Rainwater Rambling Archive

Crazy Weather!

Hope you got a chance to get out and enjoy the crazy temperatures, Mississauga reached 24.3 °C on Good Friday. Here is Claudia, her friend and Chloe hanging out on the front lawn.

Chloe is enjoying the good weather, she has been especially interested in the birds. It must be the Cocker Spaniel in her.

We headed out to Mom and Dad's place on Good Friday. Chloe travels well in the car, her and Angela are ready to go.

Sara and Brent brought Pretzel with them, so Chloe had someone to play with.

Danny had the kids out at the park playing soccer. Claudia taking a break.

Alex. 

Things were going well until Danny stepped on Alex's foot with his industrial soccer shoes.

Here is Chloe telling Pretzel to wait his turn to look out Grandma's window.

Chloe telling Pretzel to hurry up and look out the window.

Hey wait a minute I think there is enough room on the stool for both of us.

Chloe doing her wet noodle with Melissa.

Do Good Things Happen in Three's?

We all know that bad things happen in three's, what about good things? This week we went to our local Swiss Chalet on Thursday night for dinner. The host dude sat us in our usual big circular booth, and by usual, I mean we always ask for one if they are available. Most of the tables and booths are made for families of four, not five. We sat there with our menus, and we sat, and we sat, it had to be at least five minutes. I counted 6 staff milling around the bar area and not one seemed in too much of a hurry to come and take our order. Finally when one girl did come, she asked how we were doing, and we mentioned that nobody had come over since we sat down, even though there were so many just standing around. She apologized and took our order, when she came back with our drinks, she said she talked to the manager and that we could have free dessert. We ended up with two pieces of lemon meringue pie for free, we took it home with us because we were stuffed (all the fries you can eat special is still on). Plus the last time we were there they gave us a Customer Appreciation card good for 15% off, we saved an additional $7.00 on this meal.

Today, Claudia, Angela an I went to Future Shop, we bought the new Alvin and the Chipmunks DVD. The shelf price said $18.99, when we checked-out it scanned in at $23.99. After paying for it I went back to the shelf just to double check, sure enough it was $18.99, I went back to the cash and told her and she directed me to customer service. The girl there was going to give it to me for the shelf price, but she took awhile and in that time I was reading the Scanning Code of Practice sticker on the side of the cash register. If a product scans in at the checkout at a price higher than the shelf price, or any other displayed price; the product is free - up to $10, or $10 off if the item is more than $10. When I asked about it she asked another guy and he said yes the price should be $8.99 instead of $18.99.

Just waiting for our third deal. Unless you count the Beer Store special, I bought a 24 of Molson Canadian/Coors Light for $29.95. The guy in front of me bought a 12 pack for $20.05, the Beer Store guy told him for another $9.90 he could get 12 more beers. The guy didn't go for it.

Happy Easter Everyone!

The girls looking pretty happy for an early morning photo. I took this one before we headed to church.

We had the Swan's over for turkey dinner. Instead of the kids table we added a table at the end, making for one long table with 15 of us.

Patrick checking his phone for the bluetooth lady.

An update photo of the Swan-Tanabe cousins.

What a difference nine years make, or more like where has the nine years gone. I pulled this one out of the vault. This photo is from Claudia's first birthday party in 2001.

Signs of Spring

Some of the signs of spring around the house today. The lilac bush is starting to bud. Temperature got up to 17ºC today.

Claudia playing catch. Look at the concentration on her face.

Ladybug on the boxwood out front.

A little bee in the same shrub.

Claudia relaxing with Chloe out on the front lawn.

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

Angela's most recent project was to build a kite and fly it. She had the choice of making a Scott Sled kite or a Diamond kite. She was being marked not on the actual making of the kite, but the scientific journal documenting the building process and the test trials and her presentation. We started last night cutting out the shape and putting it together.

We used some vapour barrier plastic for the kite, some wooden dowels and some yellow duct tape.

Angela decorated it this afternoon with paint and Sharpies. After dinner we headed over to the test field (school yard) for our flight trials. Here is Angela with her decorated kite.

On the first trial, it got up in the air briefly.

But it needed some adjustments.

Claudia was flying a store bought kite that Susan picked up at Zellers today. It worked pretty well for $6.

After some tweaks, it was on to trial two.

It was staying up a little longer.

It was up in the air and going pretty good.

Angela discovered afterwards that our vent was upside down, the text book instructions were wrong, but I don't think it would make much difference.

I don't think it was as high in the sky as it looks in the picture.

A nice picture of Gillian.

Gillian and her friend Sarah jumping.