A plethora of springtime this and that...

Bunches of this and that.

It's a springtime photo blitz, a roll back plethora of photos somehow forgotten in a file folder hidden in my Picasa files. These have been beckoning me move on and get them posted, to finally publish them here on the blog. 

Therefore, without too much ado, here are a whole lot of "this and that", nothing in any particular order, just a bunch of fun springtime photos I wanted to clear from my files. 

Maybe a few of them will make you smile, perhaps some will make you wonder, but all are memories from 2012's springtime already gone.

She was having a sweet tooth craving, wanted to purchase something in the dessert department, and couldn't decide which was better - cookies or ice cream. Naturally, they do go together, so she chose both, and then made me pay. :)

Of course one snaps a photo of this when buying a new guitar. 
Right? Apparently, all the intricate details really matter. 

Our new Canadian 50 and 100 dollar bills are now made of plastic materials, filled with holograms, so they are no longer prone to copying or ripping. 

Take a look folks, it's here in my hand, and long gone. 
One photo, one hundred dollars gone. 

Our third ten-session homeschool group swim lessons, along with extra special blocks of time for plenty of lap endurance testings. I love to keep them swimming, just to swim. We are currently in swim lessons again now, each and every Monday afternoon for another eight weeks yet. Keep them working out!

Oh hello! You're supposed to be my Great-Uncle, right? 

Thank you to our niece for making the long drive to introduce all of us to her sweet little boy. 

Yes, and here's another babe. Wasn't she just a lovely petite thing? 
Born March 1, she is now almost eight months old, but this was one spontaneous photo of baby-grandpa conversational talking. 

Mommy felt up to going out to the barn. 
This was baby's first visit to her mama's special spot. 
She won't remember this visit, thus I was quite excited to capture this photo for her to have in the future when it all makes sense.

How to put together a basketball net? 

Well let's see.... seems both had trouble with the assembly part, as it was so very complicated!

After quite some time, they had to enlist others to help complete the assembly, with some 4 hours invested in this project!

Never again we all said! 
But, it's very sturdy, has been extremely well used, and all think it's pretty terrific.

Big sister was always along cheering heartily, and helping out her little sis. Special bonds have been formed, as these two know well the expectations of horse show day festivities. 

She's been such a fabulous coach for both our girls, there with them 
at every step of the way.

Florals in springtime never fail to make me smile. How wonderful they are when blooming right beneath our noses. 

Mr. Tent Caterpillar - what damage you create on all our foliage! 

Here's one of our Happy Birthday boys! 

Results of an ice cream bar set up in the kitchen. Yum! 

When mommy is busy making cookies, my auntie will make certain I can watch too. This is just fascinating to her.

Another birthday boy, sure to dodge the camera every time. 

Our very sweet granddaughter at 6:30am. She's always such a happy little gal. 

And our newest grandson is such a happy boy too. He was all smiles when we met face to face at long last.

Hungry girls awaited our arrival to town, and the entire family went for pizza. Great to be together. 

Our daughter trying to wear in her new horse riding boots. See that pink sticky tab? It's her reading bookmark she placed there, because surely it won't fall off and she can grab it after to bookmark her page again. 

Birthday boy's breakfast outtakes. 

Four photos later, we have a few to make the memory last forever. 

Two blocks from our home, this was the scene one evening after these men were in communication training sessions around central and southern Ontario for several weeks. It was a very cold day, and seeing them all hanging around various parts of the area awaiting instruction at their assigned posts, now that their day was done, I stopped to inquire if I could offer them each a cup of coffee to warm up, or perhaps I could purchase some food for them.

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The captain of the crew said; "God love you lady, but honestly, we've been up since 2:30am, and coffee has already been flowing all day long. So, no thank you.".. 

After smiling at his reply, I then boldly asked; "Mind if I take your photo?" And, here's what I got. "How about you get in the photo too?"

Yes, folks, I'll proudly stand with our troops! What a great bunch!
Thank you boys for all you do to protect our country!

So thankful for the fun math sessions our gang were privileged to join in with the others. What a great math teacher this woman was!

Hats off as condolences were offered in this memorial service towards those who died during the "Battle of the Atlantic". 
Talk about living history, we were all reminded of it here this day.

Just my beautiful (oldest) granddaughter and I back in May, the two of us together.  
Love you K.

Little babies are fun to play with, and dolly furniture is really funny to find her sitting on. 

After twenty years of owning trucks, this hubby of mine has made the drastic change to size down to a car! With diesel fuel as the gas of choice, we are saving so much money on long drives and commutes. Yay! 

Archery lessons were an impromptu invitation with the abnormally warmth of the early spring season. What fun they had rummaging through the forest to find life sized plastic animals to shoot with their bows. 

Oh Happy Girl!

Another grandson moment, cozy in his little fuzzy suit with bear ears and all.

Very special to me were the folks at Catholic Embroidery who created these memorable and plush blankets for me, commemorating the baptisms of our last two grandbabies, both born in early 2012.

 Initially though, we wanted to gift our little dying parishioner baby with a similar one, something so tremendously beautiful for her parents to have for use with her during her short time here on earth.

This company offers expedited services, and believe me, when certain death was very imminent for our little friend, Mary placed our order at the top of the heap and shipped it out very quickly. I cannot thank her enough for that huge blessing provided for us, and also for the family involved. My only regret is not taking a photo of that specially ordered blanket before giving it away. I would have treasured that photo forever.

Simply Gorgeous! 

These blankets will become a must have item for all future grandchildren to come, and I'm sure you're in agreement they are something to forever cherish. We asked for full names, and baptismal dates, with the selected Ave Maria symbol as our custom embroidered options. Hidden for reasons of privacy, you'll just have to trust me that when in full view, they truly are stunning! 

Okay, mommy took her baby girl to the barn, and then sat her up on a horse for the first time here. She even has her very own pink little cowgirl boots already. I can only imagine what is to come for this youngun. :) 

Teehee! 

He was standing in "just the right spot" to snap this funny photo. 

Just a few weeks old, Uncle came for a work/visit 

and was smitten when meeting his new niece.

Our daughter snapped this photo of us with her children, our three granddaughters in fact, while we were waiting for the restaurant to open at 6:30am. After all, it was our sweet grandgirl's birthday breakfast date, and happened to be the only time we were all able to swing it. Eyes open everyone! 

Happy Birthday, Love you J.

 Spring was in the air, the door wide open to allow fresh air to flow through, and flowers were in abundance in our home. A little happy time before making dinner, with the sun blasting inside to keep everything bright and sunny. 

He was able to get down on the floor, not usually able to perform this body position for a long time. But this day, someone was watching all his movements, following his voice and never taking her eyes off of him. So, together they were able to chit chat for quite some time, right there on the floor. 

And, this gal just completed her very last ten-jump course of that one particular horse show in spring. What a great riding season both our girls were able to participate in together. 

This weekend however, a non-seasonal horse show excitement is in the air, at their own barn with a dress up Halloween theme to boot. Not only are riders to be dressed up in costume, but the horses are also to be donning some sort of themed suiting. 
Mom here is volunteering and looking forward to all the fun!

Okay, that's a wrap on this very long and photo intensive post. Hope you enjoyed that little walk back to a few months ago with me.

Summer rewind; Canadian National Exposition (CNE) in Toronto

Every once in a while, our family sets out to explore something, or somewhere new-to-us, and this day - our spontaneous day's event turned out to be spectacular!

This year, our big event timetable was most interesting as it was an impulsive idea during my husband's vacation timing (what shall we do today, our one and only day no one has some other commitment) , and happened to end up being the morning after most of southern and central Ontario had the most alarming and dangerous lightning show, with several tornadoes touching down in the tornado warning's wake across an entire lower province span of many, many miles.

The day was going to be great. The weather was supposed to be warm and sunny, except for the occasional black, passing, and spitting cloud. We knew though if rain fell upon us, we could quickly dip into one of the many buildings and allow it to pass. No matter, the activity would be trying if it didn't meet with success by all. 

Sitting areas were a must, distances away from parking lots had to include an easy walk to the event gateway, something of a challenge seeing how we had not yet been to this two week summer event before. Still, we were hoping all would be just fine.

A few very dark clouds never ruined the day, just a wee bit of rain was all, misty and very light. 

It was a fine day. It really was delightful and very fine.

Off we traveled towards downtown Toronto to attend the 133rd birthday anniversary of the great "CNE" (Canadian National Expedition), an event we had always heard of but weren't all that eager to experience unless we could convince our children the rides weren't the only part of the festivities while there.

Having "Wonderland" so close by to this expedition, rides were plentiful there if one only wished to partake of those. And we've already been there before. So, on the horizon this day was the CNE.

There were rides, and then there were also plenty of other assorted interesting items we all very much enjoyed.

He's getting quite bold, shown here on the "Zipper", a ride which his sister would not accompany him.

But, she did accompany him on almost every other single ride, boarded here and there all during the day and evening ahead. They were quite a pair this brother and sister, both having an incredibly great and memorable time together. We had fun watching them, and the best part overall were barely any lineups at each ride. Probably the storm the night before deterred many folks.

One security guard told us he had videotaped lightning hitting some of the rides and of course the CN tower many times. He said he and fellow colleagues had counted some 1500 lightning bolts per minute, up to 20,000 on their afternoon shift alone. The skies lite up and it appeared as though daylight was at hand, very freaky was the expression of the night.

 

And the sun shone the rest of the day...

We attended a magnificent ice skating show with performers galore; vocalists singing all the songs live, skaters performing to the tunes, and even some aerial acts combined with the skaters. Wow, almost akin to the "Cirque to Soleil", no doubt.

This gal was smitten by the Royal Horse Show Palace where once each year, a famous agricultural fair and horse show worthy of worldwide attention is held here called "The Royal Fair". 

Although it wasn't opened to the public this day, the doors were unlocked and with others doing the same thing, we helped ourselves to a tour inside. :) 

After hearing so much in the way of horse loving hoopla about this fair, at last, the "Royal" will be here again in just three weeks, so our girls very much hope to get there for the first time this year.

 Other tidbits;

• The "Food Channel" had a booth, and those real live chefs featured on their shows were there cooking live. 
• A half hour "Super Dogs Show", and then meeting all of the dogs afterwards.
• Several buildings were linked featuring; an International Market, live entertainment from around the world, a fabulous food court, displays galore, and a luxurious (ohhh-la-la) 20 minute shiatsu back massage and foot reflexology was mine compliments of my hubby. 
•  All of the crafting entries were interesting, and it was here our youngest daughter took note of the possibilities of entering our local fall fair next month. She is going to show her bunny, very sweet.

• The agricultural and animal buildings were loaded with live animals, and many interesting exhibits.
• The Mardi Gras parade was so much fun, short as it was. We ended up with six necklaces which had been tossed in the air us to catch. 
• Live entertainment was plentiful. When darkness fell, my hubby and I took our seats to watch an up and coming country entertainer who was going to be assisting in the CMT awards. For some reason I simply cannot remember his name! ugh... He was a great musician and wonderful singer playing a large genre filled playlist. The audience rewarded them with rounds of clapping. 

The evening ended with a clear sky, and warmth enough to see us comfortable. As the children continued again towards the rides, all agreed it had sure been a stellar day.

The adventures for our family "in the east" continue with fond moments of goodness and fun pleasures. This day afforded us all the action of the CNE. And now that this has already been experienced, we'll just stick with our little country fall fair in the future. We came, we saw, we had enough and then happily departed with many memories to remember this day always.