Cooling Off

Today, at last, we had our first swim in the new pool. It was 39C today and the water was lovely and refreshing. We love the pool, although the shallow section is much smaller than the deep. We'll have to be extra vigilant when the kids are here - life jackets for all. It's such a treat to have the pool to play in when it's so hot out. I wish some of the kids and grandkids were here to enjoy it with us.

Lloyd always likes to make a big splash!


Look at that golfer's tan!

Lloyd enjoying the pool.

My first time in the pool.

Here We Are

We arrived here in Surprise, AZ tonight. It's 37.5 C. It took us 25 hours of driving, over 2.5 days. Today was the most beautiful part of the drive,through southern Utah and straight through the length of Arizona. One of the prettiest places we stopped was Kanab, UT, where western movies used to be filmed. It's surrounded with red cliffs and has a beautiful park in the centre of town where we stopped to take some pictures.

Off to Arizona

I know...this isn't the best time to be heading to Arizona...temperatures there are still in the high 30s (C), but with the pool and air conditioning I think I'll live through it. (and frequent visits to scrapbook stores down there) I really need the break right now. It's been a hectic six weeks, with the visit to BC to help out when Mary's son was born, the wedding and all that involved, and Mum's visit....I need time to unwind and relax for awhile. We're taking Lloyd's laptop with us, with an air card, but I'm not sure how often I'll be posting here. I'll try to keep it up, but if I can't, you'll know why.


August 5 - Baron Kesey Bourne is born in Oliver BC. Our 17th grandchild and a sweet little boy.



August 23 - Emily marries Allan Taylor in a lovely backyard wedding.

August 21 - Sept. 9 - Mum visits and spends time with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

This is our backyard pool in Arizona. It was just finished in July and friends of ours spent two weeks there in August, breaking it in for us. Now it's our turn....catch you later.

Grab My Hand...

I haven't taken any pictures the past couple of days so tonight I did this layout so I could post it. It's done on Paintables cardstock - I had to color in all the flowers and fence. I added stickles glitter glue to the centres of the flowers, the petals of the blue and red flowers, the borders around the pictures, and the bee.

What I really like about this layout is the words flowing throughout: "Grab my hand and run with me, trek the mountains sail the sea, forget the map, we'll find our way forever together". I feel it fit the theme of the photos - Mum at 87 with some of her great-grandchildren. Probably the last time she'll ever see them and knowing that in the very near future she'll forget them altogether. She enjoyed being here with the family these past couple of weeks, although it was very confusing when we were all together for the wedding festivities when she didn't recognize grandchildren or great-grandchildren - knowing she should know these people but not remembering why or who.

Everytime I see her she seems worse than the last time. Alzheimers takes an awful toll on a person...the stage she's in now is so hard on her because she knows she's forgetting things and there's nothing she can do about it and she gets so upset with herself. She's back in Winnipeg now in her own home and familiar surroundings where she has a measure of self-confidence and comfort. We know now that travelling is too hard on her. She's lucky to have Wendy there to watch out for her and make sure she has everything she needs while she's still able to live on her own. Thanks Wendy.

Getting Gas...

It should have been simple. It should have taken a maximum of five minutes. It was not so simple. It took much more than five minutes.

Mickey, Mum and I had planned a few hours of fun time, having lunch, maybe going to the park, whatever we felt like doing. As I was driving to get Mickey I realized that I was out of gas. Fine. That's easy to remedy. I picked Mickey up and headed for the gas pumps at Safeway. Pulled into position, and realized that I didn't have my Safeway card or credit card with me because I had changed to my cute little pink purse which is just large enough to hold my small pink camera, my pink cellphone and my driver's license and debit card.


I needed my Safeway card so I could get a seven cent per litre discount on gas. Luckily Safeway is just a few blocks from home, so I went home and grabbed my purse and a hunk of banana bread I had baked earlier to give to Mickey, and we decided we could go to lunch before continuing our gassing up adventure.


So with lunch out of the way, and with the car smelling warmly of the fresh falafel Mickey bought after lunch to take home to her men, once again I positioned myself at the gas pump, got out of the car, grabbed my purse, only to realize that when I switched to my pretty pink mini-purse I had taken my wallet out of my big purse and left it on my bed. Damnation!


Once again I headed home, grabbed my wallet, and finally, after three tries, managed to fill the car up with gas...not to mention the smell of falafel and banana bread! And we were off to Costco for photos, photo albums, and free samples of goodies.

It was a fun day, although we ended up not going to the park because it was wet and rainy. And I think I'll stop switching purses.

Ellie Likes...

At nine months old, Eloise has developed quite a personality, and has a number of things she likes doing. The recently learned skill of crawling is her most valuable, and used, skill



Now that she's mastered the art of crawling, she thinks she needs to learn to walk. She will insist (in her own non-verbal way) that anyone taller than she holds her hands while she steps out across the floor - very hard on the back of the taller person.

She likes her big stuffed dog and chews on his red floppy toung.

Swinging on the backyard playset is one of her favorite outdoor activities.


She loves sharing the kids' McDonalds meals - french fries and grilled cheeze sandwiches, watched carefully by the adults with her.


She likes books, especially Dizzy Dragon, which has textures, lights and sounds.


And she enjoys having her great-grammie around and doesn't seem to care about the 87 year age difference...she can never have too many adoring followers.

Anson's Birthday

Lloyd, Mum and I went to son Rob and Cindy's home to celebrate Anson's 7th birthday tonight. It was a lot of fun. Anson was more 'into' his birthday than he has been in previous years so he enjoyed it too.
Anson's not plugging his ears because he doesn't like our singing, that's just an autism behaviour he does.

Lloyd, Brooklyn, Rob, Cindy, Anson and Great-Grammie.

Opening presents.

I couldn't resist posting this one of Brooklyn as she watches Anson blow out the candles.