me-barbie

One of each from my trip last week: Drumheller AB: The hoodoos and the cliffs of the Red Deer Valley. Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park (on the border of AB and SK): lodge pole pines, congolmerate cliffs and the look out. The hoodoos were smaller than I thought, but no less unearthly.

This year, the town of Winnipeg Beach set a tree up on the bandstand. I remembered to bring my tripod down this time, as I was shooting in Night mode.

This is actually the third house my dad built me. My first was a tin house, I got it when I was 4 or 5. I played with it to death, and my mother began throwing it out (I kept rescuing it) when I was 10. She finally succeeded. At 11, my sister's friend was given an antique dollhouse, roughly 1940s, and I was allowed to play with it. I was enthralled. I had already started building shoe and Kleenex and other box houses. My aunt had made me a box house, but it really could not be played with, just plonked over stuff! My dad then built me a wooden house...which got left behind with my Kleenex houses when we moved. He just didn't bother checking for my houses and said the other house was too big to move. He built me another, and by then I was buying proper minis with my allowance and babysitting monies. That also got left behind in a move. Only I had started to decorate that one. I did keep the furniture. Which lived in a shoebox for many a year until he built me this house I am showing you when I was 18. After 30 yrs and several moves, it was in pretty rough shape. So this summer my friend and I reno'd it. Now I can charge the dolls more rent! Its hard to see from the pictures all the damage time wrought. The grease stains I have no idea about, as the house lived without me the 5 yrs I attended grad school in the US of A....

I put both Halloween and Xmas here. I had hoped to have the front of the dollhouse...with the porch...in time for Xmas. But you know contractors...

These pictures were taken in the last 2 weeks, both in Riding Mountain National Park and Matlock, MB (a cottage community near where my parents live)

After Topaz crossed the rainbow bridge, she decided she did not want to be cat-free. So she adopted this little brother (Goldie) and sister (Opal). These two have gone from being barn kittens to be highly spoilt house kittens, with Topaz's old bed, toys and ceramic dishes.