I took the cutest video a few weeks ago of Hailey and needed to share it. I feel like it may only be a short bit of time before Hailey is walking. She is a pro walking with her little walker, she turns when she hits walls and can direct it exactly where she wants to go.

We finally are getting a break from some crazy snow over the past week. I was stuck in the house for days and started to get really antsy to get out! It was a challenge for Scott to keep the laneway to the barn clear because he had to ship pigs and get more in. I’m still loving winter, but Scott is ready for it to be over.

At least Hailey and I got to enjoy it for a bit. Until we got too cold and were tired of the wind, then back inside we went.

“Although, I have never been one to keep things short. Except for skirts. And relationships.”

Well, that is no longer true because I don’t wear skirts at all now that I live in a city where it was -37c (-34f) this week and also because Mr. Leah and I celebrated our four (4!) year anniversary this past week.

To celebrate we took the day off work on Thursday and headed to the mountains to go snowboarding at Sunshine Village. Other than the fact that it was incredibly cold, it was a great day. The sun was shining and we practically had the mountains to ourselves. Uh-mazing.

For my birthday Mr. Leah got me a camera, and I have tried to become better at taking pictures so that’s a good thing for all of you! (Better = quantity, NOT quality!)

In the gondola, freezing our buns off. Look at my frozen hair!

There were moments when I looked around and just asked myself “Is this real?” It was so beautiful.

Needless to say, I have had cold feet for abouuut 2 years, and I have not had adequate footwear to help with that.  In first year I got some Emus-

and they were warm for about a month, until it started snowing and getting slushy, and THEN they packed out and I had to wear socks and oma slippers in them in order for them to fit/be moderately warm.  I was not impressed, but I stuck it out for 2 winters and both adventures above, have now decided that it’s time for a new-GOOD- pair of winter boots.  Ottawa winter-proof!  I’ve been looking around on the internet and at Rideau Centre.  I didn’t really find anything at Rideau, but I’ve found 3-4 online that I’ve been thinking about and guys, I need advice!

Pair #1

Timberland’s Mount Holly Earthkeepers- I saw these at Rideau, but I didn’t try them on because it was at Town Shoes and all the people around me were trying on stilettos and it just felt weird, haha.

Timberland’s Design Your Own Boots- I just designed my own (the tall version), and they had pink on them, and they were cute and I loved them.

Sorel’s Joan of Arcadia.

Sorel’s Helen of Tundra…

And the boots that started this all,

So tell me what you all think! Do you have amazing boots to share?

Ps. I have the coat in #2 at the Community website.  The Technical hemp hooded parka.

Tomorrow my cheerleading team is doing a bake sale with the AOIIs, and in true Valentines Day fashion, I made cherry chip cupcakes, with pink and red icing, and red hearts on the tops! Here are some pictures of my masterpieces!

Teensie spatula I found and used!

The finished products!

What are you whining about lately? Let it out.

OC Transpo Bus

For the past week (and before the Christmas break), I’ve had to find different ways of getting to school almost every day because there are no buses running.  Wednesdays I have no class, but I had to be at school to help recruit for cheerleading, so I was going to walk the hour to school, then someone recommended to me that I should take the shuttles (Carleton has school buses running from different parts of the city every half hour to help students get to their classes).  The closest shuttle stop from me is a half hour walk at our nearest shopping center/O-train stop, so I got bundled up, and left at about 3:45, since I had to be at school for 5, and figured that would give me enough time.  I got to the stop at about 4:20, and noticed a sign on the times board saying “Due to the weather, the shuttles will not be running today”.  There I was, boots on, with slippers underneath, down filled mitts, tights, yoga pants, a short sleeved shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a down coat, and BOTH hoods on (I later got made fun of when I mentioned that I took off my hoodS.).  In other words, I was totally bundled up, and totally pissed that I walked half an hour to a bus stop where no buses would be coming.

After I got over my initial shock, and about 5 minutes of trying to call a cab (obviously busy every time I called, because how else would people get around these days?), I walked to the nearest Second Cup and called a teammate to come pick me up and bring me to school.  On our way to school I find out that they had changed the recruiting times from 5-7 to 4-6.  It was now 5:20.  So I get to school, take off my layers (and my hoods), and starting trying to recruit people.  Now has anyone ever had to attempt to recruit university aged guys to try out for a cheerleading team? NOT fun, let me tell you that.  Pretty much our approach is “if you think the guy is hot and jacked, go hand him a flier and chat him up”.  I’m clearly not very good at this.  I attempted to recruit for about 20 minutes, then a group of us decided it would be better if we’d just go to the residence and try to force people to try out hand them out there.  Well.  In order to get to the tunnels (do you really think we would walk outside?), we had to walk past one of the campus bars.  Now you should know that one of our favorite sayings is “Our drinking team has a cheerleading problem”, and we do live up to that saying.  We decided it would be easier for us to talk to people if we had a beer in us.  Well one beer turned into two, and two into three, and next thing you know we’ve forgotten all about handing out fliers, and were now talking about siblings having the same tongues, and things only the fiveblondes would understand like “touch tongues!”, and living on farms/ranches, since the group I was there with consisted of two sisters from Texas-Kelly and Kristina, and one guy who works on a farm-Matt (did I mention that he also is from a family of five siblings?  Only one sister though).  Kristina, by the way is my twin.  If you are looking at pictures from my cheerleading you’d better look twice to make sure that it’s actually me, because we have to do the same thing.  We were then talking about staying for trivia night, when I got a call that Krys was waiting for me outside res commons-almost all the way across campus.  So I grab my coat, say my goodbyes and run across campus…only to be met by a chihuahua in Krys’ truck!  Now I assure you, I wasn’t drunk enough to be seeing things…okay well maybe I was, but there was honestly a chihuahua in the truck.  I’ve never seen one up close, and Radar is enough to turn me off of them.  No offense to anyone who has one, but chihuahuas are creepy looking dogs in my opinion.  It turns out that this lovely dog is staying at my house for a couple of days while Krys’ sister visits us from Montreal.  I’ll let you all know how this goes.

I had totally forgotten that we (me, Emily and Krys) had planned a Monopoly date with Krys’ friend Dan and his girlfriend Felicia.  Monopoly is a touchy subject in our house.  We usually end the game in a big fight, and a win for Krys.  This time was different though.  This time I won!  It was a crazy game, and I didn’t quite understand how I won, but I’m not going to fight it, I’m going to take that win and be happy that I’m the one who broke Krys’ winning streak.  Oh yea, he also wins EVERY single  game we play, including Risk, Clue, and Whoonu.

Anyways, that was my wonderful adventure with the OC Transpo strike.  I was only planning on making it about my adventure getting to school for the recruitments, but I tend to ramble when I’m bored, and have 5 hour breaks in my schedule, which I do every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Kent and I started this year out in an interesting way. For as long as I’ve known him, Kent has been a water rat. He is not afraid of diving right into the water, no matter how cold. His dream has always been to do a polar bear swim on New Years Day. For those of you who don’t come from arctic temperatures, polar bear swims happen all over the place on January 1st in Canada. All of the absolutely insane people who want to participate go to the beach and run into freezing cold water. Us normal people wait until July. Our friends Dane and Michelle came along to cheer Kent on. For them and I there was no question – we knew there was no way we were going in there.

We arrived in Port Dover, where the swim was happening, and Kent and I went into a store where all of the future polar bears were waiting. The temperature was negative 10 degrees celsius. Kent got dressed in his bathing suit and robe and they listened to a pep talk where they were told that if you don’t put your head under, it doesn’t count! Everyone started chanting “THE WATER IS WARM! THE WATER IS WARM!” over and over. They were also told that the lake had frozen over the night before and there was a hold cut into the ice which all the polar bear swimmers had to jump into! I hugged Kent a lot and told him to be careful.

I tried to watch Kent jump in but there was so much bumpy ice that was really hard to walk on, and soo many people, that I couldn’t see a thing which was disappointing. Definitely not a spectator sport. Here’s what I did see.

I spotted him with the other swimmers before they went in… and didn’t see him until:

After he was already finished. Smiling, which is a good sign!

The crowd.

Finally inside! Celebrating the fact that he is a full fledged polar bear.

Kent said he probably would do it again next year, but he definitely doesn’t have me convinced to do it, even though he took it like a champion.

Would you ever do a polar bear swim?

When you’re done there, our wedding photographer has posted more pictures of Denis and I from our engagement session on their blog – Check them out at The Last Forty Percent!

Okay, remember my last post when I said it wasn’t going to snow much?  I’ll let the next few pictures do the talking…

Normal view out back.

Friday morning

Friday night

Saturday morning

Saturday morning

I can’t wait to go jump and frolic in this stuff!!!!

We’ve been getting lots and lots of snow this past week, it all started Saturday afternoon with snow and now it basically hasn’t stopped since!  I really love the snow, but driving in it really sucks.  Today while driving home from work I almost hit a sign (while going about 10 km/hr) because my car wheels would not turn, almost ditched it right after that into a fairly steep ditch (again going super slow) and then missed my driveway at home!  The last one was because there was a truck behind me and I really did not want to get rear ended so I tried not to stop too suddenly. But have no fear because I made it home in one piece and the car is fine… It would be much better with snow tires though! Anyone have a pair of snow tires they want to sell for cheap? Cause I’ll take them! (providing they fit my car).

And I will leave you with our weather forecast for the night and tomorrow… yay snow!  Not that much in the forecast but added to what we have there will be lots!

This weather really makes me want to decorate for Christmas… have you begun decorating yet?

PS: La Petite Chic is giving away a Wii & Wii Fit! Go now to enter!