Patty's Wedding!!

Patty got married!! Here are some pics.

This is Patty's new home. Its slowly being repaired but is very cute. They have a large kitchen and three fair-sized bedrooms. Uncle Ron and Kristy decided, in order to welcome the new couple to their humble abode, to short sheet their bed, crumble cereal and bread crumbs between the sheets, and a tea bag in the toilet.

Here's me in my 'wedding-going' clothes. I bought almost the entire outfit at Value Village (Hurrah for Value Village!).
The sister of the bride . . . Allison came home for a couple of weeks to help out with the wedding. She's returning to France on Tuesday, and will be coming back at Christmas. (What a wonderful idea - people coming HOME for Christmas . . . HINT HINT HINT!!)
Here is the blushing bride and proud groom looking all snazzy. Patty's dress was very beautiful and elegant. Her colours were red, black and white (very classic . . . and if you notice my dress is the accumulation of their colour scheme - HURRAH for Value Village)
The proud grandparents! Grandma and Grandpa were asked to come early to be part of the wedding photos (taken before the wedding - GASP - that's right, Patty and Andrew saw each other BEFORE the ceremony!). Both couples (new and not-so-new - 63 years this October!) looked fantastic!

Most amazing soup EVER!! (Well maybe not ever, but it is certainly close)

As autumn has fallen with quickness and speed upon Winterpeg, hot, feel good soups are a must. While at the farmer's market last Saturday, I purchased a acorn squash, thinking that it would be nice to have - though in exactly what form I was not certain. Well on Tuesday, after a very chilly bike into work, I knew exactly what I wanted - Apple Cinnamon Squash soup!

The recipe:

Cut up apples (3), squash (1), cauliflower (a bit), 1/2 an onion, 3 garlic cloves, spread in shallow dish, lightly coat with oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper.

Roast in oven (350) approx. 1hr, until squash is soft.

Peel squash and throw into a bender, along with other roasted vegies/fruit and chicken stock (preferable home made with small chicken pieces present), blend until smooth.

Transfer blended mixture to large pot - add additional water/chicken stock until reached desired consistency. Add cinnamon, pepper, basil, bay leaves, thyme, and a little salt (to taste), heat over medium heat until boiling. Turn down and allow to simmer until it smells too good to be true. Then dish it out and serve with Baking Powder Biscuits (adding a little garlic powder adds a nice touch). VOILA a FANTASTIC meal for a chilly day.

If you made too much - no worries, this soup tastes even better the next day. I even froze some for a quick meal later in the winter.

I would have posted a picture but it would have been of an empty bowl because, gosh darn it, it tastes GOOD!!

September Long Weekend!

After a delightful conversation with my family, a hearty breakfast of cereal, and a wonderful cup of hot tea, Grandma and Grandpa arrived at 9:30am sharp. Rachel and I rushed out the door, grabbing our cameras and we started on the last adventure of the summer 2010. Taking Hwy 8 we made good time and arrived in Gimli just at 11:00 (we had to get gas . . . the gas gage on Grandma's car is wonky, so even though it says its still a 3/4 of a tank, we filled up anyway - $15.00 worth). We met Uncle Ron, Aunt Terease, Chantelle and Eleise (sorry about the spelling) at the Evangelical Free Church in Gimli, walking in just a couple of minutes late.

After the service, we headed over to Amma's Tea House (we've been there before), and ate a huge lunch - I had chicken salad and for dessert, Pumpkin tort (DELICIOUS!!!). Taking a gander over to the Fifth Wheel (Uncle Ron and Aunt Terease's trailer - which is very very nice!), we left Grandpa taking a nap and headed to the pier,where we wondered around, went into shops and generally just spent the afternoon.

Back at the RV park, Aunt Terease showed us around all the bays and Grandma dreamed (she would LOVE to get a trailer and head out every weekend in the summer . . . Grandpa's not so keen.) After a dinner of fried chicken, we sat around the fire and roasted marshmallows until 8:15pm. Then it was 'Home James, and Don't Spare the Horse', except that I did spare the horse, in fact I took a lot of detours. We drove through Selkirk, then through Lockport, passed by St. Andrew's Elementary and then Main street and, eventually, home (it was pitch black and you could barely see anything, but it was nice just to drive the old routes and reminisce). All in all, the last trip of the summer was a success and very enjoyable. The weather was great, a little cool due to the wind off the lake, but pleasant, considering the weather we've had. Only thing that would have made it better - if my immediate family had been there too.

Berat

Hello Family of Mine!

Here are some pictures of our time in Berat. Dad asked for some and so here they are (ask and it shall be given.... maybe not in the time we specified but.... )

Sorry these pictures are all mixed up.

The first one is in Berat. This is an old church that we went into. I didn't know the picture was being taken and as you can see there is no one for me to direct, so I wasn't being bossy in this picture. Just for you information!!!! :P

These are my Albanian sister: Alba on the left and Eni on the right. You might be able to tell who doesn't exactly fit into the Albanian mold and why us foreigners stand out so much to them. It was Eni's engagement party. She and Alba and the others are so dressed up.... what they wear is like grade 12 graduation dresses.

Again, just to show you how CRAZY dressed up they get.

This is a picture of Korca from where we sat down and had 4 scoops of icecream!!!! (not on purpose, but good thing Becky is the icecream monster!) Korca is known as the Little Paris. What do you think Becky and Mom??

This is again Eni's Engagement party. They are waiting for Bimi's family to arrive. Everyone from Eni's family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, random foreigners who are adopted into the family) lines up as you can see, and greets his family. I was pushed into the side room. ha ha!

Thsi picture is of us dancing for a street evangelism one day with mom, Becky and the girls.

This is everyone from the church who were at the outside evangelism time.

This is a believer Marsela and mom. Marsela hosted the other girls at her house.

This was in Polican. In the very centre (ha ha, never noticed before but look: left is Koreans, centre is Albanians, Right are Canadians) are Moza in Yellow and Flutura in blue. I'll be working with them in Polican.

Amsterdam

Hi all

Alright so I have finally gotten around to taking some pictures of Amsterdam.  There are still many more pictures to take of this lovely city however this is what I managed to snap today as I was wondering around.

Lots of canals here in Amsterdam, I am told that without all the canals there would be real water problems in the city.  It is funny apparently Amsterdam does not have problems with flooded streets, not like Venice, I guess when you get as much rain as they do you adapt.

The city is alive there is always something going on and people going out.

The canals all have different names however I am confused how the boat owners are able to figure out their way around the water ways as there are so many different bridges and canals.

The design of these buildings is very common for downtown Amsterdam.  I must say that I love the look of these buildings and would love to own an apartment in one of them along one of the canals (the only problem is that the homes start at around 200000 euros and go from there)

Those boats are not only there for transportation but are there for living as well.  There are a number of house boats along the canal (I would love to live in one but I hear that they are cold during the winter)

These buildings all along the canal all contain flower shops

One of the flower shops and below a picture of some of the flowers

This is one of the various fast food restaurants in Amsterdam, basically the way this works is that it is like a vending machine for hot food.  You put your money into the machine and get what you want be it burger, hotdog, fried chicken, etc.

Some people are just desperate for a garden

My attempts at photography

Well I hope that you have enjoyed just a taste of what Amsterdam is like I am hoping to get more pictures and post more pictures over the next week or so.

Love you all

London

Hi all

I first want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes, it was really nice to open my email and see birthday wishes from my family.  As I am sure that you have figured out I have managed to get to Amsterdam more or less in one piece.  The flights were no problem and I was delighted to find that I was able to spend almost an entire day in London before having to head off to Amsterdam.  I must say that London is a lovely place and I am certainly intending on returning.

I was really fortunate as the main bus station that I cam into was in the city of Westminster (this is where there are a lot of important buildings and places)

I am sorry that the pic is on it's side but I forgot to rotate it before putting it on the blog.  Anyways I am pretty sure that this church has some historical significance however I was unable to figure out which church I was looking at and I liked the way it looked so I decided to take a picture.

This is just a pub that I came across I liked that it was called The Shakespeare and even though I didn't go in for a pint (as they were fairly pricey I decided I still wanted the picture)

Buckingham Palace, as you can see the flag is not flying so that meant that the Queen was not in:  As a result I was unable to go and have tea and crumpets with her majesty but next time I am in London maybe I will have better luck.

I was a little disappointed to find out that there would be no changing of the guard while I was there (being that it was sunday and I guess this is the day when the guards get to be a little lazy) and while I didn't watch the guards for very long it is true that they didn't seem to move a muscle while there were standing guard.

This is why England is in a financial crisis these gates must have cost a small fortune to make and this is only one picture of one set of gates.

Picture of the Palace form the end of their crazy long driveway

I originally took a picture of this really cool fountain (that is water flowing down the front of the monument) and then I later found out that this was a memorial to Canadians for their sacrifices during the second world war.  I may be a little bias but I say that it was the nicest monument out of all the monuments in the area.

This was the Washington monument which was close to Buckingham Palace (but not as close as the Canadian Monument)

The entrance to Hyde Park (this is just a giant park in London where everyone seems to go on a nice summer sunday afternoon)

They had a beautiful rose garden here in Hyde park and this is my attempts at being a photographer.

Again I am sorry that the picture is on its side but this was a picture of the pluck (spelling ?) in front of the Princess Diana Memorial and below is a picture of the memorial

It was kind of difficult to take a picture of this memorial so you would understand what it looked like, basically it was like a water going over rocks and creating little rapids going down a hill and when it reached the bottom it would collect in a pool.  They encouraged people to play in the memorial as that is what Diana would have wanted (I am not going to lie I think we need more interactive memorials I am a fan)

Random swan, they are seriously all over the park (the park is situated around a man made lake which is full of people boating around on paddle and row boats).  It was funny as the birds are clearly very comfortable with human contact as they would walk right to you if they thought that you may have something to feed them.

I am not sure what this arch was called but I liked it and therefore needed to take a picture of it.

A picture of the london eye (it was very expensive to ride and by that point in time I had run out of battery life so I couldn't take any more pictures)

But before I ran out of batteries I was able to get a video of Trafalgar Square

As I say in the video it is difficult to explain unless you have actually experienced it.  It was really a sight to see.

Anyways this was London.  I am hoping to soon start amassing picture so of Amsterdam and to post those shortly because honestly Amsterdam is a beautiful city and there is so much to see and do I am not even sure where to start.

I am going to go for now but I love you all and I hope you have enjoyed your quick trip though London as seen by my camera.