My little walk

Sundays, after I clean the bank, I usually try to get a little time alone with a walk somewhere. Brian my cousins and I have been reading a book called the Artist's Way. It's amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone, even if you are not into creating much, we all have a side of us that wants to have art in our lives. Anyways, it asks us to take an artist date each week. So far, I haven't been able to get very creative about it, but I have enjoyed my walks alone- or not quite so alone. As I walked down a path today, a deer turned onto the same path without realizing I was there. It was captivated by eating and I just stood there without moving. It wandered my way for a good 30 feet or so before it realized that I may not be it's best friend and hightailed it back where it had come from. It was so cool. I also got to see a duck and about 20 ducklings swim off and scared up plenty of geese.

I'd been looking forward all winter to the beach, but it is so wet still that cleanup has not really been possible. Only this one section was mowed. I'd hoped to find seaweed washed up to put in our compost, but since we didn't find any, the kids helped me gather grass clippings instead. See the bench above that was ripped out of the ground by the water and pushed up onto the play ground? It used to be anchored in by it's cement platform and rebar next to the lake. You can also see water levels on the ramp.


One more day of school- REPORT CARD day! and then the wood tick festival!! Summer is nearly officially begun.

School is very nearly, almost out!!!

Only a few more days of school left! The kids are so totally excited about the upcoming Wood Tick festival- basically an all school carnival. We got to go to it last year. Dominique has already picked out her and Emora's outfits (I told her Emora can pick her own clothes). Dominique gave me instructions to wash her chosen outfit on Monday so that she can wear it Tuesday to the festival! The girls and I went to the little awards ceremony today. It was very sweet. Every kid got a certificate and the joy on their faces was priceless. I like it that way- sometimes the ones with the most troubles at school had to work the very hardest and they should be applauded too. Ivan got his award for academic achievement. I'm afraid he is going to be very lonely for his school friends, but most will be around some through the summer, so we'll have to do play dates and we have grandparents, aunties and uncles and cousins coming for visits, plus we'll go to stoon for a week, so hopefully it'll be lots of fun and a chance to be us again without the school schedule.



Our latest project was a compost box and we've got it half full already! I asked my neighbor for his grass clippings yesterday and now there is tons of material in there! The grossest part is actually not the decomposing materials, but the fact that Saba thinks it's her personal snack bar. She keeps trying to dig her way in, sometimes succeeding. The good thing in that being that she turns it for me!







Ivan has one last soccer game tonight and Dominique on Monday. They had canceled the windup last week when the weather turned crazy. We've had rain nearly every day for a while and the water is seeping up into our unfinished bathroom downstairs, so now it's a bit of a disaster- all the more reason to get it done!

Wow, my littlest daughter has got ATTITUDE! She just told Dominique to "go to your room for 30 minutes." She also cried the full 15 minute walk up to school this afternoon because I took the wagon instead of her stroller up- the reason being that Dominique's stomach hurt so she couldn't ride or walk and it was a much too beautiful day to drive. Then again, she can be so wonderful- handed out hugs and kisses and saying "It's OK" whenever anything goes wrong for someone other than her.

A perfectly beautiful day!!

Well it looks like soccerfest was canceled for naught. It turned out to be a gorgeous day! A little on the windy side maybe, but warm, sunny and no rain. Who would have thought after the crazy storm that rushed through here yesterday? Oh well, it's not all awash... with our day off, we got to sleep in some, stay up last night watching videos and Brian has been working on getting my window paintings hung, which I have been looking forward to for ages!

He removed the old windows from the basement and I painted them. We are going to hang them in the tall stairwell that I really don't like. Then I plan to paint some more in the stairwell when I can see what else is needed. I'm looking forward to it.

Only one more week of school, then a Monday with report cards and the Wood Tick festival. We got to go to it last year and it was a total blast. I'll for sure be taking the girls there for a day of fun. It will be weird going to it this time and having our own home to go back to!

Wild & windy wet weather

The weather has been CRAZY here today. It's been rainy and windy, in Abilene, this would have been the perfect recipe for a hail storm, but I'm thankful we don't have ice pummeling our new plants.

On the down side, our big soccerfest tournament has been canceled. I was looking forward to it! ah well. Ivan's team is going to play the other Fort Qu'Appelle team their age and that is fun too.


I always found it cute how the boys on the teams were so competitive and the girls always seemed to be having impromptu tea parties (minus the tea of course).






The season was short- only 2 months with 6 games, but that is perfect in my opinion. The kids attention span is only so long anyways. I wish every activity was like this. I would love to have just 2 months of dance at a reasonable price, art classes or guitar lessons... for a couple of months then a break to be able to do other interests.

Everything is winding up, school is very nearly done, I'm taking a break from Reading and Rhyme Time at the library and we will soon get into our summer grove, which I've never had before actually, so we will see how that comes along. But I'm sure it will be quite fun.

A Big Day in the Baggett Household

Today was a big day in our lives. Dominique was invited to go for an hour of kindergarten in preparation for the fall. She has been looking forward to it for months and allowed me to help her coordinate her outfit. Usually she wears this dress with loud, patterned pants and shirt and bright red socks. There is good reason why her uncle Ian knicknamed her "Cindy Lauper". She had so much fun and said she wasn't shy and said her name was "Dominique Baggett". She will be in class with her cousin Kellen and with another friend of ours on her soccer team and I'm sure she will quickly become friends with the others in class to.





In Ivan's world, he earned us all donuts for desert tonight. That was our family's way of celebrating his grand finish for his reading road. It ends tomorrow and he read no less than 300 books for it! He wants to do a few more tonight and make it 303! It's pretty amazing how his reading has improved since the start of it and it's been so fun to listen to him and share my love of reading with him.



Other news in Fort Qu'Appelle. The pelicans are here. They are so incredible. Here was the clump of ones I could fit in the frame that were soaring over our street when we came home one day. I couldn't count them all, this was about half of them that time. The geese make lovely sounds too and this robbin raised some babies in our front tree. A blackbird family raised some baby birds too, but they were too high up for us to see.



Janet and I took our kids to see the lake the other day. It's still very high, but the playground is slowly drying out and I scored an adirondack chair that had floated in. Janet actually spotted it, but she just got deck furniture, so she let me call dibs on it. I'll need to sand and repaint it as it's swim caused some water damage to the wood, but it's still sturdy enough and with another board and some care, it will make a great addition to our slowly forming up back yard. I got to put in a flower garden by our front window thanks to a friend who gave me some sections from some of her perrenials. I'm hoping they take ok. They are still looking a bit shocked with the move.

dandelion mayhem

We have been enjoying getting outside now that the weather is gorgeous. It's mostly gorgeous anyways. We'll have a couple of hot days and then a rainy day... which means that our yard is growing like crazy. Our new grass from seed is sprouting up, some of the flower seeds and the new trees are looking good. Unfortunately I have also realized that most of our backyard is weeds. The dandelions look all pretty yellow, but when they died off, you can really tell that there is little grass. Which by the way, these pictures were not taken in our yard.

But then again, all those weeds give us a good excuse to get out in the sun and pull them up all afternoon, kick around in the pool or enjoy the great outdoors- the sound of geese flying by and the majestic pelicans that soar over our street. There were no less than 30 flying in big loops over our street the other day when we got back from dropping Ivan off. The were amazing!

Ivan is having so much fun at school. He got to go on a field trip to the science museum and Imax movie in the city. Dominique also got her invitation to go for an hour of kindergarten this coming week. She is so happy about it.

Shoulder rides

These pictures were from the day we had our picnic in Lebret.


Today it got Saskatchewan hot here about (30 C or 86 F). The sun was bright and shining, Brian filled the pool for the kids, but they declared it too cold and only put their legs in, then played in the yard, while I got some vitamin D and read a good book ;) I was laughing when I saw Brian sitting in the shade. I just love feeling sunshine on me, it's like a massage, nearly as good as the feel of water as I swim.



















I liked Papa's bonnet when he gave Emora a shoulder ride after our hike up the hill.

Glad you made it home safe Nana and Papa and thanks for coming up!!

In the village of Lebret

Dominique declared that we should have a picnic and we'd thought of visiting the village of Lebret to see the remains of a former residential school and to climb the hill where the catholic church has put the stations of the cross and a chapel overlooking the valley. Here we are at the Catholic church. They have a small museum inside that we had toured the last time Nana had come.


The path up from the big church up the hill to the last cross is seen clearly here.






What was not as clearly marked was the high level of aerobic workout that we would be enduring!




Emora warming up on what she and Dominique thought was a reproduction of a mound of whipped cream with a cherry on top.



This little chapel was up part way on the hill.








We made it! I was huffing and puffing and my heart was racing- I'll tell you that. Of course Emora wanted me to carry her most the way. Maybe I can work up to doing this hike without so much difficulty!!







Then we had to get back down!!


But it was worth it, a great view over the valley and a fun little hike, lunch along the shore of Mission lake with the mallards singing us a little song. You could see that there is still a fair amount of flooding here. They say it will take months for levels to get back to normal and that no one should swim in the lakes this year. I'm in mourning! I can't really complain, my house was not flooded at least, but I'd been looking forward all year to swimming out there. I wish some engineer would tell us we could just throw some bleach in there and it'd be safe. That's what they do at the pools. OK, so I'm not the best environmentalist out there!!

Fishing up some more fun

Nana and Papa were here for a United States holiday, so they decked out in festive shirts for the occasion of memorial day.


We visited the Fisheries station and got a tour. The girls loved seeing the fish and especially feeding the big ones in the stock tanks.

We weren't able to go into the biggest teepee in the world (located here in Fort Qu'Appelle)- due to a class in session, but got to read up on some local history at it's entrance.





Dominique was actually our tour guide. I kept telling her there wasn't anything else to see, just offices, then we'd round a corner and there was another piece of history waiting to be discovered.



Yesterday, when we went to the Fisheries it was so windy and cold, but today the sun came out and I bribed Emora to take her nap by promising them I'd set up the pool. This was a regular activity back in Abilene, but we don't have quite as long a season here. The last winter in Abilene, we actually filled the pool in Feb. Here it was June 1st and I had to put quite a bit of warm water in there. The water comes out of the pipes super cold here. Mom used to boil water for our pool when I was growing up to take the chill out. Ivan and Emora found it a bit cold, but got in quite a bit and Dominique- well, she's part fish!