The Ultimate Look Alike

They say that if you live with a person long enough you'll eventually look alike. Well, Lloyd and I have been married for 38.5 years - is that long enough to qualify?



I'm thinking 'not really' but I like to think that we look like we belong together.


Lloyd got home from High Level today about half an hour before I got home from the hair salon where I had my grey wiped out and ends trimmed. He insisted on getting my camera and taking some pictures of me but I told him he'd have to take pictures of us together. So these are his first attempts at taking a self-portrait. Actually I guess I'm taking the one above, but he took the others.

I think this is the best, although my mouth is open.

I've been thinking of doing a scrapbook layout called "Us At 60" and might use one of these pictures as the focal point. Unless of course a professional photographer in the family volunteers to take an 'official' portrait of us....hint, hint. And yes, I realize that neither one of us is 60. But if you take our real ages (59 and 61) and average them, together we are 60.

Look Alikes, Part 2

OK. As I threatened yesterday, here are a few more family look-alikes.

I'll start with our first son, Rob. When the TV sitcom, Family Ties, was popular, we were struck by the resemblance between Rob and Michael J. Fox. The resemblance has diminished somewhat as they've grown older, but it's fun to remember their teen-age similarities.

Here's Rob at 30.


And here he is at 19.

Here's a young Michael J. Fox

And as he aged. I can still see the resemblance.

The next one is Lloyd's older brother Bert. We always thought he looked like Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's Restaurants.

This is Bert

and this is Dave...a definite resemblance.

This last one I've bever been able to see, but my girls used to say that Mary looks like Alicia Silverstone. Here's Alicia...

and here's our daughter Mary. I suppose at certain angles they might look similar. I think Mary is prettier though.


And that's it. I won't bother you any more with family look-alikes.

Look Alikes

For years I've liked Fred Astaire - you younger readers may not be familiar with the best dancer/actor/singer to come out of the 1930's, '40s, and '50s, but I used to love watching him do his thing in the black and white movies. One of the coolest things I liked about him was that his birthday was the same as mine (the day - May 10 - not the year :)).

We have a picture of my dad taken in the mid 1940s while he was overseas during World War 2. I've always thought he looks like Fred Astaire in this picture. What do you think?

Robert McCarthy

Fred Astaire

The resemblance isn't so noticable in these pictures, but I still think Dad looked like Fred Astaire.

One of my favorite quotes about Fred Astaire goes like this:
"Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire could but she did it backwards and in high heels."

My next blog will feature a couple more family look-alikes...if I can find the appropriate pictures.

Bernie's Grandparents

Look at the size of those paws!

Lloyd and I don't want the responsibility of having a dog of our own but we sure don't mind sharing in the fun of our grandkids new pet. I'll stop posting so much about Bernie soon - just let me do these last pictures of Bernie with his grandparents.

He's so sweet and gentle. He's happy just to lean on you and be rubbed. He went to the vet yesterday for his rabies shot. In the month since Amy and Curtis have had Bernie, he has tripled his weight. He's going to be one big puppy!

Another baby boy for Papa to love.

Knock, Knock

Knock, Knock

Who's there?

Banana

Knock, knock

Who's there

Banana

Knock, knock


Who's there

Banana

Knock, knock



Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

This is 4-year old Max's favorite knock, knock joke and he tells it whenever he can. It took him a lot of tries before he 'got' the orange play on words. Whenever he tells a knock, knock joke, he actually knocks in the air with his fist.

Another one he learned today goes like this:

Knock, knock



Who's there?

Harry.

Harry who?

Harry up and open the door.

When I get tired of his made up, doesn't-make-any-sense jokes, I tell one of my own:

Knock, Knock

Who's there

Ida

Ida who?

Ida wanna hear any more knock, knock jokes.

Just thought I'd share.

Home From Lethbridge

When we got to Lethbridge on Sunday night we found the house covered in a thick layer of fine dust - the by-product of sanding the hardwood floors prior to refinishing them. It was on every surface of the house. I spent the first two days there wiping down walls, windows, vacuuming carpets, dusting every surface of the house upstairs and down, and dry mopping the new shiny hardwood. The dust was making Lloyd choke so he went out to the garage to do some much needed organizing there and got waylaid by boxes of old photo albums and a smaller box of love letters he sent to me during the two years before we were married. He wallowed in nostalgia for awhile there and brought them in to share with me. Fun stuff.

When everything was finally clean, our new furniture arrived. We decided that we'd retire most of our old furniture when Lloyd retires next year, so we're furnishing our retirement house with some new stuff. It was like starting out all over again. We're really looking forward to the time we can move down there and enjoy retirement.


This glass-fronted bookcase/china cabinet has been in my parents home for as long as I remember. I can remember having to take everything off the shelves (except the books on the bottom shelf) to dust it. Mum had a nice set of champagne glasses she kept on the top shelf, along with other dainty breakables. I love this piece of furniture and am glad Mum kept it for me. We brought it home from Winnipeg when we were there in May for Mum's 88th birthday.

This is a view of the dining room taken from the kitchen. We love sitting here in the morning when the sun is shining through the window. This room and the kitchen were carpeted when we bought the house (I hate kitchen carpeting - how do you keep it clean?!!!) so we had it removed and had fresh new lino installed. we got our dining room set out of storage (in the garage) and moved it into the room so we're finally able to use it again.

This is the living-room, with our new furniture. This room was carpeted when we bought the house and when we took it out we discovered that it covered maple hardwood, which was in excellent condition. So Lloyd and Mark (his nephew) sanded it all down and Mark put 7 coats of clear varnish on it. The maple looks beautiful now. We've ordered an area rug for the center of the floor to protect it and soften the look of the furniture against the wood.

Another view of the living room.

This is the master bedroom - fairly small by today's standards (the house was built in 1949 - the year Lloyd was born) but very adequate and able to hold the 8-piece bedroom set we bought for it. This floor was re-done as well.

This is the spare bedroom...furnished with some of our old stuff. It has a unique closet which doesn't start at the floor, but about 3 feet up the wall so it's kind of like a cubby hole but is high enough to hang clothes from a regular rod.

Another view of the living room in case you've forgotten what it looks like. We really, really like this room.

And that's it. I forgot to take pictures of the seven sets of blinds we installed but that's all right. You might find that boring. I'll take pictures of them when we get the sun room set up because that's where 6 sets of them are hanging.

So, while it's good to be home now, it's getting harder and harder to leave our retirement home five hours south of us. Our day will come though.

Happy Birthday Sara

On this day 33 years ago while we were living in the far north Alberta town of High Level, Sara Louise joined our family. She was the 4th child - the middle child as it eventually turned out - and third daughter - the middle daughter also as it eventually turned out.

She was born in a little health centre on the edge of town. The morning after she was born I looked out the window of our room and saw a brown bear at the edge of the clearing! Her birth was exciting, in good ways and bad. For one thing, back in those days fathers weren't allowed in the delivery room and had to wait in the waiting room. Since it was such a little health centre whose staff didn't stand on ceremony, Lloyd was able to be there to witness the birth of his child for the first time. It was a remarkable experience for him and I still have the letter he wrote to me when he went home that night. I had an easy labor with Sara but when she was being born it was noticed that the cord was wrapped tightly around her neck so I had to stop pushing when her head was out so the doctor could cut the cord away from her neck. Then when she didn't breathe immediately we were so scared. I was so glad Lloyd was there with me. We waited forever it seemed to hear Sara's first cry and to be allowed to hold her. I remember when she was out and they told me she was a girl, my first words were, "We can't call her Michael". Our actual Michael was born a year and a half later. We had already chosen to call her Sara Louise, after a favorite aunt of mine. Luckily she was no worse for wear after her dramatic start, and quickly fit into the routine of our growing family.

Her first portrait at age 3

Sara always loved babies and dolls and wanted to be a mother. I love how she's so serious here.



This haircut caused me a lot of grief from both Sara and Amy, who had a similar one. I was so tired of having to do up long hair on four girls that I took them all to the beauty parlor and got their hair cut. To this day they bring this up whenever they want to bug me. I think she looks cute with her hair short. Compare it with the next year's picture...



Maybe they were right. She sure was cute in grade 4.

We moved to Nova Scotia when Sara was in kindergarten and lived there for 7 years. It was a fun place to live. Sara loved the beach and on this cool spring day she showed her exuberance by doing the perfect cartwheel on the sand of Lawrencetown Beach.

While in Nova Scotia we had our last baby, Emily. Sara bugged us for a long time to have a baby sister for her and thinks that she was responsible for Emily being here. That's Sara in white at the far left of the picture. She appointed herself Emily's special sister and they're still very close today.

Sara has had lots of birthdays over the years, with pictures to prove it, but the most memorable is one I don't have pictures of. In 1985 we took a road trip during the summer from Nova Scotia, through the US as far as Utah, then up to Alberta and back east to NS. During the course of the trip, we had Sara's birthday. I remember she wanted a panda for that birthday (her 9th). We stopped at a store someplace in the Colorado mountains and let her choose her gift. Then went to another store and bought her a birthday cake. We stopped along the side of the road in the wilderness and sang happy birthday to her and ate the cake. Different, but fun.

Sara liked to travel and when she was older and on her own she took a couple of trips: one to Hawaii with a girlfriend where she had loads of fun, and once in 2000 she and Amy went to New York City for an adventure. Some adventure - they spent every last cent they had and ended up sleeping in an airport (Denver I think), famished and tired and penniless, on their way home. They did enjoy New York though. The picture below shows how prominent the Twin Towers were on the NYC skyline. Hard to believe they're not still there.

Sara had been working since she was 15 at the Photo Gift World and quickly assumed a lot of responsibility for the retail outlet. Her ambition, enthusiasm and drive attracted the attention of the company's owner, Quincey Hardwicke-Brown and before too long they were an item. It wasn't long before he was a regular guest at family functions and a fellow golfer for Lloyd.

At Amy's wedding reception.

Sara and Quincey were married in September 2002 in our backyard, with a large lavish reception at a downtown hotel.

In November 2003 her first daughter, Charlie, was born, followed in December 2004 by their son Max. She had her hands full with two babies. Their second daughter, Eloise was born in November 2007 and noone will be surprised if there's another one next spring or summer.

Sara expanded their retail outlet to include a portrait studio specializing in children's portraits. She's an excellent self-taught photographer and produces beautiful portraits. The company has grown remarkably over the years and we have a ready supply of portraits of our grandchildren.

Charlie, Max and Elly

The Hardwicke-Brown family, June 2008.

Sara has been a joy in our family. She is feisty and spirited but also very giving and generous with her time and talents. She understands people and what makes them tick and is continually studying and learning to improve herself and the life of her family. I'm proud to call her my daughter. Happy birthday Sara