WHAT......A BABY???

It has been a long time since I last wrote anything on this blog and I thought it was about time to update people with whats going on in my world. I am sure that there are few people that know this blog exists and those that do probably already know what's happening.

So it has officially been over two years since Jamie and I bought our first house together. In the past two years we have managed to sink more money than you can count into our house but I think it was worth every penny. We have painted every room except the bathroom now, totally ripped our backyard apart, redid it and gave away ALL the brick that was back there, built a nice big deck, painted the exterior of our house (wood siding and stucco), re shingled the roof, cut down a tree in the front yard, painted the entire fence and replaced most of the light fixtures. I know I am missing stuff but that's not the point of this blog.

The point of this blog is.....Jamie is PREGNANT...big surprise to all those reading...I know, lol. We will be welcoming our first little kid into this world on January 17th. We have officially heard the heart beat now and Jamie is starting to show and we will get to see an ultrasound this Monday (August 31st!!!). It will be Jamie's 20 week ultrasound. We have been busy painting the room, buying baby essentials such as furniture, clothing and nursery decor. We will pick up our crib and change table tomorrow and hopefully have it set up before Jamie heads back to work next week. The it is officially 4 months until we become parents......CRAP...I have way to much to learn before than (anyone have advice????) I am sure everything will come naturally, but lets face it, this ain't going to be like raising a dog (we can't leave it in the kennel when it is bad or we want to go out for drinks), we will have to bring the baby to the bar with us!

So now you have heard it...the Lees family is growing!!!

Long time coming!!!

Well a few things have been a long time coming......

• 1 - My next blog has been a REALLY long time coming as I never seem to find time to sit down and write a blog.
• 2 - My enthusiasm for my job (that still hasn't come)
• 3 - SPRING/SUMMER!!!

It appears that spring is finally here and we can start enjoying the warmer weather again, but as I say this I am knocking on wood, since the weather this year has been quiet odd. Yesterday it was 23 above outside and today we will be lucky if it gets above 10. I finally got to the lawn yesterday and racked all the leaves and dead grass....5 garbage bags (and that's just the back lawn), not to mention the 8 bags from the fall as well. I have blisters on both hands now, but the back yard looks great!!! Now I just have to wait for the perfect time to fertilize the lawn and wait for the green grass to grow.

Spring also brings on the BBQ season. We always say we should BBQ through the winter, but we are both too lazy to shovel snow, so once the BBQ is covered with snow, our season is over. Now that the snow is melted, we can once again crack open the BBQ sauce and enjoy a summer of BBQ foods.

I hope everyone is starting to enjoy the spring!! Feel free to stop over anytime for a BBQ or just for a few beer on the patio and catch up on life!

Weekend of boating

Jamie and I send the weekend camping out at Echo Lake (Valley View Campground). It is a really nice quiet campground that is only 45 minutes away from Regina. We have some friends who have a seasonal campsite there and spend every weekend possible boating around between Pasqua and Echo lake. Well this weekend I found my new passion in life.....WAKE BOARDING!

On Saturday the wind was howling through the lake and it was too windy to hit the water first thing in the morning. Jamie and I spent the day relaxing with friends, sitting around and drinking and playing some beers-bee. Basically the concept of the game is to hit the beer bottle off the other teams stand and make them drink. At around 5 in the afternoon we decided to hit the water despite the wind and white capped water. We got some pretty good tubing in with the waves. I would have to say it was some of the best tubing I have done. The water was so choppy from the wind that you got some pretty good airtime with the tube. Even being in the boat was a blast as we race through the water ramping the waves. Good times. We than spend Saturday night relaxing around the fire and having a few more drinks.

Jamie and I woke up on Sunday morning to a pleasant calmness. Although when we hit the water it was quiet chilly, the sun did come out and the day started to look exciting. We finally got the wake board out!!! I have never tried this so called wake boarding before and to be honest was a bit nervous as everyone says it hurts when you hit the water. IT WAS AWESOME!!! I got up on my second try and never looked back. Wake boarding is WAY better than water skiing or any water sport for that matter!

We are planning another camping trip out to Echo for the August Long Weekend and I can't wait to hit the water again and get some good wake boarding in. I am gonna have to attempt a few simply tricks next time and see how it goes.

P.S. They are right when they say it hurts when you take a nasty fall in the water, but the pain is well worth the fun of wake boarding! I would recommend everyone give it a try! Even Jamie tried her hand at carving some waves with the wakeboard.

What's Sanata got in his bag of presents?

I am really pondering what Santa has in his bag of presents for me this year. I asked him nicely the other night if he would kindly ensure that I am dept free. I figure that is a good enough gift this year. He sorta snickered a bit when I asked, and I would believe it is because he knows my debt load. I am not sure if $300,000 + dollars can fit in his bag. I would certainly feel bad for the reindeer who had to lug that around all across the world before dropping the money down my chimney.

Oh wait, I forgot...I don't have a chimney. I figure we will buy the "fire" DVD and hopefully he can come through the TV. screen. Man that's a good idea!

Well honestly, I have no idea this year what Santa has in store for me. Most years I pretty much know and act surprised on Christmas Day. The hardest thing is I know exactly where Jamie (wait...Santa) has them stashed but I can't bring myself to look. I think it is because for once I will "truly" be surprised on Christmas Day.

P.S. Santa, if you can't give me the gift of debt free than I would really like a cordless power drill!!! That way I can hang the blind my wife would like me to buy and hang!

On a final note I would like to Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And if you don't get what you were wanting for Christmas...give Santa a big kick in the ass!

Winter Blues

Well I gotta tell you how disappointed I was with the weather conditions this weekend. Jamie and I ventured down to Estevan this weekend for a good old fashioned Cossette Christmas gathering. We left on Saturday morning bright and early as Jamie had a Wilcox Christmas staff party at our house Friday night. As we left the City of Saturday morning we couldn't see two feet in front of us as the fog was so thick, but it quickly burnt off just south of Regina. We quickly made our way down to Estevan in Auntie Rhonda's new truck hitting the odd fog patch here and there but nothing too horrible.

The weekend was GREAT. It was nice to see all of the Cossette gang again and share in a few Christmas drinks and an awesome meal. We ended the weekend off by attending church on Sunday morning and going out for a brunch (YUMMY!)

As we headed back to Regina on Sunday we discussed how nice it was to have such a warm nice weekend and how happy we were to not have to shovel snow this week. It seems like we are constantly shoveling snow from our driveway and walkway. As we got closer to Regina we started noticing all the vehicles heading south were covered with snow. Where did these come from? Did we get snow in Regina? I sure as hell hope not!!! It wasn't until we hit Milestone that the roads began to get crappy and we saw the odd vehicle stuck in the ditch. We hit the edge of Regina and it was complete mayhem. Cars stuck or spinning through the snow everywhere. Got home and saw or better yet didn't see our cars as they were covered in snow. STUPID snow. I has to shovel yet again.

So here is to hopefully not having to shovel for the entire week. Hold on I have to check the weather before I say that.......ok...the weather network looks promising!!!!

ON the up side, we have enough snow to take the snowmobiles out over the holiday season!

The communication chain sucks!

So I have to tell you, the communication chain truly and utterly SUCKS! If any of you were travelling on Ring road yesterday might have noticed the message signs say that we as motorists should slow down as there was a crew "working" on the Assiniboia Bridge, apparently inspecting it. Well the signs were great....IF....the company had not broken down and forgot to turn the signs off!!! So there we are as motorists driving down right road and see this fancy message sign flashing the works:

BRIDGE INSPECTION AHEAD

SLOW DOWN

and as we pass this sign we are finding ourselves looking around trying as hard as hell to find anyone who looks like they might be working on the bridge and.......nothing!

Flash forward to today.......I am driving back to work after having a healthy, yummy lunch at home and suddenly without much warning at all, the one lane (passing lane) that I am in has a million signs that push me into the other lane and I am stuck between two semis, one that sees the workers ahead and the one behind me that sees nothing and is driving full speed ahead. We all go flinging by a bunch of workers who look caught of guard by the sudden traffic while they are standing inches away from us!!! SO....the signs that were on yesterday while the crew was broke down and not working..warning the traffic of a ghost construction project going on, today no message sign and BAM......work is going on.

Doesn't this seem odd? All it would have taken is a phone call to the people who manage the sign and inform them that the project was delayed a day and everyone could have arranged their own ducks to go in the right dam order and provide the best possible warning to motorists. Instead no one talks, no one take action and shit hits the fan!

On another note.....if you have had a project on your desk since September and suddenly find it under a pile of crap and realize it is do NOW.....don't send it to me and demand an answer today. You will have to wait your dam turn and i'll get to it when I get to it. It is not my dam fault your behind the eight ball!!!!

Feel secure with Voxcom.....MY ASS!

So this post is going to be a bit of a rant and I apologize ahead of time if I get a little off topic. Let me start out by saying if you are looking to have a security system installed at your home....PLEASE....do not go with Voxcom Security! When we moved into our rental place on Athol Street, in the first week we had the City Cops in our backyard due to buglers using our backyard to break into our neighbours house. I am sure they were coming after our house but were deterred by the little sticker that said.......this property monitored by Voxcom security, and decided to jump the fence and break into our neighbours house. THe joke is on the burgles though. The place was not monitored by Voxcom. It did have a system installed, but was not active. After that incident we thought it would be best to look into getting our system activated to protect ourselves from being a victim. Let me point out a few things at this time.

• 1st, we had to sign a 3 year contract,
• 2nd, we were told that the system was pet friendly and would allow animal movements in the house while the system was active,
• 3rd, we were ensure that if we moved we would only have to pay $50.00 to have a new system installed and continue our contract with the company.

Now off those points....non were true. We are now having to pay between $100 to $300 depending on the system we decide on. We have to re-sign a new 3 year contract and it is NOT pet friendly. We can not use motion detectors since our animals continually set it off. Gotta love the lies people tell to make a sale. (White City lot.....ahhh the lies!)

Now, I have arranged for Voxcom to install a system at our new place and have come to terms with having to pay out the ass for it but hey.....the price you have to pay to keep your family and possessions safe from assholes (get a job and stop fucking the rest of us over!!!). Well after two attempts and two failed appointments this is getting a little upsetting. The first failed attempt was understandable. The installer did not have the parts yet. The second failed attempt was not understandable and no matter how I look at it, it never will be. The installer called in sick and someone forgot that the clients who are taking off work to meet them and have a system installed should be notified. After sitting on my ass for two hours pissed off that they were so late I called the company to find out what the hold up was. Yep...that's right I had a chick on the other line trying to sluff off the issue and say oh...sorry. Fucking sorry.....come on, I took off work because some idiot can't be smart enough to inform their clients of the mix up?

So now we are maybe getting one installed, maybe not, but either way we are stuck with the company for 3 whole years....AGR.

Moral of the story....NEVER go with Voxcom, you are better off with just putting a sticker on your window! I have a few to give out if you want!!!!!