Ocean Water Swimming

Check out Outdoor Wednesday at http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/ for more awesome outdoor photos!

This gentleman was loosening the leash on his dog's collar seconds before his dog went into the ocean for a cool swim!

It was a cool, windy wavy day at the beach. That dog was crazy for going into that cold water!

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Visit Watery Wednesday at http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

Bacon Wrapped Scalloped Potatoes

BACON WRAPPED SCALLOPED POTATOES

One pound thick sliced Bacon

3 large thinly sliced Russet Potatoes

1 large thinly sliced onion

Red Pepper Flakes

Garlic granules

Ground Pepper

Grated Cheddar/Mozzarella/Parmasan Cheese blends

In a 6 to 8 inch round Baking pan lay out Bacon Strips as above.

In bottom of pan, on top of bacon layer, layer potato, onion and Cheese. Sprinkle each layer liberally with Garlic granules, Red Pepper flakes and Pepper. Build three layers of this.

End the layers with Cheese at the top of the pan.

Fold over the bacon slices over the top to meet in the middle.

Sprinkle the top of the Bacon with a liberal dose of Fresh Ground Pepper.

Put a small lid on top of the middle of the bacon while baking. This will prevent the ends of the bacon from curling while baking. At the end of the second hour of baking remove the small pot lid to finish baking.

Put baking dish inside of a cake pan to bake. Bake in oven at 325 degrees for three hours.

When it is finished baking, put a lid on top of bacon and carefully drain the excess bacon fat into a container.

Then use a knife to loosen all around the edges and invert the potatoes onto a serving platter.

Sliced Tomatoes goes great with the Bacon.

Cut pie into wedges to serve.

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Project 52 - Week 4, Self Portrait.



Oh my gosh, this was a hard one for me. I am like a lot of you, not liking to have my photo taken. And even though I understand the reasons I should let my picture be taken, its still hard.

I think that is what makes it an awesome subject! It is always good to face the things you find difficult and overcome them. I might just work more on this in the future!

White Rock Waves and Wind



Hubby and I went out for a drive yesterday and ended up at White Rock beach. We were very surprised coming over the hill to see huge waves and white caps on the Ocean

My favorite beach days!

The tide was almost completely into shore, and the waves were breaking over the rocks.

Two and three foot swells.

This young girl was standing on some rocks at the shore when a wave came in and surrounded her.

Crashing over an outflow pipe platform.

The White Rock Pier.

I am trying to teach myself HDR using my Photoshop CS5 in a few of these pictures, such as the one above. Please feel free to tell me what I could do better or how I could change this. It is a steep learning curve!

More photos to follow in the next few days!!

Project 52 - I Dreamed a Dream



My hubby and I provide Respite care for a two year old developmentally challenged little boy. His name is Taige.

(Aren't his eyelashes dreamy!) Oops, off the subject there!

Taige has a multitude of problems he lives with day to day. His care is quite complex. But he is in the moment. He deals with it all moment by moment. So do we when we care for him, but we are always jumping from moment to moment, into the future, trying to anticipate, plan for, ready ourselves for his next big moment, and then missing the actual moment. When Taige is having a good moment he is chock full of vocals, laughter and smiles. He is not off somewhere dreading the next. When he deals with a bad moment, once its over with and done, he is not wrecking his present moment by worrys of the next bad moments.

I could learn from that! I miss my own moments when my head is either in the past thinking about something or in the future worrying about something. When I am there and not here and now, I miss the moment I should be in.

So I could take this moment and wish to be in my own moments more, leaving the past where it belongs and the future in the future. Live in this moment.

That is a dream worth dreaming!

Snowy Textures



Just by itself, a Monkey tree has a lot of texture. With the added snow resting on its branches it adds another level of texture to the tree.

When we were kids, we used to watch for Monkey trees in someone's yard, and seeing one would punch the nearest person on the arm and yell "Monkey Tree, no punch back!"

Did you ever play that game? It made some of the drives we took go a little quicker when we had something else to focus on. And if you were lucky you got to punch your brother or sister on the arm without getting into trouble!

Did you know that Monkey trees are so named because they are the only tree a Monkey is unable to climb?

Frozen Water falling from the Sky

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A freezing blast of Winter has hit B.C. with lots of snow and icy winter temperatures.

For a region that usually enjoys temperate rainforest conditions, we are not used to this type of craziness. We don't have to shovel rain!

And rain is what we are used to!

We have outdoor Exercise equipment we can enjoy any season of the year. Usually wet from rain!

Boardwalk on Mill Lake to take walks along. Usually ducks swimming alongside.

A little punch of colour is always nice in a world suddenly white.

Kariton Art Gallery situated right in the middle of the park. You can picnic here even in winter if you want.

Lots of tables to choose from.

Or benches to sit and enjoy.

Rotary Crossing Playground is empty of children playing. I think all the kids are sliding down hills.

Schools close here when snow flies. Kids like that a lot!

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The dock in the main parking area of Mill Lake has the only patch of unfrozen water. The ducks have to swim somewhere!

Cannot imagine floating around in that frigid cold water like these ducks are doing!

I guess the water conditions are not conducive to swimming, being the lake is frozen!

Frozen like this!

Linking up with http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/



Snow Times



We have had our first big snowfall of the year, snow starting on Sunday night and predicted to snow for the rest of the week. It is a big deal here, everything seems to stop when the snow falls. Most of our weather is temperate rain forest type weather, we don't have to shovel it!

One thing that you can do here when the snow flies is get out the camera and check out the cool photo opportunities. A quick trip to my back yard netted me these shots of rosehips and old hydrangea flowers.

I used a selection of Kim Klassen textures to treaat these photos, but I forgot to write down specifically which ones I used. Me bad!!

I am off work tomorrow again due to the excessive white stuff, so sure to take a few more pictures!