My Daughter...The Author!

It's been an exciting month for our first daughter, Jennifer.  On August 3, after years in the making, her first novel  was released for sale.  Last night we went to the official launch of her book.  It was an amazing experience.

Love Letters of the Angels of Death is hard for me to describe, so I've led you, via this link, to a review of it. It's not like any novel I've ever read.  It's a fascinating work of literature.  Although it's fiction, I can recognize many real-life experiences and incidents that Jenny used as inspiration in her writing, and it feels to me like a very personal book.  We are very proud of her.  She wrote it over a period of several years while being a stay-at-home Mom to her husband and five sons.

Proud Parents with their Author Daughter, Jennifer Quist

Jenn reading a selection from her book at the book launch.

Handing an autographed copy to her cousin. The lady at the table with
her is another Alberta author, Fran Kimmel (The Shore Girl).

We had never been to a book launch before.  It's quite a fun event to attend.  The venue (Lacombe Memorial Center) was beautiful and perfect for an event like this.  Between 50  - 60 people attended so Jenn was very pleased with that.  A lot of mix and mingling after Jenn's reading, catered snacks, and an all round lovely evening.

She has a book signing event scheduled for a book store in Red Deer, and another in Calgary.  I believe she's going to try to have one in Edmonton and Lethbridge as well.  So she'll be very busy in the next few months.  Her literary agent is already shopping around her second novel so we're hoping the success of this one will boost the interest in her second one.

Love Letters of the Angels of Death is available on-line at Amazon.ca

Hawiian Smores

I posted earlier about my newfound love of the traditional campfire treat, S'mores.  Today, before summer is over, I need to tell you about my daughter-in-law Cindy's discovery of Hawiian S'mores. These take traditional S'mores a giant step forward.

Your ingredients: cake donuts, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips
and pineapple slices.  I think next time I'll add coconut too.  Everything
is better with coconut added!

Your stack.  Slice the donut in two, like a burger bun.
Sit the bottom part of the donut on tin foil first so you won't have to lift the
whole 'sandwich' onto it. Then wrap it completely with the tin foil.

Let your fire die down to coals and carefully place the foil
wrapped s'mores on the coals.

Sit, relax and visit for ten minutes while your treat 'cooks'.
(Brooklyn, Lloyd, Cindy)

Enjoy some love from your grandchildren while waiting.
Our boy Anson

My girl Brooklyn

Carefully, remove the foil packets from the coals.

Et Voila!!! melty, chocolatey, gooey Hawaiian Smores.
'Someone' ate the top donut slice before I thought to take the picture.

Give these a try before summer's over.  You'll be pleasantly surprised.

It's a Hoot!

My granddaughter, Brooklyn, and I share a few things in common.  We both love her Dad, my son Rob, we're both left-handed, and we both love owls.

When her family was visiting us in Lethbridge this week, she and I went to the Coaldale Birds of Prey Centre.  It's a wonderful place, full of birds in varying stages of recovery from injuries and accidents, and a sizable aviary of owls, hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey who, for some reason or other, are unable to be released to the wild.  Never having been there before, I wasn't sure we'd see an owl at all.  However, as soon as we walked in and paid our entrance fee (which goes for the upkeep of the birds) the hostess leaned down to Brooklyn and whispered to her, "Would you like to hold an owl?"  Her face just lit up like a Christmas tree at the prospect of actually touching one of her favorite things!  I must admit I was excited to be able to hold him too.

This little guy's name is Basil.  He's a burrowing
owl. He was just running aroundthe gift shop and the hostess picked him up and have him
to Brooklyn.

Of course I had to get in on the action too, but Brooklyn didn't leave
Basil's side.

 Then we went out on a self-guided tour of the grounds.  The first thing we came to was the owls.  The one behind Brooklyn in this picture is Gordon, a great horned owl, which we discovered is the Provincial bird of Alberta.  We got such a kick out of Gordon.  He interacted with us by doing a silly little head dance for us, bobbing his head up and down, side to side and looking quite comical.

Brooklyn and Gordon

Farther along there were quite a few pairs of little burrowning owls.  They
are so cute.  We were told that they are an endangered species now.

We fell in love with the sleepy-eyed barn owl named Edgar.
We'll see more of him later.

There were beautiful eagles and hawks to be seen.  This is a bald eagle staring at us.

And so is this one

 Brooklyn particularly liked this eagle.  There was a sign on the lawn in front of it thanking the company her Dad works for for their generous donations to the Centre.

A Hawk

And another sweet-faced burrowing owl.

 And here's our friend Edgar again.  Another staff member asked us if we would like to hold him so of course we jumped at the chance.  It's remarkable how calm these birds were, and how light.  They have small bodies but very full feathers.  Edgar liked having his tail stroked.

Brooklyn sure looks like she's enjoying herself doesn't she.  

And of course I needed a piece of the action too.

 When we got home Brooklyn wanted to teach me how to make lizards out of pony beads so after we made a few of them, I decided we could probably make owls too.  If you look closely you'll see four pony bead owls and three plastic melted bead ones.

It was a lovely way to spend a misty damp day with a special little granddaughter.  Thank you Brooklyn.

The Rest of the Story.

When I wrote about our visit to Pigeon Lake, I just showed the Village and the shops.  We didn't stop our journey there though.  Lloyd and I drove on down to the lake, which is huge, with half a dozen or so Summer Villages with all kinds of summer homes, from modest little rustic cabins to large multi-roomed mansions.  What a great place for those homeowners to spend the summer.  Here's a peek at some of the lakeside attractions.

A lot of the summer homes had cute names, like this one

This appears to be one of the older homes, a real summer cottage.

And then there are big elaborate ones like this, that still try to maintain
a rustic look.  You can see the lake behind the house.

This path leads from the road to the cabin and on
down to the lake

This sad looking property was once a store used by the summer villagers,
looking sadly decrepit now.

Someone has built a pier and docked their boat at it.

Although filled with algae right now, this must have been
prime property with the lake at the back and the creek at
the side of the cottage.

Isn't this a beautiful summer home.  I wouldn't mind spending a month
or two there with the lake in my back yard.

This is a larger boat launch area, with playground and park.

The only people we saw on our drive were those half dozen people
on the raft out on the lake.  They were just drifting and sunning.

We came across this family of Canada geese in the park.

As soon as they saw us approaching to take pictures, the mother goose
herded her children to safety, down to the pier

where she then coaxed them into the water

They seemed to want to test the water first by sticking their webbed toes in.

And they're off...safe from the camera snapping humans.  As soon as we were far enough
away from them, they all came back and waddled up the grass to their favorite
spot in the sun.

I like the look of this rustic cabin.  It looks like it belongs there.

This is the community center.

And one last look at one of the summer cabins in the woods.

We did meet two little girls along the lake road - they were selling home made lemonade so we bought a couple of glasses of it from them...good stuff.

A perfect summer day of exploring.

Scrappy Day

I had a fun day yesterday scrapping with my good buddy Mickey.  I did a bunch of happy pictures from my granddaughter's third birthday party.  Her mother, my daughter Sara, should be a professional event planner. Her kids have the most creative parties.

The theme of Quinny's party was Carnival.  Sara set up a carnival in her back yard with pennants, tons of balloons, game booths, face painting, fake tattooing, bouncy castle, popcorn, hotdogs and cotton candy, a photo booth with props, and more.  And I missed it!  I had to be in Lethbridge last weekend but thanks to Sara's pictures, I was able to enjoy it, sort of.

These are some fun layouts I've done of the party.  I'll be doing more when Sara gives me the rest of the pictures.

Three of my daughters - Sara, Amy and Emily

The birthday girl and her beautiful cake, made by a family friend.

Some pictures are worth scrapping twice.

These two clown sisters are the daughters of one of my daughters
in the first 'Silly Sisters' layout.

Doesn't that look like a fun party!

Pigeon Lake

Lloyd and I decided to do a little exploring one day last week and ended up at a lovely spot just an hour south of Edmonton.  I had been to Pigeon Lake several times for scrapbooking retreats but always in the winter, and Lloyd had never been there so that was our destination.

Our main stop was called The Village at Pigeon Lake - a lovely little spot on the road with nothing but a conference center hotel and a little strip of shops and restaurants.  Lloyd commented that it was no wonder I liked going there for our scrapbook getaways.  See for yourself...

This is the village street - lovely little specialty shops and restaurants

There were flowers everywhere.  There's a small fountain right
behind Lloyd that started spraying as soon as we moved away
from this spot.

While I was checking out the large gift shop full of quaint unique goods,
Lloyd wandered down behind the shops and found this lovely little
water tableau.

The green building in the background is part of the inn where our scrapbook
retreats were held.  It's quite a popular retreat and close enough to the city to
be used by many different groups.  It even  has its own spa.  It's so peaceful there
surrounded by the natural woodlands.

Nice benches along the boardwalk for sitting and people watching.
Do you notice how my shoes match the phone in my hand?  That's
entirely intentional.  Love that color!

This shop on the corner was extremely popular.  Lloyd even broke
his "I don't wait in lines" rule to stand in line inside for some
delicious ice cream.

But not before taking a picture of me outside the ice cream shop.

Facing the row of shops is a lovely park with lots of picnic tables and
quiet spaces for people to sit and relax and eat a picnic lunch if they don't
want to try the goods offered at several of the restaurants there.

Another shot of Daisy McBeans, and the rest of the Inn in the background.

And more treasure chests full of flowers

This lovely gazebo in the center of the Village is where Lloyd and
I sat to eat our ice cream...so quiet and peaceful.

We didn't try this new restaurant but I had to get a picture of Lloyd in
front of it.  He's Papa to our grandchildren, so it was fitting.

Another quiet spot.  There's a little brook back where the grasses are high.

If we had been hungry we would have stopped at the ECOcafe for lunch.
I've eaten there when on a scrapbook retreat and the food is
delicious, fresh and natural, ecologically sound as the name suggests.

 But since we weren't hungry, we went down to the lake...but I'll save that for another time...maybe tomorrow.

I hope you're having a lovely summer so far.