The Beaton River

Rob has been off weekends for the past few months which is really great as we have gotten to do lots of family stuff. This past Saturday we took the dog for a run down to the Beaton river on the way to Cecil Lake... Its a really pretty drive out there and a nice spot along the river. (The teens party there though so we had to watch for broken glass in a few spots!!! ARGGG. ) All in all we had a great afternoon, throwing sticks for the dog, skipping rocks, writting in the sand and walking on all the big rocks. Katie had a blast playing "dont touch the ground" and trying to get around by only walking on the rocks, so funny because I can remember doing the same thing as a kid. I was happy to get her out playing in nature with no manufactured toys or entertainment. The weather was warm last week so it was a great time to be out too. This last week has been quite a bit cooler and although its great to sleep in compared to Penticton, we are definately missing the hot days on the beach right now!!! It is supposed to heat back up for next week, and there is still August so all hope is not lost! lol.

This and that

Katie is all done soccer for this year - she got her medal and water bottle which she now proudly carries everywhere with her! She has already asked to play again next year. Here she is with her two best buds - Abby and Mackenzie.

We have had a great first week of summer - seems our rainy season might be over now? It was a crazy few weeks of storms but it's been 25 degrees for the past few days, lovely!!!! Ashley and mom are coming up this weekend - Katie is so excited to see her cousins! I am so excited to show Ashley our new town and bring her along for some playdates - I think she will love it.

We have been scouting some hunting area's for the fall - Rob is pretty excited to get back hunting and cant wait for Trevor's visit... hope they get a moose! This was a really cool lean -to / hunters cabin we found north of town - we have found some pretty nice spots so far.

I love this picture of Ross (my youngest brother) he cracks me up - his photography is coming along very well though check out his website at: web.mac.com/ross.buchanan

Hope everyone is having a great summer - we sure are!

A Day on the Farm

Yesterday we went out to Garth and Christy's farm to help with fencing. Garth planted oats for the horses but needed to fence them off so the horses wont get in and trample them while they are growing. So we went out and spent about 10 hours putting in posts and running wire, it was awesome!! Rob and Garth did the posts while Katie and I nailed in the wire. Katie was great - we were so impressed to see her helping out and having a great time being a farm girl. She carried the bucket of nails and helped hold and measure the wire while I nailed, she sat in the back of the truck and held the posts while we drove them down to the boys and she spent quite a bit of time gazing at the horses and talking to them when they came over to visit. She only whined that she was bored once all day! Later in the day Christy (who is 8 months pregnant) and Wayland (thier 18 month old son) came out too and Katie spent a long time playing with them and entertaining the toddler. We really had a good time and it was a great exposure to farm life and the work that has to be done. We have been talking to Garth and Christy about boarding a horse with them and it looks like we are going to give it a shot!!!! AAHHHH I am so excited - I rode as a teen and like so many girls always wanted a horse. Garth is going to help us pick one up who is older and calm, so good for Katie, and Rob and I as begginner riders. Then in august there is a horsemanship course we are going to take up here that is apparently awesome.

It's been a while!

wow - I havent posted in a long time I see. Oops! Between spring yard work and this new internet thing called facebook I havent sat down on blogger in quite a while.

We have been busy in the yard as usual - seems I have my moms gardening genes... and have been planting up a storm. I am thrilled though to find out so much will grow up here and in fact some of my favorites that wouldnt take the okanagan heat are doing well up here! Who would have figured.

I have wanted a dailia for years but they always burnt down south but up here my planters have beautiful dalia's in bloom!!!!

I dug out one plain corner of the yard and put in a few flowering shrubs and a juniper, hung some baskets and got the greenhouse going with vegetables and herbs.

Then last weekend Rob and I put in a stone patio in the back. Our deck was too small for the table set we have and so we decided to make a patio. It was a lot of work but so nice to have Rob around to help with the heavy work. We got in done in two days even!!! I love it and just have a bit of finishing on one side left now.

It has been very warm up here and Katie decided to pull out the slide and sprinkler while I was gardening the other day - she had a great time. Check out the kitchen window view, and more importantly the thermometer!!!! Can you believe it? It is baking in the sun mind you, but I much prefer the 40 on this side of zero!

This weekend Katie and I went to Edmonton with some friends for a ladies weekend, Mackenzie (Katie's friend) had to go for some dental work that would have waited 8 months up here, so we jumped in and had a blast. We cruised West Edmonton Mall, the south point common shopping center (with Ikea and the outlet stores) and just had a really good time. It is only 7 hours to Edmonton from here so not a bad trip at all and the girls were awesome - played the whole trip both ways while Sheena and I yakked our ears off.

Rob stayed home and got the trailer ready for camping and puttered on the yard. We hope to head out camping this weekend around here and are so excited!

Katie is really enjoying school and is quickly learning to read - she can do most of the level 1 readers now with only a bit of help, so cool! We walk to school most days and then usually stay to play for a bit after with 4 other of the kids and moms. I dont know if it was the long winter but we are absolutely LOVING the warm days now! The sun is up when Rob and I get up at 5:30 and it is still bright at 11:00 when we go to bed. Although the ambient temperature is cooler than the south we do find the sun is hotter - we are closer to it from what I have been told but sunscreen is a must outside.

The yardwork progress

Happy mothers day to all you moms, hope everyone has a great day. We had a really good day today, Rob was home and fixed the hot tub so it should be ready to go in tonight or tommorow!!!! And I finished up my work on the front walkway and garden. Its all coming along very well - its nice to add some personal touches to the house.

Some recent adventures and missadventures!

Things have been going well up here lately - busy as usual! Last week we got our hot tub delivered and started cleaning it out. Rob filled it up and discovered a huge leak so we had to drain it and flip it up to fix the cracked line (apparently there's a reason we got it so cheap, lol). So on friday we called some neighbors to help us lift the tub which then ended up turning into a block party!

The two guys that came to help are husbands of my boot room mom friends - who were well into the wine by the time they got here... lol. Then another family of friends from down the street came over to hang out too. All the kids had a blast playing in the mud pond that ended up in the yard from emptying the hot tub and then of course us parents got into a bit more wine, ordered some pizza and had a great time. I love our neighborhood - all four families have a girl in kindergarten, the dads in the oil patch and we live within four houses of eachother. We're already planning our summer time block party BBQs!

We discovered that we had to order one of the parts for the hot tub line so left the tub up on its side until monday - or at least that was the plan... It seemed pretty stable... until our wind storm on Sunday.... oops.

Who knew 60km/hr winds would knock over a very heavy hot tub? So over to the nieghbors I trecked to explain our misshap, luckily they are very nice people and just laughed. Rob had a couple guys from work come over to flip the tub back and fix the fence! All better now.

Of course we are still waiting for the new heater so the hot tub still isnt working but soon we will be sitting in it laughing about this right??

Timbits Soccer

Katie had her first soccer practice and game last night... it was so cute all the little "timbits" running around the field chasing a soccer ball. Two of her friends Abby and Makenzie are playing so Katie wanted to join too, plus since uncle Geoff plays university soccer and it was such a big part of Grans life she was excited to give it a try. She had a blast, there are 10 kids on her team, Abby being one of them which is great. They did a 20 minute practice where they learned a bit about ball handling - or that they couldnt handle it with thier hands, a tidbit that got by most of them, lol. Then they played a 25 minute game of three on three. Katie subbed out voluntarily several times cause she was "just exhausted" and needed a little rest!!! All in all they did very well, of course the emphasis is just on fun and all but one parent seemed to agree with that. This one lady, however, I was floored - she berrated her 5 year old son when he subbed out and told him the soccer field wasnt a dance studio and that he had better start trying to score a goal. She then made him stand on the sidelines perfectly still while she pointed out what each player was doing right. I felt so sorry for that little boy, and tried to make a point of loudly cheering Katie for even running in the right direction let alone kicking the ball with the hopes that she might calm down. After all they are 5.... timbits soccer. Parents like that suck.

Anyways, Katie had a blast and cant wait to play again on thursday. The season goes until June 23rd so boys, if you guys were at all contemplating a trip up she already mentioned how much she would like you to see her play. No pressure or anything, lol.

Spring is here!

Our snow has been melted for a few weeks now and the temperature consistanly above zero so I think its safe to say it is finally spring! There is some argument, however, that the season up here be renamed to "mud". I tell you this is the weirdest mud I have ever seen in my life, its like sticky quick sand, even more acurate its like that floam stuff but it weighs a ton! Yesterday we were in the backyard trying to level the hot tub pad as we have found a used one we are buying. After a few minutes of walking on the ground under the paving stones my shoes had grown by at least five sizes around and weighed several pounds each... who needs ankle weights to work out!

On the bright side, I am getting in gear for planting and am really excited about the greenhouse. Katie and I went out to the nursery last week armed with notepad and questions. We came home with a list of our future vegetable, fruit and herb garden needs which we are now working on. The greenhouse is just about empty of all our winter storage and we will buy containers and shelves this week. Hopefully by the weekend we can start planting. Katie is very excited as well and was very involved in picking out what we will plant.

I pulled the patio set out and put it up last week as well but I have a project for that as well, the deck is not big enough for that huge table set so I think we will build a small flagstone patio off the side of the deck, I have some cool ideas of course and just have to work up the courage to start digging in the mud again! lol.

Our tomgirl!

We finally got Katie to love being outdoors and dirty!!!! Despite our best efforts our lovely daughter is a very girly girl, who likes barbies, dresses and pink. She hates to get her hands dirty and would usually rather be inside doing crafts or playing dolls than be outside - especially now that it is muddy out.

But.... the other day Daddy bought her a kids quad. Well, she loves it and has been out quading everyday since even in the mud! On Easter weekend we went down to Penticton and then up the hill to visit our camping friends - one of them had a kids quad and Katie got to ride it and mentioned several times how much she liked it.

Quading is a fairly big summer activity up here and as we live right accross from a big field and hill it will be great for her to be able to go out too. We have the one adult quad but cant afford a second right now so this also solves the dilemna of how to fit three of us on one quad and since he got a smokin deal it didnt put us out of pocket.

Rob spent the first few times out teaching her driving rules and safety and she picked up pretty quick - yesterday we went for a drive out to Inga lake (north west of town) and she did great all on her own with very few reminders from us. Jersey chased her up and down the road while we cheered and took pictures.

The little quad had speed control so she cant go very fast right now, and a remote kill switch so we can shut her off if we need to.

It is still pretty muddy and since there is still the remanents of our huge snow pack left it will likely be that way for a while - but our little girly girl has taken to heading for the biggest puddles and pinning it to make a big spray of mud! We are so proud!lol

Photo Shoot of Katie

I had been wanting to have some proffessional pictures taken of Katie for years but it was always one of those things on my list that I never got organized enough to do. I used to babysit for Stu Bish (a renoun okanagan photographer) and I always remember the stunning family pictures they had up all over the house and knew I wanted to have some of my family when I was older. So here I am, older, and figured I had better get on it before Katie was 20. Since David Szabo who did our wedding photos is very busy and booked up, not to mention costly, I decided to try to at least get some amature ones done for now. Ross has a friend he had been telling me about who wants to be a proffessional photographer and who Ross has helped on a few photo shoots, so we called and he was thrilled to do a session with Katie. Chris and Ross picked Katie and I up on Thursday before we left Penticton and we all drove down to OK falls to a few spots Chris had checked out for pictures. Well, let me just say I was pleasantly surprised... he is the most proffessional 18yr old I have ever met. He bought Katie some flowers to hold (which she was just tickled about and had to bring home to dry and save) and then with Ross' help took over 200 shots of her. He did alot with her looking away which is what I wanted and asked a few times if I had any special requests. He came up with almost all the poses and settings on his own and the scenery was amazing. Then he went home and spent 2 hours on his computer program editing and selecting the best shots for me. He gave me a cd with color and B&W of the best shots. They are amazing. He was so enthusiastic - it was great, thanked us and said over and over how much fun he was having. So enough bragging about this kid - here is some of his work.
Oh and his website is www.chrisschoenne.com

Abbotsford

Heres some pictures from the Vancouver part of our trip. Katie and Emilie are 6 months apart and even though we only see them 4 - 5 times a year the two always play unbelievably well together. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and went to Castle fun park for Emilies 6th birthday party - its kinda like scandia in Kelowna - the kids played on the rides, did some bowling and air hockey. Its funny to see Katie in an arcade though - she doesnt like video games and really hasnt had much exposure to them so while the other kids were running around playing Katie was looking very lost and not at all impressed - "mommy I'm bored....theres nothing to do" she says in the middle of 1500 sq feet of arcade type games with at least 100 other kids from 5 - 12 yrs old. She did finally settle on air hockey and had a blast playing with one of the other girls.

On monday we went to Mill lake park and the girls played on the playground while Jacquie and I walked with the baby in the stoller. Its a cool park - there is a walking path all the way around the playground so moms can excersize while kids play. On Tuesday night Dwight offered to keep Emilie, Katie and baby Jack home with him while Jacquie and I went for coffee! It was great, we got to sit, sip coffee and yak like old times. They introduced a bottle right away for Jack so he takes it happily and Jacquie has alot more freedom - because she can leave and know that he can still be fed if he gets hungry. He is such an amazing baby - content like I have never seen, in three days I heard him cry once and it was only really a loud grunt. He is sleeping fairly well, 4 - 5 hours at night and naps lots too, although he likes to eat every 2 - 3 hours during the day. Its been great for Jacquie to be home with the kids and I know she's thinking of alternatives to returning to full time work once her Mat leave is up. Thanks for having us Jacquie, we had a great time.

Its been a while!

I realized today I havent blogged in over a month so I figured I should put at least a short one on! Katie and I were gone for two weeks in March and had a wonderful time visiting all our friends and family. We left on the 10th and flew to Vancouver where we spent one day with my brother Doug - unfortunately Geoff was away at a soccer tournament so we missed him but it was great to see one brother at least! Next time we will spend a bit more time there Doug - maybe in the summer and we can go back to the aquarium and stanley park like last year. We then went out to Abbotsford and spent 3 days with Jacquie and her family - Katie and Emilie had a great time playing as usual and Jacquie and I got some awesome girl chats! Thanks Dwight for watching all three kids so we could go for coffee for two hours on tuesday!!! We then took the bus to Kamloops and stayed with my sister Ashley and her family. Emily was lots of fun and Katie really enjoyed being the big cousin, we were sad to miss the baby as Ashley was induced two days after we left and Kaylee our new neice was born weighing 7lbs, 12oz... in three hours! Congrats Ash and Corey cant wait to meet her, give her lots of kisses from us. We only got to see mom for two days when our visits overlapped in Kamloops - Katie said on the way home "mom - I miss gran, we only saw her for a short time". Hopefully mom will be able to come up here soon to see us again and check out our new home and town. On the bus again to Penticton and we had a whirlwind but terrific time visiting Nana, Aunty Nett, Grandma Funk, great Nana and Papa, Uncle Ross and then all our friends. We got to meet Donna's new dog "Miss Daisy May" - a 4 month old english bulldog... go to Salty's for lunch with Janet, Jaydon and DJ... play with Olivia at the park... have girls night with Janet, Shannon and I... and a great supper with Steve and Sandra.

We had hoped to be able to see more people but it was so busy as it was! We will be down in the summer at least once though so we will catch up with the rest of you then.

Back home things are good - Rob, Jersey and Gracie missed us and were happy to have us all home again. The snow is starting to melt and I actually saw grass in our back yard the other day - the small wonders... lol. Katie had a busy week back at school and of course catching up on play dates with all her buddies, and today we went to Grande Prairie shopping with Sheena, Mason and Makenzie from down the street - it was a blast.

I have so much to say about each part of our visit back home and things up here but that will take a few posts, for now the quick run down will have to do. lol

We still love living up here and despite being a bit sick of winter are very happy. Rob has been busy at work still which is so awesome - he is really enjoying being able to do the trade he loves and is good at but be able to be home with the family too.

We will miss the Poetsch's and wish you luck on your next adventure.

I will actually post some pics of Katie - Ross' friend Chris is an up and coming photographer who did a shoot with Katie for me in Penticton, he did an amazing job and I am so thrilled with the shots. I will put more on and figure out how to link to his site another time, so if anyone is looking for a photographer you can give him a try.

Baby Jack

My best friend Jacquie had her second child last week, a beautiful boy. They named him Jack after her dad who passed away several years ago and who was her hero. And for the ouch part: he was 10lbs, 11oz!!!! But all went well and she was home very soon after, that same day I do believe - they dont seem to keep them long at the coast, it amazed me with Emilie how soon she was sent home. Congratulations Jacquie - I cant wait to see him. Their oldest daughter Emilie is one of Katie's best friends and even though we only see them a few times a year the two girls play awesome. Jacquie and I have been friends since the 6th grade so it must be genetic that our daughters are so close! Emilie looks like a very proud big sister.

Just to keep you all up to date - our trip down may change by a few days as Rob might have to work a bit longer than planned but as soon as he is home to watch the dog Katie and I will be on our way to visit everyone!We are so excited and I know it will go by too fast. If Rob keeps busy for the spring we hope to be able to take at least few weeks off in the summer to camp and visit too - thats the plan at least!