Parade Day

What fantastic weather today! It's a nice change from the rain we've had lately. Having said that, however, I do believe the weather forecast called for showers tonight. But at least the weather was accommodating for what activities I had planned for today!
First thing this morning I took Gabe to the parade! I had taken him to it last year when he was only 3 months old and he slept through most of it, so I wanted to take him again when he'd be able to appreciate it more. We sat in front of my Dad's work so 'Bumpa' (as Gabe calls him) held Gabe while I went and got some coffee. When the parade finally made its way toward us it started out with horses so Gabe was neighing and pointing at them. Then some motorcycles came by and his attention was divided between them. He also loved seeing all the balloons, the dogs and a giant beach ball. We came home and Gabe had some lunch before I packed him back up in his stroller, put Cash on his leash and we walked over to the park. I laid out a blanket for Gabe to sit on while I alternated throwing the frisbee for Cash and blowing bubbles for Gabe. They both had a fantastic time until Cash stopped listening when I called him and had to go back on leash, but Gabe loved crawling through the grass and pulling up dandelions. Gabe was a bit restless when we got home so I sat him up on my lap and started reading some of Emma aloud to him. That put him out! He's actually still asleep!
I've got pork ribs boiling on the stovetop, just waiting to go on to the barbque. I'd been talking all week about doing up some ribs for dinner, but I had been planning on roasting them in the oven due to the sucky weather, but today it's beautiful out so I can cook outside and when I barbque them I always boil them first so it didn't matter that they were still frozen! Oh, and as I was walking past my table I got a whiff of something that smelled an awful lot like my Aunty Rhonda's rice pudding, which, incidentally, is the best rice pudding in the world. So now I think I'm going to whip some of that up for dessert! Gabe has been eating tapioca at my parents' house all week so I wanted to see what he'd think of rice pudding. I really haven't done much cooking lately, partly from going out for dinner a lot and partly from not really feeling up to it, but I'm feeling better today than I had been feeling for the past 3 weeks so I think I shall be doing much better this coming week.
This weekend Matt and I are going to be doing some yard work, Sunday morning I'm doing some cafe training, and then the plan is to drive to Calgary and go buy a dress from Le Chateau! Hopefully they still have the one I wanted, but if not I'm sure they'll have something that will work. Oh and the issue of it not zipping up all the way has been taken care of - I hope. Partly by exercising more, partly by eating breakfast more often and mostly by avoiding ice cream at all costs, I have definitely lost weight the month. I just hope it was in all the right places!
I have been doing more work on the cafe stuff and I've pretty much got figured the full menu for September, the ad for the church newsletter, and the mission/vision statement for the cafe! Pretty good for only having this position for two days so far, eh? My plan is to overthrow Starbucks as the primary coffee provider on Sunday mornings, because even though there is the cafe right in the church, most people still go to Starbucks instead, myself included. So I'm going to make the cafe worth going to!
Well, I suppose if I am serious about having rice pudding for dessert that I'd better go start making it, and really, now that I've started thinking about it, I'm really craving it!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)