Oatmeal Lover Supremo

One of Savannah's favorite things to eat is oatmeal and she recently decided she was going to eat ALL by herself! She does well for her 2nd time on her own don't ya think?

Distracted

I had a good day today. Slept in till 740. Crazy as eh? Seeing as how I'm usually up and at em 2 hrs prior to that. Tried to go for a run. Got 3 houses up and ran into a garage sale. Picked out 6 books and wasted 15 min. Ok, time to focus on the run now. I walked quickly around the corner and then around another corner before crossing the street. Ok! Time to get motivated about my run. Whats that up ahead I see? A big yellow stuffed...bird? Oh, well he was just sitting there advertising that there is another GARAGE SALE. Yeah. Just what I was looking for. At this rate the only sweat I'm gonna break is from picking over someone elses junk. After picking out my first Aussie iron I start trying to get motivated to run. Not happening. So I decide to make a circle instead of backtracking and allowing my garage sellers to see that I'm giving up on the run. Meanwhile I'm hoping there are no more garage sales in the area I could possibly get distracted at.

Now its 9pm and I'm slightly more awake than usual. After my garage sale run I took the girls to Underwater World for a couple hours and then came home and started working on sanding and painting a little cabinet for Savannah's books. Oh, didn't I tell you? I got that at the garage sale too. Its gonna be cute. After I get the 3 coats of paint off and smooth out the wood. A batch of cookies, a double batch of muffins, a taco supper and a shower later, I'm ready for bed.

Yup, I had a good day. Even though I got distracted.

Swimming with the seals

Rick's new job has perks for the whole family. It was so cool cuz while my cool as sissy Lydia and my oh so awesome mates Dennis and Kelly were here we all got to go to Underwater World (for FREEEEEEE!) and see all the cool sea creatures. Which I DON'T have piccies of really. So I will grab some from Kelly to do a post cuz she took all the photos that day. We weren't able to swim with the seals that day but after D&K were gone Lydia, Mesa and I went back and did a seal swim and went behind the scenes to hear all about how they take care of the seals, where they were found/born and so on. Lydia even was given the business card of the director of the seals because he would like her to come and work for him there! I guess that Vet Tech course she took all those years ago may come in handy once again. And then she can teach those seals how to cook and sew in between shows! hehehehe (She's gonna be a certified Home Economics teacher as of December when she graduates from the U of A).

Anyways, the seal swim was fantastic! Once in a lifetime experience really, unless your husband happens to work for UWW and if I ever get the pleasure of doing it again I will consider myself super lucky! I can't wait till Summer comes here actually and is able to partake of all the family member perks! We also got to get seal kisses which I scanned and put on here. The seal giving us these kisses is Bella and they are all really hoping she is pregnant because it will be a first for UWW to have a seal born here to one of UWW's seals! I'll try to keep you posted on that info but can't promise anything as well...I'm not the best at blogging these days as you can tell. It just takes so long! Because I love to talk and well, I frankly have alot to do so...haha excuses excuses. My Kelly manages to do it and she has 11 children so really, whats MY excuse! Well, she does have a nanny so really, she just lounges about all day eating bon bons and watching Oprah right Kel?

Lydia took her pic with her before I could scan it :(

Savannah's trying to appear composed and happy here but really?




This is how she really felt...bummed out and t.o'd that SHE couldn't join in the fun!

Mesa playing with Bella

The people down below could see us through these massive windows so Rick went down and took some cool shots

I guess I was subconsiously pretending to be a seal in this shot

Hehe..I love this shot of Lydie

Underwater group shot!

Savannah was on the other side of the glass and loved seeing me in the water but she wanted to be in there too! Too bad, she'll have to wait about 10 years.

One of my faves

I came across this pic and just wanted to put it on my blog for some reason. I've been so crap at keeping up my blog I guess somethings better than nothing? Candace was 8 in this pic and it was taken in Welling when we lived at the little white house owned by Wilde Brothers. I had cropped myself out. Judging by the clothes I'm wearing I must've looked pretty silly! hehehe

Mr. Bubbles...or should I say Miss Bubbles?

Savvy's trick of the day...blowing bubbles. Again, sorry for the poor picture quality. I'm going to stop taking videos in the dark cuz my house isn't bright enough in the evening for good picture quality!

Come on! Walk already!

I purposely didn't encourage Savannah to start walking while we were in Canada because I didn't want Rick to miss her first steps. So I thought as soon as we got home she would go for it. Well, its been 3 wks since we got back and she still isn't walking. But last night I took some footage of us trying to get her to walk and here it is. Its a little on the dark side but enjoy!

So ya wanna be a Hutterite?

While I was growing up our family had quite alot to do with the Hutterites compared to most people. They used to come and buy our tomatoes and cucumbers and we would go to them and buy chickens and a myriad of other things. Well, my parents would anyways. So because of that association I have always felt very friendly towards them and have grown to respect their way of life and think that they are quite amazing people. One of my favourite Hutterites growing up was a man named Tuffy. My brother Pete and I have memories of Tuffy and we laugh about the things that we remember and I always think fondly of our association with him and the others in the colony close by our farm.

While I was home recently I thought it would be a good idea to take mine and Pete's kids out to Deerfield Colony and show them the Hutterite way of life in hopes that they too would appreciate these different yet very smart and organized people. So off we went! The 2 girls (one of them a mother of 4) who gave us our "tour" were fabulous. I wish they were able to access the internet so they could see what I have to say about them. They were so gracious and once they found out who our family was they smiled and seemed more than happy to show us around. They happened to be the grand-daughters of Tuffy and Andy who were brothers by the way.

All in all I think we were there for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours and we were able to enjoy some of their homemade bread, buns and milk fresh from the cow which had been chilled. Oh my it was so sweet and delicious it made me want to start drinking milk all the time! But only if I could get it that tasty, which is pret-near impossible. Now we are no strangers to fresh cows milk my siblings and I, but I don't EVER remember the milk tasting THAT good. In fact I always wished we could have store bought milk instead!

Well, the Hutterites are SO extremely clean and organized! There literally was not ONE thing out of place on the whole colony that I could see! They all take turns at doing the different jobs required to run the colony from doing dishes to cooking, cleaning and helping the mothers out with their children. Even the milking barn was pret-near spotless! If you ever get a chance to, go visit a colony because you wouldn't regret it. Enjoy the piccies!

In the "preschool" building. The children had just woken up from their afternoon nap.

I couldn't resist a photo op with these 2 gorgeous kiddo's! I absolutely love the way they dress and that little girl's hair was down to the middle of her back and tightly wound up to fit under her bonnet.

Out by the milking barn. These calves were sick with something and they caught us just in time before we touched them. MAD COW DISEASE ANYONE?? hehe

I took photos of their tools because I wanted Rick to see how cool it is to be organized. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from them as well!