Fun With the Woolf Pack

We spent time in the back yard yesterday playing with our Woolf grandchildren. It was a fun time.

Kenzie, Me, Sydney

Lloyd, Kenzie and Aidan

Aidan and his Grammie

Kenzie and Syd love their Papa



Syd tried to teach Papa some moves on the trampoline. He made me promise not to post the video I took of him.

New Addition

Amy and Curtis have added a new member to their family...

This is Bernie, a three-month old St. Bernard. He's only been a member of the family for a week, but he's already won the hearts of all who meet him.

Aidan likes to hand feed him by putting bits of food (and his fingers) right into Bernie's mouth. He was a bit intimidated by the size of this puppy who was almost the same size as him.

Kenzie is very proud that she can walk Bernie on a short leash. I imagine as he grows up he'll be harder for her to control him.

One thing for sure, he'll have lots of attention and love as he grows up. Welcome to the family Bernie.

Home Again

After getting a good start on the refinishing of the hardwood floors in Lethbridge, we left Mark to finish up the sanding and varnishing and Lloyd and I headed for Edmonton and home. On the way we stopped in Lacombe to visit Jenny, Anders and the 5 grandsons.

It was so nice to visit them and see all they've done to finish their yard and landscaping...such a huge yard for the boys to have fun it. They've had a successful garden this year and have planted lots of trees and bushes as well.

Today

Lloyd and Mark are working on the hardwood floors today. What a job. They used a stripper on them first to make the removal of the old varnish easier and less dusty, but the smell was breathtaking. They finished the first sanding by 6 pm and will continue with a couple more rounds of it tonight and tomorrow. The natural maple wood looks really good with the old yellowed varnish off.

Mark surveying his work in progress

The bottom of the picture is the natural wood, the top is the wood with the old varnish still on it.


The hall is done and the living room is still covered in old varnish here.



And while the men worked, I set up a scrapbooking station in my laundry room downstairs and completed 4 pages.

We were pleased to have a visit early this afternoon from our great-niece Jade and her friend Mark.


And for those of you who are interested, this is what the blue spruce looks like after Lloyd finished pruning away the lower branches. We had no idea that there was a ring of treated wood around the base of the tree. It looks very nice now.

Unexpected Guests

Last night we had a call from Mary in BC saying they were on their way to visit Greg's parents in Magrath - just down the road from us in Lethbridge. They didn't realize we were still down here too so we arranged for them to come and have lunch with us today. It had been months and months since I had seen them and little Baron is growing up without seeing his Grammie very much. Layla just turned 5 and she's always fun to visit with.



Lloyd barbequed burgers and I made a green salad and Judy salad (pasta) and cooked corn on the cob for an easy fun lunch. It was so nice to visit with them for a couple of hours. Baron is growing up fast. He'll be a year old on August 5 and is walking around furniture so it won't be long before he's running all over the place. They found out yesterday that Baron has scoliosis, a common condition associated with his Gordenhar syndrome.



Layla loved our Lethbridge house - there are so many cool hiding places because of all the built-in storage areas. She made us play hide and seek with her, and at the end none of us could find her. But she eventually popped out of the sun room where she had found a good hideaway and won the game.



Layla found an old wig of my mothers and put it on, pretending to be an old woman.




We'll be visiting the Bournes in BC at the end of August, so that's something to look forward to.

Tomorrow Lloyd and Mark start sanding the hardwood floors so we'll be in a state of dust and mess for a couple of days before we head home on Sunday night. It'll be nice to have it done though.

Lilies and Puttering

My back yard has been thoughtfully planted with perennials. I missed the large patch of purple irises earlier in the spring but they have been replaced with beautiful lilies...four shades of them.






At least, I think they're all lilies. Aren't they beautiful!

I don't have an overabundance of counter space in my fairly large kitchen so we bought a kitchen trolley which I spent the morning putting together. It will sit along an empty wall alongside the portable dishwasher which will be delivered on Friday, thus giving me some additional work space.

I did all the assembling myself. Lloyd can't stand to read instructions so usually isn't too good at putting things together. It was challenging to do it on my own but it sure felt good to get it done!


While I was putting the trolley together, Lloyd was outside trimming the beautiful, huge blue spruce in our back yard. His main goal was to remove the lower branches so it would be clear under the tree and two feet up the trunk of the tree. It was a hard job, using just clippers. When he was just about finished we decided he needed a chain saw to finish the job, and to tackle the two blue spruces in the front yard, so he just cleared up the debris and we went to Canadian Tire and got the chain saw. He'll finish the chore tomorrow.


We have a whole list of projects to do during these two weeks, and have accomplished a lot of them. We manage to do two or three a day, taking lots of breaks, going shopping, resting and relaxing, etc. It's nice not to have schedules and deadlines for awhile.

Around Here

We kept ourselves busy puttering around the house last week. By puttering, I mean cleaning up the painting mess (our spare room was full of paint cans in varying stages of fulness), putting away all the stuff that hadn't been put away. I discovered that I have three dust mops, three brooms and three floor mops! Lloyd did some touch-up painting as well. The biggest job though was pulling staples out of the hardwood floors before we can sand and refinish them this weekend. I guess the previous owners of this house thought they'd never want to see the beautiful maple hardwood again so when they carpeted the whole main floor of the house, including the kitchen, they didn't hesitate to use staples to anchor the underlay. Pulling staples out of hardwood is not an easy job! It took us several days to get them all out. Of course we only worked at it for an hour or so at a time, but even so...

In between times we enjoyed spending time with the little grandsons we don't see very much - Kenny and Alex...fun little guys...although Alex (1 year old) went home with a black eye yesterday after knocking a chair over on himself and falling on his face a couple more times! Here they are playing before all Alex's accidents. Kenny is blurred because the little guy is a constant motion machine!

Emily and Allan stopped in for an overnight with us on their way home to Edmonton from their visit with Mary in BC. We visited the Japanese Gardens with them and Mike's family.

Before going to the Japanese gardens though we had a big breakfast for Mike's family, Emily and Allan. Kenny loves to help in the kitchen so I let him butter some toast.

The little boys really enjoyed the walk through the gardens, especially all the waterfalls.

We also got my dining room set out of the garage and into the dining room so we celebrated by having a barbeque with friends Cory and Cara Rasmussen. Emily and Allan arrived in time to join us.

Cory and Lloyd shared the cooking duties. The steak was delicious.

This is my dining room table. The runner on it was made by my sister Wendy from material she bought earlier in the year in Arizona. It's very southwest looking. I love it.

We did quite a bit of shopping. Among our purchases is this beautiful solar lighthouse. It sits between two bunches of lilys along our fence.

I'm not taking too many pictures of the house because it's relatively empty awaiting the refinishing of the hardwood floors. Then we'll be able to add some furniture and make it more homey looking.