Happy Friday! I’m writing today from Calgary, Alberta! My sister and I are out here visiting my good friend Alison and her family for a few days. It’s my first time this far out west in Canada and I’m so excited to be here. We’re heading up to Banff for some hiking today and I can’t wait to see the mountains. Thank you for all your kind words about the blog name change. I’m still working out a few kinks, but I’m so glad that you’re all welcoming this with open arms.
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This week we celebrated my mom’s birthday with a great bbq dinner on the back porch. It was one of those perfect summer nights – not too hot, not too cold. Our new pool liner in being installed this weekend, so we got her a big bag of summer goodies – flip flops, a fluffy beach towel, chocolate, a beach ball, daiquiri mix, a new pool side glass and a nice big plant to add to her cutting garden behind the pool.
Dinner was delicious – homemade burgers, corn-on-the-cob, green salad, homemade potato salad and lots of veggies.
It was the first corn of the season – so good!
She may not have been able to blow out all the candles, but we let her take another go at it.
The birthday cake was one of my sister’s awesome creations – wild blueberry cheesecake. It was so amazing and I’ve nabbed the recipe from her to post next week!
Thick and creamy with a blueberry swirl – and a dollop of fresh whipped cream and blueberries on the side. Yum!
We were back at the restorations this week – windows down, music blasting as we cruise to the home improvement store. We’ve been lucky to be able to borrow big trucks when we need them to pick up all the goods. I tried to fit some wood in one of our cars last week and had to call my mother-in-law with her SUV for help. Lesson learned! So happy to have family that live close by for these kind of moments, ha!
After a long day of working, we loaded up the dogs to take them to one of our favourite summer spots…
…the drive-in! It always feels like summer the moment we pull into the theatre. We’ve both been coming here since we were kids, and have gone several times together every summer since we met. I know how lucky we are to have one so close, when most of them have closed all over North America.
We walked around with the dogs while watching this beautiful sunset that turned everything orange and pink.
I still love to see all the old timey posters inside with the retro pictures and prices. Can you imagine getting a pop for 10 cents? Or a jumbo size burger for 25 cents?
We killed some time trying to get a family photo together and got about 50 of just the dogs’ blurred faces. This is the closest we could get and I love it – Whiskey looks worried and Cola is a goof. Sounds about right.
After a long day of working on the farmhouse, it was so nice to sit together with a big bag of popcorn and our two little dogs to watch a couple of movies. We saw Ant Man, which was better than I was expecting (and actually pretty funny) and Inside Out which was cute for a family movie,
It was hot and sticky but I was happy to be snuggled up with my best buds. How can you turn away a face like this?
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Hope you have a nice weekend!
The new blog is beautiful, Amanda, I love it! Lovely photographs (that wild blueberry cheesecake looks AMAZING). We saw Inside Out this week too and loved it (not to mention, was holding back some tears one or two times). Have fun out west!! (I’m headed to the east coast for a few days in a couple of weeks myself!)
We live close to the Hanover Drive-In Theatre. We are planning on going when on vacation in a week. Haven’t been in years and am excited to experience it again.
I love the family picture – and the dogs really do have personality.
Rhonda
I hope you go! We always have a blast 🙂