Hey Peeps,

WOW, I can hardly believe that the holiday of a lifetime had come to an end! It has been the most mind blowing experience to travel together to the other side of the world as a family! We have truly been so very very blessed in every way, and certainly have memories for a life time!

This is a run down on what we have gotten up to the past week in our travels…….

So we made it to Toronto, got that big ol’ RV dropped off, and then had the task of driving our new Mini van down into the US to Baltimore, Maryland to visit Kate (my brother’s fiancé) and her family! We left Toronto at about 2pm, and the trip took forever!!! We got held up getting to the border in road works and then at the border as there were so many cars lined up! We also decided that seeing as we will be travelling during the night to take a bigger highway, but it meant that we were travelling a little further in distance. We contemplated just stopping at a motel, but Kate encouraged us to keep going. I was pretty buzzed so ended up doing the driving……..we arrived at 3am! Ridiculous, I know, but at least that way we could really enjoy the weekend with Kate J

Kate’s parents have a beautiful property about half an hour out of Baltimore in a place called Reisterstown…..I was really surprised by how dense the beautiful bushland was around them. They have a big barn complete with a horse, goats, donkeys, and chooks! They really love their animals, and also have two dogs, Luke and Lola who are very much part of the family…….they get to sleep on the bed at night!

Here are a couple of picks of their property……

From one angle of the driveway…..

This is the steeple on their barn….cute ey?

It was so surreal sitting at Kate’s dining table eating brekkie the next morning! It just didn’t seem real that we were there in her house. It feels so great to know where she lives, and also to meet her extended family as well…..such wonderful people.

Here are some photos of Kate’s parents…..

Div and Gail…

The boys followed Div around like lost puppies! They loved spending time with him and he is amazing with kids. Elijah even got to go to work with Div on Monday which was really special for him….

Kate, Tiarne, and Gail…..

On the last day Kate, her mom, and her cousin Kel and I went off to a bridal store to try on Bridesmaids dresses………Yes, I was asked to be a bridesmaid in their wedding next year, which I am beyond excited about!!! Anyway Kate wanted us to try on a few dresses to give her some idea…..whilst we were there, her mom and I found the biggest and gaudiest dress for Kate to try on! You know the big ol’ meringue dresses that some people love??!! It was so funny because when we picked it out the sales lady tells us that it is her most favourite dress in the store, and here we were doing it all as a joke! Talk about funny!

Anyway I did take my camera to the store and had to snag a couple of pictures of the fun we had……..strangely enough, the dress actually fitted so well and didn’t look too bad at all! LOL!

Here is the bride-to-be meringue clad……

The front…..

And from the back…..look at all that tulle!

That evening it was our last night in Baltimore and so we had a big dinner with Kate’s extended family….her aunt and uncle Beanie, and Chris, as well as Tim and Alison and all their kids…..quite the affair! I said I would bring the dessert and so of course had to make an Aussie Pavalova for the event! Here is it all dressed up……

yum, yum

Kate arranged a birthday cake for Mali which was so cute. Actually Grace,(Kate’s cousin) the little girl standing next to Mali was born on the exact same day! How spinny is that?

Bright and early on Monday morning we drove over to West Virginia to visit one of my on-line stamping friends who I was most excited to meet in the flesh! Kim Evans and I have been communicating on-line for over two years, and so it was totally surreal to be able to meet her in the flesh, and what an amazing and gorgeous woman she is too! Kim has been having treatment for the past 6 months for Breast Cancer. I am so amazed at her positive attitude and how gracefully she has dealt with her illness……certainly did encourage me too. It was so wonderful to see where she lives and to meet her fabulous hubby too!….oh and I should mention the big Stampin’Up order I got to pick up from Kim too…..oh la la!

So here are some pics of that visit….

Isn’t she just a gorgeous woman!!!

Steve and Kim…

Us together with the kiddies…..

Here is Kim’s AMAZING crafting space……such a fabulous area!

Out the front of their amazing house! If you look closely you can see Kim’s hubby Steve carrying out my big SU box of goodies….LOL!

Such a special time shared together…….Now I just HOPE that they make it down to Australia to visit us one time!

The next morning we had to be up early to drop off the hire car and to get to the Bus station to catch the big bus to New York City! Whilst it was nearly impossible to say goodbye, we were also looking forward to heading to NYC.

A pic of Kate and I……we had to keep the sunnies on so that we could hide our tear stained faces……man I miss this gal and can’t wait to see her again, whenever that will be!

So we headed off to the Big Apple, it only took 3 hours to get downtown from Kate’s, and the bus even had Wi-Fi which I found amazing.

We were pretty stunned right off how crazy busy this place is! We had to catch a taxi to the hotel from the bus station and man oh man was that the scariest taxi ride I have ever had! Those drivers are complete psychos!!! There are no such thing as lanes, you just scoot on over wherever you want, just make sure you honk and honk some more! Total craziness…… I was pretty shaken up to say the least! Then we are met by the rudest Bell man EVER, and the worst thing is that you actually have to pay them for the service they DIDN”T give you!, Next up the reception at the Sheraton in NYC where we were staying was rude as well…….we were starting to think Customer service was a dirty word in New York! We couldn’t get our room right away so had to head off for a wander around the city first. We went off to Central Park seeing as it wasn’t too far away. It is a really pretty park, but I didn’t spot any celebrities with their kids at the playground……haha

Central park….

We were all pretty knackered that first day, so ended up not doing to much. The next day we had tickets to one of those Hop on-Hop off buses. They are pretty neat in NYC as they are double deckers with the open top……here is a pic.

It was great viewing, but pretty hot in the summer sun. It took so long to get around because of the traffic! We took the ferry over to Staten Island and had a brief look around…..

Next up was The Statue of Liberty….what an amazing sight that is! Here are a couple of pics of that……

A close up….

The Statue of Liberty…

I managed to do a little shopping too……I was super excited to get a little pink bag from Victoria Secrets with some delightful goodies just for me Also spent up at the M.A.C. store in Times square! I truly can’t believe that the product in the US is half of what we pay in Australia! I definitely had to make good use of that ey?

One thing about New York is that it is the city that never sleeps! There is things going on everywhere and people, police, and action of every corner with someone trying to sell you something! It was really special to go here, and now certain things in movies that you watch make sense etc…… but it was good to visit, there is absolutely no way I could live there! It was pretty exhausting as it is so full on. A great place to go if you want to shop till you drop or really party, but not a relaxing place for a holiday. It actually was a relief to get out of there after two days……

Here we are all together at TImes Square in the early evening….

I thought this sign at the top was so funny because it clearly depicted the attitude of a lot of New Yorkers….

Lots of lights and lots of people!

people, people, people……

So we managed to get all that luggage…….and I am talking a LOT of luggage boarded onto that plane and away to Hong Kong.. The flight from JFK to Hong Kong was 16 hours. I was really dreading this trip, but was pleasantly surprised with how well it went. The kids did very well too. I mean with the on board entertainment they love it…….they never get to watch 10 hours of videos in one hit! LOL! At the moment though the Jet lag is starting to kick in as we sway time zones and my head is feeling like it is always spinning.

Our night in Hong Kong was fabulous! It really reminded us of home (Cairns)! It is really humid and warm, so that is good for us to get to climatise a little. Also there were palm trees everywhere, and big green mountains. Here is a pic of our view from the hotel window.

Beautiful place…

We had a reasonably good sleep, although I woke up at 2:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep……all part of the jet lag I suppose! We had a fabulous breakfast in the hotel and then headed out for a walk to the park…….Took some fab shots of the kids here……wanted to share lots, but narrowed it down to these few.

Enjoying a beautiful buffet breakfast together…

Janaya…

Malakai…

Elijah…

I really liked Hong Kong and would love to come back here and spend some more time discovering the place. One thing that really struck me was how immaculate everything was! The gardens, the streets, the airport, absolutely everything was so clean and perfect. The people were really lovely too and they are really big on customer service too which was a nice change, and better yet we didn’t have to tip them for it either!

We flew from Hong Kong to Brisbane which was a 8.5 hour flight….I found this one dragged on. We arrived at midnight and had to get through Customs…..this all takes time. We got shuffled through without anyone going through our bags which was a blessing. Maybe they thought it was a bit to late for young kids to be up at that time of night! It sure was good to get to the hotel that night. We had about 6 hours sleep and then it was up and get ready for the last flight home! I was starting to panic about our luggage because when you fly International you get to have 2 x 23kg bags each! With domestic you can only have one and I knew we were about 50kgs over weight to fly domestic! We got to the Brisbane airport and my to my delight the girl checked it all in and didn’t charge us a penny! What a relief! It would have put a dampner on our trip if we had to pay $500 in excess baggage!

The other wonderful thing that happened at the Brisbane airport was that my dear friend Steph, her hubby Neil and their two gorgeous kids, Jess and Jackson came to catch up with us! It was sooooo good to see the again and pretty special too. Nice to see them even if it was for an hour! Here is a wee pic of Steph and I….

Seeing Steph was certainly the cherry on the top of a fabulous holiday!

So another flight and we will be home at last…..certainly a long way to travel but we have been so very very blessed by all we have seen and experienced and all the wonderful people we have met along the way too. Some people have asked me what I have liked the most on the trip, and I definitely would have to say the people I have managed to catch up with and spend precious time with…..memories to last a lifetime!

Here is a pic of the luggage we came home with!

Yep two trolleys full…..15 bags in total!

I have lots of craft booty to share with you all when I get a chance, and I promise I will share the deets with you all! I actually can’t wait to sit at my craft desk and put some of it to use too! I have to catch up on washing, paperwork, cleaning and not to mention lots of emails first, but it will happen I promise!

Love to all……

Hey peeps,

I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend! We have just had the HUGEST week ever! Leaving Winnipeg was a little sad to say goodbye to family and new friends. We left on Sunday evening so we could get across the border with no major hold ups etc…. Was a new experience having my finger prints taken! Australia being an island, it certainly doesn’t have border crossings, so a new learning experience for the kids too.

We drove, drove and drove some more…….actually we covered about 2,000km in 19hours! I am so getting used to long distance driving, which is a little hard to believe really as just driving south to Busselton used to drive me a little stir crazy! 8 hours now seems so short…LOL!

The first day we made it past Chicago, now this is one city i would really LOVE to see. Originally we thought we could pop in for half a day, but once we saw that huge RV we were driving and how hard it actually is to manoeuvre around in traffic we gave it a miss Maybe another time…… I did get a photo from the front seat though.

One thing I was really amazed about was the traffic! 5 lane highway with so many trucks everywhere!!! And we were often surrounded by trucks. One time we were driving just past Chicago in peak hour traffic, and the truck in front of us blew a tire! There was this almighty BANG, and the next minute a ton or rubber came flying towards our windscreen……YIKES that was a close one! I nearly lost the contents of my bladder, and continued to shake from shock for the next half hour. Thankfully all was okay

Anyway all the miles driven brought us through Cleveland, up to Bufallo and the town of Niagara falls. We camped on the US side of Niagara Falls so had to cross the border to view it on the Canadian side of the falls. It was Mali’s 7th birthday on Wednesday, and what better way than to spend it at Niagara Falls……certainly a birthday to remember!

It is such a beautiful place, and so majestic, and powerful. Here is a couple of pics from our day there….

All that mist is created from the power of the falls and you can actually get pretty wet looking at it from the sidelines…..

Jaye and Mali checking out the falls….

Happy Birthday to my gorgeous little birthday boy……

We did several tours and one of them was the Behind the Falls tour. You take lifts down into the lower tunnels and then come out to the right hand side of the falls….. Pretty wet down here, but it was so neat to see that water smashing down over the edge!

Here are my banana boys….B1 and B2!

We really enjoyed the Maid of the Mist boat ride, and here is a shot with a rainbow shining across the falls….just beautiful.

Ah, finally got Rod on camera! Here he is with a Moose…….

We all had such a fabulous day at Niagara Falls, it certainly is one of God’s amazing creations on earth!

The very next day we headed back over to Canada to drop the RV off and get our hire car too. Time to pack up the RV and clean it out was a mammoth task as we had accumulated quite a bit of stuff over the month of being in there. We went to the Fairmont Royal Park hotel in Toronto…..talk about luxury from the RV. One of the kids said as we walked in, “Is this where the queen lives?” ….LOL! It was great to wander around Toronto city, and shop at the Eaton centre. We had the BEST dinner of the whole trip. A lady at the Gap store recommended to us to eat at ‘The Pickel Barrel’……..oh man that was the meal ever! So hard to pick what to have, and no disappointments at all! So if you live in or around Toronto, I would highly recommend it!

The next morning was a very exciting one for me, as I was driving to Markham to not only see Cindy Major from the Design Team, but we were meeting at the Stampingbella store! OH LA LA……it was soooo fabulous to visit Bella land, and to meet not only Cindy but also Emily Block, the President Bella designer and owner of the company! What a hoot that gal is! As promised I took lots of piccies, so you can see what Bella land is actually like!

Look at all that RUBBAH on the walls!

Here is beautiful Cindy making her purchases….

Entrance to the classroom….

Emily (the owner) hard at work….

Group hugs!

Don’t you love the MWAH on the wall at you leave the store!

This is the back room where all that rubbah is cut, packaged, and shipped! So when you order from Stampingbella this is where your rubbah will be prepared and sent off to you! cool ey?

So excited about my newest purchase!!!

Cindy and i together……

After the store Cindy, her mum who was kind enough to be Cindy’s travelling companion to Toronto, and I headed off for coffee! It was SO wonderful to meet her after the past couple of years of emailing each other back and forth. She is such a wonderful, gorgeous and sweet person. I only wish we lived closer together!!!! Hopefully I can convince Cindy to come for a visit down to AUS! I was so amazed that Cindy was prepared to drive 8 hours to come meet me! How special do I feel, and she also made me the most adorable gift too, which I will have to photograph and share with you when I get back home to Australia…..

Toronto was a fabulous city and it was so great to have visited there……that very day we hopped in the new hire car and started our long drive to Baltimore to spend time with Kate and her family……news of that in the next installment, I promise!

Love to all……

Hello again,

After all the anticipation, planning and excitement the day arrived, Ivan and Jolene’s Wedding Day! Seeing as three of us were in the bridal party, there was lots to plan and prepare for with the outfits, and the reception etc…. But what a wonderful day they were blessed with. It was such an honour to be apart of their special day and to be one of the bridal party too! We all had a blast together, and I think going by all the smiles on their faces, they had a wonderful day themselves.

I took 489 photos on the day….yup that is a lot to edit etc….. I found it really hard to cull them, and what to share and not to share. So in the end,I decided that I will share the ones I love with you all, and just give you a small run down on what is happening etc…. That way you get to see the visuals of the day rather than me waffling on and on about it.

So as you know Janaya was the flower girl. From the start she has always been very concerned whether she was going to get to wear fairy wings with her dress. We assured her that she will still be a princess even though she doesn’t have fairy wings! LOL! Seriously this little gal of mine lapped up every ounce of attention that was heading her way…..made me rather embarrassed at times, but hey God created her as a complete and utter social butterfly, and she was so in her element every minute of it!

First thing in the morning on the day we headed over to Jolene’s place to meet the hairdressers….Tiarne was having her hair done too, which she just LOVED as well.

I started off by making a lovely fresh breakfast for everyone, with muffins, yoghurt and lots of fresh fruit….

YUMMO…. all the summer berries are in season, so it was such a treat for us Aussies!

I still needed to work out what I wanted to have done to my hair, so spent time scrounging the internet for ideas. Jaye was waiting patiently with me to have her hair done too….

As you can see, she is LOVING having her hair done….

And some more pampering……

And here is the little poser, showing off her finished hair do….I so have no idea where she gets all this posing from! LOL! Love the hand on the hips….what a dag she is!

Once we were all beautiful it was time to get the gorgeous bride into her Bridal car….this is what she arrived to the ceremony in….. gorgeous hey?

I unfortunately didn’t get any photos from the service because I was too busy in the service! It was just beautiful though. They had a pianist, and a violinist play a beautiful piece from Fargo as we all walked down the aisle. I thought I would be really nervous, but I made it down okay. It was a beautiful garden ceremony with clear blue skies…..actually the bridesmaids all ended up getting sunburnt the sun was shining so much during the service. After the ceremony there was an opportunity to congratulate the couple on the open lawn and drinks and refreshments were served.

I took lots of photos, but strangely enough I didn’t really get many posed photos of the bride and groom. This is one of them…

Here is a shot of me (a bridesmaid) and my hot best man together…. As you can see we look very happy together!

The ring bearer Thomas and Janaya the flower girl….these two stuck like glue during the day which was so very cute

Here she is blowing bubbles to Thomas….

my little princess…..

Here are my two beautiful daughters having fun together…

Rod captured this photo of me with Tiarne. She is certainly growing up to be a young lady!

Then my two handsome sons, Malakai and Elijah. They enjoyed the day, but didn’t really like having to wear a flower on their shirts, or that Mum bought them PURPLE shirts…..cuz that is a girls colour! LOL! I think they looked smart!

Here is our family shot. It is always hard to co-ordinate everybody, but it turned out okay…

Tiarne all dressed up….

Anthony and Jeannette, both looking fabulous!

here is a photo of the bride and groom with family that made it from Australia…

The flower girl and ring bearer with Ivan and Jo. The rings were carried in a pouch on that Koala….such a cute idea!

Rod with his mum and dad….

Ivan and Jo with their Byl nieces and nephews…

Lawrence and Marilyn, the gorgeous couple who were so very hospitable and let us camp out in their driveway! Will really miss this family and hope they do come and visit Australia!

After all the family photos at the house, the bridal party headed out for group photos…..We had a blast all together. Would you believe the first place we went was to Starbucks? We all walked in and surprised the staff there. Jo really wanted an ice cold Frappacino, so bought us all one…took some great photos here too!

We then headed down town for some photos…. here are a couple of them.

My spunky man Rod….

Then us together…..

All together….

The Bride and Bridesmaids….all glammed up!

Jo and I together…..I love this photo of us!

The evening reception was again back at the beautiful garden property in a marquee! It was beautifully decorated and the food was totally scrumptious as well! I took a couple of pics from at night as well, and thought that sharing them might give you an idea of what the evening was like…

Everyone enjoyed pre-dinner drinks as they mingled on the lawn, awaiting the Bridal couple and party to arrive…..

The bridal couple having a cuddle

Ivan and Rod…..close brothers even though they are 10 years apart.

Ivan doing his speech with Jo, just before they left for the night….

The whole day proved to be too tiring for poor little Jaye. She climbed into Daddy’s lap and silently went off to sleep! Such hard work being glamorous all day isn’t it!

Getting carried off to bed……

So there you have some snippets of the wonderful day we all shared celebrating Ivan and Jolene’s wedding day. May God grant them a joyous and blessed married life together

Hey peeps!

Greetings from the US of A this time! Currently I am in the state of Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Buffalo in a fabulous campsite that does have Internet…..YAY! for that! So I have had the chance this afternoon to edit all my photos and get some up onto Facebook too!

So much has happened this past 10 days or so that it has flown by! We arrived safe and sound in Winnipeg after a long drive from Saskatoon. Rod and I got up at 3am to get on the road nice and early whilst the kids are still asleep, that way we get some hours done before they awaken. It was so very very exciting to see Ivan and Jolene again. The kid were super excited too, which was so lovely to see. We were offered to park our big RV at Jo’s aunt Marilyn and uncle Lawrence’s place and use their facilities. This was such a blessing….they had running water! LOL! They along with their kids are the nicest people and we all got along so very well. The kids certainly enjoyed their big back yard, and swimming pool too!

It was a rather busy week in Winnipeg before the wedding. The whole thing was being organised by family and of course there are so many last minute things that can only be done days before, but we got there, and there was no last minute stress which was good.

Seeing as Rod and I are / was in the Bridal party we arranged a last minute Buck’s and Hen’s night for the happy couple. We did a combined event and had a lovely dinner, in a private room at a restaurant…..we had Australian and Canadian decorations which made it fun too. Oh and we had some fun games for the bride and groom to be…what a laugh they were too! I took some photos of their night and thought I would share them before I get onto all the wedding photos.

Okay so first up we have the happy couple

The groom and bride -to-be

Here is Jo and I sharing a cocktail together….

Ivan and Rod’s brother Anthony and our SIL Jeannette flew in in time to attend too. Was lovely to catch up with them too seeing as they also live in Perth.

Also Jo’s brother Marty and his wife Erica arrived from Ontario that day, so they could come along too. It was really lovely to meet them at last.

This groups is Ashley, Jolene’s sister, then Ed, who is one of the Groomsmen, and Nelson, who is Ivan and Rod’s cousin. It was so nice for Ivan that these guys made it all the way from Australia for the wedding too.

and last of all a piccie of Rod and I at the dinner…you can see the decorations in the background too.

It was such a fun night, and certainly helped us Aussies get to know some of the Canadian crew as well. Of course a party with helium had to end up with some of this going on as well….

Helium balloon squeeking!

So that was a lovely start to the Wedding celebrations! I have the wedding post ready to be typed, which I will do right now….sooooo many photos to share!

Have a goodie everyone!

Hey peeps!

YAY! Finally some internet access and some time to post our trip update! This past week has been such a blast catching up with some wonderful people! We have had a blast. As i type we are now in Winnipeg and have had some wonderful days catching up with Ivan and Jo and getting into the Wedding preparations too! Starting to feel all very exciting now!

So just to back track, the last I wrote was when we were just about to leave Jasper and heading to Edson to meet up with my fabulous DT member Renee and her family. We arrived safely and seriously had some of the best days of this trip so far! Our families hit it off right away and we had sooooooo many good laughs together, and shared many special moments too. It truly felt so surreal to be in Renee’s house, cuddling her kids, making dinner together, and talking about all sorts of things from stamping, weather, history, and God too. Such special times for sure, and memories to treasure for a lifetime!

Here is some fun photos of our time shared there……

Renee and I together…

Me sneek peeking at the brand new US/CAN Catty from Stampin’Up….oh la la!

Enjoying a glass of wine on the back deck….precious memories!

Renee’s hubby Paul cooking a feast on the BBQ! He is not only a fabulous cook, but an amazing preacher too! We had the pleasure of attending his church on Sunday

Janaya and Renee’s daughter Maria, got along fabulously!

The extremely talented Renee at her creative space!…..oh you gotta see how amazing this room is…..totally jealous!

Amazing eh? Even Rod was impressed!!!

All together…..I love this photo, it reminds me of the wonderful time we shared together as families! So sad to say goodbye too. Poor Elijah cried as we left as he really enjoyed spending time with Caleb. Hopefully Paul and Renee move to Australia one day!!!

After we left Edson we headed east to Edmonton! Man this place was a big city, which we hadn’t seen for a little bit. They are doing so many roadworks too, so it was quite a task to find our way around the city with all the detours and what not. Made it all okay. It was a bit warmer here too which was nice! We went to the famous West Edmonton Mall too! It is totally massive and you can totally lose yourself here. The first day we just went for dinner and to check it out……the next day I went back for some serious shopping, and Rod was looking forward to heading to the Amusement and water park they have in the shopping centre.

Here is some pics of their adventures at Galaxyland…

All together…

Hold on tight kids!!!

Now this little girl seems to not be afraid of anything!!! She went on all the roller coasters, and even at the waterpark she went down the biggest aqua tube all on her own! Not bad for a 4 year old!

I had a fabulous day shopping, and also meeting up with one of my lovely blog readers from Edmonton, Julie. We had a lovely coffee together, and she helped me navigate my way around the huge Mall! So lovely.

I actually didn’t do much shopping at all……much to my surprise, but I did pick up some Mac make-up and my Clinique skin care stuff…..enough to last me over a year! It is half the price here. My moisturiser that I buy in AUS is $97 and here it is only $46! What a price difference!

The kids had a blast all day and were soooooo exhausted by the end of the day…. and come to think of it, so was I! Edmonton wasn’t what I expected, but it is a lovely place. We got to bed nice and early as we had an early rise the next day.

Wednesday, we headed off bright and early to drive to Rosetown…….the beloved home of the stamp and nail extraordinary Amy Rysavy!….I was soooo super excited to meet this gorgeous gal from the Prairies! Okay a little star struck too! Man I can totally understand why her blog is called Prairie Paper and Ink because she lives right in the middle of what seems nowhere! LOL! We had a wonderful catch up, and she also did a fabulous job on my nails too! Of course it couldn’t be a visit without photos!!!

Here she is……..ta-da!

….me and AMY!

Amy in her gorgeous esthetics studio……so beautifully decorated!

The sign at her entry……

I will always treasure this time with Amy and our chatting about all sorts of things stamping related Hopefully one day we get to do it again….you never know right? I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever meet her once, so you it could be possible

Next off we headed off to Saskatoon to catch up with some more Nienhuis’s. In Vancouver we stayed with Marian and Peter Nienhuis, then we stayed at their son Anthony and wife Corien’s house. Rod knows Anthony well and travelled some of the US with him back in 1995, so they of course had a fabulous reunion. They also have 5 kids (almost 6) and so our kids loved having other kids to play with too!…….mind you the adult boys were big kids too! There had been so much rain in the past few days that so many paddock were flooded along our road trip. Anthony and Corien’s basement was actually flooded the night before we arrived too. Their front yard was full of water so the guys thought they would get out the quad bike and make some fun of it! I don’t think Rod has had so much fun is so long…….

Here is some of what they got up to….

Biking through the water filled paddock……whoosh!

Rod in his element…..

The end result……mud everywhere!!!

Here is a pic of their gorgeous home we parked out front off…

Notice the three BIG trucks parked out front!

The next day was Canada day here, and we went out to discover Saskatoon…..It was such a beautiful sunny day too. We went to one of the Zoo, and got to see lots more Canadian wildlife which was great! I didn’t know a Badger was so big! LOL!

We came across this in the Zoo park and all had a chuckle….

Tiarne and I at the Zoo…

Tiarne loved spending time with their daughter Lauren…

Again it was time to say goodbye….more tears were shed by the kids, but once we got on the road they were okay again…….this time a long 9 hour drive to Winnipeg, and the anticipation of  seeing Ivan and Jo again kept us in good spirits!

What a wonderful catch up it was too…..we have really enjoyed being here the past 3 days and seeing them again. I have had dress fittings for the Bridesmaid dress, along with Janaya and Rod too. We have been doing lots of Wedding preparations which is getting us all excited for the big day on Friday! Can’t wait, and I promise I will share photos as soon as possible!

So that is the latest update. I hope you are enjoying my crafty posts in between too

Take care peeps!