Randomness

Just some random photos and thoughts today.

Yesterday, Feb. 14, was our daughter Amy's 38th birthday. 

She forever changed Valentine's day for us.  She's grown up to be a truly remarkable woman, daughter, wife, mother of 4, nurse, and much more.  One of her co-workers made her a unique birthday cake.

We stopped by last night to share a few minutes of her birthday with her, and to taste the cake.

Since our baby Emily's husband was away on a business trip, we took her out to dinner with us.  It's always so nice to spend time with this special young woman.

Excuse the pixellated pictures - I grabbed them from facebook.

Besides the cards we gave one another, Lloyd and I received some home-made valentines from our three sweet little grandkids, Kenny, Alex and Hannah.

Last weekend on our way back from Lethbridge, we stopped to visit our daughter Jenny and her family.  Lloyd snapped this picture of me, my oldest daughter and my oldest grandchild.

Jenny always said we needed to get some 'tall genes' into our family gene pool.  Sure looks like she's succeeded with this 6'3" 16-year old.  Her first novel is well on its way to being published.  We expect to see it in the bookstores and on Amazon in the early fall.

Have you ever stopped to count up the things you love?  Wow!  There's just too much.  We are so very fortunate to have so much good in our lives - family, friends, hobbies, activities, flowers and beaches and mountains.

Something else I love - puzzles.

Well, this is becoming slightly incoherent, so with a couple of love pictures, I'll close it down for today.

 

With love,   Pat

A Little Alberta Rosebud

It's been 11 days since I posted my last entry.  I didn't mean for so much time to pass, but I think I ran out to stuff to blog about.  Then I remembered that there's always something to say so here I am again.  I also have to spend lots of time catching up with all my bloggy friends before they forget I'm here.

We got back into Canada safely, though not together.  Lloyd had an 'incident' with his passport when he first got to Arizona and I wasn't there to take care of such things, but he's here now and I'll save that incident for a later post.

Right now I want to write about a tiny town in Alberta that we detoured to drive through on our way from Lethbridge to Edmonton yesterday.  It is such a cute, unique, old (by Canadian standards) little town that we had never heard of but which needs to be brought out of hiding.

The town is called Rosebud.  It sits in the middle of Wheatland county, surrounded by rolling wheat fields and some oil pumps.  There are not many people living there, in the winter anyway.  After we thought we had seen everything there was to see and were heading down just one more road, we saw a wonderfully Canadian winter scene...complete with people...

...an old fashioned skating pond with a family out skating, and one adult cross country skiing there on the left.  You can see the shovels they used to clear the ice sticking up out of the snow bank, and the boy with a hockey stick looking for a pick-up game.

Those were the only people we saw in the town, except for an older couple out for a walk on the lovely warmish winter day.

Rosebud is actually a Hamlet, not a town, 35 km from Drumheller, near the site of the largest dinosaur excavations in America.  Rosebud itself was built to service the railway when it was built back in the late 1800s.  Now there isn't a gas station or a convenience store to be found.

But it is rich in art and culture.  In fact, it's all about arts and culture.

This is the largest of the several inns and B&Bs in Rosebud.  There are no large
commercial hotels or motels here.

And this is the back view of the Inn that you see when approaching the town

This was the only store in town, now converted to public use.  Before  the play performances
the audience congregates here for a big buffet, complete with live music.

One of the several museums in town.  

And a guest house.

The old Hotel Rosebud.  Notice the bicycles standing there in the snow.  We saw
these all over town and noticed that there was a sign on one of them instead
of a license, saying 'public transport'.  I don't know for sure but it seemed that they
were placed around town for people to use as they wished.

This building, also a museum, is attached to the house on the right, which is on
the street around the corner from this one.  We'll have to go back in the summer
to check it out.

This is the hotel from a different angle.  Notice the lovely old golden retriever
basking in the winter sun.

This looks like it might have started life as a barn but is now a country bar and grill.

These are two gift shops attached to the famous Rosebud Theatre.

I checked on-line to see what Rosebud is all about, since there was no one in the town when we were there to tell us.  It has the Royal Sproule Art Gallery featuring works by local artists, the Akokiniskay Art Gallery, featuring works by Alberta artists, the Rosebud School of Performing Arts, the Rosebud Centennial Museum, the Rosebud Theatre with resident actors, student apprentices and visiting artists, and the Akokiniskway Golf Course.

We'll definitely go back there in the summer when things are in full swing, maybe take in a show and explore the museums and galleries.

Just in closing, here are a few views around town.

Farm equipment sitting in the shade

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Tractors in a side yard

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Grain handling terminals

Cattails along the river bank

Great Day With the Kids

Two of our grandchildren and their Dad arrived from Edmonton last night.  This was a special quick trip for them to watch the Edmonton Oilers play against the Phoenix Coyotes tonight.  Eight-year-old Max is a hockey player and his team had just won gold in their league tournament.  This trip to see our hometown heros play our second favorite NHL hockey team in Phoenix was a special treat for him and for his nine-year-old sister, Charlie.

But before the hockey game we had a whole day to fill.  We started by going to Surprise Lake to feed the ducks.

and to play in the playground

and sit and watch the waterfowl glide by

and pose for silly pictures

Then when I couldn't keep them away from it any longer, we went home where they spent nearly two hours playing in the pool.  Although the water was nice and warm, the air was too cold for me to want to go swimming so I sat at the side of the pool and took pictures and kept score during their game of water basketball.

It was fun to watch these kids who, a few years ago, had to be coaxed into the water.  Now they're regular water babies and can't get enough of the pool.

Then, finally, it was time to go to the big game.  The six of us had great seats right behind the Edmonton penalty box.  It turned out to be a very exciting game, with Edmonton winning in overtime 2/1.

The Phoenix Coyotes wearing red and the Edmonton Oilers in white and blue.

Charlie got up to cheer and show off her Oilers pride shirt.  It was surprising how many Oilers fans were at the game, cheering louder and longer than the Coyote fans.

It was a real treat for Max to be at the game with his dad.  They had a great time.

It was so much fun to be there just listening to Max.  He constantly yelled encouragement to his team, commenting on every play that was made.

It was a bit nerve wracking when the Coyotes tied the game up in the dying seconds of the last period forcing the game into overtime, but our boys in blue managed to pull a win out of it and we all went home happy.  What a great game for the kids' first NHL experience.   I was glad to be able to share it with them.

Not the AZ I'm Used To

In the five years we've been coming to Arizona, I've never seen a January this wet and cool (I'd say 'cold', but, well, I'm here to escape the -20+ temperatures of home so to me this is just cool).  In previous years we've been in the pool every day, wearing sandals and cropped pants, never a jacket!  Not so much this year, but still, it's better than driving on icy roads and shoveling snow.  And it's still a nice vacation.

Here's the predominant color this week:

Lloyd and I were in a store and could hear the drum beat of rain on the roof.  When we went outside, this beautiful rainbow brightened the day.

The saguaro cactus in our back yard though looked like it was crying in the rain.

Wendy and Randy left for home yesterday, but before they left we managed to spend almost 15 minutes in the pool.  The water was heated but it wasn't up to it's usual balmy temperature.  Our swim was short-lived.

During a spell between rain showers, Wendy and I went to Surprise Lake and fed the ducks, geese, pigeons, and numerous other birds that hang out there.

And when it was too wet to go outside, we put a couple of puzzles together.  The small one has 1000 tiny little pieces and the larger one has 500 much-easier-to-handle pieces.

And that brought us to the end of the week.  We had a good time with Wendy and Randy and were sad to see them leave....back to the cold and snow that is home.

Sunny days ahead!

Colors of Arizona - 3

Wendy and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix.  The Heard is a beautiful, modern, interactive museum dedicated to the preservation of the native American culture and artifacts.  It also celebrates the accomplishments of the native people. 

The feature display right now celebrates the contribution of the native people in the first and second world wars, namely the famous Code Talkers, who through the use of a code based on their native languages were able to pass information throughout the allied forces that couldn't be decoded by anyone else.  This beautiful display of artifacts, and video is normally housed at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC but was loaned to the Heard Museum.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the Code Talkers display.  But I do have a couple of paintings by Dan Namingha, a Hopi artist.  This first one is called Cardinal Colors, depicting the four colors of corn that sustained the Hopi people.  The yellow represents north, white is east, brown is south, and blue is west. 

 

I'm afraid I didn't read what the meaning of this picture by Mr. Namingha is.  I'll leave it for the reader to interpret.

 

This beautiful wall of natural poles adorned with molten glass colors represents the evolution of day into night (I think) or it could be the evolution of the natural world. Either way, it's beautiful and very tactile.  It's hard not to touch each large glass piece.

 



At one of the interactive displays, Wendy made a type of small doll the native children used to have, made from scraps of fabric and fibre.

At another interactive station, I put together a beautiful native puzzle.

Then, after a light lunch in the outdoor courtyard of the museum, we hopped back into our very uncolorful car and drove home.

 

 

 

 

Last night we turned the heater on in the pool so it would be the perfect temperature for swimming today and wouldn't you know, when we woke up this morning it was raining and cool, and it's supposed to stay that way for three or four days.  Oh well, it's better than the snow and -30C temperatures they're 'enjoying' back home where the only color of consequence is white

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