Grayson.....

Lakeside art.....

Some of our lakeside art.....and while Sam may be a future artist lol, I know I am NOT very good lol....I paint because I love it and find it relaxing but I am not very good :) but dollarama sells canvases at 3 for $1 and so it doesn't matter if you suck :)

I've sat through enough art workshops in my time to learn that it doesn't matter how good (or not) you are - its whether you enjoy the process!!! And I know that I LOVE painting, drawing and 'creating'......and while my work may not end up in art galleries, it may well end up on my own walls at home - I plan to frame some of them - along with the childrens work! I have quite a few of my childrens paintings framed properly already and hung on the wall - children LOVE to see their artwork properly framed and hung on the wall and Michaels and other places do it so cheaply these days!!!

I haven't added all of the pictures we did - some of it I will add to the homeschool blog.....I have like 3000 pictures to go through on 4 camera cards so forgive me for the random order of blog posts and pictures and bad organisation of things over the next few days/ couple of weeks......

Sams driftwood gun.....

One of my favourite things to do by the lake is to collect driftwood...and Sam likes to do the same - obviously with different results. Sam found this amazing piece which (of course) he turned into a machine gun! Sam turns everything in a gun! I'm not sure where he gets his violent streak from.....people think that because he has this lovely blonde mop of hair, that he is an absolute angel, but sadly no......he is a little STINKER!!!! ;)

Sam by the pool....

My favourite place...

Every morning we would get up and go to the pool for a swim straight away. We'd swim until just before lunchtime.

In the evenings we'd come home from the lake and change and head out for dinner and try to be home in time to head out to the pool for a while before bed. Abigail LOVES to swim and will happily swim for hours no matter the time.

Sam isn't as keen on being in the pool but will gladly spend hour after hour playing with his toys on the steps of the pool. So happy to play there in fact that today he woke up and asked if we could go to the pool now......he was quite disappointed when we explained that we don't have a pool at 'this' home......

I'm sad too :( I miss it today too :(

Fishing.....

Much of our week away was spent relaxing lakeside and Lloyd and Chris spent a great deal of time fishing. It was a great opportunity for me to do some relaxing and painting as well as LOTS of reading :)

We visited and fished at several lakes in the area including Minnewanka and Two Jack, Vermilion Lakes, Jackson, Quarry Lakes

Our favourite lake was Spray Lakes in the Spray Lakes Provincial Park. We'd hiked up to Grassi Lakes a few years ago with my Mom - and the ponds up there are just STUNNING - the waters are jade/ emerald green.....

Anyway, Spray Lakes Provincial Park is the other side of the mountains if you continue along the road going up by Grassi Lakes...it's quite a way into the back country along a fairly narrow gravel road and the further along the lakes you drive, the more you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere...the only traffic you really see is the occasional gravel truck that kicks up dust that looks like a forest fire....

The pictures above are taken over various days and at various lakes. And there is a picture of the children with their first fish :) Abby was NOT impressed with the yucky fish but Sam wanted to touch it and thought it was 'cool'!!!

Mmmmmmm yummy sarnies :)

Abbys new friends tuck into our picnic!

And this is why I packed a picnic?????????

On Tuesday we packed a picnic and headed to Two Jack. Abigail and I painted while Lloyd and Chris fished. Sam paddled and played all afternoon. I packed a lovely picnic for us. This was the only afternoon that the weather wasn't perfect and we had a shower that caused us to run for the car at one point - luckily it didn't spoil the rest of the day and we were able to spend most of the time in t-shirts and Sam was able to strip off and paddle :)

However, my lovely picnic didn't make it into human mouths as these pictures show lol! The children (and Lloyd) had too much fun feeding the ground squirrels (which is probably illegal and far from hygienic lol) but the little furry rodents LOVED my cheese and cucumber and cheese and tomato rolls with a touch of salt and pepper.....and seemed to like being stroked (YUCK!!!) and Chris filmed a documentary on these creatures for his new production company!!! ;)

I did NOT partake in this germ infested waste of my picnic although I LOVED being able to get some great close ups of these cute little creatures but geez their claws!!!! I had visions of them attacking my children and spreading rabies lol! Made for some cute pictures though and it was quite a memorable experience for the children if nothing else :)

Vals Lilies....

These beautiful Lilies were given to me by Val. Aren't they stunning? They weren't flowering before I left for Canmore, so they were a gorgeous surprise to arrive home to! Thank you so much Val! I hope the Lilies I gave to you give you a wonderful display this year too! And the Shasta Daisies too! All the roadsides in the Canmore area were covered in Daisies and were so beautiful and there were many wild lilies in places too.

Yard sale find....

I've been able to use my china strawberry basket lately with our strawberry crop from the garden :) This was my bargain 50c find from the Clover Bar yard sale this year :)

Our new family member!

Well, our newest family member may not be quite as beautiful as Jennifers precious little bundle, but we fell in love with him when we saw him! Ten days ago I took the children over to Petsmart to see the animals there, and I fell in love with one of the cats they had there. They had two kittens in the window but they just didn't appeal to me at all. Yet in one of the windows there was this gorgeous saggy old bagpuss style pussycat. He was silver with these gorgeous eyes that watched me. He put his paw up to the glass at me and watched me walk by. I thought he looked stunning.

Petsmart don't sell cats and dogs themselves - the animals they have are all adoptables from the rescue centres in the area. I read the information about this cat. His name was Grayson, he was about 6 years old. Great with children and other cats and dogs. He had been found as a stray in December. Lived with a foster family until January and had been in Petsmart since then!!!!

I watched him for a while and then we went home.

On the Wednesday night after the farmers market, we returned to Petsmart with lloyd and went in and spent some time with Grayson and one of his workers in the little room they have there. He was gorgeous - so friendly. The lady there said she couldn't understand why he was still there - he is so lovely - so cuddly and friendly. He loves to play and cuddle. She said that they have had plenty of people come and spend time with him and they all go home 'think about it' and then don't come back - and she wasn't sure why but she thinks they all want kittens - being that he is 6 years old she thinks maybe the adoption fee is too high these days for an older cat to be considered.

Anyway, we did the same thing - we went home and thought about it! Only because we knew we were going on holiday and we didn't think it was fair to get a new cat and then have a 'stranger' come and look after him a day later. So we decided to take a gamble and say that if Grayson is still there when we get back from holiday then he was meant to be ours!!!

So we got back last night and this morning Lloyd and I headed to Petsmart to see if he was still there! And he WAS!! He was curled up asleep in his little cubicle! Waiting for us! Grayson has been at the store for so long that all the staff know him so well and they were all so excited to see him go to a new home that they all had to come and say goodbye and meet us! They were all thrilled he was leaving :) It was lovely :)

We told the children we were going grocery shopping so they weren't expecting us to come back with him this morning..or at least weren't sure! So they were so happy! And Grayson was so funny - he literally walked from room to room and did a tour of the house including the bathrooms and checked out the entire house to see what was what :) and all the children followed him to watch :)

He's been here a good couple of hours now and has had something to eat, something to drink and used his litter tray...snooped about the house and enjoyed having a LOT more space to move around in. The children have calmed down a lot and hopefully it won't be long before he finds somewhere to curl up and have a nap :)

Welcome home Grayson :)

Off to camp!!

Laurence and Susannah heading off to Birch Bay Ranch last Sunday!! The two goblets they created to take with them. (They were had to take something 'Royal' with them for a Royal meal as they were going during the 'Royal' themed week and for one meal had to wear something or take something with a Royal theme to it. So we decorated dollarama plastic goblets with stick-on jewels to take - turns out everyone LOVED their goblets soooo much and everyone else either took boring swords and shields or nothing but luckily I had sent a packet of 6 crowns and a spare tiara with Susie in case anyone forgot something so Laurie and Susie shared them out with people)

The other pictures show Lauries dorm which is the cream block on the end of the row of buildings and then Susie by her bunk bed which is the top bunk.

They loved camp and say they can't wait to go again next year :) The first thing Laurie said when we saw him was 'I'm going again next year'!!!! :) Second thing was 'Can I have a hot bath? He missed his hot baths - Laurie LOVES to soak in the bath with a book like I do :) and he had cold showers at camp lol! But he loved camp! They really LOVED it :) Yesterday they went canoing, they've been trail riding, had movie nights, been zip lining, wall climbing....all kinds of things, had camp fires every night......huge waffles for breakfast....

But wow the boys dorm STINKS lol! ;)

Home again!

Susannah and Laurence left for camp last Sunday (and had a FANTASTIC time) and we left for Canmore on Monday morning. We've all had a lovely week and we arrived home tonight after picking Laurie and Susie up from Birch Bay Ranch tonight and having a BBQ and watching their Rodeo their tonight (oh wow that was cool - seeing Laurie turn round on the back of the horse after just 5 days of riding and seeing Susie dismount confidently and calmly and walk her horse off towards the stables).

It's been a great week - we were worried the weather wouldn't be good but we ended up having great weather and I came home with a tan :) the pool was a real sun trap.

I really needed this break - just a few days away - we've been to Canmore and Banff several times before and done all the touristy things before so this time we went to relax - we took the fishing gear, my book, and my paints and canvases and we sat by the lakeside and relaxed. We spent hours in the pool at our chalet and that was all we did for a few days :) Totally switched off from the speed of life :)

We stayed at www.mysticsprings.ca/ and it was lovely :)

The Library...

This week we finally got around to picking up 'A's Grade 1 library bag. Anyone who has just finished grade one can claim a prize bag from the library for free. They have been available since some time in June but we hadn't had a chance to go in and spend the time to go through one.

So this week we had the time and we took her in on Monday to get her bag. Inside the bag was a coupon for $2 off her very own library card, a bookmark, a booklet full of games, colouring pages and a a quiz that sent her on a hunt around the library for points. She had to go on this treasure hut and work out the points and then go back to the information desk when she had the answer. It only took her a few minutes and when she went back she won a stamp and a chocolate! Then she was also given a big poster of a dragon and the dragon has 24 scales to colour in - she gets to colour one in for every book she reads during the holidays - and when he is all coloured in she can take him back to the library and she gets one big scale to write her name on and put on the wall and he name ges into the draw to win the prize of having the librarian come to her class (or homeschool group) to read stories etc etc.

'A' LOVED her goodie bag and came straight home and read three books! She has since read lots of books to me and to herself and lying on my bed and her bed and on the sofa and on the porch and in the car....

This morning she was reading one of the Animal Ark books that Susie used to love.

While at the library on Monday the children also signed up for the annual Summer Reading Game - this year it has a space theme. Sam is taking part too and they each got a pencil and a tattoo.

The children all decided it was time for each of them to have their own library cards too so we did that too (no idea why as they only ever go to the library with me) but now they all have their own cards....now instead of keeping track of just my one card I have 4 cards to keep track of!!!

We went to the library again today and I got out a couple of books on magnets so 'A' could get a head start on reading about that and she can colour in a scale on her dragon at the same time! They got to roll the dice on the reading game too AND I ran into a homeschooling friend too - Jennifer!!! Not Jennifer from drama but Jennifer from 'The Trees' who I haven't seen for a couple of years and it was sooooo nice to see her! Wow have her children grown and we stood and chatted for a while and it was nice to catch up - hopefully we will run into each other in the Fall!

I thought I'd ask if they had any spaces left in any of their classes in August but to be honest I expected them to say no because they started taking bookings in June. I was shocked when I managed to get places in ALL but one of the classes I wanted!!! So 'A' and 'Su' have plenty of workshops to take part in before September arrives! Some of them sound so much fun!

I am a total bookworm - I LOVE to read, so I must admit that I LOVE that my children love the library. Going to the library is one of my favourite childhood memories - I remember it so clearly! And now I love to see how excited my own children get about our trips to the library! I love how quiet our house is after a trip the library because the children disappear to different parts of the house with their piles of books to curl up and read.

I love that our library is in the mall right now - its so convenient - I wonder how things will change when it moves across the road to the 'centre in the park'. I wonder if things will improve or if it will take time for us to get used to the change. I wonder what the childrens area will be like. I wonder how 'family friendly' it will really be!

Libraries are such wonderful places - I hope they are a regular part of YOUR family's life too!!!

Art class in the garden!

Drawing flowers in the garden! We took blankets into the garden and drew flowers and coloured them in! 'A' drew a Phlox and a Foxglove.