Look What I Found/Did!!

Please check out these give aways!

Another busy week!! I can hardly wait for summer holidays to be over, school to begin and life to get back to a "normal" routine. Where did the "holiday" part of summer holidays go?

~On Monday Luke and I made 17 quart jars of Relish. I made 17 jars the week before, but gave 5 to a friend. Might make one more batch of relish yet, will have to see how energetic I get next week.


~If you need a good laugh - You really need to read this post on Eluna Jewelry .

~Here is a wonderful blog!! Kathy has lots give aways, a give away linky, and will help with organizing the buttons on your blogs. (she organized the ones at the bottom of my give away blog). She also posts tools and tips for bloggers. I go here often!!




~I have a poll on my Give Away Blog. Just wondering if entering give aways is easier with an Entry Form? What do I do if the vote it tied? Where can I find an easy to use entry form?

~This has to be one of the wettest summers I can remember. Every time I mow the lawn there are more and more mushrooms in my grass!!



~While blog hopping yesterday I can across a blog I'd been to before. Quilts Galore and More is a great blog. There is a link to Debbie's shop and all kinds of cool stuff. She has posted a link to a tutorial on making "Friendship Bags" - they are the cutest thing! The tutorial can be found at P.S. I Quilt - another awesome blog with lots of tutorials and wonderful links!!
Check out the "Friendship Bags", they would make a great swap!!

~Finally found a field of Sunflowers! Brad stood on the toolbox on the back of the truck to get this picture. They are really slow in blooming this year and there just aren't a lot of fields around.



~I found this great blog: Ceramic and Sculpture Artwork by Kathleen McGiveron. Kathleen had 100 postcards made and is offering to send one close to the holidays to whomever emails her with an address. This is a wonderful idea!! Does anyone know where I can get 100 postcards printed? Anyone else want to join in the fun?

~I'm hoping that Brad has time to help me today with tomorrows post. He found the cutest church in the middle of no where, took me there so I could take pictures. But Brad actually got to talk to the people who take care of it, so he has more info on the church than I do. Please come back tomorrow - hopefully it's posted!

My Home Town Part 1

Altona, Manitoba Canada - my home town. This last weekend was our "Sunflower Festival". For those of you who didn't know - Altona is the Sunflower Capital of Canada!! WOOHOO!! We used to have the largest sunflower oil processing plant, but because of diseases in the sunflowers about 10 years ago, they switched the plant to canola oil. But sunflowers are coming back! Would love to show you a picture of a sunflower fields in bloom, but they just aren't blooming yet.

When you drive into town from the north, this is the first thing you will see. The "sunflower" is about 20 ft across. Would love one in my yard!

Altona also has the worlds largest Van Gogh Sunflower painting. (not my favorite)


Sat. morning we had the parade. Can't show you the whole parade, so I'll just show you a few pictures that I took. They always lead the parade with flags on horseback. There is the Canadian flag, Manitoba flag, American Flag (we are only 13 miles from the ND border), and the Australian flag.



Why do we have the Australian flag you ask? Apparently Emerald is the Sunflower capital of Australia. They have their festival in April. Every year our "Sunflower Queen" wins a trip to Emerald for their festival and their Sunflower Queen comes to Altona for our festival. Isn't that cool?

Brad and I like heavy horses. So I always take pictures of a few.


I had to take a picture of a Combine that Logan has worked on. We were hoping the town had their new Fire Truck in the parade so I could take a picture of that too, seeing as how Luke worked on that one.


Every year the local Quilting Club has a big quilt show in one of the local churches. I love looking at quilts, and I'm determined to quilt one day. Here are a few that I really liked.





On Sunday there is a big car show in the park. We always check out the cars. The yellow one belongs to a friend of ours. The other car was done by a friend of Logan's . The guy did this when he was 17! I wish I had before and after pictures of this car so you could see what an amazing job he did!



That's it for now. Come back Saturday for Part 2.