Summer Activities List Update

School is back in session and I am glad of it.  Does it make me a bad mother that I cheerfully send them off to school?  Should I cry as my babies disappear for hours each day?   I spent a lot of time with them this summer and I love them lots, but I am thankful for the break now.  A few more hot days on my own would have been nice though.  The weather is very crisp and fall-like.  

I just wanted to finish the summer with our Activity List and let you know what we managed to cross off.  We definitely have some things left for next year, but we've had a busy summer.  Here's some picture highlights.

2012 Summer Activities List

Alberta Art Museum (free on the last Thursday night of each month)
Devonian Gardens (discounted for gardening club members on July 18)
Swimming/kayaking (but we need to do more)

At one of beautiful lakes at Pierres Grey Provincial Park

  124th Street Art Gallery walk
Camping

Where we "luxury camped" in a beautiful trailer in a beautiful park just south of Grande Cache

Fishing (with someone to teach us and assemble our rods properly)
Paddleboat rental
Rock Climbing (UofA has a good wall)
Mini golf
Horseback riding
Weiner roast/s'more making  - hopefully there's still time to hit one of the parks on a weekend for another campfire
Heritage Park (planned for August long weekend)

Heritage Park - too many beautiful pictures to choose from

Calgary Zoo (planned for August long weekend)

Calgary Zoo - Where we met new relatives

 
Shakespeare in the Park (Pay-as-you-can on Tuesday nights) - We went twice, once to each play


Valley Zoo

With my godchild at the new exhibit in our local zoo

Telus World of Science
Humane Society to spend time with adoption animals
Wash van with buckets - I can't believe we didn't do this one!!
Movie -  We saw "The Lorax" together.  It's showing for free on Community League Day, Sept. 15 at Britannia Youngstown Community Hall in the evening.  Come by and see me!  It's followed by The Hunger Games for the slightly older crowd. 

Outdoor movie party
Visit my parents
Theatre production
Street Performers Festival

Learning to craft with Duct tape

  

St. Albert Street Performers Festival

Stony Plain Museum/Gallery (a church friend has paintings in the gallery this summer)
Stay in a hotel (went to Hinton/Jasper for the May long weekend)
Skating in the mall
Cinnamon buns at Kingsway Mall
Batting Cages or driving range
Rodeo
Taber Corn Festival (Aug. 25-27) - includes a rodeo, so we could cross two things off!

World's largest corn?

A car show was on mine and Laura's personal list but didn't make the family list!  Still did it.

Corn Maze - why wasn't there one in Taber?  Sort of makes sense.
Ukrainian Village - Alice went in the spring with her class.  Does that count?
Torrington Gopher Museum

Picnic in downtown park
Visit Mandolin's Books & Coffee Shop - no pictures, but Beth and had a coffee there and shopped.  I wish there were one like it nearer to home.

Eat at Mr. Wong's restaurant (a substitute teacher that the girls all like)
Go to every outdoor pool in the city (we've gone to 3 so far) - We didn't make it to the others in spite of the heat this summer.

Placemats to school supplies

During the year my mom stops in at garage sales and thrift shops and thinks of her children as she does it.  We don't have as much time as she does to hunt down the bargains and few of us (including herself) actually like to shop much.  I must say that I do enjoy shopping at thrift shops, but malls...uh, uh. 

By the time we see each other she often has a little pile (or a big one) of things that we may have need of or want.  She's a pretty good judge of that so I don't turn much of it down.  I know that she hates the clutter of my house though and would like to know that the items are actually being used and not just stored away in my piles of "maybe oneday" stuff.

So today I thought I'd show off how we turned two placemats she'd bought into school supplies.

Tada!

I was originally thinking of bags or trim on bags because there wasn't much fabric here.  Laura still needed a crayon roll (my kids are generally last to get this stuff), and there was still enough left over for a pencil case and bookmark.

She's going to be all all very matchy at school this year!

Produce anyway

 So this is an example of what the garden looks like after 5 minutes of hail last weekend. 

 As Yvon said in Facebook, "pooh, pooh and double pooh".  I think he's got Winnie the Pooh on his mind, but I agree with the sentiment. 

 However, all is not lost.  I still have tomatoes ripening (although many have unbroken hail marks on them) and some of the zucchini survived.  Honestly, it's tough to kill a zucchini once it's decided it likes you.

When I went to the produce market to check on peach availability, I found tomatoes on sale that are look nicer than my own, although the taste isn't the same.  6 lbs fo $2 though?  Can't go too far wrong. 

I roasted them with garlic, green peppers and zucchini (why not?) and then pureed them for the most tasty tomato sauce.

And yes, they did have peaches.  54 lbs for about $30.  And now I've got 34 pints and 3 quarts of canned peaches in the pantry.  I was hoping that they wouldn't ripen until today so that Yvon could help, but I had to process them yesterday.  You can't necessarily plan your days when fruit is involved unless you're willing to take some losses.  I'm not willing.


And remember the Taber Corn Fest?  It did involve corn and our involvement didn't end when we got home.   

I think we put 30 meals into the freezer on Monday.

Hail or no hail, we won't starve this winter.