So Far in BC...

In the two days that we've been visiting Mary's family in British Columbia, we've been busy having fun.

We celebrated Grammie's birthday - Layla and Baron helped blow out candles.

Me, Layla and Baron

Layla made cards covering Easter, Birthday and Mother's Day

Me and Layla

We gave Baron a set of kid sized Tiger Woods golf clubs that he's been wanting for awhile.

 

Baron

And we watched him practice - another family golfer for Papa!

Baron - almost 3 yrs. old

Then Lloyd, Mary, Greg, Baron and Layla went golfing at the course Mary and Greg manage, while I relaxed in the spa getting a pedicure.

Baron, Lloyd and Mary

We checked out the beautiful scenery in the resort town of Osoyoos, BC

Looking across the river

We spent time at Mary and Greg's home...getting lots of love from Chester

 Chester

We crossed into Washington State for diner at Rancho Chico.  Awesome

Baron, Mary, Layla and Greg

More fun to come today as we go to Layla's horse riding lesson with her.  It's nice visiting with these children/grandchildren that we only get to see two or three times a year.

Frank Slide

On our drive through the mountains yesterday to visit our daughter, Mary, and her family in BC, we stopped at the site of the Frank Slide in the Crowsnest Pass.  This is the site of the worse mountain slide in North America, but it is not widely known about.  There's a fascinating story about it on the
Frank Slide website. 

In brief, in 1903 a hundred million tons of limestone broke off of Turtle Mountain, destroying the town of Frank, Alberta, and the coal mining operation, Canadian Pacific Railway section and everything else in its path.    The huge boulders still litter the valley as a reminder of the tragedy.

The town is buried many meters beneath where Lloyd is standing

I'm leaning against one of the many huge boulders littering the townsite

At the edge of the devastation

The beautiful mountains of the Crowsnest Pas overshadow the Frank Slide area

Looking up over the fallen mountain through a mountain pass

The historic marker at the Frank Slide site.

The site is a sobering testament to the forces of nature.  The site here tells the story beautifully.

Celebrating....Me

I was born on this day 63 years ago.  Some people think I'm old.  My body is beginning to think I'm old.  My 20 grandchildren certainly think I'm old and I imagine my children do too.  I used to think 63 was old, but not anymore.  The definition of 'old' changes as we add more years to our age.

I'm not old.  My mind is an active teen-ager.  My spirit is young and sprightly. I'm a most fortunate person, surrounded by love and laughter, family and friends.  There are many things to enjoy at 63, and time yet to do them.  Like taking road trips with my husband, visiting family in distant locations, watching movies together and just relaxing in the sun.

Isn't it funny when you talk to kids and they can't imagine how we ever lived without television, computers, internet, cell phones, credit cards, and all of the technology we all take for granted now. We didn't need to have our parents arrange play dates for us - we just ran around freely in our neighbourhood stopping for a game of kick-the-can, or jumping rope or hopscotch without a care in the world.  Our lives weren't organized for us from morning to night.  If we wanted to play baseball, we'd round up our friends and head to the school yard for an impromptu game.  We'd screw roller skates to our shoes and clickity-clack our way along the sidewalks. We had loads of fun playing marbles, and paper dolls, skating on outdoor ponds and sledding on local hills.

I was there when the Beatles were 'discovered'.  I remember hearing my first Beatles song when I was 13, and watching them on the Ed Sullivan Show.  I still think that the music of the 1960's is the best there is and listen to it every chance I get.  I was a teenager during the 'summer of love'.  I was too inhibited to join the hippie movement though.  I did have one of my son-in-laws convinced that I was at Woodstock during that memorable event and hung out with Janis Joplin and that crew there.  It broke his heart when he finally learned the truth.

If I had to go back and live a year of my life over, I honestly don't know which year it would be. There was good and bad in all of them, although I remember the good more than the bad.  I'll just enjoy the year I'm living now and hope for many more good moments to add to my treasures.

So, go jump in a river fully clothed, have a sleepover with your young grandchildren, play in the playground, blow bubbles, walk in the sunshine, and smile and laugh often.  You're only as old as you feel.  I love being 60-something.

I was cuter when I was younger though - here's proof.

Mum, Dad, Me, Wendy

1952 - Wendy, Ken, Pat

Me, age 6 1954

1953 - Ken, Wendy, Pat

Grade 4 school picture

In Germany 1961 - Me, Wendy Ken

1966 - High School Grad

1969 - Wendy's Bridesmaid

1971 - Lloyd's Wife

1986 - Our Family is Complete

1967 - Wendy and me on family road trip

Now THAT Was a Party!

For awhile now I've been promising my in-town grandkids a sleepover.  Last night was it!  Because my birthday is early next week I decided, unknown to the kids, that the sleepover would be Grammies Surprise Birthday Party.  Seven grandkids between the ages of 3 - 8 were involved - with one of the 3-year olds just staying for the fun, not the sleepover part.

They arrived around 6:30 pm and found a bunch of animal face balloons on the table.  They took them out to the patio to play with where we soon discovered that in the combination of brick, wood and latex, the latex baloons were immediate victims.  It wasn't long before the deck floor was littered with the remains of cute animal faces.  All part of the fun though.

Kenzie, with Max in the background

Dead Balloon Critters

Then we went to the great playground/park across the street from my place where the kids played for about an hour and a half.  I had brought a bubble wand for each of them so we spent a lot of time blowing and chasing them.  It was so nice to see the cousins, siblings from  three families, having such fun together.  Even with three alpha females among them there was no quarrelling, minimal bossing, and lots of sharing and watching out for the younger ones.

The Alpha Girls - Kenzie (8), Brooklyn (7) and Charlie (7)

The gang - Charlie, Max, Kenzie, Elly, Brooklyn, Sydney, Aidan

Brooklyn catching her bubble

Brooklyn's Bubbles

Tire Swing Co-operation

Elly and Sydney

When I thought they had run off enough energy we went back to the house and ordered pizza - I got big points for that and told the ones who had never been to a sleepover before that it's a rule that you have to order pizza for a sleepover.  Excitement galore!  The one who would rather have a jam bun than pizza even got excited because Pizza 73 also deliveres curly fries, chicken wings, and vegetables with their pizza, and he realized he could eat a slice of cheese pizza if he really tried. (I made him a jam bun anyway).

Since it was a birthday party, I had made a bunch of the most delicious chocolate cupcakes with a marshmallow/chocolate/Cool Whip icing.  We put candles on them and everyone blew them out together.  They even sang Happy Birthday to Grammie.

Singing to Grammie

Blowing out the Candles

We played games and puzzles and painted bedroom doorknob signs and worked on melted beat pictures until 10 pm and then headed to bed.

Hard at work

Five of them camped out in the spare bedroom where the television was, while 3-year old Elly shared my bed (Papa was out of town so he missed all the fun).  Well, around 11 the kids came in and said the television was acting weird.  Since  I couldn't fix it, and since Elly was still up and talking my ear off, we all headed back downstairs to resume crafting and playing.  The giggling and noise reached new levels because by now they were all fighting sleep.  It was like New Year's Eve though and they kept asking if it was midnight yet.  They wanted to stay up all night.  I let them have their fun since everyone was getting along so well and I was enjoying their antics.  Finally at 12:40 am we all headed back up to bed.  Ten minutes later Max and Brooklyn came into my room saying that the other girls were still giggling too much so I told them to bring their sleeping bags into my room and camp out with me and Elly.  They did that and within five minutes peace and silence reigned in the house.  Good, I thought, they'll sleep till 10.

Ready for Bed

I was too aware of all the sleepers to get a good sleep myself and finally at 5:30 I got up and headed for the computer to download pictures.  Then at six Max got up.  By 7 everyone was up and hard at it again.  I made pancakes for breakfast and by 8:30 we were all over at the playground again for another hour of fun.

The parents started coming to pick them up and the last one left at 11:45.  I stumbled back to bed and slept for three hours and now I feel much better.  It was worth it though.  Everyone had so much fun. Several of them told me it was the "best sleepover ever" and the "best birthday party ever", and the parting comment from the oldest was "We'll have to do this again".  I agree.  It was the best sleepover and birthday party ever.  And we probably will do it again. 

TV Break - Sydney, Max, Brooklyn

TV time - Charlie

Getting Sleepy - Elly and Aidan

Picture Perfect -Kenzie

Charlie

 Grandkids are great!

Rainy Day Creativity

Yesterday started out rainy and cloudy so it was a perfect day for Mickey to come over and spend  10 or 11 hours scrapbooking with me.  These scrapbooking days are lovely breaks we try to take once a week.  Mickey comes over between 9 and 10 in the morning and stays until 9 or 10 in the evening.  We turn the radio on to our favorite station and make sure our iPads are charged so we can look for layout sketches on line, play a game of Scrabble or two, check emails, etc. and then get right to work on our layouts.  We grab a quick lunch and eat while we work and then later in the afternoon if we need to stock up on supplies (or anything else, for that matter) we'll have a quick shopping outing, stopping for dinner at a restaurant, then head back home to finish up our projects.  It makes for a relaxing and creative day that just flies by.

Here's some of my latest creations.

The pictures on the first two layouts were taken when Lloyd and I went to visit our Daughter, Mary and SIL Greg and grandkids Baron and Layla in Osoyoos, BC. last summer.  We're going there again next week so I thought I better get some of last year's pictures scrapbooked before I have a whole new stack to do.

Baron rides anything, tricycles, toy quads, real golf carts, and the dog, Chester.
(He doesn't really 'drive' the golf cart - just pretends while is parents golf) 

Mary, Greg, Baron and Layla - Summer 2010 - with Grammie and Papa holding the kids in the small picture

Our daughter, Sara, is a professional children's portrait photographer so she always has beautiful pictures of her four kids.  This last batch she gave me, taken in Surprise, AZ in April, were so beautiful that I had to put them into a layout the first chance I had.

Seven year old Charlie

Three year old Elly

Six year old Maximus

Nine month old Quinn

When the family went to the Wildlife Park in Surprise, it was feeding time for the parrots and macaws. 
One bird in particular thought Sara's beautiful thick hair was an ideal nest and climbed right in there.

 These pictures are ones I posted before from when we were down there in February.  We spent a whole afternoon watching these two little birds fly back and forth building their nest.  By the time Sara's family got down there in March there was no sign of the birds although the nest was still there.

The layout photo was crooked.  The dark brown strips around it are not part of the layout.

So that's how Mickey and I spent a rainy day yesterday.

Correspondence

"The age of technology has both revived the use of writing and provided ever more reasons for its spiritual solace. Emails are letters, after all, more lasting than phone calls, even if many of them r 2 cursory 4 u." ~Anna Quindlen

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I have always loved getting letters.  I had pen pals when I was young, and friends who had moved away or that I had moved away from.  It was always fun to write to them of my daily adventures and await letters from them about the  stories of their lives.

Mum was a letter writer.  She wrote weekly to her parents and various siblings and anticipated their letters in return.  It was such a tangible way to keep in touch with loved ones.  When I left home I knew I would be another recipient of her weekly letters and I loved writing to her and dad telling them about my life in a different part of the country.

What I didn't realize at the time was that she was keeping most of my letters.  As I dated, got married, had kids, and raised my family I would send her detailed reports of our goings-on.  Not too many years ago she gave me a large packet containing a lot of those letters.  What fun it was to read them and relive, in a small way, my joys and frustrations as Lloyd and I raised our family.

As our children grew up and moved away, we started writing to and receiving letters from them.  Those too were a joy to receive.  I have kept most of them too, in binders.

My most treasured letter though is one Lloyd wrote to me when he was 16 and feeling unappreciated - we hadn't even started to date yet back then.  I have no idea why I kept it all these years, through all the moves I've made.  I like to torment him about it though and threaten to post it on my blog.  But I think he knows I'd never do that to him.  No one has seen it except for the two of us.  The kids might get a kick out of it when we've left this world and they find it among the trivia of our lives.  Maybe.

The blue letter in the collage picture is one of the last coherent letters I received from Mum before the Alzheimer's took memories of us away from her over a year ago.  There are signs of her reduced cognition in it but still enough of her to make it special.

I like the tangibility of the letters - papers filled with writing or typing, folded and placed in envelopes.  It is so much more satisfying than emails.  I love getting emails too but they just don't have the same feeling as a letter - unless I print them out - and in the interest of a 'green' environment, I just can't do that.

If you're lucky enough to have a packet of old letters, take a few minutes to read through them and relive the moments that were once deemed worthy of reporting on to others.  I did and I'm glad.