Middleville Fair

Here's a few shots from the annual Middleville Fair.  It's just up the road from us, and we go every year but this is the first year we actually submitted some stuff.  I did some knitting, Jamie put in the 'chandelier' he made for our dining room, Kea created a poster and we submitted the avocado plants that are getting HUGE!!!!  I got third for a sweater I'd knit for Ry (I should post some photos of him in it!) and Jamie got first for the chandelier, and otherwise we got a lot of 'thanks for coming out' ribbons! It was fun, though, and next year we're definitely going to have to do a bunch more:-)  Jamie and the kids went up in the morning to see the animals, and the girls ended up getting to show the fjord horses with our neighbour Pat - very exciting!  Then in the afternoon we all went back in order to compete in the various foot races (all the kids came home with loonies and toonies) and visit with our neighbours.  Can you believe I did not take one photo of the races OR of our stuff in the halls?!  VERY lame, I know......next year I'll do better:-)

Tiegan's Birthday.....

Our sweet Tiegan turned nine earlier this month, and was well-celebrated by all!  We had dinner and fancy cake with Nana Heather the day before, we had sushi and pizza and disgustingly sweet cake and lots of caramel chocolates - all the favourite junk foods!  She opened gifts of horse stories, rock climbing holds, a slack line to practice tight rope walking, and many fun hair accessories for our fashionista!  We pulled out all sorts of fun photos from her nine years with us, shared stories of our goofball daughter and celebrated the day this beautiful, silly, strong, caring, intense daughter of ours came into our lives to really shake things up!!!!!!  We love you Tiegan:-)

Sunday with Anja.......

On our final day with Anja she spent some time baking with the girls - always a favourite way to spend their time, the girls were THRILLED to have someone new to bake with!  AND *I* was thrilled to have new snacks to add to the school lunches!!!!!!!  

Then, sad to say, but it was time to say good bye and drive Anja to the airport.  As always, the time flew by far too quickly, but it was so nice to get a chance to catch up - over a few cups of tea:-)

I don't know where Tiegan was during these photos, I think she'd gone up to the neighbours' house to ride horses with her friend Julia.  And I also realize that I didn't get one shot of both me and Anja together - we'll definitely have to plan a visit again soon and make sure we get a photo of the two of us!

Saturday with Anja - *added photos link at end!*

I had told Anja that there was a chance of rain while she was here, but not to worry too much about filling her bag full of rain gear as it probably wouldn't be much.  Ha ha.  Then we woke up after a night full of monsoon-like rains, to a very grey, wet, dreary morning!  Oh well, perfect to make some pumpkin waffles (and try out this new vegan whipped cream - which was too sweet for my liking and a  bit more like a meringue consistency BUT was a big hit with the kids which was my primary goal!) and linger over breakfast and conversation.  The kids had a blast playing in the rain (they've missed their river in the driveway, so for a couple of hours they were able to play in it!)

We decided to share an exciting adventure to the dump with Anja, though of course, there wasn't much exploring with all the rain.  So then we carried on into McDonald's Corners where a new cafe that we've been wanting to try out has opened up.  We enjoyed some soup and salad, and wandered around the property a bit - this is the same place that Jamie helped work a bit on the 'flying concrete' structure.  So neat to see it coming together!

And finally, the rains let up enough for us to take a walk in the woods - this is a trail talking about all the various trees in our area, and I've been meaning to walk it ever since we've moved here.  So today seemed like the perfect day to do it!!!!  Still missing my more mountainous hikes, and wishing to find a good network of long hiking trails near my front door, but this was a nice amble to take the kids on:-)

Love the little red flowers peeking up between all of the slats along the boardwalk....

Do you think, by chance, this forest was re-forested?!  It's almost eerie how uniform it all was!!!!

Saturday night we took Anja to a local barn dance in Middleville, which was a lot of fun.  At the time I decided to leave the camera at home and just enjoy the dance, but as soon as I got there I really regretted that decision!  Oh well, Anja did send me a few of her photos, and I'll see if I can dig them up on my hotmail account and post them here!!!!!

* Okay, so Anja has uploaded her photos now, so you can get a glimpse of us 'waltzing' (very awkwardly!) at the local barn dance.  I have to say, I'm so used to being on the other side of the camera, I *hate* being in the photo - but it's neat to get a glimpse through someone else's eyes of our family!!!!!