Art on Pink....

One of my favourite festivals takes place this weekend - Art on Whyte - and I hope to make it there at some point this weekend. I love going! Last year we went with my Mom and Oliver, the year before, I think Lloyd and I went alone. If you've never been, do try and go! It's a wonderful chance to enjoy the amazing artists this city - and this country has to offer!!! There is artwork to buy as well as pieces to admire and just to enjoy - and the artists are at work as you walk along the street!

For me it's also a chance to enjoy Whyte Ave and to have brunch somewhere along there, stroll along with my wonderful husband and also to do a little people watching :)

Today, with art on my mind, we got out our paints and colouring pens, our artists pencils and sketch pads, our canvases and brushes, and we took our blankets out by the flowerbed at the front of the house. We sat out there and we drew the flowers and then we painted and coloured our sketches :) It was so lovely and relaxing and we really enjoyed it!

Chris is at camp, Laurence is sleeping over at the twins, Susannah is sleeping over at her friends so it's just been me with Abby and Sam and we've been having a lovely relaxing fun day playing outside and painting. Abby painted my Phlox and then painted my Foxgloves. I did the Lupin and then I did this Daisy. I'm not quite sure what Sammy was doing :) Maybe the sky...or the blanket :)

Happy Birth Day!!!!!

Just a quick post to wish Jennifer and Garry all the very best for Friday. I will be thinking of you both as you head into Edmonton to welcome your new baby into the world. How exciting for little Miss Soleil!

I hope everything goes well, as I am sure it will! I will be thinking of you all!

Best wishes and lots of love
Jane
xxxxx

Happy Birthday!

Just hopping online quickly to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Mum, Josephine. The lady who taught me the important things in life -

like how to find things that have gone missing by sticking a pin in a cushion and repeating devil out, devil out, devil out (I now joke to the kids that Grandmas a loopy witch lol)

and that it's possible to stay in bed until you hear your husbands car pull onto the driveway home from work and then you can be out of bed, dressed and be at the kitchen sink washing dishes before he gets into the house and he will NEVER know you've been in bed all day ;)

Happy Birthday Mum!!! Have a wonderful day!!!

Lots of love from

Jane, Lloyd,
Christopher, Laurence, Susannah,
Abigail and Samuel.
xxxxxxx

Off to camp!!

Chris left for camp a few minutes ago. He will be away for the next week at an Intensive Movie-Making Camp for teens. He's sharing a room on a college campus with 3 other teens. He isn't allowed off of campus, but he should have a lot of fun! We go next weekend to get him and see all the movies they make during the week long camp!

He was a bit nervous before he left and everyone got lots of hugs! Even his siblings :)

As nervous as he is, I bet he ends up having a blast! I hope he learns a lot of useful skills. This is week one. Next year he can take part in week two of the course if he wants to. By then he will have done a year at Victoria and may feel he doesn't need to - or may feel it will be more worthwhile....we'll see.

I think it will do him good just having a week away! I hope he misses us! This is the longest I've been away from him in 6 years! I know I'll miss him - as much as he drives me nuts right now!! ;)

I'll take the odd mosquito please!

I saw on the weather network yesterday a report on the town of North Bay Ontario. Every year for two or three weeks, they have to deal with a deluge of these HUGE flies call Shadflies. There are millions....BILLIONS even of these flies....and they coat the walls and roads and cars and backs and lights and EVERYTHING!!!!

EEEWWWWWW!!!

Just for two or three weeks...and then they are gone as fast as they arrive. I think they are only out in the evening and at night...but STILL this is in summer when you WANT to be out and about enjoying the summer evening - I mean this is CANADA for gawd sake!!! I'm sorry but three weeks out of an already short summer is just TOO LONG!!! I know the summers are longer in Ontario but still...it's still Canada!!!

Aren't they GROSS?????

Pictures from my garden today

So many things still haven't flowered.....so I still have things to look forward to in the garden over the next few weeks.

Today Lloyd and I got to eat our first strawberry from the garden (remembering that SOMEONE stole the first strawberry last week some time....so today Lloyd and I shared the second strawberry :)

It was VERY yummy :)

Our vegetable garden now seems to be growing well.

We have strawberries growing VERY well - in the next week or so we should have a LOT ready to eat - but I know they won't make it to the house - they never do - no matter how many we grow, they just get washed off by the garden and eaten there and then. WE have a tap by the vegetable garden thankfully :)

We also have raspberries and tomatoes growing there.

Peas, pumpkins, squash and watermelon and rhubarb.

Radish, golden beets, lettuce and carrots (a purple kind) and broccoli

Everything else is going to have to wait until next year. We just ran out of time, energy and motivation for this year! I decided to focus on my flowers which I am LOVING. I also planted a LOT of sunflower seeds but I am not sure if ANY of them grew. It may be hard to tell if any of them grew until Fall - because of where I planted them - I scattered them in fields where hay grows tall - I mixed the seeds in buckets of moist soil and clumped the seeds into lumps of soil to see if that would help them get started and we tried to sow them in old gopher hills etc etc and bare patches etc so the soil would help but there is no guarantee that it will work. I've since read that you should use a clay mix in the soil. (Actually MISS B if you read this thats an idea for you and your girls with flower seeds in the city as they suggest it to add flowers to the cracks in city sidewalks) our best sunflower ever survived from a packet of birdseed in the crack by our garage door! They suggest you put seeds in clumps of soil mixed with clay and then go around the city dropping them in cracks in sidewalks and then when it rains they grow and then in the summer the sidewalks look stunning :)

Quadding after the storm

Susannah quickly made the most of the big puddles left over from todays thunderstorm!

Loopy and the bee...

Susannahs Lupin seems to grow constantly! The bees LOVE it! I think I will buy a lot of these next year - I love them - the leaves are as stunning as the flowers! They look gorgeous in the rain!

Lloyd and I had to run to Costco today so we also went to Greenlands for coffee and I bought a few more perennials for my flower garden. I love buying a few each weekend and adding to my garden - it's coming together nicely and I know it won't look perfect this year - and probably not next year, but it's coming together - and considering that we only dug it up this Spring and just a few weeks ago it was a pile of mud and nothing more really, I'm proud of what we've done to it :) I know what I want to do with it, so this year is really about sorting it out and bringing it together and next year will be about rearranging it and seeing what survives and where the spaces are and what I need to get and what needs to go where.

I'd also like a bird bath in there somewhere.The Goldfinches spend a lot of time in there and I think they'd like a birdbath - and maybe a birdfeeder in there too. I'll have to remove the bird bath in winter of course.

Another video

Chris and his friends messing around yesterday :)

Susannah

Susannah on the porch this afternoon after a storm - she had been picking up hailstones during the storm and paddling in the puddles left by the rain....and her hair was all curly and damp from the rain.

Photocopies :) Oh my, the things kids do :)

We did some photocopying today :) Firstly we did his hand and face, and then his big brother mentioned that he could do his butt lol and of course Sam thought this was a GREAT idea!!!! I won't impress you with the results of THIS scan lol! Too funny :)

All booked

We're all booked up! We've found a lovely place. Heated outdoor pool (which for me was a MUST). It's going to be so strange going with only three children! I can't wait! I just want a small break because we're off to Florida again for 3 weeks or so in March so I don't need a big holiday now, but I do feel the need to go somewhere - especially with all our trips being canceled and with all the renovations which are driving me crazy. It will just be nice to have a few days away.

Friday

Abigail and Sam were ill all night - both with fevers and bad headaches. Lloyd sponged Abby down all night with a cool flannel and we gave them advil regularly and they slept off and on and today has been the same pretty much - they aren't too bad when they have had meds and they have kicked in but as soon as the meds wear off they are feverish and miserable and bad heads and sleepy and not well. When the meds are working they are well and happy and playing.

So I had to cancel breakfast with Val and our trip to a splashpark.

Chris moved his movie making venture from here at the house and instead he met 8 of his friends at South Cooking Lake where they filmed a movie all afternoon. I supplied refreshments - endless cans of pop and endless snacks as well as the camera and tripod and 'green screen'. I dropped him there at 11am and stayed chatting to his friends Dad for about an hour then came home. As I left Chris was directing his friends in a movie involving lots of guns and various boys and girls running here there and everywhere by the lake and the picnic ground and parking lot...He phoned at 4pm to say they were still filing and he would be walking home!

It's been a boring lazy day. I haven't done much at all. I haven't been in the mood to do much at all. I am tired from having sick kids when I want to be out and about enjoying summer. I am sad I had to miss breakfast with Val! I am frustrated with the building work outside - or LACK of it which is PISSING ME OFF! I am frustrated with our holiday plans or LACK OF THEM for next week. Our trip to Toronto in April got canceled. Our trip to Vancouver Island in July got canceled and now we can't decide where to go next week and Lloyd can't seem to make a decision and now everywhere I look is booked up and trying to get Lloyd to make a decision is impossible....And everywhere I think about going is BORING because I want to go somewhere fun and interesting and I want an outdoor pool but I can't find anywhere nice with an outdoor pool that has rooms available!

So until I find somewhere I am going to be cranky!

Can anyone recommend somewhere fairly close for a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 kids) for 4 nights with an outdoor pool. And JPL is full :(

Tadpoles in the kitchen!

The tadpoles in our pond are about 6 weeks late this year - that must be because of the cold snap we had in early May ad maybe because of the long winter and late Spring we had. We normally have tadpoles in mid to late May but we checked and checked and then gave up checking for them. We figured it was just a bad year for them. Then last weekend we saw bubbles rising in the pond - we went to check and were shocked to find tiny tadpoles! Just before Canada Day!!! A few are big with legs just sprouting but most are tiny baby tadpoles. So at last we are able to finish our life-cycles project.

This week we were also able to finish the bee life-cycles project with the baby bees emerging too from their life cycle completion.

So we have done the butterflies, the seeds and flowers, the bees, and now the tadpoles. Last year we did the meal worms too. 'A' was given grass seeds to grow as well, on Canada Day as part of the Good Growing Edmonton Campaign.

Archeologists!

Yesterday the children went digging for Mummies and old bones! They had to be very careful with their tools and brushes so as not to break the ancient bones and fossils!