Reminiscing

Molly and I left Granny's place on Thursday to make our short journey to Nana & Papa's house in Lac du Bonnet but first we met up with our friends Trish and Sandy at the Half Moon in Lockport.  The Lockport area is my old stomping grounds and it was great to drive by our old house and down River Road to Lockport.  After a couple of hours of chatting and taking a short stroll to the river Molly and I got back behind the wheel and off we headed to Nana & Papa's. 

Leaving mom was difficult this time as we spent so much time together, the most we have spent in a very long time.  Sure we had our ups and downs but she is my mom and I treasure each minute I spent with her.  She is recovering very well taking small steps without the walker, only with her cane.  She has physiotherapy once a week with exercises she does at home daily and the beginning of August she returns to her surgeon for her 6 week check up.  

I will our just-about-daily drives around Carman and into the countryside and reminiscing about the 'good ole days'.    I took mom to the 138th Carman Country Fair last weekend; met some people that I haven't seen in a very long time, ate too much at the concession booths, had ice cream and watched the demo derby and the fireworks.  Mom told me that her dad, my grandfather used his horse team to bring the midway onto the fairgrounds as they arrived by train, how cool is that? I spent some time with my long time childhood friend Angie and of course we laughed and laughed and laughed at the most stupidest things, but I guess that's what friendship is...just being yourself.  

Here are some highlights of the Fair.

The Legion Members led the way

Gotta love those big ponies

Ferris Wheel

Merry-Go-Round

Ferris Wheel at night

Round Up at night

Merry-Go-Round at night

One of our highlights of the Carman Fair was meeting long time Facebook friend Audrey and her GSP Talli.  She doesn't live far from Carman but we never connected in person until now, seemed we always missed each other.  Here is Audrey with my little petite Molly and her girl Talli. 

I tooted around Carman and the countryside quite a bit with mom and sometimes it was just Molly and I.  One thing about Carman is that it has some amazing old buildings and houses that are used to this day.  We also came across some old abandoned houses that are beautiful. 

Somewhere between Carman and Portage la Prairie

Front view of the house

This beauty is just outside of Roseisle Manitoba

Nothing like an old truck parked outside a old brick house

In Elm Creek

In Elm Creek

Watched the crop duster to it's thing

I believe this used to be the old CIBC bank and now 

is apartments

This old church is now a bed and breakfast

The town library

The old railroad station is now an art gallery 

The United Church in Carman has to be the 

oldest church

The Memorial Hall

There is something about the landscape of the prairies and I tried to capture how it feels to be out in the openness of the prairies.  Also came across a lot of deer and mom had some wild turkeys in her backyard last week.  We also made sure that we went for some prairie romps to our favourite place near Granny's house. 

Storm clouds moving in

I love this pic of the deer walking through the canola field

Well hello gorgeous

 Tundra Romping at it's best 

The next couple pics are basically from the same place but 13 years apart

Molly at 2 years old

Molly at 15 years old

I used to pick black-eyed susan flowers with 

my dad

This wild vine is growing at my mom's

Love horses 

Wild Turkeys!

My Auntie Lorraine, my mom's sister celebrated her 95th birthday this past week so we headed to Portage la Prairie for a bit of a party.  As you can see she looks fab for being 95!

My Auntie Lorraine and my mom

That's one of her grandchildren behind her

My Uncle Al and Auntie Lorraine 

Molly and I are now in Lac du Bonnet spending some time with the in-laws before we head back to the Arctic this week. Here's a couple pics from today from Nana & Papa's place. 

Talk soon!

Looking After Granny

I’ve been at my mom’s now for a couple of weeks as she is recovering from her total hip replacement.  She is now officially our bionic mom as she has had both knees done and now both hips. Just like any major surgery there are ups and downs and here’s hoping there are more ups then downs in her future.  This past week was a bit of a down as her leg was very swollen and red and her family doc sent her for an ultrasound to rule out any blood clots, thankfully there was none detected.  I take her on Tuesday to get her staples out and to get the final results of her ultrasound, the following week she starts her physiotherapy.  She has been doing her daily exercises and daily walks using her walker.  

Molly flew down with me and the boys are staying home in Cambridge Bay holding down the fort. Molly had a couple of vet appointments while we have been here as she was refusing to eat again. Her vet changed up her medications and she seems to be doing better.  She had an ultrasound done and a couple of x-rays which showed changes in her lungs (she has chronic bronchitis) and there is a narrowing between her T12 -T13 and her T13 and L1.  I decided to bring her to Dr. Linda Hamilton for some acupuncture and laser therapy, Molly did ok during her treatments and we will return again mid-July for another session. 

While mom was at the hospital I thought I’d fix her flower beds since she couldn’t work on them this year - instead of bringing her flowers at the hospital I added more to her beds so she can enjoy them through the season.  One of her beds I made a Happy 150th Birthday Canada theme with red and white petunias and her other ones I added more perennials and some beach rocks where nothing seemed to grow.  She was happy with her newly revamped beds and I had so much fun shopping for plants and getting some Manitoba dirt under my nails.  I still have work to do but glad the flower beds are weed free and some flowers are in. 

Before

After - Canada 150 Theme

Before

After with new perennials

Another after with new perennials planted

Not much happening here in Carman for Canada Day Celebrations but the small village of Roseisle is having some activities and fireworks so depending on how mom feels we may take the short drive there later today.  Other than that it will be a quiet Canada Day for us. 

I usual have both Molly and Blitz in the picture but this 

year it's Molly among some flowers

I have taken the opportunity to seek away while mom rests to take Molly out for some Prairie Romps and of course to take some short drives to take some pictures of some wild flowers and visit some community flower gardens. 

Our favourite place for prairie romps - along the diversion

Here's 3 different landscape shots that I took this past week and it shows the variety of weather we've been getting.  First was a very foggy morning and drive, the next pic is of a storm that rolled in and the last one is of the canola in full bloom.

Foggy morning in the Pembina Valley

Bright orange railway car against the stormy skies

(in HDR)

Beautiful yellow canola field

The next few pictures were taken from community gardens in and around Carman.

Roses

More of roses

Pretty yellow roses

Pretty rose

Love peonies 

This one was interesting with a white centre

One of my favourite flowers

The next few pictures are of wild flowers that I took during one of my drives out to the countryside.

Came across a bunch of these tiger lollies

Love daisies

Wild rose

Even a dandelion can be beautiful 

This little guy kept a close eye on me while I

was taking pictures

This lonely goose has been back to my mom's backyard

for the last 4ish years.  We noticed that he has a sore leg this year

and keeps close to the house. 

June was a busy month for me as I was hired to do a RCMP family pictures, pre-school pre graduation pictures and the grade 12 graduates. We had to change some dates for the family and grade 12 pictures due to the weather. I ended up doing the RCMP family in two days and the grade 12 the same day.  The high school girls were amazing and great sports as we ended up doing some fun pictures at the bridge on a Friday night where the temps were +4’c and the wind was wicked.  I had tons of fun doing their pictures at both the ceremony and at the bridge the following week.  The pre-school kids were great and really enjoyed having their picture taken - some couldn’t contain their excitement as you will see in the pictures below.

Tonya, Chris, Miah, Caiden and little Avery

Avery at the bridge

So much cuteness with the pre-school kids!

Here's some of my favourite pictures from the Grade 12 graduating class.  We had 2 locations on 2 different days - one was at the ceremony and the other was at Freshwater Creek Bridge. What a great bunch of people to work with! 

Graduating Class of 2017

Missing 3 graduates

Love this mother-daughter moment

Sassy! 

Love!

Gorgeous Pearl

Lovely Zoe

Pretty in Red

Proud papa moment

Our future graduates 

Molly & I will be in Manitoba until end of July and when we head back to Cambridge Bay I will be busy with the vet clinic during August long weekend.  Mom does not have internet access so I am limited using a personal hotspot from my IPad but will try to get another done before we leave. 

Talk soon!