A pic I came across

While looking for those puppy pictures of Micah, I also came across a picture of Whisky and Mayson the day we got her. I love, love, love this picture:

Trip down memory lane...

A bit nostalgic for a Friday morning, but what the heck??? Having Koda in the house with all of his little antics, night time howling, and puppy toys reminds me of just 2 years ago when Micah was still as little as Koda is now. I went back through my pictures, and dug out some puppy pics of Mimi to compare.

The first picture I ever saw of Micah and her brothers, taken by her breeder. Micah is the brown puppy on the right, and the little grey guy on the lft is her brother Demon, owned coincidentally by a former co-worker of Mayson's:

Micah in the middle, with brother Demon on the right:

Micah at about 5 months old, in my parents' backyard:

Taken the same day as the last picture, while enjoying the sunshine on the deck.

Micah this past weekend, at 2.5 years old, at my mother in law's house:

Editing Scenery

I LOVE to take pics of sunsets and sunrises, but unfortunately my little point and shoot Kodak C763 doesn't capture any of the amazing colours that are usuallly in the sky. That's what Picnik is for!

On my walk after work this past fall, I 'd taken my camera with me, while I strolled along the river, accross the bridge to Quebec, and then along Alexandre-Taché in Hull.

Here's a pic I took while walking along the bike bath:

And here's the edited version:

The Museum of Civilization:

The edited version:

Some more photos

I was bored again this morning and playing around with Picnik, editing some more photos. They're pretty random, but here are the results:

One of our wedding pics:

Our Christmas tree this past year:

And Alex and I on our joint birthday party (can you tell we're November babies, and were ready for Christmas?):

Koda

Well, the first weekend is over, and Koda seems to feel much more at home now. He already comes barrelling into the kitchen for his food and water, and then it's right back to chasing poor Whisky, then to jump onto still sleepy Micah who isn't used to all this early morning energy, and back into the kitchen to see Mommy and Daddy for some more water and kibble.

He's a bundle of joy, and he's had us cracking up time and time again in these 2 short days. I must admit I expected him to be quite whiny at night, but since he's had the pleasure of cuddling up to Micah, he has instead gone right to sleep every night at bedtime. We thought about buying Koda his own crate, since Micah was crate trained, and it worked fabulously, but we instead decided to let him bunk in her crate with her, until he's comfortable on his own. The only time Micah was even in her crate anymore these days, was when we're gone for a full days' work, or expecting the landlord to show up for repairs. She hasn't slept in it overnight at all this year, and if we were gone for shopping or a half day at work, then she's always just stayed in our bedroom.


So last night we thought maybe Koda would like to sleep in the crate, and we'd let Micah sleep by our bed where she usually sleeps, since Koda now seemed comfortable sleeping alone. So we put him in her crate, and closed the door. He immediately plunked himself into a corner, and went to sleep. Great, right? Nope, Micah wanted to get in with him. Say what? That's right - she didn't want to sleep in her spot - she wanted to be in the crate with the puppy, and kept nudging the door until we opened it, and let her in. Then she laid down right beside Koda, and both went to sleep for the whole night, without a sound.


So not only did Koda take to Micah, but Micah also totally adopted Koda. It's awesome! I'm sure Micah is not a perfect replacement for Koda's mommy, but it seems that she's the next best thing, and I think they'll have a great bond with eachother over their lifetimes.


Hiding behind the rope toy he stole from Micah:



At grandma Henry's house:



With Daddy after his bath (I think daddy got wetter than the puppy..haha!):

Micah makes a good pillow when you're tired...

The newest Henry family member...

In the end the breeder that we first found on Kijiji no longer had the puppy that hubs and I both wanted. I did however decide to look just one more time yesterday morning, to see if there were any other puppies for sale anywhere, and low and hold we found an ad by a breeder from out in Avonmore, and they had 1 black and white puppy left, with the most amazing blue eyes.

I immediately emailed them, and asked them if Mays and I could come by after work to take a look at the puppy. They told us to come on by, so Mays picked me up right after work, and we headed out. To make a long story short, we fell in love with the puppy, and we both thought the family was so great, and we can't wait to bring the little guy back for occasional visits.

So without further ado, here's Koda, our newest little family member, with his now big sister Micah. They hit if off right off the batt, and even slept without a sound cuddled up together last night. I was truly amazed - I expected some homesickness, maybe a little jealousy on Micah's part that she now had to share everything, but to my amazaement, Koda even stole Micah's bone and rope toy, and she didn't blink an eye.

So here are our two beautiful fur kids:

Another Puppy?

So this morning I was busily looking through Remax and Royal Lepage's websites for a piece of waterfront property that we could buy. We're looking to get something for around $10K, within an hour's drive of Ottawa, waterfront, and on the Quebec side since the landscape is nicer. I wasn't finding much on either Real Estate giants' website, and thought about wherelse I could look up land for sale in Quebec. Now you're probably wondering what all this has to do with my title right? Well I'm getting there...

After another 10 minutes of googeling "Quebec waterfront property", I got the bright idea of jumping on Ottawa Kijiji to see if anyone had listed anything there. Now here's the thing - everytime I go onto Kijiji, I look for whatever item it is that I went on there to look for, and then I always end up looking up miscellaneous items such as the elliptical we bought, car parts, etc, and I always always always end up on the puppy pages looking to see if they have any husky puppies advertised. Today was no exception, and about half way down the page, listed on Valentine's Day, were these 2 adorable puppies.

So as I'm looking at these cuties, I'm coincidentally talking to my dear hubs on the phone while we're both at work, and I said "Honey, I need you to be the voice of reason, talk me out of wanting one of these two sweethearts".

What does he say?

He says "Why would I do that? I say get one!" :-D

No hubs, you're supposed to talk ne out of this! Argh! So I sit there, and painstakingly try to come up with reason after reason as to why getting another cute little fuzzy pooping machine that will cause havoc in our hearts and home, is not a good idea.

It was all for nothing, because in the end, I admit defeat. Mayson has shamelessly twisted my rubber arm, and appealed to the softie in me who loves her Saturday morning fuzzy hugs from Micah. And might I add that he wasted no time in calling the puppy's breeder to inquire as to whether or not either of them are even still available. So at the moment we're patiently waiting to hear from the person on the other end of the internet ad, and in the meantime I'm mentally calculating the added costs such as vet visits, kibble, collars, microchipping, etc, that I'll undoubtedly bitch about in the months to come. But in the end, just like with Micah, I'm sure it'll all be worth throwing caution to the wind, and opening our home to yet another slobbery little puppy. So stay tuned for an update on how this saga will end.

Alex and Leo are getting hitched!

Remember these 2 love birds from our wedding?



That's right, my little sister and her former boyfriend, now Fiancé, Leo are getting married!!! Leo proposed to Alex this past Tuesday, on top of a volcano, on their trip in Hawaii, and Alex of course accepted.


Mayson and I are so very happy for both of them, and we are looking forward to calling Leo our brother in law. He's made my little sis so incredibly happy, and we love him to pieces!


Now they obviously haven't set a wedding date yet - let's let them unpack first - but Alex did say that they were talking about possibly having it in summer of 2010 sometime.

I'm also very honoured to announce that Alex asked me to be her Maid of Honour, and I gladly accepted. I would love nothing more than to stand by her side on the day she recites her vows to the man she loves.

It's hard to believe sometimes that time flies by so quick - it seems like just yesterday that my little sister was skipping with her rope along the driveway, and heading out to play with her friends at the park - and now she's planning her own wedding. But she's turned into a successful and beautiful young woman, and deserves all the happiness and love coming her way.

I hope we have many more happy memories to look back on when we're both wrinkly, grey and old, and sipping our tea, and reminiscing about the good old times, whilst our grandchildren are crawling around our feet.

Gone Fishing...

...ice fishing that is. Bright and early on Saturday morning, we packed a lunch, harnessed Micah, and headed out to the river to meet up with Steph and Seb and the rest of the crew for some sub-zero fishing.

First stop - Tim Hortons of course.

Mayson and Steph - all bundled up and ready to brave the cold:

It's cold enough to make Micah lift her paws - that should tell you something. Are we nuts?

And this picture is solely to prove to my mom that yes, the mountain does turn blue when the bottle is cold enough. I think this was the first time I was ever faced with the dilemma of tryingto keep my beer WARM.

And just for kicks, here's a pic of our dirty new truck..haha!

As you can see, we had a blast, and are hoping to repeat the whole day with both of our families on February 28th. We're really looking forward to it, and I'll definitely be posting pics!