Author: Pam

When we changed the front of our house we took down the deck that ran the entire width of our house. This left an area 10 by 14 ft that I have been planning on turning into garden space. My load of soil came yesterday and so I and the kids spent the entire day outside moving dirt around. I’m not finished yet, but I think that I have made significant progress.

Where are my kids?

Having a blast on their own “soil slide”. Well at least we all had a a good day. I just closed my eyes to how dirty they were getting.

We visited the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre last Saturday. It had been planned to spend the day at Grand Beach with friends, but the forecast was for cold and rainy weather. I had a great time anyway which is good since it was my birthday.

We learned alot about the marine reptiles (not dinosaurs) that lived in Lake Agassiz and we met Bruce, the largest mosasaur remains discovered. The museum is very proud of Bruce and happy to have him housed inside a real museum instead of the old figure skating rink.

It takes about an hour and a half to make your way through the exhibits, after we checked out the grounds of the Morden Research Station. The kids burnt off some energy with the boys…

and the ladies checked out the roses.

We had supper at J&S’s complete with chocolate chocolate birthday cake. Thanks guys! L has been all talk of dinosaurs again. Today was his meet the teacher for school. He was supposed to draw a self-portrait for the first page of his portfolio he wanted to draw a dinosaur. Finally Lowell talked him into drawing himself beside the T-rex. When we got home he decided to draw more dinosaurs like he wanted to at school.

The Ichthyosaurs and the Elasmosaurs fighting over food.

Paleontologists believe that the Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young, so here is Mama ichthyosaurs and her young.

Our birthdays and anniversaries come close together so Lowell and I also celebrated our anniversary last week. Thank you to our babysitter, we appreciated it. I am not sure who Socrates had in mind with the following quote but regardless Happy Anniversary honey!

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

– Socrates

It’s been a while since we were camping at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park near Moose Jaw, but I just realized that we haven’t posted any pictures.

We had a great time. The kids handled the drive without complaining and we can’t complain about our campsites. Saturday morning we were happy to still be at the same campsite after the rain/wind storm during the night. K did alot of complaining at the wind and flapping tarps during the storm so she wasn’t the most rested Saturday am, but she was a good trooper. Saturday we went for a short hike and did some off roading up and down the hills. It was a good hike as long as you didn’t step on a cactus.

Sunday morning we went for a bike ride, it is getting to be a bit of a custom for us to ride our bikes down to the shore and then back up and down to the campsite. This bike ride cannot be described as purely enjoyable it is more of a battle between wills and muscles. Apparently we are all stubborn!

The afternoons we spent at the beach; Saturday it felt a bit cool down by the water, but Sunday was very hot and it felt good to cool off. Something clicked for L this time in the water. He trusted his life jacket, let his feet come off the ground and practiced his swimming. Now my boy who hates baths needs to over come his fear of having water on his face. Having so much fun is hard work though.

We’ve had the fortune of being at St Malo Beach twice during this past heat wave. The water was nice and it’s been awhile since I thought that a Manitoba lake was anything like warm. L & K had a good time. K has no fear of the water and L is getting more comfortable playing in the water, venturing in further than his knees.

Now that we are having a short reprieve from the heat there is a lemon cookie recipe waiting to be tried.

Like the plants in the pots in the backyard K grows and grows. This is a quick shot of K before we left for church on Sunday, I wanted to get a shot of the dress that I made her.

K is all about dollies; carrying them around, feeding them and changing their diapers. Usually her babies are undressed since she doesn’t know how to put their clothes back on yet. K wanted to feed her baby sausage from her supper plate, thankfully she was satisfied with plastic food for baby.

When we got back from camping we had our first ripe tomato. K doesn’t know her colours yet, but she can tell the difference between red and green. She knows that she isn’t supposed to pick the tomatoes, but they are so tempting. To her credit she has just picked the red ones to eat.

We spent July long weekend camping in Gladstone; it was a great weekend not too hot and no rain until we got the tents packed up on Sunday. It has been awhile since there were young children camping with us so instead of hiking and long bike rides we had baseball games and water gun fights.

We were camped right beside the fair grounds, town pool and park. On July 1st Gladstone Firefighters had organizied all kinds of children’s activities. While we were washing up breakfast dishes a man came through our campsite and told L that there was a pile of sand filled with gold coins that he could dig for. No one was really sure how to take him, was he just encouraging L to check out the playground? Anyway Aunt C thought there might be something to it and took the kids to dig for gold coins.

Lo and behold there was money in that sand pile, Aunt C always finds a good deal.

This past Friday L took us to the ice cream parlour and treated us to ice cream. I did feel a little guilty he probably should have taken his aunts and uncles for ice cream since they helped him find it.

Even though the dynamic of our camping trips has changed since I was one of the kids, sitting around the campfire never gets old.

While we are eagerly looking forward to summer with warm sunny weather for our outdoor activities, we have been enjoying spring. We have visited the geese at the Cemetery a couple of times already. After we are done watching the geese and their goslings, the cemetery is a great place to run.

It is a special treat that some plants grow in our yard after years of neglect and continued neglect. With the support and encouragement of prairechick my gardening expert I am attempting to do some container gardening and hopefully later this summer the front yard will receive an overhaul.

As much as I enjoyed making this quilt (the wedding quilt as it was dubbed by L), it felt good to wrap it up and give it away. I’m not totally happy with it, I tried some new things and learned some things and hopefully it will come in handy for M&C without falling apart.

Spring brings dandelions. L especially loves these bright sunny flowers, he is allowed to pick as many dandelions as he likes and later when the become puff balls he loves to blow them. Seeing his delight makes me wonder why we try so hard to get rid of them. Thank you to Grandma for lovingly accepting L’s bouquet.

Another of L’s favourite summer activities is roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. We did manage to squeeze in a wiener roast at Grandma L’s after some frustrating changes of venue and time.

Despite all the wind and rain that this spring has brought we have enjoyed the sunny breaks at the local playgrounds. K loves the swing and would happily spend her whole time in the swing.

So I tried something intersting this week, soap nuts. They are enviromentally friendly and compostable. Even though I fully embrace the concept of being earth friendly it still has to fit within the means of my pocketbook, which truthfully means that it shouldn’t cost me more. As any of you know who have bought groceries organic is not cheaper. However for the cost of a bottle of Tide I bought…

What is a soapnut you say? Soapnuts aren’t really nuts; they’re the fruit of a tree (Sapindus Mukorossi) found primarily in the Himalayas. The outer shell of the soapnut contains saponin, a natural substance known for its ability to cleanse and wash.

Add 2 to 3 in the little cotton bag that comes with the bag of nuts. This should do 3 to 4 loads, one website I found said the hulls would become gray and mushy when they are ready for the compost bin.

Do they work? Well my clothes seem to be just as clean as when I use detergent. While I was watching my clothes slosh around in the washing machine without suds I wondered if the suds just make us happy and our clothes would come out just as clean without adding anything at all. My clothes don’t smell freshly laundered which is something I do miss, but something can be said for the absence of stink.

Today is the big day, Aunty and Uncle’s wedding. C & M made one mistake when they asked their nieces and nephew to be in the wedding, the cuteness factor is a show stealer. Before the dress rehersal the stars were keeping to themselves and refusing autographs and photos.

They did very well during the rehersal. K is supposed to follow L and J; she passed them both times. Today is the day, we will see if any of them get down the aisle when the sanctuary is full. L is actually carrying the rings on his cushion, maybe C will have to carry her own rings down the aisle.