2014!! Goals, Resolutions & Jobs!!

Wow! It's been awhile since I've been here! Where has the time gone. It seems like Christmas flew by so quickly and now January has too. It has been soooo cold here in Winnipeg and also all across Canada since November with little let up on the cold and wind chills. Since November, it's been in the -30 - -35, with wind chills up to -51 in early January with very few breaks of warmer weather. Well now that it's February, things should start warming up around Festival Du Voyager, it never fails, it always seems to melt around then, ruining all the ice sculptures. Sad for them but so happy to have a break in the weather, we'll see what happens this year.

Well since the start of 2014, I've been working on some goals/resolutions/or outright JOBS, and have been doing quite well on them.  Now that it's February, it's safe to say, I've kept some of them up for at least a month and happy with how far I've come.

Something that I've wanted to do since I retired and is an excellent winter project, has been to sort out two large bins of photographs that have accumulated for the last, lets say 12 years at least!! Oh my gosh!!! What a job!!! I'm almost finished labelling them with who's in each of the pictures and the date  of when and where it's taken. Then I put them in order of when each event happened, (which by the way, feels like these things just happened yesterday, where has time gone), then I bundle them with an elastic and put them in chronological order. This will make putting them into albums much easier since they are in order. Then there is also a pile of pics that were in photo albums, pulled for different events, that need to go back into their albums. I'm really annul about keeping them in the correct order of when the events happened. I also have to start an album of our cottage building project, which feels like it's never going to end. Hopefully this year??? Well let me just say this, I'M NEVER GOING TO LET MY PICTURES ACCUMULATE LIKE THIS AGAIN!!! I've been working on it since the beginning of January, at least 4-5 evenings a week and am probably only half way through the job. I'll be so happy when this is finished, so will Shawn, he's tired of looking a bins and piles of pics around the rec room.

Another one of my resolutions was to start quilting, I've started but not very far, but it's a start. I've washed, ironed and cut out all the fabric, now just have to start sewing. It's just a basic quilt, made of triangles, making it for the lake.  I'm nervous but anxious to start, don't want to make any mistakes, EVEN though this will be my first one and I am making this as a trial??? What can I say, I like everything to be perfect, no beginners mistakes. I have to lighten up on that!!!

A few of the other things I've been doing are reading a lot more. I'm trying to make the time to sit down and read which isn't always easy for me, if there are other things to do around the house, that is the thing that I'll always push aside. I have to give up on having everything else done and just make time for picking up a book and relaxing. I've also been keeping a gratitude journal daily and have been journaling much more this year. I've been exercising on a more consistent bases, at least 5 days out of the week, I walk and run on the treadmill. When it was so cold all of December, I decided that I had to do this cause I wasn't going out at all to walk, so I forced myself to go down to the basement to walk and now I'm LOVING it, I've got myself in the groove. I've joined Yoga with my girlfriend and we go once a week, but in the Spring I'm hoping to go two times a week. In the summer, Grand Beach has yoga on the beach in the morning, I'd like to take part in it this summer.

NO Tara Lopinski!!!

Inside the warming hut on the Assiniboine River, it was nice and warm in here.

Inside the warming hut, looking up.

The warming hut 

The red sheets are warming blankets, you stood in them and wrapped them around you to cut the wind.
They were made of thick fleece, the type used for boot liners.

"I'm going back to take my skates off Mommy & Grandma, with or without you!!"

Olivia & Kennedy were done!!

This past weekend was the best though!! Amanda called me to ask if I'd like to go skating with her and Olivia and Kennedy on the river at the Forks. We went and I decided that I was going to rent skates from the skate shop and give it a go. I thought I'd probably be able to do it, I haven't skated since about grade 8 or 9 when we used to go all the time to Crocus Park, but I figure I'd be able to do it. It was so funny, we were probably on the ice at the most an hour, the distance we went we would have been able to walk there and back in no more that 10 minutes. It was pitiful, but I only fell once. I couldn't wait to get them off, my ankles were killing me and I ended up getting a blister on the arch of my foot the size of a quarter. I had such a fun time though with the girls, and it's so pretty on the river,  I may even try once more this year but with thicker socks for cushioning. We had lunch, the girls went tobogganing, walked around for a bit and had a great day in the cold but fresh air.

Our dear Callie

Ruby & Callie share the "cat tree" but Ruby thinks it's HERS!!

Last Tuesday, January 28th, we had to put our cat Callie down. She was 15 years old and had quit eating the previous week and was quite thin. She loved her family (Shawn, Kody and I, she would even snarl at Leigh-Ann and Amanda) and ONLY her family and would snarl or growl at anyone else who tried to give her a nice pet. She was Ruby's Momma/Sister, always grooming Ruby and they would have fun chasing each other, but Callie always made it seem like she didn't want to play, but was doing it just for Ruby, they had a love/hate relationship. Even though she was so quiet, it seems so different to not see her walking around, or trying to love us up when it was time for her supper. You were a good cat Callie and we're going to miss you!! <3

Talk to you soon!!

November's Sunsets

Well even though it's November, summer 2013 is officially over at our cottage. We turned the water off this past weekend, emptied and turned off the refrigerators/freezers and cleaned up most of the leaves. It's time for the cottage to take a rest from the busy-ness of all our family and friends visits and work being done, but don't worry, I'm already thinking of things I want to do around the yard next spring. It's getting quite chilly out there, this is usually the time we shut everything down for the winter. It's a good time, things are starting to pick up at home with Christmas coming, yard work to finish up at home and it's nice to take a breather from going out just about every weekend. It was a busy summer, not only at the cabin.  Shawn & I took our road trip to Tofino, my niece Holly and Doug's wedding, lots of family visiting and lots of EXCITING things happened in our little family.

Enjoy out sunsets from this past weekend, so beautiful and so pink. Here's to many more pink sunsets next summer!! Need to enjoy them more next summer instead of taking them for granted!!

Talk to you soon!

 

 

 

Girls Gone Wild!! Not Quite!!

Feeding our little fox

This past weekend, Sandra, our best friend Susan and I went out for our annual camping trip to Otter Falls in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, one of our favourite places to go. We always like to go in the Fall, less people so we can be noisier, more space in the campgrounds so we're not in amongst everyone and we love to see the beautiful Fall foliage. It feels so good to go camping, even though I have a beautiful cottage, I still also love camping. But this was the first year that we have had rain, Friday night and Saturday were very chilly and damp, thank goodness Sandra's trailer has a heater in it. It had started raining on the way out, it stopped when we got there so we were able to set up the tent trailer, then rained on and off again. We made supper, have a campfire and a "few" drinks before it started raining again so we sat under the trailer awning. Within about 15 minutes of us moving, a little red fox came over to our campsite to check out the snack situation and ate the popcorn that we had spilled on the ground. We also fed him some pasta that was left over from dinner just so we could keep him coming back. It was such a nice treat to see! It rained all through the night and ALL DAY Saturday, it made it quite chilly. We all decided to have a nap in the warm trailer, something Sandra ALWAYS does, but Susan and I were ready for one also. We decided to go for a drive through Nutimuk and Betula Lakes, remembering all the fun we had in these lakes and campgrounds when we were younger, also broke up the day of sitting in the trailer. That night we saved the bones from our steak to feed the fox and he came back again with a friend this time also.

Campsite at Otter Falls

Our typical camping breakfast, sausages and cheese buns done over the fire pit as you can tell!!
Defiantly not in the Weight Watchers food plan!! :(

Otter Falls island, it's so pretty!

The shoreline never used to be like this, it used to have a short sandy beach area along the camping sites
that are right along the grassy edge. It's too bad they had to do this, probably due to erosion.

 

Who are the kids??

Typical kind of thing Sandra would do, steal corn for a fall display
 for her house from some poor farmer! And so proud! 

Well of course, just like most weekends, Sunday turned out to be beautiful. It gave us a chance to sit out in the sunshine ALL morning just drinking coffee, we didn't eat breakfast till about 1:00. The trailer had a good chance to dry out and we just enjoyed the day. Sandra will have to put the trailer in storage for the winter, so it got a really good cleaning before we closed it up. A funny thing happened, when Sandra woke up, she asked us what we did with her flip flops, she saw one of them about 10 ft. from our campsite. She was determined that we threw it there just to bug her, she wouldn't believe us but these are the kind of things we do to each other. She went looking for the other one which was even further and also found mine over there too. The fox was stealing our flip flops through the night and taking them away. Pretty funny! We went for a walk around the campground, enjoyed the views of the lake, we love looking at the island at Otter Falls, it would be neat to boat to it and check it out. We also had fun throwing leaves and taking self-timed pictures to add to our photo album. We've been doing this for 20 years  and we wouldn't miss it for the world, lots of laughs. We've missed a few, but always enjoy ourselves on our camping trips, a good de-stresser for everyone. I had lots of fun with you Sandra and Susan, but I'm really glad we didn't have to sleep in a tent this year!!

Talk to you soon!!

Catch Up Time!!

Well it's just over a month since we have been home from our fantastic holiday and July has been a whirlwind to say the least!! Where has it gone!! It's been quite eventful!! Kody is celebrating some big and really good news and Leigh-Ann and Keith are officially engaged, we are all so happy about both BIG pieces of news. Leigh-Ann and Keith probably won't be setting any date for about 2 years, they are both going to school next year. Weddings and anniversary's to celebrate, it's a jam-packed summer!!

When we first got home from our holiday, it felt like summer was over, but the advantage of going on a holiday in June is that you still have so much summer left. It took 3 days to get everything that we brought organized, gifts distributed to our children and unpacking the suitcases and laundry done. We spent time visiting with the kids, yard work (the weeds really took over), helping Sandra and gathering things together before going to the lake. It's actually quite depressing when you get back from such a great relaxing holiday of touring, walking on the beaches, driving, hotels where you don't have to make your beds and restaurants, but eating out all the time actually gets really tiring and you just want to have some home cooked food. It took about 1 1/2 weeks to finally get all my seashells and driftwood cleaned, have taken it all to the lake and put the driftwood in the garden and shells displayed in the cottage. So happy to see our family, I became quite homesick.

We went out to the cottage about 1 1/2 weeks after getting back and spent some time there for about a week. Everyone there was asking where we've been, thinking that we fell off the face of the earth. We had Olivia and Kennedy out there with us for a few days while Mommy and Daddy were in the city at work. That was a lot of fun, Ruby loved it and so did the girls. Then the start of the last week of July we came back into the city to help with preparations for my niece Holly & Doug's wedding. The wedding ceremony was being held in my sister Sandra & Tony's backyard, they probably have one of the largest backyards in Transcona backing onto a retention lake, with a huge amount of flowerbeds. They have been so busy with all the other building work that was going on, that the flowerbeds were needing a little work on them before the wedding, deadheading, weeding, trying to get rid of quack grass and more deadheading. Also dealing with these red beetles that are eating all the lilies in Winnipeg the past couple of years, they ruined all her lilies and we had to cut them right down. Sandra and I did lots of running around to get last minute things, food, alcohol, chairs, more food and more alcohol, trying to help her take some of the weight off her's and Tony's shoulders so they could relax a bit before the wedding. We had a lot of fun doing errands, I think Sandra was running on adrenaline, they had put so much time, hundreds of hours into making their backyard into the most beautiful wedding site ever possible. We were living on Starbuck's coffee those last few days while doing errands. During this week, my sister Kim and brother in law Brian had came in from Vancouver also for all the celebrations.

Holly's  Wedding Dress

Sandra & Tony's Backyard decorated for the wedding

Wedding Guests

Officiating Holly & Doug's Wedding

Signing the Register

Shawn relaxing after the wedding

Olivia & Kennedy were the Flower girls for the wedding

The wedding was one week ago, on Saturday, August 3rd at 2 p.m., the temperature was a perfect 24C, hardly any humidity, blue skies with the odd wispy cloud and almost no wind. It was so beautiful, with the geese and ducks swimming on the lake behind the guests and the backyard was decorated so nicely. Holly looked so beautiful and she was so calm all day, Doug looked so happy and you could tell he couldn't wait to see his bride. They are quite the cute little family with their 3 boys. I had the honour of marrying Holly and Doug and I'm so happy I was able to do this for them. I had a temporary marriage commissioners license that allowed me to marry them on that date and only them. I wasn't nervous about the ceremony, more nervous that I would become emotional and get teary eyed during the ceremony and reading their vows to them. If you know me, I do get quite emotional with things like that, I can tear up reading a birthday card in the store that isn't even written to me. I started to get my quiver chin at the very start and sucked it up and got it together, Holly said after that she saw me starting and had to look away or she would have started tearing up also. They had their oldest son Tremane (8) as one of Doug's groomsman and their other 2 sons, Declan (4) and Lars (2) were supposed to walk with the ring bearers pillow but weren't going to have to do anything with it. So Tremane had the job of groomsman and ring bearer. Olivia and Kennedy were flower girls for Holly and did a beautiful job of scattering rose petals. I was so proud of them, they are getting so grown up! The reception was in the ballroom of the Marlborough Inn which matched all of Holly's and Doug's peacock blue's and green colours. It was such a beautiful day, will never forget it!!

Sandra and Tony had invited 70-75 guests to their home for the day after the wedding, to celebrate, eat and enjoy all the out of town family get together. The weather forecast had been looking really good earlier in the week but it had started to rain about 1 p.m. so everyone was inside. They had a large, pretty white tent in the backyard that would have made it so nice to be able to have all the food in and be able to have everyone outside with lots of room, but it was not to be. Sandra was pretty exasperated about this but it all worked out well. There were people all over her house, standing, sitting, some still went outside to the tent or the garage and it all worked out really well, everyone understood. She made and had catered so much food, you could have fed twice as many people, that's Sandra!! and everything turned out beautifully. Tony was running around making drinks for everyone, getting more chairs. Sandra put on a candy scramble for all the children later in the afternoon, which they loved. Sandra and Tony are quite the hosts and love entertaining. It was such a beautiful weekend!!

Mom & I  picking blueberries

A blueberry bumper crop

Going for a walk at the lake

Amanda, Olivia & Kennedy looking for beach glass

Lake Winnipeg

The new Children's Nature Park/Playground at Assiniboine Park

Yak topiary

Frog topiary playing bango

Butterflies at the Butterfly Conservatory

 

Monarch Butterfly

Monarch Caterpillars on the milkweed, there were 6-8 of them

Hudson the Polar Bear

After the wedding, everyone was totally EXHAUSTED!! I think it took me 3 days before I felt After the wedding, everyone was totally EXHAUSTED!! I think it took me 3 days before I felt human again (had nothing to do with all the partying at the wedding??). I think Sandra must have come home everyday from work and slept. We were still home for a couple of days, then took Kim and Brian with us out to the lake for a few days. The weather was just ok, cool, overcast and rainy. At the lake, it seems like this year happens to be a bumper crop year for fish flies. There are so many and the fish fly season seems to be running longer than usual. You literally have to sweep the deck each time when you want to sit out there and clean off the patio table and chairs or you're walking or sitting on the them. The deck will need washing down once they are all gone but there is no use in doing it till they are done.We did some blueberry picking, bumper crop with the blueberries also. We put some in the freezer to make blueberry pancakes and pies throughout the year. It hasn't been this good for a long time. Shawn and I will be going back out to the lake in a couple days and the kids are putting on a Retirement party for both Shawn and I in the next couple of weeks, just a small party with family and close friends. Shawn IS OFFICIALLY retired now as of August 1st, he's been using up his holidays up to now.  We celebrated my sister Diane and Leonard's 25th Wedding Anniversary last night, it was on the 6th of August. It was a SURPRISE for them, they thought we were going out for dinner as a family before Kim and Brian went back home to B.C. but it was a celebration for them. They liked it and were surprised, but maybe they were fooling us. Today we went to the Assiniboine Park Zoo, Mom & Dad, Kim & Brian, my Dad's cousin Bob from Calgary and I. There is so much construction going on there, it's kind of nice to see. It's been going down hill for a long time. Kim and Brian leave to head back to Vancouver tomorrow morning.

Hope the rest of the summer slows down a bit with a little bit of time for relaxing.  It has been cooling off too much already. Where has the summer gone??

Talk to you soon!