Category Archives: Family

A few days of photos

B11, A15 and I continue to participate in the March Photo a Day challenge. All our photos are on boards on Pinterest but I haven’t managed to post daily here on the blog.  I think it is really cool how we each come up with different interpretations of the theme of the day. A15’s board.  B11’s board. My board

A few of B11’s latest:

window

loud

Some of A15’s:

red

loud

Here are a few of my latest:

red – I teach art on Fridays so it seemed appropriate.

loud – I live in a house of musicians; sometimes both violinists are practising simultaneously, different music, in opposite ends of the house.

someone I talked to – When we can on a Sunday morning we have a coffee together before church; I liked the big daddy cup and the little bubba cup.

2011 Gingerbread house

Our children have made some fairly elaborate gingerbread houses with friends over the years. This year B11 and I went back to basics with a yummy little gluten free cottage.

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Houses made in previous years:

2008 House

2008 Church

2008 Village

2007 Lighthouse and Little House on the Prairie

Glimpses of our Christmas

We enjoyed some relaxing family time and some fun with friends as well. It was lovely to have Andrew’s mum here with us to celebrate Christmas and experience a bit of Ottawa winter. As always we were spoilt by Andrew’s excellent cooking; the turkey was done with the new Smokenator 1000! 

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Take a look

Several blogs I read post links to a selection of interesting posts and sites each weekend. I am not promising anything as regular as that. Any readers visiting here know that there is nothing regular about my blogs at present but I have come across a few posts lately that really appealed to me so I thought I would share.

Take a look if you like:

  • I love wearing scarves so this post was right up my alley:  25 Ways to wear a scarf in 4.5 minutes. I most often wear my scarves in the “The Modern One Loop” but within 48 hours of watching the video I had worn the “Infinity”, the “Bunny Ears” and the “Hidden Knot”! I’ve even taken to  rearranging  my friend’s scarves while they are wearing them.
  • I was quite taken with a post by Layla from The Lettered Cottage. She posted some photos of a very whimsical campsite where she and her mother spent a few days, along with a very personal list of Things I’d tell my 17-Year-Old Self.
  • I came across this dress which is quite lovely.  So…I am going to see if I can make one just like it.
  • Having been introduced to slacklining when we bought one for B11 a few years back, all of us were astounded by the trailer for I Believe I Can Fly. We have now bought the documentary and I can’t wait to watch it.(HT: Cup of Jo)
  • B11 and I were impressed by these paintings by Alexa Reade. They are not quite what they seem or perhaps they are.

(photo:A15)

Busker’s festival

Ottawa hosts a Busker’s festival every summer. A15, B10 and I went downtown to see what was happening. We have been several times before and I am always amused to see how many Australian acts there are. We stopped and watched four acts this year and two were Australian. I told B10 it was because Math and Science in the Australian schools had been replaced by Circus Studies and Street Performing Arts. He wants to move!

The Juggle Bugs below were great but it was early on the first night and hard to drum up an audience.

Flame Oz came out after dark and they were pretty impressive.

It’s that time again

We have six big trees in our backyard so the raking task is huge.

At least this year B11 can use a cool tool to do it.

It’s way more fun than a rake.

But as you can see he’s not even half way there yet.

Weddings: the violinists

Our family has attended weddings the last two Saturdays and our girls are playing at one next weekend also.  Yesterday and last Saturday we were at weddings of girls we have know since they were ten years old.  We have been friends with their families for most of our years in Ottawa. Both brides especially wanted the girls to play violin, which they did beautifully. There has been some overlap in repertoire for the three weddings but also some new pieces to learn and arrange for each one. One of the perks of playing during the ceremonies, they found, was the close proximity to the wedding party; unfortunately they were not able to juggle cameras and violins. I will post pictures of other aspects of the weddings but why not start with my violinists?

As the girls almost always have to perform in black they were keen to have new “not black” dresses for the weddings.  The guest lists were totally different so wearing the same dress to each wedding was not a problem. Finding the dresses in the first place was more difficult. I was willing to make the dresses if necessary but we decided to shop first. L17 and I went out one evening and within an hour had found a dress which would only need minor alterations.  A15 and I went out numerous times including a visit to the fabric store and kept returning empty handed.  Finally with less than two days to go we found a pretty dress which was long but close to the style she wanted(most she had tried were way too short!) After taking a good look at it I assured her I could transform it into the style she was after but had been unable to find.  Here are the before and after shots:

L17’s dress as we purchased it:

and after I created straps and altered the sash:

A15’s dress as we purchased it:

After I made a few changes:

Seen in Iceland

The girls have been back from Iceland for a few weeks now and are still sharing stories and experiences with us.  They had a fabulous time and both said the landscape was unique and at times breathtaking.  Both had new cameras so I will share some of their photos over the next few days.  First some from A15.

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The Ripstik

When school ended and the summer stretched out ahead of him B10 had one purchase in mind.  J11 across the road had just bought one and was kind enough to let B try it out numerous times.  When B had the money and had done the research we set out so he could buy his own Ripstik.  It looks like a skateboard but has only two wheels.

He has fun around our street but what he really wants is to be taken to the skate park.