HOLIDAYS

I sat down on Sunday night to do this post, but just seemed to lack inspiration.  This morning when I checked my email, I got what I needed - the above picture of smiling Nora.  What a special greeting to brighten up a cloudy Monday morning!  They are back from their wonderful week of holidays in Sweden.  Today they are off to a cabin about a three hours drive from Kristiansund.  It is the same place where they took Sandra and I when we visited them a year ago.  This time their friends, Ruth, Rolf, Lana, Uma and Emmanuel will be enjoying that lovely country cottage with them.  The owners use it mostly in the winter as they are avid skiers so Todd and Kristy are blessed with being able to use it in the summer time.  It sleeps sixteen and comes with satellite dish so we watched the Olympics on our vacation in the country.

Todd's car at the cabin in Oppdal with rolling hills in the background

Close up of the cottage with traditional sod on the roof
(and a makeshift railing to keep wandering sheep off the porch!)

Laurel's spent the weekend at a Diekrager family reunion at Avonlea.  Clare's and Kirk's will be home today from camping at Kenosee.  

On Saturday I got word that a cousin of Howard's , Dorothy (Vinge) Engen, passed away at Eastend, SK.  She was living in a care home in Alberta but last week had her heart set on going back to Simmie, SK for Bible camp.  A daughter took her, wheelchair and all, down for the week.  She enjoyed a short time at camp before falling ill and going to a respite bed at Eastend.  She refused all meds and died on Saturday morning, just a few miles from the Engen farm where she had enjoyed spending her summers for several years.  The funeral will be on Tuesday morning at 11 at White Valley Lutheran Church, the country church near that family farm, where her husband Harold's funeral and burial also took place.  Harold was a Lutheran pastor,  Dorothy was a nurse.  My sister spoke so highly of how caring Dorothy was when Merle's mother was a resident at Shaunavon nursing home where Dorothy worked for a time. She was a ray of sunshine to the lives she touched.  The family spent several years as missionaries in India.  Dorothy's favourite outfit was one she brought from India.  She is wearing it in the picture below that was taken at their Aunt Nina (Bergum) Bergquist's funeral.  My thoughts and prayers will be with the family as they gather at White Valley tomorrow morning.

Dorothy is on the right in the front row of these Bergum cousins

Dorothy's mother, Edna (Bergum) Vinge was a sister to Clara, Howard's mother.  Here's a picture of the family when they lived at Minnesota Valley before moving to Saskatchewan.  Her obituary can be found at www.binkleys.com

The Lauritz Bergum family
(Clara is on her mother's lap, Edna to the left)


I just called the Ekness store in Crosby to see if their Elberta peaches will be in tomorrow.  Those peaches are a favourite of many, ideal for canning with their thin skins and freestones and superb sweet taste.  I use very little sugar when I process them in my mother's steam canner.  They will be getting a shipment in tomorrow and more on Friday.  Randy wasn't sure of the price but said they wouldn't be any lower than last year's price of $16.99 a case.  I missed out on peaches last year as Sandra and I were in Norway a year ago.

Now I'm going to head outside to feed my two mother cats and three kittens.  Then I'll do some work in the yard with the rototiller and weed whipper.  On my next post I'll show you a picture of my "new" flower garden out by the gate.