When you THINK you thought it

As I'm sure most of you know by now, Brian has taken a full time job with a commercial contracting company called The Woodard Group. Work has been very slow because of such an unstable economy, so when this opportunity arose, it was perfect timing. He is currently learning the ropes of a commercial superintendent, and will get on to estimating and job managing in the future. This is very valuable mangerial experience, as well as experience with commercial building, which he has almost no experience with in the past. We have still kept our company "open" and will take on side/sub work. Brian worked so hard for his Class A, it would be silly to let it go. He thinks he'd like to stick with The Woodard Group for awhile, but if the economy really picks up, we always have the option to go back to True Tangent (the name of our company). It's a real shift for him, instead of actually doing the work, he watches other people do work, he said it's actually pretty exhausting! :-)

All that background to say...the other day he was in their carpenters shop and met the cabinet maker. He talked with him for awhile, and helped him with a few things. He said it was very funny...you know when you think you are just thinking something, but instead you say it outloud?...well this guy accidentally said "Nice guy, strange hair" to Brian. Haha!! Brian said it was like, oops! I told him that would be the perfect name for his blog, if he had one. Nice Guy, Strange Hair. Hilarious.

Darn It!

Kenna has recently been getting in a lot of trouble for being saucy, talking back and/or arguing with an instruction (she has way better ideas:-)...
Today in the store I gave her a piece of gum with the wrapper still on it and she was struggling to get it free. "Darn it!" she says, "Kenna, we do not say darn it, those are angry words" I told her. A moment later she says, "but Mom, I am". "You are what?" "Angry!" she said her most emphatic voice. Yikes. I guess I am getting my payback now from my childhood days:-)

Alberta Friends & Family

Some pics stolen from Kari. Kari is almost family, as she is Chantelle's cousin...here are some great shots she posted of the boys etc. If not for Kari I don't think they'd have nearly as many nice pics from AB. She is going to photography school and has an amazing camera.

Davis, Kaden & Logan, up on the train tracks

Brent and his bewildered face!

Davis and Kari

Kaden and Kari, niiiice...

Kari and Logan

Kari and Chantelle

Logan & Kari, again.

Brent & Chantelle Kennedy!

July 5th, 2008 Brent and Chantelle said "I do"! The wedding was at 3pm, and the day started out lovely. It wasn't too hot or too cold, really. We had a few moments of drama during the ceremony, as Chantelle whispers 'vows' to Mom and mom realized they were in the van. Somehow this fell on me to run to the van and retrieve them. I made it back, vows in hand, literally without a second to spare and completely winded. Naturally right after the vows I had to sing! It was a very nice ceremony and the church was decorated nicely. Kenna and Brooks remained seated and happy during their travels up the aisle (in a John Deere wagon), so that made Mommy happy. Kenna even managed to toss a handful or two of petals out onto the floor.

After the ceremony we headed to the park for a "picnic" as Kenna called it. Unfortunately it started to rain, mostly softly (with sun shining) which was great for pics, but bad for my hair. Towards the end it was coming down hard so we wrapped it up quickly and went on to the reception hall.

The reception was very nice, we had a turkey dinner, with an open juice and pop/soda (for Brian's sake) bar. Dessert was wedding cake made by Chantelle's aunt. There were 4 layers, and each one was a different kind of cake. Speeches were nice, powerpoint glitched but worked, emcee's were very funny. All in all it was a wonderful day and it was as perfect as you could have a wedding be. Congrats to the newlyweds!

We have some (about 500!) candid shots of the wedding, park, and reception, however with dialup it isn't very feasible to post many of them right now. I will be home on the 22nd and will post tons of pics as quickly as possible. Promise!

Note: I (Darla am posting this with my mom, showing her how, we set her up to contribute to the blog, so hopefully she can every now and again...it's a little dicey with dialup)

Veterinary Expedition

A picture tells a thousand words apparently. So in order to make up for the many months that I have not posted anything on this blog I'll post a few relevant pictures and I'll be all caught up.

Yesterday the task of taking the little brute depicted in the photos to the vet fell to me. My image of a vets office was shaped from writing of James Herriot and my real life experiences with the Town and Country office in Stouffville. Both portrayed a similar image of how a veterinary practice was to be run. The Town and Country was a good sized house with a cobbled walk obscured by overgrown bushes. The rooms sometimes felt a bit tight but there was real homey feeling about the place. It was punctuated by the cat who lived in the waiting room and sought favour from the human visitors while taunting oft nervous patients. The most comfortable homes often have an air of humorous animosity.

I loved the wall chart of all the different dog breeds. All of us kids had memorized the CKC register of breeds and each time we'd eagerly point out the breeds that were left out. We'd wonder smugly how anyone could have omitted the Grosser Munsterlander or the Basset Fauve de Bretagne. Surely no poster of dog breeds was complete without them. Still, what it lacked in content it made up for with the artwork. There was something classically enchanting about it that I think typified the whole place. It was not necessarily the most modern but it aptly covered all the basics.

As I discovered recently I prefer classical to modern. The Lakewood Animal Hospital is just a 17 minute walk from our house. Because my wife had taken the car with her to work I happen to know this for a fact. They chose the name well because the place did indeed appear to be a hospital. It was sterile and industrial and all the employees wore scrubs even the receptionist. I suppose you never know when she might be called upon to perform an emergency tracheotomy with one of the complimentary pens.

The waiting room was an odd combination between a hospital and a park. The floor, wall and ceilings were reminiscent of the average emergency room but the decor was unique. They had three outdoor park benches in a row and no other seating. I wondered if they had not been purloined from the bus stop out front. I surreptitiously inspected them during my wait and was a bit shocked to find that they were custom made to inflict discomfort on humans and animals alike. The other unique decorative implement was a "new age" like fountain. The sound of constant rushing water tempted even the strongest bladders with immediate evacuative action. I took Katana off my lap since we still had a 17 minute walk home.

I think they borrowed their in house procedure from the hospital as well because although I was the only person in the waiting room (and the only other person with a pet I saw for the duration of my visit) it still took quite a bit before one of the medically clad seating attendants informed me that I could weigh in my pet and proceed to the secondary waiting room. The inner sanctum where only those frustrated by a sore back and tightly squeezed legs could enter. From here we could see our final destination. The sign on the door read "Veterinary Homeopath". I secretly hoped there was a third waiting room.

The vet was actually quite nice but she suggested we let Katana run around her office for a bit to let her become comfortable. The dog was perfectly adjusted the moment we walked in but I discovered there were ulterior motives. Although all we needed was a simple vaccination I got a complete rundown on the benefits of organic foods for dogs and the ravages of name brand processed dogs foods. She had written up some natural health plans that she was eager to peddle. My response was fairly clear, although I want the best for the little beast I myself eat processed food and I don't want the dog to outlive me. I think my witty retort was all that saved us from sitting in a circle burning incense.

The vaccinations were administered without further incident and I was free begin the journey home and reflect upon how very different veterinary practice has become.

Garage Sale Funny

Last weekend there was a town-wide garage sale in Sexsmith, where everyone sells their things on the same day. Great idea! Anyway, the kids decided to sell some baked goods and pop for some extra money (and they did really well!). Mom gave Lehman a hand towel and instructed him to wipe down the cans of pop before handing them to customers, because they would be very wet after sitting in water and ice all day. She overhears him asking his customers, towel in hand..."Would you like your pop wet or dry?"

New Puppy

Here are some of the promised pictures of our new puppy. She's a 7 week old Shih-Tzu cross. We've named her Katana, or Katy for short. Turns out she's actually tough to get a good picture of.