So Far, So Good

It's been a good trip so far, in spite of leaving Edmonton yesterday in a snowstorm that dumped 25 cm of heavy wet snow on our home town.  By the time we were an hour south of Edmonton, the roads were dry and bare and soon all traces of snow had left our landscape.  We arrived in Lethbridge to sun and dryness.

This morning we left Lethbridge and made our trek through the mountains to Osoyoos, in the Okanaghan Valley of BC.  Those mountains are such a tremendous barrier, effectively separating the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia with miles and miles of sharp peaked, snow covered granite...extending well into the United States.

Our trip took 9 hours today - five of which I drove.  As it happened, my 'shift' took us through the high mountain passes - the Crowfoot Pass and the Kootenay Pass.  When Lloyd wasn't sleeping, he grabbed the camera and tried to get some shots, but he missed the ones at the top of the passes where the snow was piled high on either side of the road, indicating where avalanches had been cleared away previously - pretty spectacular scenery.  Driving up the mountains we'd go from dry ground and sun into wet roads with snow on either side, going down long curving hills onto lower mountains misted with fog and snow.  At a few points we ran into wet snowfall, but those were few and far between.  I just wish there had been more places where I could pull over and get some really good photos, but there just wasn't room, or there were vehicles behind me.

Here are some of the sights from today's trip.

Beautiful snow covered moutain

I love the look of this one

A threatening sky as we climb

Curving up and then down through the pass

And around a sharp bend

Not much traffic from either direction

There were three of these runaway lanes down this one mountain.  I'd hate to be in the vehicle that lost control, or brakes, and had to hit the emergency area.

It's not really a lane at all - just a semi-safe space to get off the highway and stopped.

Finally far enough down the mountain to be out of the snow.

But we had to watch out for grazing animals now.

Still working our way through the mountains

To a city - Castlegar -  in a high valley

I don't know how safe I'd feel flying into that air strip surrounded by mountains

Lloyd almost missed this picture of two wild turkeys who ran across the road in front of us.

Signs told us to have winter tires or carry chains from October to April 30 on these roads

I was scared to take my eyes off the road so Lloyd could take this picture

Looks like we're going to drop off the face of the earth

It got misty with snow as we came down off the mountains

And finally to the foothills and farmland

Another farm

Our destination - Osoyoos - came into view as we drove down Anarchist Mountain

Our home away from home for three days - Spirit Lodge, Osoyoos

Surrounded by miles of orchards that make this Okahaghan Valley world famous.  They're just waiting for enough sun and heat to start blooming.  It'll be a very different scene this time next month.

We finished our day by going to Mary and Greg's place in Oliver to spend some time with our grandchildren and new grand-puppy, Maizie.  Pictures tomorrow.

Pat

Travellilng Weather

We're heading to Lethbridge today and then on to BC tomorrow.  Here's what we woke up to this morning.

So much for spring!  Luckily this system is moving east so the mountain roads should be fairly clear.  Lets hope.  We're watching the weather channel and road reports but are planning on getting away in an hour or so.  *sigh*

Have a good Easter weekend everyone.

Pat

Loose Change

Years ago I started throwing my loose change into a large restaurant-size pickle bottle. Whenever my purse started feeling heavy I'd empty the coins into the bottle.  Lloyd would empty his pockets and I'd scoop up his loose change and toss it into the bottle.  Every once in awhile I'd empty the bottle, roll the coins and take my 'found money' to the bank.  A little bit here, a little bit there.

I hadn't emptied the bottle in a couple of years.  In fact, when the big bottle got filled up I just started filling another. 

The other day I decided to roll the coins and take them to the bank.  But first I weighed the jars.  The big one weighed 35 lbs.  The smaller one was a mere 10.5 lbs.  Money is heavy!

I dumped the coins onto my dining room table and started sorting and rolling them - huge job - took me two days to get them all done.  Of course in that time I had to go out and buy more coin rollers.

We have a lot of coins in Canada.  Pennies, of course, which the government has decided to phase out of existence.  They're not going to make any more.  Then there's the nickles (5 cents), dimes (10 cents), quarters (25 cents), loonies ($1.00), and twoonies ($2.00).  They all got tossed into the coin jars.

And then began the tedious job of sorting, counting and rolling the coins.  Luckily I'm able to multi-task so I kept the television on for company while I sorted and counted and rolled, and sorted and counted and rolled, and sorted.....you get the picture.

All rolled and ready to go

My final total was a staggering $776.00!  That loose change really adds up! 

Today I have to find a way to lug 45.5 lbs of rolled coins to the bank to deposit in my account.  I might have to make two trips.  That's heavy!  And as Lloyd pointed out, it'll more than pay for our trip to BC to visit our daughter Mary and her family this weekend.

But first I think I'll empty the change from my wallet into the big empty jar and start another round of saving.

Spring and Stuff

We've had a few bright sunny days with above zero temperatures here so I guess you know what that means...spring is officially here!  And just in time for Easter too.  Lloyd and I will be going to Osoyoos, BC on Thursday to spend the Easter weekend with daughter Mary and her family.  It's been spring there for awhile now.  It's a beautiful drive through the mountains but a long one - probably 10 hours to make the trip from Lethbridge.

Mickey and I got together yesterday for another scrapbooking day.  We had several fun interruptions though.  Amy stopped by in the morning with five of my grandchildren - 3 of her children and two of Sara's.  It's always nice to have them stop by.  We had a good visit with Amy while the kids entertained themselves with painting books and the computer and exploring Grammie's house..  I'm going to miss these little people so much when we move to Lethbridge.  I got lots of hugs yesterday...have to start storing up.  I forgot to get my camera out before they left though.  Next time.


Then in the afternoon Rob brought his kids Anson and Brooklyn over.  It's the last day of spring break for all these kids.  Rob was home from work with his kids so he came over to his Mum's place for a break for a couple of hours.  He is the only one of my kids that Mickey hadn't met so it was nice to be able to introduce them.  Eight-year old Brooklyn sat with us and did two scrapbook pages.  She's a very crafty and creative little girl and I did an excellent job on her pages. 

We all went over to the playground across the street which, until three days ago, was pretty much under snow.  It's amazing how fast it melts when we have a couple of warmish days.

The kids love it when their Dad gets the tire swing going for them

 Anson was very careful about landing in the puddle at the foot of the slides.

Our happy Brooklyn

 After all the excitement of our company left, Mickey and I finally settled into a few hours of productive scrapbooking.  I got six pages done, but will only bore you with this one, which features a picture of granddaughters Kenzie and Sydney last May at the same playground we had fun at today.

And that's it for today.  Have a fun weekend.

Pat

Monday Morning

It's Monday morning.  The start of a new week.  Back to work for some.  Spring vacation for others.  Now that I'm retired I have to make a conscious effort to know what day of the week it is.  I wake up in the morning and don't get out of bed until I've figured that little mystery out.  I know I'm not alone in this - it happens to a lot of us when we're on vacation.  Days just blend into glorious days and who cares what it's name is!  This is what calendars are for.  As long as I remember when garbage day is, I'm ok!

I don't have anything in particular to blog about today so I thought I'd post some interesting facts I found on the internet yesterday.  See how many you were already aware of.

1.  Your brain has the potential to remember everything you have ever experienced, read, heard and seen.  The only problem is you can't recall it.  But it's all in there somewhere.

2.  Your body is constantly replacing cells so much so in fact you have a completely different body than you did seven years ago.

3.  The amount of information your brain can hold is believed to be up to 1000 terabytes. 

The IBM super computer, Watson, the one Jeopardy contestants competed against awhile ago,

 has 16 terabytes of RAM.

4.  With the sperm in your testicles right now (guys) you could repopulate Dallas and it would take you 6 months to repopulate the entire planet.

5.  Everyone in your dreams you have seen while awake at some point in your life.  (I think this must include people you've seen in movie, on television, etc.)

6.  In your lifetime you will eat about 50 tons of food. 

7.  To exercise your legs the same amount of exercise your eyes get, you would need to walk 50 miles a day, every day.

8.  In the next four years you will shed your body weight in dead skin.

9.  Your hair grows about 12 mm month.

10.  You constantly sweat - about two pints a day.

11.  Pound for pound, when you were a baby you were stronger than an ox.

12.  You react at speeds of 170 mph.

13.  Aside from burning, your hair is so non-disintegrative it's basically indestructible.

14.  25,000,000 cells of your body died while you read this sentence (but your body made 200 billion more of them today so don't worry).

15.  You were one cell for half an hour.

And there you have it...believe it or not.  I can't vouch for the accuracy of the above statements.  I just report 'em as I hear 'em.

Have a good week.

Pat

Friday Fun

Just when we thought spring had arrived we got with a spring snowstorm - two days of grey skies, snow falling and sub-zero temperatures.  The good news is that it's going to warm up over the next few days so it'll all melt soon.

So, what's the best way to spend a cold snowy spring day???  Well in my world, it's scrapping and eating with a like-minded friend.

We had a lunch so delicious that we had it again for supper!  Mickey made minestrone soup - the first time I've ever had it - and it was just perfect for a cold dreary day.  It was so thick you could eat it with a fork, but we used spoons anyway.

For dessert I made strawberry nachos - a nice springy treat.

I had these for the first time when my sister made them for us last month when we were in Arizona.  They are so simple and absolutely yummy.  Here's the recipe.


Cinnamon Chips: (it's not an exact science so quantities are to your taste)
  flour tortillas
  butter, melted
  sugar
  cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.  Brush each tortilla with melted butter.  Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on buttered tortillas.  Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife cut each tortilla into 8 wedges.  Place on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for 8 minutes or until the tortillas barely begin to crisp.  Remove the crisps to a serving plate and let them rest 2 minutes to cool and crisp.  (I made them the previous night and stored them in an air-tight container).

Place cinnamon chips on a platter and top with diced strawberries.  Drizzle with melted chocolate.  Drop dollops of whipped cream on edges, or all over if you like.

Eat with your fingers, scooping berries, chocolate and cream up with the cinnamon nacho chips.  Quick, easy and delicious!


Although I worked steadily at my scrapbooking, I only got two pages done - but who's counting.  I had a good time working on them.

Me, my daughter Emily, and granddaughter, Eliose (Sara's daughter)
all share the same middle name, although I'm the only one
who uses it as their first name.

It seems no matter how far we travel, work always follows
Lloyd via his cell phone. 

So, that was the start to my weekend.  Hope all of you have a good weekend - without snow!

Pat

Curio Curiosities

Lloyd and I are in the process of moving from Edmonton to our home in Lethbridge, 5 hours south of Edmonton.  We bought our house down there about 5 years ago and over the past few years we've done some renovations, furnished it, and have gone down there every chance we get.  It's the home we've been planning on retiring to.  We'll be officially moving there in July, and giving up the rental we've been in up here in Edmonton.

One of the first things we moved to Lethbridge several years ago was my curio cabinet.  The front glass panel got broken in the move as well as one of the glass shelves.  So it was stored in the shed until we got it fixed.  Well, we got it fixed this weekend and moved it into the house.  I was finally able to unpack my little pretty things and get it set up in our living room.

Unpacking the little treasures was like opening Christmas presents.  Each one had a story to tell - I remembered who gave me some as gifts, where I bought others, what they all meant to me - I had a lovely afternoon setting it up. 

Here's a few of my treasures I'd like to share with you.

This is a small part of my egg collection.  The one on the far left is a real egg decorated by a Ukranian woman in the traditional pyzanky fashion.  I love the shape and feel of eggs, especially the heavy marble ones like the one on the right.  I have a basket full of those someplace.

I guess this is one step up from my love of eggs - I love the birds that produce them.  Son Rob gave me the cardinals and bluejay figuerines on successive Christmasses about 20 years ago.  My sister Wendy and I bought each other identical crystal ducks for our birthdays a couple years ago.  We were out shopping together around our birthdays (which are 8 days apart) and since we each wanted one, we each bought one for the other.

I just liked the look of these cheerful witches so added them to my random collection of things I like.  Every girl needs something to bring out her inner witch ;)

The top shelf of the curio cabinet - Mum gave me the two collectors plates but I never pursued that collection.  The small Hummel figuerine in the center is from my grandmother's house.  It's probably 50 or 60 years old now.  The little girl hugging the egg reminded me of one of my granddaughters so I had to have it.  Then Emily gave me the matching one of the little girl in a teacup with apples.

This is about half of my thimble collection.  I started collecting them in 1967 when Mum and Dad, my sister, brother and I went on a road trip.  I bought a souvenir thimble at our first stop, Fredericton, New Brunswick, and thereafter I bought one at every stop on every trip for years.  I have thimbles from all the Canadian provinces and a lot of the States and cities, as well as fun ones with products such as Pepsi, Coke, Bon Ami, etc. , a woven one from the Philippines, porcelain, metal, peuter, plastic, clay and wood.  I have my grandmother's and my mother's quilting thimbles, and a couple of wooden ones I painted and decoupaged small pictures onto.  And at Christmas I use one of the thimbles to poke the hole in my thimble cookies so put the jelly in.

My egg shelf shares it's space with the small souvenir glasses that Mum used to collect when we lived in Germany in 1960-61.  They're all tucked in behind the hanging eggs.  As you can see, the back panel of the cabinet is a mirror so there's no escaping the photographer's image.

The witches share their space with a little stein that Emily brought back from Germany when she was an exchange student there.  The blue music box in the center used to belong to my Dad's mother.  It was popular in the 1950s and was actually a powder box for loose face powder. The music still plays when the lid is lifted off.

And the birds sit on the lower shelf with a crystal apple that used to belong to my brother.  After he was killed in a mining accident in 1991 I kept this apple from his house as a keepsake.

So, those are my treasures - not worth much financially, but their sentimental value is priceless.