Olympic Pride

Twenty-two years ago, the Winter Olympics were hosted by our city.
This was the last time they were held in Canada. With the 2010 Olympics going on in Vancouver right now,
we thought we'd offer a few snapshots from the past.
Whereas the slogan for the 2010 Olympics is "I believe,"
in 1988 it was "Share the flame" --hence the little candles.
We're absolutely enjoying all the coverage,
though perhaps we get a little too caught up, glued to the television.
Oh--and in case you were wondering,
that's B and his older brother E in the first picture, and the boys with their mom in the second one.

To Do: Ride A Fire Truck

Riding in a fire truck has always been one entry on my bucket list. Fortunate for me, my brother is a member of the local volunteer fire department and could therefore help me attain this goal. While we didn't get to ride in the truck itself, per se, we did get to experience the capabilities of the tower truck. We had to wear helmets (in case the sky fell) and harnesses. I put the face guard down, just to get the full experience. The helmet was both heavy and hot but I'm guessing those aren't major concerns to a fire fighter when he's in a burning building.

My sister-in-law took B's camera and got some shots for us (thanks M!) while we went up.

Luckily, I'm not at all afraid of heights. I like them, actually. I especially like the urge I get to test out my flying abilities when I get up high. I'm pretty sure I'd be good at flying. I am in my dreams, anyway. But, I was harnessed in here.

Our hometown looks so peaceful from way up there. Little houses, lots of trees and flowers, the sound of traffic on the highway muted.

After we came back down, my brother took his wife M and my other brother T up for a spin.

J&M: we're pretty big fans of them.

My fearless firefighter brother.

My easy-going lifeguard/plumber brother.

It was a great field trip, fulfilling one of my life-time goals and inspiring B. Now he wants to join the fire department too.

Lemon and Vanilla With Fresh Strawberries

The other night we had K&K over for one last hang-out night before female K moved back to Lacombe for the summer. We've had them over a number of times in the last while, once where we made supper and then went out for dessert, once where they made supper and we made dessert, and now this last time, where we made supper and they made dessert.

Fortunate for us, K&K are both really good at cooking and baking. They made chicken cordon bleu from scratch the night they cooked. AND they're particularly fond of cheesecake. So cheesecake it was early this week.

And it was good. Very very good.

Thanks guys, you can come over anytime. :)

Engagement Photos

This past weekend we had a smashing time with J&M and I rented a nice lens to take some engagement photos of them. Here are a few of my favorites, though many many more turned out just great. We had a fun time in IKEA, and the next day downtown for a while, then down to Bowness for some skating.

Some things of today

Yup, we sure had fun. And no frosty cold and snowy weather would stop us. Banff: Hanging out on the way there; the hotsprings and the frozen hair effect; drinking beer at the Irish Pub [and sleeping on the way home (well, not all of us)]. At home: Making baked brie and drinking wine; teasing sleepy M; watching Indi movies. Church: On the worship team; hanging out with our favourite 5, 3 and 1-year old briefly; seeing some church friends and introducing them to J&M. Lunch: eating vegetarian chili, sitting around BSing; talking about music. Settlers of Catan: playing a three hour game; drinking two pots of chai tea; eating countless chocolates, oranges and ginger cookies. And getting so caught up in the silliness of the game that we (I) didn't even notice that I won. I'm so glad that siblings can be friends as well as family. Happy early birthday, M!

Can't help but be happy when the first day of the week and the first day of the month are the same, and when the month in question is December! So much to say...so many blogs in my head just waiting to be written. We had a wonderful weekend, book-ended with the driving-accompanied-by-coffee with brother Kevin. In a quick summary, some highlights of the weekend included - A research trip to Dickson and learning how the museum and archives operate; - Babysitting little cousins and watching Cinderella, discussing the pros and cons of being a princess; - Helping out with the craft sale, selling the pretty ornaments you see in the picture above, and seeing so many people from my growing-up years in our hometown; - Coffee with my parents half-way through the craftsale, and hanging out with my youngest brother (who, it should be clarified, may be the youngest, but is NOT "the baby"); - More cousin time on Sunday, playing Clue and laughing harder and being sillier than I have in a long time. In other words, it was a long-needed and much-anticipated family reunion, in addition to being a busy craft sale. And it was wonderful. Finally, on the topic of Advent: At church on Sunday, mentioned in passing but not really dwelt upon to the degree that I would have liked, was the fact that we were celebrating the first Sunday in Advent. We lit the candle of Hope, because the birth of Jesus represents the greatest Hope that we could ever hope for! Because of Jesus, we have steadfast knowledge that no matter what happens in life, we have the Eternal Hope of our Saviour. Halleluia! From the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, on the Occasion of the First Sunday in Advent: "Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen."

Harvest 2008

Last weekend B and I drove up to Lacombe so B could work in the office for a couple of days...and it also worked out that we were able to be around for the weekend, just as my Dad's new combine arrived. Dad got it operational on Friday and then Saturday was combining day. Saturday morning was still too wet to start, so we ran an errand over to our longtime friends H&I, who own a dairyfarm nearby, and we put a big stack of straw bales up in the loft of the barn. At around noon Dad and T and B did some sample combining and then we took a sample across town to the elevator, where we were informed that the barley was just dry enough. So Dad and T and B spent the rest of the day out on the tractor and combine and in the grain truck. Meanwhile, I caught the close-to-last window for harvesting apples and consequently made some sauce and delicious crab-apple jelly. It was an absolutely delightful weekend.

Sentinel Pass med vores familie

This summer, like all, it seems, is filled with events and occasions and trips. One of these, which we were really looking forward to, was the visit from my family from Denmark, and the hiking trip that we took with them. It was really neat to be able to share our beautiful mountains with them and to get to know them better--seeing as we're going to visit them again in October!

I should say that these pictures are not straight off the camera--Brent has done some post-processing to make them look like this.

Moraine Lake in the morning (before most of the tourists)

Signage: no groups smaller than four to protect against bears...not that bears would come anywhere near all these people

Our route up the pass

Snow! In July! An unexpected surprise

Our lovely Rocky Mountain scenery

Lovely meadows above the larch trees

Alpine Buttercups

Eating lunch at the pass

There's nothing quite like a nap at the top

We've not had much experience hiking with kids; but my cousin Eskil was so much fun. Lots of energy and funny antics. When I grow up I want to be just like him. ;)

PJB Design in the news

Check out this Lacombe Globe article. That's Brent's Sketch-up model of the fieldhouse, and PJB himself in the article. Also in the same Globe issue, a very interesting article on the coming race track and its place in the greater global scheme of things. George Weenik is a long-time Woodynook resident, close to my parents' house.

Pancakery success

International Pancake Day aka Shrove Tuesday aka Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras has come and gone. And fun was had by all (as far as I know).

We made two different recipes, one of French Crepes and one of Icelandic Pancakes (Kirstin's ol' standby).

Sundry ingredients involved:
eggs and butter and sugar mixed.

Flour sifted.

Finished batter, with no lumps (a more difficult task than you might expect)

And away they cook.

And we thought we made way too much batter. Not so, we were all hungry.

Sparkling wine and orange juice. Thanks for the recommendation, liquor store man, it was tasty!

I think we shall have to make this a yearly tradition! And now that it's Ash Wednesday and Lent has began, anyone considering giving something up? I'm thinking it might be a good way to continually think of Easter and the God's ultimate sacrifice. Thoughts?

A Birthday Breakfast

Last Sunday morning we went out on the town with Eric and Becky to celebrate Eric's recent 26th Birthday. We went to a small diner down on 17th ave, Nellies. Served a good variety of diner food, and was quite good in our opinion. Afterwards we walked up and 17th ave trying to work off our breakfast and stopped into some stores since we've never been down there.



Started off with Megatunes, a music shop with a very good selection of not so popular music, right in line with our CKUA interests!


From there we moved farther down the street to a neat little store that sold antiques, all of which were salvaged from overseas in China, Tibet, Nepal, or India. Very neat pieces for a house or office someday perhaps. After a couple more stores, we grabbed a coffee and took Kiera to the dog park to wear off some of her pent up energy.


After walking the dog we headed home to grab a movie and walked by a brand new playground so had to play on that for a bit.


The evening ended off with watching The Godfather. It has been our list of movies to watch for months and we finally got around to seeing it. So finally after months of trying we were able to have our breakfast and shopping, thanks Eric and Becky!