Photo a Day - Long Weekend

I had strict instructions.  Do not bring your camera.  The boy wanted to hike the creek to the lake, and there was to be no picture nonsense.

So I stuck my phone in my back pocket, and we were off.

I had to be sneaky.

We found a beaver dam.

Trilliums.

And fungus.

It took an hour and a half.  It was hot and humid.  But we made it to the lake.

Just to do it all over again,  head back home, and continue with more long weekend shenanigans.

And more sneaky phone shots.

And ice cream.

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Summer Weekend in Kentucky

It's already mid August.  Two more weeks of summer vacation before school and hockey schedules rule our lives.  We've done our best to enjoy this summer, despite work schedules that didn't really allow for much of a break.  We managed a weekend trip to Kentucky, as we did last year, to visit friends.  Driving through the night allowed us to arrive while the sun was coming up.

I had to get my Trader Joe's fix, of course.  Hello Cookie Butter.

There was an afternoon of go carts and mini golf.

Not-so-mini golf, and beating the heat in the pool.

And some good old hanging around in the backyard.

Grateful for friends that open their home to us, and long weekends that allow time for summer road trips.

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Happy Thanksgiving Canada

We're celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, and I have a busy few days ahead of me.  We'll be hosting the turkey sit-down at our house, making a couple of trips to the rink, and hopefully enjoying some beautiful fall weather.  A to-do list is running circles around my head and I don't have it in me to write anything inspirational today, so I'm recycling last years Thanksgiving post.  This weekend is all about family, gratitude, and turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

The long Thanksgiving weekend is here!  As excited as I am about enjoying three days off with my family and sitting down to an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner, I'm also reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for.  Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated the harvest and all the blessings of the past year.  It was a holiday created to express gratitude.  I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately.  I've watched people I love and care about struggle with various crisis in their lives and I am reminded again and again of all that we have to be thankful for.  

Gratitude is about taking notice of what's around you and being aware of all the good things in your life.  Often we are so busy thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past, that we don't see the present and all the things we should be grateful for on a daily basis.  Sometimes we get caught up in comparing our lives to the lives of others and wishing for better or more.  Gratitude is the act of looking to our own lives - the roads that we've travelled, the experiences we've been through, the gifts that we've been given - and appreciating all that this life is teaching us.  Life may not be perfect and our paths may need adjusting, but gratitude requires that we look to the good in our lives and be thankful for it.  Often the very things we take for granted are the things that some people only wish for.  Despite hardships and challenges, when you stop and really take a look around you, life is pretty good.

So this Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful for my family, healthy kids, our imperfect home, the turkey that's in the oven, and the beautiful autumn weather.  I'm also grateful for teachers that do great crafts in their classrooms.  A Thanksgiving table setting can be a beautiful thing, but it's decorations like this that make them great:

Easy, peasy... a potato, some toothpicks and construction paper 'feathers', and a turkey face from a colouring page... love it!

Thank you for the feature!

  

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Kentucky Weekend

A while back I mentioned some dear friends that were moving to the United States, Kentucky to be precise.  A couple of weekends ago we went on a road trip to visit them at their new home.  It was a ten hour drive, and we arrived very late Friday night, but we managed to squeeze in a lot of visiting in two days!

We caught a fiery sunset while driving through Ohio.

Bright and early the next morning we were shooing kids out of the Cracker Barrel gift shop so we could have breakfast.  Biscuits instead of toast, gravy instead of jam... and grits, which got mixed reactions.  It looked like cream of wheat, but it sure didn't taste like it!  The hash brown casserole was amazing and I'm searching for a good copy cat recipe so I can make it at home.

Heading into Louisville for shopping, we noticed horses on display everywhere.  Must be a Kentucky Derby thing.  Which we've been coerced into returning for next spring, by the way.

I managed to snap a few decent shots from inside the car.

Oversize chess sets and a trip to Cinnabon kept the kids from complaining while we shopped for unbelievably inexpensive back to school stuff.

Got my Trader Joe's fix!

Some basketball.

A fire.  And FIREFLIES!  There were hundreds blinking around the property.  I couldn't capture them on camera but it was amazing.  I haven't seen fireflies since I was a kid and never so many as we saw that night.

A round of golf and a swim in the country club pool got the boys going Sunday morning.

An early dinner on the Indiana side of the river so we could admire Louisville.

 

We tried on new words, like y'all and all y'all.

And then began the long drive home.  Our car load of boys found this to be hysterical.  I wonder if the good people of Ohio know what a shart is?

It was an amazing weekend y'all.

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