Not Auto Related At All

We were getting groceries today (at the store before 9 thanks to a 6:30 wake up call) when I saw the garden centre and couldn't resist.

We hadn't planned on doing a garden or any planting this year due to a newborn and the craziness at the shop.

I figured, I'm up this early, we don't have any morning plans and this could be fun for Fiona(?).

I stuffed 125L of topsoil, some sheep manure and a few flowers in my little Yaris (in addition to our groceries) and we were off.

Luckily Cedric slept in the chariot long enough for Fiona (pink rake in hand) and me to plant this little beauty.

We are hoping to enjoy some fresh carrots, beets, lettuce, snowpeas, tomatoes and strawberries this year.  

There is still a chance I mess this up by forgetting not having the time to water and weed.

My lesson learned today, grab any tiny opportunity that presents itself!

Shout Out

I have been meaning to give Premier Garage Condos a shout out for a while now.

When we were at the Car Show in March Jeff was showing off his Paintless Dent Repair skills and they took note. 

We were featured in their blog and were blown away by their great review.

Denting for Dollars – Hands on Paintless Dent Repair

Autorama

Did anyone else check out Autorama?

The St. Albert Cruisers put on this great event and this was our first time going.

We just made it and I was glad we did.

So many great cars I just had to share some!

A sigh of....

It was a late one for Jeff and staff last night.

As I said, we got the filters, put them in and did a paint job.

You know what, we think we can make this work!

The booth isn't perfect (there's already rust around the lights) but it looks like Cecile can put out jobs that meet our high standards.

What a relief.

We have been holding our breath for the last 2 weeks in anticipation of this day.  We have both been too scared to mention it and too stubborn to admit that it may not work out. 

We are breathing a little easier today even though we know this ordeal is far from over.

We're just happy that we can keep our customers.  

Another silver lining (I'm just full of 'em) is that it's obvious now just how loyal our customers are to us.  

One of them called Jeff this week to check up on him and actually said he was holding all his work for us.

This is huge!  

This isn't usual practice and we are so proud to have this type of business relationship.

If you're in to vintage cars, the St. Albert Cruisers are hosting their Autorama show & shine this Sunday in the Bay parking lot of the St. Albert Centre from 10-4.

Have a great weekend!

Quick One

Just a quick post today.

It's been a tough day for me since I took my little man in for his first immunizations.

I have experienced few things worse than hearing my babies scream as they feel pain for the first time.

As I rocked him and told him that it was all over I thought to myself, "This is only the beginning babe".

There are so many hard times, painful times and as a parent I can't stand the thought that I won't be able to prevent them all.

Jeff and I both have amazing parents.  

When we got married many people commented how unusual it was that both our parents were still together.  Even all of our grandparents were either married, passed on married or widowed.

{Of course I'm not saying that this is why they're great parents, it's just a side note.}

Even as adults I can feel that our parents want to protect us.  

Whenever we hit a rough patch at the shop they are always ready and willing to help.

Speaking of rough patches, we got the new filters for the booth today!

As I type this they are firing it up and praying that it works.

I'll let you know tomorrow how that all pans out.

Keep your fingers crossed for us.

{So, not as quick as I anticipated.

Sorry if you read this post under false pretences.}

As Promised

Here are some pictures of Jeff's truck that helped us get our junk pile to the top of the hill last weekend.

It's a great truck and Jeff loves it, right down to the old school interior.

As soon as we got it fired up (only needing transmission fluid, a boost and finally some gas) he started daydreaming about fixing it up and painting it hemi-orange (he has an undying love for the General Lee) as soon as we can afford it.

I couldn't help but add some cuteness for those who aren't thrilled by the vehicle.

Happy Belated Victoria Day!

As you saw in Friday's post we decided that since there was no work to be done at the shop right now we would take off for May Long on Thursday night!  

We had a fabulous weekend.

The pic that I posted on Friday was Jeff ripping off the old boathouse roof in favour of the new one you see in this picture.

In the meantime I worked on replacing the rotting boards in our deck then repainting it.

This was all of course very challenging with the kids so we tried to keep them occupied.

After we found out that we didn't have enough roofing and our paint had solidified (it was 4 years old) we chilled for the night and headed to the Barrhead hardware store in the morning.  We will forever have nightmares about that place but Jeff commented "at least we know we won't get a call from the shop this weekend".  

Silver lining?  It's a stretch but we'll take it.

For the rest of Saturday we hung out with some great friends!  

The Lairds and the Campbells came out, kids in tow.  

We had 4 girls there, ages 1, 2, 3 and 4 and they had a blast together.  I remember being a kid and saying to my parrents "I don't want to leave!".  

It makes me so happy to hear kids say that now.

On a side note, something else that makes me so happy is having kids that LOVE to be outside and play with so much imagination.  

I feel proud when I watch our daughter occupy herself for hours.

I was having too much fun to remember to take pictures, sorry.

On Sunday it was back to work.  We had to take advantage of the May Long garbage pickup.  

At our lake you can literally leave anything (some of our neighbours left a full hot tub one year) by the road and they will come and pick it up.

Thank goodness we had the truck up and running because taking all of that would have been even more back breaking work than we already had.  

We're both hurting this morning but feeling very productive.

We hope you had a great long weekend as well.

Happy Friday!

When life hands you lemons, take an extra long weekend!
{I'm attempting for the first time to post from my phone so sorry if it looks awful!}

Spring Cleaning 2.0

We still don't have concrete news on our situation, the insurance company is now bringing in some engineers and hopefully then we can really get the ball rolling.  

We are hoping that we can still make use of this booth even though we're thinking it will need to be replaced since it will undoubtably rust.  

This is of course all speculation at this point.  

We have ordered new filters (which were completely ruined) to give it a go but they won't come in until mid week next week.

In the meantime since we can't paint, we clean!

This is EXTREME spring cleaning, we will have the cleanest shop in the land!

On a side note, after I stopped by the shop and quickly realized that me and my 2 month old were not at all helpful I decided to treat myself.  

Big sister was home with Auntie Brie so this was a perfect opportunity.  

Baby boy was unimpressed but was working his "My Auntie Rocks" shirt.  

Indeed, little man, your Auntie does rock!

A Little Positivity

You'll have to forgive me, I have no desire to talk about the shop today so instead here are some pictures of our late Mother's day celebration.  

We had a great time celebrating with our own mothers on Sunday but last night Jeff said "we never really got a chance to celebrate for you, what do you want to do?".  

I have a confession, I LOVE diner food and especially this great place in our neighbourhood.

My perfect evening was walking to said place with my awesome family and having some fries and gravy (my weakness) among other things of course.  

Here are some pics.

Let's Just Call it "Disaster 2012"

I'm struggling to find the words that can sufficiently describe our current situation while keeping it clean.  

We had planned a weekend of hard work at the lake to do all those projects I was talking about when the universe pooped (see, keeping it clean) all over us!

We were waiting at the checkout of a Barrhead Hardware store on Saturday when we got the call from Cecile that we'll never forget.

The booth was being filled with water!  It was seeping out the walls, into the walls, out of the light fixtures and all over Cecile's fresh paint job.   

A sprinkler head was gushing water and no one knew how to turn it off.  Even all of the Firemen that would come with 4 firetrucks took a while to stop the madness. 

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN???  THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN!!!

You see, we had just had a company install sprinklers in our booth per fire code, they finished work on Friday.  

Jeff was really nervous about it and asked the installer numerous times if they would stand up to the heat in the booth, stressing that we can't operate without this booth and it CAN NOT GET WET!

They assured us that it would be fine.  Really now?

Jeff dropped me and the kids off then got to the shop asap.  

I have not seen Jeff that upset in a long time.  

We were both feeling angry that this happened and on the weekend that Jeff had 14 cars lined up to be painted.   Our wonderful employees had agreed to work extra time to get these cars done and now that was not possible.  

As I've said before, Jeff takes pride in making our customers happy.  I knew he felt that he was letting them down even though this was in no way his fault.

The anger quickly faded to sorrow.  

We had been working so hard and things were going so well, I mean really well.  That all seemed swept away in an instant.

On Saturday night when Jeff got back he looked beaten up but being the amazing person he is says "it's bad but on the positive side everybody is safe".  

He is now more worried about how we're going to pay our employees than keeping ourselves afloat, he truly is an amazing man.  

This is going to be a tough recovery but we know we'll be ok because we always are.

Some Beautiful Women

I just wanted to take today to say a very Happy Mother's Day!

 My Mom, still as gorgeous as she was then.

 Jeff's Mom seemed to always be behind the camera, as so many selfless Moms are so the best I could do was a Grandma pic.

While we're on the topic of Grandmas, my amazing Gram is turning 85 today!

Happy birthday Gram!