Our Son's Graduation and Trip to the Canadian Rockies

Dear friends, I hope you have not given up on me!  The month of June feels like a blur in my mind - where did it go?  In my last post I mentioned that our son was graduating.  My parents flew here to be for his graduation, and then we had a trip planned immediately following his graduation.  I meant to pop in and post something along the way, but that good intention never happened!  I feel that I am finally just now catching my breath after the whirlwind of events the past few weeks, and I am now looking forward to sharing some of those highlights with you! {smiles}

A walk in our woods during the height of the lupins in their purple gowns of splendor.

Even Annie appeared to be taking time to smell the flowers...

My parents arrived on one of the hottest days we've had here this year so far, as it got up to 94 degrees. Thankfully the cool weather showed up the day after they arrived.

Mom made me this gorgeous quilt for my birthday!  It has a beautiful farm scene with gorgeous chickens and roosters on one side, and teacups on the other!  She knows me well!

It was a beautiful piece of handiwork from her that I will treasure always!



She also made a cowboy quilt for our son for his graduation gift... and it was an amazing quilt!  He loves the color red, and it was perfect for his room.  We felt very blessed to receive such precious gifts of love from my mother!

Out in the coop, things were going well!  Bella and Buttercup in their comfy spot for the night.

And Goldie finally hatched out a.... baby hen!  Oh, I was so excited to know that we finally have a baby hen!  Her name is Sally :)

Just a few hours old here!  I had picked up the egg she was in the night before, and heard her cheeping inside, and my mother was with me, and heard it too, such an amazing thing!  Sally is part Rhode Island Red and mixed with Rudy who is part Marans, so she should be a very beautiful hen :)

My peony finally burst into bloom, and I was able to enjoy 2 blooms this year.

Mom got busy soon after arriving, and whipped up two batches of her wonderful homemade rolls.  I think we ate half of the batch in one sitting, as they came out of the oven warm, and then piled high with butter and homemade strawberry jam!

My dad helped my husband and son out in the yard as they stacked more stumps and brush in piles to be burned.  I love seeing the sight of old brush burning,!  It is a lot of work clearing brush from the dead trees that we have and always good to see the brush gone after the fire dies out.

Time for graduation!  Our son's graduation was a wonderful time, and we were so proud of him.  It was bittersweet for me... both our children are graduated from high school now, and will be attending college full time.  Time moves so quickly!

The next morning after the graduation, we left on our trip up to the Canadian Rockies.  These two were quite sad about the whole turn of events.  Our sweet neighbor took great care of them while we were gone, which we appreciated so much!

We crossed over the border into Beautiful British Columbia, a truly beautiful and amazing province.

The first major town we came to was Cranbrook, BC.

And our first stop in Cranbrook was at the Tim Hortons... there is just no coffee place in the world like Tims's!  {smiles} (Can I get an amen from any fellow Canucks out there?) LOL!

We traveled down a dirt road leading to this little provincial park. We like the "out of the way" places, and find we have the best experiences away from all the crowds of people.

Traveling down the road to the park, we enjoyed the views of this beautiful mountain as we drove.

Down at the lake, we saw this momma with her babies.  At first, they were all on her back when we saw her.  I still don't know what kind of duck she is, but it was quite an impressive sight to see this momma taking care of so many little ones!  We counted ten heads!

And while we ate our picnic lunch by the lake, this little guy showed up to clean up any "droppings".  He was hilarious to watch!

The sights before us began to come alive as the mountains rose around us in beauty and splendor.  We stopped at a rest area, and this was the sight we saw spread out before us.

This area was full of hot springs, and we took a detour down to visit one of the hot springs.  We found out that the hot springs were located way up in the mountains, and the resorts were pumping the hot water down into swimming pools for people to swim in.

Our first sighting of wildlife on the trip happened when we saw these bighorn sheep alongside the road.

They were quite content to munch on the green grass.  We enjoyed watching them for a time.

Our first destination on the trip was the town of Golden, BC where we had booked a room to spend the night.  My mom and I went in to pay for the rooms, and found out that my dear sis had called ahead and paid for the rooms for us... what a blessing that was!!!

We were staying at the Days Inn in Golden, and our room was delightful!

The room was clean, spacious, and had a balcony with an incredible vista!

This was the view outside our room balcony. The views of the Rockies were incredible.

Down in the courtyard of the Inn, there were sweet cherries growing.

We enjoyed the mountain vista view spread out before us.  The glorious sunset was enjoyed by all of us.  Finally, we went to bed around 11 or so, and the skies still were not dark!

Well... not before a good pillow fight ensued between my mom and the kids... while I cheered them on and videotaped the classic fun, lol!  It was a wonderful ending to the first great day on our trip!

I hope to be back soon to share more of our trip.  I took over 1500+ pictures on this trip, and it has taken me quite a while to sort through them!  Not to mention the fact that when we returned from our trip, I found my computer with a black screen - DOA (dead on arrival).  Thankfully, our friend who painted our house has skill with computers too.  After the several days of not being able to get it to work, I had him come and take a look at it.  He took one look at my computer and had it back in working order within a minute or so.  Incredible relief!  Thank you T!  There were tears in my eyes when he walked out of my office with the screwdriver in hand, and saying... all is well!!!

So, with the computer incident, and all the pictures that I have had to sort through and edit, it has been a slow process for me to get back going online with the blog.  However, I see light at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully this weekend I will be able to share more pictures with you of our incredible vacation in the Canadian Rockies.  :)