Shuswap Three: More Pictures!

More Shuswap pictures.
My one cousin just can't get enough.
These are Shuswap, Jasper and Margaret Falls near Sicamous, British Columbia.

Shuswap Part Trois!

Shuswap Pictures Part Two

Here are more pictures I have taken over the years of one of my favourite places on earth.  Cheers!

Pilling's Beach, Shuswap Lake

Shuswap Pictures

My cousin is having a new stain glass window made with the colours, shapes, and textures from photographs that the family has taken on the family property on Shuswap Lake.  I finally added some of my pictures to the medley.  I hope they will prove helpful.  It is one of my favourite places to take pictures and I shall continue to capture the natural, least altered beauty of one of my favourite places on earth.  Enjoy!

Larch Haven Blog: Shuswap Pictures

Summer 2012: Pirate Invasion!

This is my sister-in-law Cheri.

These are the types of cakes Cheri dreams up and creates.

A pirate ship arriving from a water land of cupcakes to a desert land of 'sand' cupcakes on which the pirates will fight with the skeleton crew who have a treasure.  Yep.  She makes the fabulous creations and then we, her grateful family-in-law, have the audacity to eat them.  Truly they should be encased on glass and put on display in a museum.  Instead, we eat them.  We (un)grateful lot.

The pirate ship is made from rice-crispie treats wrapped in moulded tootsie roll.  The masts are cookies.  

The water and sand are cupcakes with delicious icing and candies on them.  The desert has icing which is them dipped on pulverized graham crackers.  So yummy!

In addition to the cake she made cross-bone cookies...because they are so simple to create (?).

The skeletons guarding their treasure

'Come get us and our treasure pirates!'

The pirates descend in a ship to advance towards the booty.

Prepared to fight!

Who will win?!?

This summer I confessed to Cheri that I have a fantastic business idea.  She is going to make cakes like these and I am going to sell them.  Thusly she and my brother must stay together always, and she needs to make cakes faster...or we can hire minions to create the cakes while she dreams them up.  Either way my plan will take some convincing and she just laughed every time I mentioned our new joint venture.  There is some work and convincing yet to be done.  Wish us luck with our booty!

Summer 2012: Pig Roast

It happened again this year.  The Richard and Miranda pig roast.  This does not mean we roasted Richard, Miranda and a pig, this means that Richard and Miranda bought a pig and roasted it for some added summer fun, which has been occurring for 4-5 years now.

Usually the roast occurs around the August long weekend and I was one of the lucky many who watched, visited, partook and played at this years roast.  First, my sister Zoe and I went over for a peek earlier in the morning to see how the pig was being roasted.

Glen and Jeremy visited at the same time. 

Richard explained to Zoe and I that he uses the slow cook method during which the pig is roasted over 7-8 hours but with only 1 or 2 smaller pieces of cedar added to the fire slowly over time.  Either way I am glad he cooks the pig.  A quick visit was enough for me as I have a woozy stomach.  I eat meat but I really don't like watching the raw version in full form being cooked.  Hypocrite I know.

Time to carve the pig.  Once again, Richard and Miranda have a butcher friend complete this part.  Phew!  Glad each cousin doesn't have to take a turn each year or I would be carving a tofu pig in 2018 for the family.  :)

Bonjour Monsieur Pig

The pig. His cooker. His carver.

Senya and Wyona posing with some food

At about 12 pm it was time to begin gathering all the food that had been slaved over during the course of the day.  Our family property now has 5 cabins full of family members in them.  Each house was asked to bring two salads.  When you consider that in the Bates cabin alone there are 25 people and there are just as many people in each of the other cabins, that is a lot of people and a large amount of food.  The picture above is merely one of three large tables full of food on which we dined.  

Thomas trying out the fresh apple juice Uncle David made

I can not tell you the deliciousness of Arta's freshly baked bread.  I stood for a while trying to capture the texture, the flavour, the smell, and the bouncy-ness of her bread.  This picture is not bad but I shall have to try again next summer.  Fresh bread, one of the delights of each meal.

Summer 2012: Chinese Brush Painting

My mother is talented.

 Yes.  This talented.

My father Greg bragging to us about my mother Wyona's painting skills.

This summer it was decided that we were all going to sit down and try our hands at Chinese Brush Painting.  Now you may wonder where in the world a caucasian Canadian family would learn the skills of an ancient art form from a country on the other side of the world.  This is a good question.  My mother.  When my father obtained his job as Canadian Trade Commissioner with the Foreign Service we began traveling.  First to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then on to Manila, Philippines.  While we were abroad we had hired house help which left my stay-at-home mother with some time to pursue other pursuits.  One she chose was Chinese Brush Painting whose art influence obviously extended beyond the borders of China, and at which my mother excelled.  While she was a teacher, and while I taught, she would show her and my students the basics.

Wyona demonstrating the fine art of bamboo painting

One always starts with bamboo and after several months the new learner is allowed to progress to roses.  Since time was limited (the summer was coming to a close), we had a 15 minute bamboo lesson, followed by a 15 minute rose lesson.  We practiced for several hours and some of us faired pretty well, creating almost realistic foliage.

Zach doing very well with bamboo stalks

One of the main pieces of information that Wyona always tells the learner is that this type of painting is single stroke with diluted paint.  You make one stroke, them move on.  You do not go over your work again and again, bad, naughty.  The depth of the painting comes from the variations in hues of the paint through the single strokes, from dark to medium to light colour contrasts.  Two essential art details.

Needed: water, paint, a place to dilute colours

Sabrina showing us the seriousness of art and bamboo

Alicia focusing on her roses

Then there were those of us who may need a few more summers to get to the Chinese painting part, yet enjoyable images were still created.

Chinese-Canadian-American rainbow?

The serious faces of each mini-artist is so perfect

The group is deep concentration with their roses

We did have a great time and learned that you throw away the first 3-45 sketches, even though they may look anywhere from pretty crappy to not too bad.  It is tough to let go of ones art when it has just been completed and a part of ones heart is in it.  Another summer, after more practice, we shall save and frame several pieces.  Only 41 more practices to go.  Until then, we have a semi-professional in our midst guiding our learning and visuals of her work to motivate us.

Summer 2012: Goth

My niece decided to scare me this summer.  She dressed goth.  Several days in a row.  She is far too cheery, positive and happy a tween to go goth.  But she did enjoy scaring me.

Thanks Alicia!
(don't ever do this for reals)

Trying not to smile

Pensive and creepy, at the same time

Thinking of sad, listless things

About To Make Brownies

While I was living in Calgary in the early 2000's I purchased a book by a Calgary based recipe author, Julie Van Rosendaal.  Having a very sweet tooth, I immediately loved it as it is called, One Smart Cookie: All your favourite cookies, squares, brownies and biscotti...with less fat!  A few years later I bought her Grazing recipe book too.  Over the years I have made several dishes out of both books, granted the sugar content is not super low in the cookie book, but the results are delicious and you can scrumptiously indulge with a little less guilt.

After having curled today, completed some errands, and accidentally did some laps around a near-by mall who has taken down all its directional signs (I almost didn't make it out), it is time for a treat.  There is zucchini in the fridge from my aunt and uncle's garden in British Columbia (it had a long drive out to Winnipeg) and I shall be making Julie's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies (p. 134).  Since I fly solo, I will eat to my heart's content, then divide up the pan of brownies into healthy size portions, wrap them up in plastic, and freeze them for when I have a chocolate hankering another day.

Can't promise any photos.  Do you really want to see chocolate and zuch in my teeth?  I didn't think so.  But here is Julie's more recent blog which appears to have developed beyond desserts.  Mmmmmmm.....

  DINNER WITH JULIE  

I changed my mind.
I took picture.
Warm. Dense. Chocolatey. Decadent.

Nephew Needs Lightning

 I received a desperate email and text from my sister asking me to send her the lightning pictures I took last year at Shuswap Lake.  Her son is in grade 5 and he is learning about weather in science, in particular completing a project on lightning and my pictures were needed, the next day.  Gladly.  Especially for a nephew and for school.  My sister said the project went well, her sons ogled over the pictures, and her son said the presentation went well.  I am expecting the best artist in grade 5 award sometime in the Spring.  I'll let you know when that comes through.

Full project with my pictures included

The important details of lightning

Summer 2012: Shot from the Air

Flying from Winnipeg into Kelowna I looked out the window and spied this:

The tops of the Rocky Mountains just peeking above the low lying clouds.

A more distant view

Snow still on some of the peaks, even in August.

Summer 2012: Mermaid Camp

As some of you may know, I have 12 (going on 13) nieces and nephews.  They are a constant source of entertainment, joy and hilarity for their aunts and uncles.  One of my sisters, Marcia, was talking with her two boys at the beginning of this summer about camps they may want to join.  Their younger sister, a three year old, was listening in and piped up, "I want to go to Mermaid Camp".  Uh?  My sister did not know what to do as she had never heard of such a thing.  Upon telling us the story, we family members joked that we could tie the kids legs together and throw them in Shuswap Lake, in amongst other sassy comments.

As we gathered at Shuswap for a family gathering, Marcia decided she was going to give her daughter a Mermaid Camp.  She went to the dollar store to make a few purchased, we gathered our make-up, nail polish and other assorted elements that could be included in our first ever, Mermaid Camp.

Marcia gathered the nieces and made fin-like invitations to distribute to the family.  We were all invited to Mermaid Camp at 2:30 PM on the porch.  Be prepared to be done up!

The adults began to put make-up on the girls, paint nails, coif hair and have an all round good time.  Sadly I could not find any ocean, sear or Little Mermaid music for the event but as you can see, we were having a great time.

Audra, the little girl who started Mermaid Camp,
having her nails done by Aunt Lurene.
(One of the best pics I took.)

Not aware her hair is on end.

Strike a pose!

We kept decorating each other.  Laughing at the feather eyelashes, the sparkled rings, and the fun colours of make-up.

Audra, in the rapture of Mermaid Camp

Our neighbour, Autumn, came to join us. 

Finishing touches

A late-comer just getting started.

Three little mermaids from school are we....

...even the adults got into it...

Well hello Cheri!

Adult nail time, care of Sabrina

Funny thing happened on the way to Mermaid Camp, the nephews showed up.  With trepidation, at first, they began putting on rings....

....then they let the Aunts start doing their hair.....they did not realize that this was only the beginning....

Stunning smile

With a lovely red flower 

With lovely red lips

....next came those crazy feather eyelashes....

Then the Aunts went wild with a no-holds-bar approach to Mermaid Camp.  Anyone on the deck was either getting done-up, was doing the work of decorating another person, taking pictures (like moi), or posing for a picture. 

Work is kids!

Work it Andrew!
(One of the best pictures from Mermaid Camp.)

....then Ozzy Osbourne Mermaid Camp started....

Group shots were next on the list of things to do at Mermaid Camp.

Love the smiles and other assorted facial expressions.

Pose it children!

Then it was treat time: banana vanilla ice cream milk shakes in fancy glasses.  

Thank you to all who made the delish milkshakes!

We had a great time and it was really fun seeing my nieces and nephews participate in some gender bending and enjoying every minute of it.  I was even more impressed by my siblings who just watched it happen, provided the space for their girls and boys enjoy doing something new for fun, for family bonding and for a great time.  

This may become a tradition.

A decorated child

Phew!  Mermaid Camp is exhausting!