Trying on hats and taking pictures in John Lewis...until we were (politely) told not to. Oops.

But really, who COULD resist getting photos of this!!

A Facinator (oh, and there's a blue thing on my head)

Now THATS a hat. Look out Ascot...here we come.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Happy Father's Day Jason!

We love you so much. You do so much for us. Thank you for all the things you do everyday, like the gross jobs I don't want to think about (unclogging the drain - GAG), to all the other jobs I really don't think about (changing the furnace filter). You are an amazing father and partner.

Love Maddie and Mommy

And now...Maddie's message:

"I love when you gives me toys and listens to my words. I love when you hug me. "

This is a secret message from Maddie to her Daddy:

isedxgdgh5dff5e
ghgfgrgggvdgdrfvggggggg









gsesgesrfvreycdvgtcturedwaccccccawy



8jf wkeqyFYRFTTGFATAYTIAYGIFFYGX66496456HTEY50R-T3WGFWGA


LOVE MADDIE

Latte pour

Janna is my office mate and she is also self trained barista.  She loves showing me pictures on her phone the way my mom shows pics of maddie.  Well Jmo, thought you would be proud of this one. Did it all by myself.  No, its not a leaf....i  call it dysmorphic frog eyes...

ahh bollocks

all the other posts are lost.  argh.

ok, well I'll tell you all a little story to tide you over:

so one night (maybe tuesday?) we went to see Billy Elliot.  It was perfect.  So fantastic and the best thing I've ever seen.  Morgan you were right - I did cry:  twice. The theatre was beautiful, the production amazing. And we had such perfect seats, only a row or three from the front!  Mom - thank you for such a great experience.

And then the adventure started...as always, Mom and I never just travel from a to b in a humdrum way.  Nope, there's always an adventure.  So we were on the tube, heading home when I notice the woman across from me and beside mom is sitting quite rigid and leaning forward.  I look at her, thinking maybe she is not feeling good. I have never looked into eyes like that before. I was instantly afraid.  Actually terrified is a better word.  When I looked into her eyes it was like a one way ticket to crazy town.  I realize that is probably very offensive to mental illness, but she was beyond that - she looked, well deranged.  But I thought, hey we are all people here don't get all judgy wudgy.  But then she stared at mom.  Like leaned forward more, turned around and had a good long look.  Yep.  A stop came and I thought - oh she'll get off here and we'll be fine.  Only she didn't get off.  So I decided we better get the hell of off  the Crazy Train.  I stood up, said "this is our stop" and got the hell off.  And proceeded to shake like a the little sheltered leaf that I am.  Mom of course, wasn't the slightest bit rattled.

So we wait for another train, it comes, we go to get on and see a well dressed man in a suit and tie leaned over and passed out with his face on the floor.  So we get on the next car over.  And proceed to stare at him to see if he is breathing.  He was. 

We finally get home and I lock all the doors.  Mom just whistles in.  Obviously this was just another night in the Nursing Station...But trust me, we don't see that kind of action at good ol KCC.

Long story short - we are going to the theatre again tonight (Pygmallian) so I'm sure we'll have yet another adventure. 

I'll be home tomorrow.  Can't wait to give Maddie and Jason and the Beags a BIG hug.

j

AHHHH!!!

Here I am at Paddington Rail Station (do you know Paddington Bear? His place).  Anyway - we have had some slight technical glitches.  My last three posts wouldn't go through and I thought they were at least saved but now they don't seem to be.  I'll check again.  I've borrowed mom's netbook so that will make this post MUCH less painful.  I think we can all agree that I am not an expert thumb typer.

Today is my last full day in London. I am excited to go home tomorrow and see Jason and Maddie but I'm also a little shocked and sad to discover my holiday is almost over.  Always goes too fast.

I will blog a bit here on what happened yesterday and then I'll see if I can find the other posts and put those up as well.

So yesterday morning we headed out and OMG I don't remember what happened yesterday morning. OH, we took the tube straight to St Paul's Cathedral.  Amazing and moving.  Truly.  They have a brief prayer every hour and I found something about this incredibly moving.  Lit a candle after that.  Then, must have been the delirium, decided to climb the 500 (I'm sorry, I don't think you heard me - FIVE HUNDRED) step to the tippy tippy top of the dome.  Yikes.  Bit of a cardiac moment and my legs were shaking on the last 100 steps down.  For a girl with a self diagnosed fear of stairs I think I did quite well.  Some points (don't have the pictures downloaded on mom's netbook yet) some points the stair well was literally (say this with your best Brit accent)  leh'trahly as wide as me. 

So we did that and then we bustled on over to the V and A.  I always say the Victoria and Albert is my favorite and really it is.  Love that place. BUT the dress display was closed until 2012. Bloody wankers.  Argh.  Had a good time going through the display of theatre costumes and the british galleries. 

ok, my lunch has arrived.  so I'm going to eat.

More later!  and DONT send any money to Mom  - her email was hacked but we are safe and sound.

J

Where are the pictures???

So heres the deal...im doing these posts with my little hand held thingamajig. That means I have to type with my thumbs and post only the pictures I take with this thing.  When I use my camera I cant post them.  But never fear I will post like a little blog demon as soon as I get home.

I was just sbout to post a pic of mom reading in bed but she put the ky-bosh on that one. 

Bristol and Family

Today we raced, as only mom and I can, to Bristol.  We had three important items on the agenda:
1 meet Anne and Mick
2 tour the SS Great Britain
3 catch the 3:30 train to London

60 miles, eleventy billion roundabouts, one muligan, a brief tour through the dodgy part of town and 2.5 hours later we made it to Bristol.  Sweet mother of pearl. What a trip. 

1 Anne and Mick are our cousins.  Stick withme here....  Anne's grandmother and my mom's grandmother were sisters.  Anne and mom met bc they both use Ancestory.com to research our family trees.  We didnt see any family resemblance but Anne has a great sense of humour so we must be related.  It was so great to meet them both, I really had so much fun talking with them. 

Anne and Mick:  thank you for coming out to see us.  I hope you will make the trip to Canada soon!  

2 the ship.  This boat is important in my family bc my great grandmother's brother was born on it while they were travelling to Australia.  Mom and Anne pls edit this as nec. 

3 we made the train and now we are in London!  Already went to Harrods.  Tomorrow is the London Eye,  lunch with Paul and Sue, then Billy Elliot in the evening.  Another full day so im off to bed.

Night kids.
J

The Cotswolds: Bourton on the Water

Well another day of driving under our belt.  Me behind the wheel and mom navigating.  She is our JPS = joyce positioning system....

Tonight we are in a very touristy little place.  Like Banff for old people.  But it is absolutely beautiful with flowers and trees and wonderful stone buildings.  And hands down the best sticky toffee pudding so far.

One of these pics had little ducklings.  Can you find them?

Dorrington

Good morning from county shropshire!  I had such a great sleep last night and woke up to a rainy morning.  Wish I hadcite curly hair bc its  gonna be a fuzzy day.

We are in Dorrington. Its a small town where lots of my people come from.  Last night we went to the church down the road from our inn.  Found so many from my family.  Mom has done a lot of research so she knew who they were. 

The building next to is apts now but used to be our familys blacksmith shop.  Our inn has a photo of my great grandfather and his brother in front of it.  Always so amazingto see where you come from.

Im posting on my android gt so bear with me bc typing with mythumvs is a pain in the ass. 

Now for some very unedited photos.....

26+ hours later....

We are here.  Literally planes, trains, and automobiles but we made it.  And now for a nap.  Dont worry there will be more deets later.

J

Those of you who know me well know that there isn't much I love more than looking for and purchasing reasonably priced JUNK. I love love love it.

One of my most favorite places to shop is Great West Warehouse on 20th here in Saskatoon. It's like a garage sale EVERY day. They have three stories, and I have found treasures every time. The top floor is couches, beds, and bedroom furniture and up there everything is second hand or vintage. We bought end tables and a coffee table from up there. They are still in the garage awaiting their face lift.


The basement is sometimes the greatest place to find a deal. That's where all the "hotel" stuff goes. Like 50 chairs from hotel rooms. And 75 lamps. I bought my bedroom wall sconces there about 7 years ago and I still love them. They were $4! I bought bar stools for Dad's garage and then recovered them. They had pedestal sinks there from The Bessborough (Saskatoon's Castle). I bought my kitchen stool from there - it reminded me of one that used to be at my Grandma Hurst's.

This chair is one of my more recent purchases. I found it on the top floor, hidden behind some other stuff. Paid $50 for it. Then on another random day, Madge and I were at the thrift store here in town looking for wool sweaters and I found 3 meters (I'm guessing) of fabric for...yep...$2.50. FOR THE WHOLE THING.

Then for my birthday, Lisa gave me a peacock pillow from Pier 1 that I had been admiring. (50 points to Lisa)

So ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the following results:



BEFORE






And....AFTER!

Stay tuned b/c I'm pretty sure I'm going to paint this chair. Just have to clear a spot out in the garage first.

Februay 2010

Have I posted these before? Just found them when I was looking for something else. These are 100% Maddie - I did NOT do set these ones up (despite what you are thinking).

 

 

Princess Madeleine

Um, not really sure what words are needed here.  

She is my daughter and she loves dress up.  It's genetic. 

Tomorrow will have been a year.  Really?  Is that possible?

Treena is my hairdresser and friend in Warman.  She is one of the normal people I have met here.  As some of you may know I haven't found it as easy as I thought to settle in here and feel a part of the community. I know a lot of that is to do with the fact that I drive into the city every day to work.  And so I haven't met many people.  But when I met Treena I knew she was "one of my kind of people".



Please check out her website.  Some of you may have seen her and her family on the news a few months ago.  I'm trying to figure out a way to give my Felty Felt profits to this organization.  The giving the profits isn't the hard part - it's making some profit that might be tricky.  If Lisa and I ever get our ass in gear and open an Etsy shop then hopefully I'll have $5 to send her way. 

http://www.thegedeboproject.com/



SPEAKING of Felty Felts:

Two (actually three) wonderful pkgs came in the mail in the last week or so.  The first, was a glass Christmas ornament from Steph.  (THANK YOU).  I'm pretty sure it's to replace the one Maddie broke last Christmas. Steph is the girl who sent me her Holiday cards in March, so a gift in May works out well.  Next I recieved three wool socks with a request for some Coffee Cozies from Claire and Colleen - I'll get on it ladies!  And finally my friend Em Dawg's mom and dad sent me some wool sweaters.  I'm going to try and felt them this weekend.

Speaking of "I'm going to..."  I better get off them damn computer and get "...going to-ing...."

Next week at this time there will be a post from a surprise location!  Stay tuned kids.

Ok kids, here are some of my oldest friends. Is this picture from 1980? Noooo, but the shirts are! Fer. Real.

At Easter Mom and Dad asked (told? threatened?) me to go through the last of my boxes from when I was small. Inside I found ALL KINDS of treasures, but best of all were two of these t-shirts. I'm wearing a Killarney shirt (Pam, are you loving this?) and I found a Boissevain shirt that I gave to Patti (her home town). When I pulled the shirts out in Edmonton, Randa scampered off and returned with her own Heggestad Brother's shirt from Frontier and this lovely Jump Rope for Heart shirt for Allison.

How great is THAT?
And in case you're thick as a plank - I spent my elementary years in Killarney MB and still have some great friends there (hi Pam and Karen!).

So all you whipper snappers with your "vintage style" shirts from Old Navy - eat your HEART out.

The Head Cook and Bottle Washer.

We referred to him as Garcon (pronounced GAR-CON if you will)

Corey literally kept us fed and watered the entire weekend. It was better than an all inclusive resort. We even had my personal favorite - WTF sandwiches (grilled veggies, a million cheeses, pesto, aioli) - LOVE LOVE LOVE those sand-ridges (as Joyce would say)

Our Mascot for the weekend...

Fin the Incredible!

Coffee, Cupcakes and Gin.
Really, what more does a girl need?

BTW - after a weekend of THOROUGH research, Allison and I have come to the conclusion that Saskatoon's own "Cupcake Conspiracy" kicks "Crave"s cupcake ass! GO TOON TOWN!

My Girls

Friends for 18 years. Hell, that's half our life, when did THAT happen? We are going to Vegas to celebrate our "20th" anniversary in two years. Watch out LV b/c maybe (just maybe) no one will be preggers or feeding a cute teeny baby that year.


For those of you who don't know, allow me to introduce:



Randa
"Professor Barbie"

Patti (or you may know her as Sarah Richardson)
"Marathon Barbie"

Allison
"Fashion Consultant Barbie"


I love you guys - thank you for such a WONDERFUL weekend.