Deamin'

My sister Marilyn who recently passed had an array of friends; she had friends whom I'd never met. At the Celebration of Life I was visiting with family, friends and  strangers, the commonality which brought us all together was my sister. At one point in time I could have sworn I heard a Harley off in the distance, my ears perked up and before I knew it there was a Harley pulling into the driveway... what impressed me is there was  a lady driving it. 

As the bike slowly made it's way down the long driveway my heart quickened, as soon as it was parked I approached the lady, without introducing myself I asked if I could sit on her bike, feel what it is going to feel like. The lady told me to go for it.... so I did. I sat on the bike and found I was right in my element. After I dismounted the bike I went to talk to this lady and her boyfriend, I introduced myself and we chatted for some time. She's a new driver I learned, this is why her boyfriend had to follow her; she learned that Marilyn was my sister. 

I had my camera with me but found I couldn't bring myself to take many photos on this particular day, that is until the Harley showed up. I was in the house chatting with my nieces and this lady went out of her way to find me, she mentioned that she had noticed I had a good camera and suggested at some point I find her and she would take photos of me on the bike. I told her that I'd given my camera to my daughter as I was having issues with taking shots that day, she understood and told me to go ahead and sit on her bike, take photos, and do what I wanted to... my daughter shot a few photos, the lady sent her boyfriend over to start the bike while I was sitting on it and I was like a kid at Christmas. When she came up from behind me I never heard her approaching, she reached past me and gave the bike gas, my heart raced. 

 I still dream of owning a Harley one day and if there's one thing I've learned in life is that dreams can, and often do, come true... I just have to make it happen somehow and red really is my color, wouldn't you agree? ;-)

I shall return...

Hello everyone, I just want to take a few minutes tonight to thank each one of you for your kind words, your loving thoughts and your prayers. I am having a hard time with the passing of my sister and I miss you all but I must take time out to grieve her passing. I will be back, I miss the laughter we share, the photos, the encouragement, positive thoughts and traveling with each of you. Til I'm back here's a few words, borrowed words but awesome words in my opinion...

'til we meet again, please know how much I appreciate our friendship, and everything I've come to learn through each of you.  Life is a journey, enjoy the ride. 

Cheers. 

RIP My Dear Sister

I am posting this photo with a sad heart; this is a photo I shot a few years

back of my sister Marilyn. Marilyn was 19 months older than I am, 

she was kindhearted and we shared tons of laughs in our time. Two nights 

ago my precious sister passed away unexpectedly, she will always be

in my heart. I love you Marilyn, may you rest in peace. 

I believe this is the last photo we had taken with all four of us girls

together, the photo is from two years ago, we were having

a family Christmas party at my youngest sisters home. 

L to R - My youngest sister Cathy, myself, Papa Ross, my oldest

sister Julie and Marilyn is on the far right. 

Marilyn you will be missed by many people. 

There's so much I'd love to be able to say to my sister...

my suggestion to anybody who happens to read this is 

never leave something positive to say until tomorrow,

 say it today in the here and now, or you may miss your opportunity 

to ever say what you would have like to have said. 

The Fish Story

You know how most fishermen (if not all of them) can tell some pretty

 big stories about their biggest catch? Well here's our fish story ...

"And there was once I caught a fish and it was huge, 

the biggest fish you ever did see!" 

... the truth:

New Babies

Tonight there were two additions to the animals on the farm;

 two kids, literally kids, and they're adorable. 

The question I have is what are goats good for? 

Eating grass? I've heard some people drink

goat milk, I think I'll pass on that one. I'll just keep

doing what I like to do, take photos of these two 

adorable critters. 

A Horse of Course

Sunday I was out taking photos (go figure); my subject was a horse of course. :-) Actually my friend has three horses but this photo I am extremely pleased with. Yup, just one photo... 

Okay, maybe two but that's it. 

The black horse is the one I'm going to get on before this summer 

is through, I just hope I can stay on! If not I'll do as my granddaughter tells 

me: "Grammie, try try again." 

Quad Rally

This past weekend I headed further north, back to my home town. I have
 a friend there who invited me to a quad rally and I jumped at the 
opportunity. The rally was on Saturday so we (he) packed up the quad,
 I packed up the thermos and away we went. 

We chose the shorter ride, it was only 50kms and not as rough of a trail. 
The rally itself had over 500 riders, an excellent turn out for a small community.
 There were tons of laughs along the way, everyone was in good spirits. 

We covered terrain where no vehicles could go; it was such a beautiful ride...

A beautiful ride for some of us that is; there were quite a few people getting
 stuck, their quadding adventure turned into a mudding adventure. 

Thankfully I was riding with an ex-hunting guide so he knows his quads...
 a few close calls but my nice polka dot rubber boots didn't have to drag
 the winch at all. Sure they got a bit muddy, but that's part of the fun! 

Yup, another extremely fun adventure, one I'd do again in a heartbeat. 

Oh and the quad, it survived to take on yet more adventures 
which is a good thing with hunting season coming up. 

Summer at the Farm

There's a young fella staying at the farm, he sure is a busy boy but

 it's a healthy kind of busy. I tried to keep up to him outside for 

a while today with my camera; here's a few of the shots.

This first one I got him to sit on the tractor, that was easy enough...

Then we added his dog...

(I personally LOVE this shot!)

And the fun began...

Through the wheat fields we went

We were headed to his fort...

Summer time at the farm,
a kids way! 

I kept up surprisingly enough, think I'll go to bed
a bit earlier than normal though. 

Curious

I'm looking to find out if anybody knows the year and name of this old Dodge, 

it's such a beautiful old car which I highly doubt will ever be restored,

 but I'm curious what it is. 

Time Invested Wisely

My granddaughter spent the night with me last night, she's such a joy to spend time with and as always she taught me a thing or two. 

We were out on the patio blowing bubbles, my bubbles weren't coming out too well and she told me "Grammy, try try again!" She said that would help if I kept on trying. So try try again I did as I smiled and watched her blow bubbles. 

We tried to fill up the backyard with bubbles, we were doing a pretty good job of it and as they floated away Elyssa told me they were going to bubble home. 

Elyssa wanted to look at my flowers in the front, I told her we'd best have a snack first so we would have energy to pull a few weeds as we looked at the flowers. One of the immense joys of being a Grammy I find is feeding my princess some of her favorite foods, she loves her fruit so fruit and ice cream it was. 

When Elyssa comes for a visit it never fails, 

where Elyssa is Abbie is sure to be close by.

I love spending time with Elyssa, it has to be one of my favorite things to do in life. Today she taught me how to use her Leappad, that's quite an amazing teaching tool, she taught me to try, try again and she's working on teaching me some of her new jokes. Yup, it was a wonderful weekend, my time was invested wisely. 

A bit of this and a bit of that

Rarely is there a dull moment in my world, anybody who has been following my blog I'm sure can attest to this. Today there wasn't anything extra special happening, well unless you consider breathing special (which I do) then I guess something special happened! I just did a bit of this...

Went to Wal-Mart shopping, smiled when I saw all the tourists parked in the lot. I found it amusing because it's WalMart, seriously what do people do, say to their children: "Pack up, we're off to WalMart for our holidays!"

Next stop, one of my favorite stores which is Home Depot (it's my favorite store when I'm not mad at them and today I wasn't mad at them). It was there I actually found a new fan. When we had our heat wave, which lasted all of a day, and not 24 hours neither, I had checked 3 other stores and they were sold out. I used to have two fans, I tracked one of them down...son #2  has fessed up, he has one of them. I think that the aliens swooped down out of the sky and took the other one. 

Abbie was happy we have a new fan, she was anxiously waiting for me to set it up, she's still waiting as it wasn't too hot today. Sorry Abbie, I'll get to that tomorrow if it's warm in here. 

I also have been trying to figure out what to do with the door windows; I didn't want to hang a curtain, it's a metal door and I don't want to start messing with metal doors, with me I might have air holes in my door if I do. I found this window covering at my favorite store, it's expensive so it'd best stay on for a while. 

A different store I stopped at had these garlic bags for a dollar each. They were pretty big so I got out my sewing machine and modified it. I bought this for a friends mobile home, now it's a nice size and he can tuck away his garlic off the counter. 

What was my bit of that? Well it's something which had me concerned. When I returned home I reached into my mailbox and there was a letter from the University of Calgary, it said "Office of the President" on the return address. I thought, oh no, now what'd I do? 

The letter says:

"I would like to offer my congratulations to you for receiving the Dr. Olive Dickason Award..."

 WHEW, I'm not kicked out of University. This is such a nice gesture, and a very beautiful letter. Once again I am honored, it's even signed by the President of my University; I'll have to send her a thank you card. 

So ya, it's been a bit of this and a bit of that type of a day. Right, I even baked cookies (I should put them in the garlic bag just cause I can) and I also did a few other things, no wonder the clock says 2:31am... a full but wonderful day! 

Just Like Martha

This year my plants had a slow start, no worries, so did everybody elses due to poor weather. I was getting a bit concerned about my Clematis plants, this is my 3rd year of growing them so I'm still learning. It was roughly the beginning of June when I broke down and asked my oldest sister if her Clematis plants were peeking out of the ground yet, I was relieved when she said not yet (her plants are gorgeous!) 

June 16th this is what my Clematis plants looked like, I was so excited! They WERE growing. 

I felt like the next Martha Stewart, getting all confident that I can do anything that woman does (we'll leave the go to jail part out of this story), and I've been watching my plants grow, and grow and grow some more... heck I even have a few blossoms now. 

So there you go, I can do what Martha does, and then some. I've never seen her take photos, have you? On my confident high I quickly got dressed to run out to Home Depot, another do it yourself project... yup I was riding high, feeling just like Martha. I grabbed my purse and with a final glance in the mirror I was ready to go buy myself a concrete bit for my drill... until I realized something;

Seeing my shirt inside out quickly deflated my ego, but it was nothing I couldn't fix in a hurry. I turned my shirt around, scoffed that Martha has so much money that she probably pays someone to dress her and I went and got me my drill bit. Yup now to drill some holes in that concrete and hang up a garden hose holder and Martha I'm doing it all by myself. I have no paid employees to do the pre-drilling or line up my tools and my hair doesn't have to be perfect to work with concrete. So just like Martha, no thank you, I like me just as I am...18v DeWalt and all! :-) 

4th of July

To all of my American friends who celebrate Independence Day (is it still called Independence Day or just the 4th of July?) wishing you a wonderful day; enjoy your celebrations! 

Now to find a photo to post.... oh I know, I'll borrow one from my friend Google! 

Ahhh the good old days where flying a kite was not just an expression, 

when people were real and life was simple. 

Cheers! 

Canada Day Celebration

I braved the crowds last night and took in one of the celebrations Edmonton hosts for Canada Day. The event I attended was by no means the biggest display of fireworks, nor draws the largest crowd but it was plenty big enough for me with an excess of 20,000 people in attendance and the fireworks were not bad at all. 

I was getting my camera gear set up and this wee fella stopped to show off his

stickers to me, I asked him if he wanted a picture of them and he grinned from ear to ear. 

The smell of pride was in the air; from balloons, to hats, stickers, face paintings and T-shirts, people showed their pride in being Canadian. I would have enjoyed interviewing people and asking them what it means to them to be Canadian, but my mission was photos. 

Bands entertained...

This band was the feature band, they've been together for 20 years and done the name "Captain Tractor", a true Albertan band...most definitely Canadian. 

It started to get late, the skies were changing color which suited me just fine,
 better reflections off the water. 

And the setting sun was gorgeous. 

Then it was time for the main event, what everybody waits in anticipation for...

July 1st FIREWORKS! 

So that was how I chose to spend my evening, in a mob of people listening to music, taking tons of photos and fighting (almost literally) to get out of a parking lot. 

Lessons learned: 

1) Find a better parking spot next year if I go back

2) Always take the second remote for my camera when 

I shoot fireworks or evening shots.

3) Work on my potty mouth and learn a wee bit more

patience when dealing with idiots in a parking lot.

hmmm I think that about covers it.