Holidays

It's Tuesday and Henry, Jesse and Jada have left to visit our friend Russ out at his cabin. They may sleep over tonight. That leaves Holly at home packing for her move to the coldest city in Canada.

She leaves early tomorrow morning.

Morgan is driving her to the airport as it has become 'tradition' for him to see her off.

They have spent a lot of time together in the past year and he's really going to miss her.

So.Am.I.

So. To distract myself and be productive at the same time I'm going to spend the rest of my week off scrubbing the house from top to bottom, baking for the freezer and collecting new recipes for quick dinners.

This is to help me stay organized as I plunge into a new gardening season.

This past year I did not garden the way I had hoped.

The loss of my little portable greenhouse and extra work during the spring season meant that most of the plants I had grown from seed were lost. Mind you, the extra work also meant I had extra money to put towards a new permanent greenhouse. A good trade off I think!

Renovating also took up a lot of time.

This year I hope to learn more about gardening on the prairies as I look for more specific garden information on that topic.

I've already found some great resources.

Olds College has an entire Hort week every July that sounds fascinating. I may not get there this year but. . .

One of these years. . .

Can you imagine an entire week devoted to something you are passionate about?!

In the meantime, I hope to rejoin the Horticultural society, visit as many gardens as possible, read everything I can get my hands on, and grow things.

I want to grow as many things as I possibly can.

To all of you. . .

I wish you a blessed Happy New Year, and the opportunity to do something you're passionate about.

See you next year!

Christmas Dinner

I had Christmas dinner at my house this year.

As my niece Colleen was coming up with her little family,(including their very small dog Pebbles) I knew I would have to work hard to come close to filling her mom's shoes (my sister Lisa is the queen of good dinners).

I worked feverishly all day Monday, phoning Lisa when I needed a recipe and drafting all three of my boys to help get my room ready to feed twelve people. (okay, eleven and a baby)

Henry kept coming up with ideas which I had to shoot down as I wanted things to be both pretty and functional.

Jesse came up with a good layout. It involved taking out almost all of the furniture, dismantling the computer and sweeping up the many clumps of dog hair hidden both under and behind much of the furniture.(Thankfully we were the only ones to see just how much hair there was!)

Since we also invited our neighbours Kelly and Teresa (parents of Jada's best friend Diesel) I was able to justify having lots of variety in my food. (I love variety!)

We all enjoyed our meal and then gathered in the living room for dessert and a little entertainment.

Have you ever wondered how a big dog plays with a small dog?

Verrry carefully!

It was a lovely evening.

Holly got the chance to hold Colton, Colleen took the opportunity to show him off a bit and. . .

We opened the gifts Colleen and Seb had brought for us.

The girls got the longest scarves I have ever seen, the boys some really snazzy ties, Henry a nice thick fantasy book and I. . .

Well, can you guess what I got?

That's right people, a delicious box of turtles, just for me.

Yum!!!

They were gone by the next evening.

And no, I didn't share. . .

Coming soon. . .

Check in tomorrow for my rather long Christmas post.
Not too early though.
I'm sleeping in!
Whoohoo!
And. . . Just so I don't miss it. . .
A GREAT BIG Happy Birthday to my Aunty Nancy!
I hope you have an awesome day!!
See you all tomorrow.
Merry Christmas!

Computers

Well this may be my last post for a while as my computer has just crashed.
Why?
I have absolutely no idea! Computers drive me crazy!
Morgan has kindly allowed me to borrow his laptop so. . .
Maybe if I'm really nice to him he'll let me use it again.
Now I'm off to bed as I am cooking Christmas dinner for twelve tommorow.
Have a great Christmas everyone!

Quiet Sundays

Surprise!

Look what my mom sent me!

A lovely surprise on a cold winter's morning. ( It's -26C 14.8F and -36C -32.8F with wind chill)

Decorating The Christmas Tree

Wht IS this boy doing?!

And WHY is there a paper lamb growing out of his head?!

Deep Freeze

Well by this time tomorrow we will be in the deep freeze.
The weather's been lovely up until now, but starting tomorrow. . .
Shudder!
Asthma and frigid temperatures don't go well together so I've been running around like mad trying to get most of my shopping done so I won't be running from store to store in -25C ( -13F)temps. (Down to -32C or -25F overnight)
A day or two is hard, but I can manage, although driving the bus is about all I manage to get done in a day.
At the moment however, the long range forecast shows this cold Arctic high settling in for at least two weeks!
So. I'll be working very hard, remembering my blessings (warm home, hot showers, good food, big stack of books, etc.) rather than dwelling on the difficulties.
I will likely take Tamara's advice and blog about warm things.
Have a great weekend.
And stay warm!

Wordless Wednesday or Welligton Tour Part 2

Bazaar Update

Our Christmas bazaar went very well, for which I'm very thankful!

There were of course, glitches.

There are always glitches!

The heavy rubber mats we use to cover the hardwood floor were supposed to be down before I got there to set up on Friday. They weren't.

Thankfully, I was there an hour and a half earlier than planned and Jesse was with me, so he rolled up his sleeves and with help fron Mr. DeHaas, got those mats down in record time. Jesse was in charge of the kids games but was happy to come along and help set up as well.

Whew!

Morgan got to school shortly after we did, as he took the afternoon off work to help set up, and get ready to run the Wii games once the bazaar began.

This is my cousin Leona and her daughter.

Leona, her husband and kids moved here last year from rainy B.C and she offered earlier this year to be my Co-organizer.

It was great fun running this event with her.

It seems the inability to stop coming up with 'good ideas" runs in the family. . .

Once we had measured out the area needed for the petting zoo (something new and also a Leona idea) I could see our traditional set up was going to have to be fiddled with. Thankfully my friend Joyce stopped by during a break in professional development day.

Joyce and I have run the bazaar together several times and she can visualize how a space can works better than anyone I know. A few suggestions, a bit of table moving, and we were on our way!

Some of you may wonder what kids do while their moms are volunteering their time.

Some like to give their little brothers airplane rides.

Others get a kick out of climbing the bleachers .

Unfortunately, if you're old enough to be useful your mom will probably ask you for help often. And she will greatly appreciate it!

The petting zoo was the big hit of the night. (And that pretty young woman in blue is my youngest sister-in-law. We are all looking forward to meeting the newest addition to the family!)

Have you ever seen anything this cute?

It's starting to get busy.

I wonder what the kids are up to?

The Wii was very popular. That cute redheaded boy beside Morgan is one of my nephews.

Apple bobbing! That looks like fun. This game was organized by the sons of both Joyce and my friend Loretta. There seems to be rather a lot of water on the floor though. I wonder why?. . .

"What do you mean if they get the golf ball at the bottom of the bucket they get an extra prize?!!"

Who would be foolish enough to do that?

It seems a lot of kids were.

I saw several walking around dripping water as they went, soaked from head to knee literally!!

To their moms I can only say. . .

I.am. so.sorry!!

Oh look! It's Sinterklaas and Swarte Piet! In the Netherlands they come to leave gifts for children in their wooden shoes on December the 5Th. Although I think these days they probably fill up more running shoes than wooden shoes!

Loretta and Jurrina chat with a bazaar goer about the wonderful soaps and lotions they make for their company Rub It In.

There were many lovely handcrafted items for sale.

Wow! This is quite the turnout!

What's going on in the foyer now that supper's over?

It looks like the interim Principal's wife thinks her husband (far left) needs a time out.

I should think so! Look how close they let Jesse get with his wet sponges! Yikes!

There is nothing a kid enjoys more than the chance to throw wet sponges at the teachers!

Looks like the Bazaar is over. All that's left is the clean up. . .

Thank you, Thank you to those of you who stayed, unasked, to the bitter end. You guys were awesome!

And did any of you notice how many people came up with good ideas or helped to run things? I've only mentioned a small sampling. There were also the beautifully made gift baskets, tasty supper, delicious desserts, dutch treats, tables loaded with toys at prices kids could afford thanks to the ability of a few moms to find 'really good deals' and beautiful backdrops for SinterKlaas were created. The list of things people did just goes on and on.

You could never thank everybody who helped in an event like this. Not only would you end up forgetting someone, there are always people who work so quietly behind the scenes they sometimes go unnoticed. With out every one's effort though, an event like this would fail.

So to every one who contributed I want to say a huge Thank You!

Look what I got to bring home. Henry made the winning bid on this basket. Isn't he sweet?

Now, I'm going to rest for a few days. . .

Quiet Sundays

Bazaar day

Well it's bazaar day today and I'm getting a little nervous.
I was up past midnight fighting with my computer, trying to make a bunch of posters. I would type up what I needed in Word, spend way too much time trying to fancy it up with a border, check how it looked in print preview and then trying to print it.
Disaster! Anything I tried to print would be missing the title or a sentence or both.
By the last poster all I got were random letters and punctuation!
I e-mailed everything over to my friend Ev's in the middle of the night in hopes that she might be able to figure it out this morning.
Otherwise. . . I have to do everything over by hand!
Which I don't have time for .
*Note This is what happens when you wait until the last minute.
I'm going to jump into the shower, do a bit of baking to take along and then we'll be off to school to set things up.
We've got a lot of things happening at the bazaar this year. More than we've ever had before.
I hope it all fits into the gym. . .
I'll be back to morrow to let you know how it went.

Wellington Garden Centre

Here are a series of pictures from the garden centre.

It is one of my favorite places to go to when I need inspiration. (And I haven't managed to leave it empty handed yet!)

It has a series of small buildings, each with a different function. The buildings are connected by walkways lined with many interesting pots, statues and displays.

And the show gardens. . .

They are small, but you get the opportunity to see many plants in a garden setting. If you go back often during the warm months you will see just how these plants look through out the garden season.

The weeping 'Red Jade" crab apple tree in their garden has convinced me that I need one for my own garden as well!

I hope you enjoy the tour.

Tomorrow, the potting shed and the main building. . .