Ella Quote

"Daddy, I'm going to make a big, warm chocolate, for the animals, the unicorns!"

Photo Fix

A few pictures for those devoted fans of the Hiebert sisters:

• A snack on the trail, hiking up above Cactus Flats behind our place
  
• Bed-head Ella, looking ever cuter the messier her hair gets
  
• Ivy and her paper dolls, this afternoon's creative craft of choice

We had a sunny playtime at Sunoka yesterday afternoon on the way to pick up Tannis and Nada (and their bikes) in Penticton, but I didn't have a camera along. Other weekend highlights: pizza and wine (surprisingly good combo) with my folks in Kelowna on Friday night, my personal trail maintenance session on Saturday that had me losing track of the hours, Thai stirfry and Smithwick's at the Hildebrands later, and Ivy and I riding uptown in the sunshine for an ice cream cone before supper.

Listening today: Korn, moody organic instrumentals and Modest Mouse.

Milestone

A milestone for Ella last week -- she learned to use the computer mouse. Tannis showed her how to do it a few weeks ago and she couldn't figure it, but this week on Boohbah, she was giggling and clicking and having a ball.

Weed-Lover

As I mentioned earlier, soulvision's photos have inspired me to capture more of the landscape where I live. Seeing some of her macro shots (with a similar camera) reminded me that our camera has a decent macro mode I keep forgetting to use -- it narrows the depth of field to focus only on the subject. While that doesn't help for big sweeping scenery shots, it helps if you're rather fond of weeds, spring wildflowers and other small growing things.

Rose Melberg

Our friend Rose just landed a big musical fish -- she is performing at the Commodore in Vancouver in a couple of weeks, opening for one of her favourite bands of all time, indie-pop stars Belle & Sebastian. So awesome, and I'm sure she'll make many new fans. We got an insider's sneak preview of her new CD before they moved, and it is amazing -- she seriously deserves fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the show is already sold out, so we won't be able to witness this moment of glory on her path to world domination.

KenEQ

A couple of weeks ago, Angelo and I were talking about an excellent short story he had written years ago. Many of his short stories are at least loosely based on events and characters in the little town we grew up in, and anyone from Rosenort would figure out pretty quickly that the main character in Still Partly Punk borrowed heavily from the identity of Ken Quiring, our town's only post-punk youth pastor.

In the course of the discussion, one of us Googled his name and found this fascinating profile story on his journey, with particular attention to the tragic circumstances surrounding his eventual departure from the town. At least that's what I was paying most attention to. I found it jolting to read an online reference to the event that defined the most painful time in my life, even though so many years have passed.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Super social weekend! We got a non-grandparent babysitter Friday night for the first time in our family's short history -- actually we got two sitters for our kids and the Hildebrands' girls, so the grown-ups could take off to Penticton in a snow storm. We hit our friend Gayle's photography exhibit opening at Leir House, and then went to the Barley Mill Pub for a burger 'n beer session.

Saturday morning we cleaned the house and prepped for Angelo and Esther's afternoon arrival. We feel so blessed to have maintained this dear old friendship over the years, and the weekend just rocked. Lots of lounging around and laughing, pondering the human condition and analyzing our shared experiences. A few highlights and photos:

• Mom and Dad took the girls out for supper so we could do a double date to Theo's sans kids. Cozy spot, excellent company, good Greek food and drinks...what could be better?
  
• Our 36km mountain bike ride from home to Penticton and back was my highlight. The top of Rebellion had some snow, but was it was still ridiculously fun and the sunny views were great. Our bikes bonded again and we took the KVR railbed home from Penticton for a fantastic loop. Good times.
  
• A&E graciously admired the drawings they received and cheered on the dance performance -- the girls adored them again.
  
• All good things must come to an end -- the visitors hitting the road with the girls watching from the window

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

How many times can I take pretty much the same photos over and over and post them here? It's my personal challenge, apparently. So you get more cute pink 'n purple Hiebert girls by the blue wall, with blue eyes piercing.

No People Pictures for a Change

I snuck out for a late afternoon ride last week and took the camera along. Blazing sunshine and warm, but with menacing clouds coming from the east and dumping snow on the other side of the lake -- bizarre weather we've been having. Anyway, I took a few scenery/nature photos:

• a secret cave
  
• holly and hoodoos
  
• orange moss
  
• our little mountain town

soulvision

I recently discovered a Penticton resident who takes wonderful photos of the local landscape. It's a landscape I've also grown to love, and I enjoy seeing it documented like this. Her prairie roots seem to have given her a great eye for warm light and a true appreciation of the beauty of grasses, weeds and other interesting vegetation.

Sunny Sunoka Saturday

We had a social weekend again, with my folks coming in Saturday night, breakfast at the Beanery with Myron and Tracey the next morning, and then the Hildebrands over here for supper Sunday night. All good.

Saturday afternoon we hung out at Sunoka beach for a glorious hour:

• The girls explored around the mouth of Trout Creek
  
• Ella modelling her beloved pink jacket lakeside
  
• Ivy on the point
  
• me and Tannis taking in some sunshine (photo by Ivy)

The weather's been a bit up and down this week, but we've also been enjoying the sun in the backyard and by our south-facing windows. A couple of cute shots of Ella in that zone: pigtail shadows and the window washer.

Intense Ella

Ok, so maybe the digital camera isn't working too badly. It used to be that I would have had to at least adjust the contrast on a picture like this, but this one is untouched. It's still doing weird fringing in photos with areas of bright white. But apparently it's handling pink with style.

Camera Follies

Well, we got our digital camera back, and it's doing the same bizarre things...maybe not quite so badly, but it's still disappointing. It still takes some good ones like the one I put up here, but they're outnumbered by the botched ones.

One of the cool things about not having the digital around was that I took more photos with my old Minolta film workhorse and the quality of the photos astounded me compared to the digital. Even using our exceptionally crappy scanner, you can see a major difference:

• Tan cuddling with the girls
  
• hilarious expression from Ella
  
• The girls with Grandma and Grandpa Hiebert
  
• Tannis with Mark and Mom

Friesen Week

Tannis has a nice wrap-up post from her folks' excellent visit out here. I thought I'd add a few more photos to mix -- the camera was making the rounds, so I'm not sure who took each one:

• our little family joined the whole clan at the Ramada for a night, which facilitated several trips into the outdoor hot tub.
  
• Pearl's birthday supper at Theo's was a highlight for sure -- what a great Greek place. The light was more like this in real and the food was fantastic.
  
• Grandma Pearl spent an unreal amount of time with the girls, creating hundreds (literally) of moments like this one with Ella. Papa Larry kept them busy too, and I got to see them occasionally.
  
• Ella is wicked cute.
  
• It was awesome having Mark out for the weekend too...he's the dapper fellow in the photo at the top of this post if you don't know him.

Overall, it seemed to be a successful visit. I did my own thing once in awhile, working on my thesis, helping the Hildebrands move all day Saturday and cycling up to Myron's (40 minutes up, 25 minutes down) for a kick-ass beer-sampling session on Sunday. We had weird weather, ranging between full-on snowstorm and 10-degree sunshine, but it was cold and windy in Winnipeg, so the visitors didn't seem to mind.