October 13-16 Visiting with Loretta

I caught the bus in Kamloops on October 23th, and traveled down to Vancouver to visit with my Brother Robert and his wife Loretta.  Every October, when I am able to, I visit them and make Christmas cards with Loretta.  We always have a lot of fun chatting and crafting.  

Loretta has a lovely house and always decorates it for each holiday.  This is her Halloween display in her kitchen.

Kelsey (the dog) was very excited to see me.  Here Robert holds her on his lap at the table.

 Thursday night we got an early start on making cards, each of us making five.

 Here are my five...

 

And here are Loretta's (they are Halloween cards)...

Friday, we took a short break from making cards to walk Kelsey around the block... one house had decorated a tree next to the sidewalk... very cute!

 Then Friday evening, we went over to Matthew's home (Robert & Loretta's son) and had a yummy cheese fondu, and Antoon (my eldest brother) and Leona (one of Loretta's sisters) joined us.

 Loretta took her usual pictures of the food (she likes taking photos of special dinners)...

 ... so I thought I'd take one, too.

 Here are the cards I made on Friday (a total of 18).

 On Saturday, we took a break around noon to go and see a concert and the different displays at the Burnaby Village Museum.  There was a farmers market, a live choir (boys choir) and lots of interesting displays.  The first picture is of a really interesting house that is supposedly haunted.

 There was a quaint little chapel that had a gorgeous stained glass window.

 Then we waited for the concert to begin....

 And there are some of the boys in the gazebo....

 On our way back to the car, we passed another interesting old home...

 Saturday was the last day we made cards.  I ended up with a total of 39, and Loretta finished with 34.  If it hadn't been for her migraine on Friday morning, she might have hit 40!.

Antoon and Merina visit on Aug 20

On August 20, Merina and Antoon came up for a short visit.  Antoon helped do some yard stuff, and Merina did some cleaning inside for us.  Then we popped outside for a group picture... I used the time delay on my camera and plunked it down on the back of dad's car, so I could be in the picture, too.

How does (did) my garden grow....

These pictures show what my garden was up to on August 20th.  To date, (today being Oct 8th, I've picked nearly 20 pears, 4 cucumbers, 1 spaghetti squash, about 20 ripe tomatoes, and today about 40 or so green tomatoes (we had frost last night!), scads of sweet sugar snap peas, 1/2 a dozen cabbages, several handfuls of broccoli and cauliflower, and 1 zucchini.  That doesn't count the berries, cherries and apples of course.

Now I have to look up some recipes for using green tomatoes....

The View from Chapters Viewpoint Restaurant

The view from the Chapters Viewpoint Restaurant in Kamloops is awesome.  Dad, Wim and I had lunch there on August 13th, which is when I took these pictures.

A Naturally Decorated Christmas Tree

There's this tree in Fadear Park, right next to the Community Garden, that has a vine growing through it, making it look like a Christmas Tree!  Very neat... the rest of the trees in the park don't have it.

Barriere's Community Garden in Full Bloom

On August 9th I strolled through the Community Garden in Barriere, and took a bunch of pictures of all the lovely flowers growing there.  They are gorgeous!  I haven't a clue what most of them are called - but who cares when they are so pretty.