summer...so far

This summer, like so many in my life has been hectic and a little crazy.

We started July with one of our favourite summer activities - Canada Day in Pugwash.

Celebrating Canada Day in Pugwash is a bit of a Nova Scotian tradition for us. It starts with a parade...

heavy on the pipe bands - we all love the pipe bands. Then lunch with one of our favourite ladies from church - she is always so generous in taking us in and feeding us...and then a visit to the highland games.

The highland games are always fun to watch. The boys are always impressed with the strength these men have and I think it is fun to watch a bunch of big guys twirling around in skirts. 

My mother-in-law is from Scotland so all the kids feel a little connected to their Scottish roots every time we visit the games. 

Some of my boys want to try it and prove to everyone that they are the strongest. See that blurry kid back there on the wrong side of the ropes heading for the pitch...the one who had to be moved out of the way before this guy could throw...that's right...he's mine. 

I've been trying to let the kids have a bit of fun whenever I can. I'm trying to loosen up a little and let them enjoy the little things in life more often. They only get to experience childhood once...

You would think this kid won the lottery when I caught him blowing bubbles in his milk and asked if I could take pictures of him. He obviously thought he was going to be in trouble. It made me wonder...how mean am I usually? Yes milk spilt all over the table and the kid...but he really had fun and I had another opportunity to teach him about cleaning up - win/win. 

I've been feeling little guilty because most of our summer has looked like this. My kids...especially my youngest...have spent so much of their lives living out of boxes. This summer we moved back to British Columbia...new city this time. I am hoping our moving days will soon be over. At least the big moves. 

The only thing that I like about moving is the opportunity it gives me for road trips! (and yes I do realize that it is probably much cheaper and a lot easier to just take a road trip - my entire life has been a little like choosing the shortest line in the grocery store...you know the one...that short line that always takes the longest to get through...a constant lesson in patience). 

I love driving across Canada. And it is a good thing I do because this was our fourth time doing it! 

On this trip we were able to stop and visit some new-old friends in Manitoba. The boys had so much fun - well, we all had fun, but my boys in particular had a great time. 

We all learned a little about shooting guns...

riding quads...

and catching frogs.

As always the trip was beautiful and we loved being back in the mountains. We missed them.

It has been two weeks since our arrival and I am exhausted. After cleaning our new home, unloading boxes, beginning to unpack, visiting family, and getting in some canning...I am ready for a vacation. 

Yesterday, we took the afternoon off to have a bit of family time at the local heritage village. 

It was kind of nice heading back in time for an afternoon. But, that is all the vacation I am going to get for awhile...more boxes are waiting to be unpacked and I refuse to be the family that lives amongst piles of boxes. Maybe I'll have time to sneak in a bit of fun next week...

happiness...

The hubby and I have been formulating plans for our future...our Plan B future.

I've been reading old journals, looking at family photos and reading my old blog posts.

As I think about our future while looking at our past, one item stands out...

When the hubby and I were engaged, I would bring home tourism brochures from the travel agency I worked at. We would look through them and talk about all the places we could live. We were young and the whole world was available to us. The thought that we could live anywhere in the world was exciting. After looking for weeks at brochures for a reason that I do not know we settled on Prince Edward Island. It seemed perfect. We talked about it for weeks, months...but I had a mortgage and a good job and after we married, we stayed where we were.

Nine months into our marriage, I was given the opportunity to take a business trip to New Brunswick. The tourist board flew a number of us over and showed us why we should send our clients to New Brunswick. If I had been single without a mortgage, I would not have returned home. I loved it. Each place I went I fell more and more in love. I remember the last night of the trip standing outside the Algonquin hotel in St. Andrews by the Sea. It was very late at night and tears were running down my cheeks and for the first time in years, I felt like I was home. I missed my new hubby but I did not want to leave. I spent an hour on the phone with him trying to convince him to drop everything and meet me there. We could open a BandB or something, right? We could make it work. I loved the few days I spent in New Brunswick and talked of it often over the next decade.

When my hubby mentioned graduate school in Nova Scotia...I jumped at the chance!

FINALLY...I would get to live in the maritimes.

 We spent two years there and as I look back at our pictures at the smiling faces of my children playing on the beach I realize that (aside from the long commute that my hubby had) we were happiest there.

 We loved the ocean, the day trips, the museums, the galleries, the history, the architecture, the slow-paced lifestyle.

 The maritimes suit us.

The past few weeks we have spent hours discussing and more hours pondering and praying about what we should do. Looking at our photos...of the house we lived in (that is owned by my mother-in-law and rented out) and available to us...it did not take us too long to decide where we should be.

Plans are in the works for a more permanent summer move to Nova Scotia...we feel relief, peace and happiness...no more lobsterless summers for us!

Looking East

This week our family has been feeling a little nostalgic.

 Maybe it's the craziness of my hubby's hours (he had a few days that lasted until 2am in the studio)...

maybe it's the beautiful September weather that still feels like summer...

it could be that we were stuck in the house for a day and the boys were getting restless and I may have mentioned once or twice how nice it was to have a large house with room to run around...

perhaps it was visiting the local beach and the only sealife we found was 20 or 30 tiny crabs and they were all dead (no hermit crab racing here)...

or maybe it's the fact that Lobster season is over and we didn't have any this year (all but one of us thoroughly enjoyed lobster seasons for three years).

 But, everyone in the family has been missing the Maritimes.

All of us.

 Every day for a week.

 I can't seem to get away from it.

 I pull a random book off the shelf and it is "Above Atlantic Canada", I grab another and it is Anne of Green Gables.

I turn on the TV and Chef Michael Smith is cooking "at home" in Prince Edward Island.

I apologize for the lousy phone photo, but that is me and my daughter and chef Michael Smith in PEI.

 I walk into the kitchen and my daughter is looking at photos on the labtop, scrolling through the past few years...

sigh...

and to top it off, just for fun I pulled up the MLS listings for our current location with homes starting around 1.5 million for a fixer upper...switch to the Maritimes and a similar house will set you back less then 100 thousand. With 1.5 million you can buy your own island or hundreds of acres, or an estate. I do love Vancouver and think the next few years will be a great adventure for our family. But, I am still dreaming of my farm...

and maybe some lobster.

Canada, Maple Syrup and a Scone

I love maple syrup.

Wait...let me go back a little farther.

I love Canada.

I love being Canadian and I love that I have lived on both the West and the East coasts. I love so many things that it would take all day to list what I love about this great country.

(Just to make it clear...I do not love beer and hockey, drive a pick up truck, live in an igloo, or beat small seals with a club. I am not a red neck and I do not punctuate the end of every sentence with eh?...for that matter I do not call people hosers either...although I do own Bob and Doug's 2-4 anniversary special on DVD.  But, that is not what I want to talk about...)

Today, I wanted to talk about one of my favourite Canadian products - Maple Syrup and yes I do realize that Maple Syrup is made in the north east of the U.S. as well. But, did you know that according to agriculture Canada (see here for more info) Canada produces 85% of the world's maple syrup...so I call that a Canadian product. YUM.

Living in Nova Scotia we were lucky enough to visit here a few times during sugaring season.

We loved seeing how they turned, well, basically tree sap...into something so delicous...

I can see why the sugar maple leaf was chosen for the flag...what could be wrong with a country that produces 40,000 tonnes of maple syrup annually! Who doesn't love that? And while I know today is St. Paddy's Day and I should be making green food or something...I just couldn't get into an Irish mood...I don't think I have a drop of Irish blood. And there is not one part of me that would ever want a green beer. (is that even Irish?) This morning I am feeling more dark amber than green and more Canadian than Irish. So, I whipped up a batch of yummy rustic oatmeal, maple scones (actually oatmeal scones might be more Irish than green beer).

 I thought I would share...these are best warm from the oven and they are excellent with a cup of chopped walnuts added to the dry ingredients. Oh...and I confess I did overbake these just a little...I was trying to find our sugar farm photos and missed them being just perfect...but they were still very good.

Oatmeal, Maple Scones:

preheat oven to 400 degrees F

In a medium sized bowl mix together:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used 3/4 cup all purpose and 3/4 cup whole wheat but you can use all all-purpose or substitute the whole wheat for spelt)
1 cup rolled oats (Quick oats not instant)
1/3 cup oat bran
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Cut in 1/4 cup butter

In a small bowl whisk together 1 egg, 1/3 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup milk.

Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until combined. (do not overmix).

form into scones (I used an ice cream scoop) or you can flatten into a disk and cut into perfect circles with a cookie cutter or cut into wedges. Place on silpat or parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkle tops with maple sugar (if desired...and really who doesn't!) and place in preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes. Serve warm...

Oh...and they would be very good with maple butter...

Enjoy!

failure and success

I have been thinking a lot this week about failure and my previous attitude towards it (see 25 Jan posting for some background).

This week I have finally realized that failure is necessary to experience success. I have intellectually known this for a long time but it is just sinking in.

Failure is the true path to success...without failing we can not succeed.

Simple.

Why it took so long for me to figure this out I will never know. So this year I am going to try and embrace failure because that is the only way I am going to improve and become better. And don't we all want to be better?

this is me enjoying one of my many failures...I am trying to conquer the bunnyhill!

I did make it down without falling and I did graduate from the kiddie run

to the bunny hill...so I am going to view this hill as part of my road to success instead of

evidence of my failure. Maybe next week I will learn how to turn...

vintage kitchens

I love vintage kitchenware...I really love it. The older the better.

I especially love the pieces that were given to me by family members. My mother has passed on a few pieces that she has received from other relatives and my granny gave me some of hers before she passed away. They always help me think of those who used the pieces before I did.

One piece that I have always loved and love to use is an old colander; it reminds me of my granny. I remember it always being in her kitchen and I watched her using it many times.

It is definately well worn...but I love it.

I know that granny had it for as long as I can remember but I never knew where or when she got it.

Recently I was looking through some old photos of our first trip across Canada a few years ago.

While travelling from Regina, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba we decided to leave the trans-Canada Hwy. and take a detour. We travelled north to drive through a little town named Veregin...

Veregin is a very small town (if you can call it even that). I think it has a population of approximately 100 people. But, it is important to me because in 1911 my granny was born there. I have always wanted to see where she was born and so we decided this was our chance.

The town was almost deserted...there was really nothing to see until we drove up to the Doukhobor village museum site.

The prayer house and landscaping were beautiful...there was so much history to see and so much to learn...unfortunately, it was closed. Due to lack of funding, volunteers and interest the site is rarely open. I was a little disappointed (I always hate to see history being ignored because that usually leads to it being lost which I think is really sad) but the groundskeeper told us we were welcome to look in the windows and picnic on the lawn, which we did and enjoyed our afternoon very much.

The old grain elevator stood majestically watching over the site.

As I sat, I thought about my great-grandparents and what there lives must have been like. They left Russia in 1899 with their families and friends after suffering much hardship and persecution under Tsarist rule. With the help of Leo Tolstoy and Queen Victoria they came to Canda, settled in the Saskatchewan prairies and made new lives. Veregin is where those new lives began. I was sitting in the village where they lived, started their family and where my granny was born. It was a wonderful experience that I am so happy to have had.

I took many pictures as I wandered around the village and tried to take interior shots as I looked through the windows.

 I never really looked at the photos after I took them. But, just recently I sat down with my kids to teach them a little more about our family history and I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before...

There on the counter was my colander...exactly the same.

I think I now love it even more.