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.

I'm Back

Just a quick post - it's late tonight. Lloyd and I have been down in Lethbridge working on our retirement home. We've decided not to rent it out so are setting it up so that we can stay here whenever we come down. We've moved my dining room set out of the garage and into the house where it looks really nice. We've got a couple of beds here and a couple of comfortable chairs in the sun room. We don't want to buy a lot of furniture and 'stuff' for it because the furniture and stuff we're using in our Edmonton home will be coming down here when Lloyd retires in a couple of years.

We decided to use our cell phones down here instead of getting a land line, but we finally, on Thursday, got our cable and internet services installed. So I was off-line for a week and wasn't able to keep up with my blog.

Lloyd and I are having such a great time down here on our own. We're going to love retirement when it happens. We've spent hours talking and working together. Lloyd golfed once so far and while he was doing that I did a bit of scrapbooking, but mostly we're just hanging out together and having a great time.

We've also spent time with Mike, Avril and the little grandsons. Emily and Allan stopped by last night on their way to Edmonton from visiting Mary and Greg in BC. They spent the night with us and this morning we all went to the Japanese Gardens here in Lethbridge.

I'll try to keep up to date here from now on.

Sleepy Baby

Elly had a busy day today. She had to go to drive her Mom and siblings to the airport this morning and leave them there. Then she and her Grammie had to drive back home. Who can blame Elly for dozing off for 5 0r 10 minutes on the way home. She had a nice lunch with Grammie and played with the bunny and kitten for awhile before being put down for her nap.




The nap didn't take. After not sleeping for 20 minutes, she got up and resumed her playing. She was very low key, I think she was mostly missing her Mom and siblings. The house was too quiet.

At 5:15 she sat down to a dinner of her favorite noodles. I sat across the table from her reading my book. When I looked up, this is what I saw.





Poor baby just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. I picked her up from there and put her to bed. Her eyes didn't open once. I hope she sleeps all night for Quincey. He's not used to being in charge of sleeping babies. The monitor is on in his room though and I'm sure his daddy senses will kick in. I'll be over first thing in the morning to see how things went. And I'll make sure she has her regular nap tomorrow.

Jenny Hair

Our oldest daughter, Jenny, has a head of silky thick blond hair - the only blond among our seven kids.

It wasn't always that thick and silky. She was born bald and didn't have much hair till after she was two. It came in thin and fine. When she slept on her back, she had the worse case of bed head ever - matted and tangled. It took several years for it to get thick enough not to matt up so bad.

Her five blond boys all had 'Jenn Hair'. This is her youngest, Jammers, sporting his Jenn Hair which occurred as a result of sitting in his car seat for over an hour, probably sweating against the head rest. No point trying to comb it - nothing short of soaking it down will tame it.

No, it's not blowing in the wind - Jenn Hair really does stick out like that - doing it's own thing. He'll outgrow it in a couple of years - Jenn and his four older brothers all did. It's just part of growing up in her family. We love them anyway.

Hula Hooping

When I was 10 years old, at the height of the hula hoop craze in the '50s, I won a hula hoop contest sponsored by Dad's regiment at a summer event. At the time, I was skinny and straight and could twirl the hoop around my waist, up over my arms to my neck, back down to my waist and then to my knees and back up to my waist...without ever dropping it. Unfortunately some other kids could do that as well so for the final 'act', those of us left hooping had to start walking around in a large circle while keeping the hoop twirling. The other kids dropped like flies and I alone was left standing...the first time in my life I had ever won anything! It was the highlight of my childhood. My first place prize was a pink wallet and key case set.

It's nice to see my granddaughters playing with hula hoops now. The other day Charlie was demonstrating her skills for me.

Bouncing Babies

Lloyd and I were keeping an eye on 23-month old Aidan and 19-month old Elly in Amy's back yard this evening. Since the big kids were otherwise occupied, we put the babies on the trampoline and let them run. It was so funny...Aidan has the funniest run when he's on the trampoline and the two of them just followed one another around and crashing into each other. Lloyd acted as spotter on one side and I took care of the other. Luckily there were no accidents and everyone had fun.

The first video features Aidan's funny run. Both kids had very soggy diapers on which added weight to their little bodies and softened the falling down. These two little cousins have become great friends in the past year.