Author: kristenperreault

Wii have a new toy!!

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On Tuesday I called the Circuit City near our house, on a whim, to see if they had a Wii. They were showing that they had them online, so I figured what the heck I’ll give them a call to see if they have any in the store. Much to my surprise they had two in stock. So after work on Tuesday I hurried down to the store, like a person with a great secret, hoping that they would still have at least one, and they did!

I called Jamie on the way home, he was still working and had a rough day back after the long weekend, what a perfect day for a surprise. I told him that I had a surprise and asked if he would like it after work or when I got home, there was about an hour difference in time. He said that he would like it now and that I should give it to him when I got home- woohoo I wouldn’t have to wait to give it to him (I am not a patient person and I was excited). So dramatically I made him close his eyes when I got home and presented his Wii to him; he didn’t jump for joy, he didn’t say “woohoo” his reaction was actually pretty lame. However, if you know my husband you know that you pretty much need to tell him to be surprised and jump for joy if you want that type of reaction, you also need to give him more than 10 minutes warning to be able to produce. Although after it sunk in that he actually was the proud owner of a wii, he made up for his initial reaction by making all kinds of goofy faces while opening the box and putting it together, also when we went to Best Buy to get another remote he kept saying “Wii” in the sings-song voice he uses when he’s excited. Yes people, the Jamie that you know and love has a sing-song voice from time to time and owning his very first gaming system warranted using it.
Well needless to say, we have spent endless hours playing on the Wii this week. It has been fun especially making the Mii’s and playing Mario Kart, those are my two favorite things to do. We even made a Mii that looks like Piper, we would be willing to share her with any of our Wii owning friends! We purchased Mario Kart on a recommendation from Nan and Jeremy who said that it would be addicting and boy where they right! We have to give ourselves time limits on how much we can play and today we made a list of things that we need to accomplish before we are allowed to play. Sad, I know but it is really fun and it can suck you in. Hopefully we will at least get some of the list finished before we give in to driving temptation.

Tiny Toads

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Over the past few days it has been raining in the afternoon in Winter Park.  It has resembled the Florida afternoon rainstorms that I remember from when we first moved here, where it pours for an hour or two and then the sun comes out.  Well needless to say, it has been great for our yard which is now pretty and green and also because the rain has produced Tiny Toads!!!

These toads, pictured above, are less than the size of my pinkie nail (which is tiny for those of you not familiar with my fingernail sizes) and they are adorable.  There are tons of Tiny Toads hopping all over the bike path out back of our house and although they make walking without squishing them difficult they make me smile as they hop along.

Proof that I am an Adult

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Well I never thought the day would come when I begged my husband for an appliance, but it did.  I have been begging Jamie for the last six months or more for vacuum cleaner.  We currently have a roomba, so Jamie tried to make the argument that we didn’t need another vacuum, but I obviously did not agree.  I wanted a real vacuum and I wanted one that really sucked.

Needless to say, either Jamie’s argument got weaker or he was tired of me asking for a vacuum but he caved and I am the proud new owner of a Black & Decker Pet Vac!!  Yup, it specializes in picking up animal hair, this vacuum has met its match at our house.  It even has a picture of a little kitty and puppy on it, which makes it so cute.  The only thing that could make it better is if it was pink.
If there was ever any doubt in my mind that I was a real and true adult it quickly went away the day that I jumped for joy when my vacuum was dropped off by the FedEx man.

A Perfect Sunday

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Well, as some of you know, Jamie has been out of town all week- yuck.  But he finally got to stop working and we had an amazing Sunday!  We slept in a bit, something that we haven’t gotten to do for weeks, the sleep was much needed. When we got up we washed out Piper’s crate with the hose, it was starting to create it’s own unique perfume.  I know that this doesn’t really sound like a great and fun task, but Piper plus a hose equals pure entertainment!  Piper LOVES the hose, she chases the water like a mad puppy whenever we have it on.  It’s great and very entertaining.  She will jumping as high as her little tubby body will let her jump and bite the water as long as we let her.  I don’t understand it, but we can spray her square in the face and she begs for more.  I have attached a few pictures of our water “attack” dog.  Needless to say, she lets out a mean belch after doing this for a while, it makes her Daddy so proud.
After getting the crate and Piper clean, Jamie and I headed off to a park nearby for a picnic.  It was such a beautiful day we didn’t want to stay inside.  The bike ride was great, and lunch (Publix subs) was delicious.  We were entertained while we were eating by a group of couples that were also dining in the park. People watching is one of my favorite hobbies and we had a great time trying to narrate their conversations along with trying to figure out who was with who. To top it all off, when we were getting on to our bikes to leave we saw a woodpecker, it was too cool.
All in all it was a great day, wonderful weather, full of laughs and great company to boot… enjoy the attached pictures.

The woodpecker

I hope everyone can find this…

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Happy Anniversary to two of my favorite people in the whole world, Nan and Jeremy!!  I know this picture is a little out of focus, but it is one from their wedding day two years ago, and it is one of my favorites.  I hope that everyone reading this is lucky enough to find this one day…

A love so strong that you can see the good times and the smiles, even through the “fuzz”, and someone who will hold your and and follow you anywhere that life may take you.
Congrats on two years and I love you both.

My High Horse

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Well, in honor of earth day I am going to get on my high horse.   For those of you that know me, you know that I am sort of a tree huger.  I clarify tree huger with “sort of” because I do what I can, but wish I did more.  Quite honestly we all should.  It is my honest belief that we need to pay attention to the world around us, whether that simply means stopping and taking the time to enjoy a beautiful day or converting to cloth bags.  Nothing bugs me more than someone saying, “there is nothing that I can do” or “I won’t make a difference”.  Well HELLO!!!!  If we all thought that way than nothing would happen and no one would make a difference.

My plea, challenge if it sounds more fun, is to do at least one thing from the following list.  By the way nothing on this list will cost more than $10, and in fact some of them might even help save you money in the long run.  Think of it as bargin’ shopping for the earth, if you will.
1. Recycle!!  Check with your local area (you can go online and do this) to see what they take and what they don’t take and use the green and orange bins that are in your garages.
2. Purchase your own reusable drinking cup, Jamie and I use the camelback sport jugs.  They come in all kinds of colors and they are spill proof too- it’s perfect it you are klutzy.  70 million bottles of water are consumed each day in the US, using nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil a year, not to mention the land fill problems- think of what you could save if you purchased one of the below stylish things.

3. Convert to reusable bags.  I know this is a big one and it can be hard to remember, but it goes back to oil usage and just plain waste.  You can get cute lime green ones at publix, for just $.99- it’s a steal!
4. Use your own cotton napkins.  I know it can be a pain in the butt to wash but, you like trees right?
5. Change to the new energy smart bulbs, and an extra added bonus is that they last longer ie saving you money.
6. Use online bill pay and other online services for your banking needs.  You can request to get bank statements, car statements etc. online in an effort to save trees.  You can even go to directmail.com take your name off of the list that sends you junk mail.  It’s great! 
7. Decline a receipt after your purchase if possible.  If everyone declined the receipts from the ATM the next time they went, the amount of paper that would be saved would wrap around the earth something like 8 times!
8. Pull the Plug- Unplug your electronics when you are not using them.  An electronic device while it is plugged in is using energy, regardless of whether or not you turned it off.  This is called Vampire Power, it’s the stand by feature that we have all come to expect with our electronics.  We want our electronics to come on immediately when we push the button on the remote, but this means they are constantly on and constantly using power.  Bonus: If you fully unplug these electronics you could save up to 10% on your power bill.
9. Take your own to-go bins to restaurants.  I know, I know, it’s not the most stylish thing to walk into the restaurant with your Tupperware, but it will help reduce the size of our landfills. I bet your Mama never told you that you would look “cool” doing the right thing.
10. Lastly, I am going to clump all of the really small things into one suggestion with the hope that if my list only has ten items then you will at least try to pick one thing to do.  Turn the water off while you are brushing your teeth, turn the lights off when you leave the room, take shorter showers, walk when you can.
Well that’s it for now, I know I will have more after I post this but for now I am going to de-saddle.  Enjoy the place you live, it’s so beautiful…

Enthusiastic Fans

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Who doesn’t love an enthusiastic fan?  Generally you see the middle aged man dressed head-to-toe in their teams colors and we turn our heads to laugh or roll our eyes, but who wouldn’t want to be a fan with this little guy?!?!  This is Bradey my adorable 4 month old cousin, a Calgary Flames fan in the making.

The Flames, for those of you that are not familiar with one of the greatest spots ever played, is the hockey team in Calgary (my home town in the north).  The Flames will facing the San Jose Sharks tonight in Game 2 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.  By the way, they won game one- woohoo- and are now leading the series 1-0.  Wow, I sound professional and I along with my neighbors to the North will be cheering them on to victory, whether in person or in spirit.  Go Flames Go!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

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Well, I finally finished the 7th book in the Harry Potter series, I know it took me long enough.  

Jamie tried to convince me to begin reading them when we first started dating but I picked up the first book and just couldn’t get into it, I thought it was a snooze.  About a year later Jamie picked them up to read again (he had read all but book 7 previously) and finally convinced me that if I made it through the first book I wouldn’t want to put them down.  The tiny competitive part of me took this as a challenge and well he was right, kind of.  I read book 1 through half of book 5, back to back, before getting tired of hearing about Harry.  But after a reading few books in between I was able to muster up enough excitement about his life and tales to pick it up again and I sped through the rest of book 5, 6 and 7.

I will not give away the ending, for those of you who have not read it, but I will say they are worth the time.  Listen to Jamie and get through the first book.  I had a good time talking to Jamie about the books and trying to pester the ending and truth about characters from him, although I am not sure that he enjoyed this game as much as I did.  I think that the epilogue could have been written a little better, I think Jamie described it as being “a poorly written after thought” although I am not so harsh.  Needless to say I can check this one off my list and I might even be a member of some weird club now- woohoo!

why you may ask?

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I recently have been reading my wonderful friend Nan and her husband Jeremy’s blogs, and a thought struck me- what a wonderful way to keep up with all of our family and friends.  Lots of things have been happening in mine and Jamie’s  lives and it is hard to keep everyone, that we care so deeply about, up on the 411.  So here it is, I am starting a blog, to keep people posted, tell you about some of the random thoughts that I have, and share some of my favorite pictures with all of you.  I hope you enjoy.  Thanks Nan for the idea…