Golden days

Happy Sunday to all! A cloudy and brisk day. As I'm writing my blog, Cooper & Spicy are having a nap and Russell is relaxing. The four of us are in the living room. I was gone for a good part of the day so we are happy to be together and enjoying some quiet time.

Today, my brother, sister and I visited my Aunt Rita, the only living sister my mother had. She is truly in her golden years, 92 years old. We hadn't seen her for a long long time. We had been meaning to visit her since my parents passed away earlier this year but life got in the way. Aunt Rita moved to a seniors residence a few months ago. Her close friend Nicole took care of her move and we are so grateful for that. She is in relatively good health although she has lost some of her cognitive faculties. Despite that, Aunt Rita was visibly happy to see us and recognized us. My uncle JC and his two children also visited. My uncle is Rita's late sister's husband. After seeing my aunt, we all had lunch at St-Hubert nearby. It was truly a wonderful family reunion. It was especially nice to see my aunt's friend, Nicole, who has done so much for her.

This past week was good and the weather was quite nice. We had a few warm, sunny days, and once again, spent time on the deck. I think those "deck times" are coming to an end, sadly. We had some nice walks and enjoyed the beautiful Fall colours. Our maple tree is in its glory, all golden. Beautiful!

This coming week is shaping up to be busy. Spicy and I will visit two seniors home. I have another needle treatment for my jaw. On Wednesday, I start the "Hell week" workouts. On Thursday night, I will have dinner with a few former colleagues of mine to celebrate someone's retirement. I'm looking forward to the reunion. On Saturday, it is the Spice girl's 8th birthday. You know what that means.....birthday cake and all the trimmings. I also have to think about buying Halloween treats for the kiddies. I typically wait until the last minute, not so much because they are on sale...but because we are not tempted to eat them all before the big day. As always, whatever leftover candies we have after October 31 (and we will have some), we will give them to Dennis at Talemaker. He loves chocolate!

I leave you with a few pics of our pooches and our maple tree as well as a photo of my aunt taken today. I also include a photo that Eveline took of the "students" during our Fun Obedience class last Tuesday. The exercise was all about doing a "down stay" in a hula-hoop for a few minutes. As our instructor Wanda said, the idea is to challenge the dogs with new elements in a known exercise, the new element being the hula-loop. They all did very well. Can you spot Cooper and the other two Havanese, Blu-Belle and Macy?

Have a great week everyone!

The down-stay in a hula-hoop...can anyone spot Cooper!?

Spicy and Cooper are trained 'sniffer' dogs...all
groceries must pass their sniff inspection.

Spicy always finds the best spots to nap...
this time is it with all of 'her' chews.

TV room and time for a good chew.

The maple in our front yard in full blaze of color.

Francois, Lynn and I had a great visit with tante Rita.