Thank you Val!

The rest of our afternoon was spent sunning ourselves on Vals porch, the children playing in their pool, chatting, laughing, eating, drinking and generally having a lovely afternoon! K (Vals DD) and I both agreed that Val is getting extremely spoiled in her old in her old age (lol at the old age)!!! AND senile (she has started going to home depot for FUN when she gets time to herself!!!!!!)

TOO FUNNY!

Anyway - we had a lovely afternoon so thank you Val and everyone over at the funny farm ;)

I'm still a little hurt that Abby likes your place better than mine!! ;)

Fun at the farm!!!

Laurie, Sam and Abby were really lucky and got to go and meet Vals animals this afternoon - she has two donkeys and two sheep. It's been ages since we've seen them - I'm not even sure if we've seen the donkeys - I know we've seen the sheep before though....my memory is hopeless!

The children got to feed the animals 'horse crunch' which they obviously LOVED and they kept coming back for more!!!

The black sheep 'pepper' or 'shadow' was more shy and stayed back a lot more - probably wise with my three around ;) I think my three were more nervous of gentle giant Zorro than they were of the other animals!

There must always, always be a Zorro....

This is Sam with Vals dog Zorro...I just HAD to get a picture of this giant teddy bear dog with Sam. Isn't he just a gorgeous dog? I said to my crew that we MUST rent the Beethoven dvd series of movies so they can laugh about the drool factor and St Bernard dogs! They are great movies :) Zorro is so gorgeous - he was lying across the front step when we arrived and refused to get up for us so we all just had to step across him and he is NOT small! ;)

Lightning over Edmonton...

A colleague of Lloyds took these pictures during the storm earlier this week over Edmonton. The storm didn't come out as far as us but we could watch it from our bedroom window and could see all of the lightning. We couldn't hear any thunder but the all the lightning was amazing to watch - it didn't even rain here! Chris actually cycled home from his friends durng it and kept phoning us because he couldnt believe that it wasn't at our house and he was worried he wouldn't make it home in time but we kept saying it wasn't here and we didn't think it was coming here! Aren't these pictures great?

Playing with the children....

Davidson (or Harley as Lloyd is calling him already lol) seems to LOVE playing with the children :) he runs about and follows them and chases apples and follows trails of food. He is like a puppy compared to Charlie who is so much slower lol! Susie had him walking through the hoop again and again and he seemed to like that too :)

Our news :)

So this is our news :) It's probably not as big as all of you were expecting buts its big news for us and for Charlie especially :) Charlie has a new friend :) Please meet Davidson!!! Davidson has come to live with us all the way from......Leduc!!! :) lol :) We drove over to get him this evening and instantly fell in love with this darling little fellow :)

Isn't he cute? He's TINY compared to Charlie!

He's 6 months old and weighs about 40lbs. He's housetrained and such a sweetie pie! So cute to look at! Reminds me a lot of how Charlie looked when we got her! A lady on LP contacted us last week and asked us if we were interested in rehoming a piggy because her Sister had a pig that needed a new home. We were away at the time so we asked if we could wait until this week.

We've been looking for a friend for Charlie for a while now so this worked out perfectly! Tonight we finally made it over to Leduc to meet Davidson and bring him home :) He got back here and ad a nose around the front yard. He finished off Abigails apple and had fun playing with the children with a hoop.

We introduced him briefly to Charlie - but we want to do this very gradually over the next few days. He did meet Jasper though who looked stunned at how small Charlie was all of a sudden :)

I hope Charlie and Davidson get along well - we'll spend the next few days introducing them to each other gradually and spending time increasing the time they are together until they can be together all of the time. I don't want to just put them together straight away though in case there is any problem/ jealousy/ bullying or anything. there is such a size difference right now and Davidson is still very much a baby so he is sleeping inside in the mudroom right now and has his own bed and his blanket etc etc that he came with so he will feel at home.

It's been a busy day and I am so very tired now - I'm off to bed :) a new cat in the family and now a new piggy :) my parents always joke that with 5 children and all these animals, this place is a total zoo.......I guess they are right :)

Charlie, you've shrunk!!!!

Photo Shoot....

This afternoon I was booked to do a photo shoot in our community. I'm the Community League Photographer so whenever there is an event in the community I go along and photograph it for the League - for the website, for the scrapbook albums that the League keeps, for the display cases in the hall and for various other reasons.

They booked me several weeks ago to go along and take pictures today of the Summer camp. They said that they had (and I quote) 'A couple of Grandprix cars coming out from the races'.

Turns out this was 'a few cars coming out from Edmonton Raceway'!! Slightly different!!! But nevertheless, the children were thrilled and we had a great afternoon. I was a little disappointed not to spend an afternoon with sexy racing drivers - our drivers turned out to be 12 and 14 years old!!! But the kids loved that! So I guess that was good! W4e all got given free tickets to go to the races in August so I came away with a free family night out in August which is great!

I was there to take pictures of the daycamp kids meeting the drivers and sitting in the cars which I did, then we took group pictures in front of the three cars, they all got autographs, then they drove the cars down to the lake and we took individual pictures of each kid with their favourite car and it's driver with the lake behind.

Two hours in the sunshine, with the playground there, some great cars, the great team from Edmonton raceway who were sooooo friendly and helpful! It was just a GREAT afternoon!!! I took my youngest 4 with me and got some pictures and of them too :) and took some pictures of some of the daycamp leaders there too. A couple of other Moms came by with their kids and asked me to take some pictures of their kids too which I did - it was a nice afternoon - busy and hot but fun :)

I came back home, edited all the pictures and got them emailed back to the leaders 20 minutes early which surprised me :) I thought it would take longer!

So no sexy racing drivers and no Grandprix cars lol but the kids were happy and I got some fun pictures and Sam got to see Macks new paint job AND some cars with stickers instead of headlights!!!

Snapshots.....

The boys and the cars and Sam with Mack who has had a paint job since the movie and is now white :)

My little racing car driver!!

VROOM VROOM!!!!!!!!!

:)

A Taste of Edmonton

Today we went to A Taste of Edmonton! Hard to believe it's a whole year since we went there with my my Mom and my Nephew Oliver! A lot of the foods had changed this year - several new restaurants this time! Gorgeous weather as always! I ate far too much as always and had a great time!

For the first time I did NOT take my camera :) But I did love everything I ate :) My favourite was the Chicken Tikka and garlic Naan from the New Asian Village.

Thats all for tonight folks.

I have some big news tomorrow night :) Watch this space :)

Thank you Fortis!

I was talking to Lloyd on the telephone this afternoon - he was telling me that he was on his way home from work.....Laurie was sat beside me when all of a sudden there was a big BANG outside.....we both jumped!!!

The phone line went dead...the computer went off...all power to the house went off. The girls came running downstairs. We ran outside to see what had happened. We thought maybe lightning had hit nearby and knocked the power out.....

I called Lloyd on my cell and he said not to worry and he'd be home soon to check things out. He got home and checked the breaker out in the field and that was fine but still no power. He called Fortis and they sent someone straight out. The guy was here for two hours and went up in his little crane in the field up our electricity pole..... and then out to the road in his little crane up the poles..

Lloyd cooked dinner on the bbq and made a cup of tea on the bbq and we had a lovely quiet relaxing evening pottering about and snuggling with Grayson, while the Fortis guy did his job and then PING the power went back on and we have LIGHT and we have POWER again :)

And now I'm off to bed :)

A thank you!

I received a lovely surprise in the mail from Lloyds Mom and Dad! Thank you so much Terry and Chris! A wonderful reusable bag from Wyevale garden centres and inside was one of my favourite treats!!!! A Soreen malt loaf! Needless to say there isn't any left ;) YUM!!!

It was a wonderful surprise to find a parcel for me :) wooo that was two parcels for me in just a few weeks :) A lovely way to cheer up my Summer so thank you very much!!!! :)

Happy 97th Birthday!!!

Today is my Nanny Spicers 97th Birthday!!! This morning I telephoned her to wish her a happy birthday. At the moment she is in a nursing home recovering from a broken arm. This is my Dads Mom, Gwen Spicer. She was telling me this morning that her Dad used to collect bee swarms for people - he used to collect them from peoples chimneys or trees etc and hive them and then keep the bees for the honey and take the honey in the Fall and feed them sugar in the winter :) I had no idea! My Nan used to keep chickens too - just a few like we used to :)

My Nan said my parents and Sister visited this morning with a birthday cake, that when she went into the dining room for breakfast this morning everyone sang happy birthday to her, and this afternoon my Aunt and Uncle visited her! Then she was told she had a phone call from her Grand Daughter and she assumed it was my Sister ad then she was told it was from Canada and so she laughed and thought she was very privileged so I joked and agreed and said that it isn't often you turn 97 ;)

My Nan has been writing her life story and my Mom told her I would like it because I scrapbook and I had already scrapbooked several pages of my Nan and Granddad. So I explained to my Nan that I use archival paper and albums and that the pages will last for another 100 years. My Nan laughed that she would be 200 years old before the pages wear out! Anyway she said that I can have her life story so that I can write it all down and preserve it for her!

It was lovely to talk to her on her birthday :) She's funny to talk to - great sense of humour! Happy Birthday Nan!

Monday Funday....Tuesday - NOT a snooze day!!!

Monday was 28c so we headed to the splashpark to cool off. Lloyd had gone back to work after his week off (boohoo) Chris was working all day too. Laurie had slept over at his friends, so it was just Susie, Abby, Sam and I. It was fun :) We didn't plan it, just woke up in the morning, decided to throw a few snacks in the cooler and jump in the car and go! It was busy there though!

On Sunday night, to end Lloyds holiday, Lloyd marinaded ribs for the boys (their favourite) ALL day...then barbecued them slowly all afternoon. They LOVED them!! Then in the evening we took the children to Dairy Queen for ice creams and dropped Laurie at his friends for a sleepover where he stayed for two nights! Yes he seems to be spending much of the summer.

Last night Chris went to his friends house to go swimming - they have this man made pond type thing on their acreage with this giant swing - the swing is as tall as a house so you swing REALLY high and then jump into the pond - I hear its AWESOME!! ;)

Today we had errands to run - had to pick up two of Chris's friends and then drive them to another friends house. Had to pick Laurie up from his friends house. Had to go to the bank. Had to pick up some clothes form the tailors. Had to go to the library. We had lunch at the food court and ended up sat next to Val and her family! So funny because we both have bigger families so we both head for bigger tables and then end up sat near each other! Nice to see them all and Val if you are free before you go away then let me know when and we can plan something!! I have some plans each week but some days free too!!

Work on the addition continues - they've been here fairly frequently the last couple of weeks - it's frustrating not to see much progress but at least they are doing something lol!

Grayson, our new cat has settled in well and is making himself at home. He is such a sweet cat. So gentle with the children. He loves his bowl of milk in the evening (his notes from his foster home even said he asks for it in the evening lol) and he loves to sit on my writing desk in the mornings in my bedroom window. Right now he is stretched out on my oversized chair beside me. In the store they used to play with him with a little laser light thing that he would chase and so we bought one and the children play with him with it and he LOVES it - he will chase the light across the floor as if its a mouse! Amber our golden Retriever used to love to chase one of these around our yard in Sherwood Park! Yesterday I was cooling her off by having her chase the stream of water from the hose with it on 'jet'...she loves it :) she jumps soooo high to catch it in her mouth :)

I have things to post before I log off :)