Our Cabin Project Finally Finished

Well, we have finally finished our 'tree project' at the cabin this weekend. We have been working on it all summer. It is wonderful to have the yard looking a little more finished!

It took about 3 months for us to remove the 24 trees, and then the process of reclaiming the yard. The grass has come in nicely...this is what the yard looked like a month ago! Next year I think we'll have a really thick lawn! We put down ALOT of grass seed this year!

On Saturday morning we went to Leduc to get a few more plants to take out to the cabin. We stopped in Calmar on the way because they were celebrating 'Calmar Days'. They had a big sidewalk sale that we browsed through and then we watched the parade! It was fun to be there, it was a lot of excitement for a small town of about a thousand people! They have great ice cream and pizza!

When we got to the cabin, Doug was excited to be able to mow our new lawn. It was fun to see how much the grass had grown! He loves working outside, it is so different from the work he does all week.

Mark was up visiting us from Calgary on the weekend. He went with us to the cabin on Saturday and we put him to work. He did all the trimming after Doug finished the mowing. It was great to have his help, he is a great landscaper and enjoys working in the yard.

Doug and Mark worked hard all Saturday afternoon, digging holes and putting in nine new plants and bushes. The yard looked great after they had them all in!

Luckily we took Mark to a movie Friday night, so it wasn't just a working weekend for him.

By the end of the day, even our dog, Rachel, was enjoying the new grass! She was out rolling in it and having a good time.

Now the work is done...it's time to get out and enjoy the cabin with our family while we still have a few weeks of summer left!

 

The Stringham Family Reunion

We had a wonderful opportunity to get together at a reunion with Doug's family this past weekend. They hadn't had a reunion for over 15 years, so this was a great time for us to get together and celebrate being a 'Stringham'! We had a wonderful time visiting and reminiscing together.

Doug's mom, Helen, was so happy to be there with her 4 children...Rhonda and Doug, who both live in Edmonton, Greg, who lives in Calgary, and Kathryn, who flew up from Virginia with her son, Silas.

Serena (the one with the cantaloupe smile) and Joslyn, Greg's daughter's, did most of the work to get this reunion to happen. Serena started a year ago, getting things reserved and getting it on people's calendar's. She did a great job, I am so glad she took the time out of her busy schedule, (she is a mother of four little kids), to encourage us to do this!

On Friday evening we met at the church where we were greeted with a goodie bag with some fun things in it! An outline of the weekend on a lanyard, 'Buy Mor Bucks' with Murray's picture (Doug's dad) on it, to buy candy from the Buy Mor Market. (Helen's dad, Lyle, had a store by that name.) We also got matching t-shirts!!

Friday night our dinner was catered by 'OPA', a Greek restaurant. What a great idea so we weren't busy with food prep...it was so delicious! We than had some family history fun, reviewing stories of our ancestors. They came from a book Helen and I had put together to give out at the reunion. Then Helen and Rhonda taught us the tricks of how to make Helen's amazing buns. We later played games and the kids had an 'Astro Jump' to play in all evening.

On Saturday, the reunion continued at our cabin at Wizard Lake. We had to put up stakes and rope around our newly planted grass, but we put helium balloons on each stake and around the yard to make it look more festive and fun!

We had arranged with our neighbor, Tim Purnell to use his zip line and to skeet shoot at his cabin for the morning. We took turns transporting everyone over to his place on quads. When everyone returned, we had a delicious brunch of 'Overnight Baked French Toast' with sausage and fruit. It was fun just hanging out, eating and visiting together.

In the afternoon, anyone that wanted to go boating, swimming, tubing or wakeboarding went down to the lake with Doug. It was such a beautiful day to be out on the lake! Several moms and kids were dropped off at the campground playground, where they played and swam while the others were doing their activities on the boat.

Those of us that didn't go down to the lake stayed at the cabin and let the kids play in various activities that were set up around the yard. The little girls just loved the swimming pool...we had to add several pans of hot water to the cold pool before they would get in!

 

Aunt Evelyn had planned some fun things for the kids to do in the afternoon. T-shirt painting was a big hit!

It was fun for us to watch these little cousins talking and playing together, and getting to know each other.

 

Aunt Evelyn had made this bean bag toss from a tarp, and the kids enjoyed creating new ways to play with it!

Of Helen 's 17 great-grand children, ten of them are girls with another girl on the way! (Cam and D in November.)

By late afternoon the cabin looked very well used! The group from the lake had returned to the cabin, and dinner was being prepared. Evelyn and Greg made us 'Cafe Rio' taco salad, it was the perfect meal on a hot summer day! After eating we all just sat around visiting and watching the kids play.

 

Some of these pictures will be fun to continue showing the kids as they get bigger. This is a cute one of Joshua and Mckinley, they had never met before. They are only 6 months apart.

As evening came on we sat together and talked, waiting for it to get dark enough for the fireworks display that Uncle Greg had promised us.

The evening ended with a bang as the fireworks lit up the evening sky! After the fireworks, we all went our various ways, but not before agreeing to have another reunion sooner than 15 years!!

 

Posted with Blogsy