Fun in Houston

Christmas at Grandma's

Here is our Christmas at Grandma's. The boys had a great time, and got lots of goodies.

See all the fun at http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/10305954454-1198797559-77213/

Trip to the Zoo

Here is our trip to the Zoo with the cousins. The weather was perfect.

Christmas Show

This is the boys Christmas show at school. We had to attend the rehersal since we were flying to Houston on the day of the show. That's Tyler doing the handbells.

Last Snowboarding Lesson

The boys had their last snowboarding lesson today. Mason got to have some fun too. I think the boys might need to try sledding as they spend more time on their bottoms. Actually they are both getting pretty good. They were able to both use the rope pull to get up the hill by the end of the lesson. Mason was a little worried and would rush over to anyone sitting in the snow yelling "uh-oh, uh-oh" the whole way. I guess he decided no one would willingly sit on the snow and that they need help getting up fast. But he did spend some time laying on the snow.

See more pics here http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/10305961384-1197913821-47813/

Interesting things in Canada

This is the hut to put the carts in at the grocery store....you know, to keep the snow off. Notice all the snow and mud in the parking lot. It is not easy pushing a full cart through all of that. But I think we should have these huts too...it would help keep the rain off.
And take a look at this cart. See the basket at the top and the basket at the bottom? All the Wal-Mart carts are like this, not just the fun ones. And Mason can reach the top basket and throws things out as fast as I can put them in. And of course that basket is for the delicate items like eggs and bread and fruit.

Oh, and not to mention now that the snow is all covered in mud the front 1/3 of every store is covered in mud as well. Its quite gross. And I don't even think the mud is really neccessary to help traction. Its not gravel, or sand, or salt, its just gross black dirt, and it covers everything.

Tyler's 12th Birthday

Tyler had his birthday on Friday. I had been sick all week so we didn't get to go out to dinner like he wanted. On Saturday he went with Frank and Grant and two friends to go see The Golden Compass. I think they had a good time. Then we went out to dinner at Montana's. Its the equivalent of a Canadian Bar-b-que place. We had a good meal, and Tyler got to wear the moose antlers and have the place sing Happy Birthday to him. Mason cried and cried about the fire on the ice cream. He wanted nothing to do with any of it!

The boys had their snowboarding lesson on Sunday and had fun, but Grant has had a fever all weekend and is now home from school. Of course he seems to be feeling much better now. At least this flu won't have him knocked out for the whole week like it did me.

And we are having a real heat wave. We've had temps between -10 and +10 F for about 2 weeks. We were up to 27 F yesterday. But we still got more snow last night.

Snowboarding

The boys started snowboarding lessons this weekend. They picked snowboarding over skiing. I guess its cooler. They had lots of fun. I didn't hear any complaints about falling or the cold or anything. Lets see how it goes getting them there next week though. Its 3 lessons, and I guess they can snowboard like pros after that. Next weekend isn't supposed to be quite as cold, which is good because on the drive over there (about 20 min away) the windows on the inside of the car were covered in ice, and the heat was on! I kept thinking we would all die soon like that movie The Day After Tomorrow......I guess I better find out how cold it got in that movie!





If you can't tell...Tyler's in the black helmet with the red jacket with white stripes, while Grant has the red helmet and same jacket.
This weekend was also the Christmas party for Frank's work. The company pays for half the hotel room, so we got two rooms and the kids stayed in the next room with a teenage daughter of someone else while we were at the party. Mason went to bed and slept in our room.....until we tried to go to bed that is. And I spent the night with a high fever. This time I did get a prescription from the very same doctor, so I must be sick now. And without insurance the Rx was $8.57, and the dr visit was covered by Alberta Health, so I'm thinking this socialized medicine thing might be a good thing.


We also took the kids swimming at the hotel before the party. Who would ever imagine swimming and snowboarding all within 24 hrs?