And Great-Grandma goes Dancing...

I flew to Regina this past weekend to attend my cousin's wedding. It was just me. No kids. Yep. It was quiet. I had 4 days to myself. I read 3 books COVER TO COVER. I read one each way on the plane (6 hours of QUIET... each way!) and one when I slept until 10:00 am one morning! Can you even imagine?? Of course, my kids can now read so I must say that I missed them terribly and I couldn't wait to see them when they picked me up at the airport (which is the truth).

As for the wedding - it was good. One of the highlights was my 87-year-old Grandma who outdanced SIX of her relatives.

I kid you not. Have you ever seen 30-something-cousins begging for a drink of water and a chair while their Grandmother decides which one to take to the dance floor next?

It was 1:15 IN THE MORNING and we were almost out the door when the DJ decided to play "locomotion". Yep, you guessed it - the next thing you know Grandma & I are back in the door and we're doing the locomotion. Oiy. I was tired the next morning. As for Grandma. She was up at 8 am, dressed and finished breakfast by 9:00am.

[As an aside: Any of you that have been to Saskatchewan may laugh at this song by the Arrogant Worms: The Last Saskatchewan Pirate. I found a link to the lyrics and a version here.


Here are some pictures of Grandma outshuffling the rest of us.

Her sons:

Her grandsons:

Her grand-daughters:

Side Trip....

Just got back from a short hop over to Vancouver to visit my mom's Aunt Beatrice. What a grand time we had! She is awesome - she tells us great stories and is very lively and vibrant. And YUM! the buns she made were first rate. If I ever learn how to turn on our oven I'm going to ask her for the recipes.

I first met Beatrice 29 years and 364 days ago. All I remember from that first visit is the colourful flowers around her yard and they're still there!!! She has a wonderful collection of the family history that she shared with us ... There was even one of my grandma and grandpa when they were younger that neither me or my mom had ever seen.

In other news....

Never mind that we hired people to build our shed. (T.G.) They arrived at 7:55am and left our property at 2:05pm. Yes. The shed was 'complete' in a mere 7 hours and 10 minutes. An 8 X 12 foot shed with an 8 X 8 foot overhang. Done. Complete. Finished. ... or not so quick

Now, the shed was built but it didn't have any shingles on it (only tar paper)... so add 2 people at 14 hours each plus a third worker for 4 hours. (Cedar shingles are a bugger to install). A-HA! You may be thinking we were done but the shed is naked - it has no paint! Now, you must add another 15 hours AND COUNTING of 3 people....

(Err, did I mention that my mom and dad are visiting us during their 'vacation' and have spent WAY more time on this than anyone expected. But what the heck, they're retired. If the definition of a vacation is 'doing something good that is a break from the ordinary' then helping their children qualifies and thus must = vacation. Right?)

So Much So Little

There has been SO MUCH going on that I've had SO LITTLE time to Blog!

Here's a couple of quick photos to keep you coming back for more while I keep enjoying summer too much to find the time to blog.

Our good friends Linda & her son, Josh, came for a visit. I have loads of photos to show how Linda worked her decorating magic and transformed our house from nice to fabulous. The kids always have an awesome time playing with Josh. It was so much fun to have them visit... we just want them to move here!
.


In TOTALLY OTHER NEWS....
The Old Crappy Shed that was too small, leaked, turned our chairs moldy was just err, The Old Crappy Shed.


The NO Shed.


The New Shed.... with me roofing the entire roof with cedar shingles.
omigod. my arm was so sore the next day (after 12 hours of hammering) I could barely lift it to brush my teeth! And now that the arm has recovered I've been tasked with painting the @#^$@# shed. More to come on that....

Vacation - Week 2

T.G. for vacations. I'm feeling relaxed, refreshed, reinvigorated , rejuvinated, restored, and ready to rumble with the evils of day-to-day hohum routine mundane repetitive days. (And apparently, I've also used my vacation time to to add adjectives to my sentences.)

What have we done you ask? Besides vacationing in paradise, that is?

We've been go-carting at the nearby Saratoga Speedway.... Here is the Red Baron: (aka Toria) [p.s. they don't admit it but the Speed Demon Duo of Carmen & Tomas LAPPED the Red Baron and her wingman]


And as if that wasn't exciting enough.....

We returned to the Speedway in the evening to watch the Big Rig time trials. (I swear to you - these trucks went around the small race track on one side of tires - they even had a big dump truck with a dumper trailer behind it! (Finished the track in 30.45 seconds).




My personal fav' was the 'Crash to Pass' cars (not the big rigs but the crash 'em up bang 'em up Dukes of Hazzard cars). During the 'Crash to Pass' you must crash into the car in front of you before you can pass them. Ka Chow!
However, Tomas has indicated that the Double Decker racers were his favourite. This is a one-of-a-kind event that I suspect you could only witness in rural B.C. -> They stack a car onto another car and then they race around the track. The winner is the one whose double-decked car doesn't fall off.



Toria has enjoyed the beach in Hawaii, err, i mean, Saratoga Beach. However, when I snapped this picture she was NOT actually supposed to BE IN THE WATER. We had already been in the water and were getting ready to leave. On the other hand, how could a mom not love a smile like that!


We even ventured forth to the Filberg Festival in Comox where I met the mother of 2 boys I used to babysit 20 years ago (small world!) ....
This isn't her. This is the Filberg Troll.


I literally have a hundred shots of the sunset, surf, sand, seashells and super bonfire we made on the beach one night but this is my favourite.


Well, I'd better get going. Off to the pool for our last swim!