More layouts and Father's Day

Summer happened today!  Hurray.  My garden is still not dug, my tomatoes non-existant ... although I appear to have some leaf lettuce growing in my lawn ... I call it "lawn lettuce", and some romain lettuce in a flower pot ... hmmmm.  My back is feeling much improved, but still not 100%, but I'm going to get some stuff planted this week!

Last week I worked on some stalled layouts, and I'm happy to say that I finished 4. Here they are!

monster parade

Monster parade was not really stalled for very long ...just a few weeks.  October is monster month in Elora, so we dressed the dogs in their costumes and walked them up and down the main street.  Everyone smiled and most people laughed at them.

Athabasca Falls

I've been thinking about how I would do this page for a long time.  Athabasca Falls is one of those "bigger than life" memories ... and for me, that makes it harder to scrap it.  The sketch by Allison Davis was perfect, all I did was make one giant picture instead of all the smaller photos.  This picture deserves no less.

Victoria Woods trilliums

I took this picture in May 2008.  I printed the pictures in September 2010, but I was not happy with the papers I originally selected, so the layout stalled.  Now both Ruff and Gem are gone, both taken by cancer, and the layout neededto be completed.  After I made a switch of one of the papers everything snapped into place.  I like the softness of the layout, but it's not insipid.  I used my copics to colour some of the flowers pink.

Tea time

Mother's day 2009.  We went with a tea theme.  I liked the sketch by Allison Davis for this event, but it still took a long time to complete.  All that hand stitching and those crochet flowers, it's a little "fru-fru" for me, but I like the simplicity too.  Yeah, I like it.

On Father's day we headed down to visit with Steve's dad.  It was a beautiful day, not too hot with a nice breeze.  We sat outside ... the dogs played in the lawn.  Right away we both noticed that Dad is walking much better ... not really shuffling like he did.  I took some pictures of the pups to scrap and was suddenly drawn to a giant bee as it busied itself with some of the flowers in the garden.

Bee

The picture for the day is Dad with Alfie.

Happy Father's Day!

Back to work tomorrow

Well vacation ends tonight.  I spent most of the day organizing my scrapping space and looking through all my new stuff from Allison Davis.  Most of it was "to die for", but some was outside my confort zone ... but it's good to try new stuff, right?

Yesterday Steve noticed that Alfie's cheek was bleeding.  Poor pup, he didn't want anything near it but we had to look at it.  While Steve held him I looked at the wound.  It was small but bad ... pretty swollen too ... it felt like he had a ping-pong ball in there.  I could see something extending out of the mess ... small, maybe a stinger.  You know, I remember looking back at the dogs during the drive, and I told Steve that Alfie looked like he may be playing with a bug ... maybe he was.  Anyway, I pulled the thing out slowly and got what looked like a venom sack ... along with alot of other gross stuff.  We soaked the wound with some salted water and applied some medical type goo.  First thing this morning I checked and the swelling is down by half.  Sigh.

Back at my desk I looked through my stuff.  Before I start a new project, I've got to finish up some of the older projects that are "stuck".  I've got at least a dozen layouts that are stalled for one reason or another ... so starting this week I'm gonna get them moving again!

I spoke with my mom.  Steve's dad is much improved with the new medication.  A little good news from them ... I'll take it.

I'm Back!

It's been nearly two weeks since my last post.  Well, there's a couple of reasons for that ... first we lost our telephone/internet service for several days because the workers doing road construction broke the cable, and all the cables that were not cut had no capacity to take more. 

I've been so stressed out.  Steve's mom, his dad.  I'm worried that my mom will not be able to look after him, her arthritis is so bad, but she'll soldier on.  My sister's husband may lose his eye due to diabetes, he'll have surgery later.  And at work ... well I'm so far behind on my testwork I'll never catch up.  So Steve and I planned a long weekend up in the Bruce to attend the orchid festival.

Instead I was surprised to know that Steve had asked for vacation on my behalf and we headed east into Quebec ... our destination ... Tadoussac.  He had it planned for months.  Oh, and another surprise ... a brand new camera!

I was so excited and I love driving through Quebec, it is so beautiful.  We stopped at many of the rest areas along highway 138 to stretch our legs and let the dogs rest.  Tucker hates travelling, poor guy.  And then it happened.  Sydney suddenly jerked on her leash and I hurt my back.  After some debate, we continued along 138, stopping in Trois Rivieres for the night.

After driving through the spectacular scenery along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, we boarded the ferry to cross the Saguenay ... it is the only way across ... poor Tuck ... as the ferry rocked gently back and forth during the 10 minute crossing, he puked up his breakie.  Then, back on the road and before anything else, Steve stopped by the bakery ... and purchased some chocolate croissants and bread ... yum.  Finally we arrived at our little cottage. 

Less than 3 km from the village, we rented a cottage in Domain des Dunes.  We settled in and Steve got a ticket for me to watch the whales the next day.  Song birds sang in branches, and when the sun set peepers chirped through the night.  Paradise!

In the morning Steve headed out whale watching ... my back was too sore, he didn't see many whales through the fog but still managed to get a few pictures. 



Beluga Whales

Ferry through the fog



When Steve returned we headed to Baie Ste Catherines to watch for whales from the shore.  We got stuck in a huge backlog of traffic in line for the ferry ... it took 1.5 hours to get back across.  But while we sat in line we saw several beluga whales.

My back seemed fine while driving so the next day we left the frosty fog that seemed stuck over Tadoussac and toured around the fjord up to Saguenay, stopping to admire the rugged and beautiful cliffs along the fjord.  The sun was bright and warm.

Steve with les petites

Dramatic cliffs rise above the Interpretive Centre

The Saguenay Fjord

Then we stopped by "la petite maison blanche" or "the little white house".  During massive floods in 1996, the tiny home was engulfed by the raging saguenay and somehow survived.  It's now a museum.


La Petite Maison Blanche July 1996



 

Now a museum, a "fake flood" cascades over the rocks.

It was getting late so we headed back to Tadoussac along the north side of the fjord, missing some of the sights, but we stopped at one and found a small restaurant still open.  We enjoyed a club sandwich followed by ice cream while watching giant clouds move across the sky.

Clouds tower over the fjord

Back on the road the sky provided a lovely sunset over the trees.

Beautiful Sky!

And finally heading back into Tadoussac ... the fog is still there!

  

The Road to Tadoussac

 We visited the Beluga Whale Intrepretive Centre and spoke with one of the biologists.  It was entertaining and informative.

Marine Mammal Interpretive Centre



Finally it was Thursday before I got my sea legs ... the first day we even saw the sun in town.  We saw several groups of belugas and a few minke whales, I'm amazed at some of the pictures!

Heading out onto the St Lawrence River

A mature beluga with a juvenile

Minke whale feeding.  Her throat enlarged with water.

Same female minke, this time she is rolling while scooping water into her throat ... she looks like she's swallowed a beach ball!

What a great day!  My face was burned red!  On the return trip to our cottage I noticed that the town was just bustling with people ... then noticed the newly posted signs for "Festival de la Chansons".  The shuttle bus driver informed me that it was a huge draw for the village, and a great excuse for hundreds of young people to drink too much.  Back at the cottage, the campgrounds were filling up quickly.  By the time it was dark the place was full, in fact people were setting up on the side of the road!

No complaints about the campers.  These people seemed quiet and considerate, although some were forced to move on ... not allowed to camp just anywhere.  Steve headed down to go whale watching.  Again it was quiet out there ... the boat was packed and he still got some great pictures.

Beluga ... bright white!

Minke ... gleaming in the sun!

While he was gone more giant motor homes pulled in, I could hear their generators purring.  Sydney and Alfie ran around playing while Tuck ran around barking at them.  When Steve returned he said that the village was jam packed ... he couldn't get near the bakery (gasp).  It was time to leave.

So cute.

Just got home this morning ... still have to unpack the van.  There was a package in the mail ... the kits from scrapbook generations.  Ohhhhh ... lots of nice stuff to play with!