Todays layout...

A one page layout of Lloyds parents. I took this picture at Christmas and I think its lovely! Terry (Lloyds Mom) and Chris (his Dad) have been married for over thirty years and are still just as romantic as ever!

Amazing!!!

Lloyd could hear the coyotes very close so we hopped on his quad and rode up onto Marys land to see them......they were so close and the funny thing is that one of them was sat on TOP of one of the hay bales! Sat on one of those huge round bales!!!!

After a few minutes they saw us and the one on the bale hopped off and they ran into the side woods.....There were three of them :) Very cute :) Wonderful to see! Especially wonderful to see them doing such a thing as sitting on the haybale enjoying the evening sun ;)

Dog grooming...

I quite enjoy grooming the dogs normally.....Amber has been 'blowing coat' the last week or two and if I miss a day or two she looks a real mess! As for Rosie though - thats a TOTALLY different story.....she swims in the pond as often as she can and she smells bad.....her hair gets so matted everywhere because of her constant swimming....

Today I cut out a lot of her matts and gave her a good brush.....she needs to be shampooed but I don't like to shampoo her too often so we may as well wait until her swimming days are over for the year.....

Lloyd and I went out on the quads earlier and the dogs came with us - it gives them a REALLY good run and they have so much fun chasing us! Every now and then Rosie will disappear and we know just where she is....in the pond swimming!

Marriage Uncensored...

Todays marriage uncensored show was about 'How to keep the sanity in spite of lifes busy-ness'.

It was supposedly a show about 'slowing down' so that family life can come higher up the list of priorities. I actually felt they failed dismally at this. Basically instead of saying you should cut down on activities and commitments, it talked about just getting used to it and telling yourself to deal with it.

the only thing I agreed with really, was the importance of sitting together as a family at the table each night - something we do almost every night except for date night. This is really important to us all and I know the children really enjoy it.

They did say that 'everyone; these days is rushing their kids from soccer to hockey to piano to gymnastics to swimming etc etc but that isn't true! Some of us have made the decision to say NO and we have decided that our children don't NEED to be doing activities all the time. WE don't want to spend our evenings rushing from class to class We DON'T feel rushed all the time because we choose not to over commit.

One question they did ask though was "When was your home last a 'house filled with laughter'?

My answer would probably be a couple of days ago when Sam used the potty for the first time but stood up doing it - we were all in hysterics.....that was probably the last time we were ALL laughing at the same time....but a lot of laughter goes on here.....Christie and I were laughing a lot on Friday.....Sam is always doing things that make us laugh......(like right now he has helped himself to a MASSIVE handful of marshmallow bananas from my (not so) secret stash!

Freedom Writers....

Last night we watched the movie Freedom Writers.

What a wonderful movie! So similar in so many ways, to Dangerous Minds, but still an excellent movie. Based on a true story it shows a teacher who begins her career teaching high school kids who spend their lives in racial-oriented gangs.

Basically, by using the holocaust and The Diary of Anne Frank, she is able to get the students to look beyond their skin and culture and see the things they have in common with their class mates - instead of only their differences.

I have to admit I spent much of the movie crying. It left such an effect on me last night - its so sad that so many kids today (even here in Edmonton) end up involved in gang culture - and that racial prejudices are so common still among young people today. Have we learned nothing?

I think having lived in a mixed-race marriage and having three mixed-race children, I feel it even more personally.

Anyway, this is a wonderful movie and one I would totally recommend.

You can read more about the true story behind the movie, and find out how to help this wonderfuul foundation at:

www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/site/c.kqIXL2PFJtH/b.2259975/k.BF19/Home.htm

Colours of Autumn....

disgusting!!!!

I swear there is NOTHING more disgusting than driving along with the air conditioning on and then you drive by a dead skunk and the whole car fills with the most awful stench of skunk :(

Driving up highway 21 today we drove beside a squished skunk and the smell that came into the car made me feel so sick :(

Sadly I have only ever seen one skunk alive...all the other skunks I have seen have been victims of roadkill....

For those of you who have never smelt skunk....it really is revolting - hard to describe but a very unpleasant smell!

Ok - off to ride my quad with the girls :)

Just perfect...

We are having such gorgeous weather - it's difficult to remember that its September! September already! Where has the year gone?

We have been out this morning and I was planning to scrapbook but the weather is so gorgeous that it seems crazy to stay inside....so we plan to be outside - have a fire to burn some more of the wood/ barn garbage and the girls are going on their quads. I think we will go on ours too with them for a while....we were out on them last night until dusk and it was so good to be on them again! Mine has been broken since mid July and I really missed the fun of riding out with Lloyd :)

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope you have the sun shining down and are making the most of these last days of Summer :)