The New Job

Well I started my new job yesterday. It looks like it's going to be pretty easy. The best part about it will be the ability to set my own hours!! That is so important with kids. We did training yesterday in WalMart's cosmetic dept. I will being doing re-lines in the cosmetic dept. of WalMart, Zellers, London Drugs and Shoppers Drug Mart. I'm also working together on this with a friend most of the time, so that's even better. I'd like to be able to do some painting and a few other things around the house, so this will really come in handy!! I'm heading up to Kelowna today to do the WalMart there, so I should get going. I'm just putting together sweet and sour meatballs for dinner.
ta ta for now!
=o)

The weekend is over already!

Well here it is Sunday.... Lindsay and Courtenay got home from their retreat today. Needless to say they are both asleep and it's only 530!! I have a feeling they didn't do a lot of sleeping over the weekend. I guess they had a great time. They snowboarded Sat. and loved it. I guess it was very foggy and snowed like crazy up at Big White. We had a quiet weekend here.
Amanda ended up needing a costume for the birthday she went to on Saturday, so we ran into WalMart and grabbed some fabric. On the way through Summerland we ran into Gramma's house and very quickly sewed a costume consisting of a blue gown and a red cape. I've never made anything without a pattern before. I sure understand that old saying: "necessity is the mother of invention"! It isn't anything really special but it filled the bill. She seemed to be quite pleased with it. I'll see if I can post a picture of her in it. We came home and had dinner and watched a movie. As usual I fell asleep. Today we were at the church for lunch. The preteen group hosted a potluck and talent show after. It was really nice. We saw quite a variety of talent.
Tomorrow morning I'm starting a new job. It's for a merchandising company out of Quebec. We will be merchandising Shoppers Drug Mart, all across Canada. Of course I will only be doing the Okanagan stores. It pays fairly well and is really flexible. They even pay traveling time and mileage. They contract to other companies. So when they have a job they call me to see if I'm interested. If I want to, then I take it. If it doesn't work out for me this time, I can pass it up and wait for the next job they have. So I'll try it out and see how it goes. Well I guess I should go and get some lunches ready for tomorrow. Here we are off to the start of another busy week!
ta ta for now
=)

WOW! Another week gone!

Well here it is Friday again! I can't believe how fast the time goes. All the more reason not to let it go to waste, I guess.
Remember when we were kids and summer lasted for ... oh.... about a year..?? Now I blink and summer is over! How does that work??
I remember summers being so much fun. We didn't come in unless we had to eat! We were either out riding our bikes, hiking a mountain, climbing a tree, playing some kind of game with a stick or some rocks or drawing on the road with chunks of drywall! Or possibly down the back building a pond to swim in with the geese or riding one of the cows with a piece of binder twine around her nose! The boys liked to ride the pigs around the pen until she'd dump them off in the muddy manure pit in the corner!! lol..
Then there was the time they built the tee pee in the back field behind the house! I don't quite remember who built it but Tom and Craig spent that summer in the tee pee I think. If I remember correctly, it was about 15 feet tall at the top of the sticks! They had so much fun with that thing. They had a little friend named Jason whose Mom was really prim and proper. Looking back I kinda wonder what she thought of all of that!?! LOLOL That was also the summer that the two of them had chicken pox. They were covered in them. It was summer (summers were so hot in Burton!!) so all they wore was their shorts (Unless we were going somewhere) and their little bellies were covered in pox!
I remember one summer my friend Darla and I must have been about 8. We crawled under the barn and found some old goose eggs, they were so old they were solid and completely green inside..... Well.... we had the GREATEST time smashing all those eggs! They made the coolest splattering, squishy noise! We threw them at the front of the old school bus down at the back of the property. When we finished we headed up to the house. Actually I think Mom called us for lunch. Well we didn't get much further than the front door before Mom started gagging!! I guess we had little splatters of rotten, green egg all over us and did we stink!!! She headed us off to the bathroom real quick. The clothes stunk so bad, she opened the window and out they went! I think we found that quite amusing. Then into the bath we went.
Something else Darla and I liked to do together was ride horses. One day we took our horses down to the gymkhana grounds. We were riding bareback for some reason. We liked to race our horses around the track. So off we went.
Darla also had a dog named Rex. Rex liked to chase things, amongst those things he like to chase were, cars....... and horses. So there I am way out in front of Darla with Rex hot on my heels. My horse Misty is not liking Rex biting at her heels, so she starts kicking her back feet out at him, with each stride of her gallop. Well one thing happens to the rider when one's horse starts to kick up her heels!! You guessed it! With each kick I bounced up her neck. Bounce-bounce-bounce-up her neck I went and down-down-down-went her head .... eventually she couldn't hold me up anymore and she dropped her head and over I went!! She was a very good and gentle horse. She jumped right over me without so much as touching me.... and off she went with Rex in close pursuit...... Next thing I see is Darla's horse's feet flying over me. She is stunned and pulls her horse to a stop to see if I'm okay. I was fine and told her to go catch my horse. I guess there were some younger kids playing there at the grounds. I could hear them coming, they were looking for me, so I quickly crawled into the tall grass in the centre of the track. They hunted all over for me. I could hear them talking.... "Where is she, where is she??? She must be dead!!!! Oh how I laughed. I laughed so hard (silently!) I was laying there in the tall grass shaking. Eventually they gave up and left me for dead.. :) After awhile Darla came back with my horse, I hopped back on and off we went to find some other adventure..... such as taking our horses swimming... but that will have to be for another time of 'Darla stories'.
Probably close to the same time I remember having the most memorable birthday party. It was the party of dreams!!! Mom set up a treasure hunt all over the property with clues and real, full size chocolate bars!!! One at each clue!!! Well that was a huge treat... chocolate bars were something that were few and far between! I'm not sure what was more exciting..... the chocolate... or the treasure hunt......?
Darla and I used to get ourselves into all kinds of things....we especially liked to bug my brothers... I think possibly Robbie the best.... cuz he would get really mad and chase us!! :)) One time I remember we were bugging and taunting him while he was chopping wood (yeah, yeah, I know... REAL smart). Well he kept telling us to get lost and of course that meant bug him more! Well he'd finally had all he was gonna take.....He flung that axe down and we were off! We flew across the road, jumped the ditch and into the park we ran. I'm not sure now whether we ran faster scared than he did mad.. but he didn't catch us. I think quite possibly, my running skills were very well developed. ;)
One scorching hot summer day, Danny, Paul and Robbie were laying out on the front deck.... actually I think all of us kids were there. Danny says " ooooh it's sooo hot..... It would be sooo nice to have a pitcher of cold water dumped on me right now!" WELLLLL HOW is one to pass up such an opportunity??? Here I could help out my brother. So I nonchalantly strolled into the kitchen and filled a jug with water. I very carefully and quietly opened the kitchen window.... lo and behold my brother, Danny happens to be laying right below. Now is my chance to help him out. Well I let go with the water and you should have heard the holler!! He was after me in a flash.... I took off like a bolt of lightning....and having my mind more on the danger behind me than on where I was going, I rammed my knee into the old kitchen sink (reno-ing the kitchen that spring/summer) on my way by, as I ran through the garage,. Well I wasn't doing very well in this race, so headed for my room. I dove onto my bed with Danny about a dozen steps behind me. Well when I hit the bed I realized that there was blood streaming down my leg from my run-in with the sink.. WELL what a stroke of luck this was! So I started to screach!! (not that my knee actually hurt) I guess when he saw the blood he took pity on me, because he didn't touch me!! Once more I got away!! I think I did alot of teasing my brothers, but didn't get many beatings from them for it.... somehow I managed to get away with it. Looking back I wonder about those times I got away.... why didn't' they get me later when I came back....? I think I musta had pretty nice brothers!! (well still have!!)
Another thing I remember when I was quite little, at about 31/2, was Mom bringing this sweet little baby home for us!! I remember Tom's little mini crib being at the end of the hallway... I can still picture it. I had my own live doll to play with!! When he was a bit older probably around 2 and potty trained, we (Winona and I) would put him in diapers and get a bottle to pretend he was our baby! None of my friends were lucky enough to have a real live baby to play house with. :) I think Tom enjoyed it as much as I did. :)) I don't think he was a whole lot smaller than I was at this point... I think he was at that cute and chubby stage by then!! :))
I also remember being kinda mean to Craig. I feel bad looking back on it now. I don't know why I did it......? kids.....can be so mean sometimes......He used to follow me down the road... I was probably taking off to Darla's without asking and didn't want to get caught!! I'd call back to him to go home and stop following me. I don't remember if I did that all the time or not but he was such a cute little guy.... Tom and Craig were the best of friends... they did everything together...... I remember people asking if they were twins...I'm not sure how they could have been, seeing as they're 21 months apart! I guess they look a lot alike.
We liked to play kick the can at night after dark. We'd play that over at the Scott's house most of the time. We weren't aloud to go in their house, but we could play outside. So we'd play that game for hours until we'd hear Mom calling us home. If we happened to get tired of playing that game we'd divert to 'Nicky Nicky Nine Doors'. We'd always ring the doorbell of a certain Mr.... hmmm i forget his name right now, but he lived across from Dale's. He'd be madder than a wet hen! He'd come out the door hollering and yelling and once or twice with a gun!!! I'm not sure if it was a pellet gun or a '22. Of course we could never tell our parents on him, because that meant we'd get in trouble!! I seem to remember little Craigy being the last kid over that squeaky fence into the park!! But the man never came across the road. It seems to me Andrew and Darla Kineshanko were usually in on these escapades!
We had friends in Burton who owned the Burton General Store. One day most of us kids and probably a bunch of neighbour kids, were playing there.... or probably just stopped in there on our way past on our bikes....Two or three of the older boys had some money and bought a creamsicle. They headed outside to lay on the grass in the hot sun and enjoy their treat. Well a couple minutes later out comes little Craig with a creamsicle in his hand and a smile on his face. Well there was a big uproar as we all tried to figure out who payed for Craig's creamsicle!?!?! I don't remember what he said, but he was too young to realize that you had to pay for a creamsicle. I think Mom ended up coming back and paying for it later.
When Paul was little he used to find all kinds of injured animals and bring them home and nurse them back to health. One time he brought home a robin. I remember watching him hold it while Mom pulled a worm out of it's skin...uugghhh... sounds disgusting, but he had a real soft spot for animals especially if they were hurt! Well he had the bird well on it's way back to health when I (unfortunately) decided to be helpful and feed it. I gave it a bunch of bread crumbs from Mom's nice home made bread. Well I guess I killed it with love....... Paul was so upset... I think I felt pretty bad about it too!
Another time Paul and Andrew climbed up somewhere and pulled two baby crows out of their nest. They took them home and raised them. Paul called his.... ummmm Ringo... I think it was.....Ringo made Dad's fuel tank his roost. It didn't take too long before it was painted white down the front of it. He stuck around for quite a long time but eventually disappeared. I don't remember what the other animals were but I think there were several different ones.
When I look back I think 'man we had alot of fun'. Our poor kids.... their lives are SO boring compared to ours! We used to make up games that involved throwing a stick down the road and everyone running... i don't remember the details at all, but we were creative with our play... I don't ever remember being bored.... well unless you count the times we had to do some weeding in the garden....;) Not that I often did that.... somehow I managed to get Darla to do that for me so we could go swimming!!!Well hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me (or reading as I do) as much as I enjoyed writing it down. Have a wonderful day!!
ta ta

Hmmmm......now for a name........

I don't really like the name of my blog so I'm sitting here trying to think of something better. I came up with it ' jonnie on the spot', so I'm not loving it....Guess I'll have to think about it for a few days. Leave me some ideas!!!!

There's not alot going on here..... had a nice quiet relaxing day at home, doing laundry and a bit of cleaning and tidying up. (YES! I did say relaxing!!) Mom and my niece were here for 6 days and the girls were all home for the week from school. So I really enjoyed the quiet today just puttering around. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy having them here, cuz it was great! We got tons of stuff done around here and found time to fit in some Bocce in the park, bowling and a couple of evenings watching a movie with popcorn and Smarties!! We headed out to a violin recital/concert on Friday evening, but when we got there the place was locked up tight! We were one week early......Oops.....We had a really great week.
Mom worked her buns off most of the time, but I think she enjoyed herself in spite of that!

Courtenay is recovering nicely from her surgery. She has stopped taking all pain meds and is almost finished her penicillin. She had a one week dosage. Thankfully she had no problems with infection or any complications! I was a little nervous before the surgery, but all for naught. I'm not much of a worrier most of the time, but when it comes to my kids that seems to be the time I might tend to worry.
Lindsay wants to colour her hair this weekend. It's quite dark red right now. She want to change it to a different colour of red I think. The red looks quite good on her. Lindsay and Courtenay are going to a youth retreat this weekend though so guess that won't be happening.

Amanda has a birthday party up in Westbank on Saturday, so Randal and Janelle and I will find something fun to do in Westbank or Kelowna for the afternoon. We will have to see if we can find something fun to do that doesn't cost anything..... it's amazing how fast all these things add up!! But I must say the girls are definitely worth it.
Then Janelle has her first violin lesson on Sunday. She is SO excited!
Well must get to bed---morning comes early. =o)

This Week.........

Well we started the week off with Mom and Chelsea arriving Monday. We had our Valentines dinner together. Chelsea introduced us to a new type of spinach salad. The dressing has equal amounts of vanilla yogurt and mayo, with a small spoon of poppy seeds. The salad itself is spinach and a chopped up orange. It is SO good. I think it's our new favourite salad for awhile!! Then we finished dinner off with locally handmade fine Belgian Chocolates! YUM!! Tuesday we all went up to Kelowna. Courtenay had her oral surgery and all went well. She was in a lot of pain for 3-4 days, especially because of the cutting of the bone in the roof of her mouth. I'm sure the stitches in the other areas of her mouth didn't help with that either! The T-3s were definitely needed. She has had a fairly quiet week at home with her cousin, Nana and sisters. They all spent a fair bit of time on their school work and got lots done, so their teachers should all be happy with them. :) Nana helped Janelle get her room and clothes sorted out and re-arranged. It looks awesome!
Janelle got her new violin in Kelowna on Tuesday. She is so excited to have it and has been spending the week playing on it and finding out what kind of wonderful noises---oops! I mean sounds that it makes. She'll be starting lessons pretty quick.
Well we're about to eat our pancake breakfast then figure out something fun today since this is Nana and Chelsea's last day here until the next time they come and we've spent the week in the house doing work things....sooooo
Have a great weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get on here a little more often.

Okay we're off and running......

Well ... the beginning of another week. Today is crazy.... I have a ton of running around to do. We are having our Valentines dinner tonight so I've got lots to get done. My Mom and my niece Chelsea are coming today. I'm not sure how long they are staying for, but probably about a week or so. We're all excited about that! It will be so nice to have company. Then tomorrow morning I drop the girls off at school and head up to Kelowna. Courtenay has oral surgery at 11 am. I'm not excited about that, but it really needs to be done.... so off we go. She's been working like crazy trying to get rid of a cold, just in case they won't do it if she still has it. Randal was supposed to have ear surgery a couple of months back and they wouldn't because he was a bit congested. Well I should go.. it's time for my cup of tea and a half hour with James and Betty Robison before I call the girls. Just a few minutes to catch my breath before the rush begins!! :)

Our busy weekend

Well we started off our weekend with Lindsay and Courtenay going to youth in Summerland. Amanda tried to get together with a friend for Friday evening and that didn't work- so she was very disappointed. We decided to go out to the Pasta Factory for dinner. Dinner was very good but Amanda sat there looking all mopey. I tried all the angles.... threats of life and limb..... teasing in fun..... being goofy.... then thought to try a little game that is a family favourite. We emptied out the little basket the bread comes in. Then we took a little piece of paper and each put a word on ours. Then you throw them all in the basket and someone fishes them out and reads them out and we try to guess who did what. Well before you know it she's forgotten all about the "friend failure" and having a great time! So we finished up and headed home. We made a detour to Safeway for an extra special, extremely rare treat in our household. Ice cream!!! We also picked up all the trimmings for banana splits! YUM! Randal headed to the video store and picked up a couple of movies and we headed home. We had a wonderful evening of banana splits in front of a real good movie. My favourite part about the whole evening was the time we had in the living room doing some of our favourite things.... t.v. together with yummy food!! Oh dear... not a great favourite pastime!! Oh well good thing it's a rare happening!

Saturday Courtenay Amanda and I headed over to the new school site. We spent a couple of hours cleaning up the construction debris. i.e: coffee cups and pop cans.... well there was the occasional piece of lumber and metal!! (Have a look at the new school building!) http://www.pentictonchristianschool.ca/expansion.htm
Janelle went to a friends' while we did this and Randal picked up a bus.
We picked up Janelle, went to Wal mart for a gift and drove her out to Heritage Hills for a birthday party from 4-8 pm. We headed home and watched 'The Shaggy Dog'. It was great for a laugh. Nice clean fun. Hard to find sometimes in a movie!
Today is Sunday and soon I'll go call everyone for Church. Randal headed out about eight this am on a bus trip up to Kamloops. He's driving a minor hockey team. So he'll be gone until at LEAST ten tonight. So he'll be tired come Monday morning. But he does love driving these buses! Boys and their toys...LOL. Today Courtenay is getting together with some kids from school to work on a French project... she is oh SO excited!! ;) Amanda has junior youth at the church in Summerland from two until four. So the other two girls and I will spend the afternoon at home getting ready for school on Monday.... probably do some lunch shopping and get some laundry done. So there you have it a weekend in the life of the Kohlhausers!

Okay Newbie here!!

Well I thought I might as well jump in and join the millions of people chronicling their lives in cyberspace! I don't know how frequent or interesting this will be but I guess we'll have a go at it and see what happens with it!