Peterborough

James arrived at the Peterborough camp on time. Looks like a great camp and it should challenge him as it is an Elite camp. His counsellor seemed nice as well.

James was quite pleased to have a single room at his Peterborough camp. There are 6 single rooms in a "pod" with a common room- 5 rooms occupied by hockey players, one by a counsellor. At any rate the reason he was pleased was that he said he is an introvert and will need some time off from people by Wednesday. Very introspective!

effective

Today was more effective during the day as I avoided my computer and email so I managed to get more done. I managed to clean James' room behind his bed.

I woke up at 4am this morning cold again. Tonight I am going to start sleeping with the comforter rather than having to pull it on half way through the night.

Tomorrow going to Peterborough for James' AAA camp. Hopefully the correct day this time.

sunrise

There was a brilliant sunrise this morning.

I woke at 3:30am because I was cold, then put on a comforter and woke up at 5:30am because I was too hot!

I got to see my parents for breakfast before the last leg of their trip, which was nice.

My August is looking pretty full. I also want to try to run a maxsold auction if I can to clear out things but it takes some time to do all the sorting, so we'll see how it goes.

visit

My parents stopped by on their way home from their vacation in eastern Canada. Getting James to smile in photos is difficult. They seemed to like the stew- I thought it was quite good.

A few weeks ago I had made them a photobook of their old house. Making it online and getting it printed took only a few days. There were some changes I wanted to make and redid the online version and sent it for printing but this time it took much longer and I just got the email (after my parents left) that they had printed it. Now they still need to send it to my Loblaws so it didn't quite make my timeline but at least I had the first version to give to them. The second is even better (I am sure!)

a loud Wednesday night

I was woken up a few times in the night. One to loud people walking down park street. I don't know why they were so loud. Then some time later I was awoken by 2 dogs. It sounded like a small yappy one and a very large one from the sounds of their barks. I am not sure if they were barking at each other or if they had surprised a skunk or raccoon and that set them off. But they certainly were set off.

My parents are visiting today so I made a stew that is now cooking in the slow cooker:

Because we don't eat potatoes too often I thought I would only buy 2 large ones rather than a bag (they were the same price) and it would be less for me to carry. But the 2 I picked were both half bad:

Udon

Today's meal was a korean beef stir fry with udon noodles. The noodles were interesting as you don't cook them in boiling water like pasta, they were heated in the pan.

 First I cooked the beef. Then removed the beef from the pan and cooked the cauliflower. Added the baby bok choy. Added the beef back in with the udon noodles. Then added the sauce- Korean BBQ. Healthy and good.

 Parents are visiting tomorrow!

chimichangas

Rain 1. Pom pom flowers 0.

 Tonight was cheesy chicken chimichangas

 This meal was rated as a "medium" difficulty, but i found it one of the easier ones and made it in about the time they had listed. Made rice with spice. Chicken with the same spice and onions. There was a salsa with corn (I did not add the jalapeno!) and lime yogurt. I quite liked it. Before going in the oven:

 Baked

 Eating

I had posted some of James' old hockey socks on kijiji for a while and today Dave contacted me and picked them up for his daughter (10) who is taking up hockey. Interestingly when he showed up he knew who I was as he worked with me at RMC. Funny kijiji connections.

These boots were made for walking...

...but not for taking off

After walking in the rain to work, when I went to take off my boot, the sole separated from the body of the boot and I no longer had any leverage to pull my boot off. My foot was suctioned into my boot. After trying for some time to remove it on my own, I hopped down the hall so that my coworkers could extricate me from the boot. It required me lying on the ground and them using scissors. The offending boot pictured with the sunscreen bottle to show the sole separation. It was more hilarious that I can describe.

These boots I last wore at the cry for about 12 hours and I had just finally cleared up the blisters from that day. Today reignited some of them!

Ohio

Spent some time today listening to a prayer meeting from Cleveland Ohio called "The Call". This was similar to "The Cry" except dealing with American things (some of which were the same as Canadian ones, of course)

Tomorrow we are doing a Concert of Prayer and Praise at Rustle- this will be a shorter service than usual because at 1pm there is a 5 Church picnic that we will be participating in.

This week, I hope to see my parents as they travel on their vacation.

Photos from this past week:

 Turkey sausage oriechette

 Chopping the veggies

 cooking the sausage- it was finely ground + added corn

 With pasta and broccolini, it was spicy and very good.

 This is a bunny crossing the street

 Thai basil stir fry

 Cooking the veggies

 Rice noodles

 Yummy stir fry!

 Lemon pepper chicken

 Heirloom tomato had a rough time with the travel

 Start of the tomato salad

 Tomato salad, parmesan potatoes with baby spinach and lemon pepper chicken

Camp stories

James was at camp this week. He came back with some funny stories. Some of the kids going into grade 9 had smuggled in some beer that was found by a counsellor who happens to be a police officer.  One kid went to Tim Horton's at 1am. Got kicked out of the camp.

James doesn't like swimming so chose to help the younger kids with their skate. The seniors at their lunch first- 2 hotdog limit then they went on to swim while James stayed back to help with the skate. Then the juniors had lunch. 2 hotdog limit. James' strategies got him 4 hotdogs.

catching up

Pictures from some trips at the end of June- I am taking pics with my phone and it take some getting used to for the focus.

To see "rhinoceros" at the Isabel

 Afterwards

 On the bus to St. C

 Nests in the "S"

 Love the license plate!

Toronto hotel

 The hotel was in a mall. This was my view.