Sunday together

Sunday is so important to me, because it's the only day JR and I have together. That doesn't mean that we don't do things separately if that's how it works out, but Sunday is our day.

We had an excellent one, in spite of the fact that Angus and Natalie and Andre are in TO so unavailable (we do enjoy our breakfasts of blinis and Scrabble, and we look forward to when they are back from visiting family.) After a very leisurely morning, we rode on our motorcycles out to White Rock and visited Jordan and Kerri at their new townhouse. They have bought in Alderwood, in White Rock, and are uber thrilled with their new home.

They have a townhouse with a spacious main floor, a completely finished basement, and an upstairs that has 3 bedrooms, already painted. Kerri's parents were there, helping with the taping and painting and removal of nasty carpeting upstairs. In the main floor there was already laminate; they are planning on putting laminate in the upstairs too (Jordan has already ripped out the carpet). I am going next weekend to help with the laying of the laminate; we are all prepared to follow Liam's instructions, as he laid a laminate floor when he bought his apartment on Howe Street some years ago.

It was so much fun having the 'tour' of the place and listening to what they are planning. The layout is super - the kids can play downstairs, plus Jordan will have an office/studio there; the main floor has lots of room for dining and living room plus the kitchen is super, with new appliances and a nook for the 'family computer'.

And the upstairs, they had already painted Julian's room a very neat green (to be accented by red and black, Jules' colour of choice) and Mackenzie's room in pink.

For me, the neatest thing of all was that Jordan several times likened the layout and the style of the townhouse to the one we lived in all the time the kids were in school, in White Rock. From what he was saying, he had fond memories of our home then - he considered it a good thing that his new house was similar to our old one - and I was so happy that he remembered the old one fondly. It was the home we had when Mike and I separated, and I was a single, money-strapped, edgy mum.

We spent about an hour looking at their new home, listening to their plans, and just visiting. I am very happy for them! And I'll be back next weekend to help....

Then we got on our bikes and rode to Boundary Road, in East Van/Burnaby, grabbed an undelicious snack at McDonald's, and then met Mits and Pete (and Aiko and Jenn) at the house that the kids are looking at. Very cute house, very nicely detailed so that you had to look closely to see the flaws, but John is very good at that and highlighted a few things for them to consider. All in all, a sweet house and I could see them getting a real kick out of it. But - oh my goodness! The kids had several stories of houses sold in the last week where people paid waaay beyond the asking price just to secure the house. This is a scary trend, going back to a year ago, and makes it so much a seller's market!

We finished off at Safeway buying a few grocs, then grabbed a snack at the house and went downtown to see 'Up' - another PIXAR movie that was very enjoyable.