Halloween Festivities

Today we officially kicked off Halloween 2010 with a concert and party at Katherine's preschool, costume parading, pumpkin carving and pumpkin seed roasting. And, it was a warmer day today! Yipee - a balmy 50 degrees! It's amazing how warm that feels after a couple of weeks of below freezing. Katherine and Lauren didn't even have sweaters on today.













Katherine drew her own design!



Happy Halloween!

A Freezing Visit to the Farm

Yesterday Katherine's preschool scheduled a field trip to a local farm, Butterfield Acres. Unfortunately, the weather turned really cold that morning and so the great outside trip was a bit of a freeze-fest. Despite the weather, Katherine was ready to go!



Most of the excursion was spent outside in the 25 degree weather. I was happy to note that even the native Calgarians were complaining about the frigid weather. Doesn't this look just perfect for our outside snack time!



The kids played on the outside playground while we waited for the farmer to take us on the hay ride.



Out in the woods the children were sent off to find hidden pumpkins. Later, they decorated them in a warm building!





After all of this, there were plenty of animals to pet and admire. Note the french translations for the animals.






Great day - even if my feet are still thawing out! :)

Home for a Week

This past week Katherine, Lauren and I had the opportunity to go home to my parents' house. We had a great time relaxing and helping my parents out a bit. The girls had a blast with their grandparents who (of course) spoiled them with lots of attention and special goodies (I lost count of how many homemade cookies we ate).

The flights both ways were delayed (lovely), but the girls did great and found friends at both airports. Here they are with one of the new friends they made in the Calgary airport. At one point they assembled all of their dolls and sat down with them. I think they would've been happy to have stayed there the rest of the day.



The rest of the week consisted of lots of playing (a lot of feeding dolls!)...





Playing in the treehouse...





Making cool "queens" with play-doh...





Playing the piano...




And getting lots of attention from Grandma and Grandpa...





The good life!

SNOW!

Surprise! The day we have been anticipating finally came this morning! I was totally caught off guard. It was literally 80 degrees yesterday (a beautiful day), and this morning we woke up to snow...coming down hard.



Surprisingly, it wasn't really cold. But, Katherine wanted to wear her new snowsuit - so I dressed up the kids in their mongo snowsuits and we went out and "played" in the couple of inches that were sticking. The kids looked pretty ridiculous. Lauren couldn't move in her suit - she kept falling over and hitting her head.



Katherine wanted to stay and play outside all day - she loved, loved, loved the snow. I did notice that we were the only ones outside playing in the snow - guess the novelty sort of wears out by the umpteenth time.

And, as they say up here, "wait 5 minutes and the weather will change." By the afternoon all the snow was gone.

Little Lauren

Lauren doesn't seem to get much blog time....so, I thought I would dedicate a post to her. Unfortunately, since Katherine is a lively 4 1/2 year old who demands LOTS of attention, Lauren often has to wait for us (poor second child). But, Lauren definitely holds her own. She is a busy little girl - always moving, always. She likes to investigate everything and wants anything and everything anyone has. She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it (milk, food, toys), she begins to scream. This is what that looks like.



But, she's also a fun-loving kid who loves her sister, loves playing (all the time), loves taking walks and loves smiling for the camera. So, here's to Lauren and her high strung personality!

Canadian Thanksgiving

I was out of town last week for a few days at the Church of the Resurrection so I could soak up all that Adam Hamilton had to say - great trip. I arrived back home just in time for Thanksgiving weekend - Canadian style. I actually looked up "Canadian Thanksgiving" on Wikipedia to see just exactly what we were supposed to be celebrating. It seems like it's not that big of a holiday here - it's a government holiday, but most stores are open. I believe most people have their "Thanksgiving" dinner on Sunday. Anyway, we celebrated in our own way and headed out of town (20 minutes) to the Calgary Corn Maze spectacular.



We knew that a cold front had come in overnight, but, really, we had no idea. We left the house with our jackets and hats and even a scarf or two, but we were so ill-prepared for the 43 degree weather (with light rain), it wasn't even funny. I don't know how Pete didn't freeze in that "jacket" of his.



Anyway, we tried to make the most of it and we had a good time despite freezing. Although, as Pete reminded me, "I haven't seen anything yet." :) Yikes.

Katherine's favorite part was jumping on giant "pillows" - that was fun until some adults started jumping and knocked her down and she hurt her ankle - but that was at then end of the day, so it didn't hinder our time at the farm.



We trekked through the corn maze - and found our way out!



The girls played at the playground and Katherine roped a steer.





And, we looked at the goats and sheep. Lauren was particularly interested in the goats - I couldn't stop her from putting her hands and feet through the fence at the goat.



We even saw a pig race.





Finally, we went for a trip on the "tractor train" through the corn field.



The day ended with a slice of homemade apple pie, made by yours truly. Yummy! It will probably be gone by tomorrow.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Banff

I have been wanting to get up to Banff since we moved up here - it's just an hour from our house. It's amazing to think that this beautiful national park is that close to us - with amazing beauty, skiing, wildlife, resorts, etc, etc. Today we were only able to see just a small part - but I hope to get up and explore more especially Lake Louise and the Columbia Icefields. What we did manage to do with two small girls and the dog was to walk around the town of Banff, have lunch and take the gondola up to a summit to see the spectacular views. The day started a little rough with little Lauren throwing up just a few minutes from our house (poor little thing), but we made it up and were treated to this....



As we walked through Banff Katherine was very interested in all of the moose, bears and other "wildlife." Unfortunately, they were the only animals we saw today. Even though I'm sure she knew they weren't, Katherine kept asking me if the animals were real - cautious kid. Side note: I noticed the french word for "wild" was "savage" - that seemed sort of funny to me today.





I also was astounded at the recycling center which included a place for organic waste for compost!






While the recycling center was pretty interesting, the views became much more spectacular as we parked and walked up to the gondolas.



Here are some shots from the gondola - spectacular - it was a long ride up and not for those who are afraid of heights...and I read that it has one of the steepest pitches in the world! Great.





In this photo Lauren seems pretty unsure of the whole thing, but she really didn't mind it. She kept saying "up."



Finally at the top - the payoff.









I was really surprised that there weren't more trees that were changing color - lots and lots of evergreen trees, however, you could see sprinklings of yellow trees amidst the sea of green. This picture doesn't do it justice, but maybe you can get a taste....




Fun day - can't wait to go back!