One Word

Hello All - the end of the first week of January. How are your resolutions? Have you made them? Broken them? Kept up with them? Of my public resolution (take more pictures) I have done remarkably well, as I hope you have noticed on ye old blog. I have a few private resolutions that are coming into play and I may or may not share them. I have high hopes for this year. Do you? 2010 was a year of changes and challenges. Craig and I both changed jobs (although within the same company), Sterling became a teenager, I put an effort into my weight loss goals, family came to visit, Kaedo had a break-out year socially, we started year two of gnomee and travelled for our first ever real family vacation. There were many other ups and downs that affected us and our families, but we weathered the storms and rode the waves of good fortune.

2011 is a year in which I will move into my last year of my 30s - yikes - mom and dad, you are OLD! ha. Sterling will enter his last year of school before high school, Kaedo hopes to try out for rep soccer, Craig has many job highlights coming this year which will test him and show him to be the perfect person for the job (do I sound proud? I am - he rocks).

On some of the blogs I follow there has been an ongoing theme of choosing ONE WORD that will lead you through the year and be a focus word in your accomplishments. The woman who started this a couple of years ago, Ali Edwards, has done it again and millions of paper crafters and non-paper crafters are taking the plunge and choosing a word. I have done so this year, which is new as in the past I have not participated.

My word for 2011 is ACHIEVE.

I have many hopes and dreams for this year and I hope by using this "focus word" I will be able to accomplish the things I am setting out for myself.

So, the question is...would you care to join me? If you would like to I'd love to hear what your word is if you want to share, and hopefully we can be each others cheering section.

2011 is going to be a great year. I know it!

If you want to read more about 'one little word', check out the link below and read them all.

http://http://aliedwards.com/2011/01/one-little-word-2011-the-words.html

Thank You, Extended Warranty - we love you!

Monday morning Craig took the van in for some service. What started out as a 'stability light' going on and off ended up being the replacement of the steering shaft, the replacement of the trans axle seal, and a replacement of the p/s system. The van went in at 9:45am and at 5 when we were finally able to pick it up we still didn't know what would be covered by warranty. They are very cagey about telling you what is covered and what isn't. It ended up that we were only going to be charged for the diagnostic test but I think when the Service Tech saw our faces and knew he was in for a fight, he removed that charge and we got off with everything being covered. Craig was adamant, as was I, that everything should be covered under our extended warranty and we breathed a sigh of relief of not having a $700 bill at the end of the day.

The tech tells us that the light will probably still come on as they are not certain they got it corrected but we are happy with the work they did and will just have to hope this solved the problem.

Week 15

Happy New Year to all our Gnomees!

The first gnome picture of the new year. Sterling's eyes are a running joke in our family, hence the semi-stunned picture of him. Recently all photos of him have him looking like he is half asleep. I told him to look "bright eyed" and this is what I got. No one looking at this picture will ever think he's sleeping on the job.

New Year's Pictures

Here are some shots from our New Year's photo shoot. As I mentioned in a previous post - the one of all of us isn't great, so I sort of blurred it so my third chin didn't show quite as much. For all of you who like your pictures unaltered - too bad. Love the ones of us with the boys and it was nice to get one of Craig and I. The boys did a great job getting pictures. If you want copies of any of them let me know which and the size and I will print them and send them to you. No pressure! Ha!

Thank You, New York!

Heading out to NY

Smart guy - made the travel time seem very short!

Heading into the USA

The BEST STORE EVER!!!

Pizza Hut for supper

Kaedo's Supreme Lovers Pizza

Sterling's Pepperoni Lovers Pizza

Our Sampler

All the gear we brought home!

Cereal, Cereal and more Cereal

Craig's $10 football gloves

Books I stocked up on

Kaedo's gum

Thank you, New York, we had a lovely time visiting your fair state. Too bad your customs agents are such assholes.

We had the best day yesterday. We got up early and headed out - we were on the road by 9:15am - and were on our way to the land of Target and much to our surprise, a fantastic outlet mall.

We got to the border, with the use of our handy GPS, at 11:15am and waited 75 minutes to get through. The guy was a real jerk but what can you do? You would think they would be extremely accommodating of people heading into their country willing to spend their money, but apparently they like the status quo of their economy. Go Figure.

Target is only about 10 minutes past the border in Niagara Falls, NY, and so we were there in no time. We spent about 90 minutes looking around and stocking up on some things we don't have here. Sterling got a computer game we had had no luck in finding in Canada, Kaedo got some gum and some soda he had never tried, Craig got the deal of the day with a $12.99 pair of 'wrinkle resistant' dockers and I stocked up on books that were half the Canadian price. From there we headed to the outlet mall we had seen coming in and Craig spent some time in both the Nike Outlet and Under Armour Outlet stores. He was able to pick up some football gloves for $10 a pair and both he and Sterling picked up some Under Armour gear. We then stopped at this trendy shoe store and Kaedo got a new pair of shoes. From there we headed to WalMart to pick up some cereal we can't get here. We were looking for a specific one "S'Mores", that Kaedo fell in love with when we went to Florida. We weren't successful but we did pick up some other kinds the boys wanted to try. Needless to say, we are good for cereal for the time being.

We left WalMart and headed back to Canada as Kaedo had a Bulk Barn coupon for 25% off that was expiring yesterday and he had to stock up using his gift card he got from amma and baba. We GPSed Bulk Barn and got there in plenty of time for him to do his shopping. By the time that was over we were all starving, so we stopped in at Pizza Hut and enjoyed a fun dinner reliving our day.

We got home at 7:34pm (exactly the time our GPS told us we would) and then spent the rest of the evening hanging out. It was a fantastic day. Oh, and did I mention that we did not have to pay any duty??? The border guard on our end asked us how much we spent and when we told him he told us to have a good day and let us through. What a bonus!

Thanks to everyone who gave us Christmas money - we certainly enjoyed spending it!

New Year's Resolutions

At Boston Pizza yesterday we talked about New Year's Resolutions and it was quite fun to hear what the boys decided on for this year. As always, weight loss is a goal but I don't believe it should be my resolution. I chose a new one this year as did Craig and the boys. Here's what we came up with:



Kaedo - Eat More Ribs (he had just finished some when he made this decision)

Sterling - Eat More Slowly (he too had just finished scarfing down a pizza)

Craig - Walk Ketchup More

Me - Take More Pictures



Fun but practical.



I am a picture taker and often pull out my camera but have found over the last few months that I really only pull it out for our gnome picture and that just isn't good enough. So I want to take more, document our life a bit better, get behind and in front of the lens. We'll see how it goes.



Today we are heading on a road trip into Buffalo for a shopping trip to Tar-Jay (Target). We are so looking forward to it. We also plan to visit the Falls (since we're going right past - another reason to take my camera). The boys have saved much of their Christmas money and on Friday went and switched it to USD. $100 USD cost $100.13 CAN. Great! The boys have some ideas of what they are looking for as do Craig and I so it should be fun.



Our sweet neighbors are taking over 'dog walking duty' for the day and they never seem to mind as we always come through with some cash or a gift to thank them.



Hope you have a magical day - I read that somewhere and thought - that's a great thing to wish for.

Happy New Year!

Sterling always looks sleepy in his photos so I was trying to help him out!

A new year has begun and we spent the day having fun together. We all slept in after a late night bringing in the New Year with some friends. Once we were up and motivated we went out to Darlington Park for our annual New Year photo. Just like our pumpkin picking day (the only other day of the year we try to get a family photo) it was raining. We did find a shelter and got some great photos. Unfortunately we didn't really luck out in getting a great one of the four of us but many of the others were great. After that we headed up to Boston Pizza (thanks Jessica for the GCs) and had 'lupper'. The food was great and the company was awesome. After that we stopped to pick up a few things at the dollar store and headed to Rogers to rent a movie for tonight. We rented "The Town" as Craig has been dying to see it and we have heard great things about it. We'll see.

From our family to you, we wish you a wonderful 2011 and nothing but the best.