quits after 7 innings. Tim bought me a new glove and even if it isn't quite broken in yet, it is excellent! Good pres, babe!
We played again on Saturday morning to make up a game that had been rained out earlier in the season. Unfortunately, we lost both games.
Tim actually struck me out on Friday evening. I should have rushed the mound!
How did he strike me out, you ask, if we play on the same team? You see, in our league the «4 pitch» rule is in effect and the pitchers pitch to their own team. The batter gets a max of 4 pitches and if he/she doesn't put the ball into play after 4 pitches, the batter is out. So Tim's first pitch was perfect, but I didn't want to swing on the first ball. But I should have! The pitches then got progressively worse!
Oh well. It just sucked as that was my last at bat for the evening.

After Saturday's game, we went over to my parents' place for lunch and were joined by my bro and his g-friend, Melora. We stuffed ourselves on my mom's excellent cooking and I got zucchini cake to take home, yummy!
Sunday was quiet, Tim went over to help Paul with his kitchen and I relaxed and finished reading the latest Harry Potter. It was excellent!
We went over to Tim's mom's for supper and she had made ribs on the bbq, again, very yummy! We got field berry mousse cake to take home this time!

What's with all the cake, you ask? Uh, I turned 29 for the 7th time.
It's funny how unnoteworthy my birthday was this year. Which is how I intentded it to be but I guess I didn't actually fully expect it to be so!
Anyhow, for those of you who called or emailed, thanks for the wishes! For those of you who didn't know, that's the way I wanted it to be. For those of you who forgot, YOU SUCK!!! :)

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

La Minerve weekend

If you're on Facebook, you can see the pictures there...

Last Thursday night was spent getting things ready for the weekend and packing the car so we could head up North straight after work on Friday.

I managed to leave work at 2:45 and went to meet Tim at his office. We got on the road after picking up some Lebanese pizza at Andalos' and made it to somewhere in Laval before hitting traffic. The commuter lane was not any faster. I really don't know how people can do that day after day...Anyhow, we made it to La Minerve in about 2 1/2 hours, I think.
Cathy, Eric, Marc, Laurel and their respective offspring had arrived a few hours earlier and our hosts, Katja & Jouni & their 2, had arrived only shortly before us. We set up camp, dealt with the mosquitoes and greeted the last arrivals for the night, Maya, Katherin, Robbie, France (and Tigger.) We sat by the campfire and gazed at the stars and hit the hay sometime after 12:30.

Not having Olaf to keep me company in the early morning, I slept in til 7 on Saturday. And so day 1 of relaxing and having a great time with our friends began. The first arrivals of the day were Stéphanie and Olaf, later followed by day-trippers Julie, David & Arianne, Gillian and François (with their dog Chica) and finally Geneviève and Stéphane, who stayed the night.

We partook in the usual activities that we all enjoy so much: swimming, volleyball, frisbee-golf, bocce, hammocking, catching up with friends, reading, baby-watching, eating, uh, drinking and then some!

We all had various things that we cooked on the fire for supper but Olaf's grill with charcoal proved to emit a more reliable and even heat source for cooking on.
As usual, no one went starving and everything looked very tasty. We had some very envious looking dogs on our hands!

The rest of the evening was spent by the campfire, toasting marshmallows, talking, singing and listening to the guitar players. ( I won't mention the drinking!)

Sunday morning brought a few raindrops while some of the group packed up. Tim and I were in no hurry to get back to the city so we stuck around and waited for the sun to come out and only left in the late afternoon.

Driving slowed down, as expected, after St-Sauveur but we got home in about 2 hrs 10 min to the wonderful surprise of having the weekend papers sitting on the front stoop even if we'd called to temporary stop delivery.

So, that folks, was, in a nutshell, our first camping trip of the year and hopefully won't be our last!?

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Back to my regularly scheduled programming

Two Fridays ago, (already!) we played softball and managed to get in seven innings before the game was called on account of lightning. We were winning so calling it quits at that point was fine by us even if it would have been fun to play a full game as it was pretty close. And we were playing the #2 team in the league.

On Saturday morning we packed up and headed to the cottage, sans bicyclettes, this time. We did a bit of hiking and nature walking instead. This is the view from the top of Owls Head mountain (in NY state, not the Eastern Townships.) The 2nd smaller lake on the right is Mountain View lake where our cottage is.






After the hike, I cut the grass around the whole property. Phewf, a good workout after the hike!
Meanwhile, Tim got the charcoal bbq going so for supper we had some burgers and grilled corn accompanied by fresh green beans from the garden. Dessert was cake and raspberries (we won't mention the whipping cream AND ice cream that I had...) It's been an excellent year for raspberries and I've taken full advantage of it every time I've visited my parents.

On Sunday, we took it easier and packed a lunch and went walking at Paul Smiths VIC and took some pictures. I've been learning to use Tim's Canon S2 as I loaned my camera to Paul & Murielle so they can document their kitchen renovations.










The best thing about the S2 is that I can take pictures of children without them coming out all blurry when they move. It's a tad faster than my A520.

We came home straight from Paul Smiths and then went to a bbq at France's to meet her roommate Clare.

Last Monday, my co-worker finally came back to work so no more 6:30 a.m. starts, yay! It's kind of weird to have three people in the lab again, we actually have time to breathe and sit down every once in a while.

Tuesday evening Tim was an excited and happy camper. I went to meet him after work and we had supper at Casey's followed by going to see The Bourne Ultimatum at Marché Central. It was very good, non-stop action. And I managed to stay awake for the whole movie!