Life Happens

There are so many things in life that we cannot control, and a football players life is often, in certain ways, particularly unpredictable. And there is nothing really to do about it but be thankful for your blessings and roll with it.

The last few months have been overwhelming and underwhelming all at the same time.

The off season was full of so many ups and downs. We had an amazing trip to Austria to visit my family. Showing Keith and Will the country which I'm from was an experience I'll treasure for ever. We had the shock of finding out that a new chapter was opening in our lives, which would take us to a new football team in Ottawa. I suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage at 13 weeks which was one of the darkest times I've ever been through in my life. We got to spend more time and birthday parties with our family in Alberta, something I'm looking forward to doing more of in future off seasons. And we spent so much time together just the three of us. Just us, playing on the floor, laughing, being goofy, and discovering the world all over again in the eyes of our wonderful son. 

We are now in Ottawa.

It is warm here. And humid. And the whole city just oozes summer like I haven't quite experienced before. Everything is lush and green and sometimes I feel like I'm living in a jungle. Yesterday evening on our bike ride we came across a little turtle crossing the path and I screeched to a halt in my excitement, I've never before seen a wild turtle. See, jungle. Everyone rides bicycles everywhere. There are parks everywhere and just down the path from our place there is a little beach that is open every day, complete with life guards and sometimes even a DJ sets up and everything just has a festival vibe. We visited the Byward Market this weekend and amongst the  Saturday hustle and bustle all of a sudden a spontaneous Brazilian parade burst out celebrating their latest FIFA win. Drums, horns, flags, and people doing the salsa down the street. The whole city just seems happy.

It helps ease the difficulty of leaving our home. 

These little piggies.

It is so hot here compared to what we're used to. Will hasn't worn socks or shoes pretty much since we've gotten here.

The walking/bike paths are absolutely gorgeous.

Rarely did I get to see these alive at home. Nova killed them quick as a wink. But this little guy just hung out beside Will's stroller while I took pictures down by the river. Only once the camera was in his face a little too long did he slither away into the bushes.

We have had a lot of time with just the three of us, relishing our family time. We spent a few weeks apart for training camp, and are now all together in Ottawa and enjoying every minute of it. Watching Keith and Will play together just fills my heart in a way nothing else can, and I know that where ever we are all together, that is home.

Not to mention when this little man laughs it is positively the best thing in the world. Who could possibly feel anything but joy when this little face crinkles his nose and laughs?

It feels strange moving back into a city once you've worked so hard to get out. In a way everything seems small, simply because things are smaller. The yard is small, the houses are closer together, it's just the way things are in a city. But on the other hand it feels so big, so many people doing so many things, so many buildings, so many cars... it makes me feel like the small one and everything else is just big and busy around me. I definitely still feel more comfortable and more myself sitting in the middle of an empty field.

I have been trying my best to settle in and make things our own. The place that Keith found for us is absolutely gorgeous and right by the river, so I had a pretty good canvas to start with. I got a few flowers and tomatoes and herbs planted. It feels good to tinker outside. After having such a vast area to tinker on and a bazillion things to get done my little pots and little townhouse yard feels like it's all taken care of very fast. But that's ok too. I am very happy with what I have.

These guys are some of my favorites. However the ants seem to love them too and I am currently devising ways for them to meet their demise as they seem to want to make their residence the pots these flowers now live in.

My herb pot seems to have gone a little crazy now that they have some room and sunlight.

Nothing beats cooking with fresh herbs in the summer.

So sometimes I may feel like a small little country mouse living in a big city, but then we go for a bike ride, see people laughing and playing on the beach, watch street performers and buy flowers from the market, and life is pretty good.

I guess if I do have to live in a city, this one isn't too bad.

random summer/fall 2013

Life, believe, is not a dream
-Charlotte Bronte

 Building a bookshelf the week before Will was born.

Fresh treats.

Saskatchewan summer skies.

One of Will's many "impressed" faces.

Baby's breath and lavender from my flower bed.

Our niece Faith.

Nova.

Will.

Eyes are the window to the soul. Cello.

Our neighbor's yearling.

Nap time with Dad.

Whenever it gets cold I like to look at pictures from the summer to remind myself of greener times. Not to mention I've been working on family yearbooks (my plan is to make a photobook every year with my favorite pictures from throughout the year and call it our "yearbook") and the majority of my pictures are taken when the weather is nice out. Funny how that works.

This summer and fall have seemed to fly by. Will is over three months old now and I'm not quite sure where the time has gone. We've been so busy with company and appointments it seems like getting things done that don't pertain to the baby are major achievements for me. I finally got around to building a little console table during nap times and even though it's not my best work I must say I'm just a little impressed that I was able to pull it off at all. Keith has been wonderful, and often on nice afternoons takes Will from me and kicks me outside to play with the horses. Which no matter what mood I'm in I come back happy.

Winter is fast approaching. The garden has been taken out. The hoses drained and hung. Heater put in the trough. Oil changed in the tractor. Straw put in the doghouses. Nova is fluffy again. The horses are fuzzy and are now full time open to the back pasture. We hope they will be able to winter graze back there till January before we need to give them hay, but we'll see how the weather cooperates. Keith is of course the one to credit for the vast majority of winter preparation. We now have a dusting of snow on the ground and yesterday morning it was -15C. Thinking back to last year's awfulness we're doing quite good so far.

Life has seemed so busy. Quiet yet busy. However that makes sense.

I just need to make sure I remember to take pictures. 
 

Craven (almost)

The last few days have been lovely July days. We've had temperatures ranging from mid 20s up to mid 30s, summer storms, and all manner of lazy to extreme summer weather. I've been doing my best to get my work done outside in the mornings  before it gets too hot out. This tiny furnace inside my basketball-shaped belly seems to really take it out of me in the higher temperatures. All in all my lists for the week have gone well though. I spent one afternoon on the phone booking pretty much everything I can book for July, have been able to go for lunch dates, get the last few baby things on our list, and I even got my coffee table done.

I think my first week of maternity leave was a success.

I attempted to plant a small garden this year. Some things are working out, some not so much. I didn't plant tons as the weeding is really no fun whilst pregnant. And I'm hoping that next year I can plan things out a little better and have better success. My thumb is nor green, nor black, for now I think I'm somewhere in between.

However.

I'm very proud of this strawberry and I'm pretty sure it's the most perfect strawberry I've ever seen. And it just so happened to come out of my garden. Keith and I cut it in half and shared it. And it was not only the most perfect looking, but also the most perfect tasting strawberry my taste buds have ever had the delight of knowing.

We found this impressive thistle along a seasonal back road.

Craven is a small place. It is very much just one of those teeny little Saskatchewan towns that has a general store and a gas station and one or two streets with houses along them. However, every summer for a weekend in July, it is flooded by about 20,000 people for the Craven Country Jamboree. This is a pretty big deal in Saskatchewan. It is like the province's ultimate summer party. People get very into it. They line the highway with their campers to get in, do their best to get through all kinds of muck (the fairgrounds happen to be in a flood plain), and for most people I believe the 4 days is spent partying like crazy.

The music is right up Keith and my alley, this year the big names brought in were Tim McGraw, The Dixie Chicks, and Kenny Chesney. However at 9 months pregnant I said I really didn't feel like investing in a ticket and spending much time walking around for hours amongst the drunken Craven crowds. So instead we opted for a more peaceful option.

We took some back roads and walked through some fields to find the perfect little spot overlooking the valley. To our surprise no one else had this bright idea and we had the edge of the valley all to ourselves. It was lovely. We sat with the dogs and had a little look and a little listen. Once we doused ourselves in mosquito spray the entire experience was wonderful.

Nova enjoying Tim McGraw.

We found an actual cactus beside where we were sitting. Glad I didn't choose that spot - ouch!

The sun went down and we (well I) got cold, so we called it an early night. I wouldn't change any of it though. Next year we may splurge and actually get a ticket for a day, now that our interests have been sparked by our quiet little adventure.

And last but not least. A glimpse at my coffee table. Of which I'm oh so proud. And so glad that my first "big" furniture building project was a success. Keith and I are now formulating a list of all the things I need to build to outfit our house. I hope this baby is content being out in the shed with me, because it looks like we have a lot of work to do in this maternity leave!

2012, a review

2012 was with no doubt a momentous and very memorable year for us. I really saw my year begin, when the rest of my life began on our wedding day...

A good majority of the rest of the year was captured in iPhone pictures. Hundreds of blurry but smiley pictures that I look over often to see memories of the past year. We bought our land, we built the shed, I discovered the horror that is tick season in Saskatchewan...

I have never had to deal with ticks before in my life. Not the kind that go on people anyway. I've had to pull ticks off of horses which I thought was one of the worse experiences, that was until I had to pull them off of myself and found them nestled in all the most vulnerable and inconsiderate kinds of places. Keith would roll around on the ground in shorts and not have a single one, I would tuck pants into socks and they'd still find a way in. It was awful. I'm already starting to get anxiety over this upcoming May/June.

The summer brought lovely heat which drove the ticks off. We were able to go camping (which is a big deal to fit into our summers!), we got the canoe, took Nova on long bike rides around the park, and of course there's always football.

When I came back from Markus and Allison's wedding Keith surprised me with our fuzzy new fur-baby. Sofi has never failed to steal the hearts of most those she meets with her big furry face and floppy ears. I love looking at her puppy pictures. 

September brought the momentous move of our house. The big thing we had been waiting so long for it seemed.

I'll let you guess what we built with the moon....

We enjoyed our new found sunlight in the new house - such a welcome relief after living with the north facing rental window! - and I cleaned floors with an old t-shirt and my slippered feet (don't worry I invested in a spray mop after about a month or so). And at Christmas we enjoyed sparkley ornaments, candles in the windowsill, and lots of doggy snuggles. 

Between the getting married and the honeymoon and the land and the house and the building of sheds and fences and things with moons it was a huge trailblazing adventure of a year.

And at the end of 2012, we found out that we were about to embark on our biggest adventure yet....

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I cannot wait to meet you baby.

Keeping Warm

This winter has been a difficult one so far.

Last winter was fairly mild as far as Saskatchewan winters go (so I hear, it was my first Saskatchewan winter, so it was a welcome change from a Northern-Alberta winter). So when this winter hit early and hard, it made for a bit of a shock. Not to mention it's our first winter out on our acreage, two former Alberta farm kids fending for themselves, and it's been a bit of a learning process. For example, in November we bought ourselves a quad with a blade on it to push snow, and scoffed when we were told "with no tree cover you'll need a snowblower, you won't get by with just a blade".

Psh. Come onnnnnnn. We are from the wilderness of Alberta and even with way more snow than southern Saskatchewan can imagine, no one I know has ever needed a snowblower. For their driveway. Snowblowers were for city folk who didn't have a quad with a blade.

And as usual, humility will be provided.

We arrived back home from four days at our parents before Christmas, and came home to such a blown and drifted mess of a driveway, we got stuck and trying to push it out with the quad was like running into a brick wall the drifts were so hard. So we had to invest in a snowblower for the quad. And it has indeed been a lifesaver. The last winter storm we had a week and a half ago blew drifts in overnight that were higher than my waist. I've been avoiding taking my Nikon out too much in the frigid temperatures, but managed to snap some crappy phone pictures...

Nova and I with the monster drift that had taken over our driveway.

Markus promptly turned lemons into lemonade and made a fort our of our monster drift.

We were able to go snowshoeing still!

Frosty fun :)

Markus and Allison came down last weekend to celebrate my birthday. It was a laid back and quiet weekend with no real agenda but it was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't have wanted to spend my birthday any other way.

Usually I am a fan of winter. I love winter sports, I love skating and snowboarding and skiing and snowshoeing and toboganning and pulling the calf sled around behind the quad, I love it all. But. It feels like it's been a long winter so far. And today it is -29C outside and I was planning and going to chip frozen dog poo from the icy ground, but with a windchill of -40C I've decided I'm better off safe and warm inside. And what better way to warm up than to look at warm memories of summer time?

Summer means football of course (can you see my hunny?)

 Our amazing gnome! (He even got a newspaper story that made it all the way to Calgary!)

 Going for long drives with Nova

 Making Keith wait for ever in the truck while I take pictures of weeds

 Happy woof

I hate all the alfalfa in our field... But it sure did make for a few good pictures.

Fresh delicious corn from our neighbor

 Stopping on long drives to appreciate the beautiful scenery near the SK-AB border

 And welcoming new family members :)

It truly was a lovely summer.

I do believe I've had enough of the snow and cold and wind and am ready for another.