My Husband, The Chef

Our wonderful meal, complete with the flowers that Lyndon picked fresh that day!

Over the past few years, a talent and passion that we have both discovered in Lyndon, is cooking! Lyndon absolutely LOVES trying new recipes, reading cook books, watching the Food Network (thrilling for me, let me tell ya:), and just making really good food. I do all the cooking during the week, but usually on the weekends and anytime we have company, it's all him. And I definitely reap the rewards:) It is such a blessing to have a husband who loves cooking so much, and is just so talented at it! No matter how hard I try, I just am not naturally gifted in that area (but I work at it), so it's a real treat to see him enjoy it so much, and to eat the unique, delicious food he creates. We're trying to eat locally and organic as much as possible, so Lyndon has been doing a lot of his grocery shopping at the farmer's market, which just makes everything taste that much better! I took some pics of the meal he made for us this weekend...all the recipes were from one of Jamie Oliver's cook books, he's Lyndon's favorite chef:)

Enjoy!

Not the most aesthetically pleasing dish, but by far my favorite!!! A delicious puree of summer peas, mint, olive oil and pecchorino cheese, topped with fresh mozzarella and some parmesan, served on toasted organic feta&oregano bread

Our main course: A perfectly cooked chicken thigh with chipotle seasoning, wrapped in smoked bacon (fresh from the deli), with garlic scapes (AMAZING!) and the best salad I've ever had. A creamy lemon-dill potato salad with capers

Summer Fun

We've been enjoying some really beautiful weather lately, and it's been awesome! I've had the kids outside for most of the day, everyday, and it's fun for everyone:) My photography skills aren't the best, and for some reason, Kallie does not like getting her picture taken outside, so these are my best attempts:)

Daddy's Girl

So serious;)

Not the best picture of Lyndon, but Kallie was having so much fun!:)

Kisses!

Lyndon and Kallie share such a special bond, I feel so blessed watching the two of them together:) At least a couple times a week, Lyndon makes a point of taking Kallie out somewhere, just the two of them, so that they can share time alone together(or I get out of the house). Because I spend so much time alone with her, I'm really thankful that Lyndon makes the effort to do the same as much as possible (but not all the time, b/c I still need to see him too:)!

Kallie loves her daddy so much:)

UH-OH!

The result of leaving Kallie in her room...unsupervised...for oh, five minutes!We keep cornstarch in her room for her diaper rash, and she obviously found it:) What was I thinking?!?!? I couldn't get her to smile for the camera, but when I walked in...she was ALL smiles:

The Aftermath

Her footprints from trying to make a quick escape:)

Kat's Visit

On our way to Grand Marais!

The first weekend in July, one of my best friends flew out here from Calgary to pay us a visit. Kat was our very first guest in our new house! We got to visit with 'auntie' Kat when Kallie and I flew to Calgary this past winter, and Kat also came Tbay about a month after Kallie was born, so she's seen Kallie grow in leaps and bounds:)!! It was such a wonderful visit, we had so much fun together, Kallie got in some good quality time with her auntie Kat, and we had some really great talks (and late nights! oh I am not 18 anymore:)!!

We also took a trip across the border to Grand Marais MN for the 4th of July fireworks. It was such a great trip, Lyndon's mom and his best friend Mark also came. We had a wonderful evening with a picnic dinner, walking around the town, and of course, enjoying the fireworks. They were Kallie's first ones, and she didn't seem too impressed:) It was a little late though...

Our little people watcher...something is very interesting:) Waiting for the fireworks...And there they are! It was quite an impressive show, especially considering how small Grand Marais actually is!Beautiful Grand Marais

Mark and Lyndon...Lyndon is at least half a foot taller, this is just some fancy staging:)

We also got to spend lots of time with our friend Sheena, which was such a good time:)!

Overall, it was a great visit, we were so sad to say good-bye last week! We love you and miss you lots Kat, come back soon!!!

Our Little Family Trip

Our mischevious little monkey, Grandma and Grandpa's house had a lot of fun things to get into:)

A couple weekends ago, all three of us packed up the truck and headed for Winnipeg. The main purpose of the trip was a retirement party for my dad (there will be a future post about that), but we also got to spend time with family and visit friends, which was so wonderful. Of course, it all went by WAY too fast, but we loved it while it lasted! We're hoping to go back for an entire week at the end of August, so hopefully that works out!

While we were there, we got to spend lots of time with my parents and sister, and had some quick visits with friends. I really miss everybody in Winnipeg...I love living in Tbay, but sometimes (ok, a lot of the time!) I wish I could just move everyone over here!
While we were there, we had a second little celebration for Kallie's First Birthday...this is the cake...Whitburn style:) We're all about DQ cakes! We got to visit with our VERY CLOSE friends (let's say, just under a handful:) and it was a wonderful afternoon spent with people who really love Kallie and have been there for the from the very start:)!

The 'birthday girl'...what a goof!!

Kelly and Kallie at the 'party'Ethan and Kallie playing with one of Kallie's new toys...Mandi and Patsi got her birthday presents for the LOOOONG drive home, THANK YOU!
It was hard to get a good shot of Kallie and Ethan because they're both so mobile now!

Kallie and Grandma
We spent Sunday night with my sister and her boyfriend, Daniel. We made some delicious sushi and TRIED to get the boys interested in a game of Mad Gab...unsuccessfully, but Dana and I still had some fun with it:)~

Dana's pro-star sushi roll

The boys! Daniel is pretty much a professional sushi maker...we all learned so much:)

We got to have a quick visit with our friends Melinda and Brandon. At the time of our visit they had Aiden, who's almost four, and Lily who is 19 months, and just last night (July 10) they welcomed their beautiful baby girl, Sadie, into the world! Congratulations!

Lily and Kallie sharing a smooch! Both girls are so affectionate, they were hugging and kissing the whole time we were there, SO ADORABLE!

Big Sister Lily!

On our last night in Wpg we had dinner with our good friends, Patti-Ann and Scott. They just bought a house and so had us over to check the place out and feed us delicious barbecue! They just got a new puppy, who is absolutely adorable:)

The Johnston's: Harley, Scott, Patti-Ann and Copper!
We were sad to leave but hopefully will be back again soon!
On the way home, Lyndon spotted a turtle crossing the highway. We took a couple of pictures, showed him to Kallie and then put him on the side where he was heading...hopefully he kept on going!

So I finally got a post done, I have a few more: Kat's visit, Kallie walking (which she started doing in Steinbach on our way home, while we were visiting our good friends Becky and Andrew...all weekend ppl were trying to get her to walk, and apparently she decided that Becky and Andrew's house was the place to make it happen!), my dad's retirement, and hopefully some more pictures of our house...if we could just get stuff finished! So, hopefully I'll get back to being on top of blogging, stay tuned:)!