Camping Sleep Over & S'Mores

Hannah is so excited to finally have a sleep over again, now that her group has all had both rounds of shots.  They are camping out in the trailer for the evening and watching some outdoor movies.  Each friend brought a treat for the evening festivities and a contribution to the parfait breakfast bar.

I went a little overboard on the S'mores Charcuterie... couldn't help myself.  Hannah and I checked all the items to make sure they were Halal approved.  The marshmallows, a few of the cookies and the Turkish Delight came from our local Halal grocer.  Fun fact, most Hersey products are Halal and vegan, so it's a vegan tray too. I had no idea!

Patio Pergola

Now that the bar is installed, we decided to go with a two tone colour stain on the Pergola from Lowes - Olympic Maximum stain in Ebony and Cedar Natural Tone.  I love it!

We repurposed the 2x6's from the carport formally on this spot and made this outdoor sectional

Thanks Sean for helping me stain all morning! 

I think the black helps define the area more instead of blending into the fence.  We have two shade screens since me and the babies are so freaking pale

Here is the before when it was a carport and Sean's hard work  

 

Sean removed the carport himself.  The roof line was so steep that 4' of the carport/covered patio was unusable

A contractor put in the cement slab, fence and posts

 This was all guess work for Sean, he is NOT a contractor.

Not bad for an IT guy.

 Our pallet coffee table LOL.  I was so over the moon when Sean bought me the fire-table for Mothers Day 2020.  Really improved all our staycations

Corrugated roof going in

The finished product before staining

Sean finally caved and built a bar.  Secondhand stools from Kijiji - $40

 

 

Bureau Beef Up

About 10 years ago Sean and I bought a Birch Kallax bookcase for storing the kid's Toddler toys in.  Not wanting to break the bank we repurposed it for the basement and bought another for the other side of the new fireplace.  At least until we could find ones at HomeSense or Wayfair etc.  We wanted something Industrial feeling.

We've been looking at cabinets on and off, but everything is so expensive, and we need two of them.  Winners had a pretty amazing one at for $700.00.  $1,400 for two, NO THANKS!

Instead we beefed up the existing IKEA Kallax book shelves instead.  I'm not disappointed at all, it looks pretty cool.  Definitely less feminine than the original

Patio Delays

Sean worked like a dog in the hot sun on Saturday last week removing the yellow cedar and 3 Yucca's in the front of our house so that our Contractor could dig the footings for the new porch this past week.  Of course the porch didn't end up happening and the concrete guy had to delay the pour for the patio.  However our fence is in !!!  

Oddly enough our backyard seems bigger now that the fence is in, not smaller.

We were crazy busy yesterday moving dirt around to fill in the double deep slab removal.  We ordered 4 cubic yards, but it ended up taking 7.

The plan is to buy new edging stones in the Spring to finish off the re-directed Hosta Garden.

We are throwing down grass seed after the new patio slab is pored, hopefully this week.  Crossing our fingers the grass takes a bit before the frost ???

Bye bye wacky neighbour lady !!!  Above is our view of her now :)

Fence Update

Things are ticking  along at a slow pace.  We are being held up by the concrete guy.  He was do to pour the pad tomorrow, but that is now delayed to some time next week.  Good news, I came home to the crew putting in our fence posts - HURRAH!  They think they may have the back fence done tomorrow.

This fence is completely on our side, NOT on the property line.  

Our nutty back neighbour was pestering our contractor wanting to know if he had a survey, he better have a survey.  He did have one and had already measured accordingly.  Sean and I wanted to keep the fence line the same to butt up to the each side neighbour, so we didn't take back more from her side, which we could have.

 Hopefully, I'll have more to update tomorrow.

Boo's Birthday Spooktacular

Due to upcoming renovations we decided to have Boo's 13th birthday party early this year.  Apparently the 2nd grade Halloween party we thew, is a prominent memory for her girlfriends.  So we promised after last years birthday that Boo could have another Halloween party for this year.

Day of the Dead - Sugar Skull

A Zoo Keeper riding an Ostrich

Halloween Twister

  

We had 3 cats, 1 Zombie soccer player, Harry Potter, a deviled egg, 1 Hippie and Day of the Dead Boo.  Most of my Halloween decorating will be curtailed due to construction, so it was a great excuse to haul it all out for the party.  

We set up a beverage station in the new Kitchenette.  Check out the floating eyeballs in the punch jug.  I wasn't willing to sacrifice my new couch and area rugs so all clear beverages.  Learned my lesson from last year and also NO CAFFEINE.  

Inspired by my sister Jen, we also used the Kitchenette as a mock photo-booth or photo room.  Using their own cell phones, they played with Halloween themed frames and props to take loads of photos and selfies.

Here come the fun food - thank you Pinterest: (apple faces not pictured)

Donuts with Vampire Fangs

Lychee berry eyeballs on sword skewers

Puking pumpkin Hummus dip - Boo carved this bad boy!

Mummy Dogs

Party Mix - nothing cheesy to stain my coach with

Chocolate Spider Trifle - *sigh the chocolate syrup ran

We had a costume contest, Halloween Twister, Freeze Dance, a photo booth contest, Karaoke and believe it or not ALL of the girls begged to play Musical Chairs (throw back to Gr. 2), so we improvised and did Musical Pillows.  Very scary movies were out since we had some scaredy pants present.  Warm Bodies and Coraline scared the $%&@ out of them LOL.

Musical Pillows

Karaoke was CRAZY!  I was crying from laughing so hard.  We had to call Karaoke quits around 1:30 a.m. when it got a bit too loud and screamy.  I think most of the guest went home without their voices. 

Click here to see Karaoke JoJo Siwa "Boomerang" 

Click here to see Karaoke Back Street Boys - "Tell Me Why?"