Happy Birthday Jess!

Hope you have a top-of-the-world kind of day!

Time for a Bird Fix!

We've had some beautiful goldfinches coming to our feeder. Their bright color always amazes me.

Our birdhouses have seen a fair bit of activity.

The tree swallows have definately claimed rights to the birdhouse and are nesting again.

Mrs. Swallow has been collecting nesting material. That's Mr. Swallow sitting on the post watching!

I'm guessing by the second or third week of June we'll have babies.

Our Trailer

We bought a trailer. We haven't camped since our kids were in high school, but we're ready to start again. It's a 16-footer.

The front. The table makes into a bed, and the top cupboards can be made into a bunk.

The back. The seats make into a bed. The door with the mirror on it is our port-a-potty room. Oh yeah, have you noticed our furnace? Maybe I should spray paint it black???

Darrell and Jess were here this weekend. Darrell was a big help in moving the trailer. Jess' birthday is coming up soon, so Mal and her made a planter chair together.

New Garden Shed!

The weather has been miserable - snow, cold, biting wind - but Mal has been determined to build a garden shed at the side of our house. It's not big since we don't have much room there, but it's big enough to hold all the tools and a little more.

We did have 2 nice days, so I quickly did the first coat of painting then. I still have the second coat to do, but that will wait for some warm weather, which they say is coming soon.

You can see the remnants of snow on the ground. It was just snowing an hour ago but later today the forecast is for a thunder storm. We're more than ready for some warmth.

My Mother's day Flowers

We bought two hanging baskets today for Mother's Day. They are a kind of petunia called Million Bells. Smaller, but very hardy and prolific. And you don't have to deadhead. However, I guess I can't leave them outside for awhile. I wonder if we'll get a May snow this year???

This is a video of swallows checking out our birdhouse - our favorite sign of spring. I'm not happy with the quality of the video. It plays smoothly on the camera, but not on our computer. I've downloaded the latest Quick Time. Any suggestions?

Our Travels

We were in the Peace River country this last weekend - 6 hours north of Edmonton- to do a Visioning Seminar. While there we went to the small town of Fairview (only 3500 people) to see an African Drama put on by the local Theatre and Dance Company. I enjoyed it immensely - the costumes were incredible. Mostly children were involved.

It also gave me a chance to test out my new camera. No flash photagraphy was allowed so I had to take pictures in a dark room without a flash. I was sitting 5 rows back and using full zoom. I was pleased at how well they turned out without a flash.

An Oregon Junco hit the window of the place we were staying the weekend before and gave me a chance for a closeup.

The weekend before we were near Slave Lake teaching a Church History course from the Reformation on. It was inspiring to do the prep- so many heroes to talk about.

Great Week!

All the kids came over just after Easter and we had fun watching Jack and Kaleb relate differently than they had before. Kaleb's old enough to have fun running and playing now. And Jack is talking so well and saying funny things! We kept on imagining what it would be like to throw Mary and Martha into the mix!

We're part of a Garden Club and we got together this week at a Greenhouse for a lesson in making hanging baskets. It was informative and fun.

AND I GOT A NEW CAMERA!!!

It's a Panasonic FZ28, 18x optical zoom and 10 megapixels.

I'm still reading up on all it can do.

I like the settings. When you're choosing a setting, instead of a little icon showing up in the corner, the whole LCD monitor is filled, so I don't have to run for my glasses to see which setting I'm selecting. And, as you can see, there are lots of options: candlelight, stars, beach, snow, etc. Maybe I'll finally be able to take a picture of stars! Or of snow falling. Recently I took a picture of a little chapel with HUGE snowflakes falling, and they didn't show up at all.

And I just have to push a button for the timer and exposure, so I don't have to go through a bunch of menus to get to them.

So far it looks good. Now I just have to start experimenting with it!