Weekend

Ryan and I had a really great weekend packed full of new and exciting things.

On Friday afternoon I was given tickets to the Eskimos vs. Riders football game because someone else wasn’t able to use them. Ryan agreed to go even though neither of us are huge sports fans.

This was the second live football game I’ve ever seen and the first for Ryan, but we had a blast! We cheered for opposing teams and enjoyed teasing each other when our chosen team was doing well. I do love a good competition! I did not, however, win the game!

Saturday morning we got to sleep in a bit before going to meet some of my family at a U-pick to get strawberries.

I didn’t expect it to be overly nice outside and so I also didn’t expect the farm to be too busy. I was wrong. It was warm and sunny and tons of people were out picking the fresh berries.

We had 5 people and 5 buckets to fill. 1 hour and 30 pounds later we had the crucial element of our jam making plans.

This particular farm only has strawberries, but I’m hoping to go somewhere else in the near future to get some other fruit and veggies too!

After leaving the U-pick Ryan and I continued down the road to Sylvan Lake for the afternoon. I weather called for potential thunderstorms but I wanted to go anyway.

I recently saw on the news that Sylvan Lake was building a lighthouse inspired by the one a Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia, and you know I couldn’t resist that!

After a stop for lunch and a bit of driving around town we parked near the beach and started to walk. Despite the call for less than lovely weather it turned out to be quite nice out and the beach was packed!

We walked near the beach and on the main street, visited one shop and did some people watching and eventually made it to the lighthouse. It looked pretty much how I expected, though maybe a bit smaller. We took a few pictures and then walked back to the beach.

I had to go in the water, especially since the weather turned out so nice. Looking in the distance we knew it could turn on us pretty soon so we just splashed around knee deep and fully clothed for a while before deciding to go for ice cream.

This particular ice cream is from a food truck in Edmonton and has been invading my Instagram feed regularly. Fresh flavoured cream and toppings are poured onto a frozen table and worked until it starts to freeze. As it freezes it gets spread smoothly over the surface and then scraped off into lovely little rolls. It was well worth the 40 minutes we had to wait to get it, though I’m in no real rush to do it again.

Sunday morning I cleaned our apartment, as I always do, before getting ready to go out again. Today we would be making the aforementioned jam with our lovely fresh strawberries.

We both expected the process to be a bit more complicated, but it wasn’t difficult at all! The real trick is to measure accurately, watch the time and not burn yourself. Also, there will be a mess. And if you happen to have a parent that already cleaned and prepared the jars, like I did, then that’s great too!

I can’t wait to spread the fruits of my labour! Literally..

At the end of the process, after 10 batches of jam (we only did 5) and a freezer full of cleaned berries we had 5 left. Just 5 berries, sitting in a bowl, waiting to be eaten.. And eaten they were, inside mini strawberry shortcakes!