We're Back!

It's been a lovely summer - ok, the weather wasn't the best, but we still managed to love every minute at the cottage. The summer went entirely too quickly, though, and hopefully we can all stay a bit longer next year. As I was in full cottage mode, I did no blogging while I was back in Ontario. That leaves the herculean task of sorting through all of the photos taken and creating a huge entry that tells the chronology of our visit. NAHHHH! In true Steve fashion, I'll just put up a bunch of photos, in no particular order, and hope you enjoy them. I must point out that my camera/phone was on the bum for about two weeks of our month away, so I'm missing quite a chunk of the holiday. Without further adoo....

The girls were into performing for us this summer. Here they are singing some Abba tunes with Sierra and Sully, two of our visitors (oops - Sully's not in the shot)

Always a highlight is when Lianne and Chris and Jamey and Kathryn are up at the cottage, and the kids can go tubing and skiing and SeaDooing. Here they are with Lianne:

Cousing Kathryn. Beautiful photo of a beautiful girl:

Our first batch of guests were our former colleagues from Ghana. Some of them don't live in Ghana anymore, like us, but we still call them the Ghana crew. In this photo Sherrie's brother Paul has taken many of them up to Bluff Point at the cottage. It has a spectacular view.

Amy showed some of the Ghana Crew around the woods on a nature hike:

The Ghana Crew. (most of them - Morgan and Jenn had left already)

Amy and Z

Johnny with a garter snake:

Sadie

Sadie on the SeaDoo with Uncle Chris:

Me and Morgan jamming in the kitchen:

Kwadwo (pronounced Kwayjo) at the archery range:

My first Ontario rock balance.

Uncle Ted with his Jack Russel named Tess.

Saide and cousin Kori

A bucket 'o' frogs - about half an hour's work for five kids.

typical scene - busy dock

The best frog and minnow catcher in the family:

Sadie's driving the boat!

Kim and Dan and Sully and Amy and Sherrie (Sierra, Sadie and Erin are out of view) on our way to the jumping rocks:

Amy's best friend, Fiona, visited from Vermont:

The girls with Auntie Maria:

Sherrie playing my new Ukulele - I'm loving that thing!

The girls in Ottawa:

Visiting Great Granny in Ottawa:

All of the Kos kids, including baby Samantha:

Claire and Amy after swimming:

Sadie at the Dier farm, watching cows:

The girls back in Alberta, on a hike this past Sunday:

Now I know I've missed many many good times from the summer - Like I said, my camera was busted. To all of those we saw and spent time with, thanks for the memories, and I apologize for not getting your photos up. I'll make it up to you next summer.

I'll be back to my (semi) weekly posting now, so stay tuned.

Sherrie and I both volunteered at the Powow this year. It was quite spectacular! Our neighbour, Dennis, is the main organizer of it. Here are some photos:

Sherrie took this trip while at work.

This is what we did on Fathers' Day morning - My idea. It was lovely.

Lots going on lately...

• We're getting ready to have a lawn (a big deal actually - we need the path, the grass, the landscaping...)
• We're getting ready for Erin's birthday - it'll be at the playground on our street. We'll be running games and activities there and carting the refreshments over there.
• We're starting to talk about the flights to Ontario for the summer (we fly in two weeks!)
• We're volunteering at the annual Peace River powow this weekend
• I'm trying to finish the books, and Sherrie's as busy as always traveling to schools around northern Alberta
• The sun is always up and we're staying up later because of it - it's making us sleepier in the day
• Many activities for the girls towards the end of school - lots of field trips and sports days and such.

Here are some photos:

Z's getting bigger

This is the tree that Jim put in our shipment, at our request. It basically looked dead as a doornail when it arrived in the truck, but I planted it anyway. It looked like a dead tree when the snow came. It stayed out in our yard, in the terribly cold winter, without any cover or protection (give me a break - the snow came so quickly and covered it!). It sat all spring and never sprouted even a bud, and the dog and the neighbour's dog kept chewing on it. Then, just about two weeks ago, KABOOM! leaves and buds. I'm so happy - I water it every day. I hope it'll be ok while we're gone in July.

Erin accompanied Sadie and I to the reading time at the library one Friday when she had a P.D. day. We learned about Rapunzel and the girls made their own princess hats afterwards.

Amy got her T ball uniform. It's really very classy, kind of nostalgic. I totally want one of the hats. by the way: Today at T Ball Amy hit consistently very well - consecutive non- stop base hits. Her best yet.

The tradition at Springfield (Amy and Erin's school) is to open sports day with a 'boat race'. Each family makes a boat (can be anything really) out of cardboard boxes and the kids run with them. Here are some photos of our Imperial Star Destroyer. It was kind of difficult to run with, but boy did it get a lot of compliments! Each grade had a race, so both girls got to run with it.

More rock balancing.

Sherrie still reads to the girls before bed each night (when she's in town - otherwise the kids are stuck with me). It's wonderful seeing them yawning on the sofa in their cute little jammies.

We attended a teddybear picnic at the school the other week. This is Erin having fun there.

That's all for now. Sadie and I are going biking.

New Photos:

Amy and Erin had career day at school and got to dress up to show what they wanted to be when they grew up.  Erin's a professional swimmer and Amy's and artiste.

The girls on one of our hikes.  They're spinning and hugging at the same time.

Our next door neighbour's dog, Muskwa, likes playing with Z.  They're best friends.

This photo was taken shortly after 10pm.  Kind of crazy, huh?  Haven't seen 'midnight sun' yet, but I assume it's coming soon...

I've got a new hobby - while out walking Z along the river I like balancing rocks.  There's no trickery involved - it just takes patience.  I have many more photos of my rock balancing and will periodically be posting my favs.  

That's all for now -make sure you check this site out in the future.

Steve