THE BIRTHDAY GIRL

LOOKED WHO TURNED ONE ON JUNE 30TH

What a cutie. This is my granddaughter, Katya, in her birthday dress, getting ready for her big party. Pink was the colour of the day. Her tante Heidi gave her a shimmery pink sequence dress, a princess hat with a veil and a princess banner to wear over her shoulder. We must not forget, although you cannot see them, the diminutive sparkley, pink sandals she is wearing--only fit for a princess of her stature.

TRAVEL WITH ME ON A RIVER CRUISE

I have been considering going on a river cruise in Europe in 2007 with my daughter Heidi. We always have great fun together. Anyway, my cruise director friend Donna, phoned today to see how I was getting along and asked if I was planning another cruise. When I told her I was looking into a European River Cruise, she became very animated. Next thing I knew she came to visit me and brought a book for me to look through. If you are at all interested at looking at cruises by Uniworld the website is www.uniworld.com.

She also included another book from Globus which you can find at www.globusjourneys.ca.

60 CHIX

I am driving to Lethbridge on the 11th for a fun day with the 60 Chix. Now you are going to ask me, who are the 60 Chix. We go back a long way. I was born in Brooks, Alberta in 1943. I was the first baby girl born in the Brooks Hospital and I was the youngest student to start grade one. By School Board mandate you had to be 6 by September 1 to go into grade one. My birthday was September 21 and I should not have been allowed to go but they changed the rules that year. Therefore I was the youngest in my grade.

A few years ago, when some of my classmates and myself were 59 turning 60, we formed a group called the 60 Chix complete with bright pink t-shirts with our group name 60-Chix printed on it. There are 8 in our group. The fantastic thing is that we all started grade one together and all graduated from grade 12 together. Some of us had moved away from Brooks but we still kept in touch as much as possible. As everyone turned 60 we had a party for that chick. We usually tried to broaden our horizons by going somewhere special--maybe where we had not been before. When the year was over we decided not to stop this camaraderie.

We have visited sites such as: The Japanese Garden in Lethbridge, Lee Valley Store in Calgary, the Hanna Doll Museum, Elkwater in the Cypress Hills, Millarville for the Christmas Craft sale, a guided tour of Lake Newall (which we all frequented when we were growing up), and Empress (which is 1.5 hours north of Medicine Hat on Highway 41) where we took in all the artist finery there. It is a very small town with some remarkable artists living there.