Theme Thursday: Summer Fun

This week's theme was an easy one for me to take part in, playing with my niece and nephews is always a good time!

Two More Sleeps

We leave for Vancouver in less than 48 hours. I am far from being ready but I'm super excited and wish Friday would just hurry up and get here already! I'm dying to see my girls and their boys too! The plan is to touch base with Rebecca, Cara, Rosie, Herwig, Jen, Mike, Jackie, Ian and of course Jess and Colin throughout the two weeks we are West... there are a few others we are hoping to see while there as well but we'll have to wait and see whether it works out. YAY!!!

A shot from our June 2007 visit to Van

We have loads of adventures planned and both Mike and I will be blogging regularly while we're away so you'll see and hear all about it as it happens! Two weeks with a pile of friends who we haven't seen in quite some time and loads of fun things waiting for us to partake in. What trouble will we be getting ourselves into? You'll have to wait and see! I'm keeping all the goodies to myself and intend to share with them with you as they occur.

CARA DON'T LOOK!

Rosie Posie is turning 6 months old while we are in Vancouver visiting! Only 3 more sleeps until we leave!! Since I was so sure she was a boy before she arrived I crocheted her a blue blanket with bits of pink running through it; obviously I was wrong (see I do admit it sometimes) so when I sewed her a 6 month birthday blanket I figured I should go pink pink and more pink.


I love the soft minky fabric, I think I'm going to make myself a throw with it.

This is... what makes me happy.

Family and friends are at the top of the list of things that make me happy. These three in particular give me warm fuzzies: I can't help but smile when I see their faces whether it's in person or in photographs.




Better late than never. Thanks to One Little Acorn for this week's "This is..." theme.

A Fabulous Shop: Deciduous Soul

This beautiful little scrabble tile looks even better in real life than it does in this picture! The owner of the Etsy shop Deciduous Soul is lovely to deal with which is a definite bonus when shopping online.

A Day at the Beach

It was an incredibly windy day at the beach, so windy in fact that our little swimmer wasn't able to get close to the waters edge without holding tight to a hand belonging to an adult. We played in the water and built sand castles but a good deal of Neve the three year old daredevil and my time was spent on the jungle gym: climbing rock walls, swinging, going down the curly and bumpy slides, swinging, climbing up the slides and more swinging.




Playing in the sand with my parents sitting in lawn chairs beside the big beach blanket time warped me back to my childhood. My mom packed one of her famous beach lunches of course, loads of sandwiches, fresh fruit, cookies, cheese, chips and more liquid than an army could consume. Yum!




Grams, Papa and Neve being goofs.


Eight zillion shots later...


One of my absolute favourite pictures of the day: pure happiness on my parents' faces.

More from Someday Farm

A few more of the pictures I snapped yesterday while visiting Someday Farm. Truly a slice of heaven.

Sisters posing for the camera, they're sucking on all natural wheat, not cigarettes. This field is on one side of the property...


And this field is on the other...

What a view!


I absolutely loved the barn... can you tell?







Finally this shot was taken out of the window of Tanya's car on our way home - these wind turbines are truly amazing to see.

Someday Farm

I fell in love with Tanya's sister Kim's farm when we visited yesterday! She has an absolutely beautiful property situated between two massive fields, and she's only a five minute drive to the beach! Heaven on earth. Thanks Kim for a nearly perfect day, it only the raw pork roast hadn't been eaten by your massive doggie.

You know I'm only kidding, it was an absolutely wonderful day and the beauty of Kim's property led to some great photo opps. I'll post more pics tonight; I'm off to the beach with my parents and Neve.

Hannah Banana

Another 'to do' checked off the list.

For details on these children's' tote bags and pencil case please pop over to gingham skies.

It Was Better Than Fair

It was a lovely day spent with one of my all time best girls: Tanya. We drank cappuccino (yep that's a pic of mine up above) and ate yummy fresh salads and sandwiches at a new Fair Trade cafe located Uptown Waterloo: Seven Shores Urban Market and Cafe. It is a wonderful little cafe where you can find good eats and beautiful handcrafted items to decorate your home and self. Of course we ate gelato today as well, how could we not when it was right there in front of us and oh so mmm.

Only a week and a half until Mike and I leave on our trip out West which I am crazy excited about BUT that means I only have a week and a half left to get in all the Tanya-time I can. She heads off on her year (maybe two) long adventure in Russia when we're vacationing in BC. Did that 'two' sound more like I meant 'too'? It wasn't an accident. I'm very excited for Tanya but selfishly sad for me, I'll miss her like crazy!

This is...what makes my skin crawl.

cockroach
Originally uploaded by phrenophile

Brown bugs, cockroaches, nastiest creatures on earth: same difference. Whatever you like to call them these disgusting little buggers make my skin crawl! I worked for a family up North for a few summers and these little buggers were everywhere (they like damp wood so a cottage on an island is like a little piece of heaven for them).

I woke up as I slapped my chest one morning to find that I had smashed one of these nasty guys to bits under my pajama top - from that night on I wore many layers to bed and tucked my pj pants into my socks!

You learn to shake out your bathing suits really well after finding a cockroach inside... thankfully I saw it before it hit skin. Ewwwwww!

Thanks to flightless boyds for this weeks theme.

Flashback Friday

Isn't it funny what memories stick in your head? So much of my past is made up of foggy recollections but there are some days/moments that are crystal clear.

The moment this photo was taken is crystal clear in my mind. My best friend Martha (her back is facing the camera) and I were playing charades on the front lawn of the house I lived in until I was 7. I was pretending to be a lion here and she was just about to guess correctly when my when my Aunt Alison came out and snapped the picture.

While riding my bike yesterday I had a few other random memories pop into my head,, things I haven't thought of in years: popping tar bubbles that formed on the side of the road, we would be covered in nasty sticky tar and could have cared less; riding my bike with no hands and showing off to my brother and cousins when WHACK I smacked into the back of a parked car. I'm not sure how bike riding triggered these two but I had a good laugh yesterday recalling them.

Mikey Likes It!

I'm always thrilled to find a new recipe that both Mike and I like, it's not always easy but thankfully in his old age my man is willing to try new things. This might not seem like a big deal to some but Mike is known for being a bit of a 'selective' eater... I think it's safe to say that he was known to be picky but in my opinion he is moving out of the picky zone.

I found a yummy recipe in June's issue of Chatelaine and when I read the words pork tenderloin I figured it would be safe to suggest it to my husband. The part I wasn't so sure of were the peaches... he wasn't so sure himself until he took a bite and YUM!

This is a really easy, healthy and filling summer salad. Speaking of healthy and lazy I'm too lazy to type out the entire recipe so I snapped a pic of Chatelaine's original recipe.

I couldn't find minced chipotle in adobo sauce at the discount grocer near my house so I just chopped up half a jalapeno and tossed it in. Mmmm mmmm good.

See, super easy and really yummy!

She'll Walk Like a Cowgirl

Tomorrow I may very well resemble a cowgirl.

For the first time this year I hopped on my bike and I'm very proud to say that I rode it 8 km to my parents house; I spent 3 hours scraping paint off the back of the house, cooled off in the pool and then climbed back on my steed and rode 8 km back to my place. I will admit I took two different routes ensuring I had big hills to ride down each way, that being said there was no getting around big hills to go up on both routes as well.

On the way there I honestly considered stopping and turning around when I was less than half way - it suddenly hit me that I would have to complete this journey a second time in the same day. Thankfully I talked myself out of turning around and I completed my trip.

I said that my holidays would officially start following the presentation on "Abuse in the Deaf Community" I had committed to giving at the university and that took place this morning soooo HAPPY HOLIDAYS to me!

I've been terrible about keeping active even though I continuously publicly declare my intentions but here I go again. I will do something physical, even if it's just a 20 minute walk, every day of my holidays (now until August 24th) because I have absolutely no excuse not to.

Two Mer Sisters Named Amelia

I cannot believe that I'm nearing the end of my second week of holidays already! Time flies. What have I done for the last week and a half? A little bit of this and a little bit of that, I have been busy so I haven't blogged much but I'll try to be a little more regular for the remainder of the summer.

Last Friday I spent the afternoon with Neve. We started our playtime with a swim shortly after I arrived at my parents place where Neve was spending the day with Papa (as per her usual Friday routine). After playing "sister mermaids" for half an hour Neve decided we should call each other Amelia for the rest of the day and I suggested that the Amelias take a trip to the park. Surprisingly 'Amelia' agreed and we ventured off to the nearby school yard where I often played as a kid.

A sweet little girl named Ping ran straight over to us when we stopped by the climbing equipment. You've got to love kids. When Ping asked Neve what her name was her response was to tuck her chin into her chest, scooch closer to me and then growl at poor little Ping. Thankfully Ping wasn't put off by this display of Neveness, she asked Neve a few more questions which received the same growl of a reply... I tried to coax words out of my beautifully stubborn niece but not surprisingly I had no luck. Ping looked at me confused and asked "Why can't her talk?" I couldn't help but laugh.

Ping asked Neve to play with her and suggested a few other things before giving up and focusing her attention on me. She looked up at me with a big smile and proudly announced that she was 5 years old, went to this school and could swing across ALL of the monkey bars. After glancing nervously at the growling girl tucked against my thigh I asked Ping if she would like to show us her very cool talent.

It was Ping's excellent display of monkey bar crossing that caught Neve's attention (as much as she didn't want to watch she couldn't help her eyes from looking in Ping's direction). Before I knew it Neve was chasing after Ping copying her every move, you would have thought the two were old friends. Ping showed Neve how to do a cartwheel, Neve watched carefully and then avoided having to try it herself by announcing "I can do ballet. Want me to teach you ballet?" She then spun around and fell on her butt which threw drew giggles from both girls.

A very sweet moment for me to watch was when Ping suddenly stopped what she was doing and crept closer to Neve. She peered into Neve's face, smiled her beautiful smile and chirped, "You have the same hair as me! You have the same kind of eyes as me too!" Neve smiled back at Ping and said, "Yes, we match."

Ping and her dad left the playground around the same time my dad drove by honking his horn, he surprised Neve and I with ice cream cones to devour before we made the short but hot journey home.

While sitting under the shade of a tree on the playground eating our ice cream Neve asked me if I thought we would see Ping again, she liked her new friend and hoped they could play again. Neve talked about the fun she had had playing with Ping and me and told me, "I was shy and then no more."

I asked her why she had been shy at all and her response made my day: "I didn't want to share you Aunt Jaime."

This is my most treasured childhood possession.

The item I loved most when I was a kid was a small pillow lovingly referred to as my "stinky" pillow; my dad always called it that and the name stuck. I used to suck on the corners of that nasty little thing and loved it until the foam insides turned to dust. I thought I still had the pillows stashed away but I can't seem to locate it so today you'll meet the runner up: Garfield.

I was obsessed with the Garfield comic strip when I was little so when I tore the Christmas wrapping off of this little guy one year I was a very happy little girl. My big brother picked him out for me and as you can see he chose well, this was one loved cat.

Thanks Danielle from teacups on treetops for choosing the 'This is...' theme this week.

New Bag & New Blog

The first bag from my first order has been completed! This one has a zipper closure.
If you're interested in more details please check out my new sewing blog Gingham Skies.

Flashback Friday

Storybook Gardens in London, Ontario holds many fond memories for me. I remember visiting it on many occasions and for old times sake my dad (aka Chops in this picture) took my niece Neve last summer - we tried to pose her next to the less creepy Humpty Dumpty that now sits on the wall but she would have nothing of it! Thanks big bro John for holding on in this shot and not taking advantage of the moment to throw me to the ground.