Second Week of Holidays...

Oh Boo-hoo, woe is me.... school starts tomorrow!   

Obviously it's hard to consider work/school tomorrow seeing has we've just had the most fabulous Christmas vacation ever!!

It was just P.E.R.F.E.C.T!

Nate got sick with a brutal cold - which is exactly what I wanted to happen. (Better now then when school is in.)  

We had family come visit - which is always nice.

Enjoyed a Calgary vacation with my family - thanks to my Brother's fun surprise.

We watched lots of movies - can you say "couch potatoes?"

We ate yummy snacks non stop - that's what New Years resolutions are for.

Went on dates, played board games, and read more then we have all year - which still isn't much, but still.  

This past week, we made sure to cram into our very busy holiday schedule a couple of more fun days before real life sets in again.   

On Monday we all travelled to Castle Mountain for some downhill skiing!   This is our third year taking the kids and we enjoyed it just as much as ever, despite the -28 degree temperature.
Yup!  -28 degrees!!!  Our kids were real troopers.  

Abby continued to improve and enjoy skiing.   She went from the hill to the lodge, entirely on her own.   We pretty much just trusted that she was alive and well and not curled up in a broken ball somewhere at the bottom of the hill.   

Sam and Jess surprised me the most.   Our family has not ventured far beyond the Bunny Hill (in case anyone was starting to be impressed or anything) but these two kids sure do love SPEED!!!   They were often spotted whipping around a corner or racing down the hill, one after the other.   They reminded me of two Super Mario Kart racers.   

 Nate sure impressed us too.   He would have been content to spend the day sitting in the warm lodge eating Doritos and hot dogs and playing Candyland with me but he really did spend most of his time on the hill with Dad.   He's really getting confident and for the most part, can do an entire run all by himself.  

For the second year in a row, I managed to roll down the mountain and live to tell about it.  I caught on faster this year though and felt a little more comfortable venturing places on my own.   I did throw a little tantrum (when I fell down and couldn't get up) - but only once.    

 I also hit a tree, but again - only once;)  

The Gladdings (dear sweet friends of ours from our former 5th ward days) invited us all to watch the movie MOANA with them.   Their grandson in law had a role in the production of the movie and so they were excited to show it to us.   We stayed until the very end of the credits to find his name as well as his daughters name.   Did you know that if any employee has a baby while working on a movie that baby gets a spot in the credits.   True story.  There is a section in the credits just for "Production Babies."    Anyways, we found little Sariah's name and LOVED the movie tonnes!   Moana is a new favorite of mine.  I could relate to her as I too feel as though the ocean is calling to me.  haha. 

  I really must go someday. 

As the week neared an end, we knew we had to get out to Waterton for a bit of X country skiing.   Of course, it was another balmy -15 degrees out (actually it did feel balmy compared to our ski trip earlier in the week.)     The trail was unusually quiet on this particular day and for most of the time, we were pretty much alone.  

Akimina Rd (the road up to Cameron Lake) has been closed for over a year.  This past summer NOBODY was allowed up there due to construction, so I was super excited to be able to ski in now.   I was very surprised by all the changes.   First thing I noticed as I approached the parking lot was that they had clear cut a large portion of the forest to make room for a larger parking lot (cue Joni Mitchells song "Paved Paradise) but that is not all.   They also tore down the visitor center (the one that had the large telescope where you could look out to the far end of the lake with)   In it's place they have built two smaller buildings.   Along the outer edge of the entire gargantuan parking lot they have built an additional four or five buildings, each one consisting of four bathrooms.   

I'm sure from a park admin perspective, building 16+ bathrooms makes perfect sense (and I may even appreciate this once the busy summer rush sets in) but I don't love change and it all just seemed a little too "Lorax-y."     I'm not sure why nobody asked my opinion about this though? ;) haha    

Anyways, we skied through the barren wasteland  parking lot to the lake where we officially rang in the New Year with sparklers.  

We lingered for about 5 more seconds before turning around and heading back towards the van.   We were all COOOOOOLD!!!!!

Poor Nate was particularly cold.  And hungry.  And exhausted. 

He cried the whole way back to the van, except for the moments where he paused long enough to tell me that he "hates Waterton" and "Why do we always have to come to Waterton?" and that he is "NEVER coming to Waterton again!"   

It was a really special day;)

As I mentioned earlier, we all go back to school tomorrow.  

I'm already looking forward to our February break.  Soon after that, we'll enjoy our Easter break in April. Then May long weekend.   And then school is basically done.

So really- Summer is almost here.

Whoop Whoop!

First week off....

After our AMAZING Christmas celebration, we have spent the past week enjoying lots and lots of family time.   Some of our post Christmas Highlights include:

Late nights watching movies and sleeping in forts.  There have been a couple of nights where we have ALL (John, the kids and I) hauled our foam mattresses out into the living room and slept together on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.    Other nights, when John and I prefer actually sleeping comfortably, the kids sleep in their self made forts or under the pool table.    

 It's made for lots of late night giggles and silliness!

I've spent a few days practicing black and white photography.
I call this random one "Shoulder Angel."  haha.  (PS:  Sam is a clown)

This photo absolutely melts my heart.  This hear is ma baby!   I can't stand it.  

 John and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this past week.  John was sweet and bought me 15 roses, one for every year we've been married.   To be honest, he did this because I demanded asked him to (I LOVE fresh flowers) but I kinda think that makes it even sweeter of him, you know, that he would cater to such an entitled request and all.   Fifteen years hardly seems like any time at all.  

We are a couple of babies still, the two of us.   

Each year, at some point after Christmas and before New Years Eve, our little "shelf elf" hides all the Christmas decorations and covers the tree with New Years goodies.   Nothing major, just some party hats, balloons, streamers, and noise makers.   It always provides a nice face lift for the tree and it gives us a few more days enjoying the pretty lights!

Our family was introduced to the Whirley Pop this week (thanks to Aunt Rachel!;) and as a result we have eaten an exorbitant amount of popcorn and spent an equally ridiculous amount of time watching movies together.   This week marks our 6th annual Lord of the Rings marathon, so the ol' Whirley Pop couldn't have come at a better time!  

On Friday we joined the rest of our family at my brothers house.  Chad was hosting our pre-New Years get together, only little did our kids know, he was cooking up something BIG!   We arrived around noon, John and I made a can-cooker lunch for all of my siblings and their fams, and then Chad let everyone know that he had booked FIVE ROOMS at the Sheraton Cavalier in Calgary, AB.  

EEEEEKKK!!!!!!

Growing up, this was a favorite place for my family to come.   Dad brought us kids here on several different occasions, one even being New Years Eve years and years ago!!!!

The kids were elated.   We hadn't even been at the hotel for ten minutes before they were in their swim suits and in search of the pool and water slides!

They swam and played together for hours, stopping only when we had to eat or sleep;)

Chad surprised everyone (again) with an amazing pizza party style supper.   

The cousins stayed up as late as they could (some made it to midnight) playing games and visiting together.   

On our final morning there, they all donned party hats and rang in the New Year (a few hours early) with noisemakers!  It is at this moment, I believe  that they sang a song they'd written the night before;  something about how "everybody wishes they were part of our family...."  haha

It was a wonderful time together.  Relaxing, entertaining....and pretty darn near perfect!!!

There's no better way to ring in the New Year then with a good ol' Hotel TRASH AND DASH!!!

Christmas Celebrations....

There is just too too much that has happened in the past couple of weeks!  It has been a perfect blend of work, fun, family and Christmas preparations!   

I'll try to be brief in my recap, but no promises.  

(God bless whoever sticks it out to the end of this entry;)

1.  Junior High Fundraiser: 

 Every year the Junior High does a fundraiser to help students/families in our community and also to contribute to future "WE" initiatives.    This year Abby had the idea to run a "camp-a-thon" of sorts.  She suggested to the school council that they ask both the principal and the vice principle to camp out on the front lawn of the school if they managed to earn $1000.   IF, by some far off chance they were able to earn $2000, then the P and VP would agree to camp outside for 2 nights!     There were a couple of added catches.   Once $500 was raised, their steak dinner would be downgraded to wieners and beans.  If they raised $1500, then their large tent was taken away and they'd have to sleep in a teeny two man tent.   It seems a little backwards that a fundraiser would be based on trying to impose discomfort on the school admin (I worried if Abby was barking up the wrong tree with this angle) but it worked like a charm!!

They ended up earning over $2000 in less then 24 hours!  

Oh, and our brave VP and P were champs to the max and camped as promised (in -25 degree temps!) broadcasting their success and struggles all along the way.  It was fun to see what a party it turned into as community members, students, families - so many stopped by from 3pm-11:30pm to visit, roast marshmallows, and of course- drop off money.   So funny!!!

2.  School Dress up days:   

The last week of school consisted of lots of dress up days for all of us.  Pajama days, crazy sock days and more!   Sadly, I only managed to capture some of my favorites.

The Junior High held a "favorite Book character day."    Abby dressed up as Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter and Sam dressed up as Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings!    Please note the hairy feet and the gold ring that really does have the phrase "one ring to rule them all" engraved on the inside!    Sam played this part to a T - walking around barefoot all day!   At one point I asked him to carry his backpack to the closet and he responded by saying:

"I may not be able to carry my back pack - but I CAN CARRY YOU!!!"  

They went all out for Ugly sweater day too, though Sam went for a more effortless, "I barely cared about this" kind of a look.   

These two snots are perfect!  I mean - look at those dimples of Jessica's and that sly sideways smile of Nate's.  I'm obsessed!

3. Visits from Family:

Our Nephew Caleb and his friend Oliver stopped in for a few minutes on their way through town.  It was tonnes of fun to see him and to realize how OLD he has gotten.   Note: The first time I met Caleb, he was just a few years old.  What the heck?!

Rachel and Brent stopped by on Dec 23rd or a few hours.  It was great fun to see the kids!  Viv is 1 now and perfectly content to walk herself around a room, holding on to anything she can, eating paper as she goes;)

4.  Christmas Treats:
Rach, baked some KILLER Christmas cookies while here and luckily - she left them all behind!

SCORE!!!!

Speaking of Christmas treats - nothing, and I mean nothing is better than a delicious box of homemade chocolates, and John's Aunt makes the VERY BEST!!!

I photographed these and then hid them.

Then I only pulled them out when I was feeling extra generous.

Then I hid the remaining few.

Hmmmm....mmmmmmmm!!!!

5. Cello Success!

I've been so super proud of Sam this past month.  He's been doing his part, practicing both his piano AND his cello and improving on both!   On the Thursday before Christmas, we attended his first ever Cello recital.   He did a piano duet titled, "O Come little Children."   He got a couple of compliments after wards about the strength of his fingering and the beautiful tone that he has achieved.  He ALSO received 1st place in the practice competition among all of the students.  This first half of the year, he led the way with 107 practice minutes logged!   Woohoo cello man:)

6. Christmas "Adam"

Two days before Christmas (the day John refers to as Christmas Adam, because "Adam came before Eve") we hosted a dinner for a dear couple in town, the Gladdings.  We came to love them while we lived in the 5th ward and they have continued to be so special to us.   After dinner and some visiting, the kids performed their annual reenactment of the Christmas Story as we read in Luke 2.   

It's a different performance every year.  (That's the kindest thing I can say about it;)  haha

7.  Christmas Eve

And now for the most magical part of our week - Christmas Eve!!!

The fun didn't really begin until Grandpa arrived with more seafood then you can imagine!!!!

Naturally, the kids had to play with the seafood a bit first.  They like to name each animal, carry them around gingerly, try to convince us to let them have one for a pet....

and then we COOK THEM!!!!

\\

We dined on BBQ steak and mushroom sauce, potato wedges, french onion soup, baguettes, fruit, and of course (thanks to Grandpa) mussels, clams, Lobster and Crab.   We were stuffed like crazy and I am pretty sure that to my kids - food is the true meaning of Christmas!

I tried to make some Grinch juice for all to enjoy while playing a mean game of scrabble. 

(May have been one of those pinterest fails;)

After we could not eat anymore, we settled down for a brief musical concert.  

Nate played "Old MacDonald" on the piano, Sam played Silent night and Abby and Jess performed a song titled, "Send me someone to Lava" on the ukulele.   It was awesome!

Grandpa joined us for a drive around town to look at Christmas lights and then we returned home to watch Polar Express, set out some milk and cookies (and a letter to Santa) and go to bed!

One of the best parts of being a parent is getting to stuff stockings and set out gifts each year.  

8.  Christmas Day

Santa was good to us for sure!  I tried not to be too lavish with the kids' gifts and thankfully, they all seemed perfectly content.  Our favorite gifts this year was the two burner Camp Chef that I got John and a camp storage cook/table (also made by camp Chef) that Dave and Sarah gave us.  We are SO ready to go camping!!!!!    In fact, we are planning to spend a week in Banff AND a week on the BC coast this summer and we are suddenly feeling as though that isn't going to be enough;)

We attended church with Grandpa tonight because we wanted to get that out of the way liked the 10:00 meeting time much better;)   It allowed us to squeeze in our annual Christmas Day drive to Waterton in the afternoon.   It was blustery cold, but we did manage to see some wildlife.   We saw a wolf in the distance (which, upon closer inspection we realized was just a really fat deer) as well as a Moose resting in the afternoon sun just outside of the park (which Grandpa later informed us was just an Elk).

So really, we didn't see any cool wildlife at all,  but we had a great time nonetheless!

We are looking forward to touring and visiting a few new Canadian parks this coming summer, but Waterton will always be our Christmas Day destination!

We are settling in for a couple of weeks of vacation now and couldn't be more excited!

We hope our family and loved ones are feeling equally blessed.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December at last!

Well, it happened.  

Our local grocery store brought in their one and only shipment of Christmas trees, which the kids were thrilled about!   On Friday, the moment he was finished work, John went and picked it out; and boy did he find a beauty!!!   Like, truly, the prettiest, most perfectly shaped tree I have ever seen.  

The kids set to work decorating it and for two days we enjoyed it's lovely soft glow.   I did however, begin to wonder if it was perhaps starting to lean a little.   Occasionally I'd ask John, to which he'd reply, "Oh humph...no of course it's not leaning. You are just looking at it from a weird angle...."  

Sure enough, early the next morning John woke up to find it laying on it's side.  Water, pine needles and decor were scattered everywhere!!!   

We've made a second attempt, going so far this time as to tie the tree to the wall with some fishing line.   Not cool!   haha

One of my favorite days so far, came last week when we seized the few available hours that we had and headed out to Waterton for a hike!  (Actually, we went out there because I was too "busy" to cook lunch and wanted to feed the fam at Wieners of Waterton, but it sure sounds better to say that we "went out for a hike";)   After we ate lunch, I WAS able to talk the family into walking up Bertha Trail.  The plan was just go as far as the kids wanted to go.  It was SUCH a blast!

I'm still surprised that the kids continued on without complaining.  They probably would have hiked all the way to the falls, if I'd had let them.  

Sam really was a fun one to have around on this particular hike.  He spent the entire walk up to our favorite checkout point, trying to spur on a snowball fight.  We'd run up and down the trail, conspiring attacks on whichever family member he could get a rise out of.  Abby played the part of the tormented sister very well,  but even she enjoyed the family time.   Nate and Jess loved "taking breaks" which involved laying flat on their backs in a drift of snow and staring up at the sky.  Jessica certainly did need the breaks, seeing as she was carrying a very large "snow baby."   (What eventually started as a small snowball, grew along the way until she needed both arms to lug the thing around.  She eventually did grow to tired to carry it though and smashed it on Sam's face.)

It was a PERFECT afternoon!

Nate has certainly been feeling the Christmas spirit lately and would not rest (or cease nagging me) until we let him have a "Christmas Party" with some friends.   I tried to delay things, but soon realized that I was only pushing his plans closer to Christmas.  I agreed to let him have his party,  so long as we did it sooner than later.  So, with a few days to notify his classmates, Nate threw together a Gingerbread House making celebration with 9 of his friends.   

Thank goodness Volleyball season is over, John was BEYOND helpful!

Just in case you were wondering, 9 grade one kids + a table full of sugary candy + two and half hours = sheer chaos!  

There is no other word to use and I certainly think some of their creations represent the mood perfectly.    Their houses looked how I felt;)  

Sam was recently officially introduced into the scouting program.  I look forward to him "being prepared" now.   That'll be a nice change;)

Last week Jessica (as part of the CES choir) sang at the 2nd annual lighting ceremony in town. 

There was music, tours of the museum, cotton candy, sleigh rides in the dark and of course...the lighting of the beautiful museum grounds!   It's always a nice way to kick off the Christmas season!!

  

Sunday night (tonight) we were excited to get home from church and watch the annual Christmas Devotional.   The church always does such a great job of it, but FIRST - we had to dine on a yummy BBQ steak, chicken and shrimp dinner!   I invited my cousin Ty over to join us.   

As you can see, we have begun eating our meals by Candle light, as per our December tradition. 

(oooh and this Cranberry bundt cake was not too bad.  Thanks to (my sis in law) Luci's friend Mel from Mels kitchen cafe;)

Nate continues to drive us all crazy with his desire to eat anything BUT what is served.   

While we all feasted - he settled for a meticulously peeled mandarin orange, strategically arranged on an otherwise empty plate.   The food pyramid is lost on this guy! 

Finally, after filling our tummies beyond capacity, we settled in downstairs to watch the devotional.   

Like I said, the church always does such a great job.  I'll admit, I fell asleep shortly after the opening number (I blame the food coma I was experiencing) but I'll watch it tomorrow and will no doubt be totally blown away!

Here comes Christmas!!