Oh, and ...

... good luck Brian at the Manitoba Marathon tomorrow! Maybe next year I'll join you in running a half!

Kurt's old stomping ground

Yesterday afternoon Kurt and I took the kids to the University, Kurt's old stomping ground. There is a lot of construction going on at the U of S, what a busy campus! We went to the geology building to look at the exhibits there and have coffee and donuts at the Tim Horton's upstairs, then we visited Kurt's old office. His successor wasn't in, but the secretary was, so we chatted with Germaine for a while. I first met her and Kurt in that office 12 years ago as an exchange student, and never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined coming back here one day with Kurt's grandchildren in tow! You just never know, right?

Laying low

Both Finn and Lily came down with a bad cold, so we are taking it easy these days. Here are some of the things we have been up to:

Our neighbours (Stacey and her family) went on a camping trip for a few days, so we walk over in the mornings to look after Gingey and the cat. Yesterday morning it was really cool and windy again, thus the jackets.

Kitty gets food and hugs from Finn and Lily, then it's on to ...

... feed Gingey!

Inside the house Lily makes sure the toad is still where he is supposed to be.

This morning it was much nicer out, so we stayed and played for a while.

Gingey enjoyed being let out of his kennel. We were afraid he would run away to look for his family, so Kurt put a leash on him after a while. Gingey then took Finn for a walk around the house. :)

Lily likes Gingey a lot, but is a little scared of him at the same time. It didn't help that he pushed her over this morning when he came running out of his kennel.

Kurt checking out Stacey's garden. Imagine, her strawberries are twice the size than his, but his peas usually turn out much better, so that's okay.

Blackstrap Lake

This afternoon we (Norma, Claudia, Finn and Lily) visited Auntie Bev, Norma's sister in her beautiful lakefront home on Blackstrap Lake, about a half hour south of Saskatoon. We had a really nice visit and with temperatures up to 30C a lake was the right place to be. Poor Grandpa had to stay home. He's been busy all day fixing the brakes on his old car.

Ready for take-off!

The house seen from the lakefront

View from the beautiful deck. It is completely screened in (because of the moskitos), that's why the picture looks so funny.

Finn and Lily had a lot of fun playing on the dock. They both have colds so I didn't let them play in the water.

And naturally the pets (2 dogs and a cat) were not safe from Finn and Lily's loving attention!

And when the pets had had enough and walked away Finn and Lily took turns being the dog and "sleeping" in the crate.

"Mile, mile!", Lily told the dog. Poor doggie is deaf, but Finn obeyed and smiled.

And on our way home we saw this: A deer with her newborn twins, one of them lying down on the gravel road. They were so tiny! The mother was very nervous, both wanting to run and to stay with her babies.

She finally got them to follow her to the other side of the road, so we drove past them slowly.

And guess what? Finn said he wanted to shoot them! He wants to be a hunter like his Grandpa. The other day, when he learned that there was venison in the lasagna Norma made (from a deer Kurt shot last fall), he exclaimed "Finally I got to eat a deer, yay!"

Well, at least Lily still thinks bambis are cute. :)

Ross' place

So we stopped at Maple Heights Arabians (aka as Ross' Place) to say hi to Ross and Erin after our buffalo adventure. Finn and Lily just love it there. The poor cats get cuddled, carried around, smooched (eew!), petted, squeezed and so on. They seem to like it though! Parker the dog is treated with a tiny bit more respect and only gets hugged and scratched behind his ears, which is mainly due to his size, not his temperament. He is the mellowest dog I know.

Here they are having fun with the cats on the trampoline.

Finn and Lily had great fun jumping! After involuntarily hopping up and down for a while the cats decided that under the trampoline was way more comfortable than on top.

Parker could only watch so much action from a shady spot.

While Ross and Kurt visited and the kids played Erin and I had a look at some horses. This handsome fellow is a 3-year old Arabian race horse prospect. He is the son of the mare I rode when I lived on the place 11 years ago and he looks very much like her.

And this cutie was just a few hours old!

Finn decided to join us in one of the paddocks. He was very brave and didn't panic when all the horses came to check him out. They thought he might have a treat for them, so they were quite nosy.

This is Rocky getting his nose stroked.

After a while Finn decided to check out machinery with more hp than just 1.

Lily got Finn to help her feed the horses some grass and hay and whatever Lily thought was appropriate horse feed.

Anyone else want some old straw mixed with horse poop?

Mmm, edible or not edible? Better lick it first to see what it tastes like.

Tomorrow morning I will go and ride "my" horse from way back when. Highland Fling is a 15 year old mare now who looks just as beautiful as she did as a 4 year old. I'm excited to find out if we still get along after all these years! (Man, I start to sound like my own grandmother. :)

Buffalo Hunt

Hi there Papa,

your little Lily here! We had a really fun day today. First we went to Emanuel Baptist Church where Finn and I played in the toddler room. Then we went home for lunch and a nap, and this afternoon Mama put sunscreen on us (we made it a lot of fun for her), gave us big hats and off we went with her and Grandpa. Grandpa had asked us if we wanted to see the buffalo in front of the Dakota Dunes Casino and of course we had shouted "yeeeeEEESSSS!" So we got in the car and went a few miles down the highway to the Whitecap Dakota Reserve. You know, where the people live that Finn calls Indians and Grandpa calls Aboriginals. This is how it went:

"Hey, Finn, do you know where Grandpa is taking us today?"

Finn said we were almost there. When he saw the parking lot with hundreds of cars he said, "Look at all the people who came to see the buffalo!"

That is the Dakota Dunes Casino is in the background.

"Look, Finn, they are HUGE!"

They have a whole buffalo family there, Papa. It's really neat.

We also checked out the tipi, but it was empty. Then we peeked into the Casino and saw a lot of people gambling on machines. We had to go back out right away though, because a man came and told us no kids or cameras are allowed on the premises. But we didn't like it in there anyway.

It's much nicer outside, where you can see the prairies!

Then we went exploring some on the reserve. Finn wanted to know if the nice girl he met at the pool lived here, but Mama didn't know. You know, the one who helped him go down the big slide so many times? We saw some kids, but not her, but then we saw THEM!

REAL buffalo! They were very big.

We were lucky there was a fence between us and them, although to be honest, it didn't look like it would keep a mad buffalo from running right through. So I guess the Whitecap Reserve buffalo are pretty tame. They had cute babies, too! Mama said they are called cinnamons because of their color.

We also stopped at the Reserve School. They have a really nice playground! Finn and I wanted to stay and play right away, but Mama said we didn't bring any drinks so we will come back soon.

And on the way back home we stopped at Ross' place, but that will be a post for another day. We miss you Papa! Good night and hugs and kisses,

your little Princess :)

P.S. Finn says he wants to be an Indian when he grows up.

Dear Papa,

... it's me, Finn! We hope you had a good time visiting your friends in Toronto and Ottawa, and that you got back to Germany all right! Did you sleep on the airplane, or did you watch movies all the time? Lily misses you and when I ask her where Papa is she says "airport". The silly girl thinks we left you there! I miss you too, but Mama is keeping us busy, so we are doing very well.

Here are some pictures of our adventures these past few days.

This is me. Mama said she wanted to show me something really cool. Well, she took me to Grandpa's old chicken house!

I knocked, but no one answered the door. I told Mama that all the chickens must be sleeping. She opened the door and we went in.

And would you know it - all the chickens are gone! No chickens live here anymore, but it is such a neat little house I told Mama that we could move in! I had a good look around and liked it very much.

Here's me and Mama having a little chicken chat.

Meanwhile, Grandpa and Lily were busy watering the garden. Grandpa would fill the pails and carry them to the garden, and then ...

... he watched Lily while she watered the plants very carefully. She did a good job!

When we were done Grandpa and Mama took us to the Elementary School Playground.

We had so much fun there!

Slides, swings, tunnels, and even a little forest where we played hide and go seek. You should have seen Lily jump right up into Grandpa's arms when we looked for Mama and she suddenly jumped out from behind a bush saying "boo!" I wasn't scared, of course.

And today, after Lily's nap, we went to the Lakewood Pool again. We had SOOOO much fun! And Papa, I went down the big blue slide ALL BY MYSELF! At first Mama or Grandpa fished me out of the water right away, but then I didn't even need that anymore. Grandpa was surprised at how much we love the water and how fearless we are. Afterwards we went to Tim Hortons, just like we did with you. Lily and I had donuts with chocolate icing, yummy! Mama and Grandpa had coffee and we bought a box of donut holes, but guess what, none of them made it home to Grandma. There were two left, but when we didn't look Lily ate half of both of them.

Okay, Papi, this is it for today. Soon I will write more!

Love,
your Sunshine