Sliding into Fall

Hello!  Anybody out there?  I've been absent from the blog for so long that I wonder if I have any readers left.  LOL  I've still been reading blogs each day; I just can't seem to find the time to write my own posts.  I guess that means I've been busy living life, right?

I last left off with an ice cream post.  Guess that's bit outdated now that the cooler temps have moved in!  Ah, the lazy, warm days of summer....the season ended on a high note, though with the addition of this little munchkin!

Meet Spooky!  I found this little fur ball living under my parents neighbours deck with her Mom.  Over the course of a week or so MY Mom noticed that HER Mom wasn't coming around too much anymore and with the nights becoming cooler and cooler, she took her into the back porch.  Thus started a life of luxury for the little miss as my parents soon decided she was way too cute to go to the local shelter and gave her a forever home.

We all just lover her to bits!  I mean, just LOOK at that face!  :)

Before long school started, the days became shorter, Noah's soccer season ended...

And the hockey season (which Jason is coaching this year) started....

And cross country came and went.....

Sarah decided not to run this year; she's involved in volleyball and dance, however Noah finished 6th out of 105 kids running for our city's school districts!  ROCK STAR!

We went on a road trip to Kingston this past weekend for a hockey tournament.  It's about a 3-3.5hr drive east of where I live.  The further east we got, the prettier the leaves!

Even though the boys played 5 games in 3 days, some of us parents managed to spend a solid 3 hours touring around downtown Kingston.  The skies were overcast, but the temps were comfortable enough.  It's beautiful along the water;

 A few more....with people this time!  :)

 Some of the buildings are just gorgeous, but I somehow managed to only get a photo of one!

As for the hockey part....the boys played phenomenal!  They were in first place going into the semi's and lost in a heartbreaker.  It was tied 1-1 after 5 mins of overtime and they ended up losing in a shoot out.  It was an extremely exciting, yet stressful game!  Noah won "Player of the Game" for the first game they played.  He was quite proud!

Not sure why the is sideways, but you get the idea, right?!  One of the best things about the weekend is that we got to spend time with family that lives up in that area.  Jason's Aunt, Uncle, cousin and her family all came to watch the 2 games played on Saturday AND we had enough time in between to out out for dinner!  It was so, so nice to see them!  Here's Sarah with her cuz:

I'll leave you with a few goodies I brought back with me...

Can't wait t try this 100% maple syrup jelly mixed with some Dijon and slathered on some salmon!  My mouth is watering already!

Bye for now!!

Camera Randomness

Good morning!  Is everyone enjoying the weekend thus far?  This is a 3 day weekend for us thanks to Monday being family day!  Looking forward to NO alarm tomorrow morning.  LOL  Anyways, the kids are busy watching movies this morning so I decided it was high time to clean up the pictures that have been lingering on my camera.  Thought I’d share a few with you!
First, last Friday we went to Casey’s for dinner and I was (happily) surprised to see that they now have a gluten free menu!  I haven’t had pasta in a restaurant for ages so I dove right into a bowl of Jambalaya with corn penne.  The flash went off when I took the picture so I took another of the leftovers that I ate for lunch yesterday:  Nicely done!  I also enjoyed a PB ice cream/brownie “mini” dessert. I’m not a fan of whipped cream so that went to Jason’s dessert, but I was all over the brownies!!  YUM!
Speaking of pasta, I’ve collected a few noodle-y meals on the ole camera: The above was from a bit ago, but I remember it because I had made a wicked seafood sauce!
^^^Pad Thai; also from Casey’s back in the summer…^^^
^^^Rice noodles with homemade clam sauce^^^
  ^^^Rice pasta bakes with ground turkey, spinach and provolone cheese.
I’ve also seem to have collected many breakfast pictures over the last few months: And eggs!  I seem to eat more eggs than I thought!  I’m a little quirky with my eggs in that I really don’t like them for breakfast.  I mainly eat them for lunch or, on occasion, for a quick dinner.  
Here’s a coupla kitten pictures! What a face!!   :)  I think I’ll leave the photos at that.  There’s plenty more, but I’d like to get them in some sort of order for a proper post!  :)
Before I go I wan tot remind you to check out the House of Tsang giveaway I’m hosting.  There’s still time to enter!!
Bye for now!!

The Works

This past Saturday we went out to dinner (and a movie) to celebrate Jason's birthday.  A new burger joint called The Works, which originated in Ottawa, just opened up in our area and we'd heard rave reviews so decided to try it out.

What a GREAT place!  The service was top notch, the decor funky, the atmosphere laid back and the food spectacular!  Check out the neat salt & pepper shakers:

No sooner did we get the menu's that the kids zoomed in on milk shakes.  I was leery on letting them get one because I didn't want the bellies too full, but the waiter convinced me that the small ones were not too big.  And wouldn't you know that they came out in Pyrex measuring cups?!  Noah went with Oreo (even though you could create you own combo!):

Sarah was a tad more adventurous and ordered chocolate, chocolate chip blackberry:

Even my water came in a 2 cup measuring cup!

Now, I had heard that the menu options were quite extensive; 60 choices to be exact, so we all took a peek at the menu online earlier in the day.  Here's what they have to say about their patties:

And the protein options to choose from:

Armed with our decisions, we order right away since the place was filling up and we needed to out of there in time to make it to our show.  Noah ordered the "Mac & Cheese" which we all assumed was just that.  Oh no!  What came out was a burger TOPPED with mac & cheese and cheddar:

After giving it a really strange look he shrugged his shoulders, grabbed the ketchup and proceeded to polish it off.  He didn't make it through the fries, though!  Sarah, who unlike me loves meat, ordered the "Richie's Butt Burger" which was topped with grilled Canadian back bacon and cheddar cheese:

She made short work of that!  I just can't figure out where she puts it all!  Jason went with the "Sorento Sunset" which had fresh avocado slices and Monterey Jack cheese on it:

I chose the "Johnny Be Goat" with no bun.  Thankfully, there burgers are gluten free!  Mine was topped with roasted red peppers, spinach and goat cheese:

As delicious as it was, I'm just not a huge fan of meat so I made it through most of the burger and ALL the toppings.  Jason had no problem finishing of my patty.  ;)  We all had sweet potato fires except for Noah who had regular ones.  And now for some goofy family pictures!

The movie we went to see was "We Bought a Zoo" with Matt Damon.  what an amazing movie!  Have you seen it yet?  When we got home there was just enough time for Noah to get a quick snuggle from Pepper:

Have you tried a new to you restaurant lately?

Bye for now!!