this moment

THIS MOMENT: a friday ritual. a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. a simple, special, extraordinary moment. a moment i want to pause, savor, remember & cherish.

A Little Go-Karting ...

this moment

THIS MOMENT: a friday ritual. a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. a simple, special, extraordinary moment. a moment i want to pause, savor, remember & cherish.

I spy someone taking off into the forest

All of Hubby's hard work this summer paid off. Bitsy made it out for one short but memorable camping trip in 2015!

this moment

THIS MOMENT: a friday ritual. a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. a simple, special, extraordinary moment. a moment i want to pause, savor, remember & cherish.

Strawberries in our own backyard

I'm breaking the rules this week for "this moment". I've been meaning to plant some strawberry plants in our backyard for a few years now, but never got around to doing it. This year however, I finally went out and bought some and they are doing well! They are a little late but they are really yummy.

Hello March!

 

March is here ...which means it won't be long and spring will be here as well! We can't wait!! I haven't been feeling the greatest lately so I'm keeping this post short. This week's garden post is brought to you by the gorgeous peony. These are by far one of my top 3 favourite flowers in my flower beds. My white peonies always seems to excel in my garden. I LOVE how beautiful the blooms are and the soft scent they have. 

 

 

 

I'm not a fan of all the ants they attract but I do understand the ants need to work their magic to make these flowers so gorgeous.

 



 

 

I wish these beauties bloomed all summer long not just in June. Have a lovely Monday!



Canada Day 2014

We spent our Canada day running through the sprinkler, playing with water balloons and enjoying some yummy homemade butter tarts.

 

 

I think we may have a new tradition for Canada Day - enjoying some homemade butter tarts. You can find the recipe Here if you are new to our Blog! Do you have any Canada Day traditions?

 



Garden Update - September

This will probably be my last garden update. It is hard to believe fall official arrives this weekend. Overall, we were quite happy with our garden this year considering the yo yo weather we had at the beginning of the summer. Our cucumbers are finally done and to be honest I am kind of happy about this because I am starting to get tired of eating cucumber. Our beans also did really well this year. I picked what was left last week.  Our tomatoes really struggled this year and they were just starting to ripen but I had to pick a bunch of them early because we had our first frost a week ago (it was kind of early this year). We have had two other nights of frost this past week and yesterday the weather felt like summer again.

Last week I finally had a chance to take out our potatoes.

 

I was shocked when I started to dig up the potatoes and saw the size of some of them. They are the biggest potatoes I have grown in our current garden.

 

 

Our carrots also did well this year.

 

 

And so did our jalapenos and red chillies. 

 

Our Halloween pumpkin is almost ready to be picked. I am just waiting for it to turn completely orange. I always have trouble growing pumpkins in our garden, so I am so happy one finally survived.

 

At the beginning of this season I was not very optimistic that we were going to get much produce from our garden, but we were pleasantly surprised.

 

 

 

Labour Day Weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend and Labour Day. Our long weekend was busy. I must apologize in advance as this post is going to be a long one, plus I had to back date it as I did not get a chance to finish it off early enough. Things have been a wee bit busy around here so I am just getting around to posting this.

Last year my sister in-law suggested a new tradition for us to start  - before she goes back to school to start a new school year (she's a teacher) we have a family dinner. Last year the dinner was at our place but I can not remember what we had (I think we had pizza but I am not positive). This labour day weekend the tradition continued, however, we had dinner at my in-laws and they ordered in some pizza (Hugo's favourite). For dessert this year we did something different, we went for ice cream from the original Paisley Lorna Doon in Wasaga. Since we had not gone there yet for our yearly summer treat, Byron thought it would be a nice way to end the summer. It was on our to do list for the weekend, so it worked out that we were able to cross it off the list on Saturday and enjoy a wonderful dessert!

 

This was Hugo's first taste of the original Lorna Doon's Banana Split (Byron asked them to leave the coconut out so Hugo could share it with him).

 

 

 

The Lil man enjoyed his banana split.

 

 

I had a Brownie Sunday. Every time I have one of these it reminds me of the time I was pregnant with Hugo. The first time I had one while I was pregnant with the Little Man he moved around a lot in my belly (probably from the sugar overload). Towards the end of my pregnancy there was a day that he just seemed to have stopped moving which made me quite concerned as he usually moved around a lot. Byron and I went to the original Lorna Doon's and I had a Brownie Sundae in hopes that it would get him moving around, but it did not do the trick and we ended up going to the Hospital to get monitored and everything was fine. I guess he just wanted to rest more that particular day.

On Sunday and Monday I was a busy lady in the kitchen! 

 

To my surprise I was able to get some canning done. I was able to convince Byron to look after Hugo before he went riding. Sunday morning before Byron left for biking I made pizza sauce and we processed it once he returned.

On Monday, I tried a new salsa recipe (I did not make a big batch like I normally do because it was a new recipe and I was not sure if we would like it). I've been canning for the past 4 or 5 years. (I didn't can the year I was expecting Hugo because Byron did not think it would be a good idea). In past years I've had Byron's help with all the prep but this year I did it solo as he was looking after the Lil Man for me.

 

 

We found another use for the burner that came with the deep fryer last year! I was able to process the jars outside which is so nice because it reduces the heat in the house, plus it was a lot quicker to get the water boiling.

I am not going to lie, it is ALOT of work canning but the end product is so worth it! Knowing exactly what you are eating is wonderful, especial when a lot of the ingredients are right from your garden.  

On Sunday evening after dinner Byron suggested we go for a drive and a DQ treat. Another fabulous idea from my awesome Hubby!

 

We brought our treats home to enjoy - I had a vanilla cone which I shared with the Lil Man and since Byron had shared his past two treats with Hugo he had the Peanut Buster Parfait all to himself minus a spoonful.

It's a good thing we had the ice cream earlier in the weekend because the weather sure did cool down by the end of Monday. It felt so cool and crisp out. Definitely back to school fall weather. I can not believe summer is over. It sure did go by fast!

 

35/52 - A Visit to the Zoo & Mr. Norm's

Today the Lil Man is 22 months. I can't believe it, two more months and he will be two years old (no more counting his age in months)! This past weekend we went on a little zoo adventure to the Elmvale Jungle Zoo. It is not a big zoo with a wide assortment of animals, but it was still a wonderful adventure to go on as a family. The Lil Man had a great time checking out all the animals!

 

This is one of my favourite parts about the Elmavale zoo - the goats. The Lil Man really enjoyed the feeding the goats ...

 

... and petting them ...

 

 

When we reached the lions and he saw what was behind the fence he started to say "ROAR". Too bad they were sleeping.

 

 The giraffes are another favourite.

 

This year the Lil Man was a wee bit to small to feed them but he really enjoyed watching the other kids feed them.

 

 

The Lil Man had fun feeding Peppa the pig. It was really cute watching him and listening to him make the piggy sounds ...

He wasn't too sure about the noises this guy was making at first but he liked watching him.

 

We really enjoyed visiting the Elmvale zoo again this year. It is nice supporting local places!

 

On our way home from the zoo we stopped at Mr. Norm's for lunch - frozen yogurt is a good lunch option, right? It is one of our favourite places for frozen yogurt. If you are visiting Wasaga, you need to pop into this place for a nice summer treat.  This was Hugo's first Blueberry yogurt treat!

 

That was our mini staycation we had this weekend. It was a wonderful weekend!! Some times you need to take some time and enjoy a couple of the things that your area has to offer!

Garden Update - Week of August 12th

As you know this year our garden was off to a late start and really struggled at the beginning with the yo-yo weather we kept getting in June. Surprisingly though, it is doing well

We finally had our first cucumber from our garden on the 1st of August. This year the cucumbers have been taking their sweet time.

  

This is the largest cucumber we've grown in our garden. It was delicious!

 

 

Our hot chili peppers are doing well this year.

The upside down tomato plant has two little tomatoes growing.  We are not getting our hopes up on these struggling little guys as they are tomato plants I started from seed and they should have been started sooner. Plus I did not use good dirt in the container and I think it is lacking nutrients.

The tomato plants in general this year at our place are struggling. The tomato plants in the garden have a couple tomatoes but they are really small and none of the tomatoes have started ripening yet. The cherry tomatoes are also not yielding very many compared to past years (however, this year I planted them in a pot and I think that may be why). Next year I will go back to planting them in the garden.

The purple beans are doing really well this year. Our snow peas and spinach on the other hand did not do that great.

This year I decided not to plant any lettuce. I found in past years it was grossing me out with the little bugs that kept growing on it and was not appealing at all to eat. To our surprise though this year, we still have lettuce in our garden and it does not have any gross bugs on it. It voluntarily came up all on its own and is looking great.

How is your garden doing this year?

30/52 - The Beach

This past Sunday we attended an engagement party at the world's largest freshwater beach. We had a lovely time. The Lil Man really enjoyed himself. He enjoyed checking everything out ...

 

 

And of course he loved playing in the sand!

 



 

 

 

Garden Update

It's been a while since we have done a garden update post, so I figured it was time for one. For some reason this year we have A LOT of weeds coming up in the garden. With all the rain we received from Mother Nature last week this is what the garden looked like

 

 

CRAZY WEEDS EVERYWHERE ... 

 

Everything in the garden grew a lot especially the weeds. It was crazy!! To be honest I did not know what end to start at with the weeding, but I was bound and determined to get rid of all the weeds and somehow I succeeded ...

 

The veggies are starting to really grow and do well. We picked our first snow peas last week. Earlier this week I was out super early before the Lil Man woke up and before it really heated up outside and picked some purple beans (these guys taste amazing)! I was really surprised when I went out and noticed that they were ready to be picked. Our potatoes and cucumber plants are also doing really well! We have a couple peppers on our tiny pepper plants which we thought we had lost at the beginning of June from all the cold weather we kept getting.  Our tomato plants were struggling, but they are starting to look ok with the beautiful weather we have been getting. I spotted 3 tomatoes so far {which makes me so happy}. This year I planted our cherry tomatoes in a pot and they are not doing the greatest. Something seems to be eating them {insert disappointed sad face}. I do not think I will do that next year.

 

 

Spider hot dogs + S'mores + Jiffy Pop = Camp Fire Snacks {Part 3 }

One of the things I like best about camping is sitting around the fire and enjoying all the tasty camping treats. Our top picks are ...

Roasting Marshmallows

And Spider Hot dogs (even the Lil Man enjoyed his first taste of Spider Hot dogs)...
 

 

Roxy was being her usual shelf begging for food ... 

 

...and she ended up with a splatter of ketchup on her ear {silly dog}. Shortly after this photo was taken, Roxy was really tired and insisted on her own chair to sleep on (next camping trip we must remember to pack an extra chair for her).

 

When I was out grabbing all the items for our camping trip I found some mini Rolo chocolates and decided to grab them to make some of these ...

Rolo S'mores. They were really good.

This camping trip I had Jiffy Pop for the first time! It's not bad but I rather stick to having popcorn at home. It was quite pricey for a package of Jiffy Pop (over $3.00), but it was interesting watching how it is prepared over the fire.

 

 

There was one other snack we did not get around to making this past camping trip, hopefully we will be able to make it during our next trip at the end of the month. 

 

Do you have a specially camping treat/ snack you always make on your camping adventures? If so, please share in the comments section!