Visitors Information

Let me give you a little run down of what we did this week.

We took Jo, Mom and Bart to "The Ledge".  We took Mom's wheelchair

and strolled all over the entire grounds, up top and down below.

We went to the little gift shop and struck gold.  They had pins, pins

on sale for .15-.50 cents.  Yeah!  We all loaded up.  I bought an Alberta

wild rose pin for Mom, I picked up some post cards and playing cards

for me and Jo bought several pins, some for trading.

 Me and Chris took them the the Italian bakery.  We love the

Italian bakery.  They make a mean sandwich, but we went for treats.

 The sweet, wonderful little circles are called hockey pucks,

they are divine.  They are made up of two pieces of tasty cake,

 filled with delectable frosting/whipped cream and covered with

 chocolate.  Jo got one too and Chris picked the double dipped

cream puff.  

 But, just as good as the Italian bakery, possibly even better is

 this mouth-watering, fruit covered, pavlova.  Yum!

I made one of these for Courtney and Courtney, I just had to

make another one to share with our latest visitors.

If you want to come visit, I'll make one for you too.

 Jo brought me this "fluffy" little chick.

 And between Mom, Jo and Bart, they brought us these priceless

works of love.  There is nothing more precious than these bottles of

homespun goodness.

 Bart brought us some fresh raspberry jam, and I mean fresh,

he bottled it just a week ago and chokecherry syrup.

 Mom brought me mustard pickles, a must have to eat with roast beef 

and sweet pickles, just in time, I'm down to my last bottle of each.

That's one thing I've really missed, preserving.  It was always hard work,

time consuming and a pain to do, but there is nothing like the sight

of all those bottles lined up on the counter, not to mention the taste.

 Jo brought me some hot pepper jelly and these other fun gifts.

A church pin for me and Chris, a primary zipper pull and two

dandy wash rags.   They are too precious to call rags though,

I choose to call them hot pads.  There, that sounds better.

Wow, the visit was so appreciated, and the things they brought

are just icing on the cake, so to speak.

The Big Egg

I've seen the big egg, Mom has seen the big egg, Jo has

seen the big egg.

But Bart hasn't seen the big egg, so we took Bart to see

the Ukrainian egg.

And he was "thrilled", can't you see it on

his face?

And he loves to have his picture taken.

Then we drove them to Mundare, now not even Mom or

Jo have been to the city of Mundare.

The city of the world's largest sausage and the sausage processing plant.

We took pictures of the sausage,

and the blue buffalo, then we went to the meat plant and had several

tasty samples, purchased a few different flavors of sausage and picked up

free pins.  We were so excited.

Bart couldn't wait to get a taste of a sausage.

So noble, don't you think.

I'm sure Tyler could help us read this marker, even though

it's in Ukrainian.  It's surprising the Ukrainian migration and

influence in this area, in all of Edmonton actually.

We've been here a few other times, but I was never able to get the pictures 

of the entry way and gate to the city.

It must be fairly new, it looks pretty nice.

This is a really cool shot with the sausage through the gateway.

I've never even noticed this little tower before, but I did this time.

And this awesome painting on the side of a building downtown.

We went looking for city pins at the museum and found a hidden

treasure.  This was in the window above the front doors.  A replica

of an Ukrainian church or temple.

Look at this wonderful painted portrait of a family,

and these gorgeous Ukrainian eggs.  They are magnificent, so

detailed and very delicate, they are actual egg shells.

New Neighbors!

Spring is here and the neighbors are back, at least the

house sitters.  These Canadian geese are so funny.

They are very noisy as they fly in and land on the roof

across the street.  Then they sit there and "honk".

It was interesting, first it was just one, then the second one showed up.

You always see them in two's, apparently they mate for life.

Mom, Jo and Bart are visiting and they were able to see them

too.  We all took pictures, just so we could remember.

The Family is Coming

Family is everything, especially when you are far away from home, so when

family decides to drive over 1,000 miles to come and visit, it's hard to say no.

Bart talked to me earlier this year and told me he and Penny were planning

on taking vacation time and want to come for a visit.

Well, Bart being the wonderful person that he is, invited Mom and Jo
to come along for the ride.  Very kind and unselfish of him.

As luck would have it, a few weeks before they were supposed to come
Penny was assigned to go to Kansas City for a training for work.
So for their vacation, Penny flew to Kansas City and Bart, being
the considerate person that he is, did as promised and drove
Mom and Jo all the way to Canada for a visit.
We had several days of touring, game playing, cinnamon
roll making, visiting and yummy food.  It was a great time,
had by all.  Again, family is everything.

White What?

Across the street from our subdivision is a field.  When we first

arrived here two years ago, we spotted what we thought were white

elk, but that couldn't be, there are not such things, or are there?

Well, last week, almost two years later, we saw them again.

Sure enough, they are white elk.  We think they might be raising 

them here and then shipping them out to other parks.

I have glanced into this field every day for the past 23 months

as I've turned into our subdivision.  Finally, I thought I was

going crazy.  They are so unique.

I Love Candy!

On our way back home, we flew through Denver. 

While walking around, we stumbled upon this wonderful,

delectable, awe inspiring kiosk of candy.

It's a cart load of Hammond's candy, popcorn and chocolate sauces.

I LOVE Hammond's, we went there once with the kids

while we were visiting Denver.  We watched them make

glorious candy canes and lollipops, by hand.

I'll take um?. . . one of each.  I'll go back again, some day.

Meet Me in St Louis

We didn't arrive in St. Louis until after 5:00 PM.

I had hoped to get some of that wonderful St. Louis BBQ

but we didn't have time to do everything.

Sister Clark took me to the beautiful St. Louis Temple.

We were able to slip in and do some temple work.

It was wonderful and the workers were so kind, knew 

and loved Sister Clark.

The sun was just going down when we came out, 

you can see the effects on the little purple pansies.

The temple is surrounded by other churches 

and their HUGE, fabulous, buildings.

Then we walked around the temple and I took some pictures.

The flowers were gorgeous, flowers haven't even poked their

little heads out in Canada, yet.

I have really enjoyed seeing other temples around

the world.  My dream is to get to as many

as I can in my lifetime.

They are all so unique and majestic.

This one looked particularly glowing in the evening sun.

Holiness To The Lord

The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was a spectacular sunset.

more flowers

They have a fountain in front, we don't have a fountain at the 

Edmonton Temple, too cold.

After the temple, Sister Clark gave me the whirlwind tour of St. Louis.

She took me to their favorite BBQ place that they take all their

outgoing missionaires to.  It was just like on the food network, this

awesome cooker out in front of the restaurant.  She said the ribs 

are to die for.  Unfortunately there was a sign on the front door,

"no more food today, all sold out".

So I didn't get any ribs, in fact, we didn't get dinner at all.

We drove past the St. Louis Cardinals Stadium, the football stadium,

the St. Louis Zoo that she says is free and along the Mississippi River,

past the St. Louis Arch.

It was dark by this time, so the pictures are really bad.  This one shows

the city, through the arch.  We climbed the stairs to the top and looked

up at the arch.  It was so high.

I didn't know this, and I had a hard time believing her, but you

can ride to the top in a tram type car.  Then you can stop and look 

out over the city from an observation deck.  Cool, scary but cool.

If we had come earlier, I almost would have gotten up the courage to 

go to the top.  Maybe, next time I visit?