scrapbooking

I scrapbooked last night. Seriously I haven't done much in the last year - I start and I get creative block - but for whatever reason last night worked - two pages completed and a third nearly finished. Tonight I spent the evening at work - didn't get home until 9:30 and so I'm just trying to unwind... I'm hoping to continue putting a few pages together a night this month - that would be great... I'm also thinking rather than making 3 sets of the scrapbooks this year I'll just scan each page and make a photo book. I spend so much time trying to reproduce the pages that I get bogged in it and don't finish. So I'm going to see if making a photo book is a better option and be something all the grandparents will like and display.

Now for a few photos...

Michael enjoying some time with Doc

"Um, now what do I do with it?" - Kyle fishing the Nazko river

You can nearly read it off his lips... STRONG - this was Michael's word of the day after helping with filling our truck with a load of wood

A bear - I whistled at him and he started to come back to the road... oops... he got to the road and another car started to come around the corner - and then he took off - always sites to see the Nazko Highway

and so it begins

Today is September 11 and my skin has already started to fall apart. It happens every year but it is early this year... usually I start to get dry skin in late October - so what's the deal... what can I do? I know - apply skin lotion - but I feel like I'm doing it all day - ALL FLAMIN! DAY!!!! Anyone heard of eating a food that can help with your skins ability to retain moisture?... I know it sounds pretty sci-fi - let's go to the moon stuff - but really - there has got to be a better way to cope with this... right... there is also the - shut-up method - but really - would I have a blog if I wanted to hold all my complaints inside ... hell no!

photos

A trek to Nazko to enjoy a yummy dinner with Grandma and Grandpa


Fun in Lebourdais Park with Kyle


Rose


A beautiful female dragonfly


A pretty purply blue flower in Lebourdais Park

the horse race

In just (just... ha) 37 days we (Canadians) will elect a new prime minister. Me, queen-o-political stuff, likes to follow all the stuff going on - although seeing some of the ads is already getting old. (It will be my first time voting... that one... good grief) I asked my husband who would he be voting for - like he cares - and he said - who ever looks best in a dress... so I give you a little political fun in the race to be the leader of our great country.


Mr Dion sporting a beautiful cocktail dress. Ready to party it up with Canadians - showing off his fun side and his green side.


Mr Layton is ready to pull out all the stops in this number. He is here to make a change and setting trends for the future.


Mr Harper - conservative through and through - why change from what works - not a show stopper but wanting you to take a second look.

You be the judge, who looks the best? Who will be our next prime minister?

This is not a paid advertisement, this is not to show support for any of the candidates or parties - I'm still trying to figure out who is best. I'll tell you this much I'm tired of hearing "picking the best of the worst" - politicians deserve credit for the time they put out to run things. If they don't do a good job its probably because we aren't being loud enough about the direction we want things to go in. Last time I checked they also didn't get training in mind reading and so are unable to connect with your fabulous ideas on truly making long lasting changes that will make our lives better - vote - guide our nation in the right/left/center direction!

Buy these beautiful gowns at Only Gowns.com - beautiful gowns for all occassions.

S∆2C

So I'm enjoying my workout on the treadmill tonight and flicking through channels and I come across the big cancer fundraiser happening in the states today (this week). I wasn't expecting much and was just catching the tail end of it - I caught the section where actors were telling the stories of cancer victims/survivors and everything is fine and dandy... I'm still walking and just listening and then forrest whitaker shares his story and I just start crying - it was the one with "time of death" - if you were watching it. It had a huge impact - the telling of stories - I watched the rest of the show - probably the last 15 minutes... I'm glad to see actors getting behind a good cause - hats off to them and everyone that donated to the cause. Stuff that like - seeing a guy donate $25M to cancer research - watching people rally together behind a cause is great. There are lots of diseases and illnesses that need support - but finding one cure will lead to other cures.

What else?

The first week of grade 1 is finished. woohoo! Kyle survived and now we are getting ready to enjoy the weekend.

Still having apple fest at our house and still on the hunt for the best uses for the surplus.

It is September 5 and I need to begin scrapbooking. That's more of a reminder to me because I come back to my blog often (in hopes of those beloved comments) and can use all the help I can get to remember to do stuff.

apples, apples, we've got apples

Alright - what can I do with a tonne of apples... ok - not quite a tonne but I'm sure we've got more than 200 lbs once the tree is cleaned off. I've made apple crisp - which really - who can get enough of that... but what else? I'm looking for simple things - and something that will freeze - or something that you've had success with... yes - I will do my homework and use the internet to find this information but if you have a quick fix or something that you like to do with apples then let me know.

Oh and I found the Space Needle... I gotta say - I really expected it to stick out of the landscape when we flew over... in the post from yesterday look at the square roof in the middle of the photo and look left - you'll see a circle - and that's it.


This was taken from the Seattle aquarium - which I didn't know existed until we walked by the sign. I guess they don't need tourists. We went shopping at a cool Seattle stuff store near the aquarium and then walked back to the market - AWESOME!

September

Well friends it's September and with that comes the first day of grade 1. CRAZY! Yesterday was a half day and today was the beginning of full days. Yesterday we got the jolly - hey one of the kids in class has lice - YUCK! - letter but nothing else. Which has left me surprised because his kindergarten teacher was really good about talking with us and sending home stuff every day - well nearly every day.

Michael did ok yesterday - being dropped off alone again, but today he was a cling on and mumbled about Kyle. It was the worst. It made me sad... but within a few minutes of talking and seeing other kids at daycare he was ok - off and playing - pretending to be a tiger. me... well I was still sad - I don't brush stuff off as quickly...

My trip to Ellensburg was great. A good learning opportunity and a chance to meet other economic development people. I've got a few new pictures below from the past couple of weeks since I've been slacking on here - but with slacking on here meant I got a lot of other stuff done at home... like picking up apples (hundreds of pounds again) and making cookies, and apple crisp and playing and working out and just living it up :) Plus work - but hey - you can only have soo many good things in life... that's a tease though because my work is great right now... I'm getting stuff finished and I should have some great announcements later this week on work I've been part of all year - hooray.


Can you find the space needle?


Democratic headquarters - I just wanted an Obama sign picture... if you look closely you'll see my taking the picture in the window...

ellensburg

Hi y'all...
I'm taking a five day course in Ellensburg, a small town about 2 hours outside of Seattle. I'm getting in some great networking and learning lots about the american system which is completely irrelevant to my job, but that aside I'm picking up a few things. I thought I'd share a few photos of my adventure so far. There is a truely canadian course this afternoon and then a walking course - hooray! Then more stuff tonight... so the fun doesn't stop around here.


A beautiful bloom that I found when I went for a walk last night


The beautiful campus we are staying at, 1897 - brick - it is quite something to see


Here I am - in Ellensburg - set this up off of a railing :)

not much to report

So not much new with us... I'm heading to Washington (near Seattle) this weekend for work - taking a course... we've spent a couple of days in Nazko and the boys (especially Michael) have been enjoying time with the puppies... I've also gotten a little bit of time to use the camera...


You guessed it - its a beetle


And a little bit from the night sky - I didn't manage to take any meteor photos.... I'll keep working at it....

What else? Well it's blueberry time again - so I'm on the hunt for the biggest one - post your biggest find and photos if you have them...

look up

Well it's that time of year again - time to tilt your heads to the sky in the late evening and take in the best meteor shower of the year. Tonight marks the start of the Perseid meteor shower. Earth navigates through asteroids for the next couple of nights with tonight being the best night, but we continue through for two more nights... so get out there and check out the great show.

With any luck I might even have a photo to share tomorrow... we will see how lucky I am tonight :)

wasn't it just a few weeks ago...

It was just a few weeks ago that I shared an experience with a gun and just for kicks - I thought I'd share another. Last night I was cooking a mushroom sauce (fancy for me lately....) pork chops and mashed potatoes. The kids were playing and I was just washing something in the sink. I look outside and there is big guy standing outside, lighting a smoke at the end of my drive way. Nothing out of the ordinary - people smoke - so I'm looking at him and notice in his other hand a gun.

I ducked behind the cabinets and asked the guys to go and play in their room. Then I went back to the window to see if he was still there. Still there.. still smoking. So I try to catch a glimpse again and make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing. Then he starts to walk... and what do I do first... I call Andy and tell him to not come home because I don't know what the hell is going on and I certainly don't want him driving down our street into that... ok - wait - first I went and locked the basement door... ok - so then Andy says - um have you called the police... well no - my first priority was to make sure he was ok... gees.... ok - so I call the none emergency line and right away she's asking me serious questions. In five minutes a constable calls and asks for a better description and then I spot him - walking away towards downtown - but with someone... so the cop tracks him down.

Then 20 minutes (ish) later I see the guy walking again towards downtown. I hear nothing else - no phone call from the cops - and so I figure I've overreacted - no gun, he was packing something else and I was flashing to something I saw in Pulp Fiction - but talk about giving the general anxiety disorder girl a lot to work from... my OCD for checking the locks in the house went out of control (see Canadian Living magazine on newsstands now on OCD). Tonight while me and the guys are eating dinner the constable calls me back. He tells me that it was a gun. That I wasn't just seeing things and that I did the right thing by calling - that it is exactly the kind of thing they want calls on. He said when he met up with the guy in the park that he was with his son and his son had a gun as well. Apparently they were full replica guns for shooting small pellets at each other. The cop informed him that he needed to put it in a bag because it could be so easily confused for the real thing. That apparently he can get in trouble for packing a replica... so here we go again - what is the need for replica guns... I mean - come on - I wasn't terrified - but I was shocked - I mean what the heck! The more I thought about it last night the more it made me think of those giant guns you see in movies - I mean it wasn't a simple hand gun - it was one of those double barrelled type hand guns... what does it make me think - well because I'm my father's daughter it makes me want to move away from town and hide; but there is no hiding from the weirdos and people who think that sporting a replica gun or a real gun is cool... I get that people like pellet guns and paint ball - but there's a time and a place and the place isn't my GD'en front yard or a public place.... alright - so there you go - another adventure - ended well - guess that's all that matters... two too many for me though

one more

Richmond Water Park on a beautiful summer day, July 2008

pictures

Michael and his buddy "Mom I love my buddy" - this is teehaa (pronouced te-aahhh) and she is the puppy my parents kept


Kyle trying to call the crocodiles out of the river near Enderby.... we will forever love Steve Irwin at our house


Some pretty daisies - this shot was taken in Richmond at my mom-in-laws house


Kyle on his first seadoo ride... yeeha... faster, faster


And here is all the broccoli that came out of my garden... needless to say I'm left wondering how farmers make any money on broccoli - when I pay .99 cents for a giant head of broccoli at the grocery store and I watered my plants for a couple of months and got this... this is all out of four plants... will I grow broccoli again?... probably - but I think I'll pay more attention to its growth and try to help it out a little bit...

It's time...

That's right friends... it's time to break out the happy dance.





Here are the first of many photos on our new Canon Rebel XTi and let me just say.. holy wow! I've only taken 25 pictures and I'm just very impressed... so impressed that we got a little crazy over it...





So where have we been? Well out adventuring, of course. We spent a few days in the north Okanagan. We went swimming and Kyle went on his first seadoo ride. We went camping with my Aunti Jenni and got a chance to visit my Uncle from Bermuda and my grandma. We came home and now we've spent some time cleaning up and starting a renovation project. I'll load up more photos and info on our trips (we went to Vancouver too...) shortly.

the smell of raspberries

Tonight we picked raspberries in the backyard - planning to do a little jam making - mmmm yummmers... tonight I was washing them and getting everything ready for tomorrow and I had one of those moments. My grandparents had a good size raspberry bush area in their backyard and we used to sit and eat and help pick for jam making and the smell of the berries as I washed them made me think of my grandma. It was like she was sitting in my kitchen. I think about her pretty often - lots of little things spark a memory; trigger a few minutes of her talking to me or sharing something with me. I also think about what she would say to me when I'm doing things that she took so much pleasure in.

Today was just a great day. It just felt like a real holiday vacation day. I did do some work, but it just felt great to get some of my office cleaned and spend some time with Andrew. We walked to Granvilles for lunch and just sat in the sunshine and enjoy some quiet time together... the smell of the raspberries and a reflection on my grandma just added to my day.

What else? Well we leave for Vernon on Thursday - hooray - and off to a little Martin family reunion. Hooray for vacation time!

tonight

Here I sit - two days into my vacation here is how I'm feeling:

Happy that I don't have to answer a phone tomorrow for someone else
Pleased that I decided to stick with the two weeks off and not cut it short
Tired, we went camping last night at McLeese Lake - it was good fun, and a pretty setting
Mad, because I got burnt on my back and it stings - it is fire truck red in a few spots that didn't get adequate sun screen
Worried, because there is a rash on my leg - not sure what is going on - if I've got some weird patchy burn or if something got on my skin and has caused a rash from my ankle to 7 inches above my knee and all on one side of my leg - you'd think that if it was a burn it would have burned my whole leg and not just in a patch...
Headachy - because I got a little too much sun - but not too bad... not as bad as I've been....
All that and still happy because hooray - I'm on vacation :)

Summer, summer, summer time

one of those things

The other day as I walking around downtown I came up to a blind spot. I could see two young guys kind of in the corner and was thinking - what are they up to. No kidding I get to the corner and he is cocking a gun. The gun was low and I just glanced and kept walking. I looked back over my shoulder to see them joking around with it and made out that it was plastic. It could have been real - certainly at first glance I thought it was real.

So here's the question - do we need play guns? With less people hunting what is the need for guns. Are we, as a society, so afraid of life? Do little boys have to play with guns... is it all about power? I'm sure little boys played with the object that made them powerful before guns... bows and arrows, rocks... but is it necessary to make replica items that can be so easily confused for the real deal.

When it happened, it was surreal. I had one of those second takes of that situation as I kept walking up the street. My general anxiety disorder had a field day with it, but that part of me realized that it wasn't real and has gone on with worrying about everything else.

BNL

As most who visit often will know, I am a lover of the bare naked ladies. Mr. Steven Page - the reason I fell for the ladies - was charged with possession of cocaine today. More than anything else it makes me sad. I love the music the band makes and I'm sad that someone I would so highly regard for his musical ability and the things he has stood up - using his celebrity - is tarnished by possession of cocaine.

I remember Connie (high school buddy) telling me I needed to listen to "this". We listened to Enid and so began a nickname for Connie that I still think of when I think of her. It just so happened that shortly after my initiation to the naked ladies that they toured to Prince George and my amazing band teacher (during a teacher strike) took a bus load of us to my first concert. They were amazing - better than amazing - we memorized songs - we sang along with "million dollars" - it was our anthem. I've followed them ever since and hear them in many places - not just a band that makes albums - they have theme songs to tv shows, cbc introduction music, - they are around me throughout the day - I think of the band every time I listen to "sounds like canada".... they are truly canadian and so tonight after pondering this all day I simply wanted to write that it makes me sad.

I love the naked ladies - they are fabulous and will always be fabulous. He has plead not guilty to the charge and goes to court at the end of August. I hope this is all a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but understand that people do unwise things. It shocked me to read that if convicted there is a maximum sentence of 15 years and minimum charge of 5... that really makes me sad. It also make me wonder what the hell kind of judicial system there is Canada and the US. People die as a result of drinking and driving and the driver gets to walk away in some cases or gets such pathetic charges that it is a joke and they do it again - only to get another charge that is lame and unfair. What are our priorities as human kind? Don't get me wrong - if he is doing drugs and was caught he should be penalized - it is against the law - but the scale of the law is ridiculous.

When I was born
They looked me and said
What a good boy
What a smart boy
What a strong boy

a quick little vent

I don't like - HATE - people who come to clean ventilation systems and think it is cool to smoke beside them while they clean it - COME ON - WHAT THE HELL! Now I have a headache and feel throw-uppy... blah!

Alright... back to work.

Another great trip to Bville

This morning I made the 80 km (ish) trek to Barkerville from Q-town. Now I've been out there a lot and in all those visits I've never made it over to the Cornish Waterwheel. For some reason I had it in my head that it must be in the entrance and that I've just missed it every time. Turns out that I'm just a little (yes, I'm being kind) slow and it is behind the great authentic Chinese restaurant (Lung Duck Tong - no kidding they have the best Chinese food outside of Richmond in British Columbia). Today I was directed to it and managed to get a photo. Hooray.



If you are reading this and don't know where Barkerville is or what it is than you should definitely visit. If you've been - well it's always worth a second visit. A second or twentieth trip may result in some unexpected find... like a giant cornish water wheel... or just a chance to get some yummy bakery sweets or sour dough bread.... mmmm.... sour dough :)


These cute little guys live in Barkerville too - plus a whole herd at Cottonwood House (another historic site on the way to Bville)

Ok - now to lighten the tourism push from your ever loving Cariboo girl.... I went to the washroom at the Lung Duck Tong and found the following....


Yep - a regular bathroom, with what looks to be a little garbage can attached to the wall... upon closer inspection...


That's right a please "put your butts here" sign... I had a little laugh over this because who exactly is smokin' it up in that bathroom... I couldn't help but sing a little "smokin' in the boys room" to myself after this...