It has been busy!! Since this spring I have been selling items for Yvette on Kijiji so that has taken some time and has provided her with some cash. I went and picked raspberries at her house and we brought back a few more things to sell. Victor dropped by for a visit on his way to Calgary. It was nice to see him again and we had the chance to catch up. There have been a few trips to prepare for Mom's surgery. Brian has been busy with the building committee preparing to build a new church. He has prepared a business plan with the hours of research and consulting that has required. There have quite a few meetings as well. I have been helping my friend, Paula, as well with her out of town garden.
Our first time out with the canoe this year!! We decided we were just going so took time for an afternoon of canoeing out at Alix Lake. We discovered the boat launch which made getting on to the water a breeze!!
We hauled the canoe out of the water at the swimming area and had our lunch on the beach!! It was a wonderful day though a bit on the windy side so we took the opportunity to test our paddling skills by crossing the lake against the wind.
We found some interesting things to look at on our paddle around the lake. Here are some beautiful yellow water lilies. At the far end we found this little cove where the water was calm and had a beautiful reflection of the cattails.
On the way back we worked our way through the buoys which we expect have been used for water skiing but we are not sure. It was fun to challenge ourselves to keeping the canoe between the buoys!
We did not see too much wildlife but we did see this family of ducks.
It took us a few hours to paddle the lake and take a lunch break and we made it back to the boat launch a bit tired and ready to be off the lake.
It was great to be canoeing again and we hope to make that happen a few more times this summer.
Therese
On the far end of the bay we spied some large white birds landing so we went and checked them out. It was a couple of pelicans which took flight when we got closer than they were comfortable with. We found this egg floating in the water. Pretty cool!! It was quite large and had obviously been floating around for a while considering how much of the shell was coated with the green film. I put it in the canoe and pondered bringing it home but upon reconsideration I decided that there may be laws against that so I put it back in the water. I wonder if it might have been a pelican egg? Certainly, all the other birds we saw were not large enough to have laid this size of egg. It was unfortunate that the quiet was disturbed by the sound of a boom box on the shore. I am sure they were not aware of exactly how far the sound carries over the water. 
There was lots of time for playing at home too! Here they are setting up a challenge game with the wood blocks and the balls to see which ones went the farthest. We spent some time at the school play ground as well. They loved the round swings. You can see in the background that the work is progressing on the arena and a large crane was on hand to place the prefab concrete walls for the new dressing rooms.
Lacombe Days started just before they left so we took in the free BBQ at Sun FM. The kids got tattoos and won a few prizes by spinning the big prize wheel after lunch.
Sylvan Lake was nice. The barrier made the access to the water about a foot deep right off the bat. The water was nice and clear though and we were grateful for some shade on the beach which allowed Amelyn to stay out of the sun and she played contentedly on the blanket while the others played in the water.
This is a the blue bell flowers I got from Alison this spring. She removed all of hers and replaced them with la wide variety of lilies. They will stay in his bed until the walk gets put in and then they will be moved to a more permanent home. They like to self seed so I anticipate I will have a larger patch before they get moved. 
