A Challenge On the Horizon

Well, to follow up on the last post.. Tanya and I had a fabulous evening together visiting and eating the nice meat, cheese and cracker tray she put together... Wouldn't you know it, a neighbour rang the door bell and gave her a beautiful veggie tray from a function he was at. So needless to say we were well feed, had good company, watched a lot of you tube, laughed and cried.. And still, no Jane Austin. You know Tanya and I have been trying to do this since November. We even bought the book, Pride and Prejudice.. can't get through that either.

I did find this link to recap from another blog. Tanya, you might find that interesting.

As some of you may know, Tanya has been heading up a small investment group. Well she seems to be doing well at picking and choosing for the group and has made us a small amount of money ( or should I say fortune). I am sure she is going to post about it soon.. When she has her tips ready I will link to it.

The last thing Tanya and I have been working on is recycling material for house hold use.

Now this is not to say that we are going to fill our homes with junk but, make a few neat projects for our home and fix up somethings we already have.

this is an old chic incubator, I have had it for years.

I took the heating apparatus off and thought once it is refinished it would make a good island or table. We have decided to use it in our mud room as a counter.

this the beginning project

Jim Sanding it down, even the corner metal pieces are shining.
I will show you the finished product, once it is in place and the room is organized.

It looks amazing

This is the coffee table Jim made in College about 19 years ago. Jim had sanded it down in this picture and it is ready to be re stained and top coated.

even reused our sausage tray for the stain. we are doing good.

Now this is an old sign that Jim made for his family years ago too.

Again sanded it down, cleaned it off and blow the saw dust off.

Stained it, and gave it new life. Now this Stevens Family can use it.

the challenge on the horizon

this is the scrap metal pile at the recycling depot.

Now I am not going lye, I have been known to claw in it before and find some neat stuff.

Tanya has decorated some of her house with it and now we want to see projects with it.

I had bought a couple of gifts while in Honduras from this ladies company

recreated art and soul

Have a look at her creations and her bio. It is really amazing.

Now we are inspired to try our hand at it, and want you to too..

Please send pictures of anything you have refurbished, or design out or recycled product.

I will post them on the blog.

We will show our projects when they are completed..
the last project I was working on Sunday was fixing up our flower beds. The ground has become so hard over the winter that it turned out to be a big job.. I planted some bulbs. I hoping they will come up this year, and Jim put a bag of peat moss on for me. It looked really nice.

After this picture, it snowed.Have a great day.

Movie night with a Friend

Well, ok.. I felt the need to bake something to share with everyone.. Couldn't decide, so I baked COOKIES.. Yes one of the simplest things to bake, yet some of the best girl friend food their is. Tanya once brought large cookies and ice cream and we made home made ice cream sandwiches. That was a nice treat.. Now I am hoping she has ice cream when I arrive tonight.

I used the recipe from here I might add, it is the best choc. chip cookies I have made. I really watched them and set the timer for only 8 minutes. I don't know what it is about cookies at this elevation but they don't take as long to bake. Please check out the Chipits website. They have some great recipes (every things choc. of coarse) and they have a contest that Canadians can actually enter for a Kenmore kitchen. I made extra big ones (just for Jim)

Now this evening I am on my way to Tanya's for a girls night. The men are both away doing stuff so we are getting together. I wanted to take her some cookies and thought of this cute way to package them. Now one reason I am so proud of this idea is because I really just started recycling . Gasp, I know.. that is a whole other post, but I am getting good at it.

I had Just added this to the plastic recycling today, so I pulled it out (see I didn't have to get it out of the garbage, (like I would) it was actually clean and with the other plastic.)

cookies fit perfect.

Now I am going to cover it, and make it look pretty.

Note the shape. a bit of a arch at the top so that when you wrap it there are no puckers.

I added a little ribbon, a card that I put stickers on to spell Yummy
and viola, a cute little bring along hostess gift.

For your paper crafters out there, the paper is from PinkMartini "flirtini"

So now when I arrive, we will be all set for our "Jane Austin" movie marathon.

A Great Post

Ya, well I had a great post in mind. I had some pictures I was going to share..

• cute brownies in the shapes of hearts with carmel and vanilla bean ice cream.


• before and afters of laundry day, and share my feelings on the "SOCKS!"


• the before and afters of Destiny room, remember this well it didn't look like that anymore. so I did it again.


• Pictures of another fire, this time west of us.. blowing this way while we ate supper.


• And a picture of Jims jean starched so much that they stand up by themselves... oh, wait.. I still have that one

The rest of my pictures... I deleted.. yes, I deleted them off of my card. I thought I had batch processed my pictures to be smaller and I had only selected one picture.. Ya, that's right. a picture of over starched pants is all that is left. Good news is, they were more documentary pictures of "a day in the life" rather than "keep sakes".

So that is really all I have for today. I do want to leave you with this video.. Because this is how I have been feeling lately.. And I am trying really hard not to raise my voice... I have been yelling a lot.. Ya, pretty much everything she says.. I have been yelling.

Watch this Video

The end of the year

Well, it was the end of the year for this event anyway. And what a finish. The kids both did very well and Jim and I are very proud of them. Saturday was the finals for the Future Cowboy and Cowgirl rodeo asc. for the winter series. This is not to say that the kids won't be out there this summer rodeoing where ever we can take them.. The winter series ran from October-April this year and was so greatly organized and the kids all had a safe and fun environment to develop their skills. Thanks to all that helped do such a great job, volunteering and organizing all year.

The following pictures are all from this weekend.

Some of the quality is a bit grainy and blurry. I find arena shots tuff..

Destiny's Barrel Run

Hayze's Key Hole Run

Proud Dad

Destiny Getting the Goats Ready

For The Next Age Group

Hayze Flanking His Goat.

He did so good

Tieing His Goat

Waiting For the Flag

Hayze was disappointed, his calf only stayed tied

for 5 seconds, needed to be 6 "no time"

The banquet was Sunday for the Kids. It was held at the Ranchmans.

That is a big deal for the kids because the kids get to ride the bull and play pool and act like grow ups. The parents all bring a pot luck item and they supply beef on a bun for everyone. It is a really nice time for everyone.

Rodeo Moms

Shelly Longeway, Me, Connie Lausen

Friendships Made

Both Young And Old

Pool Shark

Bull Rider

Watch This

That's My Dad


Old Friends, New Stories...From the Ranchmans

The Awards

Destiny won 2nd in Barrel Racing

(Bronze, "Big Heart, Big Money")

1st in the Key Hole

(buckle)

2nd in the Pole Bending

(bronze, "Thunder on the Praire")

1st in the goat untieing

(buckle)

Hayze Won Third in the Key Hole

(Halter and Bernie Brown Print "three Amigo's")

Perfect Attendance

(glass plaque)

The Big One

High Point Champion

( Horse blanket, embroidered on both sides with her name on the neck)

Our friend Nicole, Congrats on your big wins

Congratulations Girls, You had a great season...

And you are both blessings to your families.

While we were at the banquet enjoying ourselves we got word that there was a fire in our area and it was moving towards our home. We made a few phone calls to confirm the location of the fire and they reasured us that it was stopped and it would not effect our home.

This is what we came home to.

That is Our Home

The fire consumed about 1/2 section and stopped before crossing the hiway to our home.

We all said our thanks to the Lord as we approached our home. Our neighbour to the East was very close to starting on fire. I am sure they were using garden hoses..

We have all said we were glad we weren't home. It would have been scary anticipating the worst. We haven't heard yet who the neighbours were that were out helping baddle the blaze, but when we do, I big hug is in order.

Pictures at Home

Out to Pasture

Nail biter

We are off the the banquet for the end of the year for the Future Cowgirl and Cowboy Rodeo Asc.
We are all very excited about the day and had so much fun yesterday.
The kids did very well and the scores were not given out so today will be exciting to see how they did.
Destiny is in the 8 and under group,
Hayze is in the 9-13 group
They don't compete against each other so they both have a chance a bringing home prizes.
Hayze had a "smok'n" run yesterday in the barrels.. I hope he did good enough to win a prize..

Results tonight, when we get home.

New pole

Please do the pole on the side.

Easter Weekend

This Easter found us is Edmonton with the kids for Hayze to play hockey with the "Stoney"team from Morley. This was a great weekend of hockey for Hayze and it turned out that all the kids were really inviting. Hayze didn't know any of these children and he made some really great new friends.Hayze also played really good this weekend and made some amazing plays.. I wish I had my video. some of his best hockey this winter. Funny when there is no expectations on you how you are able to do better.

New jersey for the Weekend. #19

Some of the team with their bronze metals

"the cheering section"

Thought this was cute. Shorts and hockey bag.
These picture montage was taken at Lynn and Lincolns.

Jim has never so much as sat on a bike before. He has never ever had any interest in it..

It was funny to see that little grin on his face when he sat on it.. I think it was something God gave all men, the love of a "machine" .

I must say, he looked pretty good with his new "buffalo" shirt sitting on the bike, with his little grin. He did start it up, but never took it down the road.. just down the drive.

It was more of a photo opp..

Destiny's tooth finally starting coming in this weekend. We heard a lot about that.

Seems whenever we go visit somewhere we have teeth coming or going.

We spent sometime down town Edmonton feeding the geese Saturday afternoon, just the girls.

The poor goose, he had cold feet standing in the icy water.


Picture of Destiny while we were waiting outside the rink for the boys.

Back to work today, and it was good to get back at it. Funny when you spend a few days out of town how you feel you have so much catching up to do. I am going to do payroll tomorrow and hopefully take the kids to play some scrub with there friends tomorrow.

Hope every ones Easter break is going well, and if you have anything fun or entertaining planned with your friends and family give us some ideas. We have Wed. to be with family, Thursday the kids are off to a rodeo in Med. Hat with Jim and Friday we have family time again, no work or school..

This weekend takes us into rodeo finals, rodeo Saturday and banquet on Sunday. this will draw gymkhana to an end for this year.