I'd like to introduce you to my new neighbour who is (unfortunately) located at then end of my street... within walking distance. *ugh!!*
My flavour of choice? Peanut Butter and Chocolate! Yumm!!
I have read Lorraine's journal for a while now and followed her journey to China in January when she and her hubby met their precious baby girl Adia. Yesterday Lorraine and I hung out together and we had the very best time!
I tell you, there's nothing like meeting a China mom who still remembers all the ups, downs and in-betweens of their time in China. She also had some great tips of things to purchase that will be helpful when Hannah is home. I've searched high and low online for one of these and right now hope to buy one from the UK on eBay if the shipping isn't too high. It's a great vaccuum flask that can be used to either store warm water for formula or, store hot water and then the bottle sits in the cup to warm up in moments. Really neat!!
Lorraine picked me up at our hotel and after picking up a Tims we headed out of town to a wonderful little place called the Berry Barn. The barn is located on the banks of the Saskatoon river and we sat in a swing by the riverside for almost an hour just chatting, chatting...chatting! :o) It's like we'd known one another for years and were just getting caught up with one another's lives. 
While we enjoyed our time on the swing Adia sat quietly, sifting through the diaper bag and from the looks of this picture, made plans for a shopping trip later on in the day.
Sharon really enjoyed the Berry Barn too and this time we decided to kinda skip the main course and head straight to dessert for supper! Check out these waffles! They make a waffle for each person and then you get to go to the toppings bar that has 5 kinds of fruit, 5 kinds of syrup, vanilla pudding and whipped cream. Oh baby, the calories were worth every single bite!!
Unfortunately I learned the hard way just how much damage one little Saskatoon Berry can do when it hops off your plate and rolls down your yellow sweater into your lap. Oops! After some work on it it's almost out of my sweater and I'll work on it more once home.
We visited the gift shop again and I stocked up on everything Saskatoon Berry. Mmmm...I really like the flavour as you can tell!
Lorraine and Adia brought treats for Hannah and I too! A cute little pink onesie, a beautiful handmade story book, bath salts for mommy and shampoo for baby plus a couple of neat sterilizing kits that will be great for China! Thank you Lorraine!
The word is out that we have more fun planned for tomorrow so Adia is resting up in advance. Until tomorrow my friend.....
Kim and I met via our blogs a couple of years ago and yesterday we met in person! What fun! Add to that her adorable bundle of love Channing, beautiful sunny skies, warm temps and it was a perfect day!
I dropped Sharon off at work and headed 2 hours south to where Kim and Channing live. The drive is very straight but the prairies are pretty in themselves.
We headed to a park and enjoyed lunch near the river. We even had a bunny...big, well fed bunny join us for lunch. 
Channing did her part and fed it some of her french fries. I didn't know that bunnies liked french fries but this guy knew how to pack them away. :o)
Our last bit of fun was feeding ducks at the park. The spa is beautiful and has a neat story for Kim and I behind it. In 2003, 2 years before I started my adoption journey for Hannah, Sharon and I stayed at the mineral spa where Kim was working! 
There is a good chance that she and I met before either of us started our adoptions. Cool!!
The water is heated by a natural hot spring and is piped up to the 4th floor (roof top) pool. Neat! It was beautifully warm and Channing and I dipped our toes for a couple of minutes.
Kim and Channing also brought some beautiful treats for Hannah! The 'A Prairie Alphabet' book at the top of the picture was written and illustrated buy a local artist. I had purchased a small plaque with one of her piano prints on it when I was there in 2003 and this year Kim introduced me to the artist. Neat! She also signed the alphabet book for Hannah.
This is a love ball that is from Channing's province in China.
Even though I'm far from home this month as I celebrate my 27th LIDiversary, Hannah is never, ever far from my heart, dreams and prayers. Necessity is the mother of invention so being away from home I improvised a little with this month's flowers. Sharon and I found these bright, sunny daisies and thought they would be a fun way to celebrate Hannah's 27 month LIDiversary.
This morning I also treated myself to a pedicure. The neat thing is that yesterday when I asked around town where I could get a pedicure there wasn't anything available. This morning after dropping Sharon off at work I noticed a sign advertising pedicures and wrote down the number. I called, we booked it and I showed up later in the morning for a little pampering. Wanna know the neat thing? The gal that did it just opened her shop last week and her sign went up at 6:00 last night! I found it at 8:30 this morning. Guess advertising really worked this time!
For the past 9 years I have often joined Sharon when she travels to conduct piano exams for the Royal Conservatory of Music. We've had the pleasure of visiting BC 3x, Alberta twice and yesterday she and I boarded a plane and flew 3 1/2 hours west to the province of Saskatchewan. We were here in 2003 too and have many great memories of our trip then. Now we're making more!
As we neared Saskatoon it was easy to see the differences in the land. Not only had I flown out of a major city and landed in a much smaller city but SK is quite flat and has beautiful prarie fields everywhere. I love the variety of scenery that my country has to offer.
I laughed when I looked over and Sharon was changing her watch to match the current time. It's a standing joke with us that she doesn't change her watch even when the time changes so when I saw her doing this I knew it was a Kodak moment. :o)
Heh...it's easy to see that I still have work to do when it comes to packing less! 2 weeks in China? *gulp!!!* I brought less clothes this time but my scrapbooking supplies still took my suitcase up to 42lbs.
After picking up our rental car in Saskatoon we headed further west. This picture of the GPS (which is an AMAZING little tool and took less than 3 seconds to change from Ontario to SK!) shows a normal SK road. Pretty straight and flat.We arrived in Biggar late in the afternoon.
It's always a question about what our accommodations will be like in these small towns but the motel we're in is clean, newly refurbished and we have a great room with a fridge and free high speed wireless. Perfect!!
The place Sharon examined at today was less than 1 km away so allowing time for traffic (lol!) we needed to leave our room exactly 5 mins before she wanted to be there...and we were still early. At lunch I walked in to the town and checked out the stores. You can imagine my surprise when I walked out of a store and saw Sharon across the street. She'd finished early before lunch but since my cell can't get a signal here I didn't know. It was purely coincidental that we ran into one another. Her secretary teased her that if she was looking for me she could ask anyone in town as everyone was sure to know that there were 'new people' in town since everybody knows everybody! Ahhhh...small towns are neat.
One final pic to make you smile. I call this one, 'I love travelling with a senior!' :o) Yes, this was 7:17pm...but as Sharon was laughing she reminded me, 'It's 9:17 at home!' We have a TON of fun together and I love how we can laugh with one another about the silliest things. I am SO THANKFUL for you Sharon. Your friendship is a treasured gift from God. Love you so much!
There are lots and lots of fun hills to ride on....well, at least to ride down. Going back up we offered a little help and the girls were happy to accept.
There were some nasty storms forecasted in the evening (not that we let the girls know) so Sharon and I decided it was a good time to head into town and see Kung Fu Panda. It was a cute little movie and we all enjoyed it. Beautiful scenery of China. It's neat how they can do so much with animation these days! If you have a child 5 or older I'd recommend it. If they're younger or on the timid side I might hold off until it's on DVD and you can check it out first.
No power? No problem! We lit some candles, got out Father's Day crafts and the fun continued.
It was a neat time of sharing stories and surprisingly the girls were sound asleep before 11pm. I had forgotten how dark it is up north when there is no electricity! Literally we could not see our hands in front of our faces. It rained a lot during night and it's a beautiful sound, especially when there's no thunder or lightening accompanying it. The girls slept the entire night and Sharon and I were thankful when the power came back on at 8am....just in time to put on a pot of coffee! Yeah!!
We decided it was just easier to let them make hay on their room and close the door. I remember those days well! When I was a teen I told dad I was protecting his carpet and that's why it was covered with my clothes! 
Speaking of the outdoors we saw a deer right across the street and on the way home I saw my very first bear that I've ever seen outside of captivity. 
It sauntered across the road in front of our van and oh my, I wouldn't want to meet him on a dark road!
