Rock and Rolly Christmas

So today I parked myself in front of the coffee table and painted 11 picture frames! It was nice to do something with my hands... (other than work or typing or dishes). I had Songza going with some good Christmas tunes.  Neil Diamond's "Cherry Cherry Christmas" is one of my new favourites:)  

I am excited for Christmas this year, and am looking forward to spending it in Virgina, USA! I've never been there before! I don't think I've ever had Christmas without my family before, but I'm thankful that Daniel's family feels like family too:) 

PS- Really do click on the link to listen to the song, it's awesome:)

Ray LaMontagne- You are the best thing

My walk home from the hospital sometimes passes these wonderful landmarks:) It's always a gentle reminder that there is art, creativity and kindness in the world!

The common garden- strawberries and herbs for everyone! And a pile where you can drop your leaves in the fall.

Wise Crow's Book Nook:) 

Ornamental kale.

On the job. It's cool to wear your name tag sideways- ya know? 

Halloween 2013

Just a few snapshots of Halloween by request! We asked the landlords upstairs to please send the trick or treaters back around the house so we could give them candy too. They said that usually there one or two dozen children come by. Not this year! Forty-four costumed kids!

Some of my favourite costumes:

Fuzzy dinosaur

Broken china doll

Santa (there were a few of them!)

I painted "trick or treat" in glow in the dark paint on that sign... no glowing happened however!

I was having a bubble bath! It was a fun, simple costume that caused my hair all sorts of static until I put the shower cap on at which point I felt like I belonged in the operating room! 

I thought the little rubber ducky was a nice touch:)

We used some cobwebs...

Daniel was into the safari look.

"Beware of attack gecko"- the older kids thought this was neat. The littler ones probably didn't even see him!

Today I dropped the pumpkins off at the base of Mt. Doug where pumpkins from all over come to convalesce after a hauntingly busy halloween season! 

Autumnal

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It boggles my mind that people can remember what seasons two, three, five, ten years ago were like. For example: "remember that early spring 6 years ago... or was it 5...?" and "remember how it dropped below three degrees twice from Sept. 1st to March 1st in 2004?" (PS I'm just making that up) But no, I don't remember! I have enough trouble remembering my families and friends yearly changing ages. 

But as I go through my pictures of this fall, I am pretty impressed by the blue sky, sunshine, and multiple pictures of people in t-shirts! So I'm thinking we have had a lovely autumn... and I am thankful for it!  

I visited Nanaimo! Photo credit to Kylie. 

It's always lovely to see these two. It was a pretty pristine day to walk by the sea. If you closed your eyes and listened hard you could hear the guy playing his guitar out on the rocks:)

We had a girl's dinner with Carmel, Christie, Kylie, Monica, Sophiane and Heather. We had a good game of Wits and Wagers afterwards:) And then proceeded to break the couch in an attempt to get a group picture.  

I've got war paint and Daniel has got an apron! That's how you know we are getting serious in the kitchen! I made chocolate oatmeal cookies if I remember correctly.

I think he needs his own apron...

Fall colours near Island View Beach. 

Goldstream Park... where there is a salmon run at this time of year! Of course no salmon were to be seen when we went though! 

Wedding venue! Also wedding related... we made jam! And lots of it! The jars have now been decorated as well. 

Dad building a woodshed up on the property.

And we harvested some honey from our good old honeybees!!! It's pretty neat to be able to lick honey from a real honeycomb:) Although we did have a more technical way to harvest it. We wrapped the comb in cheesecloth, and then squished it into a container that had a piece of pantyhose I bought at the Dollar Store stretched across it. This caught any bits of pollen or comb from getting into the honey. Heehee... technical, I told you!

And this month saw these two heading off to Red Deer:) It was great to catch up!

Here is my mother... taking the oath of Citizenship to become a Canadian citizen! She did not have to renounce her American citizenship. It was a really cool experience to go to the ceremony. They don`t seem to care who comes to spectate, so I would recommend going  next time the ceremony is held in your city! A judge presides, a Mountie stands at attention, and one feels thankful for a pretty great Country to call home.

It was a patriotic day:) 

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you have a spooky day (if that is your thing), and at the very least enjoy a treat or two:) I have a few things to pick up to complete my costume... which I anticipate will be very funny looking:) 

xo Shanna

Well...that was fun!

Saturday was a great day for an afternoon of floating down the Cowichan river! 

Way to go... both of us Laird sisters have our eyes shut in this one:) And on that note, (kindof), this week has been busy with big and small details that are involved with my transition from Laird to Faulkner! Wedding and bridesmaid dresses chosen, rings picked out, and I just finished half of the thankyou cards I've been working on! 

Woohoo!

Hope you are having a good day:) 

Shanna

Real Beauty Sketches

So apparently only 4% of women believe that they are beautiful. Everyone knows that there is way more beauty out there than that!!! Say 100%?!

Real Beauty Sketches

I hope it's a great day wherever you are:)

***Picture Slideshow***

Here is the slideshow I promised! (Or I guess it is just an album of pictures- but you can make it a slideshow  if you want!)

Just click on the picture below:)

Highlights:

Washingon

- Climbed Mt. St. Helens

- Went to the Mt. St. Helens Visitors Center with Uncle Larry and Auntie Bev

Oregon

-"Slid" down sand dunes on garbage bags

-Saw the Sea Lion Caves

-Walked up the Astoria Column

-Saw the Carousel in the Seaside Mall

-Went to Fort Stevens and Peter Iredale's Shipwreck

California

-Saw the Redwood trees and drove through one!

-Explored the Fern Canyon

-Saw wild elk

-Enjoyed a wonderful church convention near Sacremento

-Went to Golden Gate Park

-Went up Coit Tower

-Saw the Golden Gate Bridge with Merra

-Had an evening of pizza and games with new Friends (thanks Phoebe!)

-Went to Alcatraz Island

100th post

Every time I have logged onto my blog in the last few months and have thought:  "you know, it would be good to write something on here... it's been a while", I notice that I have written 99 posts, so the next would be number 100! Thus I don't write anything because I know the 100th post has got to be good, and it's better to write nothing at all than something sub par! 

So here's an awesome picture! I just love it. It was taken a few weeks ago in San Francisco, CA at the botanical gardens, in Golden Gate State Park. I love my friend Kylie's outfit, love her bag, and love the colour of that leaf. This would be a lovely profile picture, in my opinion, but there is at least one person out there that knows it's not me! Darn. 

 

It smelled like flowers here!

Breakfast in the sun in San Francisco.

Thanks Daniel, Sterling, Dad, and Mom for being a fabulous seeing off crew! 

We had a wonderful two week road trip down the Oregon and California coasts, with a bit of time spent inland as well:) Remember when I posted a slideshow of pictures from our trip to Peru and Nicaragua in August 2010? Well I'm going to try to do that again, because we do have a lot of pictures!

Hope everything is going well in your neck of the woods:)

Nova Scotia -2013-

On Feb. 15th, Dad drove Daniel and I to the airport for an 8 day trip to see Daniel's Mom and Dad in Mineville, NS! I think pictures will do a better job of describing our lovely time away than any blurb of mine ... so VOILA!

 This is Kona, the adorable Australian Shepherd. She was pretty excited to have her brother and sister back home.

 Alison with Bijou.This cat has got attitude!

 Peggy's Cove! Complete with the frame:) It broke at one point but was patched together quickly so we could take it to our next photo taking excursion! From top, left to right: Shanna, Randy, Daniel, Mark (in picture frame), Alison, Janette.

Snowball coming at ya!

 Rainbow Haven Beach

 Makeshift (non-functional) bagpipes

Downtown Dartmouth

 Thanks again for the hat Monica! 

 They're a photogenic duo:)

 Morning coffee on vacation:)

He's on vacation, too! Hard to believe as he was up and going by 7 every day!

Some potholders made their way from Mom's sewing machine in Victoria to a kitchen in Mineville, NS!

Card games and snacks:) I didn't get a picture of our foot sleeping bags/ moonboots- AKA really warm slippers from MEC. We each had a pair but could tell them apart because there were different colours! 

Oh, technology:) 

Hee hee!

Lake Echo was frozen over... almost. It was pretty slushy actually.

 More from Peggy's Cove!

 We asked if we could go up the lighthouse with the maintenance guy, and he agreed! The light shines all the way to New Brunswick.

Peggy's Cove. Along the highway there was some really neat art/graffiti.Two  huge rocks along the side of the road were painted- one like a die, the other a rubix cube. 

 

This picture was taken after our Wednesday night bible study:)

 Serious photo taker!

 My scarf with snowflakes on it. Thanks for this too, Monica! She's got me outfitted for all my winter warmth needs:) 

A house in Dartmouth

 I like this one! We brought the mirror out from inside the house and had Mark on Facetime.

Click to see Peggy's Cove in realtime! It's a really cool website.

It was a nice, relaxing getaway! Really awesome to see snow again, too. I have missed that stuff! It's been a few weeks since we've been back home, and it's business as usual again! Although no two days of business are anything alike it seems! 

Have a good week! Don't forget to comment:)