Busy busy Bumblebee......

Checking the bird boxes

At the weekend we took down some of the bird boxes and looked inside of them. It was really interesting to see the different styles of nests and different birds that had used them over the Summer to raise their young....

Sadly in one we found a dead nestling that had been abandoned. Poor little thing! It was nice to see that Lloyds handywork had been appreciated though and the boxes were used - we plan to make lots more over winter and have them all through the woods - we have loved feeding our bird families this year and watching all the babies grow through the Summer - they were so sweet to watch and although some of them have ow left to fly South, some of them have stayed around and may end up staying through the Winter! We just keep buying more feeders :)

Riding in circles.....

Sam got a new bike at the beginning of Summer but didn't really use it at all the whole Summer long! Now Fall has arrived and we have cleared out the workshop and he has room to ride it around the workshop in circles he LOVES this 'racetrack' feel of riding round and round in circles and he will spend hours just riding around in circles while Lloyd is working out in the workshop! He is doing so great on his new bike!

Sam gets messy!

Sam having some slimy fun with cornflour! He loved it - we mixed in some drops of blue food colouring...then a little while later we added in some red! Then a bit later on he noticed that it had all turned white again! He thought this was MAGIC because the colour had GONE!!!! Sam loved that he could roll the solid into balls in his hands and then let it trickle through his fingers like a sticky liquid :)

Home from school....

Back in the old routine......school is in full swing again and is going well. Abigail is loving it. Today she came home with her first invitation to a birthday party - it's actually to the boy next doors party! Hhhmmmm we should watch out - another 30 years and they could have 5 kids together ;) More importantly I should tell her to watch out that he isn't looking up her skirt - the way Lloyd was looking up mine when I was in class with him - mind you I was at LEAST 8 when that was happening so I guess we do have another year for THAT ;)

Lloyd's week off is almost over - he keeps saying sadly that he has to go back to work on Monday :( I'm kind of glad in way as if he stays home much longer I won't be able to fit in my size pants for long!!! We keep going out to eat and he keeps making me coffee with cream!!!! And I'm so lazy when he's home! Go back to work Lloyd so that I can DO something ;) And eat less!!!!! ;) I like being a size 8!!!!! I like my size 7's even more and I have my eye on those size 6's thank you very much!!!! :) All these trips to Smittys for breakfast are not helping!!!!

But it has been lovely having him home! The sooner he retires the better! At least then we will have a pool that I can swim in each morning and work off the coffee creamer in ;)

A craving quenched.....

Freckled lemonade...I keep seeing the commercials and it's been almost a year since I had some in Vancouver! So today we stopped off at Red Robins so I could have a glass! Yum!

Have to say the service sucked!!!! And we won't go back for a LONG time - until I NEED more freckled lemonade ;) But that stuff is LOVELY :) Still lemonade (traditional still lemonade to those of you in England) with chunks of strawberries in it. Yummy!!!

And some of me too ;)

Lloyd snapped some of me too ;) I was NOT very good at glow golf!!! Lets just say that more than a few times the ball had a little help getting into the hole ;)

Glow golf!

Our trip to the zoo today was rained off, so we headed to West Ed Mall instead and went and played Glow Golf instead! It was great fun and Sam loved it! Yu play in the dark and they have all the ultra violet lights on so anything white glows :) Lloyd said my teeth were glowing like Ross's on Friends :) His and Sams weren't which just goes to show my white strips work!!! ;)

Vegetables from our garden today......

dinner on our table tonight.....

Have to admit I nibbled on some of the peas and carrots out by the vegetable garden while I was picking them too :) and Charlie had any of the beets that were too small :) The purple haze carrots are yummy and look really pretty in their purple coats :)

I can't WAIT to have the golden beets for dinner!!! They are my favourite vegetable and were the first vegetable I chose to grow this year :)

Only in Alberta......

With the listeria crisis happening over here I guess things are getting a little desperate......the shelves in the grocery stores have been so bare lately....especially the deli sections. The local paper had an article saying that Moms are panicking over what to send in their childrens lunches to school....

One grcery store seems to have come up with the answer.....hoof!!!! Or so it would seem ;)

YUM!!!

Hahahahaha :)

Actually, Lloyd, Sam and I were walking down the road to meet the children from the schol bus today (camera in hand conveniently lol) and we saw this 'delightful' (NOT!!) item dumped by the side of the road. For some reason I felt driven to take a picture of it and blog it for you all to enjoy ;)

First day of school.....

The children all went back to school today! Abigail started grade two today and seemed to really enjoy it! There are 16 in her class including her - so a nice small class :) there were two other new children in her class apart from her, so she wasn't the only new one, and they spent all day playing 'get to know you' games.....

Laurence and Susannah seem to enjoy the new routine at school which has changed quite a bit this year - phys-ed every day now and drama twice a week which to me seems a very good thing!

Lloyd had to drive Chris into town this morning as he has to get the transit downtown this week (Lloyd isn't at work this week) and this afternoon we drove in to pick him up. Chris's first day high school seemed to go ok. He says he hasn't found his 'niche' yet but he thinks he'll get there..... ;) (we know he will lol) At least he got there on time and found his way and got through the classes etc. We sent him a couple of texts through the day and he called at lunchtime. I asked him what it was like and he said the halls were just FULL of people! I reminded him this was High School! Kind of different to the little rural school of less than 200 kids where everyone knew him ;)

He's happy though - for phys ed they are doing a whole week of bowling!!!!! Then a week of lazer tag!!!! `And one of the teachers from his old school just got moved to his new school :)

No picture of Chris - and I can't demand it because I agreed that the Icon pictures we had done a few weeks ago would be the last time I demand a picture from him!!! But I did get that smiling one yesterday ;)

Body Worlds

Yesterday Lloyd and I took Chris to the Telus World of Science to see the Body Worlds 1 Exhibit. This is the exhibit of real human bodies that have been plasticized. You can read more about it at: www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

It was a very interesting exhibit and I'm so glad we went. For the most part it was easy to switch off and forget that they were real dead bodies. They just looked like plastic models seen in typical anatomy exhibits in museums. The only time I found it difficult was in the section with the fetuses - there is a pregnant lady in there and even that didn't really effect me. It didn't seem quite real even - and to me it didn't seem as bad - the adults in the exhibit had all donated their bodies to science before they had died - they had signed up for it!

But there were babies in there. Glass cabinets with babies at different stages. Not the embryos at early stages like 4 and 6 weeks etc...but the babies at 22 weeks, 28 weeks and 33 weeks. In fact it was the 28 weeks old baby that effected me the most I think. It just seemed so tiny and so perfect and so helpless in the cabinet and it hadn't signed up to be in there - it didn't have a choice to be there - and it hadn't lived it's life at all. I'm not even sure why they needed to be there - They didn't teach anything about the human body really - did they need to have them to show how much a baby grows in those weeks - I'm not sure???? Was that reason valid enough? The embryos yes but the babies?

The babies and the fetus room was in a separate area from the rest of the exhibit and it was the quietest room of the exhibit. And I noticed that the next part of the exhibit had 'funny' things in it - like roosters and penises....and there were people making jokes - and I'm sure that was done on purpose - and Lloyds made a joke soon after leaving the fetus room....several people were laughing in the next area and I think maybe that was a coping mechanism for many.......the previous section was so emotional many just felt like they had to break the tension.

All in all it was a wonderful exhibit. It runs until mid October in Edmonton - if you're in the area and you haven't been yet, I totally recommend it - you learn sooooo much about the human body!

Labour Day....

Today is Labour Day...the official end of Summer here in Canada and a Bank Holiday.

Tomorrow school starts.

To celebrate the holiday, we invited our good friends Val and James over with their wonderful family for lunch! Lunch is good because the kids can have a blast - we can all have fun and still have time to calm down and get everyone sorted and showered and into bed early ready for back to school tomorrow. Or at least thats the plan ;)

Anyway, we had a lovely day - so thank you Val and family for coming over! I think everyone had a fun time - I know I did! We had a Labour Day Egg Hunt!!!! Weather was sure better than it was at Easter (lol). The Egg hunt was all through the back field and along the trails through the woods which was a nice walk for the little ones :)

We also had a fire and the kids made Smores and roasted marshmallows. We had burgers and hotdogs and had a salad and a lovely Mango and something or other mousse dessert.....

Kayla wanted to see in the hives and taste the honey so we did that and I took the opportunity to combine the hives so I only have one hive now - I added Flora/ Fauna onto Freya.

The weather was lovely - not too windy (although the silly breeze kept changing direction lol) and it was lovely and sunny and warm so it was perfect :)

It was a lovely way to end Summer!!! :)

Unfortunately I can't post some of the lovely pictures I have of Vals family, so you'll have to make do with the ones of my crew ;) and one of the back of Vals little Guys head ;)

Sunflowers...

Sunflowers always remind me of my friend Val now as I know she loves them and her home has many touches of them - especially her kitchen :)

As sad as I am to see the end of Summer each year, at least Sunflowers are always a wonder to behold!

Late Summer blooms...