A special afternoon

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon on Saturday for Brynlie's birthday.  We're thankful to have a wonderful pool to use for such a special occasion :)  It was a nice sunny time filled with

jumping...

 

cartwheels

  sliding

fun splash time with cousins

cupcakes

( blowing the candles)

 feeding the dog the leftover crumbs

and some delightful presents!  This monkey from Auntie Jodene and Matt was not let out of her sight for several hours!  She also spent a LOT of time taking good care of her baby with her new diaper bag :)

Oko the monkey even got a ride in the special new tricycle. 

Thank you to everyone who came and spoiled our wonderful little monkey!
And a huge thanks to Krista (and Leanne) who took all of these pictures as I organized and fed the masses! :)

Enjoy your week :)

Happy Birthday, 2 year old!

Happy Birthday to my special little lady, Brynlie Willette!

Two years have flown by :)

We're so thankful for the joy you add to our lives,

for daily laughter, hilarious hair, and such personality!

We love you, Bob!

  Reminiscing...2 years ago

 

Our dear Brynlie, we pray God will continue to guide and keep you as you grow this year!

Thanks for looking - wishing you a cheerful day!

Alberta 2

The last shots of our Alberta trip.  I ddn't want to skip them because they're so cute!  We see Tyson and Miley about once a year, and this was a great but short visit!  The kids hit it off right away, first enjoying taking pictures of things (I took a picture of Tyson as Chelsie did to get that second shot!), then taking a spin on Uncle Harvey's John Deere gator.  Chelsie was thrilled to get a turn driving!

 Mugging it up for Chelsie's camera...poor Miley got the chokehold :)

 A quick visit to see a calf and some kitties

 Pretty thrilled grins!

 The back of the load

 The next morning we left early and watched God's beauty appear as the sun rose and we headed homewards

 A lovely trip to Alberta concluded

Alberta II

Alberta did not disappoint in the beauty department.  We stopped at Lake Louise on the way to Lacombe and thoroughly enjoyed walking around this STUNNING lake!

 The sun had a beautiful rainbow circle around it, part of it shown in this picture

 From there we took Highway 93 north through part of the ice fields before turning east on Hwy 11.  We saw 2 black bears - what amazing creatures.

 And the glaciers amazed this geography major!  I'd love to get closer - this is zoomed in

 while this shows the view from the road.  Awesome!

 The amount of snow and ice kept my mouth gaping open for most of Highway 93 :)

 The reason for our trip - a very dear couple got married!  Congratulations, Jeff and Laura :)  This picture was taken at the end of a warm reception, but the love and joy is real!

From Lacombe we decided to take a day to visit family in Fort Macleod.  We enjoyed the beautiful canola fields :)

 And Chelsie was given the opportunity of a lifetime!  She fed Pablo or Buckwheat, a young baby fawn that Auntie Wilma was raising until it was ready to go to a wildlife sanctuary.  It was rescued from the swather in Uncle Brian's field and brought here.

 What a tiny and amazing creature!  We truly saw great and small on this trip

 Auntie Wilma's place was a great adventure - Nibbles the sheep, several dogs, many cats, a fawn, horses, a trampoline...these girls could have moved right in!  Thanks for welcoming us and even feeding us lunch!

A few more pictures to come of time with the other side of the family...

Backyard birding...literally

Sometimes to bird, you don't even have to leave the house.  This was backyard birding at it's best - and quite a surprise for us!

Tonight as we sat down to supper, something odd caught my eye down in the backyard.  I looked twice to make sure it was what I thought..."Um, Brian, there's an OWL in our backyard!!"  This Great Horned Owl was hanging out on the border of the wetland covenanted area of our backyard.  The birds in the bushes behind him were putting up quite a ruckus!  

 Enjoy the pictures. He looks like he's half asleep as he checks out the people checking him out!

 Through the binos as he turned around

 He liked these fence posts.  When he finally left the noisy crows behind, he flew to a branch, then another post further away.