Photos {1} iPhone 5C

Because I love to take pictures I thought I would make a post dedicated to some of my favorites. This one will be all pictures taken on my iPhone and later there will be another post with pictures from my camera! I'm thinking I will do a new post every so often with new and updated favorites as well! 

Chamberlain, Saskatchewan. 

My cat Vixen looking very serious. And a whole lot fatter than she really is..

Hanauma Bay, Oahu

Sandy Beach, Oahu

Flat Island, Kailua, Oahu

Lanikai Beach, Kailua, Oahu

Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu

Double rainbow

Mountains in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Jasper National Park

Edmonton, Alberta. River valley and Mutart conservatory

Man made lake. St Albert, Alberta. 

Man made lake. 

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France. 

A very sneaky picture in the Sistine chapel. Photos are not allowed. Vatican City, Rome, Italy. 

A banana peel that looks like a long neck dinosaur. Agios Stefanos, Attica, Greece. 

Temple of Apollo. Ancient Corinth, Greece. 

Hydra, Greece. 

Sunrise. Aegina, Greece. 

Zaans Shans, Netherlands

Crescent falls, Alberta. 

Fishing on Devils lake, Alberta

Lighthouse at Louisbourg, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. 

Rainbow. 

Baby niece, Lily. 

Baby niece, Abby. 

The last Saskatchewan pirate

And by pirate, I obviously mean lighthouse. The last Saskatchewan lighthouse.

For our second North Battleford outing R and I found ourselves on a new set of adventures. A lighthouse, beach playground, an island and a spooky farm. 

Most people, ourselves included, would be quite shocked to know that Saskatchewan has a working lighthouse. It's located in Cochin, a resort community 45km North of North Battleford. 

Side note- along the way to Cochin is another tiny community called Sleepy Hollow. I can't be the only one who thinks that's simultaneously super cool and mildly terrifying, am I? 

Anyway, once we got to the lighthouse we made our way up the 152 steps to the top. I bet R that I could run up them, he teasingly told me I couldn't and then I was even more determined to do it.

Well... I made it 3/4 of the way before I couldn't breathe. But I made a damn strong effort!!

The view from the top is pretty great. Hills and fields this way, Jackfish lake over there, the town of Cochin down there and another little lake just there. 

I'll be honest though, I really don't understand why this lake needs a lighthouse but I think it's pretty cool anyway. 

We decided we would come back in the evening and watch the sunset from up top. Its supposed to be a great view since it sets right over the lake.

Battlefords Provincial Park is just a bit up the road from Cochin and seemed like a nice place to spend an afternoon. 

Of course, it's not exactly park season yet so there was no one else there. Fine by me!

We found a cute little beach and walked along it for a while. Even though the water was still frozen, the beach is always lovely in my mind. 

Up the grass from the beach is a playground and we took full advantage of it. It may have just been the most fun I've had in a long time. Sometimes it's just so nice to let go and be as young as you feel. And with my hands on the monkey bars I feel 10 years old, the sweetest happiest age. 

10 year old Dani absolutely loved the monkey bars. I spent every recess at school swinging across, climbing on top of them and hanging upside down. It's gotten a tiny bit more difficult since then, but it still brought me the greatest joy.

R and I had so much fun swinging, sliding, climbing and hanging. I think we should do that more often.

Fast forward to the evening. We drove back to the lighthouse but it was too cloudy to see anything and to cold to wait around hoping the clouds might move in time.
Back in town we got to see the water tower all lit up though! I noticed the lights on it the last time we were there, but I wasn't sure how often they actually got lit.

Day 2 kept with the theme of being out of place. Yesterday a lighthouse, today an island. 

Finlayson Island is "between the arched bridges" between North Battleford and Battleford on the North Saskatchewan River. 

During the snowy seasons the island is groomed for cross-country skiing and during the warmer seasons the ski paths turn into walking trails. It would be the perfect place for a picnic as well! 

There are multiple intersecting trails to take depending how long you want to walk. We took the longest which covers most of the island and it took us about 1 hour to complete.

It was quite a cool windy day, not super ideal for a long walk, but the trees break some of the wind. We really enjoyed our little walk, it would certainly be worth seeing again when its nicer outside.

In the evening we drove back to the lighthouse like we planned and got to see a little bit of the sunset but it was pretty cloudy again. We did get to see the lighthouse in it's shining glory though. All lit up like, well.. a lighthouse!

For our final day and last adventure until the next adventure, we went for a drive with no destination in mind. The best kind of drive really. 

We ended up finding a really awesome abandoned farm again! 

The area was a lot bigger than what we've seen before and it had a very different feeling. It was very obvious that no one lived there, or had for a very long time, but the outside space still seemed maintained...

The main house was huge and I can imagine it would have been a really beautiful home in it's prime. The front had a big porch and the upstairs had a balcony, there were lots of windows and it even had a basement, not a cellar (I think?) 

I assume it was an actual basement because it had windows down there. I was looking into that window and realized it wasn't actually really dark like I thought but instead it was flooded right up to the windowsill. 

Old house, weak floors, flooded basement. Realizing how terribly that adventure could end we only stood in the doorway. 

I'm quite curious and I always want to go inside and explore, look upstairs and down, see what it's really like. The safety conscious person in me never let's that happen though. 

Realistically though, it's pretty creepy anyway. The idea of abandoned homes makes me think bad things happened to the people that lived there and I don't want to stumble into a horror movie...

Moving on, away from the main house. We did the usual, peaked around at the out-buildings, took pictures, hoped we weren't getting ticks in the tall grass..

A pretty cool find all the way in the back of the yard, tucked under an old tree was a super old car. I'm not really interested in cars and I have no real knowledge of them but I know old when I see it. 

Something about it was very appealing and I quite wanted to sit in it, but it had no seat... it didn't really have much actually just it's lovely rusted old frame.

In the end this place just creeped me out and we had to leave. And then we had to drive our separate ways and actually go home! 

More adventures are just around the corner though!