School Fun!

With school winding down the kids have been busy with various fun activities. Today Kirby was up at the crack of dawn and jumping the bus to Edmonton for her class field trip, they are touring the Alberta Legislature, West Edmonton Mall and spending the night at the University of Alberta.

Erinn in the jump rope competition during St. Pat's track & field meet.

Blair taking a break from his track & field activities.

Erinn happy with her performance in the obstacle course.

Blair after his turn at the basketball dribble.

Today Erinn enjoyed herself at her class bowling party. Nice technique, look at that ball fly!

Where the grass grows.

I finally got to mow the grass on the mound, as you can see its starting to look pretty good!


Kirby & Blair playing some soccer.


I think Erinn's the referee.


Today the temperature was up to 26 degrees, this is the warmest day we've had yet.


The kids took advantage of the warm weather, the green grass and the fact that summer is just around the corner!

Father's Day Fun!

For Father's Day the family took me up to Reesor Lake, in the Cypress Hills, for a fun filled day of trout fishing.


You can see we had a good seat, right along the lake with an awesome view of the forest on the other side.


We met a friend of mine from work, Terry & his fiance Sandra, who happend to be camping out there.


Terry & I baiting our hooks, actually the kids hooks, they kept us busy untangling lines and removing their fish.


I got some fishing in too when I wasn't help the kids out.


Erinn had someone to talk to other than us.


Even though Blair didn't catch anything he sure looked the part.


Erinn wasn't catching anything in the lake so she concentrated on catching the caught ones in the fish tub...


...where she had better success!

Between Kirby & I we managed to catch 7 fish, nothing of any size except for a couple of long-nose suckers that we left for the sea gulls and pelicans. It was a nice sunny drive up but not long after we arrived the rains came, but they were short lived and the sun once again appeared for our drive home. The fish tasted good cooked up on the barbeque.

Clouds!

Being up on the ridge provides us with a 360 degree view of the surrounding skyline.


The sun hidden behind some ominous looking clouds to the west.


Some cumulus clouds building to the east.


This looked like a tornado starting to develop to the south.


As the sun sets in the west the sky to the north looked like the city was on fire.

Hanging Out!

Usually in the evenings we enjoy hanging out outside, taking in the fresh air and the peace & quiet of the ridge.


Carolyn, Kirby, Blair & Sugar sitting on the back deck, watching the clouds roll by, listening to the pheasants crowing and enjoying the serenity of it all.


Blair & Erinn wearing off some energy on the trampoline.


Kirby & Carolyn going for a walk down to the 120 and back.


Just relaxing and hanging out!

Fish Farm

In the past week we've had 2+ inches of rain! In fact we've got so much moisture the ground has stopped soaking it up and we're left with huge puddles around, even the wind and the little bit of sun we got today wasn't enough to dry them up, normally they don't stick around very long.


I'm thinking about putting some fish in this one and naming it Zim Lake, it should make a good kids fishing pond.


This one will be the Goldfish pond and where the kids can sail their boats.


Some of this greenery is grass (not weeds) believe it or not and you can see the potatoes out in the garden in the top left.


With all the water & mud in the yard the kids have had to entertain their friends inside, here Roz & Erinn are having a game of Pong, there's usually no Ping when they play!

Successful Ride!

This past weekend we had our 2nd annual Law Enforcement Torch Run - A Cycling Marathon in which we road our bicycles from Medicine Hat to Edmonton in 24-hours.

Here's the team which consisted of members from Medicine Hat Police, Lethbridge Regional Police, Blood Tribe Police, the RCMP, Alberta Sheriffs and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Branch.

Our goal was to raise money for Special Olympics Alberta. We left the Hat at 1 pm on Friday and arrived in Edmonton at 9 am on Saturday with only 2 stops on the way, one at B.P.'s in Drumheller for a sit-down meal and the other in Leduc for breakfast. There was a total of 10 riders in our group, each took turns riding a one hour interval. Out of a total of 550 kilometers I managed to log 280 kilometers with a total ride time of 8 hours.

Once we arrived in Edmonton we met up with the 4 other groups who started out from the following locations; Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Peace River & Calgary. After forming up we did a mass group ride through the streets of Edmonton to Foote Field where we were welcomed by 200+ cheering Special Olympians and spectators, this was the best part of the whole ride. Once the dignitaries finished their speeches our organizer presented Special Olympics Alberta with a check for $84,000. The grand total for the past 5 years of doing this event is around $340,000!

We are already planning for next year's ride which promises to bigger & better!!!

Good Growing!

We've had absolutely perfect growing weather lately, after a week of sun and warmth we are back to cool and rainy. I'm glad I got my grass seeded when I did, now I won't have to worry about watering for a bit and I can sit back and watch it pop up.


This is the spot right out front that I just seeded the other day, it should do nicely now with this moisture. We are supposed to get at least another two days of rain! You can see the ditch is really taking off.


My ditch is greening up nice, you can see I have the hose from the irrigation running up to the front of the acreage, I was watering the Lilacs, but I haven't really needed it lately.


These are some perennials that my mom brought us last year, they are doing nicely now that Carolyn was able to get the weeds around them under control.


I just worked and seeded this last Friday. I planted a "Tuff Turf" mix that is supposed to be a little hardier than regular lawn seed. My hopes were to get grass growing along the fence instead of weeds, this spot also gets water from the neighbour's irrigation system.


Here's Carolyn's garden plot, you can see the potatoes are doing really well, some beans and peas are starting to poke up too.


The mound is getting greener & greener, I have been watering it on a daily basis but thanks to Mother Nature I haven't had to worry about it lately.


These are the spruce trees from Northern Saskatchewan that I moved from along the fence, they were originally planted near the lilies, they have been doing really well now that they don't have to compete with the weeds.

Kirby's Confirmation

On June 1st Kirby & us celebrated her Confirmation.


Bishop Frederick Henry travelled down from Calgary to confirm 70 young Catholics.


Kirby picked her cousin Jara as her sponsor, some may recall Jara as the flower girl from our wedding.


After church we celebrated with a 'mama cake' out at the ranch.

Cousin Visit

Cousin Teagan came for a visit this past weekend, of course she brought her mom & dad with her too!


Teagan & Erinn on the trampoline.


Kirby giving Teagan a ride around the acreage.


Playing on the computer.


Riding with the rocks!