Birthday

My birthday was two days ago, and I turned 20. No longer a teen... I can't believe it!

Emma came home over the long weekend, and we were able to have some celebrations as a family. Even though we have an extra day, the visit was very short and sweet. Hopefully I will be able to visit her later in the summer!

Thursday, my actual birthday, was a lot of fun! Since it was cold and rainy, Paul drove me to Owen Sound. I originally wanted to go there to get some goodies from the Body Shop with my birthday discount, but there was no longer a Body Shop in the mall! We went to a restaurant called Yummy Yummy for some Japanese and Thai cuisine. Needless to say, it was very yummy. That night, my mom made a delicious meal and birthday pie. It was all very nice. Paul and I also went to a movie that night.

On Friday, I was able to go see my friend Siobhan, who lives 40 minutes away from me. We met in our first year of University and I consider myself so lucky that we are so close! Our evening included dinner, a walk along the beach, pictures, and lots of laughs!

Thank you everyone who made my birthday as special as it was! :)

After the Rain

There is a house along our dog walking route that has the prettiest garden full of spring flowers and tulips. My mom and I love walking past it and seeing the pretty colours. Thanks to the rain we've been getting almost every day, they have grown more and more. The other day, right after a period of rain, we walked by and the colours were so saturated and gorgeous!

The Long Weekend

Over the long weekend, Emma came up and we were able to spend some time together, even though it was only for a short visit. I had to work on Saturday (which was unfortunately the nicest-weather day of the whole weekend), but other than that we were able to relax and enjoy each others' company. We also got a lot of progress done on the bathroom! Once it's finished I will be sure to share a picture with you!

Today was very exciting, as we were able to visit some friends of the family who recently had a baby boy, and then in the afternoon, my mom and I visited another family whose goat had just given birth to three boy kids! I did not take any pictures of Jacob, but I got lots of the goats! I could not believe how big and soft they were for being only 10 hours old! Here are some of my favourite pictures of the precious animals:

Life Lately

When I came home for the summer, I was so excited to have lots of down time to take pictures and blog a lot, but since I've gotten the job with the census, my life has been filled with everything but down time. Now we are starting on the second wave (or tsunami, as somebody appropriately called it today at our training session) of enumeration, which is called NRFU, or Non-Response Follow Up. This will consist of long days of organizing my time, looking up telephone numbers, and calling or visiting people in my collective area.

Recently, as I'm sure most of you probably know, my mom and dad bought a 24 foot sailboat, and it went in the water on Saturday, May 14th. It was a very long, cold and rainy day waiting for the crane to finally put our boat in the water, but when it was our time, it was so exciting! We still have yet to go on the maiden voyage, but I cannot wait!

We have also been renovating our bathroom on the main floor. I have been busy taking the border off, prepping the walls and painting over the last week. When we moved into our house, the bathroom was painted a deep red colour with a country/farm border on it. Whoever matched up the two sections of wallpaper didn't do the greatest job and in each corner of the room were stretched out cows, which made it look like they had more legs than normal. It's goodbye to the famous 6-legged cows and on to a neutral, light room! I took a quick picture of the cow before I took off the border for a humourous memory.

Bittersweet

Today, I was very excited to go to Spirit Rock and take pictures with three of my good friends. When I headed upstairs to get ready, the phone rang. It was the lady I had talked to the week before about working for the 2011 census. Because someone had gotten sick recently, they needed a quick replacement.

It was a very difficult moment for me, because I was really looking forward to going out for a photo-adventure, but I was also excited to get a job.

I am glad with my decision to take the job. Even though I missed out on one trip, I'm sure there will be lots more this summer, and I can't wait for all of them :)

Goats!

While at my friend's house for a waffle party over the Easter weekend, I was able to spend some time with her family's three pregnant goats — Junie, Bella and Peaches. They are all so cute! Bella (the brown and white one) kept following me around and was almost posing for the camera! There were many false-labour-alarms for poor Junie, the most pregnant of them all. I wasn't able to get a good picture of her to show her size, but she is definitely ready to have those babies. My mom and I are anxiously awaiting the call that the baby goats have arrived so we can go out and see them. While there were no babies last week, I was still able to get some good shots of the goats.

Emma and Josie

This weekend I was able to use Emma as a model before she leaves for another term of university. I'm going to miss her so much! Hopefully we will be able to visit often :)