A Sip of Humor

On one of our Mother/Daughter outings, Rachael decided she really wanted to go to Burger King for Dinner. We ordered our food and she choose a window seat by the front entrance. She was sitting facing the window and I the crowd of customers happily devouring their Burgers.

All of a sudden Rachael pipes up in a loud surprised voice, " Mommy is that an outdoor toilet?" So, of course I turn around curiously peer out the window behind me not seeing anything out of place let alone an outside toilet. I said " Rachael, what are you talking about, I don't see anything eat your lunch we have to go soon." Then I proceeded to take a drink of iced tea.

"It must be Mommy," she insisted loudly " Look, it says Butt Stop!" pointing at the ashtray tin for cigarettes hanging on the side of the building. Needless to say, the window got a good washing of iced tea for I laughed so hard I couldn't swallow and all you could hear was ripples of laughter from everyone within hearing distance.

Where Did the Summer Go?

One morning, I woke up to the sound of chirping birds and the bright sun stretching it's golden rays towards our window. It was the last day of school for the children and now here they are going back again. Where did those summer months go? It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Reuben's grade 5 graduation and making plans for summer vacation. Our summer turned out to be a lot busier than what we had planned. There were weddings, funerals, reunions, parties and our annual summer Albright Christmas tradition. Every summer my side of the family gets together and celebrates Christmas rather than doing it in December. Our family is so large and live a few miles from each other that it is easier for us to do this in the warmer months where we can fire up the BBQ, meet at a park or at each others houses. We do countless fun activities with the children and swap gifts. We always have a blast.



My mother has 19 grandchildren and she isn't even 50 yet. I have one brother and 4 sisters and between the six of us we have given all these grandchildren to our Parents. Family functions are filled with laughter and a lot of noise as all these children except one are ages 11 and under! We have come to realize that time spent together is precious and that it goes very fast. I wish we would have had more time to do what we wanted to do this summer. In August it rained nonstop for well over 17 days straight. This put a damper on any outside activities but I am thankful that I got to see a lot of my family that I haven't seen in years and happy that we were able to take the children on vacation to Nova Scotia where they had the time of their lives :)



Isn't it funny how when we were children time seemed to stand still? Now, as adults we don't have enough hours in the run of the day to do all we want to do. Many times I lay my head down at night disappointed that I didn't accomplish all I wanted to however more importantly I realized I am blessed because I took the time to spend quality time with my children. We may have gone on a hike or explored nature in a local park. Or maybe we baked cookies and watched a movie together. It is those little moments where the child feels more important than housework that matter. We had a lot of projects planned for this summer and not even half of them got done and it left us wondering...where did the summer go? I know where it went...it drifted off down memory lane like all of our yesterdays!

Summer 2008 in Nova Scotia