Congratulations Erin!

After completing two years at Olds College, Erin received her final exam marks - she is now officially a Registered Animal Health Technician! Way to go Erin!


Lyden bought this DQ ice cream cake to celebrate the milestone.

Love Letters

A week or so ago, Andy and I pulled out an old trunk tucked away in the corner of our garage for years and were amazed to see what "goodies" we had put into archive - amongst the goodies were shoe boxes filled with love letters.

I have spent a few hours over these past few days reading through but a few of the 100+ love letters we exchanged in 1978 & 1979.

Being the scrapbooker/family archivist that I am, I quickly took to altering a tin lunchbox to hold a sampling of the love letters which seems very appropriate as we will soon be celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary on August 11.

Many doubted our love would last and who could blame them? I met Andy during the latter part of his posting to Canada with the British Military. Our first date was Feb. 9, 1978; he returned to England on April 6th, 1978 and I knew I'd marry him. These letters were the lifeblood of our relationship - there was no email or instant messaging in those days and overseas phone calls were very expensive - $2.50 a min. (very expensive by comparison to the wages earned in 1978; ie: found a reference in one of my letters to him about Woolco's $1.44 Days it was possible to buy 5 pr of pantyhose for $1.44). Needless to say, phone calls were few & far between. It was 4 months and 100's of letters later until we were reunited. The odds were certainly against us ... but love truly conquers all!

Elbow Lake Trail

Andy set off early Sat. morning for a hike that Karl Grebe arranged for a Korean group from our church. It was another hot weekend ... temps in the 30's so they set off early, leaving the church at 7am. They chose the "Elbow Pass" trail which is considered to be a moderate hike, hiking about 8 miles in all.

Rain, finally!

Cooling relief at last ... it's been an unusually hot July for us - temps in the high 20's/low 30's pretty much since we returned from England. Typically we get a week or 10 days of non-stop hot weather (usually during Stampede week) returning to much more pleasant temps in the low to mid 20's, no humidity to speak of, but this year, it's been non-stop heat and oddly enough, humidity! The tv weathermen reacted to by including humidex readings in their forecasts.

While we've had the occassional thunder shower here and there, they were short lived and nothing substantial, until today.

Andy and I have taken to sleeping in the guest room in the basement for this past month which has been a true blessing! The forecast for tomorrow is 24 celsius and with the cooling off we received this evening with the rain, maybe we'll be able to sleep in our newly decorated bedroom tomorrow night! Andy has been hard at work painting our ensuite bathroom and bedroom in the past week. We chose "French Cream" for the bathroom and "English Tan" in the bedroom. To say it was a hot, sweaty job is an understatement esp. given the fact that hot air rises further acerbated due to the way our bedroom windows open, we rarely catch a breeze, muchh less a cross breeze! We'd open the bedroom & bathroom windows wide open before retiring for the evening in the basement and it was amazing to feel the temperature in our home rise with each step I took up the stairs to our bedroom, even at 5:30 am the next morning!

While Andy definitely did the lion's share of the painting, last Friday afternoon I left work early and came home to give the ensuite a third coat of paint, getting into all the nooks and crannies around the tub, shower, toilet etc. which gave me a new appreciation for the work Andy had completed on his own working in "sauna like" conditions.

Sunday afternoon we helped Lyden clear out his bedroom - he's moving into Rachel's old room and we'll convert his room into a den. It was a huge sigh of relief when Lyden concluded purging his room of 10 year's accumulation of text books, old school reports, books, clothing he's worn out/forgotten about/outgrown. Boys ... who knew they could be such pack rats?! Imagine my delight when he pulled out his scrapbook of our trip to Cozumel in March, 1998. Lyden was in grade 6 that year and his teacher asked him to keep a scrapbook at present it to his class upon his return. I loved reading his entries, reliving the fond memories of our vacation through the eyes of an 11 (almost 12) year old boy. Good times. Good memories. Good reminder of how quickly time passes!

End of Stampede ...

Yahoo... life will get back to normal now. Time to pack away my dusty cowboy boots until next year.

Finished my first ever "Scrapbook in a Box" this weekend from our trip to England. Believe it or not, there is a total of 28 2x2 photos included in this box!

Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark!

It was an absolutely glorious day - high of 27 so naturally we took to dining "al fresco" on the deck. Andy cooked a whole chicken on bbq using the rotisserie (which we absolutely couldn't live without now) was served alongside a colourful garden salad. For whatever reason, the "privacy screen" (solid fabric show draped in the photo above) was full extended to ground level in our screened gazebo which faces outward toward the lawn. I was sitting with my back to the privacy screen which we never usually use ... and suddenly a gust of wind brought the privacy screen up and over my head. I wasn't sure why the screen had been let down, but assumed there was a reason so I decided to tie the corners to the supporting beams of the gazebo. I secured one side and went to secure the other, but the next thing I knew, I was in a slow motion dive to the ground. Erin and Lyden, who were already sitting at the table had front row seating to my "poetry in motion" movement which from Lyden's description amounted to a 360 degree lateral sommersault springing from a face plant on the top deck riser (impacting on my chin, bottom lip & nose). Suprisingly, my glasses remained on my head and were not damaged. The funny thing was I could feel myself falling and instinctually grabbed for the closest thing to prevent the fall: the unoccupied patio chair which resulted in the patio chair being a partner to my fall.

I landed face down on the grass. Andy rushed to my side while Erin and Lyden stood nearby, mute in disbelief. Because Andy didn't watch my fall from start to finish, his immediate concern was whether or not I had hit my head. I could only feel my now throbbing chin/lip and reassured him I had not hit my head otherwise. He cautioned me to sit up slowly. I reassured him I "was fine". I sat upright for a moment before rising to the standing position, and proceeded up the risers of the deck only to feel immediately faint. I quickly returned to the prone position on the grass until the queasiness passed away (about 5 min). Meanwhile, Andy was applying ice to my face and inspected the damage done to the rest of my body .... grazed skin on my left elbow and right forearm, skinned left knee, skinned nose and a swollen middle finger on my right hand. My bottom lip is still swollen (3 hours later) but I'm hoping the immediate icing will be adquate to prevent any bruises appearing on my face tomorrow!

Canada Day family bbq & golf

Andy decided to bbq over the fire pit for a change .... & a nice change it was (followed by roasted marshmallows of course). After dinner we went putting ... all 6 of us, which was a first! The men are very competitive ... Andy won by 2 strokes followed by Andy and Tyler. Lyden advised me that I got a birdie on two holes but I'm convinced that wasn't intentional, just luck. One thing that helped mind you was golfing left handed - Tyler noticed a weakness in my one arm after taking my first shot and knowing I was left handed, suggested I try golfing left and I found it much easier! (why didn't I think of that?! - my son-in-law is such a smartie!). So the next time I go golfing, I'm going to rent left handed clubs and we'll see if it makes a difference.

Happy Canada Day!

Excellent start to the July 1st long weekend

July is Saskatoon berry month and in anticipation of making some saskatoon berry rhubarb jam so we headed out to the Saskatoon Berry Farm, a short drive from our home. We were too early to get Saskatoon berries (available toward the end of July) but found a great display of hanging flower pots! The farm sells trees, fruit, flowers, shrubs, gardening and landscaping materials and home decorating items. You can even go into their small restaurant to sample a slice Saskatoon Berry pie made on the premies, or buy preserves. It's a little gem located smack dab in the middle of the prairies!

Andy's rhubarb & apple pie!

Came home June 28 after my CREW Board meeting around 6:30, just in time to sample the homemade rhubarb & apple pie Andy made for dessert. This was a proud first for Andy! It was deliciously tart, almost hot (no one could wait for it to cool down before cutting into it) and was quite the sensory experience with the contrast between the hot fruit and vanilla ice cream!

Wizard Mad!

Since Christmas we have been playing the card game Wizard ... pretty much non-stop! After dinner we usually play a game or two. Can't really play with just 2 players so Lyden, Andy and I play 3 handed, 4 handed when Erin joins us and 6 handed when Rachel and Tyler come over on Sundays. When we returned from holidays, Lyden gave Andy his belated Father's Day Gift, "Wizard Deluxe" (shown in top photo) which gave us an added dimension to the game - instead of calling how many tricks we expect to get, each player uses the Wizard dial and then turns it face down on the table - no one knows how many tricks the other players are going for so it is less easy to "stitch someone up" by making them take extra tricks they did not call. We took a Wizard game to England and introduced Nev and Teresa to the game which they thoroughly enjoyed. Poor Teresa never won a game the whole time we were there! Recipe for family bonding: Wizard!

Back in Canada

We returned home yesterday ... the 8.5 hour flight wasn't too bad - a few screaming kids but thankfully they were not sitting directly behind or in front of us! Mom picked us up at the airport and dropped us at home. We were shocked to see how well our perennial garden had progressed in our absence - the peonies are in full bloom!

Apart from Lyden successfully killing the potted basil plant sitting by the sink, there were no unpleasant surprises awaiting us when we returned from home.

We went to bed just before 8pm and we were wide awake at 1:14 am but managed to go back to sleep until 5:45am. I usually find it much easier dealing with jetlag on the return trip but we didn't have much of a struggle with jetlag going to the UK this time, thankfully!

Warwick

Last stop on our way back to Coventry was Warwick (1/2 hour drive south of Coventry). It is famous for its castle and moat which we've visited on numerous occasions in the past. What we had not done in past is explore St. Mary's Church, which turned out to be very interesting! We could hear (but not see) a children's choir rehearsing in an annex to the church; there was an primary and secondary school art display at the front of the church, including a 6' palm tree, complete with paper mache bananas.

Top photo: gate to the City.

Second photo: underground crypt in St. Mary's church;

Third photo: the remains of the "ducking stool" - believe it or not, this was a medieval disciplinary device! The offender (thief, adulterer, etc.) would sit in a chair fastened to a beam which acted like a teeter-tooter (note illustration to the right of the stool). Their hands and legs would be clamped down by iron bars fastened to the chair. The offender would then be pushed through the city streets down to the river where they would be dunked the requisite number of times acording to the offence. Suprisingly, this "ducking" practice (which I surmise is another way of saying "dunking") only ceased in the early 1900's!

Painswick

Top photo: shaped trees in the church yard at Painswick church - the trees were groomed to perfection!

We stopped at this pretty Cotswold village not long after leaving Tetbury (where we had stayed on Monday night). We walked down a steep road not far from the church to see the Costwold countryside view shown in the photo below.

Tetbury

We stayed in Tetbury on our way back from Bath which is a Cotswold market town on the A46. It is filled with antique stores galore which is where this delightful lion sculpture was found!

Pultney Bridge, Bath

We had a great dinner at No. 5, a French Bistro located on the Pultney Bridge. Note the 3 tiered weir which was installed in 1972 to control flooding.

Another Bath view

Taken from near Pulteney bridge.

North Parade - Bath

This photo: the North Parade, turn left outside of our our hotel and this was the view.

Roman Baths

Top photo: Me, standing on the terrace above the Roman Baths with Bath Abbey in the background; bottom photo: looking down from the terrace to the Roman Baths below.

Bath

We stayed one night in Bath at the Abbey Hotel (top photo) which, as one might suspect, was located very close to the Abbey and the Roman Baths (entrance to the Roman Baths is on the right in front of the Abbey in the 2nd photo). The city is founded around the only naturally occurring hot springs in the UK. It was first documented as a Roman Spa, although tradition suggests that it was founded earlier. The waters from its spring were believed to be a cure for many afflictions. From Elizabethan to Georgian times it was a resort city for the wealthy. The city contains many fine examples of Georgian architecture, most notably the Royal Crescent.

Morton in the Marsh & Cirencester

Sunday, June 17 we set off for the City of Bath and passed through many Cotswold pretty towns, villages and cities on our way. Top photo: Morton in the Marsh, a small market town and the bottom two photos were taken in the City of Circenseter.

BBQ'er in training

The whole family came over to celebrate Teresa's 68th birthday party (Paul & Helen, Charlotte & Sarah, Helen's eldest daughter Daniella, her partner Mick and their 3 girls, Mark, Danny, Sam, the twins Sophie & Chloe and David). Danny was quick to learn the finer art of BBQ'ing from Uncle Andy.

Lunch with Sally

Andy and I drove to Leamington Spa to visit Sally. We had lunch at the Waterman Pub in Warwick. It was great to see Sally again - the last time we spent any time together was in 1999!

Canal views from the Folkestone

Barn Owl

We noticed this "neighbour" in the barge moored up next to ours - apparently the owl was found injured and orphaned as a baby and the man who nursed him back to health and had the owl properly registered (note the ring around his leg) to him (owl is 10 weeks old).

Negotiating through the Locks

Top photo is approaching a lock, going uphill. Andy and I would jump off the boat as we approached a lock, run up to the lock, open the gates and Nev would drive the boat into the lock. We then close the gates behind the boat, fill the lock up by opening up the "sluices" or paddles (with a special lever provided with the boat) at the top end of the lock. Once the lock has filled up with water such that the water in the lock is level with the canal on the other side of the gate, Andy and I push open the gate and lower the sluices. The boat then drives through the gate and we close the gate behind us, jump back onto the boat and carry on. The third photo you will note a woman sitting on the balancing beam. We nicknamed this woman and her husband the "Lock Nazis" - they were retired boat owners who travel the canals for most of the year, the past 10 years and had little to nil patience for novice boaters. They appeared to be in a hurry and gave much unsolicited advice as to when and how to open the locks! This was afterall, our fourth day on the canals and we considered ourselves well seasoned veterans by this time!
The third photo is of "Captain Nev", navigating the boat we rented (the Folkestone) through the lock.

Napton church

Napton on the Hill - Village scenes

What a pretty little village! The top photo is of the Butcher & Arms, a very upscale pub & eatery. Andy and I walked up to Napton from the boat mooring and were rewarded with beautiful country scenes from the top of the hill in every direction, a quaint church and stone cottages, manor houses and converted barns, and flowers in bloom everywhere!

Napton locks

This photo was taken after working our boat uphill through 5 locks at Napton.