Robert Maxwell Ackland 1928-2009

My grandfather died early last week, after a long encounter with prostate cancer and various treatments and complications. He'd been sick for a while, so I don't feel sad that he's out of pain now, but I do feel sad for my grandmother, and her sons, and sad that I'll never hear his laugh again, amongst other things. I flew up to Atherton (inland from Cairns) with Jasper and my parents for the funeral on Monday this week. We were there for four days... just got back and am trying to pick up the pieces. I'll blog again sometime soon...

First harvest

Our zucchini plants are producing prolifically, as zucchini plants always seem to! We really want to respect the abundance of this garden and use all that it produces, so zucchini has been, and will be, on the menu for a while at our place!

The vibrant yellow skin was a welcome surprise - I guess I should have paid more attention to what we were planting!

So, our first harvest from the garden becomes part of a thrown-together-with-whatever-we-had-on-hand Split Pea and Zucchini soup, consumed with family and friends. Lovely.

Five years together

One shopping trip.
One Kids Movie night at Jane & Steve's.
One space to ourselves.
One game.
Two steaks, later.
One handwritten letter.
One movie: Slumdog Millionaire.
One full moon.

Five years together.

A trip to the beach

Today we headed to the beach to make the most of these last few days before Gord goes back to work. We ended up in Seaford, one beach up from Frankston on the bay. It was the perfect space for young children (and their parents): calm, low-tide, sandbar, cafe right there! I love how the kids are happily entertained for hours in this environment. (Note to self: get camera serviced so those dots don't show up on our shots!)

Burying sleeping beauty.

A beach must-have: hot chips and gravy.

It was good to be outdoors, and to have a fun plan for the day. But right now, I feel the tiredness of being outside in the sun and wind. Could also be to do with the fact that I woke up at 6am, excited by the light coming in around the curtain, excited to creep out of bed and have the silence of the morning to myself. Life is full of trade-offs, eh...

Knitted gifts

I finally get to blogging this! I had the idea, for ages, in Canada, that I wanted to knit a hat for each of my nieces and nephews. I didn't get going with it for a while, and then became pregnant, and didn't feel like doing anything crafty after that. However, then September rolled around, the fog lifted and suddenly I was back in a crafting space, so you could say I entered into a flurry of activity to get these hats done before our early Thanksgiving gathering on the 3rd of October! I was really happy with how they turned out, and how unique they all are. I think the kids appreciated that they each had their own hat in a different style. They're not perfect, but I hope they communicated in a small way that I'll miss seeing my nieces and nephews...

Here's Piper modelling them all (left to right, in rows): Mason's hat, Zach's hat, Ty's hat, Rae's hat, Ty's hat again, Makenna's hat, Makenna's hat again, Cassie's hat, and Taelyn's hat.

The recipients.

A shot of all these beautiful kids together...

Tyler.

Rae.

Makenna.

Cassie.