The Zoo

Me and My Bargain

2009-10-28T01:26:00.001-07:00

An updated, edited photo of me.

My candle with the glass top was on *clearance*at Wally world...love those clearance shelves!

Summer

2009-07-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Hi...summer is here..and the girls and I are keeping really busy. We're heading off to the Island for a few weeks to "get away from it all". It will be nice to have a change of scenery. Sorry about the absence here on the blog..things have been rather turned upside down here for the past couple of months! Hope you have an awesome summer!
Heather

My Baby Girl is 17!!

2009-05-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wow how could she be 17 already?? I can't believe how fast the time has gone....it doesn't seem that long ago when I was in the hospital having Lindsay. She was a good, easy delivery. The labour was short..in relative terms-4 hours! Amazing for a first baby. When the nurses were cleaning her up in the delivery room, I remember sitting on my bed, saying.."wow, that really wasn't all that bad!!"They laughed at me. :) I was SO excited that she was a girl....for many reasons...I remember looking at her thinking..wow...what am I going to name this poor child....I had no idea and felt the responsibility very heavily...yeah...I know..most people stress at this point about the idea of raising this little child through to adulthood. Not me...I worried about what I was going to name her. It seemed like such a really huge, monstrous deal! It took 2 weeks, if you can imagine that! The name we finally chose, I picked as a tribute to my Dad's mom. It was her maiden name.

Jump ahead to the present: Lindsay is a joy and a delight in our home! She fills it with humour and lots of creative artwork. I tell her that she should be an illustrator of children's books. She works hard in school and gets awesome grades...but ya know what...we'd love her whether she did or not! Anyway...
Have an awesome birthday Linds!! I love you sweetheart!!
love Mom

Yesterday

2009-05-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

Apple blossoms...I found myself walking through an apple orchard yesterday...stopping to admire the beautiful apple blossoms..thinking..wow...such beauty..too bad I don't have my camera.....then to my delight, I realized that I had it in my purse! So out it came...and I was snap happy for awhile...after a while of picture taking....I came across these lovely little crearures:
Honeybees!

I love bees, and find them fascinating! So I paused in front of their hives to watch them...They were awfully busy and apparently didn't like me butting into their busy-ness! They started dive bombing me! One hit my face, then another hit my ear..then into my hair...wow! I haven't run that fast in a long time....and what a sight it must have been to behold--arms flailing...legs flying...yeah...Anyway..hope you're all enjoying some signs of spring! Those poor honey bees this morning..I think they will all be having an inside day today. It's cold and rainy out this morning...way colder than normal for the middle of May.
Happy Thursday!

Private Blog....

2009-04-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Hi there...a question for you...

Can anyone tell me how to make the blog private..am thinking of doing that...or creating another one that is for invited readers only....Can you give me a hint or two??? I've searched through blogger and didn't come up with anything.
thanks so much!

2009-04-21T07:11:00.001-07:00

Friends of ours had to take their son out of town for medical treatment..and they have a dog...soo we took her while they were gone. She's a great little dog...she's so full of energy and LOVES to go for walks. So yesterday I took her and Goldie, our fat ol' dog, out for a walk. They're like a couple of little kids! They were so excited to be out. I walked them along the river and then to the lake. They swam around a bit and then I threw their wet carcasses in the back of the van and took them home.

A stormy, rainy friday afternoon....with Janelle

2009-04-17T19:36:00.001-07:00

Today was a day of crazy spring weather.It started off beautiful. I got up this morning and opened the patio door....it was so nice out....I stood out on the deck for a few minutes enjoying the quiet of a 630 am weekday morning. It was 11 degrees out! Yaaay!! Spring is finally here! Our Magnolia tree is finally blooming..I'll have to take a picture of it to post..it's so pretty.
So anyway, I came back inside and within a few minutes it was pouring rain. It continued off and on for several hours then we had a couple of hours of sun....what a treat. I drove the older girls out to youth group at our church, after school. On the way home Janelle and I stopped at a park at the beach.
We played around with the camera while there....taking pictures of each other and a bit of the scenery....
She and I climbed onto a tire swing that swings in circles. Yeah..you see where I'm going with this. Not a good idea at all. Yup...we got on it and we spun...and spun...and spun....not a good plan. I cannot go round and round in circles anymore....I hit 40 this year and this is ONE thing that I'll gladly give up! Anyway...yeah...I was nauseous for about 3 hours!
We left the park just in time. As we headed down the highway home, it started to pour! Reeeaally pour! My wiper blades could hardly keep up! First it rained, and then it hailed. By the time we got home the water was shooting UP out of the storm drain at the end of our street! But one of the joys of living in this area is that our rainstorms are short lived! It was all over with in about 20 minutes or so and a beautiful rainbow graced the eastern sky.

So here are a bunch of silly pictures of us at the beach/park.

I have a couple more pictures and I video that I was going to post but my camera battery died again! It's gotten alot of use lately....guess I'll add them tomorrow.

Okay...so the video and the other two pictures worked now...here we are getting ourselves(okaay MYself) sick on the tire swing!

Our Easter

2009-04-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is the weekend before Easter..we celebrated Amanda's 14th bd....and Courtenay made the cake.

A late birthday present for my nephew...here he is checking out the undercarriage of his new truck.

"See Auntie!"

Walking to the park after Easter lunch

Tom pushing Silas on the swing.

Lindsay in the slide.

My brother, Tom and I with our kids.

Amanda, swinging

Court playing on the motorcycle

Photography

2009-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

As you may be able to tell by looking through my blog...I love photographing nature! I have posted a ton of photos on my FB account. In a recent conversation with a friend he strongly suggested that I publish a coffee table book of my photos. He gave me the name of a company that will self publish them for me for a very reasonable amount of money. Sooo...I am contemplating this.
It means that I'd need to get a higher quality camera...but we'll see how it goes..
I will have to check into the details and see if it's something that I can swing. Well thanks for stopping by.
I was trying to add some of my latest pics on here and my camera died after one download...and it really wasn't even one of the ones that I was wanting to put on..oh well..will add the other ones later. (this is one that Janelle took of me the other day at the park.)

I'm not sure why I had such a goofy look on my face...maybe because Janelle and Seth were taking lotsa pics...who knows...anyway...I've just uploaded the pictures that I was trying to upload yesterday when the camera battery died.

Easter Monday

2009-04-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

We had friends over to visit last night and they also have 4 kids. They took our 3 oldest home with them and left their youngest here. Janelle and him had fun last night and today.

Here are some pictures from today.

Here they are climbing around on the playground equipment.

First stop: Tim Horton's for coffee for me and hot chocolate for the kiddos. MMMMM!!

See this...it's hot chocolate!! mmm yummy!

Seth took our picture.

Thanks for the hot chocolate! Do you like my cheesy grin?? =-D

Then we went over to the pier and spent a bit of time there before we headed home.

Happy Thursday.

2009-04-08T10:21:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures of an old hotel in our area. Around the time of World War 1 it ran into financial difficulties which led to it's closure and the eventual salvage of anything reusable. Only the concrete shell was left.
I noticed that they've got strings of lights hanging on it. Must be pretty at night!

Do you lose pictures?

2009-04-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today all I have for you is a question. Does anyone other than me have photos disappear from your blog? I came on today and I see several empty spots that used to contain pictures. { :-S] [--]==

This is....Spring...?!

2009-04-02T12:40:00.001-07:00

This was the view out our front door this morning!! This is April people!!! Not February...but....after saying that I must admit that we had snow last April too! Only it was more like the middle of April last year! aaaaargh

SO..what better way to beat the snow "blues" than to get outside with a hot coffee and a camera and enjoy the great outdoors!! I headed to the lake and went for a walk...breathing in the glorious freshness of a cool winter day. I wish I could bottle up that smell and post it on here so that you could smell what I'm talking about!

Who ever thought that a seagull could be a thing of beauty?

A huge fish that was laying on the beach...that's my footprint next to it for some perspective on it's size! Sorry if this picture makes you nauseous! :P

A bunch of sea gulls. They're funny to watch. I noticed that even sea gulls have personality! There was one little one that kept "complaining" very loudly and then there was the big one that was bossy and had a really deep "voice"....

The moss was about the only thing that has any colour.

Do you see the "peach" in the distance? It's a summertime concession stand. Peaches are the theme for our city, since we are surrounded by orchards.

More Spring Break

2009-03-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well here are a few pictures of us while out on the backroads around here.

The first set of pictures where the horses are behind a fence, are taken at a corral we stopped at. The kids petted the horses and their foals. They enjoyed it alot...the foals were really tame and loved to be scratched. The one tried to nibble on our clothes a few times.

It looks like there was a conversation happening here. =)

After seeing the tame horses we got back in and started driving. After a short drive we came across a bunch of wild horses. There is a pretty big herd of them here.

Can you see the horses up ahead?

We thought they were so pretty!

This guy was showing off his teeth to us. :)

This one had blue eyes! Beautiful but kinda creeepy. [:-S

It has been a really hard winter. The snow came early and stayed late...so almost all the horses are super skinny! :(

This one was too weak to fend off the coyotes.

And this coyote apparently became lunch for someone else. :P yuck!

I let the kids drive...again!

Back to School.

2009-03-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

Today the kids went back to school. I hate sending them back. I miss them a ton! We've been so busy over spring break. we've been out just about every single day of the break, doing fun things together. It's been a blast. I will add some pictures of our time together...may even do it today...we'll see....but in the meantime.....here I am--kinda lonely and trying to make myself do the things that need to be done, rather than wanting to be out gallivanting with the kids still!

Me: missing my kids!! {:)) (my playmates! haaahaaa)

A day of Adventures! (updated today)

2009-03-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

Today we decided we had to get out and find something fun to do, since we have a cousin here and wouldn't want to spend his whole visit sitting around home!

The kids decided that a hike up a local mountain would be fun, so we loaded up the dogs and off we went. We made a detour on the way up to the mountain. We stopped at Tim Horton's and got coffee for me and hot chocolates all round....everyone was pleased with this. :)

Here are some pictures from our short climb up the mountain...The white part that you see is a sign of our town's name...I think they stole the idea from Holly*wood.

When we got back down to the van I decided to go for a drive up into the bush. The kids LOVED this idea.

Aren't they pretty?! A mule deer doe and her fawn from last year.(I think)

It was a bit of a drive first...there is a tiny town that we stopped in on the way. My nephew from Surrey thought it was quite funny how they had a post office/deli/ movie/grocery/liquor store all in one . I bought everyone an ice cream and we headed up the road into the bush. The sign said 18 km to where we wanted to go. I hadn't considered what the road would be like once we got to the end of those 18 kms! Silly me! :P

The roads were great at the bottom but as we got farther along, the roads got muddier and wetter and eventually snowy and a bit of ice to top it all off! :P

It really wasn't too bad or I would have turned around, but every once in awhile the kids would all scream...and say "slow dooown!" I told them that if I slowed down at that point we would only get stuck!!

Anyway..it was definitely an adventure! We did a bit of slipping and sliding but made it to the top. It ended up being a parking lot full of snow, ice and water...which I made sure I didn't stop in the middle of!

The kids all hollered as we bounced over the ruts in the ice and up onto the dirt at the edge of it all!

This was taken on the way back down the mountain. A massive wildfire went through here about 3 years ago and burnt a ton of bush and dozens of homes. You can see by the background that the fog/snow was starting to close in as we came back down.

Anyway, it was time to turn around and head straight back down the mountain, since we needed to go pick up Lindsay from a friend's house and head to Grandma's house for dinner...which we were late for! Oops...we were having too much fun and lost track of time!
We all had a great time......especially my nephew! I let him drive!! He's turning 16 this year which is legal driving age, so he's not too, too young. :)

Crazy you say....mmm yeah.. it's debatable. But I must say that he was very good..he didn't go too fast and was very mature and kept the vehicle in good control. I let him drive for about 15 minutes, then it was time for me to take over. It seems to be a bit of a tradition with me....the cousins like to go for drives with Auntie out in the bush!

Spring Break

2009-03-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night we decided to go for a trip to Vancouver Island....taking off in less than 24 hours from the time of our decision.

And we're off!!

All the girls and I took off on Saturday morning. We went as far as my brother and sister in law's house in Surrey. It took us 7 hours because we made a few stops and it was really foggy in a couple areas and slippery and rainy too.
The roads were kinda snowy and really foggy...although the camera sees through the fog better than we do!

The roads weren't too bad...a bit of snow here and there but for the most part they were pretty clear. I don't really like driving at night especially when it's raining--so it was a fairly slow trip.

Looking at their holiday videos on the laptop.

We stayed in Surrey Saturday and Sunday nights and headed out on Monday morning. On Saturday night we all went bowling...all 11 of us! It was fun...but I really sucked at bowling so I let the kids bowl my last 5 or 6 turns.

On the way to the bowling alley.

My sis in law and our kids at the bowling lanes.

Silliness at the bowling alley. :)

My nephew at the lanes.

I took 2 nephews and a niece with us. We caught the ferry over to the Island...it's a 2 hour ride. We love the ferry and always enjoy the trip.

Out in the cold for a quick picture on the ferry.

We usually spend quite a bit of time outside on the ferry but this time we spent the majority of our time inside..just a few minutes outside to look around, take a few pictures and then back inside. It was pretty cold. My Mom met us at the ferry because I had one more child than seatbelts. Three kids jumped in with Nana. We stopped at Mc*Donalds (YUCK!) for lunch and then headed to Mom's--which is about an hours drive. What a beautiful drive it is..along the ocean. We pulled over at one point to see some sea lions. They had their big fat carcasses laid out on some log booms. We stopped for just a few minutes and then got back on our way. We stopped at my brother and sister in law's place too. They just finished building a new house and I hadn't seen it yet so stopped to say "hi" and see them. Their house is so beautiful! It's also huge! I'll post some photos...I didn't get very many but I'll post the few that I did take. I had my camera along but the kids and I shared it, so it wasn't always with me....and then sometimes I just forgot to take any pictures. :-S
Monday dawned bright and beautiful...it was so great to see the sun as we've had a very gray winter. We figured we'd better get out and enjoy the weather since the forecast was calling for rain for the rest of the week. Mom and I took the kids to the ocean. We walked out onto the tidal flats where the kids dug up oysters. They filled a couple of buckets. It was so windy and chilly that I went back and sat in the van for the last hour. It was lovely...I sat and did crosswords and soaked up the sun. The kids started coming back...laden with oysters....I was thinking...oh noooo....HOW am I going to cook oysters?? "Man this is going to be one STINKY mess!" Then much to my relief, someone noticed a sign saying that the shellfish was not safe to be eaten!! I was relieved, as they dumped the buckets back into the water! The trip is a blur as I sit here trying to remember what we did! It's terrible! The kids are reminding me....that on Tuesday they made gingerbread and sugar cookies. This is something of a tradition that the kids and Nana have. They make cookies and decorate them. They love it! :)
Wednesday Nana took the younger kids to the wave pool. My brother Dan was home early from work so after he dropped his daughter off to have a birthday tattoo done, him and the older kids and I headed out to a certain beach that is known for it's big waves. It was AMAZING! But unfortunately I didn't have a camera. I leant it to my niece to take to the tattoo shop with her. The waves were soo big..it would be a great beach for body surfing. It was really windy and chilly. We walked down the beach looking for shells and whatever else we could find that was of interest. Courtenay found a bunch of pretty oyster shells that she brought home. I think she wants to make an ocean theme for her bathroom downstairs.
Thursday Mom took Lindsay down to Victoria to the passport office. Lindsay has an athletic competition down in the US next month and needs to have her passport. They got into the office with about 30 minutes to spare! I was so happy that Mom offered to drive her down. It's about a 31/2 hour drive that I was not looking forward to making! They got it all taken care of and the passport should arrive here in about 2 weeks! yay!!
While they were gone the kids stayed at Mom and Dad's place and had a quiet day of playing on the Wii, reading, dressing up and just spending time together.
I'll continue this later...and add more pictures to finish off the trip.

And yet more snow!

2009-03-07T15:23:00.000-08:00

So is it just me or is this an extra long winter this year??!!??! We don't usually get snow intil late in December and then it doesn't normally hang around for more than a week or two at a time. Well...this winter it arrived early----the end of November and stayed for 3 months! It finally melted off our lawn and is only left where it was piled up. But today we had a blizzard--well it was a blizzard according to us! It only lasted for about an hour or so. It has since melted---thank goodness!! But it is still chilly and gray outside. I am SO ready for some summer weather!! I will definitely NOT complain about the heat this summer!!
How about you? Have you had enough...are you too ready for summer?

Here are some pictures I took one wintry day. I picked up a coffee and went to the lake with my camera. Most of them are pretty small.

Harper Update.

2009-01-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

Thank you for praying for Harper! She's a little miracle baby! The doctors weren't sure that she was even going to survive!! She's dong great! Go take a look here!

Winter

2009-01-21T22:01:00.001-08:00

Well it looks like winter isn't ready to release it's grip on us quite yet! It was getting quite warm..the last week or so it's been above freezing during the day and even most nights! Well this week it's back down to about 6 or 7 below freezing... BRRR
Tomorrow I'm heading up to the ski hill with the girls school. I'm driving some of the kids. It should be a lovely sunny day up on the mountain. Hopefully my camera will co operate and work for me so that I can share some photos of the incredible beauty up there. Have a great day tomorrow.

What's the weather like at this time of year where you live?

Please pray.

2009-01-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

Please pray for Scott and Kelly and especially their newborn daughter, Harper. She was born last Friday with some very serious health issues and really needs to be covered in prayer. It's pretty much moment to moment for Harper right now. If you'd like to leave Kelly a comment to let her know that you're upholding them in prayer feel free to do so here.
Thank you for doing this.

Help..... Anyone...?

2009-01-12T13:08:00.001-08:00

I downloaded this Christmas background from "The Cut*est blog on th*e bl*ck. Well It isn't Christmas anymore so I went to their website to download a new background...It won't let me unless I sign in. Well I don't even remember getting a username and password for their site and the bad part is that they don't seem to have a place to go to where you can get help with forgotten passwords. Sooo if you have any ideas on how to get past this, would you please leave a comment? Thanks so much -oh--and

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Enjoy this wonderful Christmas season! :)

2008-12-26T01:59:00.000-08:00

Well here it is two am....did I just say TWO?!? ummm yeah..I did...well in that case this will be very short and sweet!

Today was a wonderful day. We had Christmas at home. We were home by ourselves with only Grandma(hubby's mom) here. It was much quieter than it is some years...especially those spent with my family!! We missed them all today! We had some friends over...7 of them. So altogether we had 14 people for Christmas dinner..It was fun and the food was yummy! We finished off the day singing Christmas carols in livingroom, accompanied by Lindsay on her guitar. Everyone sang along and seemed to enjoy themselves. After that the kids brought in the karaoke machine and everyone had fun singing along to Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews and some others. It got quite lively with Louise taking the mike and singing "New York New York" with Frank. :) All in all it was a good day filled with lots of fun and laughter and good food. We are so thankful that Jesus came to this Earth to die so that we could live! He is so gracious and merciful to each one of us and I am soo thankful for that!
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones!
Have a wonderful time this Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of our Saviour.
Love Heather
ps
will post some Christmas pictures for you -- hopefully tomorrow...but maybe the next day..I think we are having more friends over tomorroww....from now til New Years...party party party....well actually ...truth be told..it's more like visit visit visit~ It's so nice for everyone to have time off to be able to spend time together and just soak up the togetherness of it all!

Rita

2008-12-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

I have copied a post from another blogger's blog. It was SO touching that I wanted to share it. It is written by Katie from "The Journey". Please hop on over and have a look through her blog. It's amazing! :)
Please take a moment and read on...it's a captivating read.

I found this story in my journal last night... its fairly old but still has the same meaning. As you hold the ones you love this Christmas, please keep in mind those who have no one to hold them.

Yesterday a sweet little girl named Rita came to my house with two teeth that had been completely eaten through by a cavity and were almost completely rotted away. The holes looked like they were starting to get infected and the nerve was exposed; I cant imagine how much pain she was in. I took her to the dentist, and they said they were closed. The dentist was in a hurry to leave and wouldn't help me, but he said I could use his things and do it myself. Of course I was terrified, but I was more scared to think about the teeth not being removed immediately; they looked so painful. I gave her a shot to numb her mouth, waited about ten minutes, tried to sterilize these tweezer things with a match and dug out what was remaining of her poor little teeth. I don't think she could feel it, but my heart hurt for her.

I took her back home, made her a hot bath and some soup. Then she had ice cream and slept in my bed under a big blanket. As i tucked the covers in around her and kissed her heas she looked up at me with these big, wondering eyes. Unbelievable as it is, she was SOOO happy. She told me that this was the best day of her life, even though her mouth hurt. She said that she would get her teeth pulled every day if she could stay with someone like me. And that made my heart hurt even more.

There are so many children out there that don't feel loved on a daily basis. So many children that don't have a person to hold their hand or rub their back when they are scared and in pain. So many children who don't have the simple pleasures of taking a warm bath or sleeping under a blanket. I would move all of them, ALL of them into my house if I could. I wish I could love them all. I wish more people cared enough that they also wanted to love them all. Sometimes I just can't even believe how blessed I am. I have always been loved, always been cared for, always been warm and well-fed. Its frustrating sometimes, but mostly its just motivating. Sometimes I feel so tired, and then something like this happens and I am reminded that I can give a child the best night of her life simply by naking her soup and kissing her forehead. Simply by love her.

Sometimes I feel so tired that I think if I give away any more of myself I may actually be empty. And then I remember, It is only in giving away the love given to me by the Father that I am ever actually full. And so I keep going because of Rita. Because kissing her forehead and saying 'I love you" actually did change the world for that little girl. Because maybe through my hands she can get just a glimpse of a fraction of the love her Maker has for her. There is nothing better.

Darling Rita, now sponsored - Shout out to the Littleton family!

Which one are you?

2008-12-01T13:44:00.000-08:00

(Scroll down..there is another new post below this one)
You Are Easter

You are an optimistic, hopeful, and genuinely sweet person.

Sensitive and affectionate, you are easily touched.

You love nature, animals, and anything cute or cuddly.

For you, every day is a new chance - no matter what happened yesterday.

What makes you celebrate: Almost anything. You love most holidays and celebrations.

At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The peacemaker. You can prevent any squabbles that might break out.

On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: Remember to include everyone

What Holiday Are You?

The Water Taxi

2008-11-29T12:45:00.000-08:00

We have a highway widening project going on in our area. It is the only highway that goes from one end of our valley to the other. Well after 9 months of work being done, they had a setback. A HUGE crack appeared on the side of the mountain--where it wasn't supposed to be! The blasting created this fissure(crack). There must have been a fault at that spot.It made the highway below it unsafe for travel, as it was slowly sliding down towards the road. SO this meant that we were now cut off from the central and northern end of the valley. Which is where the largest city happens to be. So that meant that hundreds of people were no longer able to get to their jobs on the other side of this now closed road. People came up with different solutions. Some took the backroads through the bush. This was rather dangerous as these roads are sometimes very narrow with steep drops over the edge! YIKES! So that wasn't safe. The government decided after a week or so to upgrade a former logging road for use. They did this and it helped very much but a former 45 minute drive now became 1 1/2-2 hours. Then they decided to put a water taxi into service around the blocked road. This became a very popular form of transportation. Well...I decided that I'd like to try out the water taxi service. So one saturday afternoon my daughter and I drove up to the terminal and got on this FREE water taxi. I figured we could go have coffee with friends on the other end and then turn around and come home.
We had a great time on the boat! It was a neat experience. The boat was a summertime tourist boat....all set up for summer parties. It was a very pretty boat on the inside.
We should have left earlier in the day so that it wouldn't be so dark by the time we got to the other end of the run....oh well....it was a fun experience.
Once we got to the other end our friends talked us into staying overnight. It was great! We left in the morning so we could get back in time for church but ended up missing most of it....oh well...all in all it was a great experience and a fun weekend!

The walkway to the boat.

It was a chilly foggy day on the water.

Our windblown selves on the boat.

This picture shows the crack...sort of...too bad it was so dark by this time. Anyway...along the right side of that orange fence is where the crack goes...right down to the road--it goes across the top and then back down the other side to the road again...nice clean break..but WAY too much material to come down at once as it would land in the lake and cause a mini tsunami!
If you look you can see the smoke coming up from the drills...you'll also see the lights. They're drilling and blasting across the top of the crack. They blasted a bunch of rock etc. -pushed it over the edge and up against the bottom of the crack. This was to hold it up enough so that it would stop sliding! C-r-a-z-y!! Not my idea of safe! But I guess it's temporary and they say that if it does decide to let go and slide that there will be enough warning for everyone to get out of the way. I sure hope they're right!

If you look-you can see a mountain goat that fell down into the crack. They were able to sedate him and lift him out...apparently he was okay.
**I got this picture off Google**

My place of origin....ain't it purdy??

2008-11-29T09:20:00.001-08:00

that warm fuzzy fleece blanket

2008-11-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to make some knotted fleece blankets for my kids for Christmas. Do they need them? Well...not really..But I thought they would make a wonderful snuggly gift for them...that would last for years! "A special memory of something that Mom made for me when I was a kid..."
Well..there's nothing wrong with any of this really...but then this morning I read this:

December Project!

As you know, a major earthquake hit the Sichuan Province in China in May. This earthquake killed over 50,000 people and left man more homeless. Save the Children says that, “3 million infants, children and teens have been among the worst affected”. This was a disaster of immense porportions. School buildings, orphanages and small village towns were completely destroyed along with hospitals and office buildings.

As you can imagine, recovering from a disaster that destroys EVERYTHING you own is not easy. However, if you are living at or below the poverty level. . .it becomes nearly impossible. Today, many children and families remain homeless. Many others are lfet without basic necessities. And. . .it’s getting colder by the day. Winter is fast approaching with overnight temps already at freezing. Children remain without blankets.
Doesn’t that just break your hearts? As you tuck your children into bed covered up with multiple blankets in a home that has heat, can you remember these children? Would you like to do something?

Our KidsLake’s project for the rest of this year is. . .

BLANKETS FOR CHINA!!!

For $10, you can provide a warm blanket for a child that needs it!
Not only can you meet a need for a precious one, but you can teach your precious ones in the process! Use this opportunity when you put your children to bed and snuggle them up, to teach them about children who do not have what they do. Teach them to pray for the children who are cold that night. Teach them to be thankful for the blankets they have. . especially during this season! Then, help them to do something!

Allow them to ask for a blanket for Christmas and forgo a toy in favor of supplying a child with a blankie!
Have a hot chocolate stand in your neighborhood to raise money!
Have them do chores to earn money. . .possibly making beds!
Forgo a fast food lunch or dinner and have pb&j at home and donate the money

Whatever you do, get creative and involve your kiddos. Help them expand their vision of our world by teaching them about the children of China. Help them be a part of the solutions!

Blankets for China!
PS: We’ll have a paypal button on the kidslake site soon! The organization we are working with would love to receive donations as your kids earn them (instead of waiting until the end of the month) this way, they can buy blankets as it gets cold! Feel free to blog about this too. . let’s spread the word!

I copied this from Red Letters Campaign blog....go take a look at the good things they're doing! Maybe YOU can help a shivering little one be able to snuggle up in a warm blankie tonight. Tucking my kids into bed tonight won't be the same. :-\

Another day at the Zoo.

2008-11-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

Well this morning was spent chasing paperwork around town. My first stop was at the police station. Randal and I are both required to have a criminal check, a vulnerability report, and fingerprints done. So as I stood with the policeman holding my hands with black ink on them I told him that I never thought that I'd ever be standing in a police station having my fingerprints taken! He chuckled..and said "well this isn't bad unless you come in the back door!" He was really nice and waived most of the fees for the three things I had done because we are adopting. He only charged me $15 for the fingerprints! I was SO happy to hear him say that. He was very helpful and made my visit very pleasant. He told me to go have a seat and he would do my criminal check while I waited so that we wouldn't have any delays!
I then headed for my next stop and had a very important thing done! My eyebrows!! :P My next stop was the drugstore for a passport photo and one canNOT have one of those done with big bushy brows!! :-D I then got the photo done..for a great price too! -$9.99! I picked up passport applications and lunch and headed to Randal's office to have lunch with him and give him the forms...It was a nice little visit that we don't often get to enjoy in the middle of the day.
So this was my first day of many to come (me thinks!) spent running around with paperwork.

Well will keep you posted on the journey. Have a great evening.

Heather

Thank You!

2008-11-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Randi Jo...I was able to figure out how to change this. These different templates are something new for me..I'll have to play around and see if I can make it look better...well...maybe! I spend enough time on here as it is, without finding new stuff to play around with! Thanks again Randi Jo...I see alot of other fun gadgets on the cut8st blog on th* blo*k..like I said I'm sure I'll be over there playing around. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Heather

HELP!

2008-11-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay...I changed my blog background to what you see here. Shortly after changing it up I decided to do it again. One small problem! It DOESN'T WORK!!! I do everything exactly as they instruct me to do...and the same thing I did to change it to this template..and it doesn't work, it stays exactly the same as what you now see in front of you!! grrr...frustrating! Does anyone have any idea to help me solve this mystery?? I hope so...please leave a comment if you think that you can help me.
thanks so much!
Heather

We're adopting!!

2008-11-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

For those of you who didn't figure it out from two posts ago...Yes!! We ARE adopting! We're all very excited and can hardly wait until she gets here! Yes we have applied for a baby girl. She should be somewhere between 0 and 6 months old..at least when she is proposed to us. Hopefully this will be a quick journey.
The girls have already been looking up baby names and have started a list. When we've been out shopping we have all been over in the baby section...ooohing and aaaahing over how cute this and that would look on her. We have no idea what she will look like but it doesn't matter..she will be absolutely adorable whatever she looks like!!
Our current youngest is 10 years old...so we are going to have to start over collecting baby furniture and all the incidentals that go along with having a baby in the house. We're excited to get her room ready for her too....that will be fun picking out colours etc.
This reminds me of all the work we have to do around the house before she gets here! Two other bedrooms need to be painted, as well as the entryway, bathroom and hallway! We've also got bits of trim here and there that we somehow missed when we did our last painting project..the kitchen, diningroom and livingroom. We are either going to have to add a bedroom somewhere downstairs or two of the girls are going to have to share a room. That is yet to be decided.
And all of that is just the physical work ....
All we've done as far as paperwork goes is submit our application and retainer. So as any of you know, that have already adopted or are currently doing so, there is a TON of paperwork left still to do! I welcome any comments or insight you can give me if you have already been through this or are currently doing so. I would like to figure out how to find people in my area(or even in my country!) that may be going through the same process. I'm not sure that there will be anyone though(in this area), since our agency is on the other side of the country over 4,000 kilometers away!
Well time to get off here and go get another load of laundry on and get some homemade soup in the pot to simmer for supper.
Have a super great day!
take care

Heather

2008-11-18T13:25:00.001-08:00

You Are an Audrey!

You are an Audrey -- "I am at peace"

Audreys are receptive, good-natured, and supportive. They seek union with others and the world around them.

How to Get Along with Me

* If you want me to do something, how you ask is important. I especially don't like expectations or pressure
* I like to listen and to be of service, but don't take advantage of this
* Listen until I finish speaking, even though I meander a bit
* Give me time to finish things and make decisions. It's OK to nudge me gently and nonjudgmentally
* Ask me questions to help me get clear
* Tell me when you like how I look. I'm not averse to flattery
* Hug me, show physical affection. It opens me up to my feelings
* I like a good discussion but not a confrontation
* Let me know you like what I've done or said
* Laugh with me and share in my enjoyment of life

What I Like About Being an Audrey

* being nonjudgmental and accepting
* caring for and being concerned about others
* being able to relax and have a good time
* knowing that most people enjoy my company; I'm easy to be around
* my ability to see many different sides of an issue and to be a good mediator and facilitator
* my heightened awareness of sensations, aesthetics, and the here and now
* being able to go with the flow and feel one with the universe

What's Hard About Being an Audrey

* being judged and misunderstood for being placid and/or indecisive
* being critical of myself for lacking initiative and discipline
* being too sensitive to criticism; taking every raised eyebrow and twitch of the mouth personally
* being confused about what I really want
* caring too much about what others will think of me
* not being listened to or taken seriously

Audreys as Children Often

* feel ignored and that their wants, opinions, and feelings are unimportant
* tune out a lot, especially when others argue
* are "good" children: deny anger or keep it to themselves

Audreys as Parents

* are supportive, kind, and warm
* are sometimes overly permissive or nondirective

http://www.ok cupid.com/tests/are-you-a-jackie-or-a-marilyn-or-someone-else-mad-menera-female-icon-quiz

IT'S OFFICIAL!! FINALLY!!!

2008-11-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

We've sent in the paperwork----finally!

Here's a hint! :) :)

Wordless Wednesday .....Autumn pictures

2008-11-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

Almost "wordless"...
...the Autumn photographer

PS

Peter~
these are the fall photos that you had requested...I waited too long to take the pictures and most of the trees were already bare. Hope you enjoy the ones that I did get.
take care
Heather

Time FLIES!

2008-11-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

Wow!! here it is 2 months since I last posted...oh dear...I didn't plan on letting things fall so far behind. I guess you could say that I've been busy!! I've been doing a bit of volunteer work at the girls school...which includes driving for local activities, as well as day trips. Helping the student council get their school coffee shop up and running...and a few other things. One other thing I did was prepare a hot lunch for the teachers. It was something I did to honour them. They have our children under their care for almost as long as we have them in a day. Sooo I made hot beef on a bun with au jus on the side, caesar salad, veggie tray with dip, ice tea with sliced lemons and chocolate iced brownies for dessert! They loved it. I also set the table in their staff room with a nice tablecloth and some pretty napkins and name cards. I also made a big sign for the wall that said "we appreciate YOU!" They all very very blessed...that's what I was aiming for so I guess it was a success. They've all blessed us so much in the past that I just wanted to pass it back to them for a change. :)
Our church just had a 60th anniversary this past weekend. It was really busy for me! I was in charge of getting the place decorated. I had my girlfriend help me out with it~she's amazing! I told everyone that she was the brains in the operation and I was the brawn! haha.. She came up with alot of the ideas and I did alot of the footwork...which is hard for her as she has arthritic knees. We had a ton of fun working together. We used to do this together in years past but it's been quite awhile.
Two girlfriends and I got together last weekend and made 96 meals! We made meals for the freezer for a month!! That was a really long day. We were at it for about 11 or 12 hours. The day before the "big cook", we did the shopping for the food.
I've tried about 6 or 7 of the meals with our family so far and they've all been quite good and some were delicious!
All in all it's been a busy fall! The trees have changed colour and I have pictures to show for it...I just have to get busy and post them!! So hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow...or the next day. ;)
Have an awesome week friends!!
love

Heather

so...now what....?

2008-09-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well here we are starting into the second week of school. Here I sit wondering what to do with myself. Oh don't get me wrong...there is LOTS to do...but I feel at loose ends without the kids here. I haven't been home alone for over a year! I have all of the kids in the local Christian school now and so that means I'm not homeschooling anyone. Which is STRANGE! I've homeschooled for 7 out of the last 11 years! So you probably get the picture....no one needs me to do a math lesson..no one needs lunch prepared...a ride to work...no one needs to be nagged to do the dishes (except myself!!), no one needs to be supervised in the pool...no nagging to bring me their dirty laundry..jeepers...I sound like a real nag, don't I?! I don't think I am really...but....hmmm....anyway, I think you see where I'm going. Soooo....I'm going to make myself a cleaning schedule, so that I have a direction to head when I get up in the morning and don't wander around like a lost puppy! If I don't lay it out I tend to get overwhelmed and don't know WHERE to start! And then don't start anywhere--which is not a good thing. :) If you have a super duper organizational schedule of house cleaning and you'd like to share...please leave me a comment about it or send it to my email listed on my profile. Thanks so much

Have an awesome week.

Heather

Update: I will be helping in Janelle's class a few times a week...so that should keep me busy in between keeping a house for a family of 6!

It's cooling down for fall

2008-08-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well it is starting to cool off now...We've had several days of rainy weather, along with a few thunderstorms. I love a good thunderstorm! The biggest problem with them in this area is forest fires. But so far this year, we haven't had too many. When they do start, it's been rainy enough that they haven't gotten too out of hand. Aaanyway.. the pool has cooled down quite a bit and it looks like we'll soon be closing it down for the season. It's so pretty when it's open and so bleak looking when it's closed-- oh well..
The kids are bugging me to take them to the city tomorrow so they can spend some of their hard earned cash! I'm not really excited about this prospect...but I think we'll head up that way anyhow. One last trip before school starts. I guess we should probably pick up school supplies while we're there. The cousins that were here are gone(all except one) and it's been pretty quiet. That will soon be ending, as my mom and grandma and 3 more cousins arrive on Sunday! I'm not sure how long they will be staying--probably for 5-7 days. School starts in 11 days, so they will need to be home in time to finish preparations for school. It will be nice to see this set of cousins, as it's been since last summer that we've all been together with them.
Today I took my eldest in to the clinic where they removed some kind of a "thing" from her leg. I think it's either a cyst or some type of wart. They're sending it to have it analyzed. We will get the pathology report back when we go in for stitch removal next week. If you can believe it, I watched while the dr. froze her leg with about 8 or so pokes of a needle, then watched whilst he removed it with his scalpel. There was a hole there after he removed it and you could see her blood pumping up from it...sorry if that was too graphic for you. I then watched him stitch it up. I have to say that I really surprised myself! I tend to be a bit squeamish about incisions and the likes. Aren't you glad I didn't take my camera?? She wanted to take pictures of it as it happened but forgot the camera. THank goodness for that!!
Anyway I hope that all is well with you all!
take care.
Heather
=)

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the girls and the cake they made. They just did it for fun. It wasn't for anything special. They finished it and we had it mostly eaten within an hour or so! It not only looked great it ~ it tasted great too!!

contemplations.....

2008-08-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well here it is the 17th of August..and I sit here contemplating the end of summer. two more weeks and the girls are back in school...that makes me sad. I have had such a wonderful summer with them. We've been really busy. We've had lots of friends stop in for a visit, quite a bit of time with both Randal and my family visiting and also have celebrated two or three birthdays. We've also had several cousins come to stay. So all in all, it's been a great summer. But unfortunately time keeps marching on, summer ends school starts, the kids get older, we get older..... :) gee that sounds so melancholy! I guess I just hate to see the freedom and fun of summer end. Our time together has been sweet.
Aaaaah...time to start looking to the new school year and the next step in our lives. Everyone starting a new grade...new teachers...little bits of anxiety over how Janelle will do with her new teacher. I'm trying to look toward that part with a positive attitude...one of not dreading it but of being proactive in her education this year. I tell myself that she will be fine. I hope I'm right!!

We've got some plans forming for this coming year that are of a very different nature. We will spend some time planning and working at it. Then when things are firmed up I'll let you all know what we're up to! Please pray for us that things will work out for us......I know that's pretty vague, but that's as much as I can say right now. Like I said, I'll give you all the details when I can.
Well it's time to get ready for church..well actually it's pretty much time to leave! gotta run! Have a super day!
Heather

summer....cousins.....fun.......

2008-08-15T08:50:00.001-07:00

My brother, Paul, got sucked into a game of charades with all of us. He dropped the cousins off and then headed back home...it's a 4 - 5 hour drive.

"See ya in a week, Uncle!"

The kids brought a snake in to show me....I decided to be brave and hold it...
Not the best plan. It tried to head up my arm and just seconds after this photo, I had an involuntary arm thrust! :P The poor snake went flying and hit the floor. You should have seen our uncle move! Apparently he doesn't like snakes. Hee hee.

"I'm not so sure about this!" :D

Can a snake be cuddled??

The girls trying to get away from the other kids who were trying to "show" their snakes to them. ;)

My early birthday party

2008-08-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

Randal threw me a party for my big 4-0! It was a busy, fun night! Here are some pictures of the evening.

The other girls are keeping Courtenay company while she ices my cake.

My brother.

Louise and her girls made a photo collage for me. :)

Playing "charades"~Abbey's favourite. :)

Mommy and the baker.

aaah my leeegggs!

My brother and family...came to visit...yaay!

2008-08-11T00:58:00.001-07:00

Comic strip pictures of my brother and I on their quick visit to our house yesterday/today.

My sis in law and I

Leaving.... :(

See ya later alligator!

Major hailstorm!

2008-08-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

We had a huge hailstorm yesterday! It was unbelievable~as you'll hear me exclaiming in the videos. :D
Only one video downloaded...I'll add the others tomorrow....well, technically it's today since it's almost 1:30 am!

Well here's another day and another video. It finally let me upload them.

Some favourites

2008-07-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

An old paddle wheel boat, turned into a local museum

A door that I liked and just had to take a picture of. :)

Sunflower in my garden

Local scenery

Kids playing around. :D

Family Get Together

2008-07-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we spent with with my brother who came up from the coast.
We went down to a little town a bit south of us and spent the day doing "the tourist thing."
We meet at a beach park and visited there for a while.
My nephew, Zachary, plays football so we brought one along and got a bit of a game going.

Rob and Charlene and their kids Karlin, Meg, and Zach.
The eldest daughter, Alysha, wasn't up this trip.

Foolin' Around

We then went for a walk down to the old train tressel. It's been converted into a bridge that is part of the KVR trail that runs from town through town throughout the Okanagan.

A pond along the way

An Okanagan View

Some of the kids braved the chilly waters... I love Lindsay's facial expression here :-)

Later we visited TickleBerries, a rather famous stop for ice-cream here.
After we braved the long lines we sat outside on picnic tables beside a creek.

Yum!

I love this picture.

Janelle and Karlin playing in the creek.

And that's all for now!
Have a fabulous rest of the week!

Heather

Just Kidding! Did I fool you? I talked like her and from her point of view, but this is Courtenay, hence any mistakes that were most likely made.
Mom let me write her blog today.
Have a nice day! =)

Canada Day photos

2008-07-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

July 1st, Canada day was a quiet day at home until late afternoon. We joined some friends at the beach for a few hours, went to their house for supper and then back to the beach for some fireworks. They were great fireworks..especially for a small town of 10,000!

The bunch "racing" to the water.

Looks like Lindsay is in the lead!

hmmmm...hard to tell the winner now!

Courtenay and friends standing in the water in their clothes... :P

Lindsay being funny.

More Photos

2008-07-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

To all my American friends~Happy 4th of July!

Here are a few more photos of our trip. I'll end off with some of the trip back home.

Playing at the park in town.

A cottage on the lake

Monarch butterflies on the wet sand.

Lily pads at the water's edge.

The view from my vantage point on the dock. :D

........and again...

..once more...

The older girls playing cards in one of their camp bedrooms.

Mikaela serving up lunch.

A couple more of the lake.

On the road, heading home.

A field with hay bales waiting to be gathered.

A pretty little cow in a field along the highway.

~"~ Camp Kawkawa ~"~

2008-07-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, the girls and I packed up and headed to camp for 4 days. We returned Sunday night.

My girlfriend, Brenda, has taken the job of camp cook, for the summer, at a church camp in the mountains. It's about 3 or 4 hours from here. We went along to help her get things up and running in the kitchen. The older girls did a bit of cabin cleaning too. There is so much to tell you about that I'm not sure where to start...maybe the beginning would be good!
Being silly in the restaurant before we got to the camp

We arrived on Wednesday around supper time. We ate in town before heading out to the camp. When we got there we found the kitchen had been taken over by the critters...as in mice and rats. The camp had been closed down for 3 years...so yes the critters took over!! A lady had been there for several days ahead of us cleaning so it wasn't as bad as it had been. Anything that was not in a sealed bin had been invaded by little mice crawling all through, over and under it...leaving plenty of evidence of their passing! :x
Shopping for camp food

We ate in town for the first couple of days. We did eventually get everything clean and mouse poison out to get rid of the mice. We also got the first delivery of food unpacked and into sealed bins and the walk in fridge and freezer. One night we made the mistake of leaving a bag of recyclables out by the back door. A raccoon had a heyday ripping it all open and getting into it. Altho he would have been disappointed to find only packaging. He also left his little "hand" prints on my windshield.

The girls had a fun time of kayaaking and canoing. I also got out in the canoe once. The lake was so pretty! It isn't a really deep lake so it was a lovely warm temperature. The girls spent quite a bit of time swimming in it. Unfortunately the girls woke up on the last morning all covered in "swimmers itch"...some more so than others.
It was nice to get away, but, I found the mountains to be very close and claustrophobic feeling, so I was really ready to get out of there and get home to our lovely wide open valley.
It was great to spend some time with my girlfriend and her girls! It isn't something we've done before. On the way home we went to Brenda's parents home for a BBQ. It was really nice to be in a home after a few days at camp!
I'll leave you with some photos of our time there. I hope you enjoy the pics!
Heather

waaaaaa.... :(

2008-07-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sad to say that we won't be getting Jackson. They've decided to keep him. She called to tell me that he was having problems walking. I guess one of his hips is really bad..to the point where he wasn't able to put any weight on that leg. He has hip dysplasia. Their vet wants to do surgery. So I guess it is probably for the better that they keep him. I'm a big suck when it comes to animals in pain and I'm sure it would have caused me great angst. :( Besides that the vet bills would be enormous! We're very sad that we're not to have him but I guess things happens for a reason.

YES!!!

2008-06-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yes!! We've decided to take Jackson! We're anxiously awaiting his arrival now that the decision's been made. :D He arrives in 12 days! Oh in case you haven't read previous posts....we are NOT getting another child...well not a human one anyway. He's a Cavalier* King *Charles spaniel. He's 4 yrs old too so no puppy stage to go through. We'll post more pictures when the time comes.

Don't Worry.

2008-06-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

(Luke 12:27,28~my paraphrase)

²⁷ “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. ²⁸ And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? (New Living Translation)
This is a photo I took and edited online.

Yes.....No....??

2008-06-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

We are contemplating getting another dog. His owners are looking for a home for him. They bought him for an elderly mother who has since passed away and they feel they are too busy to give him the time and attention he needs. He is a Cavalier King Charles. They are beautiful little dogs.
So now we have to decide whether or not we want to add another member to our family...since having a dog is comparable to having another child...in some ways I guess. I'll leave you with a couple of pictures.

High Water

2008-05-30T14:59:00.001-07:00

This is the creek in our area. It's about 150 feet or so from our house. It's nice to hear it when the windows and doors are open at this time of year. Normally it's only a few inches deep, but right now it's a few feet deep. Two years ago a young man in his twenties fell into the creek at this time of year and drowned. If you see the creek mid summer you would think that impossible. This time of year it fills and the banks are brimming...Amazing what a bit of snow up in the mountains will do.

We tied the dog to the bank so she wouldn't fall/jump into the creek and get swept away...looking at the photos now, It looks like I should have tied my daughter to the bank! The water is very swift and muddy as you can see in the photos.

Wordless Wednesday (almost Thursday)

2008-05-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

Our Yard

A Blast From the Past

2008-05-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

Goofing around on my grad night at home.

GAZING OFF INTO THE FUTURE

My buddy Brad and I at my home again... My brother said it looks like an engagement/grad picture...I had to agree with him. Brad wasn't a boyfriend though...just a good friend...There was a big bunch of us that were all friends..the odd ones paired off I guess but for the most part we were all just a bunch of really good friends.

My little baker

2008-05-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Our daughter Courtenay has been decorating cakes for the last couple of years, for most of the birthdays in our home...and even some outside of our family! Here are a few pics of some of her most recent cakes!

Janelle's 10th birthday.

The butterfly and the guitar are both made using rolled
fondant. She rolls it out on the counter then picks it up
and lays it over the cake. It reminds me of pastry, which
I don't enjoy making pastry at all! It always breaks apart
on me.

Butterfly cake for Janelle's birthday. We celebrated it with some good friends that live nearby...but not near enough! (These 3 have decided that the parents of the younger two, should buy the house 2 doors over from us that's for sale!) Louise threw together some impromptu birthday games...it was great...She made it special for Janelle...and I think her kiddos had fun too. :)

Lindsay turned 16!! Wow!! How can this be??? I'm so much toooo young to have a 16 year old!! ;o)

♫♫Happy ♫Birthday to you....♫

Lindsay playing her "guitar".
Court made her a guitar cake because
Lindsay has and plays guitar.
"OOPS! Those strings are sliiiding off!"

Grandma had a big birthday this year....mind you..so were Janelle and Lindsay's...10 and 16......and mine is the big 4-0! Randal's was a big one too....and Amanda became an official teenager! woo hoo...3 teens in the house now. 3 down one to go! :os The only one who doesn't have a big birthday...(number wise) is Court.

I love the bright colours and the contrast created with them.
The flowers are made from Royal Frosting. She made them ahead of time and let them harden and dry out. She then placed them on the cake. What awesome cakes!! I'll post some more later on.

IT'S HOT!!

2008-05-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

Well we finally got the heat!! It's 31*C right now! I was out working in the veggie garden and decided that it was just way too hot for that! I wanted to get things planted but I did a little bit of digging and moving the volunteer sunflower plants and I was done! Maybe I'll get back to it tonight! And that's a BIG maybe! Happy Summer (weather)!

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day started off with us all going to church. We finished up and went had a quick lunch and short snooze and then off to the hospital to visit my mil. We spent almost 3 hours there. We sat in the visitors room and visited. We also played a couple games of sequence ( a board game) and did a puzzle. By the time we finished all of that grandma was really ready to go lay down. She had been up in a wheelchair for about 4 hours! She was kinda tired looking by then. I think she enjoyed having the company though. She seems to be coming along slowly but surely. Her leg is healing but not as quick as most people. The diabetes and poor circulation really slow down the healing process for her. They figure she should be able to move over to the rehab ward this week sometime....but that is only as long as her leg has healed up over the end of the stump. So we're waiting on that.

It's almost an hours drive home from the hospital...it was a nice drive. One of the girls asked Dad to stop along the way somewhere so she could pick some flowers for me for mother's day. We couldn't see any that she could easily get to, so he took a detour off a side road just before we got into town. The girls climbed up the hill aways and picked some "brown eyed susans"...at least that's what we call them! They're so pretty..such a bright yellow. By the time we got home it was after 8 and we hadn't had dinner. Randal went to the store to get a few things while I had a shower and climbed into bed. The kids were disappointed that they hadn't been able to do anything for me for mother's day. So while I was laying down they told me not to come out til they said. They excitedly called me a little bit later. They had cooperated and put together a really cute dinner! They had appetizers..."general Tao's chicken" (chips), balsamic potato (chips), and for the main course--little caesars pepperoni pizza and Hawaiian pizza, and a tossed salad with nuts and seeds on top. They also made some homemade lemon/limeade! It was so yummy!! Then they served a dessert--"Goliath Grapes"! They were huge!
The table was all set with fancy linens and candles, flowers and nice glasses. They had Kenny G playing in the background and low lighting. I really enjoyed it. While we finished up eating Lindsay mc'ed a program where they all told a story about their mom....Lindsay was a great mc...she was pretty funny. All in all it was a really nice mother's day treat for me! It was so nice to know that they all cared enough to wanna do something special for mom all on their own! What was especially nice was that they all got along and put it together -together! :D
When they finished their stories they decided that we should all grab a partner and dance to Kenny G!! it was pretty funny since I dance about as graceful as a giraffe! But it was all in fun anyway!! By the time we finished eating and everything else it was well after 10 o"clock..so I dropped into bed and was soon fast asleep.
I hope you all had a really great mother's day too!
ps
I'll try to add photos later...if I can figure out where Lindsay put them on this computer!

Update on Grandma II

2008-04-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

The surgery was moved up a day. Florence went in today instead of tomorrow...they must have had a cancellation. I just talked to my husband and he's waiting for her to come out of the recovery room and into her room on the surgical ward. So far as we know, her surgery went fine. Now the recovery is set to start.
Thanks for praying friends! I will update when we know more.
Heather

Update on Grandma

2008-04-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

The dr. has decided that it is time to remove the leg, well the lower half anyway. They're sending her home today and then she will return early next week to have the operation done. She will spend a week or two in hospital recovering and then into the rehab ward for awhile...don't know how long there. She will need to be bathed in prayer. Thanks so much friends.
Heather

PRAYER REQUEST

2008-04-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

My husband's mom has gone into the hospital and had an operation on her leg for blood clots. There have been many, many such operations done on her legs. They removed the clots from her lower leg, yesterday, but it seems that it is plugged again. The surgeon has requested that she bring her family in for a meeting with him. So we'll be doing that today.
Please pray.
thanks,
Heather

AND THE WINNER IS.....

2008-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

I Let my daughter choose the caption for the picture.... AND THE WINNER IS....drum roll please!!

"Mum says I look like her"......

~Poetic Scotland

Congratulations!!

Thanks everyone, for playing along!

Heather

Photo Caption Contest

2008-04-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

We were fooling around with the new camera and came up with some goofy photos. I've picked one of Court and I, that I thought was rather humorous~ well she is anyway... :D
Please leave a comment below with a caption for the photo. I'll post the winner on April 22nd. So here ya go:

Snow in April II

2008-04-21T10:31:00.001-07:00

Guess what?? That nasty snowfall we woke up to on Saturday morning.....melted....quickly! These are some photos of the yard on the same day, at about 3 in the afternoon.

Winter in April

2008-04-19T11:16:00.001-07:00

Our front yard yesterday.

Our front yard today! :(

I am NOT impressed!!

Those poor little delicate buds! I like the light dusting of snow on the bud.

No drinks here today..sorry little guys!

The cedar hedging....blanketed in snow.

The Azalea tree....no pretty blazing orange blooms for awhile yet.

The poor magnolia tree...I was going to take a photo of it today in all it's glory...fully blooming...oops! should have done it yesterday.

Walking in snake country

2008-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I headed out for a walk last saturday morning. I took the dog along with us. We were walking along the river channel, it's a favourite for her...she's a retriever so loves to play in and around the water...as does Janelle!

Here are a few pictures from the walk.

Goldie (aka Fat Dog heeheehee)

A beaver pond

A rim in the creek. I thought I was being all artsy fartsy with this one until Lindsay asked me why I was taking pictures of garbage?!! sheeesh.

Then we found this guy! Yikes!! I wasn't sure what he was until I got home and googled him...

It looks very much like a rattlesnake, but as it turned out it was actually a harmless gopher/bull snake. A type of constrictor I guess. Lindsay is now informing me that of course it's a constrictor--how else would it kill it's prey?? (me)Well....I don't know....I thought maybe it bit it's prey to death....oh dear... guess I just never thought about it before. She's now rolling on the floor in great fits of laughter. :-S

Can you pick out the snake in the picture below...I wanted to show the length of it so it's a bit far away and hard to see.

It was morning when we were out there. The snake was laying in the sun warming itself. Apparently they kind of "freeze" up at night since they are cold blooded. After about 30 minutes of us watching him, he very slowly slithered under the rocks. So off we went and continued our walk.

The snake's head.

On our way back we stopped to see if the snake was still at the same place. It was gone but this little guy was in his place. This is just a common garter snake. I won't be so quick to climb around on rocks to take pictures anymore...at least not without having a real good look first!!

I Got a Camera!!! yaaay!

2008-04-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad I finally got a camera. I've been without one for many years. Which makes me very sad, since we've missed MANY photo opportunities with the kids these last several growing up years. :(

I got a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H3. It is last years model, so I got a great deal on it. I ended up paying about $100 for it. It's brand new, but it is last years model and was the last one in the store. It was on sale for $300. The salesman then threw in a $30 bag, a $75 memory card and also took off $100!! It was a super deal.

We had dropped into C*ostco to visit my brother, who manages their hearing aid department. He came outside and ate lunch with the kids and I and then wandered over to the electronics store nearby.
My brother, Tom, has been looking into cameras lately so was able to tell me that this is an excellent camera and well worth the cost at $300! So it was exciting to be able to walk out with such a good deal in hand!.

The camera had a VERY good review with one minor, slightly negative comment. In many ways it is very comparable to an SLR! It has 'super steady shot'...very good for shaky me..it has 10X optical zoom and 8.1 mega pixels! One other good feature is that it is powered by a lithium rechargeable battery! I did NOT want a camera that required AA batteries. The camera also included a charger for the battery.

Fire Aftermath

2008-04-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

I took the pictures too late in the day so they are rather dark. This top photo has cloud hovering over it, not smoke.

Playing with the camera.

This is a shot of the side that was four floors tall before the fire...one floor left.

I'm afraid that the targeted opening date will no longer be feasible.

Now THAT is why they make concrete fire walls mandatory in the building code!!

The fire department did an awesome job!! This building was no more than 30 feet from the burning building!! Way to go guys!!!

Playing with the new camera. :)

They caught 3 teens within a very short time. I believe they were in the crowd watching the fire. As awful as it is for these kids to do such a terrible thing, I feel bad for them. They're crying out for help in a very bad way. I could not imagine the heartbreak of being these kids parents.

There are many people whose lives have been disrupted by this fire. I personally know one family affected. Their parents have been living apart in different facilities because they have different levels of care needed. They've both been heartbroken to be apart after 50 something years of marriage and then being separated. They now will have to wait longer until they can be together again.
PS
If you're here because I sent you an email please leave a comment and let me know you were here!! thx~Heather

FIRE!!!

2008-04-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

This truck is spraying water on the fire right behind the Safe*way store. It looks like they may actually be spraying the store down rather than just the building on fire...not sure though.

Yesterday afternoon a fire broke out at a neighbouring retirement complex. It was devastating.
The complex wasn't finished yet so there were no residents in danger but the shopping center next door was very much in danger of being burned to the ground, as you can see in some of the pictures! The little strip mall was evacuated as well as adjacent neighbours. We could see these building from our livingroom windows but it was far enough away(about 2 blocks) that we weren't in any danger.

The fire department was at a fire about 2 blocks away when they were called to
this fire. It is looking very suspicious...and the rumour mill tells me that they have two youths in custody. Blogger is being annoying now and won't let me post more pictures. I have one from the front of the grocery store...it's an amazing sight! It looks like the store is on fire because the flames behind it are 3 or 4 times the height of the store!It finally let me post the other pictures! but -they're really small.

*******I CANNOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THE PHOTOS. I FOUND THEM ON A LOCAL NEWS WEBSITE.*******

I GOT ONE!!

2008-03-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

..... But I'll tell you about it later when I have time to do a good post on it...

Today is going to be a busy day. I'm driving my niece to meet her grandpa in a neighbouring town. He will drive her and her sister, another niece of course :P, to the ferry. They'll walk on and head home to the Island together. We will miss her! She's been here for over 3 weeks. She did some cooking while she was here and was just generally helpful and fun to have around. :)
Then we'll come home and find something fun to do with the other two cousins that are still here. Probably some tennis, although it's pretty chilly out today! -3 Celsius or 26 F. I'm not too sure that we'll be doing alot of tennis playing! Oh well, we'll find something fun to do.

Hello again!!

2008-03-26T18:18:00.001-07:00

Hi there!

I've been gone a looong time and just noticed that I missed my one year anniversary!! OH DEAR!

I've been busy homeschooling my youngest daughter and haven't had a ton of time for blogging. I've not had a camera for quite awhile either and posts without pictures tend to be pretty boring..don't be offended if this is you too! :oS We were out looking at cameras today and am hoping to get one tomorrow-if I can find one in our price range! If I do find one then you should most likely be seeing alot more of me! Well take care. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. We did. I've got three cousins here right now..13, 13 and 14. It's been fun. The one cousin has been here for almost 3 weeks. We've been having fun with her here..she likes to cook!! yippeee!! Anyway they all head home this friday/saturday... :( Our home will be quiet with just the 6 of us here! Well gotta run off to worship music practice!
toodle ooo
:)

What are you???

2008-01-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

If you do this little quiz let me know...I'd be curious to see what you are..It was an easy fun quiz to do. Hope everyone's well.
take care~
Heather

The Brain Test

My Result: Balanced-brained

That means you are able to draw on the strengths of both the right and left hemispheres of your brain, depending upon a given situation.

When you need to explain a complicated process to someone, or plan a detailed vacation, the left hemisphere of your brain, which is responsible for your ability to solve problems logically, might kick in. But if you were critiquing an art opening or coming up with an original way to file papers, the right side of your brain, which is responsible for noticing subtle details in things, might take over.

While many people have clearly dominant left- or right-brained tendencies, you are able to draw on skills from both hemispheres of your brain. This rare combination makes you a very creative and flexible thinker.

The down side to being balanced-brained is that you may sometimes feel paralyzed by indecision when the two hemispheres of your brain are competing to solve a problem in their own unique ways.

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/rd/50651/tests/brain/index.jsp?testname=brainogt&resultid=D

Hi Friends! :)

2008-01-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Randal!!

2008-01-16T19:16:00.001-08:00

Today is Randal's 45th birthday. Courtenay is making him a white cake with 7 minute frosting and coconut on it! MMMMM sounds delicious. We're about to eat a roast venison dinner. I worked all day from 9 to 5:30 then a 20 minute drive home...so dinner is really late!
Randal has requested party games after dinner. ;) Actually not really party games...a board game.
Actually....I think we will pull out the game that Lyle and Paula gave us for Christmas. It looks like alot of fun. It's called "Mad Gab"-but not the regular one. This one is a CD/DVD. Each team has a buzzer/button to push...so I think it's going to be a good one. Well my gravy is needing my attention....so take care....
Heather

2008-01-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

update again

2008-01-03T00:06:00.000-08:00

Hi there friends.
I just want to give a quick update on things here. Randal had a dr. appointment today with our regular doc. He was very pleased with Randal's progress! He was more than pleased actually...He showed us the letter from the neurologist. It said that Randal's improvement is amazing! Our dr. said that he was sooo happy to see how well he was doing. He told us that he had expected that Randal would be using a walker for the rest of his life at best and in a wheelchair more likely than not!! Wow! I was surprised. I had kinda gotten those vibes from reading between the lines when talking with the different doctors over the last couple of months but wasn't really sure if that was just me or not. Apparently it wasn't! We are SO thankful for this!! God is so good to us and a Keeper of His Word! Randal is just using his walker now if we are walking for a bit of a distance, such as shopping or something like that, mostly for balance. His legs tire fairly easily and start to cramp up if he walks for too long. He's been having some symptoms similar to those he had before the surgery so please pray that things don't get back to the place they were again. That's why we went to the dr. today, but he didn't seem at all concerned about it. Randal has an appointment next week with the neurosurgeon though so we'll just talk to him about these symptoms at that point. I think I'd feel more at ease if the specialist was the one to tell us this.
My mil seems to be doing quite well. She has bounced back from her surgery pretty quickly. She is doing much better than we had expected! She looked really bad last week when she came out of the hospital! But now she's perked right up..so thanks for praying for her. I hope that she stays like that now for a LONG time!
you all have a Super Duper New Year!!! :D
Heather

Our Christmas

2007-12-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

Well here it is...two days past Christmas already!! I can't believe how fast time flies...it's kinda sad to see the Christmas holidays pass so quickly.
Like I mentioned in previous posts, we stayed home this year and didn't have any family around...which for many of you would be normal but not for us! But anyway...our Christmas day turned out very nicely. We had some friends over for the day. We made dinner together...two turkeys!! We both had tons left over. It's kinda funny how alike our families are. Most of the time when we have company over I forget to make dessert. So this time I made sure I picked up a pumpkin and apple pie on Christmas Eve. I chuckled to myself when I told Louise that I had picked up a couple pies for dessert because she had a similar reaction to what mine would have been...oh yeah--dessert!?! I think we all enjoyed the day. We ate dinner fairly early..if I remember right! We played a game of charades altogether. There were enough of us to make 3 teams. It was alot of fun. These friends are about as close to family as we could ever get. After dinner, Randal headed up to the hospital to visit his mom. While he was gone Louise knitted, Steve napped for an hour or two on the lazy boy(sounds like family,hey?!), the girls made cookies, some of the kids played nintendo, some played on the computer and some of the others just played. (we have 8 kids between us.) All in all it was a relaxing, enjoyable day. I really enjoyed the wonderful family atmosphere. I hope you all had a great Christmas.

2007-12-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

We wish you a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

And a happy New Year!

DONE!!

2007-12-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

I finished my Christmas shopping!! I shopped for all four kids in two evenings...about 4 hours! I did it with wish lists in hand and the cash in my pocket! The best way to avoid over shopping! If you don't have a debit card in your pocket to fall back on this really helps you stay within budget when you see something that you "know they would love" but is way over budget! It's not as fun but it is a good way to keep yourself(myself) from overspending. Anyway...now we just need to wrap it all up. I told Randal that I did the hunting and gathering of the gifts and now it's time for him to do the wrapping of the gifts. :D I'm sure we'll do it together.
I'd like to do a little bit of baking since we'll be staying home. I usually do a little bit to take with us but not alot because we (my siblings) all bring something with us when we all get together. We will definitely miss everyone this year...and Auntie Shanda and Uncle Craig's deep fried crispy turkey! And then there are all those yummy goodies that Auntie Shanda makes....she's always trying new things and we get to enjoy them!! Great Grandma's tarts...Auntie Tracie's tarts....okay okay...enough....I'm starting to drool. I think maybe tomorrow I'll make some butter tarts!! Well have a great Sunday....the last before Christmas! I can hardly believe that it's the 22nd of December! The year has flown by!
Happy Sunday!!
:) Heather

Grandma's surgery.

2007-12-21T09:05:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to let you know that Grandma's surgery seems to have been successful. I don't really know any details yet. Thanks again for praying ladies! And I'm off to finish my Christmas shopping! I started last night and took a fair chunk out of it! Have a great Friday!!

Please pray for Grandma.

2007-12-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

Randal's mom is going in for a major surgery tomorrow(Dec 20th). Please pray that the Lord will have those dr.s hands in His while they are doing the surgery. We don't know the time yet.
Thanks so much!

Here's Grandma.

Christmas -scroll for pictures

2007-12-19T00:53:00.000-08:00

Okay...I'll start off on a light note. I think we caught the culprit in the kitchen. I came out to the kitchen yesterday morning and found a mouse in the mousetrap in front of the dishwasher....the bad part---it was alive and caught by the back foot in the trap! I went in and woke up Randal to get rid of the dead mouse for me. {I just realized after 2 days that I typed "DEAD" mouse..it wasn't dead, it was alive...that's why I was getting him to come get rid of it!!!} He used gloves so it couldn't reach around and bite him. Janelle heard me wake up Randal and came out to see the critter. She trailed Randal into the washroom, as he carried the mouse to the toilet....hmmm not a good thing...she cried loudly as the silly mouse swam round and round and round......oh dear....she cried for quite some time. We sat on the couch for quite awhile as I explained the downside of having mice in the house....I think it eventually sunk in when I told her that a boy died in our town from having a mouse in his room that carried the Hantavirus. So I'm hoping that this was the ONLY mouse. It was not the kind of mouse that carries that virus, thank the Lord for that!
Onto other news not so light. My mother in law has been back in the hospital for the last week. As you may have read previously, she had surgery about a month ago to clean out blood clots in her legs. She has now had 16 surgeries on her legs for this reason! The dr decided to do some tests to see why the legs keep clotting up. He's decided that the legs are in bad enough shape that they need to be amputated, but she doesn't want to do this so he's come up with a couple of options for more artery bypasses. She has alot of artificial arteries in her lower abdomen/legs. He's decided to go with the less risky of the two options, which is grafting into the main artery that goes down the arm. Then he'll run a line down her right side under the skin, to her bypass in the lower abdomen. The objective is to increase blood pressure to her legs so that the clots will hopefully stop happening. I guess part of the reason that she keeps clotting up is that the blood flow is too light to her legs. So we're really hoping that this will do the trick.
If you can believe this....I haven't started Christmas shopping yet!!! I'm in a bit of a panic now. I get payed on the 20th...and that cheque is dedicated to Christmas. I popped into Walmart today and the lineups were insane!!! I was thinking that I could just go and get my shopping done in one day....hmmmm I sure hope this works out.
We were supposed to be going away for Christmas this year....We go to my family's Christmas get together every 2 years....so I'm quite saddened that we can't go this year with my mil in hospital. I guess we could go really but I just can't see leaving her here all alone for Christmas.
Nonetheless we will miss seeing everyone. It doesn't happen often that we see everyone at once anymore. Our kids are getting older now and starting to have jobs. Family get togethers are difficult to coordinate with so many new schedules to add to the mix! Anyway...You all have a super awesome Christmas!! Hug your loved ones! :D
Love Heather

This was taken on the drive up to visit Grandma at the hospital today.

Missy having dinner with Grandma at said hospital.

Close up of our Christmas tree. It looks like we'll be postponing our Christmas trip so I decided to get the tree decorated since we'll be here! It looks really pretty but the camera is very old and takes terrible pictures with the flash....everything looks awful. I'll have to try it out in daylight to see if it works better.

more....

a weird picture of the tree....I tried to take it without the flash but the shutter stays open for a long time and apparently I moved!

EEEEEEEEEK!! We have MICE!!!

2007-12-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

I opened the cupboard to get the flour out for pancakes and all of a sudden realized that there were mouse droppings all over the bottom shelf of the pantry cupboard!! NOOO! I HATE mice! I started opening drawers and cupboards and realized that it's EVERYWHERE!!! Even on the corner of the countertop! I left some clean dishes to dry on a tea towel beside the sink...I guess he was a thirsty mouse..cuz there was mouse poo on the tea towel. :( We've lived here for 17 months and have not had any mice before this..I'm thinking that someone left the door open one too many times.
Well I'm off to eat pancakes then get the kitchen de-mouse pooped!!
Have a great day/night.
:D
Heather
okay maybe the big grin isn't quite accurate~ :~\

Update....

2007-12-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a long 3 weeks! Randal had surgery on Nov. 16th, friday. [The disk between the 4th and 5th vertebrae ruptured INTO the spinal canal!! This caused him to lose control of his legs. They wouldn't hold him up and he ended up falling all over the place.]The following Tuesday he was mistakenly sent home! He called me from the hospital with the names of two drugs he needed a prescription for...he wasn't certain of how to spell them. I found this very odd that they'd send him home without prescriptions! He was told to go home and call outpatient services. We couldn't even find anything by that name! So called the rehab centre at the hospital. They sent someone over twice. Then after having him home for almost a week I was feeling quite at loose ends as to what should be happening with him. I was concerned about the incision and dressing on his back. He had 20 staples! It didn't look pretty...If I'd thought of it I'd have grossed you all out and taken pictures. :D
So I took him in to see our dr. on Monday, after him being home for 6 days. Our doctor was surprised to see him. He asked why Randal wasn't in the rehab unit at the hospital. Randal told him that the nurse had said that the hospital he was supposed to transfer to was full and that he should go home. Dr. was very surprised! He showed us the letter he had gotten from our neurosurgeon, saying that he'd arranged a bed for him in the rehab unit and that he'd been transferred there!! He quickly left the room and went out to make some calls. He came back in after speaking to the neurologist and the rehab unit. He said that yes they still wanted him in there but now there really were no beds, so go home and wait for them to call. Our dr. seemed very stressed and upset about this mixup! He said you hear about people dying because of medical mixups in hospitals but this was the first time he'd seen such a stupid mistake. They finally called on Thursday afternoon and I took him up there. He stayed until today. Six days with a 24 hr pass over the weekend.
My mom was here for 2 weeks and 1 day throughout this time. It was so nice to have her here. I don't really like staying alone with the kids but do on occasion, if I have to. I didn't ask her to come because I don't like to ask her to do things. She's quite busy with what she has going on at home there and in their church. But she came. So it was great having her here. She took over the cooking, the laundry, schooling Janelle and many other tasks! (I was her assistant :D )
It was so wonderful..We got alot of work done around here too. We sorted out the kids clothes and got rid of the stuff that no longer fits anyone....a huge job to tackle! Another job that she helped me with was grocery shopping...I really don't care for this task. So it was very cool to have someone help me with it.
We also switched two of the girls rooms. We got paint to do their rooms too. We also picked out some inexpensive blinds for the living room windows. There are 5 3x5 windows and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with them other than the white blinds.
We did alot of different things, including hospital visits, all the while doing the everyday stuff...It has been exhausting.
There is still a bunch of stuff to finish up before we can start our Christmas decorating. Courtenay put up our prelit artificial tree on the weekend. We're debating getting a real live tree that's extra tall...our ceiling is about 10 ft. So we'll have to see how that works out.
Anyway.. that's the long and the short of it. We've just been plugging away here, bit by bit getting things done.
Randal will now have to see a physiotherapist for awhile, privately. We just found out that our health plan doesn't cover this...well I shouldn't say that they don't cover it...they cover $8 of each visit. Each visit is between $50 and $65! But we serve a big God who takes care of his children! He will work this out..even when things seem impossible...they aren't..not with God!
Oh...I almost forgot! His Mom is doing well too. She had a bloodclot that wasn't too big...which is a first! She usually waits until she is going crazy with pain before she goes in and by then the clot is huge. One time she went in with a clot that went from her knee down to her foot! So this was great to catch it before it grew. She's driving and back to herself!

THANK YOU all for your prayer~ I so very much appreciated it!

2007-11-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

I just got a call from Randal. There are 15 people in the hallway in the hospital here in town where they want to transfer him. In other words...no beds available. They need the bed where he's at for someone else, so they are discharging him home and having someone come here to do rehab with him. This is not exciting. I'm exhausted and stressed....the thought of looking after him is...well...a bit overwhelming. Not that I don't want him home...it will be nice...I'm just worried about him not getting the care that he needs. He's going to need dressing changes on his back..and I don't know what else...But I guess we'll see about all that when he gets home. I guess this is a symptom of our health program in crisis.
Randal's mom is also coming home today. She'll go to her sister's in town here, as she shouldn't be staying alone. Will update later when I know more.

2007-11-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

Today is Monday....first day after a very busy weekend. Like I've already said..Randal and his mom both had surgery in the past three days. Randal on Friday night and then his mom on Sunday night. She was supposed to have her surgery on Sunday morning, but the nurse didn't follow dr.'s orders and put blood thinners into her I.V. bag. Which caused her to have a long nosebleed and her blood was much too thin to be able to do surgery. She spent the afternoon/evening coughing up the blood. Then the other thing the nurse did was give her food on Sunday morning. She figured she should feed her because Florence is a diabetic and her blood sugar was really low. She should have put dextrose or something of that sort into her I.V. This made it impossible for them to do surgery for 12 hours. When her dr. came in he was furious! He went up one side of the nurse and down the other...right in front of Florence. She was quite amazed...she said she'd never seen a dr. do that before. Can't say that I'd blame him though. If the clot in Flo's leg had gone to her heart/brain and she had died before surgery because of these mistakes...it would have been very bad, obviously. So it has been quite the weekend! Hope you're all well.
So here's my devotional today... I thought it was an apt subject after the experience I just described.

Fellowship Without Forgiveness: Impossible
by Jon Walker

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

Fellowship without forgiveness is impossible.

As believers, we’re called “to settle our relationships with each other.” (2 Corinthians 5:18 MSG) We need to consistently forgive others and receive forgiveness from others, or we’ll “give up in despair.” (2 Corinthians 2:7 CEV)

Whenever we’re hurt by someone, we have a choice to make: Will we focus on retaliation or resolution?

The Bible speaks candidly about settling the score: “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15 NIV)

In God’s economy, it’s not enough to say we won’t seek revenge; we’re to press into the very heart of forgiveness, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave us. (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

The Bible is very clear that forgiveness is not optional for the Christ-follower. God sets this high standard because he knows how much is at stake in your life: Bitterness and unforgiveness are a cancer that eventually will destroy you from the inside out. Forgiveness is the scalpel that removes the tumor.

This doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to immediately forgive and be done with it. As you become more and more Christ-like, that will become possible, but for now you may have to work at forgiving someone who has hurt you in a particularly painful way. In other words, you may forgive this person but soon begin to feel a root of unforgiveness growing in your heart.

When this occurs, you can go to King Jesus and ask him to help you with this cycle. He will help you release the offender, and the Holy Spirit will guide you in your effort.

A major point here is that forgiveness is a choice you can make. The power of God, working within you, means you no longer have to remain a slave to unforgiveness or bitterness.

In Colossians, the Apostle Paul provides the basis and motivation for forgiveness: “You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13 NLT, italics added). When we remember the price Jesus paid to forgive us, how can we not forgive? (Romans 5:8)

What now?

· When you forgive, you’re not pretending it didn’t hurt – Forgiveness means you no longer hold the offense against the offender. It means you’ve pardoned the debt, and you’ve intentionally chosen to release the one who hurt you. We’re to love deeply, because “love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 NIV)

· Stop right now and talk to God – Have an honest conversation with God about someone you need to forgive. Our heavenly Father knows that it’s not easy to let go of our hurts, but he will give you the grace to forgive.

· Be honest with God – Cry out to God; tell him exactly how you feel. He won’t be surprised or upset by your anger, hurt, insecurity, or bitterness.

UPDATE

2007-11-18T01:09:00.000-08:00

Randal is doing quite well.. the surgeon is happy with the surgery. It looks pretty good. I don't think there will be any permanent nerve damage..he was up and walked with a walker to the door of his room once today and sat up twice. I've been away from home for 2 nights and the kids farmed out to some wonderful friends.
The kids were brought to the hospital tonight to see Dad and then I brought them home. So we're all at home tonight except for Randal.
I stopped in at Randal's mom's place on the way home and she was having strong symptoms of a blood clot in her leg. So I made some calls and had her other son "convince" her to go to the hospital. I don't think she was very pleased with me, but you don't mess with this! She has already had 14 leg surgeries with life and death implications, in the past couple or three years. So anyway..this is not good but our God is and He is very capable and willing to take care of her and to see her through this as He is with Randal...
So....please add Florence to your list of people to pray for.
thank you so much...and please pray that nothing else happens around here!
♥Heather

M.I.A.

2007-11-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let you all kn0w that I may not be around for a few days.
Randal hurt his back and the last several days have been bad for him. He has been having a LOT of trouble walking. He's needed support to walk. So he ended up falling quite a few times this week. We figured it probably happened on Tuesday as that was an extra bad day. When I say "it", I mean the ruptured disk. His disc between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae has ruptured out and into the spinal canal. It is compressing the nerves that normally hang in that space and he has next to no control over his legs. Why didn't we go to the dr. sooner, you say? Mmmmm... well mostly because he's hurt his back before and going to the chiropractor and resting has fixed it up. So Wednesday and Thursday he saw the chiropractor and he told Randal that this looks very serious and to go see his dr. So yesterday morning we went to our dr. and he sent us straight to emergency to meet the neurologist. He had several tests done. Once the results were back the neurologist came back and explained to us that Randal has a ruptured disk and that they want to operate right away last night. The hospital here doesn't do that kind of surgery so they want to transfer him to the next city where the neurosurgeon is. There weren't any beds at the hospital where they do the surgery, so they ended up keeping him overnight where he is. So right now I'm waiting to hear from them as to when they will transfer him. The neurologist did say that they want to do this surgery pronto so that there isn't permanent paralysis in his legs. So sometime today. Please pray for him today.
Thanks alot.
♥Heather

Unprecedented Wind Storm

2007-11-12T23:21:00.001-08:00

Today we had an incredible wind storm. It started last night and continued through the night and throughout the day. It was awesome to watch but had sad results for many inhabitants of our fine city. The winds were gusting up to 65 mph/105kmh! Very high winds..maybe not for those of you who live in hurricane country but this is unheard of in this area! We went for a walk down by the lake where the wind was gusting in off the lake.I was SO annoyed that I didn't have a camera, but I did find some pictures on the internet. So here you go......

One of the many broken pine trees in the park.

Uprooted trees by the dozens! I heard that about half of the pine trees in the park are down.

The waves were roaring up onto the beach..I don't think I've ever seen such large waves on a lake..although it's hard to tell how big they are in this picture. On the news they had footage of someone surfing and the guy disappeared under the curl of the wave!!

The water is normally about 20 feet to the left of that sign.
While we walked along the sea(lake)wall the wind was almost blowing us off our feet. It made us weave as we walked along. The sand was whipped up and we felt like we were being sand blasted at times. Why, you say, would you go out in this?? Well...for no good reason other than to feel the sheer force of the wind and be out in it experiencing natures amazing force!
They said on the news that this is the worst wind storm that our city has ever experienced.
photos courtesy of Goog*le.
(Peter...I can't comment on your new blog...can you contact me via my email on my profile? thx)

Remembrance Day.

2007-11-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

Today we paused to remember those who gave their lives in honour of their families and their countries.
Since today was Remembrance Day our church service was rescheduled to start at 9 am so that we'd all have lots of time to get over to the cenotaph for the ceremony.
We got there and I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge crowd! We couldn't see anything that was going on until we walked around to the other side of the crowd and then we were able to at least peek around and through the crowd. I found it an emotional ceremony. All our lives we've heard about these men dying for their country.(now women too) Today it really hit home for me. I suddenly had a revelation of just what these people actually sacrificed for! They did NOT do this for themselves, really...They did it for the generations coming after them. Generations that they would not see, even if they did manage to survive the war! What an incredible sacrifice...it's mind boggling really..and I have to really think about it to grasp and hold onto that "aha!" moment that I had today. I was also contemplating and wondering how many generations after would we remember...would it really have any meaning for. How many....one, two, maybe three...It's really sad how forgetful we are. It's our responsibility to remember.

I found it a sober day today thinking about this all. Especially now that we have a current conflict going on that we're involved in.
I'm so thankful for those that have sacrificed and continue to...Many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice..and to all of them I say THANK YOU!

National Bring Your Grade Nine to Work Day.

2007-11-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

Last week it was National bring your Grade Nine to Work Day. So Randal took Courtenay with him out in the bush. She got to have a look and experience a day in the life of "Dad at work". She's decided it isn't something that she'd want to have as a career, although she does enjoy going out in the bush with Dad. Here's the report she wrote to send to Daddy's boss. She also took a copy to school and is using it for credits for school. Kinda nice to spend the day out driving in the bush and have it count towards school!!! Well I'll leave you with it then...Enjoy!

Bring Your Grade 9 To Work Day

November 7^th 2007

Ministry of Forest and Range

Compliance and Enforcement

The three sites that I went to today with my Dad were:

******** Bros. Mill

Logging sites

Several range pastures.

At ***** mill we visited the scale site. I learned that the logging trucks park their full load on the scale, go and unload it, and then come back and weigh it again to find the difference.

They categorize the different kinds of wood to find out how much they should be paid according to the weight of the logs. A cubic metre of logs is worth from $50-$200 depending on the type of wood. They put all the information into their computers and send it down to Victoria. The mills that don’t have access to computers store their information in booklets

The logs are unloaded either few by few by a front end loader or by a big electric machine called Letourneau that picks up the whole load at once. It is electric because it is more efficient than diesel powered Wagners because it can go uphill with a load and it has the ability to brake coming back downhill. After the logs are unloaded they are either taken to log decks or directly to the mill. Before they take it to the mill they mark and chop the logs every five meters to make sure it isn’t rotten on the inside.

After we left the mill we drove up to Jack Creek area and drove around looking at piles of logs and logged areas. Here I learned that loggers cut down the trees by hand with chainsaws. I also learned that if you want to log an area you must have a license to cut, unless it is your own private property.

We stopped in a few clearings and I was taught about the mountain pine beetle and how to identify a “MPB” attacked tree. The bark has squiggly indents in it from the beetles burrowing around and laying eggs, there is usually spots of pitch on the bark from trying to push the bug out, and there is a blue ring of fungus on the butt of the tree. Here I also learned a little about how GPS works and that if a moose were to ever charge you to climb a tree and call for help.

The third thing we did was go to Brownie Pasture area and looked for cows that were or weren’t supposed to be on certain property.

You can tell who the owner of the cow is by the brand on the cow. The brandings are either right or left, hip, rib, or shoulder. The ones we were looking at were RRC, right rib cow. We weren’t able to make out any markings on any of the cows though because they were all either too wet or too old and faded. The cows eat basically the same thing as deer or moose: grass or small green plants, though sometimes when they are desperately hungry they will eat twigs. Ranchers place salt blocks in the grazing area for the cows to lick. Putting the salt block somewhere ungrazed will help move the cows into a new area. You can tell that an area has been grazed by the height of the grass and whether it’s been trampled down. In the whole day we saw approximately thirty-two cows.

In conclusion, I had a good day today. I enjoy trekking through the bush and looking at stuff. The positives were just the whole day in general. The only negatives I can think of were getting up, the cold weather in the morning, and trying to write notes on the bumpy bush roads.

thanks for reading. Have an awesome night/day.

A Giveaway!!!

2007-11-09T23:01:00.001-08:00

Hey you all!! Sue over at Praise and Coffee is having an awesome giveaway!!! Go take a look!
See ya tomorrow. :D

2007-11-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

Today was a tiring day. I woke up with a headache and it progressed from bad to worse. I hate taking migraine pills so waited for too long to take it. Why do I do this?? It never goes away!! Just take the pill and get it over with. I ended up taking it but had to take more because I waited too long-DUH! Some day I will learn...either that or go get my neck/back worked over!! I'm tired so am just doing a quick "hi how are ya? how was your day" kinda post..so take care and we'll talk again tomorrow.

ps. I have an interesting post with pictures that I'll probably do tomorrow..or possibly saturday.
:)

The Janelle song!!

2007-11-07T22:02:00.001-08:00

This song is not really about Janelle, but it could be written for her word for word! As I'm sure all you parents can attest, it is a very truthful song. :D I'm sure most of you have experienced the things listed in this song. It's very painful and extremely frustrating...annoying..need I go on..when your child(ren) won't STAY in bed!! Hope you enjoy the video!

Not your typical Tuesday.

2007-11-06T22:54:00.000-08:00

oh Nooo... I see that there is a scheduled outage for RIGHT NOW!!!
I started to write this post and noticed that Blogger just went offline! I nearly had a panic attack!! That's not a good sign! :P Obviously it came back on within a minute or so.
Well today was the funeral that I was telling you about prepping for on Sunday. It went really well and the family was so happy with the decorating that we did as well as the food. It was really good to know that they were happy with the results.
At one point during the service they had an open mic. I decided that I would go up and just say a few brief words. Now you have to understand that I'm the person that used to look for the nearest hole in the ground if someone spoke to me from the pulpit, at one time. Well I'm much better than I used to be about that, but still find it hard to speak in front of a crowd, but felt that I really wanted to say a little something. So I rehearsed in my head what I was going to say and as soon as the first guy finished talking I jumped up(almost literally!) and headed up to the mic. I adjusted the mic and tried to open my mouth to speak...well my chin started to quiver and there was no way that words were going to come out of my mouth! I tried a couple of times and thought I should just go back to my seat. Then thought-'no...I need to do this'. So I sucked it up...took a deep breath and started talking. What I said was really not what I had planned on saying and am a bit disappointed in that but ...oh well..at least it was something. Some people(that KNOW me)were fairly surprised when I stood up, because, like I said...NOT something I'd normally do voluntarily!! One lady said to me she couldn't believe it and said to the lady beside her.."HEATHER is going up there?!? But anyway.. it really isn't as bad as you think..well actually it was worse than I thought, because I didn't count on getting all emotional!! Anyway...it was fine in the end... It was a lovely remembrance of an amazing lady! I count it a privilege to have been able to serve in honour of her today.
Hope you all have a great night...or day whichever it is when you read this!!
take care...
ps...
we didn't see Maude nearly as much as I would have liked in the last year and now am regretting it...so don't forget to take time for the important things in life...People!! Not activities, things or events but *people*.

Wow...5 days in a row..

2007-11-05T23:18:00.000-08:00

This could actually end up being good for me!! I'm not very good with doing the same thing very many days in a row! Well since I've signed up to post everyday for a month....I'm thinking that blogging could actually force me to form a habit!!
How many days do they say it takes to form a habit?? Well I googled that. I came up with a few answers, 30 days, 21 days, 90 days...but the consensus seems to be 21 days. So...after this month of blogging I figure that I should have a habit formed! Hmmm we shall see. I am so NOT a creature of habit. How about you? Are you one of those people that drives the same route every time you go to the grocery store...or take the kids to school..go to work? Yeah..not me....I take a different route...one of many...each time, whichever strikes my fancy, so to speak. But I do tend to avoid main street in case you cared haha. I have to say though that becoming a bit more of a creature of habit would be a good thing. I've always liked change though, so this is a long habit in the making. I've tried before to form some good habits but gave up too soon... Blogging...hmm I'm not sure that this is the BEST habit to form but I'm hoping that any habit will help!! :P
But then one could look at it from another point of view! It could be said that I am very flexible!! :)That is a very admirable quality is it not?!? That's the way that I prefer to put it. So I think we'll leave it at that! At the end of posting for a whole month(30 days), we will be past those 21 days..and I will be one habit less flexible than I was at the beginning of November 2007!

Our Sunday

2007-11-04T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today started off with church. We go to a small church of around 100 people. We've gone there..well I have...since 1989. Randal grew up in this church. The neighbour lady took him to Sunday School there and eventually his mom started going too. So when you're taking that next door kid to church or just under your wing...don't think it's insignificant...it can change the course of that person's life! That church is the center point (after God of course) of our lives. Randal's brother met his wife there. It's been really good. Alot of people have come and gone...There are some that we've been friends with for a long time. They've almost become family..mine doesn't live nearby(until this year)and some of them have become family away from family. We experienced weddings together...we've had children together...we've held each others babies..had showers for each other...had some really fun and good times over the years. Some of them helped us through a tragic funeral...well the funeral wasn't but you know what I mean...we've watched our children grow and begin school...and some of them have almost reached graduation already...The crazy part is how fast this has all happened! Before you know it we'll be helping each other with our kids weddings!

This afternoon a friend and I spent a couple of hours getting the fellowship room at our church set up and decorated for a funeral. One of our good friends lost their mother yesterday afternoon. So Lorraine(my girlfriend) and I are getting things in order to have the funeral on Tuesday. Maude was 89 yrs old so this isn't really too sad a funeral..well they're always sad..but it's not so bad when they're this age. You know that they've gone to a better place, where they are no longer in pain, and their body parts all work again...well actually better than they ever did!! It was great to get together and do this for a mutual friend! There's just something special about being there for those people in your life that have been there for you when you needed it! :)
so now we're home...eating a late supper and watching Evan Almighty...good end to a good day. Well I hope you all had a great weekend too!
♥Heather

Saturday...the THIRD day!

2007-11-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

Today was Saturday...and we spent the whole day home...It was really nice. It seems like we rarely do that...especially with all of us here! Randal was outside cleaning up leaves and finishing off winterizing the pool. That kept him busy all day because he also put away the deck furniture and I don't know what else! But it looks great out there...other than the fact that everything is either dead or dying :\
We're doing an experiment with the potted plants from the pool deck. The girls and Randal brought them all in. They're sitting down in the workshop for the winter. We're hoping that they'll survive and we can put them back out in the spring. Annuals are SO expensive. It's really easy to spend a couple hundred $$ on flowers! Although it's also very painful. This year I waited until everything was clearance priced....One downside to that, is that then everything takes so long to get big. By the end of the growing season it all is looking just beautiful! So hopefully the little experiment works.

Courtenay and I spent the day painting. We got the kitchen and the livingroom finished, well almost! The trim still needs doing, but at least we got those tall walls done! Once we finish the trim (tomorrow, I hope)the next challenge will be to reach the ceiling in the entrance! It's about 10' going up to about 14'...I'm not sure where we'll find a couple of ladders tall enough to get that done!? Oh well..we'll figure that out when we get to it.

Hope you all had a great Saturday today, and we'll chat again tomorrow! :D
ps... I see this is technically after midnight... but it's still the same day for me! especially since I haven't gone to bed yet!

Charts and Rewards~Ideas anyone??

2007-11-02T23:17:00.000-07:00

Okay well here we go...the second post in as many days!! Wow....shocking, I know!
Well today was just another average day. Janelle and I did school for the morning which we ended off by baking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. She loves baking. When we finished that, we headed over to Tim Horton's. I treated her to a hot chocolate. This is a huge deal to her, as it isn't something that I do often...I think maybe 4 times total for her! She was so excited. I talked to her about doing this weekly as a reward for completing a certain number of tasks. Of course she thought this was a great idea!! So I'm going to put together a reward system of checks for certain tasks completed. When she gets so many checks than she can cash it in for a trip to Tim Horton's with Mommy...or Walmart with a few dollars for some sort of reward. I'm thinking that this is probably the best way to motivate this child. I was trying to find something that was really important to her. I racked my brain and couldn't really think of anything that she REALLY likes to do or have, etc.. Then I realized her favourite thing to do is spend time with me(swelled head I know!)and even that much more so if we're going somewhere fun, or if it involves hot chocolate or shopping. So now I need to do a chart of some sort for her. IDEAS anyone???? I'm not very good with charts...I like them but I really have to work at it to keep up with them! So hopefully we can stick with this chart this time. If you know of a good chore/routine chart, please let me know! Thanks :)Have a super weekend! ~Heather

And time keeps marching on.....

2007-11-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

Well here it is Thursday night. Tomorrow is the last day of the week already! I can't believe how fast the time is flying by! Only 53 days until Christmas! That scares the heck outa me! I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet...Shopping is something that I don't enjoy, so I guess I procrastinate doing it...Not a smart strategy!! Oh well...I guess I still have time if I get my butt in gear right away. In the meantime I have lots that is keeping me busy right now.
As you may already know, I'm homeschooling Janelle. I'm still trying to figure out where to place her in all her subjects. We've been working on CAT tests for the last few days. She doesn't mind doing them, it just takes SO long to get them done. She's not doing too badly on them so far, but I won't know the official results until I send them in to be scored. This should really help with getting her set up and going on the rest of her subjects. We've been working on science, socials studies, cursive and a bit of math so far. We've also been working on a novel study entitled, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It's a great book that she seems to be enjoying. I remember that book from elementary school and loved it! Our teacher read it out loud to the class and he substituted students names for the characters in the book. It must have mad a huge impact on me because I still remember that and that was back in grade 3! That's 30 yrs ago!! yikes...and we're back to time flying!
I've also been wanting to get the painting finished. My daughter and I have been painting for several months off and on. We started with the livngroom. It has a vaulted ceiling, so the wall is 8' on one side but goes up to 10' or 11' on the high side. It also has one wood wall that has grooves that go up and down. They're about a half inch deep...so they are a total pain to paint! Well first off we painted the primer. Then the first coat of paint. I then went back and got a second can of paint to do the second coat, since it hadn't covered very well. We put the paint on and then realized that it was the WRONG colour!!! GRRR! Ya know...the $$ of the paint wasn't the hardest part to swallow (altho that was big too), it was the fact that we had to get back up onto that ladder that I had to stand on the very top of to barely reach the top of the high wall! I struggle with having enough energy just to do the regularly daily stuff, so this was reeeaaally frustrating! Anyway...this put me off for quite awhile..not that I was sitting around...there is always LOTS to be done with a family of6!!In the meantime we painted Courtenay's room. It looks great. I should post some finished pictures. It went from being a plain white room to lime green on three walls and the end wall is black and white vertical stripes with a wavy mirror going across it. She picked the colour herself and did a good job of it. Anyway, we got back at the painting in the livingroom and diningroom. We didn't finish but I'm hoping that I can talk her into painting this Saturday with me and finishing the job! She's a huge help, actually if truth be known, she does most of the painting. That's the way she likes it. She wants me to be her "go-fer".So anyway I'm hoping to finish it this weekend.
Randal put up the new light fixtures in the diningroom this past week as well, so I'll post some pics of those too. I got the light fixtures on sale for a great price. I walked into R*ona one day for some small thing and ended up walking out with new light fixtures for the main floor. The store was having a garage sale in their empty green house. They had matching fixtures on clearance priced at about 70% off! I was so pleased and they look great with the new paint colour. They didn't look as nice along the former (pink)wall colour!! Anyway must get off to bed. Hope everyone is keeping well.
take care and pop in again sometime...I'll keep you posted on the painting/light fixture installation progress!

The Zoo

Me and My Bargain

Summer

My Baby Girl is 17!!

Yesterday

Private Blog....

A stormy, rainy friday afternoon....with Janelle

Our Easter

Photography

Easter Monday

Happy Thursday.

Do you lose pictures?

This is....Spring...?!

More Spring Break

Back to School.

A day of Adventures! (updated today)

Spring Break

And yet more snow!

Harper Update.

Winter

Please pray.

Help..... Anyone...?

Enjoy this wonderful Christmas season! :)

Rita

Which one are you?

The Water Taxi

My place of origin....ain't it purdy??

that warm fuzzy fleece blanket

Another day at the Zoo.

Thank You!

HELP!

We're adopting!!

You Are an Audrey!

IT'S OFFICIAL!! FINALLY!!!

Wordless Wednesday .....Autumn pictures

Time FLIES!

so...now what....?

It's cooling down for fall

contemplations.....

summer....cousins.....fun.......

My early birthday party

My brother and family...came to visit...yaay!

Major hailstorm!

~~Some favourites~~

Family Get Together

Canada Day photos

More Photos

~"~ Camp Kawkawa ~"~

waaaaaa.... :(

YES!!!

Don't Worry.

Yes.....No....??

High Water

Wordless Wednesday (almost Thursday)

A Blast From the Past

My little baker

IT'S HOT!!

Mother's Day

Update on Grandma II

Update on Grandma

*PRAYER REQUEST*

AND THE WINNER IS.....

Photo Caption Contest

Snow in April II

***Winter in April***

Walking in snake country

I Got a Camera!!! yaaay!

Fire Aftermath

FIRE!!!

I GOT ONE!!

Hello again!!

What are you???

Hi Friends! :)

Happy Birthday Randal!!

update again

Our Christmas

DONE!!

Grandma's surgery.

Please pray for Grandma.

Christmas -scroll for pictures

Some favourites

PRAYER REQUEST

Winter in April