Sunday, April 18, 2010

Dalhousie days: a chapter comes to an end

After 21 enjoyable years, the old family homestead in Dalhousie home is up for sale. My parents, sister and I moved back to Calgary once we left Vancouver (Richmond) BC in 1989. After some wilderness years of instability, it was nice to have a real home to settle down in. Lots of good times and memories here.

Though I moved out in 1998, I was always coming back to visit, even for the years away in Taiwan. When it was time for us to move back to Canada in 2007, Mum and Dad were kind enough to let us rent the place from them once they moved to their condo. This summer we'll be moving into our own house, which we bought back in 2005.
The garden has lots of pretty trees in it. May is the best time to see all the blooms coming out.
Fiona enjoyed playing in the tent here last summer. Lots of good BBQs and garden parties had on the lawn
Summer 2006: Baby Fiona with grandma on the deck
Vivian did a super job repainting the dark kitchen in bright white, plus adding a new blacksplash

Mayday tree in bloom
Fiona's playground. Gareth rebuilt the white fence surrounding the property back in 1998
This ancient picnic table may have come from when we lived in Cochrane back in the early 1980s. Recently Vivian's family helped us repaint it
Nanjing cherry tree in the back yard. It grows real cherries!
More blooms

Mum spent hundreds of hours developing the garden into what it is today. Dozens of perennials like these ones now come up every spring