The Nay-Nay and Du Game

Here is our precious one talking about us the way she does all day long, driving her parents crazy! She must really love us, so the feeling is mutual!

The walking, talking greeting card

Today is my day to have Miss Blayke and she was delivered to me with such a great shirt. "My Auntie is AWESOME"! Is there a nicer surprise in a morning? And, just to add to the joy, she now has a name for Dustin and for me. Dustin is "Du" and I am "Nay-Nay". Whenever Dustin walks into the room she just screams and laughs "DUUUUUUU!". Doesn't everyone feel that way when Dustin enters a room?

Is this your shirt?

I was folding laundry tonight and pulled this shirt out of my pile to fold and thought "Whose shirt is this? Size Small? Not mine!" So, Anna, Emily or Nan, all of you have been in our house in the last year. Is this your shirt?

too much information pants

When we visited Pigeon Lake for the August long weekend, we drove down to the Wetaskawin Co-op where Dustin tried on the green Wranglers. It was quite a shock when he emerged from the change room with these babies!

I started laughing, the sales woman started laughing. She told us that a lot of the older men in town love these pants and wear them all the time. There must be a lot of Jimminy Cricket looking old men walking around Wetaskawin. It took some convincing, but Dustin managed to leave the green Wranglers at the Co-op. I know, too bad. (really bad)

the magic headband

Dustin's hair is getting long in his attempt to look like "The Dude" from "The Big Lebowski". It's now at the stage where it gets in his eyes, so this week we tried PRODUCT! It definitely helped for his business look, but when at home and having to install our screen door it's all party with the orange headband. If this looks familiar to any of the Mo part of the Moper clan, it is! It's Dad's cottage headband. I wish I was adept enough to scan a picture of Dad wearing it while sawing something at the cottage. I had him wear it for two reasons. 1) keep the dude hair out of his face, 2) if it's Dad's headband, then he will be the handy man extraordinaire!

whew!

It was the middle of Saskatchewan, past Regina, but not quite to Saskatoon. We talked about getting gas in Regina, when we already outside Regina. We were still stunned by the awfulness of Bonanza. At one point I looked at the odometer and it said 631 km, which made me think we must be almost down to nothing in the gas tank. I checked the "remaining" meter and it said 39 kms remaining, and I asked Dustin, who was driving, "Is the light on?". As the word "on" was hanging in the air, Dustin looked down and said, "Oh it just came on!"

The countdown had begun! We saw a town coming up, oops no services. I quickly pulled out the map. Which town would have a gas station? We had passed Craik "The Friendliest town by a Dam site", read the sign, but that was minutes before I let my curiosity get to me. The nearest town with a solid dot on the map, and a hospital, was 10 or more minutes away.

Okay, 24, hmm, would we make it? The atmosphere in the car could have been tense, panic ridden, but hey, the story value of such an incident was too good to pass up. Plus, we have CAA gold!

Wow, just in the nick of time Davidson came into view and there was a Shell station on the highway, maybe even a Tim Horton's in town. We coasted in with 14 kms to go. How happy we were to see that gas pump.

We love you pump 7!

bird versus window...

It was a peaceful Friday night. Dustin was serenading me with his classical guitar and I was reading Breaking Dawn of the Twilight Saga. Suddenly there was a dull, forceful thud on the window and feathers started to fly through the air.

We looked up with alarm and instantly realized that a birdie had hit our living room window. How sad, how traumatic. We have an awning so it's not very usual for birds to even come close to our window. Dustin ran outside to check on our feathered friend and discovered that it was alive, yet stunned. He donned some hair colour gloves and lifted the bird from the ground on to an overturned planter to keep the bird away from cats.

Because the bird was stunned, it sat there patiently and perfectly still while Dustin and I watched, waited and photographed. It's eye stayed shut for a long time and then started to open and close.

It must have stayed there for 1/2 hour while I ignored the Bella/Edward/Jacob triangle to watch the stationary bird. Eventually Dustin went outside to see if the bird could fly and indeed it could and landed in our Mountain Ash tree. He sat there for another hour and then he was gone.

No cat feasted on our tiny friend, and hopefully his family was glad to have him home.

Dink Bridge

In the shadows of these two lovely people was erected, a structure that defines Winnipeg. Are you intrigued?

At the base of this structure we stood marvelling at it's hugeness. Glenn Murray, Winnipeg's best, and gayest mayor, left his mark on the Forks by creating the Promenade de Riel!

Notice the long shaft and the spherical base. The structure clearly a cryptic depiction of something extremely masculine. aka the Dink Bridge... (we couldn't take Moofut as he's too young to have to have the talk)

Coming Soon...

We apologize for not posting lately. We have no excuses. Here is a picture we took on our recent trip to Manitoba. This was the vanilla ice "cream" from Bonanza in Regina. I think the 80's and the Bonanza restaurant chain is breathing it's last. We were laughing so hard when this pathetic turd came out of the machine.

More to come...

Happy Auntie's Day!

Well I can honestly say that I am spoiled. On Sunday we were told that there would be a surprise, I was to be ready to be picked up at 2:30pm, and I was to dress "summery". There was a follow-up email to wear a hat and sunscreen. When the Enclave pulled up, I was presented with a lovely card alerting me to the occasion of "Happy Auntie Andrea's Day", complete with a gift certificate. Wow, a whole day for me? So Rob started driving and we sat listening to Blayke's music and chatted with Gabe, and all of a sudden we turned into the parking lot of the Edmonton Queen river boat!!!! I've never been on a river boat before so this was going to be very exciting. Gabrielle packed lots of snacks and special drinks and we found a place in the shade to sit and had a lovely cruise down the North Saskatchewan, complete with the song "Pirates of the North Saskatchewan" and thankfully void of them actually showing up.

Here is Uncle Dusty and Blayke have a nice chat.

Rob and Dustin enjoy some special drinks.

The other reason why I'm so spoiled, my wonderful Dustin.

My amazing friend Gabrielle, another found sister to me.

Here is a video of Blayke and her wonderful affection towards me

Thank you so much for such a great surprise and for treating us so well.

In Memoriam: Arugula, Spring Salad Mix, Zinias

Slowly and painfully our poor little Arugula and Spring Salad Mix, surrounded by the Kale and Dill, succumbed to the holes left by slow moving Slugs and their destructive chewing. We are grateful to our good neighbour Colleen and our sister Patti for diagnosing the slugs. We ripped out our decimated plants by the roots. Here is the new crop of arugula, sprouting in 3 days after transplant.

These are the marigolds we planted to deter the slugs from remunching on our tender salad greens and to commemorate the loss of bowls of delicious salad. We'll drown the slugs in beer if we have to, but we want to avoid more death in the garden if we can.

The zinia died due to snow and cold weather, IN JUNE! They were mercilessly ripped from the pots and thrown on to the weed pile. Good bye happy little flowers.

In a victim impact statement made by the remaining Romaine, "Thank goodness it wasn't us!"

First up!

Thank you Emily for helping me figure out how to put text on top of a picture!

Here is the first plant to sprout in the garden. Is it clover? No. Hmmm, is it hmmm, clover? No, you already guessed that, so let me help you, it is ARUGULA! Yay and Yum! This peppery green is perfect for salad or on sandwiches and great in lettuce rolls and our rice wraps. Of course we planted too much of it, so we'll really need people to come by and take some home.

Also sprouting is our Spring Salad Mix and our Romaine Lettuce. We had some of our Rhubarb last night and it was delicious. Keep checking for updates!

Guess who's coming for dinner, and overnight?

EMILY!!!!!!

( I know you think it's Moofut, but come on, he lives here!)

So Uncle Dustin got the whole room ready for Em, and added lots of nice touches, but Moofut was just whining and swinging his arms because he wanted to be a part of her visit, so after ignoring the bad behaviour, once he settled down and asked nicely, he got to wait for Emily in her bed.

Wow! Good Job Dustin.

This is my Grandpa Moses' slate from grade school. We are using it as a welcome board for the visitors that stay with us.

Here is Emily and Moofut, together in the room! Thank you Emily for spending time with us! We hope you come again really soon. Thank you too for being my "Glee" buddy for the afternoon.

Please read from the bottom!

When I asked Dustin if he had any requests for flowers, he requested Snapdragons. It's important to let Snapdragons dry out completely before watering them again, that's why we planted them all in one pot. Thank you Marlene for all of your hard work and equipment. We are already attracting the birds and the bees.

Petunias with a trailing flower to fill in the pot.

These pots are mostly Orange flowers with accents of blue flowers to bring out the Orange. These are the plants that the Canada Post employee will get to enjoy when delivering our mail.

This is one of our completed pots with yellow and purple flowers. It's very important to know which plants are "trailing". I think all of the flowers in this pot are trailing, so this one will bubble over and drip down over the pot.

Here are the flowers I picked for the pots. I know there are Snap Dragons, Super Bells, Zinia and Petunia, but I don't know what else I picked.

It was Gardening week this past week and here are the bags dirt, pots and some metal pots for pepper plants. Marlene generously donated her time, dirt, pots, and experience to make our front steps look like a country garden. We planted everything in about an hour.

Visiting an old friend

After cleaning off the camera lens, the beauty of the pictures we took began to improve. This is one of the best shots we managed to obtain during our trip. I mean look at this guy. This is a handsome animal 12.5 years young. Chantry the Boston Terrier (God loves a Terrier) was still willing to get it up once in a while and play with his toys. Speaking of getting it up, Chantry still managed to fall in love all over again with the leg of a certain Scotty. The ever illusive and yet intriguing Scotty always manages to draw a crowd Russian or otherwise. Thanks for the memories Chantry. We hope we see more of you in the future. You're our favourite little boston terrier.

When Bad cameras happen to Good people

One week ago today, we attended our Niece's wedding. As you can see, this is not the greatest picture in the sense that the resolution is far from satisfactory. In fact, one might say the picture sucks. This was, however, the best picture we were able to obtain in the nearly 9 hours within which we witnessed the adventure which was Anna and Lorne's wedding. What do you do when your $400.00 camera is making a mockery of you and the Ogg is ever present impeding your options for taking good shots? If those of you out there have any tips, feel free to share.

So near the end of the weekend, Dustin, after taking photographs that appeared as if he was just emerging from the wreckage of a nautical disaster, noticed the camera lens was smudged

and smugged. Sometimes one just has to except that destiny is not on your side and neither is your equipment. We wish the bride and groom well and hope they are having a wonderful time in Disney World. Thanks for sharing your special day with us.

Oh Great Sebastian!

Sebastian got to meet me and provided me with 2 poopy diapers to change. I didn't mind since I just got to spend more time with this sweet boy!

Sebastian loved Dustin and didn't poop at all while being cuddled.

Sebastian met his new pal Rextler the sock monster. Will he ever be as famous as Moofut? Only time and Sebastians' life adventures will tell. For those who don't know, Sebastian is our great nephew. That makes us sound Old! We love you Sebastian. You have wonderful parents who are doing a fantastic job with you. Make sure to kiss them many times a day for us!

Spring?

Ewwww!

Tulips are such troopers.

My feet were wet after this walk

Dustin digging
May 5th, the day after

What a terrible storm yesterday. Here are some of the pictures from around our house and the dig out that happened after it all came down. The picture of my tulips was taken at about 10 am, but when I got home at 3pm, I couldn't even find them. There was 16 mm of snow that fell, but it looked more like a foot, and it was that really wet, snowman snow. Driving was a real challenge as well since every big truck felt that we were all going too slow, so they would whiz by, kicking up floods of slush on our windshields. It's only 0 degrees out right now, which is really strange for a Spring storm as it usually falls one day, warms up overnight, and melts the next. What is this world coming too? I'll keep you posted on the tulips, if I ever find them again.

A destination wedding

Our hands during the ceremony.

This weekend we went to our friend's wedding at Fort Edmonton Park. Mel and Chris made it a lovely day from start to finish. I did the hair in the morning and early afternoon, and then we were able to just relax and enjoy the day.
Our place cards.

Mel and Chris spared no detail to make the day fun and memorable, and very genuine and moving. We all felt included and important.
Mel's niece and my buddy Hannah decorated this cake for them.
They were bestowed with the "Bride Box" from our wedding, and, keeping with tradition, it was carried by a man, Issac in this case.
This is the gorgeous Melanie and Chris on their beautiful day. Many blessings to you on your life together.