CaptainOrange

Well... things have been crazy busy since we got back. Now that I can think again, let's do a quick recap of the end of the holiday. Teela, Peff, Merlin and Viola were very good to all of us. We ate wonderful food and endured extreme heat. One of the things that we all enjoyed was a trip to a local kids' discovery centre. We had all sorts of fun blowing bubbles, testing our vertical jumping ability and testing various laws of physics. My favourite was a series of controls that operated a small crane. Wendy and I had some trouble sharing with the other visitors and spent an enormous amount of time trying to create various structures out of the supplied material. In this picture, you can see me refusing to yield the controls to a 4 year old girl. Play Nice Anyhow, when it finally came time to leave Indiana, we decided to bee-line for home. We drove to Minneapolis the first day and stayed at an awesome hotel. Part way through the next day, we arrived at the border. Now...

News flash. It's hot in Indiana. And apparently, we've been lucky and missed the worst of the heat (so far). Too Darn Hot! Still we've managed to do some recreational climbing... Frisbee Rescue Merlin in Camouflage Mode And go for a night ride on horseback. Anwyn and Spitfire Actually, the night ride was a little unnerving. We were undercover of trees and the moon rose late, so by 1/2hr into our 90 minute ride, it was dark enough that only the sharpest eyes in our group were able to see anything. It's a good thing the horses knew the route well -- even so, we had a few scraped legs and poked eyeballs. The horses also seemed to "know" one another pretty well (if you know what I mean) and my stallion gave me more than a few frightening moments when in season mares got a little friendly. As it was only my second time on a horse, I found agressive neighing and rearing to be a little above my skill level. But, what doesn't kill you makes for a...

We recently hosted Tim, Sherry and their boys, Ben and Jonah, for a couple of hours. We just began to become good friends as they left town, but we were excited to hear that they plan to move back to Saskatoon after one more year in Regina. Our kids are close enough in age to enjoy playing together and in so many ways we are kindred spirits (sorry, we just watched Anne of Green Gables last night and it makes me a little more romantic than usual about such things). Their visit was too short, as usual, but I consider it a good warm up for all the company that we have planned. There are a couple of pics of their sword wielding children here . Speaking of warm ups, Tim is one of the valued people in my life who is willing to pick up one of my dueling katana's and try to give me a whooping. I was positively out of breath from our brief, but aggressive, swashbuckling session. My summer is looking to be pretty busy (I can sense your shock as you read this). Our visitor ro...

My sister-in-law was visiting this summer. You may remember that I posted some great pictures of her children as part of my summer update . The visit was not without its tribulations. Teela: There is a bad smell in your basement Me: Yeah, it's your room. The one with the toddler and the baby sleeping in it. Teela: My baby doesn't smell like THAT! Me: If the diaper fits... Note the suspicious looking pipe... Sewer, diapers -- it's all the same right? Two days after the above conversation, we found water on the floor of the guest room. Me: Are we sure this is water? Teela: #$@! We quickly packed our guests off to Liz's house and I tore apart our beloved and oft used guest room. I ripped open the sodden drywall to discover some mold and quite a bit of trouble. The biggest problem was that there was no sign of where the water was coming from. A plumber arrived and promptly chipped a hole in our floor. Plumber's Gift Culprit. I imagine you can te...

My grandiose exercise plans were brought to a screaming halt by a weird injury that I suffered in both elbows. I´m not exactly sure what precipitated the painful swelling. Could be over training... Could be an imminent battle with arthritis. I don´t really know, but it has been discouraging. After a month of nagging twinges and stabbing pain, I decided that my third round of Strep Throat was long overdue. I initially blamed my nephew, but further observation has indicated that it is ¨going around.¨ So far I have made sure that Wendy got her share. I am expectantly watching the girls. Naturally, in my pre-injured state, I was ambitious and the weather good. This overzealousness has lead to far too much time spent covering various plants in my yard to prevent freezing during this recent clinic of good old Saskatchewan weather. I have some pictures that I have been wanting to share and lots of good posting ideas, but my main computer -- the one I do all my major typing and graphic...