a month gone by

well here we are lately....Wrenny's first chocolate fondue and various bathrobe/bath poses as well as an afternoon in the snow with Auntie Moni and Kai...who aare visiting (and Tomi) for a few days!!

Trick or treat...a kitty and a chili pepper

a poem by my hubby

Mike wrote this last year right before Wren entered the world..I love it. wanted to pull it out for this season..



Peace to the season,
To the dying rays of the sun
To the valleys
Hidden, lost, and found.

Peace to the forests
To the leaves
To the trees
Sleeping, naked and unashamed

Peace to the neighbours
To the raking
To the woodcutting
Stacking, hauling and shoring up

Peace to the house
To the woodstove
To the beds
Tucking, cozy and warm

Peace to the Autumn
To the colours
To the air
Slumbering, reddish and cool.

Wren's bday weekend and all things Thanksgiving

What a full weekend we had!
Irene and Nana came on friday night; Saturday Papa and Annemarie came.
On Sunday Pops, JoAnn, Rob Rin and Skye, Grandad and GrAnne all came...and then all trickled home on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. The house was full at all times with hot food, kids shrieking, dishing being washed and put away, conversations in the kitchen, backyard and living room, and tantrums on and off by finn and me! HA. It was so great to see everyone-we sure enjoyed having you all!!
Here are a few pics of the weekend.



Finn and Baba work hard on finishing the brick walkway-which, by the way, looks FANTASTIC!

Omi and Finn read Thomas the Tank Engine Stories before bed

Our babes get dedicated at Church-very meaningful for us..
Three generations of Hepher boys

JoAnn and Me and Wren at Wrenny's cake party on sunday Afternoon

The Birthday Girl in the sunshine

cute at every angle!
After all the rellies left-we hired a sitter and worked on our guest cabin-me as roofer!! I needed to pound some nails..its been too long. (I also got to use the drill to fix the gate and found great satisfaction in the completion of a project using a power drill...what is not to love!)


Van and Wren


Finn and Rosie in the Laundrey hamper


Rosie as "the gift"


Mike posing with extremely valuable mandolin,,,um, yup, a loaner!



Sunday's birthday celebrations-Wrenny with her Lemon Cake


Saturdays Thanksgivng Bird with friends and Family...Papa and Annemarie, Irene, Nana, Sheryl, Wendy and Van, The Reimers and all of us Hephers too! Little house seemed little.

been busy, been gone, been tired...

those are the reasons for my almost 20 day delay of posts!
Alas we have been in the fullness of fall, which is my favourite time of year...except of course Christmas and the first crocus of spring and, a the first day at the park in the summer...HA!
The kids and I went for a 5 day Alberta tour to visit friends and fam, while Mike was working hard core on or guest cabin roof. All is well and it (the roof) should be done before the end of the month...I am busy envisioning summer guests or at least a playhouse for next summer. Pics on that later.
Wrenny is One in a week-and I can hardly believe how fast this year has gone!

Anyways...
here is what we were up in Southern Alberta (little puppy is Nana's cute little "rosie".

First Week of September

We just came back from a weekend in Lethbridge-
Pops was celbrating his 60th year with a BIG Party...here are Skye and Finn at the Pinata festivities in the garage of Pop's and JoAnn's new house.


Finn takes a big swing with Baba's help


The evening ends in a song circle-pictured here with members of the Glenncoullee band and Rob Hepher


Our new sidewalk taking shape...


Daughter in Babushka


reluctant Lederhosen Model


Finn feeds Wrenny Applesauce

Navel Gazing after a weekend at CROW

After being away for 10 years, i went to the gnarly rooted beginnings of my faith journey and spent a weekend at CROW Camp on Crowsnest lake Alberta. A highly packed event it was. Those in attendence (some 400!!) were there to celebrate 50 years of Camp being in existence. I discovered that there was much to be pondered from my ten summers at Crow (87-97) and my non crow summers (97-07). here they are...

Mainly, I just about fell apart, actually.
dont get me wrong. I do not have a hard time supporting camp and enjoying the wealth of memories and the fortitude it has brought on my person, but I guess 10 years do change a person. And Camp too. All for good, is my thinking.

In those 10 years, I moved to my now more or less settled "home".
I went from "single" to "engaged" to "married" to "infertile" to "mother of two".
I have gone from being a person highly stimulated by others and their energy and passions seeped into becoming my own:to developing a more clear idea of who I am- without a group of people-without husband, without children, without a hard and fast plan for the future career.
me at 26 is quite different than me at 36. where I once thrived on boundless activity and highly stimulating conversation, I now somehow seek out a more quiet way, still very relational just not as charged. It's not better or wiser, its just different. And the fact that everyone at camp that knew me from the past related to me in the way I formerly was, found me completely exhausted and insecure. Crappy. I felt utterly lost...which was totally weird in such a familiar setting.

it was a little bit of a hard reality to swallow, to be honest.
camp being the one place that felt like a true home to me, has grown into a place i used to love and a place i still cherish, but is not mine anymore.
It was sad. it was good. It was emotional. Holy Crap. i didnt know what hit me, but everytime I turned around I was trying to wipe a way a tear. And every other time I turned around the other way i wanted to hop back in the solitude of my own car with my two unruly chilluns and head home. listen to cbc. have a coffee and some black licorice.

However there were far too many good people to be with and enjoy the company of. The highlight being an hour or so (after all the kids were in bed) of an impromptu circle gathering of old friends, a bag of doritos, a handful of chairs dragged out of their lairs, and laughs about the times gone by.

And so the days pass. Days, months years, decades even,
God help us if we dont change.
God help us anyways.

August August

Finn said" we are a family" and asks to have his picture taken..



A Photo taken at our friend Miriam Jones (and Jez Carr's wedding last weekend


Kai and Tomi while here on their visit 2 weeks ago


Mike and Kai and Finn


The many faces of the crawling and walking attempts of Wrenny Hepher...

a little self indulgent

but it seems our camera only has pics of kids and hubsy.
so, for those who need a re-viewing of the author...
(Thanks Mrs Q.)

A weekend without kids

although below are pics of the kids, Mike and i actually left them with nana at the cabin while we toodled off to see Bruce Cockburn at the Kaslo Jazz etc festival. An incredible concert-and festival-i was swept up in the songs and the whole mountain village-floating stage experience was wonderful. An excellent time except for my issues of gut ache that lasted for 24 hours (the same 24 hours that we were without kids, no less!)
We returned on the ferry and made our way back to the cabin and the next day met one of Mike's friends whom we haven't seen since our wedding 6 years ago in creston for breakie...Then back home for a Birthday cake Party for Mikey and few friends (photos to follow)
And today, the first coolish day since june it seems, i cooked a turkey Dinner. The pot is simmering with turkey broth, an unlikely smell in an August kitchen.