SPRING!

Spring officially arrived last week and the weather has been springlike here.  There isn't much snow left except for banks in the trees and they are dirty ones after winds blew dirt along with the snow.  The banks are settling after several days of plus temps.  The road past "the Mossing farm" is still closed so water must be still running there.

Our dirty snow banks north of the house

We spent a fun weekend in Moose Jaw and Regina.  Abbey was curling in the Provincial U18 championship with the winner in both ladies and in mens going to the Nationals in Moncton, NB during Easter week.  The girls didn't end up winning that trip but it was a great experience for them.  It began on Thursday evening with a banquet for players and coaches at Mosaic Place.  A picture was taken of all the teams wearing their team jackets, curling pants and shoes.  Here's a picture of the winning girls team with an Erickson as skip, not a relation of mine, but a good name!  Good luck in Moncton girls!

South-east 2,Team Erickson
Rachel Erickson, Sarah Hoag, Rachel Ryan, Kelly Kay, Coach Shane Kitz

Abbey's team finished curling on Sat. afternoon so Alan and I went to the Western Development Museum for a couple hours.  There was a special display of Model Trains that weekend too.  I didn't take any pictures of those but had to get one of this 1955 Ford.  Dad bought a brand new 1955 Ford station wagon that year so that each of us four Erickson kids could have a window seat!  It was Buckskin brown and Alaska white.  I'll see if I have a picture. (I found two of them!)  Dad took the train to Oakville, Ontario and then drove his new Ford home to Frontier.

Mom and Dad on their 15th anniversary, July 23, 1956

Dad washing the 55 Ford, likely on a Saturday
so it would be shiny clean for Sunday

We spent two nights at the Ramada in MJ.  On Sunday morning we left at 9:00 and drove to Our Saviours Lutheran Church in Regina where we had a visit with Marilyn and Ray Scheske before the service at 10:30 with Pastor Jeff Tank (who married us!) giving the sermon.  It was a treat to hear a beautiful number from the choir as Trinity hasn't had a choir for a number of years.  We also got to chat with some former Torquay members - Joyce Hanson, Darlene (Halvorson) Zirk, Larry and Diane (Johnson) Mossing, Larry Johnson and his wife.

Then we drove to the brand new A&W on Albert St. and enjoyed our usual teenburgers.  A waiter by the name of Alan came to chat with us and we found out that they had just opened the day before.  When Alan's name was called to pick up our order, the waiter Alan had thought that someone was calling him! Their names are both spelled Alan, no double ll or en!  It reminded me of when my brother Alan was born when I was in grade one.  I was quite pleased that I could easily spell his name A-l-a-n!

Then we were off to the Brandt Centre for an afternoon with ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham.  The place was almost packed!  He entertained for a full two hours without an intermission.  He did a super job of convincing us that those puppets were really talking, but I was not impressed with some of the language that he used or the jokes that he told.  He will be having a family show on Netflix in the near future so I am looking forward to that one.

This is the latest picture from Todd's in Norway.  Four year old Nora had her first experience on skis just a ten minute drive from Førde.  Looks like she's enjoying this new venture.

The music festival is on in Estevan.  Granddaughter Lindsay Johnson took part in a flute trio.  The girls were awarded a mark of 90 so I'm hoping they will be on the Highlights of the Festival so I can hear them as we missed them on Monday.

Lindsay is on the left. Congrats girls, you did it again!

Tuesday was our last quilting day at Trinity for this year.  We finished up with 132 quilts, some baby ones.  Here are pictures of the pews laden with the quilts plus baby afghans.

Eight of our quilting group with four missing
Caroline, Vickie, Narrie,Rose, Vi
Elaine, Doris, Olga

Vi and Narrie arranging things at the front

Kirk had his 45th birthday on March 23 so here's a picture of him with his DQ cake and his three Johnson kids - Carter, Lindsay and Jamie.  Someone once asked me how far apart Kirk and Clare are.  I told them " One year, six months, one day, two hours and one minute!"  

With that statistic, I will close off today's blog.  Enjoy this last week in March!