A Party...Our Favourite Thing!

We had a small party last night...we doggies love parties!  Janet worked the better of the day on Saturday preparing for the get together.  After cooking,  she then had to vacuum up the huge mess she made while  cooking. We can't believe what a messy cook Janet is...a small village could eat off the food she spills on the floor.

Guess what she did next?  She went for a bike ride...18K in total!  She was really exhausted, but happy.  She didn't mean to go so far and arrived home only 10 minutes before our company showed up, barely able to breathe!  That's Janet barely able to breathe, not the company.

Great...look who is here!  It's Stevie, then Lolo and Frank's girlfriend from China, Shirley and the back of Frank's head...it turns out that all of Frank came, not just the back of his head!  What fun!  Judging by Lolo's hand, it looks like she has something important to say.

Noodles is doing her best to prove she did not deserve the Girl Guide Naughty Badge...whatever, Noodles.  Meg and Briana told us that you can still buy the Old School Girl Guide cookies.  We aren't likely to get the opportunity to purchase the cookies as the little Girl Guides that sold the cookies on our street are now big girls with driver's license...we think they have bigger things on their minds now.  Janet says back in the day, when our kids were little, she would buy 10 or 12 boxes and put them in the freezer.  The little Girl Guide salesperson was always so happy.

Here is what Janet made for the party(ette).  She tried a dip recipe (from a new cookbook that she loves "Food From My Frontier", by Ree Drummond - Janet as a rule, would not buy an ecookbook because she is such a slob, but she says this one is fantastic)  Hot Horseradish Dip with crackers, Sam Choy Chicken Wings, Pork Dumplings with Cilantro Sauce and Beef Satay with Jerk Sauce.  For dessert, Janet made Carmelized Banana Cream Pie from one of Caprial's cookbooks.  Everyone had lots of fun.

Frank said Shirley was afraid of dogs.  Not so with me!  Mr. Rockers!  Calm.  Cool.  Collected. Relaxed.  Without a doubt, has anyone seen a better candidate for Ring Pup?

Noodles Earns Her Naughty Badge

Phil took us to Fireman's Park two nights ago, which is at the end of our block and let us off leash.  While he was busy looking for me, Noodles dashed into the Girl Guide Meeting.  We didn't know where she was until we could hear some people laughing...sure enough, Noodles invited herself to the meeting.  While the Girl Guides enjoyed her company, the leaders may not have as they closed the door immediately after Phil collected her.  Bad, bad Noodles.  Maybe she wanted to suggest they go back to the Girl Guide Cookie recipe of yesteryear...way better than the mint jobbies they do now.

This is where Briana and Bronwyn went to Brownies.  Janet says they loved Brownies and loved their Brown Owl.  Janet also says that the beauty of our house (they have been here for 28 years and we have been here for 10 years, so we are relative newcomers ) is that all our  kids could walk anywhere they needed to go.  That also seems kind of yesteryear as it appears kids don't walk themselves too much any more.  They need a doggie!

 

I am exhausted from the stress of Noodles misbehaving.  As you can see, she is still in good form.


What the...never  mind!   I keep forgetting we doggies are not allowed to use bad language.  Now what is going on?  This looks like a dessert in the making.  Janet never makes dessert for herself and Phil, so this can only mean one thing...we are having company!  Yay...company is our favourite thing!

Rockers is One Brave Dog

This morning Janet hauled out her best friend, Mr. Vacuum.  Normally, Rockers runs away and tries to hide as he is afraid of the hose.

Talk about brave! Do you think he is still breathing?   See how funny his bed looks?  Janet tried to take the cover off to wash it, but the stuffing went all kind of lumpy.  She tried to tell Phil they need to buy a new bed for Rockers, but Mr. TightWad says it's not necessary.  Wonder how he would like to sleep on it?

On Sunday, we went for a walk along Willows Beach and then into Uplands Park.  Here we are under the pretty new sign:

Janet doesn't like having her photo taken, but we think as two MOTB's (Mother of the Bride), she had better start wrapping her grey silver head around it!  After our walk and their lunch, Janet rode her bike for 15K!  Not bad..she can't decide how far she should be able to ride before she shells out the $99 registration fee for the Tour de Victoria.

It doesn't get much more shocking than this photo!  Who would believe this if not for the photographic evidence?  Phil wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies for an Open House he did at a new listing.  Janet made the dough, organized all the tools he would need and gave explicit instructions on how to bake the cookies.  If you can believe this, he goes on to tell Janet that baking cookies is a piece of cake.  We thought Janet was going to have cardiac arrest, her face was so red!  Initially, she was stunned into silence, then launched into a verbal assault of the likes we are not allowed to repeat!  We seriously wonder if Phil has a death wish.

To cheer herself up, Janet made one of her favorite dinners-

Tuscan Bread Salad and BBQ'd rib eye steak.  Janet loves, loves, loves Tuscan Bread Salad.

Janet Drives to Shutters

This week, Phil asked Janet if she would go back to the condo in Shutters to clean stage it again.  She said no problem and went this morning.  Phil, of course, takes the Nissan Leaf, leaving Janet the Volvo wagon.

Off she goes, once more, with her cleaning staging supplies in hand.

As Janet doesn't drive very often, she has to carefully plot out her route.  She prefers not to make left hand turns and doesn't like driving on bridges.  She flat out refuses to drive into parkades.  Seriously, this woman still has a drivers' license?  When she gets older and crazier and has even less driving skills, will she fight like a maniac to hold onto her license?  

Short of swimming across the harbour with her "staging" supplies, Janet has no option but to drive on a bridge.  Once she gets there, the condo is on the 8th floor, with exterior entrances.  Nut job is also afraid of heights so has to cling to the wall to go from the elevator to the condo.

It might come as a shock to some people to know that many years ago, Janet and Bronwyn went to Disneyland.  They flew into LAX, rented a car and drove to Disneyland.  Then the next day, Janet drove back to LAX to pick up Briana and again back to Disneyland!  This is shocking to us....we wonder what "adventurous" Janet was like?

While I still have my knickers in a knot over the pending bike ride and now Janet driving on bridges, Noodles, yet again, is as relaxed as a doggie could be.  Why do I have to do all the heavy lifting around here?

She is going to have an ugly sleepy face on when she wakes up!

We still have a while to go before we can go off leash in Uplands Park, but look at the pretty entrance they made:

I'm pretty sure they only built it for the humans as we can very easily smell our way to the park.  This is Janet's favourite entrance, but if it has been raining, this way in is too muddy.  There are lots of entrances to the park.  We don't know how many are going to have the cute signs.

Oh, No...Back On The Bike

Janet was super excited about her bike.  She went around Oak Bay on Friday for about 35 minutes and was feeling pretty good.  Phil bought her an odometer so she could see how far she actually went.  In our humble doggie opinions, Phil seems a tad enthusiastic on Janet's bike riding.  We hear things like "of course you can do a 50K ride, practice isn't necessary" or "don't even give the heavy traffic on the way downtown a second thought".  Could Phil have increased Janet's life insurance?  We like to think not, but we have to admit, Janet doesn't bring a whole lot of income into the house.

On Sunday, look what she did:

Over 9K on her second bike ride.  She went around Oak Bay again, and was elated!  She was so happy, she told Phil she was going to ride her bike to yoga on Monday.

Sadly, on Monday, her bubble was burst.  To get to yoga, she had to ride on roads where there was some traffic, so she was very nervous.  She told Phil she had no clue that our house is actually located at the bottom of a very deep valley, as it appeared to be all uphill to get out of Oak Bay.  Then there was the yoga!  Then there was the ride home!  She was so pooped!  Janet told Phil her hands were tired from clenching the handlebars and her face was tired from grimacing whenever a bus came near!  She didn't cry, but we are pretty sure she wanted to.

We wish she would hurry up and get home so she could relax with us.

Well, that was yesterday!  Today is a new day, that thus far, doesn't involve her bike.  Today after work, Janet made Macadamia Nut Chocolate Chip Cookies and some Pesto.  Janet LOVES pesto and used up all that she had made from the summer, when bunches of basil were inexpensive at the Farmer's Market.  Two weeks ago, she needed a bit more for Easter dinner, so had Phil buy some at Ottavio.  It was $6 for the teeniest container!   Safeway had basil on sale for $2.50/bag so Janet bought three and made some pesto.

Not pesto...just the cookies!

The purchased version from Ottavio was about 2 ice cubes worth.

Janet Has a Dream

Janet has a bike, that she has had for about 5 years.  She so seldom rides takes such good care of her bike that the little rubber nubbies are still on the tires. It even has a water holder!  The beauty of Janet's bike - no lock necessary.  Who in their right mind would steal this thing?  It doesn't look like any bike we see out on our walks.

Last year, they held the first Tour de Victoria, organized largely by Ryder Hesjedal who is from Victoria and now rides in Tour de France, amongst other fancy pants bike races.  Janet and Phil went to Beach Drive and watched the tour go by and they were pretty excited. Soooo, now Janet has decided she is going to ride her bike in this year's tour.  Sounded like a good idea, but for some reason she thought there was a 10K component.  Wrong, sister!  50K is the shortest component. Oddly enough, she is still going to try for it!  I fear her dream will become our nightmare.

As you can see, Noodles isn't too worried about this bike ride business, but I sure am!  I am afraid people will laugh at her bike as it is kind of an old ladies bike.  In addition,  she doesn't have biking togs, never mind fancy ones, sunglasses or biking shoes  and she is going to be really unhappy if she can't finish the ride and has to suffer the humiliation of being picked up in the "broom" wagon.

Further proof of her inability to make a sensible decision - last nights supper of Chinese noodles, stir fry veggies and pork:

No, they weren't having 6 or 8 people in for dinner.  It was just the two of them!

On a happy note, we went to Uplands Park today.  We have to be on leash until 01 July, but look at how pretty the flowers we are.  We are thanking our lucky stars that Phil hasn't whipped out the "wife beater" shirt yet.  Janet hates those shirts!

Our Weekend Flew By!

Wow....it felt like Meg and Derek just arrived and now they have gone home already.  Too bad!  It was excellent having them visit.

They went to the Pub for lunch on Sunday and had Japanese Curry for dinner.  Before Meg came, she told Janet she was going to bring a "craft" for them to do.  Janet was worried because her crafting skills are right up there with her design skills and her creativity..... non existent!  As a result, Janet did the cooking and Meg did the crafting.  We wonder if Meg knows how lucky she was that Janet didn't help.

We think Meg looks so proficient with a paper cutter that perhaps she should have become a surgeon instead of family doctor.

After toiling for two days, she had her table centre pieces finished and was very proud.

It was Noodles plan to "hide" Throckmorton in her toy basket to knock him out of the competition for carrying the ring down the aisle.  Wouldn't you know it - Meg left him at home.  So, Noodles cozied up to Meg while she was on the phone in an effort to glean some info about the situation.  She learned all kinds of things - food, dress, shoes, chairs, hair, makeup and way, way more than we've got time to mention.  Nothing on the ring business, sadly!

Looks to me like she is sleeping, not eavesdropping!

After they left and after dinner, Phil took us down to Fireman's Park and let us off leash.  We were very naughty and chased a cat that we managed to catch up to.  Noodles left unscathed, but I got swiped in the face twice and was bleeding when Phil brought us home.  Janet was in such a tizzy she forgot to get the photographic evidence.  Good thing she and that pesky little camera of hers aren't news reporters!  She started out being really worried about me, but then turned her concern to the kitty.  Kitty, shmitty - apparently she can look after herself!  At least two neighbours have told Phil they could hear him yelling at us.

I'm still recovering from the trauma.  I'm pretty sure I won't do that again.

A Really Bad Day Turns Into a Really Good Day

Yay...it's Saturday, our favourite thing!  Phil took us down to Fireman's Park so we could roll in the dirt.  When we came home, he put us in the back of the Volvo.  Wait - this cannot be a good thing on a couple of fronts:  first, we just came from the park, so it's highly unlikely we are being driven to another park, and secondly, he hasn't driven the Volvo since mid-January.

Oh, dear.  Where are we going?  Noodles looks worried.

 Sure enough, our worst fears were realized.  We were heading to the doggie beauty parlour.  We absolutely hate the beauty parlour.  Guess we should have clued in sooner as Phil has been talking about how we smell and Janet hauls out the vacuum nearly every day to get our doggie fur off the floor.

The really good part was we got to come home around 5PM.  Janet was really busy in the kitchen, so this likely means we are having company.  Yessiree...soon after that lots of people started to arrive.  Lolo and Steve, then our cousin Brad and his girlfriend Kim and then Jeremy.  Meg and Derek were already here.  They were having Easter Dinner!

Janet made Bruschetta with Gorgonzola Spread and Black Olive Tapenade and some cheese and crackers.  Phil was lucky...he went to Epi Foi to get the baguette and there were three left with two customers ahead of him....one lady didn't want one - phew!

For dinner, they had Twice Baked Potato Casserole, Grilled Vegetable Stacks with Goat Cheese and Fresh Mozzarella and Mustard Herb Crusted Prime Rib.

For dessert, Meg wanted Janet to make Pina Coloda Cheesecake as she is trying to convince Derek he will like cheesecake.

In an effort to let everyone know the bride to be is THE most important person in ANY room, Meg totally obliterates Stevie from the photo.  You can see a very small portion of the back of his head.

And, here is the gang.  Lori and Steve had already gone home.

Don't they look nice?  Brad and Kim are lots of fun, very interesting.  Bonus - they always compliment Janet on her food.

Last, but not least, this is how pretty we look after our horrendous day at the beauty parlour:

We might think twice before getting in the back of that Volvo again.

We Had a Great Surprise!

We were just lolling around, minding our own business, when all of a sudden we can hear voices outside.

Our super strength hearing tells us it's going to be good!

Sure enough, it was Meg!  It was Derek!  We gave them our full on welcome back greeting.  They have come for Easter.  Janet took a photo of us with Meg, who was having a bad hair day and warned Janet with dire consequences if she posted the photo.  Janet must be afraid of Meg, because we didn't post the photo!

Sure enough, Thursday has rolled around again.  Janet was at work for 7AM for breakfast and stayed in the Nutrition Bar until 8:15AM.  Then she went upstairs to slice turkey for 2 1/2 hours.  Thursday was a special Easter meal at Our Place.  They had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and root vegetables, gravy and apple pie.

Tables, set all pretty for Easter.

Look who's helping out!!  Meg and Katherine are peeling potatoes.

Janet helped dish up the food until her wrist was sore and then she and Meg traded spots.

Here you can see Meg's left arm, Mariem, Katherine, Doreen's right arm and the man who holds the whole thing together - Brian, food services manager.  Janet thinks she is really lucky to volunteer with such a great group of people.

After standing on her feet for so many hours, Noodles decided to give Janet an old fashioned big hello!

She is too tired to get off the sofa.  Lazy doggie!

Yikes! Do You Think Phil is Building a Dog House?

This is our kitchen counter this morning....covered with what has to be every tool in existence.  What is Phil doing?  What if he is building an outdoor dog house for us?  We have become very comfortable inside on the sofas and beds and only spend time on the deck if the door is open so we can come and go as we like.  We haven't heard any discussion, but would like to think Janet would shut it down in a heartbeat.

This looks very serious, indeed!

Whew....turns out he was just installing the new dishwasher.  This has been so long in the making, we had completely forgotten it was coming.

Pre-rinsing tastes the same as the old dishwasher.

Whisper quiet, so Noodles can sleep right by it.  Janet is making a tutorial video called Microwave 101 to show Phil how it's possible to open and close the microwave without getting his fingerprints all over it.  She says the dishwasher is going to be a real learning curve for Phil as even she has to think twice about where to grab the handle.  Don't know why she is sweating it as we doggies can't remember the last time we saw Phil load the dishwasher!

Phil still has to put the protective cover on the bottom.

Wedding Garden - Part 2

It was really nice outside on Sunday, so Phil and Janet took us for a big walk.  I'm patiently waiting on the front step while they put their runners and coats on.  No more Uplands, so we decided to walk around Cattle Point.

I'm all set to go....where is my brother?

Oh no! Not this again!  The door isn't open all the way so he doesn't want to walk through.  I think he's losing his marbles.  Lately, he's afraid to pass not just tiny dogs, but all dogs on our walks.  He still really wants to be Ring Pup, so I think Janet should up his meds!

While we were out enjoying our walk,we came across a large doggie who appeared to have taken it upon himself to go for a stroll.....alone!  Janet tried really hard to catch up to him so she could read his collar and call his people.  She was unable to keep pace with him.  Shocking!  Has anyone ever seen Janet run?  Didn't think so!   He looked like he had been swimming and in general having a really good time, so I hope his people aren't too angry with him when they find him.

After our walk, Janet set upon shoveling and spreading the soil and compost that she had purchased.  Phil, from his usual spot, micro-managed Janet on the finer techniques.

Just kidding....he actually helped a lot.

 Meg and Derek are getting married in our backyard in July.  Wedding Garden Part 1 was cleaning out the flower beds and removing most of the daisies.  Wedding Garden Part 2 consisted of spreading the soil and the compost.

See how nice and rich the soil looks...it also is a tad on the pungent side!

Rockers still isn't feeling any better today.  He is following Phil everywhere, even though we have nothing on our agenda yet.  Poor Buddy.  When Phil stops petting him, he puts his nose under Phils' hand and gives it a push to let him know he wants more attention.