A year ago this time, last year ...

Andy and I were in England ... enjoying English countryside walks with views like these!

While I tended to further amending the soil that was deposited into the raised planter on Saturday and moved on to sowing the lettuce, carrot and beet seeds today, Andy decided to display the "Raven" in our flowering crabapple tree ... to great effect! Not sure that my mom would have be thrilled to see her painting being displayed in such a manner, but it was only in the tree for as long as it took to capture these images. (I promise, mom!)

May long weekend means gardening!

Andy and I got up early Saturday morning and headed out to collect a truck bed full of "garden mix" and "nutriloam".

Our goal: overhaul the raised planters by amending the soil and planting some veggies from seed (lettuce, tomatoes, beets and carrots) with a few flowers mixed in, for color and interest. About 6 weeks ago we started our tomato plants from seed. After hardening off the seedlings, we transplanted them outdoors and now we're keeping our fingers crossed the weather will co-operate and the overnight lows will stay out of the frost zone until fall!

Rachel & Tyler's visit

Rachel and Tyler came home for a week, the first week of May. They drove out from Vancouver in 1 day, leaving beautiful spring like weather behind them, only to be greeted in Alberta with all manner of weather, mostly cold! As mentioned in the previous post, Rachel invited her friend Sauyen, from Regent College, to join she and Tyler on the long trek to Calgary. We enjoyed getting to know Sauyen that week and while Rachel gave us the heads up that Sauyen "didn't play games", we successfully taught her how to play Wizard and Spinner! :-)

I took a day off work and the whole family (including Sauyen) went shopping on Wednesday. On the way home, we dropped by Elbow Falls where Sauyen took the photo of Rachel, Tyler and Lyden above.

Rachel was a bridesmaid at Christine, her best friend's wedding, to which our family was invited. As you can see, Rachel looked absolutely beautiful and was positively glowing, 34 weeks pregnant.

Erin and Lyden @ the wedding reception .... just 3.5 months until these two tie the knot!

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Girls' Coffee @ Joshua Tree

Rachel and Tyler arrived from Vancouver Saturday evening and, as has become the habit, we met up with the available "female family folk" for a coffee/catch up time, at the Joshua Tree. Rachel's friend Sauyen came along for the ride (including the 12 hour car journey from Vancouver) to join the crowd consisting of my mom, sister-in-law Silvana and friend Alice, whom I have known since high school. Rachel, Tyler and Sauyen are in town for the week, returning to Vancouver next Sunday. The last time the FFF met for coffee was just before Christmas, when Rachel shared her baby news with the extended family. "This is a 3rd generational photo, but soon we'll have a 4th" was the comment made by my mother when Sauyen asked us to pose for this photo.