Bug watching.........

Homemade water slide.......

Susie, Abby and Sam using the hose on the slide.....they were out there almost all day and are now inside cooling off....the girls watching Brother Bear and Sam playing with his bricks....Lloyd is on his way home....Chris is downstairs with his friend Max who came over....Laurie is down there too I think or he may be watching tv too...he was out for a cycle ride for a while and again is cooling off now....

As for me, I brushed off the porch, washed all the windows on the main floor inside and out.....vacuumed the stairs....did some laundry......sat outside with Laurie for a while.....bugwatched with Abby......caught up with Emails I haven't had a chance to get to lately.....including one from a lady who is planning to start homeschooling and wanted some advice......

First of the season...

Here are the cherry tomatoes that I picked from the garden and enjoyed in a sandwich :)

Traditions.......

Our neighbours fields are almost ready to be baled now.....yesterday they were there with their horse and plough-type thing preparing for the baler to come through........

Almost done...

I was determined to finish my book yesterday........so I sat out in the sun for a while with Sam and Charlie to get through it.........I didn't qwuite finish yesterday so I finished it today....Jane Greens 'Swapping Lives'.....

Would you swap lives with a single girl for a month? Where her clothes...live her life.....

Quiet house......

We took my Mom and Nephew to the airport yesterday for their flight back to the UK.....before we left we took the above pictures.....

We got their baggage checked in and then went up to watch the planes for a few minutes before saying goodbye and then racing back upstairs to watch them go through security......

After that we headed home via McDonalds......what a cool McD's...it has a train for tables so Sam sat on the train and ate EVERYTHING...which is unusual!

We came home and pottered about outside for a while picking tomatoes (first of the season!) and strawberries...some blackcurrants.....raspberries....

We were in bed shortly after 9pm....exhausted! Although I sat up and watched a fab show...DiagnosisX.....its a real life show about Doctors trying to make diagnoses of werid illnesses.....last nights illness was hypogonadism......very interesting story....of course Laurie now LOVES this new word....hypogonadism!! lol!

Today the house is very relaxed and lazy......I ran to the store for milk.....I'm about to wash the windows which are filthy....Chris has cycled to his friend.....Laurie has tried to round up some friends but they all seem to be away....Susie and Abby are busy bugcatching with a kit my Mom gave them.....I have a guy coming shortly to see to the air conditioning unit - they are replacing the cover for us because the well company dented it when they were digging....

Tomorrow I have LaZBoy coming out to deliver our foot stool and also to have a look at the sofas...the leather was supposed to be triple dyed so it should not be peeling off noticeably...but it is badly...........so they are coming to look at it tomorrow and will then decide what to do about it....this is NOT a cheap sofa so this should NOT be happening grrrrr.....its a shame if they have to replace it because it is just starting to soften up in all the right places and is all comfy!!

Woohoo Susan.....

Good for you for getting out of crappy facebook...I deleted my account few weeks back......just found the whole thing too childish....

Oh and I like your Smurf post.....I hadn't thought about the whole whore house thing at Fort Ed......but you're right...I guess it wouldn't be very 'Canadian' to put something like that there though....Canadians are far too polite and 'nice' to have to discuss that with school field trips ;)

For Dad...

A picture of my Mom eating last night as Dad said he didn't see a picture of her eating anything! I'm not sure how long she will let this stay on here though as its not the most flattering picture!!! lol!

Wednesday....

We got an Email from Lloyds best mate this morning...saying he left Baghdad 2 days early and got home to the UK yesterday......

Today I am so sleepy.....I think we are going for a walk to the mail box and the cemetary.....just lazing around here...and maybe walking up to our neighbours land for some pictures by the giant hay bales...they are cutting the hay today!

City scenes............

A few shots of the buildings downtown...the light on them was beautful.....

The bottom picture is of Lloyds building...one of his offices is two floors from the top of this building......

I ate too much....but boy was it good!

Yum!!! As a foodie I just LOVE A Taste of Edmonton.....where else can you have as many desserts and main courses as you like??????? You can try a portion of everything! For those not from Edmonton, its basically a food festival.....many of the restaurants in Edmonton have a stand in Churchill Square (the main Square in Ed) and they each serve two dishes....often a main and a dessert, but some do two mains.....

You buy tickets for a dollar each, and each dish is either 3, 4 or 5 tickets...so you go along the stalls and line up and get whichever dish you want to tray....there were over 30 restaurants with stands this time....and they varied from Korean, Chinese, Spanish....to Italian, Crepe houses, local hotels......

I headed straight to the Hong Kong Bakery and bought some green onion cakes YUM!!!! Mom had some too......Then I had a Callebaut Chocolate Ecstasy.......Mom tried the Green Tea Ice Cream......I LOVED the Pear Pie with Caramel Sauce from Cafe Paradice...OMG that was sooooo good! Pear poached in an almond sauce on a bed of flaky puff pastry that melts in your mouth.....then drizzled with caramel sauce! I had two of these - but don't tell anyone!!!!

Mom, Olly and Lloyd all had Strawberry Shortcake.....Olly and Lloyd had Butter Chicken....Mom had Vegetable Tempura (deep fried vegetables......I finished with a chocolate pear...Olly had one too! Lloyd had Tiramisu...oh and he had a pasta dish too! Oh and I also had Balsamic Strawberries with a vanilla cream YUM again!!!!

All in all we had some great foods and I ate far too much but it was all good :) After that we sat by the fountains for a while and then strolled to Tim Hortons on Jasper Ave......sat in there and had coffee and then strolled over to the building Lloyd works in....went up to his office and looked out of the windows....then strolled back to the car and headed home......it got to something like 24c today and was breezy - perfect! Not too hot at all and I was able to sit on the porch this afternoon and read....because it wasn't horribly hot! First time in ages! Tomorrow is going to be just as cool :) Anyway it was a perfect summer evening to enjoy the festivities downtown....and the food...especially the food :)

View from on high............

At the end of our evening at A Taste of Edmonton, we walked over to the CWB tower and went up to Lloyds office....he works almost at the top and we wanted to take some pictures from the windows up there and show Mom and Olly the view of the city.....

Here are a few of the pictures from the floor he works on.....

Disgusting

Not sure if I blogged about this yesterday or not...I posted about it on LP but not sure I did here...

A baby moose was found shot by the side of the road yesterday.....which is bad enough as its illegal to shoot a baby......but anyway...the disgusting part is that the person responsible then went on to put a grass skirt on the baby moose and Leis around the legs and then put a beer bottle in its mouth and left it like that at the side of the road :(

Horrific..what kind of a person does something like that to a defenceless animal......just SICK :(

Tuesday.....

Laurie slept over at his friends last night....and while on the way to take him, I got a phone call to say that Susie had been invited to sleep over at her friends again too....so after dropping Laurie off, Lloyd and I grabbed Iced Capps and drove around Boag Lake etc....taking the longer route home...

This morning I called Susies friends Mom to ask when I should collect her and she whispered across the phone that she wanted to tell me that Susannah is her favourite friend to have sleep over because she is just so nice and polite and friendly.....another friend from their class slept over last night too and I know that girl too so can quite see why the Mom would find Susie a lot easier :)

It was nice to hear how much they like Susannah anyway :)

Today I am doing a lot of running around really...dropping Mom, Olly and Chris at the museum...then running to get Laurie...then running almost an hour out of town to get Susie...then back into town to collect Chris, Mom and Olly from the museum...then I have to grab some milk...then home......

And then tonight.....tonight we are going to A Taste of Edmonton!!! Yay! I am looking forward to that...and showing Oliver Downtown Edmonton....and Lloyd is taking us up to his office which is on the 27th floor so we can look at the view of Edmonton from up there......

Not sure what we will do tomorrow....Mom and Olly have to be at the airport by 6pm......so maybe a walk around here or over by the lake...or a quick run into Sherwood Park to get some last minute things....

WE had an amazing storm last night - it started around 8:30 I guess and went on until about 4am....hail, high winds and an amazing light show from lightning.....Sams sandbox is covered in sugar syrup where the wind blew the Hummingbird Feeder......today is much cooler because of the storm but it is going to heat up to 28c again tomorrow and be 33c by Saturday......so we shall make the most of today Downtown without the heat!

Have to go and brush my teeth as we have to leave soon.......

Roasting Marshmallows....

A few more pictures of Saturday night at Elk Island Park........