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.

Lyden's 23rd

Celebrated Lyden today ... Andy and I took him shopping for his birthday gift; bought him a suit. And to complete Lyden's special day - a chocolate cherry Dairy Queen birthday cake and a game of Wizard!!

Garage sale finds for baby!!

Picked up this Leap Frog table at a garage sale today ...

along with a few other items, including this cute puppet chick that quacks out "Old McDonald had a farm" tune.

... oh my, shopping for baby things at garage sales may very easily become a habit!! The countdown is on .... just 10 weeks to go until our sweet baby grand-daughter arrives!!

Andy's birthday gift

This past fall, my mother decided to take up painting as a hobby and she offered to do a painting for Andy's birthday. He gave her a photo of a totem pole that he had taken in Vancouver when we were there visiting Rachel and Tyler. Easter weekend he received his painting, which is proudly displayed on our living room wall. Mom, you did an awesome job!!

Prepping wedding invitations

Saturday morning Erin (my future daughter-in-law sitting across from me) and her maid of honor, Kim and I started prepping "phase 1" of the wedding invitations. Kim and Erin carefully cut out 75 invitations while I worked on the "crease & fold" sections. We all experienced cramping of one sort or another in our hands and poor Kim left 2 hours later with a blister on her thumb!

Cabbage Rolls

We decided we were up to making cabbage rolls this weekend - while not difficult to make, they are a bit time consuming to prepare, but definitely worth the effort. I have always relied upon my 25+ year old "tried and true" cabbage roll recipe (delicious in its own right) but decided it was time to "kick it up a notch", and added some spicy chorizo sausage to the hamburger and rice filling and added some extra zing to the tomato sauce. These babies will be mouthwatering after baking an hour in the oven .... suffice it to say, we're looking forward to dinner tonight! If you'd like the recipe, leave me a comment & I'll be more than happy to send it to you!

Salsicee con lenticchie verdi e salsa de pomodoro = Simply Delicious!

Andy made this meal for me last week and it was simply delicious! He found the recipe in "Jamie's Italy" Italy cookbook - I've included the recipe link in case you want to try it too:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/sausages-and-green-lentils-with-tomato-s

Preparing for baby ...

wow, I think this is the longest I've gone between blog postings, but I'm back. I have been decidedly unmotivated about taking photos or doing anything creative since Christmas. The start to the new year wasn't exactly stellar. Sadly my father-in-law passed away on December 27 and Andy flew to England on December 30th to be with his mom. He came home January 16th and I have to say, the 17 days he was gone felt much longer. During the time Andy was away, the pain I had been experiencing for months in my right shoulder/arm escalated, making for many sleepless nights. Thankfully, I returned to a work on January 4 to a voicemail message from the sports medicine doctor's office, confirming my first appointment on January 26. Finally, hope was on the horizon! After reading the results of my shoulder arthrogram and undergoing some strength and resistant tests, Dr. Babins gave me his diagnosis: I had a frozen shoulder complicated by a 1 - 1.3 cm full thickness tear in my surpraspinatus muscle (one of the 4 rotator cuff muscles). To relieve the pain, he administered a cortisone shot, and gave me some light stretching exercises to do. My follow up appointment is Feb 25 and we'll see where we go from there. So that explains where I've been for the past 5 weeks!

Now for 2 pieces of most excellent news!

1. Lyden and Erin have set the date for the wedding - August 28, 2010. They have the church and the reception venue booked. Erin accepted my offer to make the wedding invitations; last weekend Erin decided on the design, and she and I worked up a prototype. We plan to go shopping for the supplies soon.

2. Rachel and Tyler are having a baby in June and just this week, the sex was confirmed - the baby is a girl!! I'm just a little more than thrilled .... I had been cruising all kinds of baby related websites for months now and saw so many cute ideas that I could make for a girl. One of the ideas I came across, was to embellish store bought baby standards, like these "onsies". Today I went through my fabric scraps and added the little bunny and the bird to the onsies my mom picked up for Rachel in December. What a simple way to kick up the cuteness factor!

It's official!

Lyden and Erin are officially engaged! Now the fun of planning a wedding begins! My role will definitely be different this time around, as mother of the groom. Of course I have offered to help Erin wherever she could use my help, and look forward to sharing their joy when the day arrives. (This photo was taken on the grounds of Blenheim Palace in June this year, by my son-in-law Tyler)

Merry Christmas!

Baking Weekend

Andy and I were very efficient running our errands this Saturday, finishing up just before 1pm. No need/desire to be outside for any longer than we needed to be, with temperatures in the mid-20's. After putting away the groceries, I whipped up a batch of "brownie roll out cookies" - a recipe I found on a cooking blog months ago, with a write up that promised:

"They will not disappoint. The slight amount of baking powder gives them a softness not usually found in roll-out cookies, which are typically sandier and snappish. These are tender, like a pressed brownie and they particularly excel at a quarter-inch height, slightly thicker than a standard cookie cutter cookie. The cocoa is not an afterthought (like recipes that suggest you swap a couple tablespoons of flour for cocoa to make an chocolate cookie) but has a significant presence that blooms in the oven, leaving you with something that people won’t believe doesn’t have a single bit of melted chocolate in it."

Who could resist? I bookmarked the recipe intent on trying it out when I did my Christmas baking, and I was not disappointed. Rolled and cut, ready for baking:

Baked & iced:

I also made some gingerbread bears and stars - Andy helped me by adding the silver balls to the icing to create eyes, giving them "character" by making some cross-eyed, downcast, etc. and insisted I turn a smile upside down for a frown on one cookie bear ... can you spot him?

Italy ... 6 years ago

It hardly seems possible that 6 years ago today Andy and I were in Italy! Andy came across a CD backup of our photos from our trip to Rome, Florence & Venice, bringing back many fond memories!

View of the canal from our hotel in Venice:

Piazza in Florence, near the Uffizi Museum:

The Forum, Rome:

The Colosseum, Rome:

Baby It's Cold out There!

Poor ol' Norman ... trying hard to stay warm this weekend during the winter storm that hit Calgary with a vengeance on Friday.

With blowing snow and temperatures dipping to the -20's, I was in no rush to go anywhere on Saturday and felt there was no better time to bake some cookies. Found a recipe on the web for these ANZAC biscuits shown below, which produced thin, crisp oatmeal and coconut delights. I also made a batch of gingerbread "men" but in truth, few "men" were to be found amongst the fish, ice cream cones, musical notes, unicorn and elephant shapes (a result of Lyden's involvement).

Andy and I put the garland & lights on the bannister, and also put up the tree, but stopped short after affixing the lights. The tree will now remain "naked" until the weekend of Dec 19th when Rachel and Tyler make the trek home from Vancouver, thus ensuring the Price family tradition of having the kids decorate the tree, remains intact.

Return of the Snowmen

Andy surprised me by setting out my snowmen collection last night (while I was attending the CREW Christmas party) all by himself, and I think he did a terrific job!

The collection started about 20 years ago when Lyden was just a little over 2 1/2 and Rachel was 5. We were living on a shoe string budget back then, and with not a lot of disposable income, I found a recipe to make salt ceramic (a very economical craft) and decided we could entertain the kids one Saturday afterrnoon by making some Christmas ornaments, including a few snowmen.

From left to right ~ back row: Rachel's original creations (note the big green "R" on the 2nd tall snowman), Andy's "white tail buck" (sans 1 antler which fell off a number of years ago), front row, snowman sporting a toque created by yours truly, and the 3 remaining snowmen created by toddler Lyden. Each year these snowmen are proudly displayed and lovingly packed up on New Year's Day and safely stored away until the following Christmas.

Freshly baked bread again!!

Nothing says "home" like the smell of fresh baked bread. Many years ago we owned a bread machine which we used all the time, and I mean all the time, so much so, after several years of hard labour, it finally gave up the ghost. However, we did not run out immediately to replace the machine, and over time, we just adapted to life without one. When I had the opportunity to win a bread machine during my office's annual United Way campaign, I thought why not? and threw a couple of tickets into the draw, and to my great surprise, won a Cuisinart Convection Bread Maker, like the one shown below. I'm one lucky girl!

Almost finished...

I have been working on a mini album of our 6 months in England, and with over 1,000 photos, it's no small feat to try to wittle down the best photos that represent each month of our stay. When I say "best" photos, in no way do I mean that from a photographer's point of view, but rather, from a scrapbooker's point of view - photos that bring back some of the fondest moments, that transport Andy and I back to shared memories of our adventures, sharing life together, in our "home away from home".

The album starts in March, with our move into Little Pinners, in Moreton-in-the-Marsh.

and captures some of the local cultural events

and of course, everyday life!

I have completed March through to the start of June, which means there are many more pages waiting to be created!

Our last day in Vancouver - Oct 16

Yes, indeed. It started raining in the early hours on Friday morning.

This was the view from the parking lot atop of Mountain Equipment Co-Op, our first stop of the day.

Rachel making a purchase at a consignment store on West Broadway.

Two of most favorite people in the world! As you can see, the rain stopped for awhile but it soon came back with a vengeance.

Got a chuckle from the sign in this bakery... didn't purchase anything here, a decision I now regret!!

Strolling in Stanley Park

Andy and I spent a couple of hours walking the sea wall in Stanley Park yesterday. The park was named for Lord Stanley, the Governor General of Canada in 1888 when the park was officially opened, establishing the then fledgling city's first official "greenspace". It is estimated that 8 million people visit this evergreen oasis of 400 hectares (1,000 acres) each year.