Dressing Up

One of Katherine and Lauren's favorite activities is dressing up. This happens at least once a day at our house. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. These two are total hams!

Double Take

One of the fun things about living outside the US, is learning all the new words, phrases and food! Canadians use the British spelling for many words (travelling, centre, colour). Most of the time they don't throw me too off, but a couple of times I've looked at some word on a sign and thought, "there is something wrong about this, but I can't quite put my finger on it." Those words include, jewellery and pyjamas.



Doesn't this look odd?

And, then there are the words we don't usually use in the US - bum, mum, expiry and washrooms. Katherine told me tonight that she really likes the word "bum" for bottom. I admit, it does have a certain ring to it.

Today at the grocery store I asked one of the workers where a particular item was and he said, "at the end of the teller." I had no idea what he was talking about and had to ask him again - finally, as he pointed to the place, I realized it was the check-out line. We have also learned what a "tuque" is (winter hat), what mitts are (gloves, mittens), what a loonie is ($1 coin) and what a toonie is ($2 coin).



A couple of other fun "new" words we've added to our repertoire include "poutine" and "perogie."

Poutine is a side dish that consists of french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy. It is sold everywhere here including McDonalds, Fatburger, as well as high-end restaurants.



On one of our scouting trips up here, Pete's boss ordered it with duck fat. Gross. I was surprised to see that wikipedia compares it to Carne Asada (seriously?) and In-N-Out's fries, animal-style. I don't think so.

Perogies are sort of like dumplings and seem to be filled mainly with potatoes and cheese.



Apparently, according to wikipedia perogies are sold in huge numbers in the US - I did not know that! How could I possibly have lived in the US for 35.5 years and not know what a perogie is?

Other words that I never really wanted to know the meaning of, but now do include "freezing rain," "blowing snow," "frostbite," "winterizing," etc, etc.

I guess that's all for now, eh?! :)

The BIG 5 Year Old - Canadian Style!

On March 7, Katherine turned 5! I can't believe how fast that time has gone. My little, little girl is really growing up! :(

I asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate, and we decided that we would have her party at a local arts center (or, centre since we're in Canada). Calgary has an amazing number of community centres - all with their own schedule of activities (classes for children and adults, camps, etc). The Wildflower Arts Centre, just a couple of miles from our house, is one such centre with a full schedule of dance, drama, and all media of visual arts. It is Katherine's dream place. So, we scheduled a class for her birthday party - a mixed media class for 12 of her closest friends. It was great - Katherine picked the theme - "beach" (can't take the Southern California out of this girl). The teacher did a very fun long painting, gluing extravaganza.







We also made cupcakes in the beach theme...and, I know most of you won't believe this, but I made 14 paint smocks (which involved actual sewing). It took me all week and I will be surprised if any of them are holding their stitches - but, it was fun. We chose Hawaiian prints to complete the theme.





The only downside of having the party at this arts centre was that there was no place to have cake - so, we decided to tailgate. Unfortunately, it was literally 1 degree - so, it was more like grab a cupcake and run. Pete decorated the car - which he did a fantastic job - however, I didn't tell him he should probably take the cupcakes out of the diaper boxes for a better ascetic. But, I'm not complaining - it was freezing and I didn't have to be outside doing it! It was memorable, that's for sure.





Happy birthday, sweet Katherine!

The Last Three Months

The last three months have blown by. Lots of activities to blog about. However, the biggest event for us was that my dad was hospitalized with pneumonia in early January - and then again a couple of weeks later. Three weeks in the hospital and weeks of Physical Therapy and recuperation has given him the ability to go home finally! We are so thankful. He will be going home very soon - just waiting to see if we can eek out a few more days of the intensive PT. So, during these past three months, Katherine, Lauren and I made three separate trips to California. We are now experts at international travel! Katherine even knows the difference between customs and security - and can now list "been interrogated by US Customs" as one of her accomplishments. While in California we also managed to go to Disneyland, see friends, go to four doctor/dentist visits, and have a splendid birthday party for Katherine in Long Beach! So, here are some photos capturing the highlights....

Lots of time with grandma...



And special friends...







And one last trip to Disneyland with our Southern California Resident passes!



Fun with Mardi Gras beads!



Birthday party in the park with lots of great friends!



And, my friends too! Love these people!



Special people who hosted us!




Lauren had a great time moving sand from one place to another...



Walking down 2nd Street!



Seeing a favorite person!



Seeing my dad better- priceless!