Fall Cleaning & Holiday Catch Up

I've been trying to tackle some rather large cleaning projects around the house. I think most people do a really big spring clean but I sort of guffawed at the thought of cleaning earlier in the year and now of course I'm paying the piper as I have all of the bedrooms in different stages of disarray and today I ripped through my kitchen like a hurricane *grin*.

One really triumphant moment was the removal of our microwave today! It has sat dormant on my counter for numerous years never getting used as I don't really believe in using one for cooking or reheating. I had casually passed it by Hubby the last time he was home from work to see if he had any problems with my idea and he had none so my oldest son and I carried it away this afternoon and said adiós to the beast LOL. I must say I am LOVING the extra counter space that it has freed up :)

All of this really didn't make for exciting picture taking though so I thought I would share some photos from our family trip to the BC interior this summer. I had planned to share them months ago but when we returned home we were busied with dad's cancer and such so they went into storage. So today I'm sharing some for your viewing entertainment *grin*. And my dad is doing great to! He has recovered, and his latest CT showed no cancer :)



The mighty Fraser River. We had just left Lillooet and were heading south to Loon Lake where we were to meet up with some of Hubby's family for a weekend on the lake.

This particular stretch of the highway was being repaved so we had quite a stretch of gravel road to travel.

The highway winds along the Fraser River for quite some time before heading away from it. Unfortunately ALL of my photos are hazy because of the heavy smoke that was hanging in throughout the region from the forest fires. We actually stayed at the same campground in Lillooet as a large group of firefighters that were out battling the fire every day. It was a little unnerving to be in so much smoke and to watch the helicopters with the massive water buckets come and go in the mornings and evenings.

Taking in the circle route via the Duffy Lake road.

If you have never taken the Duffy Lake road it is quite the experience especially when you are towing a fully loaded travel trailer behind you. It is the highway 99 just outside of Pemberton and used to be nothing more than a logging road but over the years it has been paved and to our surprise it had been resurfaced again lately so most of the road was actually in excellent shape!

It is a beautifully scenic drive that takes you STRAIGHT UP through the Cayoosh mountains and when I say straight up, I mean heavenward *grin*. You definitely need a full tank of gas, and some good breaks for this stretch of road. We must have climbed for a good 1/2 an hour to 3/4 of an hour and at some points we were only in first gear in the truck because of all the switch backs and hair pin turns! When we finally crested we came upon Duffy Lake which was just like glass and full of the reflections of the surrounding mountains. The air was much clearer up there to. When we were in Pemberton the smoke had been so thick that we couldn't stay outdoors for more than a quick walk to and from the truck so it was nice to be able to breath more freely and we lunched along the lake :) The final leg of the journey of course was straight down and that's where the good brakes part came in! LOL.

Hope you enjoyed a little look into our holidays and I'll have to share more with you another time :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Happy Earth Hour

I hope everyone had fun taking part in this years Earth Hour!!

We had our luminary jars all ready to go and as soon as it was 8:30pm we plunged ourselves into darkness. What a hoot *grin*. We have plenty of power outages throughout the winter but for some reason it's just more fun for the kids when we do it on purpose :)

A blogging friend of mine had mentioned that it would be neat to put the year on our luminaries and make a collection out of them and I thought that was a fantastic idea! So I changed our Earth Hour jar and added '2010' to it :)

I would have loved to see some of the different monuments and cities around the world go dark but for now I will have to settle for watching this years official Earth Hour video :) If you haven't seen it take a moment and check it out, it's really neat to see. Also hop over to the Earth Hour flickr group and see what everyone is sharing from tonight.

If you've blogged about your Earth Hour I know my children would love to see it :)

~ Rosina

Flickr Favorites ~ 2010 Olympic Games

1. Happy 45th Birthday, Maple Leaf Flag, 2. Olympic City, 3. B20100531_Ski_Jumper, 4. Vancouver_Olympics_Luge_OLYBO155.JPG

Friday was the official kick off of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games here in Canada and boy did they put on a spectacular opening ceremony!! We missed the first airing of it on the television so my husband and I actually started watched it at midnight to see what we had missed and boy am I glad we did :)

We had the chance to see the torch pass through when it started its cross country journey and now I'm putting together a scrapbook for the kids with all of the best photos and articles that I can get out of the newspaper. The Vancouver Sun is dedicating quite a few sections of the daily paper to covering all of the events and so on so I am really looking forward to reading it and watching some of the games on the television with the kids to :)

How about you, are you doing anything special as this games unfold?

Have your own flickr favorites and want to play along? Visit Mitsy over at Artmind and join in!

~ Rosina

Granny Square Challenge Update

So I joined Pip's Granny A Day Challenge a little over a week ago and I thought that I'd share what's been happening around here :) Well let's just say that it's a really good thing that there isn't any pressure on making sure you get one square done everyday! *grin*. I've got one square completed and a handful of flower centers so far but hey, I'm pleased as punch with my progress LOL.

I just love these flowers and they really are very simple to make so when I can steal a moment away from my sewing machine or other family duties I've been working a few rounds on them :) Of course I went with turquoise and green because I'm completely smitten with those two colors right now but I'm not committing myself to completing every square that way though! I've actually got a couple of marigold orange flowers made and I think I'm going to use some of the green and make flowers to, or incorporate all the colors into one, or.... well you get the idea. It may get a tad bit eclectic *grin*.

Here's one of the fully completed squares. Only 70 more to go if I want to make the lap sized blanket I have a pattern for :) Good thing I've got 11 more months to work on it!

How are your granny squares coming along?

~ Rosina

Happy New Year!!!

Wow, 2010!! I'm excited to see what the new year will bring for our family :)

We had a quiet little celebration at home with the kids. It's my dad's birthday as well so we had to break out the bubbly for a little toast to his being another year older *grin*.



When I look at the photos of tonight it sort of feels like I teleported myself back to 1980! With our red heart table cloth draped over the coffee table and our little picnic placed upon it. I could just see my sister and I as little girls under the Christmas tree in our new flannel nightgowns that we got as presents and my mom taking photos of us. Such fun :)

Happy new year everyone and may all your dreams and goals for the new year come true!

~ Rosina

New 2010 Mibo Calendar

I am so excited, the new Mibo 2010 calendar is available!!

When I downloaded a complimentary copy of Mibo's calendar last year I'll admit I just needed a calendar that would get me through another year of appointments & dates but the fun illustrations totally rocked! So naturally I just had to get a copy of the new one and I'm loving it even more than the last one.

It's really reasonably priced to at only $4.00 for a PDF file that is sent directly to you and then you just print it out onto some nice matte paper :) They have a second 'year at a glance' version of the calendar available as well this year and it is completely free to download. I think I'm going to take that one and make myself a nice little mini calendar for inside my purse :) So fun!

~ Rosina

2010 Olympic Torch Relay

With all of the excitement that has been building on the news about the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay starting in Victoria and making its way up Vancouver Island, I just had to take the kids to see it in real life :) Plus I have to admit that I really wanted to see it myself *grin*. So we made the trip to Campbell River and found ourselves a nice little spot to hang out near the 50th parallel to wait for the runners.

As it neared there were tons of police vehicles monitoring the traffic and then the big red Coca Cola truck was the first thing to come into view :)

As the Coca Cola truck was passing by us they started hopping off of it and gave all 3 kids flags & these really cool coke bottles that have fibre optics in them so they randomly change colors from green to blue to red. They were a BIG hit in the car on the way home in the dark *grin*.

Next vehicle in the relay entourage was the RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) truck pumping out the tunes while they danced around on it. It was like being at a parade *grin*.

Once the sponsors had gone by we could finally see the flame! At first all we could see was fire floating above the heads of others watching ahead of us and then it finally came into full view. That baby was really burning! I think the fact that it was starting to get dark really made it look even more impressive than what we had seen on tv :)

And there it goes. It was only seconds from the time it came into view to the time it went past us but it was so worth it to see the excitement on the kids faces as it burned right in front of them :) We never made it to the new Spirit Square downtown Campbell River where the torch finally ended by lighting the cauldron on stage because the crowds were so fierce but we found a nice little spot right in front of the fireworks display *grin*. It'll be great memories for all of us as we may never get the chance to see it again :)

~ Rosina