Sep
25
Fall Fair!
Filed Under Family, friends | 3 Comments
As you know last weekend was our fall fair. This year the fair celebrates 151 years, and I’m pretty sure I have not missed one in my 23 years. It’s pretty cool to be able to say that, and most of my family members can say that as well!
Saturday morning I got up early with my friend Stef who was down for the weekend from Guelph. We headed to the fair to dust cases, so that they would be nice and shiny for people all through the weekend. It was really foggy in the morning so it made for some really neat pictures, much different colours then you normally see at the fair!
Foggy morning view
The sun tries to shine through!
After that we walked to breakfast and then walked to the place where we always watch the fair from. Lots of other people joined us there and we all watched the long parade together. It’s especially fun when people you know are in it, and this year mom and our friend Laura were in it.
Mom & Laura
Down the parade route.
For the rest of the day we wandered around checking everything out, and I made sure to snap lots of pictures. One thing we always like to check out is the progress building where all the entries are displayed! This year I entered a few pictures, knitting, a scrapbook page and a pie. I ended up winning 1st place for a picture, 2nd for my novice knitting, and 3rd for my scrapbook page! Mic also entered some really good arts and crafts and ended up winning 2nd for a picture frame she made!
Sleepy pigs waiting for the pig show
We checked out some cow shows, horse shows, the petting area and helped out with childrens games.
4H Dairy show
A little pony in the petting area
Mic relaxing in the shade, sporting my $7.50 sunglasses!
Then our friends showed us some magic tricks and we headed home for the day!
I’ll post about Sunday’s exciting events tomorrow..
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Sep
24
Pie time!
Filed Under Family, baking, friends | 9 Comments
Friday marked the opening of our hometown’s fall fair, which also means it was our pie party!
Our friend Stef walking to the fair
Oma and Micaela walking to the fair
Before the pie party most of us gathered together at the official opening of fair. Our fair has been around for 151 years! After a long day of judging the winners are announced and awards are given out. This year we had a first for our fair, a male was announced as the fair ambassador.
Mom was the homecraft director this year.
Once all the homecraft, school fair, and crop awards are given out, there’s one thing left… the pie auction! Basically the pie auction is a fundraiser for the fair, to keep it running year after year. 15 pies are auctioned off- 1st, 2nd and 3rd in 4 different categories. (Last year Micaela and I made pies and they won so they were auctioned off!). This year we brought home 3 pies to our party (bought by 3 different families).
Expensive pie!
As you can see the pies at our party ranged in price from $230 -$300, but we also bought 2 pies that were not auctioned off for a much cheaper price ($9.00).
The line up of pies
We had cherry pie, apple pie, raspberry pie, unknown (possibly plum?) pie, and peach pie. The raspberry pie was the favourite overall.
Close up of the raspberry pie
I’ll post more about Saturday & Sunday at the fair tomorrow. (See pictures on flickr if you are interested in getting a preview!)
What’s the most you would pay for a prize winning pie?
Sep
19
On (expensive) Pie
Filed Under Family, food, friends | 10 Comments
Tonight, we blondes (ok, three of us) will venture forth to our hometown fair to celebrate all of the wonderfulness of fall, and of pie.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but then again ‘ridiculous’ is pretty close to ‘normal’ for our family and friends. Basically, there will be several hundreds of dollars worth of homemade pie purchased in an auction (benefiting our local fair board) and consumed in a pie party at our farm. The pie might be made by a local with over 50 years of pie baking experience, or it might be baked by a teenager just starting out in the world of baking.
You receive only tiny slices, because there’s only around 5 or so pies purchased. Apple, cherry, or raspberry? A la mode? You got it. mmmmmm PIE…
It’s worth every penny. That our parents spend.
An open invitation is extended. Join us! BYOB. Also, BYO plate and fork.
PS: What is a pirate’s favourite arts and crafts material? Yaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrn! Happy Talk Like A Pirate day!
Sep
17
Stayin’ Sane in Cowtown
Filed Under fashion, friends, life | 13 Comments
There are a couple key elements that continuously keep me goin’ when I am so far away from home, and all the fun that comes along with hanging out with the rest of the girls. Luckily for me, I get to live with the first (and most important) one.
And although this boy is my best friend and my rock, I must add that he is also the first one to drive me absolutely mental. Case in point (point in case? I never remember the correct order):
Tim has of late awarded me with a very umm … endearing nickname. I am no longer “Leah” or “Lee,” he will only refer to me as “Ramekin” or “Rammo” for short.
Tim: “Ramekin, come sit with me on the couch and be my beer holder”
Somhow I agree to this, and while on the couch (while holding his beer) I reach to cuddle with him and he is shocked
Tim: “RAMMO - that wasn’t part of the couch deal.”
WHAT! I actually put up with this business? Well, yes folks I do. Don’t ask, though. Don’t ask me why - for that I have no asnwer.
My friends are also keeping me sane. Quite honestly, I don’t have very many friends in Calgary - you could say that I have two. But I am looking at my amigo situation as a case of quality over quantity, and Nat and Andrew are two of the best friends I could ask for out here. The kind of friends that love to celebrate the good days just as much as they love to commiserate with the bad ones. 
Packages from home also make me deliriously happy. Who doesn’t love presents!?! I was having a pretty crappy week at work last week, and it was like people just knew. On Friday alone, we got a package full of treats and a nice card from Tim’s Mom and Dad AND a girl at Tim’s hotel found a leftover box full of Gillette Venus razors and Covergirl LastBlash mascara and sent some home with Tim for yours truly!
So, so random and so awesome. It gets even better! On Monday, I got a package from my best friend Stef with gifts from Germany, where she had spent the summer. A cookbook to record all of our fave and made up recipes and a spoon holder for our stove - how did she know that was exactly what we needed! It honestly was, Stef I thank you, Tim thanks you and so does my stove!
And I cannot lie, I have been doing a lot of shopping lately. Calgary has a lot of really great Winners and everytime I spot a new one I haven’t been in I have to go check it out. Have you ever noticed Winners plays a lot of melancholic, depressing music? Once the song they were playing was making me soo sad that I dropped all the stuff I was going to try on and bolted outta there before I cried on the fitting room attendants shoulder. Well, today I found a Winners on my way form from a job training I was at and found this amaaaazing Calvin Klein dress. At first I wasn’t so sure but when I got out of the fitting room with it on this woman stopped me and was like “WOW! That looks amazing!” How can you ignore a statement like that?! With a price tag of $79.99 it wasn’t expensive for a dress, so I bought it. I immediately regretted it, as just having purchased a plane ticket home and paying for a conference for work (they will reimburse me someday…) I KNEW I shouldn’t have bought it. I told Tim I am going to return it, but what I really did was call Nat and ask her to find some place/occassion to go where I can wear the dress, and that way I have no excuse but to keep it! That, my peeps, is what good friends are for.
Tell Tim that I must have it! I don’t know if you can tell, but it is all like stripes (tiers?) or black satin and I swear it was made for me.
Lastly, my family. It always seems to boil down to that when it comes to us girls. I have been trying to make sure that I “do the rounds” and visit everyone that I can, and being with them makes me so happy. I do see my moms sister often, as she lives right here in Calgary and she did let us live in her house for a month when she was in France (so, so awesome) and it’s handy that her and her husband share similar interests as me and Tim. Namely wine and hotels. My cousin in Red Deer, Jon, is in a band and I dragged Nat along to see one of his concerts a while back.
That, my folks, is my life at the moment! It’s nothing too crazy exciting, but it’s what keeps me going on a day to day basis.
And girls and friends in London/Guelph: DECEMBER 16 - 28 is when the party returns to Ontario!
