A Small Luncheon

Five of Martin's sisters (and three attached husbands) joined us for a retiree lunch on Monday. The weather was perfect and these girls were at their hilarious best. They never miss a chance to have some good laughs during all the conversation. Amazingly, we all get along great; in fact, the sisters get on so well that they are all going on a cruise together next month. Maybe next trip we will join them, but next month our calendar is full of house chores and bureaucratic paperwork. Getting into this country for keeps means crossing lots of T's and dotting all the I's.

Hidden Treasure

When we bought our lovely home, we were told it had hardwood floors. We even had a peek beneath a flap of carpet in the hall. Our original plan was to immediately take up all the old carpets before moving in. After looking at the situation more closely, we discovered 50 yr.old foam carpet padding quite adhered to the flooring. We had to ponder that dilemma before taking action. Finally, we came up with a plan. Cut away 2 feet of carpet and start scraping, using wooden spatulas followed by scotch-brite pads and lots of muscle. The task seemed daunting but we persevered. One week later we have a beautiful oak floor in our bedroom.

Morning Glory Graces

I've been marveling for weeks about the view from our back yard. I've mentioned that our back yard faces our church parking lot, which is a good thing. But I may not have noted that a chain-link fence separates us. I'm not really fond of chain-link fences, but I knew we would not be doing any landscaping projects to enhance our view this year, so I didn't let it concern me. We are so thankful to the Lord for all the blessings of this move. One day, shortly after moving in, we noticed some vines growing up the fence. The next day they had grown about a foot. And so it has gone, until nearly the entire 10-ft. fence is covered with Martin's favorite flower--Morning Glories! We give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! Sorry about the awkward layout, but I wanted to show before and after pics and the view through the fence that we still love.

Downsizing

You hear about downsizing. Well this is what it looks like when going from almost 3,000 sq. ft. to a 12x6x6 ft. U-Haul, a Ford 150 truck, and a Saturn station wagon. It all fit in a 10x10 storage in Canada. It was much cheaper to give away or sell a lot of our old stuff than move it. And we had the joy of finding just the right homes for most of our stuff and blessing others who could use it. Don't worry, we kept all the important stuff, and we have accumulated the additional things we needed to furnish our 1,000 sq. ft. retirement cottage. We still haven't spent what moving costs would have been and we've enjoyed finding just the right pieces here and there. I'll post some pictures of the inside of our dear little home soon. Martin did a great job organizing everything to go through customs at the border.

Early morning on the lake

This is a short, quiet video of an early morning canoe ride on the lake. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Canoeing

Wow! Four new blog entries in one evening! It must be the corn! Last week, we drove up north of Parry Sound to Martin's nephew Gerry's lake side property. We got to see his three neat young adult kids and a couple of their friends. Mart's sis Willie and husband Tony drove their R.V. up for the week. We stayed for three wonderful, invigorating days and nights. Lake Shawanaga is clean, clear, and just the right temp for refreshing swims, which we did several times a day. A highlight of our time there was canoeing. Serene, magical, canoe rides. Silently we glided along the smooth water with only the dip and drip of our paddles in the blue water. We saw a beaver lodge, a blue heron lift in flight quite close to us, and dozens of water lilies. It was hard to narrow the experience down to two pics.

Matching cousins

This blog is for Claire & Emily in California & Jillian in Oklahoma. What fun to have matching swim suits, even when not planned. Thanks to Target. You all look fabulous! Claire, who turned 5 in May, was wondering when her teeth would begin falling out. Well, cousin Jillian turned 6 in May, and she's in the midst of tooth transition. Good luck, girls.