The Hodge Podge

The rest of our time spent visiting my family was very busy, and very much a hodge podge. It was such a fun time! It involved shopping for the girls, golf for the boys, lots of mouth-watering meals, visiting, crafting, reminiscing and of course about 800 photos on the camera. That's not bad for a 9 day trip!

The ladies met my Social Sister at Tim Horton's for her lunch break and Jack conveniently slept the whole time (with his pacifier hanging half way out nonetheless!)

Kit however, was a ball of energy as she often is!

Kit and Social.

Myself and Jack at the mall. He was in such a good mood!

Mom treated Kit to her first purchase from Claire's and I'm pretty sure all these tubes are empty now because Kit was basically eating the stuff. It was adorable to see it all over her face -what is it about girls?!

Jack and Holly

The Mr. and Kit. She thought The Mr. had great book readings skills!

My mom is on the far left. This photo is of the four C sisters with their grandparents. While at my Grandparents new condo, we got to look through their wedding photos and a few photos from my mom's childhood.

Playing crokinole.

Grandpa

The Mr. and I randomly stopped at a coffee shop one day and it happened to be decorated with a cool display of Anna's paintings. It was a neat surprise!

My mom put on an awesome rib dinner!!!! I can't stress how good this was!

Kit's cheeks and mouth look adorable when she drinks out of these big glasses.

We brought our croquet set and The Mr. set up a crazy course with lots of hazards.

I was basically the worst player, but in this case that was to my advantage, as everyone else became poison and either killed each other or went through a wicket accidentally, making me the official winner! It made my night!

I love prairie sunsets.

Holly made home-made vanilla bean ice cream and it was so amazing. I even had a gluten-free Oreo style cookie to eat with mine, what a treat. (Thanks for the cookies mom, they are long gone now! Mmm.)

One of the traditional summer stops during our time there is Regina Beach. Of course everyone had to go to the Blue Bird Cafe for fish and chips. It used to be owned by my Kindergarten teacher.

Social tried on a dress that my mom wore to my Aunt Gwen's wedding. Fun times!

One evening I took a walk around the yard at my parents house and just photographed everything I saw. My dad has a very organized yard full of bins, buildings, sheds, equipment (new as well as antique), and I had a lot of fun asking him about what all the old stuff was and where it came from.

This cart has a bottom that opens to dump whatever it is carrying.

The base from an old wagon.

The cement truck with it's layers of colorful peeling paint. It was used for a water truck on the farm and you can see some neat pictures of it in this post, which strangely is named the exact same thing as this post from just the other day, but the baby is Kit in the first post and Jack in the second. :)

Peeling paint from an old house that used to share the yard with my parents house. It had a root cellar and a garden beside it and I think it was yellow at some point, but I can't really remember. We used the root cellar to store our potatoes until it got so old that my dad caved it in. The garden was huge and my mom always filled it with all sorts of yummy vegetables. While we weeded, we would occasionally find pieces of broken china mixed into the soil. All I know is that my Aunt N lived in it way before she became my aunt and that it still had an old wood stove in it at that time. I wonder who lived there before? My dad could probably tell me.

Over at the barn, I noticed the sliders for the door had stars on them and my dad explained that they had originally come from a grain elevator. I think that's cool. Sliding doors are very trendy in homes, and how cool would it be to have these neat tracks.

Used to get water up by the bucketful from a well.

The stove from the old house.

A second, smaller stove.

Kit playing with The Littlest Petshop while holding Frankie captive.

Canola

On our way home we decided on a whim to spend the night in Banff, AB.

I love Banff. I've visisted there many times with my family and it was also where we spent part of our honeymoon. I think this was my first visit in the summer and it really surprised me to see how busy it was.

While driving along the highway, we saw a lot of cars pulled over and people snapping photos of something up high. After we went under the bridge, I turned around quick and blindly tried to snap this photo of a bear out our back window. It was so cool to see a bear!

I love the color of the water in Banff National Park. It is so pretty to drive through!

Home, Home on the Range Farm

In this area of Saskatchewan, you can tell where people live because there are tree belts around the farm yards. Just ahead on this gravel road is my parents farm.

At the Bible conference, a few of the younger ladies put goody bags together. It was such a cool idea and so thoughtful. Ours contained granola bars, Coke Zero, tissues, hard candies, a notepad, a pen, gum, bottles of water, hand sanitizer, a bag of cashews and probably other things that I had already eaten before taking this photo. :)

One night after the meetings, we went to the dorms at the university for refreshments and fellowship. Kit and her family came too. Here's Kit lacking sleep and overloaded with sugar! Moments later, she was sitting on the couch staring into nothing and basically sleeping with her eyes open, it was adorable.

The conference ended Monday after lunch, and everyone was invited out to my parents farm for a potluck and games. Here is Farmer Dad preparing a bonfire.

The soccer dudes played a game of skill.... they use a soccer ball to play volleyball and you can't use your hands. They mostly used their heads and knees, just like in soccer. It was very entertaining to watch!

Young people from near and far playing volleyball (the real way.)

It's amazing how everyones attention is grabbed when a child giggles. Look how many people turned to watch Kit as I snapped this photo.

Just as the food was served, it started to pour and thankfully my mom was able to quickly pull her car out of the garage and anyone who wanted to stay dry found refuge there. It was kind of fun actually, it definitely added some excitement to the day and no one really seemed to mind except a few bags of chips that got soggy out on the buffet table!

This is really silly to point out, but see that black plastic sled with the steering wheel on the top shelf? It's under the toboggan. I have the BEST memories riding that as a child and I am so happy my parents have kept it all these years. Just seeing it here in this photo reminds me of so many fun times my parents created for us when we were children.

When the rain stopped, it was time for seconds. :)

Kit going crazy... I think I have about 15 shots like this in various mid-air poses. It's highly amusing to me.

It ended up raining again so the garage was put to use once more.

And it rained some more!

Then the sun came out, the air smelled so incredibly beautiful and it was warm without being muggy - very enjoyable.

See the rainbow? We hoped it meant that the rain was done, because we wanted to have a baseball game.

The bonfire was a fun place to gather. The gentleman in the center (white shirt) is my Grandpa.

My Uncle M greets his daughter and granddaughter. He was just driving through the area and it was so nice to see him again as it had been around 7 years since I had seen him last, and the first time to meet his new wife. She is so sweet!

Mom's clematis is so heavy some years, that it pulls the chicken wire right off the siding of the house. It's always been so beautiful!

A certain group of girls filled up water balloons and hid them before people arrived at the farm. They launched a sneak attack, but I think it's safe to say that the girls got just as wet as the boys. I'm pretty sure that the girl in the purple plaid top that is getting doused with the garden hose is my Social Sister!

It was decided that the sky was clearing up and it was finally baseball time. This is the traditional way to get to the ball diamond.

My sister Jolly and her youngest, Jack.

See the trucks at the baseball diamond? All the property between there and the house belongs to my parents. Their property is so beautiful.

Here's a closer view.

My two favorite nieces! Bri and Kit.

This baseball diamond has been here in this spot for as long as I can remember. On the 24th of May long weekend (Canada) it has always been a tradition to spend it here. It was fun putting the diamond to use in August, you can see that my Dad did a lot of mowing as there hasn't been cows in this pasture land for a couple of years.

The land is part of the Qu'Apelle Valley and if you look close enough at the bottom of the valley, you can see the Qu'Apelle River.

The Newlyweds

Molly and Social.

The Mr.

I can't resist sun through a little girls blond hair and bare feet in the air. So adorable!

Ebo and Nate.

J.D.

A blurry photo, but what is funny to notice is that The Mr. is about to get smacked in the head by my clip-board wielding Social Sister!

Loading up to go home.

It looked like the sun squished itself into an oval as it touched the other side of the valley.

Twinkle lights on the patio.