Random bits of summer

Summer has been flying by, so fast we barely took any pictures! We did a lot of traveling around BC and Alberta in July. We left town literally within the hour that Keith got out of school the last Friday in June and headed west. We spent our first night enjoying a good visit with my great aunt and uncle in Grand Forks. We stopped for a lunch visit with friends in Osoyoos the next day before arriving at Keith's brother's place in Mission. While there we made a quick trip over the border for, you guessed it, more visiting in Lynden and Bellingham, Washington. We managed to visit most of the relatives we have in the Lower Mainland in the few days we were there, as well as take a quick day trip into Vancouver for some music shopping, Chinese food, and gelato.


Above: Inside the chapel at Mission, BC's seminary on the hill. There is a beautiful view over the valley from their lookout point, but it was very smoggy while we were there.

Below: Up to the clean, but rain filled skies of Northern BC now. This shot was taken from the Telkwa Pass Road (which isn't really much of a road!)
From the Lower Mainland we ventured north on the longest drive of the trip. We stayed a night in Prince George to visit with friends before arriving in Telkwa, BC where Keith's parents live. As I blogged earlier, it rained everyday. We had lots of time to relax and chat with Keith's parents as well as friends in Telkwa and Smithers. In all we stayed about a week before heading home. It's about a 16 hour drive to Lethbridge from there, so we opted to break it up by staying a night just outside Valemont, BC. We enjoyed our B&B, and the restaurant they recommended eating supper at, The Caribou Grill (yes, they DO serve caribou, but we didn't try it). I found out a couple weeks later the restaurant is actually owned and operated by a relative of mine!
Above: The B&B outside of Valemont. Very quiet, lots of hummingbirds & wildlife, delicious breakfast!

Below: We were exhausted by the time we got home. Stella empathized.

A week at home allowed us to rest up, get a few things done around the house, and re-pack our bags. We first drove up to Sherwood Park to attend my cousin's wedding, then over to Vermilion to hang out with my family and take in the Vermilion Fair. I don't have any good pictures of the wedding myself, but it was beautiful and at least a dozen other relatives took enough pictures for all of us (the power point re-cap was finished within days though I didn't snag a copy myself).

While in Vermilion we did a lot of resting, eating and visiting (can you sense a pattern here?). The Fair always gives us a chance to meet up with family and friends, and of course my Mom's house is grand central station regardless of the time of year.
Above: Sky over the Vermilion River Valley after a thunderstorm. It held off until after the fair celebrations were over.

Below: Keith sometimes gets put into situations I don't think he ever would have considered before joining our family. Here he had to hold a filly while my sister doctored an infected eye and then rigged up a very creatively built eye patch. She may look small, but baby horses are pure muscle and nerves, and Keith had a tense moment when the mother horse leaned over to sniff his head to see what he was up to.
Yes, that eye patch is fashioned form a very small halter and a bra. Unconventional, but effective!
We've been home now since the very end of July and are enjoying not spending much time in the car this month. The baby room is finally starting to look like one and we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of friends who have passed on useful items and advice.

Keith gets back in the swing of the new school year this week with a two day course on the new grade six social studies curriculum (not that they have any resources yet- oh what a surprise that Alberta Learning is behind again). He starts at the school officially next Wednesday, so he'll be in the thick of it in no time.

In between we're trying to make sure our house will be baby ready and enjoying the last few lazy bits of summer vacation. I will try to post later this week to give a baby room update!

Rain, rain go away

So we're in Smithers and it's raining again. What a surprise. The current tally for nine consecutive years of visiting is sunny: 2 days, rainy: ALL other days. It's really statistically unbelievable. I'd like to post a nice picture of one of the mountians for you all, but we haven't seen much of them. In fact, if I didn't know they were there, I would be hard pressed to believe it.

But enough complaining, it hasn't been all bad. The temperatue is not too cold (and definitely not too hot) and we've had a chance to visit with many friends and relatives over the past two weeks (last week we were in the lower mainland). The trek home starts tomorrow morning. We've booked a B&B in Valemont for the night to break up the drive into two days, and I am really looking forward to sleeping in my own very comfortable bed on Saturday. All the sitting around has not made my lower back very happy so I'm also looking forward to getting a few things done around the house as well as going for some walks. Well, my time is running out so I better log off. We'll be home most of next week if anyone wants to visit!

I read this quote on a friend's blog, and thought it described my husband well (especially this week). For lack of a better place to post it, I place it here:

"The Long Winded Man"

Neither in public nor in private life, indeed, is it at all true that the man who talks a great deal is necessarily an offensive person. It is an entire mistake, for instance, to imagine that the man who monopolises conversation is a conceited fellow. The man who monopolises conversation is almost always modest. The man who talks too much generally has a great deal of humility. Nay, even the man who talks other people down, who argues them down, who shouts them down, does not in the least necessarily think himself better than they are.

It may seem a contradiction, yet the truth and reason of it are really very obvious. The man who talks too much, talks too much because he is interested in his subject. He is not interested in himself: if he were he would behave better. If he were really an egoist he would think of what effect his ego was producing; and a very mild degree of mental perception would enable him to realise that the chief effect his ego was producing was a unanimous human aspiration to hurl him out of the window.

A man who fills a drawing-room for two or three hours (say) with a monologue on bulbs, is the very reverse of a selfish man. He is an unselfish hero, courting the scorn and contumely of men in the great cause of bulbs, objects which are hardly likely to offer him in return any active assistance or even any animated friendship. He is a Martyr, like Stephen or Joan of Arc: and we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed (or bulb) of the Church.

No; the really selfish men are the silent men, those wicked and sinister fellows. They care more for their own manners (a base individualistic asset) than for conversation, which is social, which is impersonal, which is divine. The loud talker is humble. The very phrase you use about him proves this. If a man is rude, and bawls and blunders, the snub given to him would be “You forget yourself.” It is the very ecstasy of altruism — an impersonal apotheosis. You say to the cad, “You forget yourself.” What better, what higher, could you say to the saint than that “You forget yourself”? — G. K. Chesterton, “On Long Speeches and Truth,” Collected Works 27: The Illustrated London News 1905-1907, pp. 132-133 (paragraph breaks added).

A few more photos...

Monday, March 31st

Well, there's not much to tell for our last day at Windsor. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our B&B, then walked though town to the castle. It was another quiet day. We got in on our passes from the day before (still couldn't believe it!) and went straight to St. George's Chapel for a look around with our audio guides. It was a bit noisy in there as a tv crew from New Zealand was setting up lights and cameras for the special memorial service for Sir Edmund Hillary which was to be in the next day or two.
Since we had time, we re-looked though the State Rooms and came out just in time to watch the changing of the guard. I actually got a better look at it through these photos than I did in person. Tall people certainly had the advantage here.
Birds of prey are kept at the castle to scare off the pigeons. I'm sure they do more than just frighten them when the tourists aren't around!
It sure was nice to experience spring for a couple of days. There's a duck near the middle of this photo enjoying himself as well.

We left Windsor Castle with just enough time for me to go pick up that teapot which I was certain would fit in my carry-on (it did), buy a few snacks at the Mark & Spencer's, and speed walk back to the B&B to grab our bags and catch our cab. In hindsight we wished we had alotted more time for Windsor, but were happy to have seen what we did anyway.

Our drive to Heathrow Airport was the calmest car service ride I have ever taken. In New York & Venice I had really feared pedestrian lives would be lost, but there were no such concerns this morning. We had a pleasant chat with our driver and enjoyed the rolling green scenery for the 15 or so minutes it took to get to the airport. Thankfully we had nothing to do with the nightmare-ish new Terminal 5, and passed the rest of our very long day of travel un-eventfully.

There is a new post below!

I began the "Sunday" post awhile ago, but hadn't had time to finish it until now. It came up not at the top of the blog, but down on the date when I first began it so you'll have to scroll down!

More random pics for now...

Here we are enjoying tea & tasties at the Bramah Tea Museum on London's South Bank.
Couldn't believe we found a Tim Horton's in London! No, we didn't buy anything.
The Duke of Wellington Pub between Sloane Square and Victoria Station was enjoyed by all.
I enhoyed this quote chiselled into the floor of the British Museum's Great Hall.

Now, I am going out to enjoy the warmer weather! Yay- spring is finally coming back!