Windy Enough????

Around 8:30 this morning our hydro went out. Not surprising considering it was pretty windy out. When we kept hearing a knocking sound at the door we decided to look out the window to see what the noise was from and noticed a plastic chair that was on the porch had blown against the door. Shortly afterwards there was a rather loud "knock" at the door and so we looked out the window and the chair was no longer there .... no could we see it anywhere on the yard.

A look in the other direction showed that our swing set had blown over

Another window indicated that our play slide set was going for a bit of a ride (it was originally on the other side of the property).
















I went outside to gather the lawn chair and a few other items before they took off on us. I assured Matthew that the actual slide part was laying flat on the ground so it wouldn't blow away, nor would his ride-on cars ... I was wrong

Mid morning we were busy in the kitchen when we heard some load rattling and banging and looked out the living room window in time to see our metal garden shed bounce off the side of the house and then continue on it's way across the road ... a small piece of it had a little runin with the tree on it's way across the road

The rest of it bounced across the road and then landed in the field on the other side of the road

Well as you can imagine the shed was not empty and that meant I had to make a made dash outside to gather up as much of our belongs as possible before they all disappeared across the road, or who knows where also. I have never been outside in winds that strong and literally felt myself being blown over at times. I was also rather afraid of what might come blowing at me with the next gush of wind ... especially with the leftover shed pieces still laying about. Patio stones had actually been lifted up and moved with the shed when it blew off. I managed to put whatever stones I could on top of the leftover shed pieces to keep them in place.

The garden shed was behind the shop where you can see stones spread out. This picture was taken after I had cleaned up all the chairs and buckets and balls and such. Behind the porch railing you can see our little wading pool. When I went inside it was standing behind the shop (it had been between the garden shed and the shop). I had looked at it and thought I should probably move it but knew there was no way I'd be able to get it into the shop as the wind was too strong for me to carry smaller items already. I had to make another trek outdoors when I seen it making it way across the yard to find some more bricks to put inside it to hopefully keep it in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The items that were closer to the house I just threw in the entrance hall ... I wasn't going to bother trying to drag them to the shop. While I was outside Matthew was crying up a storm in the house and when I got back in he kept asking if we could go somewhere else where he couldn't hear the wind (yes we have an old house so it can get rather breezy indoors when it is outdoors)

 

If you look closely at this picture (you probably have to click on it to enlarge it). You can see some yellow behind the bush on the right side of the picture. I had thought that the ditch would stop the slide playset from going across the road .... I was wrong again. It is now in several pieces throughout the neighbours field

The above picture shows one of the several tree limbs that came down. Last time we had a bit of extra wind I had suggested to Rob that we park the van away from the trees so nothing would fall on it. He assured me that he had just trimmed the trees by the van so it would be fine.

Well thankfully at this stage it is still fine ... but if you note the closest tree in the picture that is divided in two at the base ... you will also note that the right side of this tree is split near the top. It is stuck in the tree beside it and hopefully nothing blows it from there as it could do some damage if it blows towards the house.

Around 1pm I received a call that they were closing school for the day (hydro had also been out there since early morning) and asking parents to pick up their kids as it was unsafe for the buses to go. Apparently our brand new bus that just made it's very first run that morning had a tree blown into the windshield and damaged it. On our way to and from school we seen some of the other damage around us ... trees blown over, fence, sign, swingset blown over, barn (really old and needed to be taken down) blown down, even some of the road signs had been blown flat to the ground. Shortly after 3pm the hydro came back on. It continues to be windy, but nothing like it was earlier.

We stand in awe of how the weather can change from one minute to the next and remember that this also is controlled by God. We are thankful that there was no serious damage or injuries and realize that this is only small in comparison to what some go through with hurricanes and earthquakes. Our property definitely needs some work to become more "windproof".

Bowling Fun

Waaaayyyyy back in February we had a long weekend when it was Family Day. Our kids had an extended long weekend as they also had the Friday before off and the Tuesday after Family Day. Ange and I had picked up bowling vouchers off WagJag and so we took the kids out for an afternoon of bowling on Friday. It's the most fun to watch the little kids bowl. Putting all that effort into throwing the ball and then standing there and watching it "trickle" down the alley, hardly going fast enough to be able to knock down the pins.

Matthew would clap up a storm after each throw ... whether it was heading for a "strike" or a gutter ball ... really you're quite talented to get a gutter ball when you have bumper pads :)

Vivian's turn

Well the girls have surpassed the age of "bum pictures" that come from throwing it from between their legs. Maybe we should have them start playing without bumpers so the get the real challenge of the game.

Osmosis

Didn't I say I was going to stop my hair series so I could catch up on other things?? Well between computer problems and internet issues the past week blogging just didn't happen. Hopefully we got the computer problems worked out .... a.k.a. ... new computer. Yup, I had to give up on the old one ... disappointed that we had to spend the money, but excited to have a new and up-t0-date machine that will be able to keep up and not be soooooo slow. Still working on the internet issues, but hope to have that "fixed" soon also.

In the meantime ... Rob continues to work on the Osmosis Theory

The last few weeks have been rather stressful for Rob with a few all-nighters to try get his papers done ... and thankfully an extension on one of them to prevent another all-nighter immediately after the last one. Two more papers to go ... four more weeks to go!! Overall this year has gone well as far as keeping up and the stress level. We knew that March and April were going to be brutal and all we can do is keeping counting down the days until the end of another year.

Twist and Weave

Another one of those fun weave ones that I like. This one turned out very nice and stayed in for some time ... I'm afraid Marietta hasn't been as faithful about washing her hair lately. We washed the pig tales a few times but not the weave for fear it would mess up. We probably should have tried to wash the weave to see what would happen, but seeing as it's pretty tight it would be hard to scrub the head and keep it from getting fuzzy. For a fancier look we would do the pig tales up in a messy bun. I think I have a pictures of it up like that also ... will have to have a look. Or you could put ringlets or curls in it (we were going to but it never happened). You guessed it ... this one came from Princess Hairstyles also. The tutorial is here.

I think I'll have to take a break from posting hairstyles for a bit. Rebecca has kindly pointed out that I have not yet posted anything about her birthday - which happened to be over a month ago now - so I better not let myself fall too far behind on other stuff.

Woven Hair Headband

Another pretty simple idea and a change for the typical elastic headband that I usually do. Doing it with wet hair and adding some mousse and/or hairspray to the twists while doing it probably would have given it a cleaner look and reduced the fuzz over the next couple days.

The tutorial is here.

Twisted Knot

A quick and easy twist and knot we did one day. I can't remember where we found this idea.

Woven French Braid Ponytail

Another very fun and neat looking hair-do. This one took a bit more work then yesterdays post, but I think with a few tries it wouldn't take that long either. While doing it I put mousse and hairspray on the strands to keep them a bit slick and less fuzzy. I could have actually done that to the hair underneath before I started the weave. In the end the hairdo had to come out because it was getting fuzzy under the weave, but the weave stayed in nicely for some days ... I love hair-dos that stay in for several days, makes it so worthwhile.

I really like the weave hairstyles, they look so neat, or maybe it's just because it's something different. We've been so busy trying new hairstyles that we never get around to redoing old ones, but I'd definitely do this one again.

Click here for the tutorial.

Woven Piggies

I found this hairstyle on Princess Hairstyles .... our favourite site right now (as far as hair-do's goes :) Actually I originally seen it in a video, but with a bit of luck we managed to find the site and tutorial on it for which I'm very thankful for seeing as it turned out easier then I expected as I would have done it differently.

This is one of my favourites. I love the look of it and it was actually quite easy and quick to do. Click here to see the tutorial.

Elastic Pig Tails

I have previously posted when I've done elastics around the girls entire head so that they don't have to do their hair during the summer (see here and here). Marietta was determined at the beginning of the year that she was going to put elastics in her hair at the beginning of each month so she wouldn't have to bother with her hair for a month and then at the end of the month she could take them out and see how long her hair had gotten. I have always used dental elastics when needing small elastics in the girls hair as they last much better then the actual hair ones. But I am at the end of my elastic collection and do not see the orthodontists very often anymore so I cannot get more that way. When Rebecca goes to the Ortho then we usually ask for a bag or so to keep us going and since everyone loves the girls hair-do's it's not hair to get them :) On this occasion they gave us a different kind then we usually use and they did not last near as long ... guess we have to stick to the tried and true. Previously I have worked the elastics around the head to make a pony tail at the top of the head, which we would decorate on Sunday by putting curlers in or making a messy bun. This time I split the hair and worked it down into two low pig tails. I actually forgot to take pictures, so I dug this one out of my other pics. While it worked, I prefer the other way we do it better. Because these elastics didn't last as long she had to take it out after two weeks ... and since we did not have enough elastics to do her whole head again she had to settle for some other creative hairstyles that didn't take so many elastics .... I haven't heard her complain :)

Back Twisted Messy Bun

Hopefully I can find the links back to give credit where credit is due ... I can't always remember where I found the hair style idea. We just take pictures of each one so we can look through our own selection and I don't have to go searching through the internet again.

I found the link back for this one. I got it off of this video .