Kayaking Part I

This weekend we (Me scotty and the pigs) ventured to the Trigg cottage to see what we could see! The pigs were cuddled 24/7, we all chatted about Caleighs newest friend Priscilla (Bella) the lab puppy and Graces upcoming move to STFX. I learned about the wonderous world of Whoonu and Nintendo DS (Mario Kart specifically, but we also played mario party and Cooking Mama).We watched M*A*S*H, Friends, a Doobie Brothers Concert and all of the Back to the Future movies. And we still had time to go kayaking twice! On our trips onto the lake we saw a baby and mama loon, multiple kayakers, dogs enjoying a boat ride, and an eagle soaring around looking for fish! It was a great weekend :) I can't wait for another trip up to the cottage, maybe for a winter version involving skiing!

This coming weekend we are headed to NB for our little baby Auroras Baptism (look at her in her rockin new carseat), and we're staying at Gail and Merts cottage! I expect there will be some more kayaking adventures to blog about!

Obsession?

Well its more of a "great love". Lately shoes have been on my brain as I begin hunting for unique shoes for my wedding dress. Along the way I have found shoes that I swear were MADE for me. Of course, the walking in heels comfortably would take some time, BUT I would make the effort for these wonderful pieces! If I were to come back to life as a shoe, I'd be happy to be any one of these!
Now not all of these are good candidates for wedding shoes, haha but they do catch the eye :)

THE Dress

Here are the LONG awaited pictures of my dress! We had the MOST hilarious day trying on dresses! Chinese women, broken glass, getting WAY lost in dartmouth, too tight dresses, UGLY dresses straight from the "snow beast" days of the 80s, and finally THE dress. :)
Don't worry, Scotty has been banned from my blog! Let me know what you think?! I'm having it taken in slightly at the bust and the waist, and I'm considering putting a crinolin(sp) underneath of it for some extra "poof". It is the perfect dress for me, I can't wait to hop back into it!

Thats Right Edison

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have
succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work." -Edison

That has been my Philosophy on the fondant. It is tricky and if I let myself get dispointed each time it flopped, I would have given up long ago. Like the Lightbulb was to Edison, the final product of the fondant is driving me to keep trying. I'll get there eventually. I haven't made HUGE screwups, but its not perfect yet.
My own findings from experimentation:
- Fondant is far stickier than you could ever anticipate. (it would be a good substitute for handcuffs it is that binding)
- Never add water to "unstick yourself". It just begins to run and stick to more things. I would have taken a picture of that moment.. but my hands were tied haha.
- for a marshmallow fondant, Crisco is your best friend.
- Cold fondant is better than squishy warm stuff. To passify a fussy batch of fondant, pop it into the fridge for a few minutes.

Here are some pictures of my sticky free moments when I could get at my camera!

Fondant, Oh my!

So i took interest in this style of decorating a cake after seeing many wedding cake designs (non that I was crazy about, still love my cupcake idea). I watched a You tube video today on making the cake (which i assumed was impossible) and while it is difficult it is not impossible! I am so impressed with the detail you can do, and the creativity involved that I've decided to embark on making my own cake for fun :). I'll then of course bring it into work to be eaten lol, because we'll never be able to polish it off. oh me oh my, now time for my inspirations... I came across this blog and the cakes are breathtaking! Now i am not going to take on projects these ambitious, but really! have a good look at some of these! ENJOY don't they look amazing?

















Now that you are thinking about cakes, and maybe evening craving it a little, please answer my poll at the top right of my blog. :) For more about the cake blog, see my list of blogs to enjoy :)! Its called the pinkboxcake!

Oh Sure, When Pigs Fly....

Okay So they aren't exactly flying, but they are jumping.

We are training our pigs to just through hoops, as apparently it is possible. I have the instructions from online. So we started our training tonight. I'd like to say, the piggies are not experts nor are they actually jumping through the hoops yet. But they are making an honest effort to accomplish their goal of "getting the greens".

How to make a pig jump through a hoop...

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Guinea-Pigs-1574/Fun-Guinea-Pig.htm


Hoop Trick:
What you need: a hoop (an embroidery ring works well), veggie treats, a piggy
What to do:
1. Hold the hoop, standing on end, flat on the ground with piggy on on the side of the hoop opposite your free hand and a treat in the hand not holding the hoop.
2. Hold the food treat just in front of the piggy's nose and lead him through the hoop with it telling him "Through the hoop" or "Jump" or whatever command phrase or word you choose.
3. Give him the treat.
4. Repeat process a few times.
5. After a few tries, put the piggy on one side of the hoop and show him the treat then hold the treat on the opposite side of the hoop without guiding him through and give the command phrase or word.
6. It may take a few tries. If he still doesn't quite understand, guide him a few more times and then try again.
7. After he is going through the hoop without any guiding, slowly raise the hoop a teeny bit each time (it should not be raised more than 2 inches total, that's about as high as you can expect from any piggy, for some piggies no more than 1 inch is better).
8. Congratulations! Show off your well trained piggy to your family and friends.

NOTE: Remember to always give your piggy his treat when he completes the trick. Otherwise, he'll decide he doesn't care to bother anymore. Also make training sessions no more than 10 minutes. If you start to get too frustrated, stop the session and try again tomorrow. It will usually take at least a few sessions for the piggy to successfully complete the trick. Don't get too discouraged. He will learn with patience, love, and time.



This is our baby Sweetie doing her best to go through the hoop. really we are on step 0, as she doesn't want to chase the food through the hoop, or walk through it herself. BUT we are going to try lots! I have video of Starbuck's attempt.. but it is even more pathetic than Sweeties. For now this video is the best attempt we've seen....

but this is only session one, and we're anticipating great things from our litter trained little bebes!

A whole new loook...

Okay I've done a remake of my blog, and added Twitter!! So I can now update from whereever I am with my iphone, and my blog now looks pretty :).

For those who asked, it IS everything I hoped for and more, I am in love! I'm practicing typing on the keyboard as it takes some getting used to, but today since I've had it I've uploaded songs, pictures and contacts. We danced around the kitchen listing to Jimmy Buffets "Hey Good Lookin'" (without headphones, it has external speakers). Took some silly pictures and piggy ones too! Txtd up a storm, I have to get through 2500 texts don't cha know. I hope to blog from it and update my twitter while I'm on the go.

Tonight we went around and took pictures of campus (for my Shutterfly book I'm creating of my STFX campus shots) and got coordinates for the GPS scavenger hunt the International Students are going to do during their frosh week. ( a project scotty took on to help out one of the coordinators at STFX) Here are some of my most favourite shots!

Happy iPhone Day!

Hello all :)


Today is a big day in our apartment as we are expecting two new additions to our family by supper.... two lovely little iPhones. Small but wonderous, I can't wait for all the gadgets and hooojackers to try out. I've heard so many cool facts about them ( mostly from scotty) but it has interesting Aps like a BLOGGER ap, an eBay ap, and so so so much more. My contract with Rogers is quickly running out, so it was time for a new plan anyway (and my cell phone can only be used when plugged in... not exactly what i'm looking for in a "mobile phone"). Mom called this morning to inform us that 30 ppl had already lined up... aah.. but in Hfx. I'd be surpried if more than a handful of people know what the iPhone is in Antigonish, let alone its being released today.

*hopefully I'll be blogging again from my iPhone today* eeeee.

Land of the Cold?

So after our fun wonderful excited and HOT vacation to the valley, we were really for a cool breeze from our Antigonish weather system. This is the first time I have been looking forward to the Antigonish cool temps and windy ways. And of course, we come back and its WAY TOO HOT. We got out of the AC car and it was sooooo warm. So we grabbed the first armload of things to go into the apt, and then realized the apt was REALLY WARM. 90 degrees warm. agggh. But thankfully dad had put the spare AC in our car for us to install.. which we did as soon as possible! It cooled off in the middle of the night thankfully, and we got an excellent sleep. The piggies have new found energy! Today is going to be a scorcher, so this'll be the test!

Counting down to the big day :)

So I found a cute little ticker that will count the days for us!

Patriotic Piglets

and now back to sleeping on the icepacks to stay cool.... check out our cool ladybug one from Grammie!