June 29th

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Brentyyyyyyyy! Happy Birthday tooooo youuuuu!

CKUA from Southern Alberta

Have I mentioned already that CKUA is the best radio station ever? It's worth repeating! My favorite program, Alberta Morning, has been broadcast from Southern Alberta yesterday morning and this morning. Today Bob (the announcer) is broadcasting live with a fire look out lady from the top of a fire lookout tower in Porcupine Hills. He's so funny and it sounds like he and the look out lady are having lots of fun. Listen to CKUA online.

Himalayan Poppies and Roses

Last weekend we went home to my parents' house and spent all of Saturday cleaning flowerbeds and mowing lawn and such. Thanks to my old job at the greenhouse, my mum has a fairly large collection of perennials. I gave her two plants of the Himalayan Blue Poppy...a beautiful blue flower that doesn't always to well in our climate. I didn't really expect them to survive but lo and behold, one is in bloom and one looks like it will soon! I didn't actually pick the flower, my brothers and Brent broke the bloom off with the soccer ball... Also, the greenhouse ladies put on a "money tree shower" before our wedding last year and the tree was a a variety of rose bush I was a huge fan of. For the life of me, I can't remember what the name of the rose is, but it's in full bloom this year and doing very well! Not sure if you can see from the picture but the color is kind of a cros between a vibrant neon pink and a deep red.

Clean Sweep

Last weekend we had one goal: clean up the storage room. Since we moved here it's been a disaster...we never had the time or the money to figure out how to organize it. So saturday morning we emptied almost everything out of it, piled stuff into four groups 1)stuff to keep 2)stuff to take to Mum and Dad's 3)stuff to give to a second hand store and 4)stuff to THROW OUT. After our living room was full and the storage room empty, we went to Ikea and got four units of cheap shelving called Gorm. We took it home and realized that we needed a specific hexagonal socket bit for Brent's drill...a metric one...that we didn't have. After going to Crappy Tire, Totem and Home Hardware with no luck, we got ahold of Bec and Eric and borrowed their bit (they have lots of Gorm too). So now we have SHELVES!! and an organized storage room! Now we just have to get the piles of stuff to be taken away out of the living room and we'll be set...

Us on a Monday Morning

In case there was any doubt left in your mind regarding our insanity, here is proof. In addition, in case you were wondering whether this aforementioned insanity was brought on by our adaptation to the Calgarian environment, not the Lacombe directional sign above our heads. Our thoughts and goals are directed homeward. :) Lastly, yes, my tea (in the above cup) was excellent! Twinings English Breakfast tea--made from loose leaves! --Female 1/2

Nose Hill Wildflowers #2

Nose Hill Wildflower Pictures #1

Two Fantastic Albums

Two cds Brent and I have been listening to lately and reallllly enjoy: Genius Loves Company--Ray Charles and Various artists. We got this one near the end of our honeymoon last year. It is a compilation of Ray Charles singing duets with various famous artists like Norah Jones, Elton John, James Taylor, Van Morrison. Very gentle but lively. Surprise--Paul Simon. Now I am a very big Paul Simon fan, in case you were wondering, all the way back to the Simon and Garfunkel days. His last cd, "You're the One" is also great. This one, however, is very different. He barely uses the African rhythms he's become famous for at all. It took us a couple listen-throughs to really get into it but now we feel like we could listen to it once a day! Here's part of the lyrics to a song called "Outrageous": Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? Tell me, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? Tell me, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will,Like he waters the flowers on your window sill. Take me, I'm an ordinary player in the key of C, And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will, Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.

random picture

Brent and Kirstin being goofy on a lazy (but it shouldn't be) Friday afternoon:

Grassi Lakes

Yesterday Brent and I went with my English class on a fieldtrip out to Grassi Lakes south of Canmore. It was a great day! We hiked and looked at wildlife, plantlife, history and generally, at God's creation. Here are some pictures: Climatis climbing a spruce tree. It's in bloom already! Lower Grassi Lake. Upper Grass Lake. Some petroglyphs we saw on the side of a boulder part way up the canyon. My instructor, Dr. Pamela Banting, and I, climbing down the stone staircase along side the waterfall.