Thanksgiving (aka any excuse to party!)

Last weekend was Thanksgiving, which meant a long weekend. I was lucky enough to get up to my parents place and it was awesome!!! I haven't been able to get up there since we were up for our wedding in February, and it was so nice to get on the farm again. So on Friday I packed up the woofs, the guns, my riding helmet, my boots, and drove the 9 hours up to the Husch Home in northern Alberta.

My dad turned the big 50 this fall, so we used the long weekend to have a party for him - and all the other birthdays that exist in our household in the fall (my mum is the end of August, Dad and brother in end of September, and other brother beginning of October - I'm the random baby in January, loner). It was the kind of weekend where you just get to soak up doing the things you love with the people that have grown you (kinda like a tree, I'll stop before I get lost in the simile). I was mostly busy with all the fun activities like riding, skeet shooting, bocce balling, and of course eating, but I did manage to take a few pictures along the way.

 The not so glamorous part of skeet shooting - picking up the plastic packings after.

I made my best effort to frame the shooters so they looked awesome.

Awesome.

Thomas took a couple pictures of me shooting. 

They turned out like this...

Not quite as awesome. I know I'm not super great at skeet shooting, 

but now I can't even pretend that I look vicious doing it. 

Maybe you should stick to shooting guns Thomas, not pictures. 

The house I grew up in. And made so many memories. 

Erin came over to visit, I have the most wonderful friends :)

 Now. One of the biggest things when we have a family party is how to cook the meat. We take some kind of pride is this primeval ritual, and this is usually half the celebration. For my brother and sister-in-law's joint stag-stagette party we roasted an entire pig on a spit and it was a whole day affair for the dads. They sat and nursed the pig and a few beers ("a little for me, a little for you") the entire day and I'm not sure what it is about men and cooking meat but they were just so very happy and content to be roasting that pig.

But alas, it's October now and the weather isn't quite so perfect any more to be outside nursing a pig all day, and for something a little "new" (although they've done this before), they decided to do a pit roast.

Our supper is in there. Somewhere.

So, I'm not sure exactly how it works. But they dig a big hole, line it with big rocks, light a fire in there, and throw in a bunch of big pieces of meat. Big. This year we had a huge chunk of beef. Huge chunk of pork. And a huge turkey (c'mon, it's Thanksgiving!). The fire needs to be started soon enough before putting the meat in so that it dies down to perfect cooking coals, and all I know is that usually the night before we eat the men set their alarms for some crazy time of night (3am anyone?) and are out with the pit/fire/meat situation. By the time I get to see it it looks like a messed up part of the lawn. Smack dab in the middle of the lawn of course (whole quarter section of land and the best place to dig a roasting pit is of course in the middle of the lawn).

Papa working for his birthday roast. 

The fruits of our (ok, the guys) labour!

There's a funny story behind this sign, which did its job so well to protect the meat from falling dirt. When we were fifteen Erin and I went camping. And we found this sign in the ditch along the highway. It had obviously been down for a while, it had shotgun holes in it, and we thought we were sooooo cool when we brought it home. Taking the crime watch sign. Crazy kids right. My mum made me feel awful about it and like we were some kind of terrible criminals taking the sign. A few weeks later we found an abandoned road blockade that we brought home and my mother made us feel so guilty about it that we took it back and placed it back in the ditch (what?! mothers don't like their children bringing ditch garbage home??). Such delinquents we were. But somehow the sign made it through the guilt trip of ditch-garbage-stealing and has served all kinds of purposes, at some point it got cut in half, and this latest purpose was to help us cook a bunch of meat. 

Kitty up in a tree. 

What a suck.

Sofi had such a great weekend. She played. And played. And played and played and played. And near the end of the day on Saturday she was pooped. She was so tired she let us do anything (see the above picture - "why won't you just let me sleep??"). It was pretty funny. Everyone immediately fell in love with her - of course.

This is WallE, Allison and Markus' pig. He is the most hilarious animal you've ever met. He's a teacup potbelly pig, only we're not sure what happened to the teacup because he now weighs about 50 lbs. (We say it's all love!) He's really quite the pig and has such a personality. He will let you know right away what he thinks of you, and since they've had him I've gotten to know just why there are sayings such as "eating like a pig". (tip: the way to his heart is food. ANY kind of food! I won him over with horse treats.)

Winston is Thomas and Jocelyn's little dog. He is so full of energy, so busy, and so smart. He too is hilarious. Between all the dogs (there are 5 just from our family and then we had friends bring over more!) and the pig and all the people the house was absolutely bustling. 

Winston chasing the bocce ball game. He chases any thing.

He's very ferocious. 

P.S. bocce ball is AWESOME.

Happy piggy!

Doing tricks for treats.

Winston, Belle, and part of Bailey 
(dogs everywhere! Nova the elusive picture-avoider managed to make it through almost the entire weekend with no pictures).

With my amazing brothers (there's no such thing as too many plaid jackets).

My lovely lovely sisters.

(Psst, see Nova in the corner? Elusive.)

Now, most of the weekend was spent with the big party on Saturday. Sunday night we spent playing Risk (which one should never play with the Husch girls, we got bored halfway through the whole world domination thing and ditched the boys for ice cream - and created quite the upset) and eating left overs.

All the same, I love Thanksgiving. I love what it represents and I think that we should be grateful every day of the wonderful things in life that we're blessed with. I'll try not to get too mushy, but this past year has been quite the amazing one for me.

Last Thanksgiving Keith asked me to marry him, and since then so much has happened that has made me sit there in awe at all my blessings.

Be thankful friends.

Every day.

Lonely Saturday Night Rambling.

It's Saturday night and Keith is away again. So I'm going to ramble. 

Things are starting to get crazy in the Shologan rental-cave. We drove up for the final house-visit on Monday, and every time I see it I fall more and more in love with it! I hope that every day we live in that house it gets filled with more and more love.

There is so much that needs to get done once the house is here, before we can actually move in. My head starts to spin as soon as I start thinking of the big daunting list (plumber, electrician, basement floor, natural gas, electricity, furnace, driveway.... aggghhh!!!). I drove out to the property yesterday to meet with people since Keith had already flown out to Montreal, and I wasn't even sure on the drive out there exactly who I was meeting with. Bank people? Road people? Gas people? Turned out to be natural gas. And I had to point out where to imagine for all the lines to go. Scary job.

It's starting to get cold out. The wind is blowing and the leaves are changing very quickly. I'll need to take a road trip to take some pictures. Lots of pictures. Today was a bit warmer and I went for a long bike ride with Nova around the neighborhood and the lake in town today. It was beautiful and still sunny but not so hot that I couldn't wear a long sleeved shirt. Keith brought me home a beautiful long sleeved Rough Rider shirt, I don't own a ton of Rider gear, so expanding my green wardrobe makes me feel like I blend in with the Saskatchewan crowd quite well.

And for tonight... comfort with a suggly blanket, hot chocolate, and maybe a smore :)

September Long Weekend

Labor Day is a biiiiiigggg deal in Regina. The Labor Day Classic is possibly one of the biggest games of the entire Rough Rider season. They usually make a whole weekend of it, with Fan Day on Saturday and the game on Sunday with all kinds of festivities. This year they even had The Sheepdogs playing for half time, pretty awesome.

One of the highlights of my weekend was one of my very dearest friends from home came to visit. Erin and I were pretty much inseparable during high school. She would come to my fiddle contests. I would go to her dog agility trials. We did drama club together. We spent week nights at each others houses. In the mornings before school I'd bring her to piano lessons and sleep on her parents couch until we had to go to class. When I left to live in Austria for six months she was at the airport with my parents to send me off.

So, I was so so so happy when she decided to fly down to spend the weekend with us. (Pictures are courtesy of my iPhone... I'm a sucker for self portraits!)

I successfully transformed Erin into a football fan, and she even admitted that she needs to now add TSN to her satellite package.  We had way too much fun at the game. We wore the silly face sticker things. Erin cheered like a champ. We ate bratwurst and churro sticks.

On Monday we drove out to the property with Nova. The basement backfill is done and looks fantastic. We wandered the property, admired the not-yet-finished fence. We got a tentative moving date for the house and things are going to be a whirlwind in the next few weeks as we prepare. And then I'm sure it'll be even crazier once the house is here with all the things we need to get done before we can actually move in. And then... we move in!!

Afterwards we went for a tour of the lake, and ate some of the best burgers in Saskatchewan at the Lumsden Snack Shack. This is a great little place just off the highway and is always crazy busy! 

A quick peek of the basement... :)

 I am so so so so glad Erin came to visit. She's one of those friends in which it feels like true kindred spirits (yes, I was an Anne of Green Gables nerd as a child). I brought her to the airport on Monday evening and afterward went home, curled up in Keith's arms and cried.   

Reunited and it feels so good

Weekend

The football season kind of takes over our life for the months of June through to November, and I've made my peace with the fact that we won't have summer vacations for as long as Keith is playing football. During the summer Keith does get one week off during which we normally go back to Alberta to visit our families, but this year the schedule is particularly difficult and Keith's bye week doesn't actually allow for a full weekend, just Monday to Friday off. All of his days off are otherwise scheduled for Sundays or Mondays. 

So! I was super excited when we found out that this week's post-game meetings and run-downs had been moved over to Friday and freed up Saturday resulting in an ENTIRE WEEKEND off (yes that deserved capital letters). We decided to go up camping near Saskatoon and while we were up go see the progress on our house. Our future home is being built up in Hague and then once it's all done they load it up on a big truck and move it down and plop it onto the basement (terrifying process if you ask me).

I was a verrrrrrry happy camper. 

 

  
Nova got to sleep in the tent with us for the very first time. The first night she spent pretty much on top of my legs. Foamies are much more comfortable than the ground. Only makes sense. The second night she slept between us on Keith's sleeping bag for most of the night.  


On Saturday we had our first encounter using truck stop showers went and visited the house (who wants to be stinky on a momentous occasion such as seeing your house for the first time?). I am in love. Love love love. 

Driving to Zak's. I was kinda excited. 

 

 

Welcome to the Shologans!

 

Please note Keith's expression as he watches me gush and take pictures of evvvvverything. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing there in the linen closet. I've never had a linen closet before.

 I looooooove our big log post!! One of my most favorite things of the entire house. 

I am absolutely ecstatic to live in that house. I'll have to take a trip up probably in August to bring up our cooktop and hopefully the ceiling, cabinets, floors, and maybe even my paint (!) will be almost done by then. My impatience is mounting. I gaze out our north facing windows right now and dream of the kind of light our future house with its big wall of south facing windows will let in. Insert a wistful sigh here. We spent a bunch of time at the house, with me running around taking pictures (with my phone, a half decent camera with a lens is definitely on my wish list) and before we knew it we had to leave again... :( 

Byyyye house..... See you soon. 

Keith picked up an appearance in Saskatoon for Saturday afternoon. I spent the two hours hanging around the parking lot with Nova and decided to get my hair cut for the first time since December. In the past two years I've only been to the hair salon... twice. I've been trying so desperately to grow it out and usually just trim it myself at home. But it was nice to go spend half an hour and let someone who knew what they were doing take care of the mess that is my hair.  

Nova waiting patiently. 

On the way back to the campsite I got one of my favorite roadtrip treats:

Keith doesn't understand why (and neither do I really), but I love to put these in the fridge (or cooler or outside or anywhere cold) before I eat them. Amazing! Between this and having my fingers stained orange from Cheesies I think we made the best of our time in the vehicle.

We spent the afternoon canoeing Blackstrap Lake (no pictures, I forgot a camera and Keith wouldn't let me take my phone!) and in the evening we cooked camp food and marshmallows.

Potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and butter wrapped in tin foil and cooked over the fire - delicious!

By the time Sunday morning rolled around we were all tired. Nova does the cutest thing when she doesn't want to wake up where she tries to cover her eyes with her paws.  I caught a little bit of it. 

We were able to get on the lake again with the canoe before we left, and then it was home time. 

A weekend well spent.