Lunch with Val

Today I went out for lunch with Val! We went to one of my regular haunts - A Taste of India in Sherwood Park. I've never been there for lunch, but its a busy little place at lunchtime on Friday! It was quiet when we arrived though, so we got a nice quiet table in the back section. It soon filled up fast though and was much busier than it is in the evening on a Wednesday when we normally go!!!

We both had the buffet and Val was good and adventurous trying all kinds of different selections. The owner came over to say hi and she was joking saying how the food isn't spicy at all , so Val should try a bit of EVERYTHING!! ;) then a little later she popped over to our table and asked Val how she liked Indian food (as I had mentioned that it was Vals first time at trying Indian food) - val said she loved it and the owner said that Val would soon be as addicted as Lloyd and I ;)

Val is like me and loves the Naan breads - they really are yummy - so light and fluffy and NOTHING like the ones you buy in the grocery stores which are horrible and I won't TOUCH!!!

This picture shows Val enjoying my favourite dessert there - Gulab jamun - or what I call balls and custard :) YUM!!!! :)

Thanks for coming out Val - I had a lovely time - so good to catch up with you!

we both left to head off in different directions shopping only for Val to get a phone call from her Daughter to say there were funnel clouds spotted in our neighbourhood - so we both headed in the direction of home instead to make sure our little ones were safe! Adult time over :( sigh........

Dusk....

I like this picture....I took it the other evening and it shows the view I have most evening when I sit watching the birds at the feeders. I sit by the steps at the side of the house on the porch. You can see Charlie where she has fallen asleep under the bird feeder after rooting for peanuts and seeds. You can see my bird table that Lloyd quickly knocked up for me in a hurry a few weeks back but that does the job perfectly and my birds love it just fine!!! The box beside it is so I can reach the bird table - Denis gave it to me :) and the little birds love to eat off of it :)

Beyond the bird table you can see down to the pond - beyond that you can see down towards the driveway......on the hill you can see the well (one of two wells we have on our property).

In the trees we have three feeders - two for nuts and seeds and one is a thistle seed feeder. we also have a nut and seed feeder on the porch. We also have two hummingbird feeders on the porch/ deck. I have several other feeders in different other places on our property - by the sheds and workshops/ garage etc etc. We get through a LOT of bird seed each week! Lloyd always complains about how much we spend on bird food but he also loves to watch the birds so I don't think he minds really ;) We spend less in Winter because most of the birds leave Alberta in Winter. Right now they empty the feeders in about two days.

How my flowers are doing......

My tubs of annuals are doing well and starting to bush out nicely now :) The ones in my wooden tub still need to flower a lot more - maybe another week or so.....but the others are starting to flower nicely and I'm already having to deadhead well.

Other gardening news - we have our first strawberries!!! :) Yum!!!! Our potatoes and peas are doing VERY well but some things that did GREAT last year are doing TERRIBLY this year!!! Is it because it is so dry this year or WHY????? I am puzzled as we have used the same soil mix/ manure etc etc....water.....same seeds....???????

Raspberries are doing well - both the garden variety AND the wild raspberries are doing well...

It's very dry here - we're had some rain the last few days but not enough - we are in serious drought conditions and under fire bans again and splash parks are closed - farmers are saying its a disaster and the canola season is a disaster :( They can't feed their cattle this year and are selling them instead :(

Where you'll find me......

So......this is where you'll find me on a hot Summers afternoon...book in hand.....cold drink on the table....Derek (the guy doing the basement) says he promises to tell Lloyd I've been hard at work all day (lol) and Abby and Sam are always busy playing on the deck happily......

.....sorted ;)

Cycle ride.....

Enjoying the good weather and our quiet road.....

Cupcakes....

One of the Moms at Pre-K decorates cupcakes as a hobby - and she made these four cupcakes as a gift for each of the teachers. Aren't they gorgeous???? I took the pics with my iphone so they don't really do them justice. The colours aren't even right as the flower was actually purple!!! The apple glistened like the ruby slippers. These cakes were STUNNING!!!! Like you really wouldn't want to eat them they were so amazing!!! the big burger was incredible! She also made lots of mini burgers for the children to eat!!! Everyone was sayings he should make them to sell!!!!

Sam leaves PreK

Yesterday was Sams last day at Pre-K. To celebrate, his (wonderful) teachers organized for his class to go swimming and then to have a picnic in the classroom. The parents were each given a scrapbook page of the children in their class and the children were each given a goody bag with some toys and bubbles. It was a lovely afternoon! I had such fun with Sam in the pool. I gave Laurie the day off of school so he could babysit Abigail for me as I wanted to have this day JUST with Sam!

I am so sad that Sam has left pre-K this year. I cried at the end. I know he will be in Pre-K next year but it will be a different class at a different place, with different teachers. His class this year was soooooo good and his teachers were great! Sam was so little and his backpack so big it made him look like a turtle! His little hand in mine was so tiny and chubby! His pictures were so cute and he has developed so much this year and his skills have changed so much - he learned to write his name and his numbers and writing have come on so much!!! I know in the next year he will learn to read and write so well it will be amazing and he won't be my little chubby cute preschooler any more!

He is my last little one and I won't have any more little ones walking down that corridor at Millennium Place to a pre school class! That phase is over.....and for that I'm a little bit sad :(

So spoilt!!

www.sawmillrestaurant.com/

They are so spoilt at work I tell ya!!! Lloyd finished before 3pm today but not before having a BBQ on the patio at work - it was all cooked up by the Sawmill Restaurant and served by the Assistant Deputy Ministers - for all in Health and Wellness.....all free. I mean he eats out at Lux and other restaurants every week anyway for business lunches and those are free...but todays BBQ just sounded extra nice - and on a Monday too!! NOT FAIR!!!!

lol!

Workshops for Summer..

On Saturday afternoon we headed to the library and got booked in to all the workshops we wanted for the Summer. I learned a few years ago NOT to ever go in the morning on the day they are released - it means LONG line ups to the door!!! So I always go in the afternoon when you don't have to line up at ALL. There are almost always a few tickets left for each class and I'd rather take that chance than stand in line for two hours!

We got all the classes we wanted which I was THRILLED about because this year the library got extra funding and the classes are FREE! So Abigail and Susannah are both off to several classes this Summer. My favourite of all is Abigails 'Fancy Nancy' tea party - where she gets to dress up all fancy including a hat and actually attend a tea party there :) and it's all based on the latest Fancy Nancy book!! :) For grades 1 - 3!!!

My children have been going to the library workshops since we first came to Canada and have always loved them. Chris used to volunteer at the library to help with the Summer game and really enjoyed doing that! One lady even wrote to the library to say how helpful and friendly Chris had been to her and her children!

I love our library :) This Summer we hope to also take part in the Summer game on the Bookmobile which visits our community hall each week. That was fun last year! It's a good time each week for the children to meet up with all their friends at the playground afterwards too!

Grow!!

One of the pieces I've picked up recently to go on the windowsills in the sunroom near the herb garden!!! The children are loving the little herb garden - a little TOO much - I don't think there is going to be much left - they keep nibbling bits of mint or chives as they walk by!!! :)

Susannah's flower..

Susannah came home from her party on Saturday with this flower....it was from the birthday cake - it's a real flower and she loves it so much, so I took a picture of it for her. She got the glass at another birthday party a few weeks ago, so I suggested she put the flower in this glass on the windowsill :) Lovely and bright and cheery :)

Birthday party....

Yesterday I took Abigail and Sam to Abby's friends party. They both had soooooo much fun!!! I'm sure the party was supposed to finish after just a couple of hours but we ended up being there almost 5 hours! The children were all happily playing and the adults were just chatting away the whole time, and no one seemed in a hurry to leave!

There was a great Pinata that instead of being hit, you took it in turns to pull on a ribbon until one of the ribbons made the bottom fall out and then the candy bags all fell out!!! :) The children LOVED that :) hen they all went outside and sat under the trees and traded candy and treats and bubble jars and pencils with each other for HOURS it seemed lol.

Sam was playing with these huge foam swords wrapped in duct tape with the this huge group of boys and they were re-enacting some scene - boys of all ages but all including each other. Then he'd hang out inside for a while to cool off and play with the balloons or the toys and around the food ;) or with M who is a little younger than he is....or go check out where the group of girls had gone...

I had some really good, really deep conversations there with some of the Moms - about the way we raise our children, when overprotecting them oversteps the line of empowering them as individuals. And I also had a VERY interesting (and very disheartening) conversation with a British lady who I hadn't met before, about raising mixed race children in the United States. That conversation turned into an outright discussion on racism and raising mixed race children in general and about the US and Canada and their histories regarding black people and native people and how they are moving forward (or not). It gave me a lot of food for thought regarding our move to the US......

It was a great party, some great discussion, great company.

Jeff Dunham....

Yesterday Laurences birthday came early.....Lloyd took him and one of his best friends to see Jeff Dunham at Rexall Place!! He had hoped and hoped for tickets to see him as soon as he had heard he was coming here! So we surprised him with them as an early birthday treat and he had that instead of a party this year! He had a sleepover with his friend and then headed off in the afternoon for the show and they had a great time - they said the guy that came on first with the guitar was very good too. He was called 'Guitar Guy'.......

Laurence was full of chatter about it all when he got home and smiling a LOT!! :)

Great website

belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/

The crafty Crow....sooooo many great craft and activity ideas to keep your children busy day in and day out!!! :) rainy day ideas and arty ideas!!!

KC's....

On Friday night I took Susannah to a birthday party at her friends house. It was a swimming pool party and they had this ENORMOUS pool - omg It was HUGE!!! I was telling my friend Holly that I wanted to stay and join the party so I could swim!!! What a great pool! It was a hard sided pool with a frame and was sooo great! I was totally jealous! I was joking with Holly that going to her place to drop the girls off is lethal because I am always late for everything because once I get talking I can't get away as we end up talking for HOURS! So I told her I could NOT talk to her as I had to go out :) I still ended up being 45 minutes late (oops) Holly is just one of those people (like Samantha) that I don't see often but when I see her we could just talk the night away! She came round the night I got back from the scrapbooking retreat and we talked for hours then!

Anyway Susie stayed for a sleepover and swimming party and had a fabulous time as she always does! Hollys youngest is Abby's friend and hopefully they can come and sleep over here very soon!

I headed in to town next to Tess's house and then we walked around her subdivision to a few yard sales in my old neighbourhood and I showed Tess my old house! Then Tess bought up an entire yard sale so we had to head home as we couldn't carry anything else (lol).

We drove out to Katies Crossing and got there JUST before it was closing, so bought some ice cream and strolled around the place and I got to show Tess one of my favourite places to go!! They have live music there next weekend by the way!!!

Then we drove down 222 by Twin Island Lake and went to my house for a while and went for a walk. Sam and Abby were busy making mud pies and the kitchen was a complete mess - everywhere was dusty from the basement drywalling and mudding/ sanding...so Tess had to just deal with the chaos...but she at least got to see the kitchen at last - not that it is finished yet!

She didn't come to see my bees lol - Christie was more sociable with my bees she asked to come see them the day before lol!

Lloyd drove Tess home later and we all went inside so Tess could give Lloyd the tour of the new house and so we could laugh at her obsessional storage ideas in her scrapbook room. ;) And I just remembered that I forgot to show Lloyd the obsessional arrangements in her pantry!!! Shame!!!! ;)

So, that was my Friday night!