Assiniboine Forest Trip 1 Pt 2

While at Assiniboine Forest I took a lot of pictures of the family. They had a blast exploring the water/swamp, and the grass and forest. Here are some photos I took of that day.

I think Jeremy was pointing out a butterfly, it was a very pretty one.

I really like this photo of Chloe blowing on the dandelion!

This one is kinda growing on me...although Chloe is blurred.

Seeing how deep the water is....measuring it with the stick.

I guess you can't always be the photographer...sometimes you have to have your photo taken too.

My little farmer girls!

Chloe is terrified in this photo, we put her up on the tree branch that was leaning, this was after Brooke attempted it and nearly fell off. lol

Brooke's second try was much better! lol

A butterfly landed on Brooke's toes! She had no idea it was even there. lol

Brooke peeking at us through the very tall grass!

Managed to snap a good photo of Jeremy!

Canada Day Fireworks

We took in the fireworks at The Forks in downtown Winnipeg. We even brought Tucker with us, he was not a fan of the fireworks. There were a lot of scared puppies there last night. I would have left Tucker at home, but Jeremy thought he should come with us.

This was me playing with the settings before the fireworks began.

More testing....

There were lots of vendors set up to sell things during the Canada day, this is one of them.

Ahh finally they begin!

This one is my favorite!

This is what a photo looks like when I don't have anything to lean on or set the camera against...shake much?! lol

This was from our parking spot, while we were waiting to get out on the road...it didn't take near as long as I thought it was going to. lol  I like how this one turned out.

We parked in the parking lot for VIA rails. I was just playing around with the settings again. 

Photography Lessons

I've decided to start watching Youtube Videos to learn how to use my camera. We've only had it for 6 years, I figure it's about time that I learn to use it correctly, rather then always on auto.

I watched my first video and today June 30th, was the first chance I got to actually put the lesson to use. We went to Assiniboine Forest here in Winnipeg, it was an hour and a half adventure. lol

Here are some of the photos I got today.

I was actually trying to capture a dragonfly. lol Number 1 those things are fast! lol Number 2 I have no idea how to use my camera correctly, so even when I thought I had the right setting and zoom, the photo wouldn't take. 

It took a long time, and a lot of trial and error, and A LOT of waiting, but I finally got a picture of the blue dragonfly!  

Dandelion, The flower of the military child. Again, I was just playing with settings.

I didn't even notice these marks in this tree til I had the lens up getting ready to take a photo.

For some reason I seem to think this is poison ivy, but I could (and likely am) be completely wrong about that.

I love this fan grass! I see a lot of it out here, and thought it would make a good close up shot.

Wild Roses, always make a pretty subject!

The whole point of this one was to capture the bugs. 

I like the lighting on this one. I obviously did not control it. lol It just happened and I liked it.

I wanted to capture the purple on this plant thing. lol and Brooke had picked it...so I made her hold it.

Just a random shot I took of some grass while walking by...and it turned out to be one of my favorites from the day! 

This is supposed to be sideways, but Blogger decided it should be this way. lol This is the reflection of the grass and sky in a mud puddle. lol 

Do you like Butter?? lol 

Grasshopper that jumped out into our path, he stuck around so I grabbed a few photos, then I made him jump wanting a picture, and he jumped the wrong way. He didn't listen to directions very well. 

A bird in the sky. I had the big zoom lens on so I wanted to see how it would turn out. He was very hard to keep track of through the lens! 

Happy Canada Day!

Today, Canada is 146 years old. It's hard to believe that anyone who is turning 100 this year, was born only 46 years after Canada was born. When we read about the history in school it seems like it was so long ago, even when you hear the year 1867, it seems ohhh so long ago.

Facts about Canada.

1. The West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, AB was once the world's largest mall. It is now ranked 5th, but it still contains the World's Largest Indoor Amusement Park.

2. Alberta has 50% of the world's supply of bitumen.

3. BC pioneers made use of the oolichan, also called the candlefish, at night time. The small fish is so fatty it can be dried, strung on a wick and burned like a candle.

4. Canada officially got its own national flag on Feb. 15, 1965 almost 100 years after it became a country.

5. In 1962, Pincher Creek, Alberta experienced the fastest, biggest temperature change ever recorded in Canada as a result of a Chinook (a warm, dry wind that comes off the Rocky Mountains). The temperature rose from -19C to 22C in just one hour!

6. Between 1984 and 2008, it was illegal to sell pop in cans in PEI. All carbonated drinks had to be purchased in refillable glass bottles. PEI was the only place in North America to ban cans.

7. Canada has its own mysterious lake creature, Ogopogo, who lives in Lake Okanagan, BC

8. Canadians consume more Kraft Diner (macaroni and cheese) than any other nation on earth. 

9. Canadian Parliament has a sanctuary for stray cats. Originally cats were used in Parliament buildings to control mice. A colony of strays have lived just behind the Parliament buildings since the 70's. Fed and cared for by volunteers, today's residents live in little wooden houses and have their own FB page.

10. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (he's on our $50 bill) used a crystal ball to try to get advice from his dead mother during seances. You can see his crystal ball if you visit the Laurier House in Ottawa.

11. A Canadian Beaver built a dam big enough to be seen by space! First discovered by an environmental researcher using Google Earth in 2007, the dam is located just inside Wood Buffalo National Park, the second largest protected area in the world. The dam stretches 2,790 feet.

12. Canada is the worlds largest exporter of mustard seeds, 80% is grown in brilliant yellow fields in Saskatchewan. So even when you are away from home, you are likely eating mustard made with Canada mustard seeds!

13. Canada is home to 15,000 polar bears and in the town of Churchill, MB (I so wanna go there!) people leave their doors unlocked so that if you happen to see a polar bear wandering the streets you can take refuge inside!

14. Our Royal Mint has produced coins for more than 60 countries, including, Cuba, Yemen, and Iceland.

New ages, New Chores!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that the bathroom is my most hated place to clean. I don't mind dusting, I don't mind dishes, I don't mind laundry, but I hate cleaning the bathroom. Ever since having kids, I've been waiting for the opportunity to pass on this chore to my girls. Yup! I have 2 bathrooms and 2 kids! Guess who isn't going to be cleaning bathrooms soon?!?! hahahaha

I decided that 5 is probably a pretty good age to start teaching how to clean the bathroom. So I put Brooke to work (she was quite eager to learn!). Chloe, of course, wanted to help too, so we gave her the chore of sweeping the floor and I started Brooke off with the toilet right away.

Chloe's even got an apron on for her chores! Well prepared little girlie. lol

Nellie really likes this shelf so it gets quite dirty with kitty prints and hair, so it needs to be dusted off. 

Have you EVER seen ANYONE this excited to clean a bathroom???? haha, this is going to change in a few years I'm sure! 

Of course, she can't completely clean the bathroom on her own, but I was there to help her out when she needed it. After all she's the one who wanted a bathroom in her room, this is as close as she's going to get, so she needs to know how to clean it

I even got a video to show her excitement! lol This is to show to her when she tells me I'm mean for making her clean the bathroom. hahahaha

Baking on the First Hot HOT Day of the year

I decided that even though it is supposed to be the hottest day so far of the summer, if I needed to bake bread, and heat the house up more, I might as well back cookies and muffins too. lol

I let Brooke take control of the muffins. She went and got her baking hat and apron on, and we set off to work.

She put all the ingredients in herself, she even measured them herself and here she is whisking it all by herself. She only needed a little help with the mixing.

Here she is measuring out 3 tablespoons of mixture for each muffin. She also did this all by herself! She did fantastic work. These peanut butter chocolate chip muffins are going to be awesome!

Here is the finished product! You can find the recipe for these muffins here. The recipe only uses 3/4 a cup brown sugar and that's it for sugar!

 For Chloe's turn we decided to make chocolate chip cookies. mmmm...she was really excited to help. But I'll tell ya, 16 months between Brooke and Chloe really showed today. Things that Brooke was just ready and knew how to do, Chloe needed more direction and I really had to do most of it myself.

She was not less excited tho.

The butter was messy as Chloe thought she should put the butter in the cup with her fingers. lol 

By the time we got to the flour, her hands were covered in butter and just about everything else. lol The flour tho, she had no problems measuring and putting in the bowl.

Ok now you've seen Chloe's work space, scroll back up and see Brooke's work space. Chloe is quite a bit messier of a baker then Brooke. She was very proud of herself because she got to crack the eggs all by herself!

And of course, the best part...licking the beaters!!!

And the finished product. These cookies are sooo yummy!!! I'm not sure where I got the recipe for this one...but they remind me of the subway cookies. :)

Of course, as the mommy, I get stuck with all the dishes! lol I washed a lot of dishes today! 

This day was actually June 25, 2013.

Assiniboine Park English Gardens

This is the first of many many trips to Assiniboine Park, especially to the Engilish Gardens. Jeremy seems to love the flowers and trees there. I also like looking at all the beautiful flowers and I think it's a great place for photos. 

 So I decided to take a few on this trip, Brooke and Chloe sitting on the rock fence at the beginning of the gardens. Brooke's got an awesome look on her face eh? This was after she asked to have her photo taken. lol

 I never thought to take a photo of the whole thing she found her way into...lol but it's like a tower, Both girls found their way into them and stood up in there, so I snapped a quick photo of Brooke.

 And like every other time we go to the park, the girls need to have their photos taken with the bears. lol 

Magnet Spelling

I don't know about anyone else out there, but it's an exciting day when you turn around and see that your kids have spelled their names with the fridge magnets! I can't wait to see what other messages they will come up with once they start to learn how to spell anything other then their names!

Stupid Moving Company

So...This move was dreadful. First, they told us the truck would be delivering our stuff before we would even be at the house and before our allotted time was up. Which had us extremely stressed out. Second, they send us 5 packers to do a 3 packer job. They started out like this...1 guy in the kitchen, 2 girls in the basement, 1 guy upstairs, and 1 guy in the living room. I started in the kitchen telling the guy in there what not to pack, then I ran down stairs and folded some last minute clothing before heading upstairs to tell the guy not to pack the girls suitcases. The two girls in the basement asked me a bunch of questions.

By the time I got upstairs, the guy had packed the suitcases. Seriously, I'm moving and gonna be staying in hotels and it never crossed your mind to ask if I wanted them packed before packing them. So, I made him unpack the 2 boxes to get those out. This guy also would not pack my snow globes, because they had liquid in them, or an old glass ornament that i've already glued back together once. Even after I told him to pack it and I would just glue it back together once we got there...Nope had to move those by myself. I would have been more pissed off if I had of been moving further.

I had a really hard time managing 5 packers, and if it was to happen again I'd tell them to send at least 2 of them home. 

When we get to the new house, there are 4 of them to unload counting the driver. I wanted our wardrobe in the basement, they try to fit it in the basement and scratched the shit out of it, and put a hole in the back of it. OMG, seriously our unloaders were definitely not very gentle, only one guy and the driver were gentle the other two were very coarse with our stuff. 

Now for the whole reason for this post. Those sneaky little assholes...broke my biggest suitcase, the wheel is completely off the bottom of it...and the part that holds the wheel on is broken off the suitcase. As if that isn't bad enough that they broke it, and said NOTHING to me or Jeremy about it, they tucked the wheel inside the suitcase as if hoping I wouldn't notice. WTF'in Hell! I found this while I was already adgitated about the paint brushes. OMG, I nearly lost my mind! I'm still extremely pissed off. I hope they come here to finish off our claim, as they are going to be getting an earful from me. That is only if I don't find a business card before they show up. lol I'm gonna lose my mind on them...I wouldn't be nearly as pissed if they had of told me, I don't even know if they will cover new luggage, as I didn't notice it the day they unloaded. Trust me...if I have my way, they will be getting me a new suitcase, here is a photo I took.

Crafty Day

On Monday, June 24th, I had the most productive craft day ever!!

I started out buy making this floor length curtain into 2 shorter curtains to fit the window in the girls play room. That room gets a lot of afternoon sun so I wanted to get the curtains up. I figured out how to sew the curtains, but couldn't figure out how to make a curtain rod the size of the windows from the pieces the moving company left me. So for now it's tacked up until we get a new curtain rod to fit. I had to use white thread because that's what I had on hand...Jer mentioned it, I said I cold have went and bought new thread. He says No that's ok, white is fine.

Next, I decided I wanted to make this sign. which started out saying "Take a Deep Breath, You're Home Now..." but I didn't have room for deep and afterwards Brooke said Big and I might have been able to fit that...ohh well. Anyways, I had quite the problem with this task, as I couldn't find the pink plastic cup that holds all my paint brushes. I was getting sooo angry as I couldn't figure out where the packers could have possibly put the cup and brushes. I was almost to the point of nervous breakdown, when I found them. lol

This picture shows the sign not quite done yet.

The actual finished product. Only a couple of things that I would change...like maybe putting 2 hanging hooks on the back, those keys can get heavy and my sign is gonna go sideways. It was a good learning experience for sure. 

While I was searching for the paint brushes so I could paint the sign, I took a break to finally get the back put on Chloe's chair. Maybe on my next crafty day I'll actually get the seat finished and then have one chair completely done...provided I get the seat put on right away. LOL

YAY For Crafty Days!!!