A Very Special Day!

Congratulations to Father and Mother who are celebrating their 58th!!! wedding anniversary today !



and to Karen who is heading off to MacMaster University for the first time today! With her brand new laptop!

Congratulations! Love you!

House Cleaning!

I have a fridge magnet that a secret pal gave to me years ago, which says, "I clean house every other day. Today is not the other day." This person obviously knew me very well! But since we got home from vacation I am really in the mood to clean up the house - as in sort stuff and unclutter the place - especially the closets. My weakness is paper - I have a hard time getting rid of it. So the other day we cleaned up our pantry and we actually have one completely empty shelf! Today we cleaned the carpets. This was the first time I've ever used one of these rental machines and done the cleaning myself. The water that came off the carpet was dirty, so it must have picked up some dirt, but the spots that I had hoped to clean up are still showing. Oh well, this is an old carpet that got dirty when we had some leaking recently during a big rain storm. So this was a good place to test out the do-it-yourself-carpet-cleaning.

Once the carpet is all dry we're going to move this stack of Alida's boxes and bins back into the room. After dinner we wandered over to the local square to see what was happening and found the Hispanic Fiesta so we hung around for a while to enjoy the music.

Parade at Sibbald Point

This was hilarious! Couldn't resist a few pictures.

Sea to Sea Celebration

On Sunday we headed to the Niagara Peninsula for the Sea to Sea celebration at Queenston Heights. We went early in the morning, to avoid the heavy Sunday Niagara-bound traffic and attended Covenant CRC in St. Catharines. On the way to church we drove by the house where I used to live when I was in highschool. My bedroom was on the main floor to the left of the front door (when facing the house). It still looks exactly as it did when we lived there, except for the colour of the front door.
At church we met Emo Knibbe who used to go to our church, married Pauline Drenth, so now they live in St. Catharines. They invited us over for a delicious quick lunch before we headed for Queenston Heights. There was a meet-and-greet the riders from 2 'til 4. I met all the riders whose blogs I've been following this summer! Very exciting! I have been so inspired by the riders, especially Gayle Harris, from London. So many times this summer, if I was doing something frustrating like learning a new computer program, and I felt like quiting, I thought, "If Gayle can ride all the way across the States on her bike, surely I can do this, sitting on my comfortable chair in this nice cool office!" Thank you, Gayle, for your inspiration!! Back to the meet-and-greet time - it poured!! and we were all huddled under the tents and picnic shelters. A good way to promote togetherness! Just before four o'clock we started moving towards the band shell where the celebration was going to happen. We were trying to keep dry under umbrellas or in rain coats. At about 1 minute to 4 a big cheer went up from the crowd and everyone broke out in applause because the sun broke through the clouds and it was beautiful weather for the rest of the celebration. Despite the rain and many people being stuck in traffic on the QEW for a number of hours, there were still about 1400 people there to support the riders and worship and celebrate together. The riders hope to dip their front tires into the Atlantic in New Jersey this Saturday. What an exciting summer adventure for all of them - while at the same time raising awareness and funds for alleviating poverty!

A Wonderful Sense of Community

Well, we're back from vacation and settling into our "normal" routine. On this vacation we spent a lot of time socializing and it was wonderful! For the first four days we camped at Sibbald Point Provincial Park with a group from our church. This was the fourth annual campout. Whoever wants to come can come. We had about 30 people camping this year and also had visitors on Saturday and Sunday. What a wonderful sense of community! We were spread over about 7 campsites. Everyone brings their own food and camping equipment. And then we just let it happen, whatever happens, happens. There's always coffee and good conversation somewhere.



You can always find someone who's up for an early morning dip in the lake,

an evening walk to see the sunset or the stars,

a hike, building a sand castle

and we always have a communal corn roast/potluck supper on Saturday night around the campfire.

Here's Jack with Izzy. No relation, except they're both part of our church family - a wonderful community!

Here's Fred - our resident photographer...

A Wonderful Vacation!

Well, I'm finally back... from vacation. We had a wonderful and relaxing time. No idea what day or what time it was most of the time. I hope to get back to this blog and to add some pictures really soon.

A Weekend of Celebrations

It's been a weekend full of socializing and celebrations. First Grant's 65th birthday on Thursday. Then on Saturday we celebrated John and Beth's 30th wedding anniversary. Their kids set up the whole back yard for a garden party. It poured!! So we experienced real togetherness by huddling under the tents to keep dry. A celebration we'll remember for years to come. Lots of plays on words like "May you be showered with blessings!" etc. I forgot to bring my camera, so I'm waiting for some pictures from a friend.

Today we celebrated the six years that Laurens served as our music director at church. I loved the music he picked and the way he put together the liturgies for our worship services. He chose a wide variety of musical styles and everything in the service flowed and reinforced the message of the day. He was also our choir director. I will really miss him. Thank you Laurens!!!

We had a congregational potluck to say farewell to Laurens and Emily. Here are Nargis and Betty at the potluck. I like visiting Betty. She is a spunky 89-year-old friend of mine at church.

Then this evening Mark dropped by to return our van and we had a wonderful visit together!

Morning Glories

On our way out to our morning swim I noticed the morning glories in bloom. No wonder they are called morning "glory"! I got this idea of letting morning glories wrap around our crabapple tree, from Stratford where they have morning glories growing around pillars along the path to the entrance of the theatre.

The phlox are also doing amazingly well this year. I guess they like all the rain.

Grant's 65th Birthday

Today we went to visit our friends, Grant & Jean who moved to a cottage up near Peterborough last year. Since then they've totally renovated it and added to it. Today we went to celebrate Grant's 65th birthday and saw their new home for the first time. They did a beautiful job and it's very gezellig. We stayed for a while after all the other company left. It was good to catch up with friends again! Wish I had gotten a picture of Grant & Jean. Will try to get one soon.

On the way home the sky was wild and beautiful!

We also drove past these brand new high rises on Finch just west of Yonge - a 15-minute walk from our house. Now with the decision to increase density along major arteries and especially subway stations, there are hundreds of people living where there used to be maybe 15 small houses just two years ago.

A Special Door Hinge...

I work in a gorgeous century home built in 1895. Lots of beautiful woodwork and other details. Look at this amazing door hinge (in a closet where no one can see it)!

Love Riding Public Transit!

Well, after a long weekend, it was back to work today. I get to ride public transit to work. First a walk or bus ride, then the subway and then a walk or the streetcar. Just love it!

My Very First Blog Entry!

Welcome to my brand new picture blog! - a new year's resolution coming to life!

While visiting Australia this spring, I saw so many beautiful and interesting things and thought it would be interesting to start looking at my surroundings back home through the same eyes, and so learn to appreciate and marvel at my daily world more often. Then on my birthday, a few weeks ago, I decided to pay more attention to all the blessings in my life. The idea of bringing these two things together by way of a picture blog was inspired by Phyllis' blog, which I really enjoy.


So this weekend I have been spending a lot of hours working in our flower garden. I love being out there. Here is a piece of a flower bed in the front yard...

Last year I found out that planting milkweed should help attract monarch butterflies since that's the only thing they eat. And look what I found on the milkweed plant today...

... a monarch caterpillar! And right next to it a rose of sharon bush in full bloom...

I love the garden! What a blessing to have the space for gardening, and the time and health and sight to enjoy working in it!

And we enjoyed a relaxing summer evening stroll along the boardwalk and beach of Ashbridges Bay... and had an icecream cone!