Rainwater Rambling Archive

Jeff Healey Loses Battle With Cancer

Jazz and rock/blues guitarist Jeff Healey passed away today. I have enjoyed his music throughout his career. I think his passing has a greater effect on me because he is one of the few artists that I could say I saw before he hit the big time. Back when he was playing the bar scene he rolled into Banff during one of my summers working there, I remember going to the Cascade Tavern to watch his show. Later that night one of the guys I worked with brought Jeff and his two band members up to the staff residence. I remember Vinnie (the guy I worked with) giving Jeff a tour of the place, when he got to the lounge he started to tell him what a great view there was of the mountains.

About 7 years ago, we saw him in a different element, he was reading a kids story in braille at the Word on Street when it was still on Queen Street. There were only a few kids in the audience at his feet and two of them were Gillian and Angela. Here is a picture from that day.

Final trip...this fiscal year

Making the final work trip of the fiscal year (ends March 31). I was up in the Pembroke area to visit our site at the Chalk River Laboratories. This was in the news back in December, due to the reactor shutdown and the subsequent shortage of medical isotopes. I drove back in the snowstorm Wednesday morning.

Where will it all go?

Some of you may be having the same problem, where do we put all the snow. The snow just keeps coming and coming.

Claudia after one of the multiple times we shovelled.

Claudia has had enough of the snow.

This sums it up...

On Track...

Looks like we may be on track for the snowfall record, something like 12.2 cm more and it will break the 1939 record. I thought I would take some pictures of the house, so we can look back and say remember that winter when we broke the record. It was great morning , but the blue skies are giving way to clouds and you guessed it...more snow!

Some of the drifting snow on the garage.

Driftng snow at the side of the house.

Yesterday I was shovelling the snowbanks to make more room for the snow. Susan even had the girls pulling some around to the side of the house on their toboggan.

Renovations Begin

We have finally started the renovations on the girls bedrooms. We are (I am) painting and putting laminate flooring down. The biggest challenge was cleaning out their rooms. As you can see from the pictures that is no easy task. Below is Angela and Claudia's room.

Here is Gillian's disaster area.

I'll update the renos as we go.

Do you need this?

Claudia and Angela are pretty good about getting rid of stuff they don't need, Gillian on the other hand has the pack rat gene. We compromised and she had her picture taken with her stuff, let's just say we didn't take too many pictures.

Angela posing with some of the art she had on the walls.

The girls wanted to keep the animals that were painted on the walls.

Claudia found one of her old t-shirts and wore it for the rest of the day.

Taking A Break!

Claudia taking a break from cleaning her room to make a snowman.

Claudia's snowman.

Renovation Progress

The beds have been unbunked and most of their stuff has been cleared out. Man what a process.

Room Colours

I am at the wall prep stage. The girls are switching rooms, so this will be Gillian's room.

Gillian picked Benjamin Moore 2077-50 "Pretty Pink".

The girls are sleeping on their mattresses in one room. This will be Angela and Claudia's new room.

Angela and Claudia agreed on Benjamin Moore 2066-40 "Rocky Mountain Sky".

Are We There Yet? Part 2

I have been working on the sequel to Are We There Yet? We have booked our vacation for this summer, check out the "work in progress" trip blog Are We There Yet? Part 2.

Painting Break

Took a break from painting today and headed out to Scarborough for Easter Dinner. There were 19 of us for dinner, there was the adult table, the kids table and the littler kids table in the kitchen. Finished the first coat of Gillian's room, in the paint can it looks like bubblegum, on the walls it looks like this.

This is Angela's weekend of birthdays. She had her first cake at Grandma and G-pa's.

Gillian was Emi's best buddy all night.

Budding Painters

Started painting Angela and Claudia's room. The two of them have been eagerly waiting for their room to be painted so they could help. They helped with some of the first coat.

Claudia's turn.

Cadbury Mini Eggs Recall

I receive e-mails from CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) on possible allergy alerts. Yesterdays e-mail was about the undeclared hazelnut protein in the Cadbury Mini Eggs.

The Easter Bunny had brought some of these eggs to the girls. I think the lot code is different but the UPC is the same.

Another Cake

Took another painting break and we headed out to Stephen and Mary Ann's for Easter dinner. Angela had another birthday cake to blow out candles on.

Not sure what everyone was looking at over there.

Happy Birthday Angela!

Angela's birthday finally arrived and she was able to open her presents. It was first thing in the morning since everyone was off for Easter Monday.

Checking out one of the books she asked for.

Put the final coats on Angela and Claudia's bedroom. I let the two of them paint the first coat on their closet. Here they are busy painting.

Angela in front of the finished job.

More Excitement on Rainwater

We had the floors in the girls bedroom installed on Thursday. The rooms are almost done and we will be able to start moving them back in. Here is Gillian's room with the floor.

I replaced the original sliding closet doors with new ones that match the bedroom doors. Here is how Gillian's turned out.

I installed the same doors in Angela and Claudia's room as well. The next step is to redo the inside of the closets. In the afternoon, there was a fire truck in front of our house.

It turned out they were at a couple of houses down from us as first response. Eventually an ambulance showed up.

They ended up taking an older gentleman off to the hospital. Angela and Claudia were out on their scooters the entire time they were there.

When the firemen were leaving, one of them told the girls how happy he was to see them wearing their helmets.

Earth Hour

Did you participate in Earth Hour? We did, here are a few of the things we did during our hour of darkness.

The girls had dessert. The light you see in the background is from a rechargable night light from IKEA.

Gillian with the nightlight.

One of our candles.

Claudia and Angela half faces.

Claudia holding the power in her hand.

The evil wizards.