Spring

It's Spring!

The days are warm, and the rain and sunshine have caused everything to wake up and GROW!

Dandelions are a big problem here, because there isn't anything you can buy, (legally), to kill them. 

I don't mind dandelions so much. They remind me of a thoughtful little girl with big brown eyes holding a "bouquet" in her dirty little hands just for me........... Wasn't that just yesterday?  

That same little girl just finished her first year of College!!

Katie's Home!!

This year we were determined to get our bikes out and "tuned up". We had heard of some great trails in the area and thought that we would see for our selves.  

 This ride was on a beautiful Sunday afternoon before Katie came home. It is called the "Kissing Bridge Trail" The Kissing Bridge is an old covered bridge out in the country. Why it is called the Kissing Bridge, I do not know. The trail itself is about 45 K, but we only went 10 on this day.  Considering it had been several years since we had been on our bikes, it was far enough! The Covered Bridge is about half way and will be a good goal to shoot for in the future. 

  

Another bike ride on Mothers day. This time with Katie and along the river.

We stopped in at MacDonald's for $1 fountain drinks before riding home to BBQ.

A phone call from Lisa and a phone call to my Mom.

It was a great day!

There has been a lot going on in our part of the world lately, but nothing really blog worthy, so I thought that I would post some "Before and Afters" on the inside of the old house on the property

Remember the living room? 

You can check it out from 2010

"A Fall Project"

At the end of summer last year, some of the summer staff needed a project, so I got them started on painting a couple of the bedrooms. I won't go into detail on that ordeal, but the rooms did get painted  and between a couple of volunteers and Holly and Myself, we got three bedrooms "refreshed".

Of course I didn't think of taking "Before" pictures , but the following two pictures will give you an idea of what the bedrooms looked like. 

I think you get the picture......

Bed Room #1

Bed Room #2

Bed Room #3

 (Holly painted the picture on the wall as well as two others. Wonderful to have such talent on staff)

 I am not sure that I want to let Summer Staff loose in the house with paint again, so we will resume the project in the fall.

There are 7 more bedrooms and a Sun Room in the house. 

A family Photo

A beautiful Easter Morning.....

A wonderful Worship Service.....

An Easter dinner with Friends, (thanks for the dessert Holly).....

A game of "Hearts".....

.....and a chat with Lisa!

Thankful for "Face-time"

Hope your day was special too!!

As we finished out last summer, Ken and I had high hopes of getting lots done at our house. With Katie gone to College, we thought that we would have tons of time for our list of projects. Well, here we are getting ready to start another summer and what have we accomplished?

The main project is to finish our basement. I have to say that it is started and I have taken some "before" pictures, but want to wait and post them with the "after" pictures, so stay tuned. Our goal is still to get it done before the middle of June.

We did get Ken's office done! This room was finished, but we had a bit of a flood last summer, (long story), so we had to put new carpet down. The other problem was that the doorway was too narrow to get his drafting table in, so he hadn't quite got moved in. Thanks to Ken's handy sawsall, he made the door opening larger and we were able to get his table in. It was interesting to get his things out. Many of them go back to his office in Grass Valley.

Katie is home for Easter Break. She will be here for over a week.

Already relaxing with a good book, (not a text book).

Syrup Season

Syrup season has come to an end.

We have enjoyed some wonderful weather this last week.

Perfect for our task.

Caught up on some reading.

24 Hours from this.............

.............to this!

Counting our first taste.....5 Pints!

Lots of fun though. We promise to share with anyone who comes to visit!!!

Ken's Sugar Bush

In Canada, a forest is called a bush.

A forest of maple trees is called a "Sugar Bush"

We have two maple trees just outside our house.........Ken's Sugar Bush!

He collected sap for 2 1/2 weeks. The conditions were just right. Cold at night and warmer during the day.

Thats a lot of Sap!!

The idea is to boil the sap and evaporate the water, which leaves the syrup.

It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

Ready to start cooking!

He finished it inside as we anticipated our waffles.

(6 hours to this point).

That is it. A half quart but boy, was it worth it!!!

We figured that we will get about 2 and a half quarts of syrup from the sap that he collected.

We are taking bids if anyone is interested!!

The Guelph Storm

You probably think this post is about the weather, but it is really about Hockey. Ken and I went to our first hockey game a couple of weeks ago. Being that we have been in Canada for over two and a half years now, we thought it was time we saw a live game. People were beginning to look at us funny and it was getting to be embarrassing to say that we had never been to a hockey game. That is no longer the case.

The Guelph Storm vs The Niagara Ice Dogs.

Cool Names, eh?

Of course, Ken could fill me in on the "goings on" of the game, (how he knows these things, I do not know), but I learned that there are not too many rules. Of course there is quite a bit of skill involved. For one thing, they are very good skaters, and it is pretty amazing what they can do with a stick and a little disc.

There are three periods in Hockey and in between periods, the little "beginner hockey players" come out and play.

Remember tee ball? It's just like that only on skates. There was even a little guy, (or maybe it was a girl), just standing in the middle of the ice very preoccupied with something other than hockey. There was some slowmotion falling and crashing and even some goals. It was very cute.

And of course the evening wouldn't have been complete with out a fight or two.

It seems one of the biggest instigators was a fellow by the name of Friesen.

Here you see him being escorted to the penalty box for the second time.

I am sure that he is not related!

A very fun evening!

By the way, the Storms won!

My how time flies. We celebrated 28 years on January 14th, and are still counting our blessing!