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Fall Fair!

September 25, 2008 By 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

Foggy morning view

The sun tries to shine through!

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

Mom & Laura

Down the parade route

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

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

4H Dairy show

A little pony in the petting area

A little pony in the petting area

Mic relaxing in the shade, sporting my $7.50 sunglasses!

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!

Then our friends showed us some magic tricks and we headed home for the day!

I’ll post about Sunday’s exciting events tomorrow..

Filed Under: Family, friends

Pie time!

September 24, 2008 By 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

Our friend Stef walking to the fair

Oma and Micaela 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 saying a speech

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!

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

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

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?

Filed Under: baking, Family, friends

On (expensive) Pie

September 19, 2008 By 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!

Filed Under: Family, food, friends Tagged With: , ,

Stayin' Sane in Cowtown

September 17, 2008 By 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!

Filed Under: fashion, friends, life

First Week of School

September 11, 2008 By 5 Comments

This week marks my first week of teacher’s college. So far it is very reminiscent of elementary school – I have classes with the same 30 students all week, and my subjects are things like art, science, math, religion, gym, and so on. Being with the same class all the time is really nice – or it will be once I actually make friends with everyone. Basically by the end of the year all of these people will be like brothers and sisters, and I won’t know anyone else on campus, which is kind of funny. I am taking twelve courses at once, which is a definite increase from the five that is required in undergrad. So that is a little overwhelming.

The University of Windsor is a lot different from the school I attended for my undergrad, as far as I can tell so far. I don’t find myself homesick for my home (although I do miss Kent a lot, obviously – but I will see him every weekend so it’s doable), it’s more that I miss Laurier – the university where I did my undergrad. I keep comparing the two schools in my head whenever I notice something new about Windsor, and it always ends up falling short. I don’t know if it’s just because Laurier is the campus I’m used to and the only one I’ve really spent a significant amount of time on, but in my head it is exactly the way a university should be. The campus was much newer and prettier, I never had to walk through a slummy area to get to campus… and so on. I suppose this might change once I get used to Windsor. Maybe. There is one good thing about Windsor – you don’t have to line up for EVERYTHING. Laurier’s full name is Wilfrid Laurier University – or WLU, and there was an ongoing joke that it really stood for “We Line Up.”

My living situation is going well. I’m living with my friend Jen who I’ve known since junior kindergarten – since we were three! – and two other girls, also in teachers college, that I have just met. It’s always nice to live with someone you are totally comfortable around, that you feel comfortable borrowing things out of each other’s rooms, wearing each other’s clothes, eating each other’s food… I think it just makes a house feel like home. That probably has something to do with having four sisters. With my roomate and best friend from Laurier, Amanda, it wasn’t uncommon for us to come home from classes and find the other taking a nap in our bed, even in fourth year when we didn’t live with each other. So it’s kind of fun to be living with a close friend before I go and get married and live with a boy forever.

Speaking of the wedding – which I will talk more on later – I won tickets to the bridal show in London this weekend. Erica told me that her wedding photographer was having a contest, all you had to do is write a little something about what you love about your spouse. Here is my winning entry on The Last Forty Percent blog.

Finally, a picture of Jen and I in junior kindergarten – I’m the one third from the right in the middle row (if you include the little one in the rocking chair) in the Couturesmith dress. Personally I think I was the best dressed in the class. Jen is the teacher’s pet, sitting on the teacher’s lap! The cute girl in the very center in the white dress was my very best friend up until grade one, when she moved away. And a picture of us a year ago (her in the centre, me on the right) with our friend Michelle.

Filed Under: friends, micaela, thoughts, university, Wedding

What country kids do for fun!

July 15, 2008 By 8 Comments

Our family has always been obsessed with taking pictures, one or more of us always has a camera handy to take pictures of anything that strikes our fancy! One of our fun summer activities has always been taking jumping pictures! Check out these jumping sites: livejournal, and flickr. I remember taking jumping pictures in my room in university, on the trampoline and our recent favourite in the wheat!

A few weekends ago we decided to do an impromptu photoshoot in the wheat.. so please pardon my baseball attire (Re: Short shorts) as I had just finished practice! Lauren, our married friends Laura & Matt, Scott and myself all took part (we may have had to force the guys). Here are some of my favourite pictures (not all jumping ones), stolen from Lauren’s facebook page.

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Filed Under: farming, friends, photoshop, summer Tagged With: , ,

Redeeming myself after a month long vacation from blogging

July 11, 2008 By 10 Comments

You may have noticed that I have not written in here for a LONG time! Well I have good reasons… well sort of. I have had a crazily busy spring and start-of-summer. I have been away about 7 out of the last 10 weekends, I’d say. But don’t feel sorry for me, all of those weekends, aside from Brownie camp and a training weekend for a camp in Toronto, have been strictly for fun purposes – for example, a concert in Toronto (Leonard Cohen – AMAZING SHOW), a musical in Toronto (Dirty Dancing – also an amazing weekend!), visiting Kent’s family in Toronto, a weekend at my friend Rebecca’s cottage at Turkey Point, and I spent this past week at my best friend Michelle’s cottage in Muskoka. An excellent week of lots of boating, sunbathing, ATV-ing, waterskiing, tubing, campfire-ing, eating, and reading. I had a wonderful time hanging out with my two longest best friends and our boyfriends. And I will admit it – I was not one of the ones doing the waterskiing. Tubing I am okay with, but waterskiing just seems over the top scary to me, weirdly enough, considering I grew up snow-skiing and snowboarding just about every day in the winter. I have tried surfing while I was in South Africa, and I am not afraid of things like roller coasters or high diving boards. This week I decided it was probably because, while I swam in lakes and oceans tons as a child, I didn’t spend any time on boats (besides canoes) and I think I only have one memory of tubing as a kid and it does not end very well! We definitely were not deprived children, don’t get me wrong, but my parents preferred vacations (trips out west to visit family, camping trips everywhere, road trips through the States and Canada, trips to Disney World, Europe, ski vacations in Vermont…) to cottaging. I think I’ll be the same way when I’m a parent. Cottaging is relaxing and all, but I definitely prefer the excitement and culture that you get while travelling.

Anyways back to my point, today I visited Katelyn at work and I asked her if she had ever been waterskiing, and she answered “NO! I’m scared of it!” So I’ve decided that this is one thing we can blame on our childhood! Unless any of my sisters would like to prove me wrong… but I am okay with the idea that I will never be a waterskiier. Kent is naturally good at every sport he tries, he even tried waterskiing with one ski this week, and he will randomly pop out with facts like “Did you know I won the grade 11 athletic award in high school?” and “Did you know that I won an Ontario doubles tennis tournament when I was a kid?” So he has no fears about sports and is convinced that I HAVE to try waterskiing by the end of the summer, and I would be great at it, and why don’t I just try? I’m not so sure… my answer is MAYBE.

Now I am back home for the next few weekends, until Kent and I head to Toronto (again! We should really just move there…) for his friends’ wedding. Which is fine with me.. I am a social butterfly but I am also a homebody. Hence the fact that it is Friday night and all of my friends are out having fun and I am sitting at home waiting for my boyfriend to get home from work and listening to an outdoor concert that is going on in my town. Although I’m not sure anyone actually has to go to the concert because it is such a small town that everyone must be able to hear it from their decks! I love being home as long as I know that I have other options, then it seems more like a choice than simply my own loser-ness showing though. Tomorrow night I am heading to an outdoor Rascall Flatts concert with two friends from work and a few others.

I admit that I have not been taking any pictures this summer that I can post, well actually that isn’t true, I have been but they are all on my best friend Michelle’s camera. She lost her camera cord and so they haven’t made their way onto facebook yet, so here is a picture of me at her cottage from last summer!

Hope everyone else has been having an excellent summer too!!

Filed Under: friends, life, micaela, personal, summer, thoughts

We are married!

October 29, 2007 By 2 Comments

Saturday was a wonderful day! The rain/winds did not put a damper on our spirits and everyone had a great time! The dance floor was PACKED all night, it was perfect.

Here are some teaser pictures (stolen from my mom’s blog), taken by Lauren.

Me, the bride! on the front porch.

Just prounced husband and wife!

And this picture is from Scott’s cousin, I really like it!

Now we have a week of relaxation, and then we are off to Costa Rica for 10 days!

Filed Under: Family, friends, life, love, photography, sisters, Wedding

Wedding is in full force

October 26, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Sorry there are no updates! We are all setting up and getting ready for the wedding!

Check back Monday for updates!

Filed Under: Family, friends, sisters, Wedding

Bachelorette Fun.

October 20, 2007 By 2 Comments

Thursday night was my bachelorette party. First we went to the maid of honors house and had a little pre-party there- drinks, games and food! They decided to make it a “stock Kate’s bar” shower, so I got some alcohol there and shot glasses! Ashley (my future sister-in-law) made very cute shirts. The back of the bridesmaid shirts read “Shes our little whiskey girl and shes getting hitched!” Plus a picture of (drunk) Scott and me.

Later in the night we headed to the Ranch, a country bar in Guelph. I was at the Ranch many nights during my 4 year undergrad so it was great to be back, even though it was not as packed as it normally is. At the ranch we drank, danced, took lots of pictures and made friends with the band! All night they would call my name out and say random comments about us. The owner gave everyone with the bachelorette party shots of tequila rose, which I love. We’ll just say the next morning was a bit rough..

Here are some pictures of the madness that occured that night.

Putting on my pink garter for the night.

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Filed Under: friends, photography, sisters, Wedding
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