I Love You Because...: Waterton

February 19, 2013

A Boy and His Bear and His Blanket

This is one of those things... what happened first? The Boy or the Bear? Owen has always been a bear lover. We've called him Baby Bear since the day he was born and it's you don't have to look very far to see why. (Owen and his Bear Blanket - Summer 2003) -sidenote; seriously could 2 brothers look anymore alike? it's like I gave birth to an Owen clone when I had Cameron!

My Mom designed and made Owen this AMAZING Bear Quilt while I was pregnant with him. (using THIS paper pieced bear as inspiration) My only request was a quilt that was 'Waterton-inspired." She nailed it. It's named "Bear's Hump" after a favorite hike. I love the colors the contrast and the textures of the bears in the woods.

(Owen and his Bear Blanket - Fall 2010)

After 5 years of extreme night-night love, this blanket has been through 20+ states, Canada, twice, it's started a HUGE bear collection and it has had to have the binding completely replaced because he scratched/chewed it and loved on it too much.... it may be faded and worn in and dirty most of the time but it's still his most prized possesion.

(Owen and his Bear Blanket- Feb. 2013)

You can see more of Mom's Quilts HERE, HERE and HERE. I should really go back and post picts of Lorali and Ethan's baby quilts too... because yes, they're just as amazing.
Joanna

Posted at 09:53 AM in Grandparents, Mom, Owen, Quilts, Sewing, Waterton | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 01, 2013

Missing Her 'Canada Cousins'....

Posted at 12:25 PM in Canada, Cousins, Lorali, Waterton | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 13, 2012

A little late.

I started THIS project in Feburary. For a Mother's Day/Birthday Gift for my Mom.... Her Birthday was in July.... Yeah, I'm a little late but, holy cow it's going to be totally worth it!! Mailing it today!

Winter in Waterton
Cameron Falls
Pattern- Doug Wallace
Embroidery- Joanna Wallace

Posted at 03:13 PM in Art, Doug, Embroidery, Mom, Quilts, Waterton | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2012

Winter in Waterton Quilt.

Remeber that Snowmen at Night Quilt I made a few years ago? The one Doug drew amazing custom corners for me? Yeah, it's still one of my favorites. So this year I decided we need another one kinda like it.... and Doug found the perfect inspiration...

Hope you evening is just as relaxing as mine.
JJ

Posted at 04:44 PM in Art, Doug, Embroidery, Lost Horse Trail House, Quilts, Waterton | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 19, 2012

Coppermine Creek

Oh how I love you Red Rock Canyon. Serious love.

This evening we took the kids up red rock for a picnic. While driving to our picnic spot (about 4km total) we saw 4 bears, Owen was EXTATIC. One of them was without a doubt the biggest bear I'd ever seen in my life and it was only 4 feet off the road. When I say big, I mean MASSIVE. He waseasily the size of a car. Unfortunately I was too thrilled watching the kids to get any pictures of any of them. This time we ended up at Coppermine Creek and the first thing the kids did was run down to the water.

Which of course meant moments later Ethan fell in. It was adorable and amazingly he was still happy even with soaking wet clothes... like I said before, WATERTON IS SOO GOOD FOR THIS BOY'S AUTISM! He was absolutely able to just shrug it off and run onto the next adventure.

Doug (and the boys) hiked up the mountain side while we were waiting for the the stove to heat up. Then Grandpa taught the kids how to build a fire, use a cowboy hat to make it bigger and roast hot dogs on a stick. Yep. It was a perfect evening!

Posted at 10:31 PM in Grandparents, Hiking, Waterton | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 16, 2012

Blue Lake (aka Crandell)

We've been in Waterton a couple days and our feet were begging to be on the trail, any trail. Since we are now completey out numbered by the kids we figured we needed them on our side. We picked the simplest hike we could think of so we didn't wipe them out before we got through our 'hiking list'.

Crandell Lake as it's officially called, (for some reason everyone in my family has called it 'Blue' longer then I've been alive) is only 2 km from the lower parking lot. I've gone there straight from the backdoor of the cabin/townsite (7.1km one way) but again, I wanted to keep it simple for the kids. I promise anyone can do it! We even saw a friend of my grandmother's on the trail, Sister Spackman, who had just celebrated her 92nd birthday! It was the perfect juxtaposition to my little Cam on his first Waterton hike.

It's also the perfect hike to remind the kids of hiking etiquette and rules and teach them a few new ones. Even though it's short you really do get a lot of reward for little effort on this hike. There are always amazing views, wildlife, tons of wildflowers and there is usually great fishing.

It's a perfect hike to do in the late afternoon, pack a dinner up and enjoy the solitude of the lake. In past years if we get into Waterton early in the day we'll pack up a lunch and come straight up here in the afternoon just to welcome us into the park! The kids favorite part had to be the wildlife that well... got extremely friendly. (they may or may not have invited it to our picnic with a few leftover trail mix that 'fell' in the dirt)

We loved just sitting on the banks and teaching the kids how to skip rocks, we loved the picnic and watching Bampa fish and even though Ethan had an autistic meltdown when things didn't go his way, it was actually short lived and he was able to calm down super quick in the beautiful setting. (Frankly, Ethan's amazing resilience and change made me wish we could live here.)