Our Weekend

We've had another busy weekend. I'm always so glad when Monday rolls around! I say TGIM!

Jill had her first real swim meet this past weekend. I wrote about it on our Ackroyd Family blog. Hope you'll check it out!

Dawn

Our Thanksgiving - Noble News ___

We had a wonderful time at home. On Friday, Oct 10th, 2008, We had our open house. It was great. About 42 people came. Then on Monday we had our Thanksgiving dinner. We each took turns telling what we were thankful for. Family came out on top. We are all thankful for you and hope you had a special dinner. It was great to read Dawns' news. Thanks for all you do. Shirley, Ardell and Ashley came on Friday nite but left early on Sat. morning. Hope they got home okay. Brad, Helen, Gideon, Dustyn and Julia, Jessey and Shelbi came on Monday. It was ggreat.

love Marvelle

Thanksgiving in Peace River

We had a great time this past weekend too. We drove up to Peace River on Friday night. Jill really likes the Friday practise swim coach and so we decided to not leave until after swimming (plus, then we could travel when kids were sleeping!) We were a little tired the next day - but were glad we did it that way. On Saturday we went and checked out a French town not too far from Peace River. It was fun and interesting to see the French influence there. Our kids really enjoy being the communication experts in those kinds of situations as well. :0)

We went to church on Sunday and ran into a couple of friends from when we were in University. All the people seemed really friendly and it was a nice day. Later that day we had Thanksgiving Dinner at the hotel. They had set a fancy table for us in the back of the restaurant....and so the atmosphere and the food and the company was terrific!! That's really a great way to do a big dinner. Just show up and eat! We didn't even have to do dishes!!

We're thankful we were able to make the trip....and thankful for all of you! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend!

....now I just need a long weekend to recover!! :0)

Dawn

Thanksgiving Weekend

We are having a very good weekend. To start with we were invited to Marvelle & Clifford's Open House on Friday evening. I asked Ardell and Ashley to go with me and we all drove down right after work, well we pulled Ashley out of school just a few minutes early. I wanted to get on the highway before the rush hour traffic. We left the city by 4 pm and arrived in Cardston at 6:15 pm. We had the wonderful experience of having supper at the Mandarin Gardens on Main Street in Cardston, before going over to Marvelle's new house. The lady, Joan, in the restaurant was quite entertaining the way she would go into the kitchen and holler out what the patrons wanted for supper - hamburger steak, veal cutlets, NewYYYYork steak. It was hilarious. Ashley and I had a good laugh. Then we left there and arrived at Marvelles' where there were a houseful of people in the house. I got to visit with a lot of people I have not seen for years. Marvelle's friend, Sharon (Jensen) Caldwell was there and very surprised to see me. Art and Merle Hough, and their daughter Sharon and Rod Gibb were there too. Then Joan and Wayne Greep came with Tom and Cathy Needham. It was sure good to visit and talk with all of them.

Ardell and I and Ashley stayed with Marvelle & Clifford over night. Ashley got to sleep in her own private bedroom, the closet - it was so big she thought it was made just for her to sleep in. We rolled her up in a quilt and she went right off to sleep. She thought Marvelle's new dog was real cute. Her and Maggie got along quite well. Maggie just likes to lay on your lap and be petted. She is a sweet little dog. She was Scott's little dog and Marvelle and Clifford inherited her out the three dogs that David and Scott had at the house. David felt he needed to get rid of the dogs because he is away so much and could not devote his time to the dogs. He had a neighbour lady looking after them when he was not home, but then she couldn't do it for some reason. So Nickee got two of them and Marvelle & Clifford got Maggie.

On Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast and it was snowing in Cardston, so we headed for home early. The roads were wet till we got to Fort MacLeod, then it was quite windy around the pass area till we got to Nanton.

Today is Thanksgiving Day and I am cooking two pumpkin pies in the oven. When they are done then our Turkey is going into the oven for dinner tonight. Ardell and I are having a dinner alone. Paula and Garry are having her dad over for dinner.

Garry got home from his week of hunting with Roy, on Saturday night with three deer and a moose. Now they will have lots of meat for the winter time. They eat a lot of venison and like it. Garry loves to hunt and get his animals. They will make a lot of the meat into sausages mixed with pepperoni and salami. It is very good. A German butcher makes for him.

Ardell is very busy with his work and he gets so stressed out with having to work. My work has slowed down some but it is all day to day work at the bank. It seems we just work and come home and sleep and go to work again. Ardell gets up early at 3:30 am and I get up at 4:30 and take him to his office. Then I come home and have a little nap and get to work by 7 am. So we are usually in bed early by 8:30 or 9 o'clock in the evenings. That way the days pass quickly.

We hope all the family have a very good Thanksgiving weekend and get all rested up for the next weeks work.

Love you all.

Shirley

Peace River

I cameup to Peace River on Sept 27 after going with Colleen and Dave, Ryan and Beth, Kara, Heidi, and Colleen's friend to Terry Wasden's presentation called Awesome Journey. It gave us lots to think about. After the presentation I went to Colleen's house and stocked up on stories to listen to in the car and started my 8 hour trip to Peace River. It was a pretty drive but very long. After arriving in Peace River and look all over for Gayle, (He decided to go out to the edge of town where there is a detour and show me how to find the hotel. It was dark.) Well I made the wrong turn and got into town without being stopped by the detour. He couldn't figure out where I was and I didn't have a clue where he was. I tried calling his cell. No answer. He had left his cell in the hotel room. After much running around I finally found him and brought him home. That was about 10:00 p.m.

The next morning we went to church. They have a little branch with a beautiful new chapel. It brought back memories of Hinton when we were in Jasper. All the members are really friendly and they were all very happy that I had finally arrived. Gayle introduced me to everyone and I can't remember most of them. There was another new couple there and they sat next to us. We chatted with them and found they were connected to people we know. He is a brother to Ellis Stonehocker, our old bishop when we lived in Bonavista and she was a daughter to Gayle Johnson, the man Gayle was named after. It was really neat to meet them and we had lunch at the hotel together.

Since arriving, I have done a lot of reading, a lot of writing on the computer, a lot of knitting, and sewing (That is without my machine. I am doing as much as I can and will finish when I get home to my sewing machine. ) some home teaching with Gayle (he is doing a lot of that as it helps to pass the time when he isn't at work.), a lot of walking, photographing, and most of all a lot of sleeping. (I have a lot to catch up on after the summer. I don't go to bed very early when Gayle isn't home, gonna have to break that habit.) This past Saturday we went to Grand Prairie for the day. Boy is that a bustling town and it was a really pretty drive. The colored leaves are just about gone now. The wind blew some the other day and most of the leaves are gone now. No wonder we don't have many fall colors in Southern Alberta.

So now we are waiting for Dawn and Allen to come for Thanksgiving. That will be fun!! We have some activities planned for the kids. There is a predominately French speaking town a few miles away. We would like to take Jill and Peirce there. There is a good movie for kids at the local theatre. It is about Chihuahuas We figure they will enjoy that. We will see what else we can find
to do with them. Then I will go back to Calgary with them and try to find a ride home from
there. Gotta work on that one.

When I get home I have the Convention for Hospital Auxiliaries on Oct 20 - 22. I will be glad to have that one over with.

We hope all is well with everyone.
Love'
LA and Gayle