Belated Merry Christmas 2017 and Happy New Year!!!

Wow it's been quite the year. 

It's been busy, busy, busy!!! 

I just read my last post and the next day was going to be the kite festival. 

Well here are a few pictures! 

We are addicted  to kite flying!

It's hard to take pictures of all the kites at once, but there was a ton of them.

The next day we were off to what Nova Scotians call the South Shore.

They were having a whirly gig festival and I love whirly gigs!

It was in Shelburne. 

Shelburne is also known to be the set for the movie

Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore.

That was a long time ago. I think it was in the '90s

We then went to the Birchtown Museum. 

Birchtown is known for where the black loyalists settled.

If you've never read The Book of Negros....

well you need to.

CBC made a mini series last year on it. 

Of course it's not as good as the book, but it was still pretty good.

So I wanted to visit the museum and to see the area mentioned in the book and the TV show.

It still boggles my mind on how humans can treat one another.

What gives us the right to enslave people, treat them lower than dirt...

I have to stop talking about this because I get so upset when I start.

Some places in the museum you almost wanted to cry.....

But then we were off to Carter's Beach.

In the summer on nice days, the water is like the Carribean, 

turquoise and beautiful.

It was cloudy the day we went, but nice all the same.

There's also sand dollars!!

I didn't even know they existed in Nova Scotia, but they do.

So cool....and seals and seals, and more seals.

Jamie and a sand dollar.

Well I talked about the Grand Fondo and we participated!

And I didn't come in last!!!

I can't believe that I finished.

We plan on doing it again this year.

We only did the piccolo which is 34km.

This year they had the super gran which was 160km!!

Can you imagine!?

Coming through the finish line!

My medal and jersey

We had a beautiful fall. And I had a bumper crop of tomatoes!!

So much so that I had to make salsa again.

I hadn't made salsa in years. I mean at least 10 years.

We will be making some again next year. We forgot how good it was.

I bottled over 50 jars and I think half is already gone.

The reason for all the different colour tomatoes is because we plant heirloom

varieties. They taste a lot better than the hybrid ones.

We got rid of the side by side because it wasn't what we needed. It was too big for our needs. 

Sooooo we got a golf cart! It's red and when my friend saw it, she said you should make

it into a ladybug!

She didn't have to say it twice!

I love, love, love it!!!!

I zip around the property on that thing like nobody's business.

And we live close to the golf course, so I just drive it there when I play the occasional 

round of golf.

Jamie now refuses to drive it on the golf course. tee hee ;)

I think it's cute.

We also brought my cousin and his wife to see New France

There's also a place called Balancing Rock....as you can see by the picture.

This fall I started a new part time job. 

No I don't have enough to do with my full time job, my gardening job, my studies etc...

I decided to apply to be a radio host at our local station. I do the radio bingo every second Friday night and I have morning show every second Saturday morning from 7-12!!! 

Isn't that soooo cool!

I love it!!!

I actually have fans.

That's such a weird feeling. Jamie and I were talking while waiting to go see a movie 

and a woman recognized my voice.

I'm still doing the CTV Morning Live gig every few weeks. That's fun also.

I wish I could do these things full time.

Now that would be a blast!!

Well Christmas came upon us and it was nice.

We had new additions to the family. 

Like I've mentioned before, my cousin and his wife moved down from 

Ontario. So we spent time with them. My uncle, (my cousin's father), is in

the process of moving down here also.

Soon all my father's family will be down here!

That would be cool.

Dave had a local artist carve Simonne our Dachshund.

 She carves with a chainsaw.

I love it! 

Well that's about it for 2017.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

Summertime! Summertime!!

Summertime is almost over. 

Yup. 

It's gone before it even begun.

It's been a pretty good one so far.

We haven't climbed Mount Everest or anything spectacular like that

but we've done lots of things as a family and just as a couple.

Jamie is 16 now. Yup. 

How did that happen.

So he's got a part time job and his motorcycle licence.

And yes I constantly worry. I'm a mother, that's my job.

But because he has his motorcycle licence he's free to roam where he wants as long

as he's off the road before dark.

So that leaves Dave and I with more couple time.

That's the perks and downfalls of having kids.

You hope that they'll grow up healthy,happy and independent and 

when they do, you're like "What the heck!? Where'd you go?"

But I'm happy for him.

As long as he stays safe.

He's already learned that other drivers are crazy.

I wont go into that.

The gardens are growing well. I feared for the tomatoes since only tiny little green things were growing. But after Saturday night's rain, they seem to have gotten bigger. Which is strange since I know that tomatoes are picky when it comes to watering, so I water them regularly.

They must prefer the rainwater.

It's been a strange spring and summer. It was a cold spring and a hot summer for a few weeks and now it's a cold summer. Some mornings it's only 8 degrees Celcius. Brrrrr

I've had to plant my yellow beans THREE TIMES!!!! Finally they're growing okay.

Rain has not been plentiful, but it's better than last year.

The garlic is doing well. As you can see. I picked some more tonight. It's a smaller, different kind.

Sadly both of Dave's parents passed away this spring. So we had some family business to attend to in Ontario. We also turned it into a family vacation. We stayed with his cousin and did a few touristy things. But mostly it was to relax after the stress of everything that had gone on.

The day before we left to come home we spent it in Toronto. I've always wanted to go to Kensington Market. It's a real hip, funky place. And they had a car on the side of the street planted with trees, grass and flowers. How cool is that!

We also went to the Warsaw Caves in Peterborough. We didn't go to the caves, but took a nice walk in a cedar forest that had kettles and strange rock formations. That's Jamie at the bottom of the kettle.

We also got stuck in a thunder, lightning and downpour on our walk. Memories!

I've also been doing lots of jams and jellies. Here's part of my strawberry freezer jam stash!

The Acadian Festival was on last week. This is my table at the bazaar.

I also visited a quilt expo. Mind boggling! Just mind boggling.

We were actually thinking of selling the camper because by the end of July we hadn't gone once!

But one night there, and we changed our mind. We're staying. 

We camp what's called seasonal. We just park the camper at one campground and leave it there for the entire summer. We prefer it that way. I guess it's like having a cottage.

The girls are happy about the decision since they love camping.

Then a few weeks ago I had heard about low tide kite flying. 

So I decided to go and get pictures and information to talk about it on 

CTV Morning Live.

Here's the short (very short segment) I had on CTV Morning Live

Well by the time I left there, I was hooked!

Not only do I love it, I bought a kite!

Think about it....kite flying while you're standing on the ocean floor. It's just wow.

That's Nova Scotia living! 

That's me, Dave took my picture while I was flying the kite yesterday.

I turned 50 this summer also.

And I have so many things to be grateful for, one of them being my health. I've noticed that, except for my heal spurs, I'm in excellent health. I'm on no medication, no health issues whatsoever.

So I want to keep it that way.

So I'm going to go in le grand fondo

I'm not totally crazy, I'm just doing the little one. 35km.

That's enough.

Tonight I started training. I almost did 10km in 40 minutes and didn't need resuscitating. 

So I think I'll be ready by the end of September!

Well I think that's enough news for today. 

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa