Ice Skating and Street Taco's

I do not like this phase of my life. I love it that my kids are now all adults (or basically adults) and it is so much fun when we're all together but I hate it when they leave. And now they're leaving for good. Kira and Justin are now in Calgary and tomorrow morning Ben and Sharley are leaving for Arizona. It has been nice having them here for the summer because they've come to visit pretty much every Sunday and often during the week as well. Tonight Ben came over with his friends and he made us "street taco's". What a wonderful treat. It made a total mess of the kitchen but they were good. I paid close attention because I'm going to try and make some later. What are "street taco's" you ask? I guess it is what the real Mexican makes. We weren't quite authentic because we didn't have a pine stump to chop the meat up on. We didn't have a meat cleaver either. Oh, well. They were still very good. Tomorrow at 6:00 AM Ben and Sharley are pulling out and getting ready for School in Mesa. I will miss them. Monday, Brandon, Serene and Sydney arrive but Tuesday they leave for Malibou. And then finally, on Thursday we head to Utah with Alycia and take her to the U of U. We will be back to a family of four. How sad.

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All my life I have figured that it would be fun to pour my own ice rink in the back yard. It seemed so easy to me, all you had to do was smooth out the dirt in the garden, haul out the garden hose and start pouring water on the dirt. One of my first winters I decided to try it. It isn't nearly as easy as it seems. You can't do it all at once because the water just runs into the ground. You get the dirt wet the first day and then let it freeze. You then pour more water the next day and hope it doesn't thaw the water from the day before. Once you do have the water frozen then you have to smooth it out which isn't nearly as easy as it seems. The biggest hassle is that you can't use your outside faucet because it will freeze up so you're running the hose out of some window. You then have to bring the hose in every night or it will freeze up. The biggest frustration is that once you do have a nice rink then you get a Chinook and it all melts and you have to start over again. Of course the dumbest part is that only two blocks away Rosemary has a beautiful and very large skating rink (18) that is free. When we first moved there it was an outdoor rink but very soon after we arrived they covered it and turned it into a community center. We used to go there often and in the summer time it was used for community events. One year after we had moved away we came back for a visit on July 1st and they had a greased pig contest in the community center. Ben actually won that contest. I was all excited because I assumed that he would get to keep the pig. Alas, it didn't work that way. He won some prize but it wasn't the pig. I'm not sure what I would have done with the pig if he had won. If we lived in Rosemary still I would have raised it and he would have become pork chops but I don't think a pig would go well at the border crossing. I'm also not sure what Lisa would have thought of a pig in the car with us. That's not true, I know exactly what Lisa would have thought of a pig in the car with us. We had many good times in the community center and it really has become a central place for life in Rosemary.