Happy Halloween

I'm too tired to recap the day. Here are pics.

Halloween countdown

Henry is psyched for Halloween. He's got a most excellent tyrannosaurus rex costume, hand made by Grandma Eileen, and he can't wait to go trick or treating. We put it on yesterday for a costume party at Hannah's, where it got rave reviews. Fun times.

It's interesting that he's now capable of anticipating a future event, which is a recent development. Henry enjoyed Christmas and Halloween last year, but it was more of an "in the moment" thing. This year, we're counting down the days. Of course, mommy is happily anticipating November 1, when she'll have a large stash of candy to raid.

Bathroom reveal

When I saw the new bathrooms on Wednesday, I felt a bit like I was on Trading Spaces or some other home makeover show where you leave for awhile and come back to some fabulous renovation. I'm sure my eyes bugged out and my jaw dropped. The transformation truly is stunning. The pictures can't do it justice. The downstairs bathroom went from being a junk closet with a toilet to a proper powder room with a large, enclosed storage closet. The upstairs bathroom is beautiful. We splurged on a granite counter top for the new vanity, and it was money well spent. Last night I had a bath in the 7-foot soaker tub and just marveled at what a pristine and attractive space it is. Aaahh!

It's especially sweet because in all that time that Tom and I have been together, we've lived in places with exceptionally small, cramped and/or grotty bathrooms. The only exception was an apartment we had in Richmond for one year, which was brand new. Besides that, it's been horror show after horror show. Our apartment in Madison had a bathroom with no ventilation, which caused mold to grow on the walls. When we complained about the state of the tub/shower in our second Richmond apartment, the landlord responded by paining (painting!!!) the tub so it would look better. The bathroom in our Richmond house was laughably small and was so outdated the sink didn't even have a "mixer" tap to create warm (rather than hot and cold) water. So the bathroom in this place was already, sadly, the second-nicest we've ever had. And now it's wonderful (by my modest standards, at least. If there's one thing I learned shopping for bathroom fixtures, is that some people are willing to devote an ungodly amount of space and money to their potty rooms).

Some "before" pics

Our new bathrooms kick ass

Pictures ASAP

Some Kelowna pics

Valley view


Pumpkin carving


Halloween preview

Kelowna visit: Busy busy busy

I've been in Kelowna for the past week with Henry and Dexter. Tom stayed in Ottawa to catch up on some work and supervise the endless final stages of the bathroom renovation. The boys and I are up to the usual slate of Kelowna activities, with the added twist of a visit last weekend by my friend Yvonne from Seattle (Hi Yvonne!), and a three-day work meeting for me (long story). Henry got to go to Auntie Kristy's preschool class today. He had such a good time he's going back tomorrow. Dexter is growing like a weed and doing fun things like learning to roll over. I'm contemplating spending a small fortune on an all-terrain double stroller. And that's about that.

We're here for another week. I'll try to post some pictures before we leave.