Smitten Kitten

I love my kitten. Marshall has been wonderful at Kensington, much happier being an 'only child'. I recently bought him a harness and we have been outside a few times but he really does not like it. Kirk and Marshall have been getting along, which is something I was worried about. That being said, Marshall has scratched Kirk a few times but nothing too serious. Marshall's favourite thing to do is sit at the screen door or in a window, watching the birds outside.  

Look what I made! A Hockey Table

It has just been recently after all of those countless hours on Pinterest that I finally have something to show for it. I found this original table and immediately wanted to make a hockey themed one! I showed Kirk and we decided to make one this year for his dad, a huge Philadelphia Flyers fan, for Father's Day. And as I know Kirk will be reading this at some point [Hey Kirk!], I want to point out now that I had very little to do with the making of this table so the "Look what I made" should be "Look what Kirk made". 

The original table idea

 We* started with wood glue, clamps, and four hockey sticks. We put a line of glue on the sticks, stuck two together and clamped it. 

 The next part required me helping so I had to put the camera down. We put more glue on the other sticks and attached them to the other sticks. These were then clamped and left to dry. 

After drying for 5 - 10 minutes or so, Kirk screwed the sticks together. Two screws were put in on one stick and another two in the opposite direction. We couldn't find the perfect size of screws so we ended up putting in more screws then planned in order to ensure it was secure. 

The next part of the project was the table top. Kirk cut out two circles from some leftover plywood we had from the shed platform. These pieces were sanded down to smooth out the edges. The large circle was the table top and the smaller piece was extra support. 

Safety glasses on!

Then we primed and painted both pieces black. Before painting the top of the table black Kirk screwed the pieces together. He then covered the screw hole so it wasn't so obvious. The table top was then painted. 

This is the smaller circle

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the finished product but it looks exactly the same as the above pictures, only with a black top instead of white. 

We think Kirk's dad liked the table and while it took longer than we originally planned, I think it turned out really well!! 

A Festival and a Fiddler

It has become a tradition to give Kirk's sister, Nicole, tickets for the Stratford Festival for her birthday. This year she picked Fiddler on the Roof. And while I knew a few lines from a few songs from the play ["Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match"...."if I were a rich man"] I did not know much more about the play. I am not sure if knowing more about the play before going would have made a difference but we were both blown away by it!

I have seen quite a few plays at Stratford, recently I have been able to see at least two a year, but this quickly became my favourite! The play opens with a song, "Tradition", and after the first few bars I knew I was in for a treat. I am always impressed with the quality of the Stratford plays, there is a reason they are famous in North America, but I firmly believe that they outdid themselves with Fiddler on the Roof. While the songs and dancing were phenomenal, there was so much more than great songs. The story was so well done and you really felt like you were watching a family dealing with their struggles and triumphs. If you can, I strongly urge you to go see it! You will not be disappointed! 

As the play was at 8pm, we decided to go up late afternoon to do some window shopping and supper before heading over to the theatre. One of the highlights for me was seeing the swans. Whenever I think about Stratford, I think about the Festival Theatre and swans. 

This one was doing some crazy swimming techniques

Showing off

He did not like having his picture taken!

These geese were waddling around and honking so much we thought they were lost or drunk, or both

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon: Waffles and Demolition

Kirk made delicious waffles [and a big mess, but certainly not as big of a mess as I make every time I cook] and then we worked on a TOP SECRET Father's Day gift for Kirk's dad. After that we decided that we would take out the columns that were at the end of the property. They marked the property line but they were ugly and falling down. Now that they are down we are going to build cedar boxes to plant some flowers in. 

Kirk's waffle mess

"I ate too many waffles!"

The column

After getting the top off

A BIG mess

We needed reinforcements

The other column

A mysterious pipe that we hoped wasn't still connected! [It wasn't]

Trying not to make a mess...

...which didn't work too well

We filled in the holes with soil and grass seed, which we are currently patiently waiting for. Kirk checks the progress every day. Thankfully it has been raining quite a bit recently so I haven't had to water it much. Not that I mind watering it, it is just a huge pain in the arse watering anything around here because we don't have a hose so I have to take the watering can inside to the kitchen sink. Needless to say, getting a hose hooked up is on our 'to do' list.