Hello my lovelies,

I am hoping you are all well, and having a great week so far? What have ya been up to? Busy as usual?

Today I have some Monkey cards for ya…..up to some monkey business, or not, they are soooon darn cute! I love these two images from CC Designs at All that scraps, and had a blast colouring them both up.

First up I have a Monkey thank you card:

Isn’t that the cutest monkey you ever did see?

I had so much fun putting this creation together. I have used Kraft and Chocolate cardstock along with some October afternoon dsp. I added some stitched red ribbon and the greeting which is from PTI (Signature greetings). I have cut the monkey out with my nestabilities and coloured him with my Copic markers…..

The next monkey creation, is using similar colours and a different monkey image:

For this creation the dsp is from My mind’s eye, and the rhinestones, and kraft ribbon is both from Stampin’Up.

So there you go, some cute monkey creations…. I like this variety of monkey’s best, as they are so much more quiet than the real ones, and cuter too!

Have a goodie, my monkeys!

Howdy folks,

How is your Monday going? Hope you are having a good one……Mondays can just be one of ‘those’ days huh? Anyway I hope it is all going well for ya!

Today I have two BIKE creations for you. Spose that has you wondering?? I just happened to stamp two images that had bikes in them, and thought I would put them together in this post….LOL!

First off I have a PTI button bike, which I think is rather cute, if I say so myself. I am loving that greeting too.

Love those wheels….hehe. I have used Riding hood red cardstock for the base, and the DSP is from Cosmo Cricket. I added the buttons and twill tape along with the greeting stamped in Not quite navy ink.

Next up is a Stampingbella stamp. I love the name of this stamp too…….”I wish i looked this good on a bike Bella”….isn’t that hilarious! Oh but how we all think it though!

Here she is in her beautiful-ness…

Love those loooonnnngggg legs!

So there you have some bike creations….now tell me, do you own bike stamps? They certainly are a bit different, but different is good!

Have a great week peeps!

Hey peeps,

Remember that beautiful photo i posted recently of me with my spunky brother? Well I finally got around to getting some copies printed and actually Scrapped! YAY! I have a spot above my desk where I love to put my scrapped pages, and seeing as I miss my Brother dearly, I like to keep a photo of him up there, so I can think of him often.

Anyway, here is my scrapped page of that ‘One of a kind, Brother of mine”

love that man!

I have used some Chocolate chip, Very vanilla, and Pumpkin pie cardstock from SU along with some October Afternoon dsp (love this paper!) . I have stamped the reeds from the Inspired by Nature stamp set (SU) on the background. The greeting is from One of a kind stamp set (SU).

Can’t wait to see Bryn again in August!

Thanks for looking and I hope you are having the bestest day ever!

Hey again,

Okay so after spending time today editing all my photos from our trip through the Rocky’s, Rod has dropped me off in town with Tiarne, and I am getting some internet work done…..hence the two posts in one!

Monday we took off in our HUGE motor home to head for the Rocky Mountains. I was a little nervous at first as we maneuvered that thing through the traffic. Once on the road, I realized that we were just one of MANY RV’s heading through the Rockies! It is mind boggling how many people travel around with these things!

So we headed off full of anticipations and excitement. I really had no idea what we would be seeing, but my mind could never comprehend what I was to see. It didn’t take long before the first mountains were to appear! Totally breathtaking!

The first night we made it to Mt Revelstoke and stayed at this great place called Canyon Hot Springs. The park was beautiful. They had these two pools that were feed by the Hot springs near by. One pool was 31 degrees Celsius, and the second was 40! Pretty hot! It was so much fun for the kids to swim again, and I was amazed that I could be sitting in a hot spring and staring up at the snow covered mountains! Here is a pic of what I am talking about…

The first place we stayed….

Can you see the snow covered mountains in the background? Just beautiful!

On our way to Lake Louise we stopped off at a place called Takakki Falls……..WOW this place really rocked that water down the Mountain. It was absolutely FREEZING here!

Here we are with all our hoods on, on the bridge you cross the river to get to the falls…..

The next day we headed off again and made it all the way to Lake Louise. What a magnificent place this was. Lots of people around too, and I saw my very first real life Amish people! I know that is nothing to amazing, but after reading all those Beverley Lewis books and also doing much study into their religion, and lifestyle for my Senior English a few years back, it was a bit exciting to meet them. I took family photos for them too

Here are the kids at Lake Louise……look at that water…just stunning!

This photo I took of the hotel overlooking the lake and the line up of Canoes….

We got out really early the following morning to take some good photos, with the right lighting…..Rod did a really good job and here is some of his photography.

Lake Louise….

Pretty hey? I suppose all that $$$ we spent on a wide angle lens before we left was worth it!

We also went to Moraine Lake which is nearby, and I personally think is more stunning that Lake Louise….. The mountains are beautiful!

I love that set of mountain peeks!

This was one of the early morning shots….nice and bright

Then this shot was taken about 11am and you can see the cloud has come in, but the water is stilled so we captured the reflection of the mountains.

The first Aussies we met on this trip, took this shot for us. They were from Taree in NSW…. lovely retired couple.

With that done we stayed at the Lake Louise campground……it was really primitive here! Certainly something different for me, this camping. I am so used to having my mod-cons, and here not having internet, phone, or power……YIKES! and not to mention no washing machine too! Also being the 6 of us in the small confines of a motor home can be daunting at times to say the least, but we are surviving and trying to enjoy every moment. Rod and the kids are in their element, loving the nightly camp fires and toasting Marshmallows.

The next day we made our way to Jasper, and on the way we stopped at the Athabasca Icefield, which was pretty stunning! We took the tour and went in the huge snow mobile up onto the icefield…..amazing stuff. So darn cold though. We haven’t really been prepared for cold weather. I packed a couple of jumpers and we have lived in them day and night! All our photos we are wearing the same clothes because of the same jackets….lol! People will think we took no clothes other than that along!

Brrr, very cold her out on the Icefield! Tiarne headed straight back to that snow mobile to get warm….

On our way to Jasper we were delighted to see a Black bear on the side of the road. We parked and went to get a closer look and take pictures! A rare sight, so it was really special and the kids really were excited too!

Another place we stopped…. the name alludes me, but Rod got the photo of Elijah up on a big rock looking at the mountains. As well as this shot of one of the lakes…

We then had a wonderful time down in downtown Jasper….what a beautiful town site. The shops here are adorable, and so quaint. We managed to do our laundry, at the Laundromat and I could quickly upload my emails and publish that challenge post. I caught this amazing rainbow on my camera just as we were leaving town back to the campsite…

See the mountains in the background?

This morning again we got up nice and early to head to Maligne lake. We had heard that you can often see lots of wildlife along the road if you go at dawn….and we did. One the way we saw a bunch of these Elk..

I think she is thinking…….”WHAT YOU LOOKING AT?”

Next up we saw a big Bull Elk, with the HUGEST rack!

Then we were blessed to see these two beauties……

Yup Black bears! There was two of them and we managed to get up reasonably close to get good photos. These were number 3 and 4 that we had seen in the past few days, and definitely the biggest!

Here is a photo of the beautiful Maligne Lake that we saw this morning….

It was pretty grey this morning, but I like this solemn look of the photo.

We have one more day here in the Rocky Mountains, and then we head to Edson to catch up with Renee and here family for the weekend…..can’t wait for that and okay maybe some more civilization like…..a washing machine….LOL!

Till next time, take care peeps!

Hey peeps,

Greetings from Canada, a very beautiful place on earth!!!

I have written this post twice already and lost both additions! Much to my dismay! So seeing as I don’t have much internet time and I am paying by the minute  I will have to cut this post a bit shorter, and just share with you photos, with descritions. Hopefully that way you will get an idea of what our first days in Canada have been like.

We all had a great flight over, although long and tiring, we arrived safe and well The kids did so well too……I am so proud of them. People even commented to us how well behaved they were.

We had a 4 hour lay over in Hong Kong and we managed to find a nook in the airport to chill till our next flight.

Here we are all spread out in our nook….

Here is Jaye fast asleep on the chairs.

This photo Rod snagged of me as I as tweeting on my iPhone…

We were happily greeted by the Nienhuis’s which was lovely. We stayed at their place the first 4 days, and they really spoilt us. The kids were calling them Grandma and Grandpa J Rod’s best mate is Mark and he is married to Sharon who is a daughter of the Niehuis’……we know them from their visits to AUS, and they insisted that we stay with them when we let them know we were heading over.

That first day we all slept in till 11am! It was good because we managed to catch up on sleep and miss the jet lag. We were spoilt with a yummy breakfast….here are pics of the kids enjoying it.

Tiarne enjoying her fruit salad…

Mali and Jaye enjoying Honey Nut Cherios that they haven’t had before…

Elijah gobbled his brekkie down so that he could get stuck into the Lego!

That day was pretty casual. Rod headed into town to pic up the motorhome……he came back with a monstrocity! I couldn’t’ believe how big this Motor home was!!! It didn’t even fit on the driveway and had to be parked across the lawn! LOL! I can’t see myself driving it ……

See how big it is!

Taking over the front verge…

Rod locking it up….

Actually all vehicles seem to be HUGE over here. There are so many trucks about. Even Marian has a big truck that the kids loved to ride in! We could easily fit all 4 in the back seat with heaps of leg room. Here is a pick of them in front of the truck so that you can compare the size!

The very first day we also headed off to Tim Hortons’ to try out their doughnuts that everyone has been telling us about! Oh la la, they were pretty good too! You can’t miss TIm Hortons, as they have one on almost every corner!……no i kid you not! And it is sooooo cheap! You can get a large latte for like $1.80, compared to at least $4 in Aus!

Anyway here i our selection we shared for dessert……we of course had to try some of the assortment they have there…

ooohhhh the anticipation……

oooohhhh which one to choose????

This one was my fave…..Honey Crueller…..YUM!

I am sure we will be visiting Tim Hortons several times whist we are here!

Then Friday we went into Vancouver city for the day. Boy it was a big day. We saw it by train, boat, bus, and foot! We caught the Skytrain in, which was pretty amazing. We got to see so much of the city. The thing that really struck me was that there are so many high rise apartments along the train line……like in the burbs! It was really neat. The other thing that really struck me was the multi cultural people of the city. In the 45 minute train ride, we only saw 2 other white caucasians board the train! Amazing to see so many nationalities all living in one city.

We caught the Hop-on, Hop-off bus that headed all around the city which was a great way to see it. Also we took the Seabus (a ferry) over to North Vancouver and checked out the markets there. I was sooooo excited to see Nectarines in the fruit stall. They are my all time favourite fruit and to buy some was such a treat. Them being a summer fruit you can only get them for a couple of months in Aus.

We went to Gastown which is so quaint and adorable….had dinner here too! Jaye fell asleep whilst we were waiting for a table, she was soooo exhausted, poor poppet!

The other big adventure we had in the city was that we went up the Observation tower. I am not a big fan of heights, but I managed okay. We saw all of Vancouver, and also a cruise boast heading out on a trip to Alaska. We took so many photos but I will just share my favourite with you so you aren’t bored….

We really enjoyed the views. THe only drama we had was that when we went to leave, we were told that the lifts power was out and we were to climb the 32 flights of stairs down by foot! Oh we did it as we were all hungry for dinner, but boy oh boy it was a long way. I total of 1.7kms of stair stepping….we really felt it the next day.

Here is a pic of the Observation building so you get the idea of how tall it was!

It is that one up there with the UFO looking thing on the roof!

We got home at 10pm and it was still light out! That is the weirdest thing that it stays so light late at night here. It is really neat, but rather hard to get the kids to sleep at a reasonable hour! LOL!

We stayed 4 days in Abbortsford, Vancouver with the Nienhuis, and then on Monday we took off in our Motorhome to head for our trip through the Rocky Mountains…….next post

Love to all……