Park

We took the kids to the new Discovery Green Park at the convention center today. It was a great day, but a little windy. And for all those Canadian's pay close attention, because these are things never seen in Canada in December. The temperature was around 15 C, or 65 F while we were there. Just a gorgeous December day in Texas.

Christmas Pics

I know it has taken me a while, but we have just been having too much fun living with 5 kids! Here are the pics from Christmas day, and you can see more at Chad and Shea's blog.

Pictures for Heather

Christmas lights with no snow. Which of course doesn't seem strange to us at all.

Back in Houston

We are back in Houston for the Christmas Holidays. We finally got some Mexican food on the third day. Look at all this food for $18.50, including another plate with all of the rice and everything for Frank. Mason was so shocked when they brought him a new bowl of chips when his were empty.

We are having a good time, but still working on some last minute shopping.

Snow

Well, we've had snow here for a couple of weeks, but the snow in Houston was very exciting for everyone down there.

Yesterday we headed out to the park and went snow boarding and sledding, but I forgot my camera. Mason went down the hill a few times, and would yell back "That was fun." But mostly he just drug his sled around making "tracks." The boys are getting very good at snowboarding, and they rarely fall down. This weekend is their last lesson, but it looks like we will have to take them back a few times this winter with day passes. Tyler even got to go up the chair lift last weekend. Hopefully I can get some pics of him on the big hill this week. But, its going to be very, very cold, so it might not happen. I've had trouble with my camera in the cold, and it turns out they actually have cold temperature ratings on cameras, and mine isn't rated for Canada cold!

Christmas Tree

Well, we finally did our Christmas tree on Sunday. I was really thinking about not doing it since we aren't going to be here, but Grant insisted. We did the lights outside several weeks ago. You have to get those done before the snow comes. And the snow finally came. Its been snowing for about a week now. It will be spring before we see the ground again.

Tyler's Birthday Party

Tomorrow Tyler will turn 13! Can you believe it? My baby is 13. We had his party tonight, and he definitely acts 13, along with all of his friends. We had a disco theme party with a new Rock Band game(early Christmas present for both the boys, Thank you Grandma and Grandpa C), and we borrowed a Karoke machine, and we borrowed Dance Revolution. We did have a lot of kids not show up, but everyone that was here seemed to have a really good time.

Snowboarding, without snow?

The kids started their snowboarding lessons again this week. But, there's no snow yet! These are their boards that we bought them this year. The were quite excited about getting their own boards.

The ski resort makes their own snow. Luckily they could make enough. It was about 40 degrees, which is awfully warm for snowboarding. Mason loves the snow, so he was so excited. But, I forgot his gloves, and he hates for his hands to be cold. Next time we will remember the gloves so he can play in the snow.

Santa and the Mall

Santa arrived at the mall today, so we thought we'd go ahead and have our pictures taken early. (We never got around to it last year, and I wasn't letting that happen again.) Well, Tyler wasn't at all interested, and Mason decided he didn't want to sit in his lap, but he agreed with Tyler and Grant right there. He's got a death grip on both of them.


After that we tried out sea live caverns and the sea lion show. We had never been to either. And yes, this is all at the mall, the same one with the amusement park, water park, and ice skating rink.


This is just a sculpture in the middle of the mall.

Snows here! Snows here!

Well it finally snowed last night. Mason spent the morning running around screaming "Snows here! Snows here!" He's been waiting so long. We got a couple of bowls full and he played with them in the kitchen. Probably the only people in all of Canada playing with snow in the house. But at least he didn't eat any this time.

The snow is all gone now, but there will be plenty soon.

Halloween

The kids were all ready for Trick or Treating last night. Mason asked if he should go in at the first house. I told him no we were going to the next house. So then he said "next house" after every house. Then Mason and I came home while he gave out candys to all the Trick or Treaters. He loved that. But he came in this morning with our empty candy bowl and looked so sad. "No trick or treat." I explained how we gave it all away. And he said "Have to find it." He was happy though wehn he saw all the candy the big boys had.


Mason's pumpkin. You can see a few extra holes he thought it needed.


Grant's pumpkin

Tyler's pumpkin. You can see that the grim reaper has lost his head, but you can still see its the grim reaper with a large moon and headstone.


Mason's sitter had a Halloween party for all of the kids on Friday afternoon. The kids drew on pumpkins and decorated cookies and had a great time. The kids were all quite wound up for Trick or Treating.

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkins yesterday. The boys all did their own pumpkin, and for the first time the older boys didn't need any help. Mason really got into it too. Although he wasn't sure about sticking his hand in there. We'll get night pictures on Halloween.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we headed out to the Haunted Pumpkin patch nearly an hour away. It turned out not to be the best day to do it though. The temp is around 40 F and the wind is gusting up to almost 60 mph. Nothing like a cold hurricane! We did get out to a few things during slow downs, but we finally had to call it a day before even seeing the corn maze. We saw the haunted house and the haunted forest, a hay maze, playground, petting zoo, and pumpkin canon. The maze can take anywhere from 10 min to 2 hours to actually finish, and covers 7 acres. But we never even saw it. Here's what it looks like from the air....

On a nice day I'm sure it would be very fun. Too bad they built it in Canada where its cold. It starts in the summer though, so we might have to go back in the summer.

Bob the Builder

Mason went to see Bob the Builder at the mall today. He was very excited. Its great all the free stuff they have. We have to get it all done now though because every thing stops when the snow comes. This mall also has an indoor playground, so he got to play a while before we headed home.

Halloween Party

Last night we went to a Halloween party. We even had our own costume. I didn't get a pic of the big boys, so I'll have to do that on Halloween. Everyone had a good time, and the costumes were great.


"Fiona and Shrek"

"Fiona and Prince Charming"





Heather is a "Feelings Board" and Keith below is an MP3 player.







Mason wouldn't wear his costume to the party, he had worn it for most of the day. Here is an earlier picture of him.

Mason also went to the Scarecrow festival today with his friends. Then Angel and the Puppy.

Headed home

Before we headed home on Sunday we drove up to Miette Hot Springs. We weren't quite sure we would swim, but I really wanted to try them out, we just weren't sure about how cold it would be. Luckily it was 44 this morning. We stood at the viewing are and watched all the people in the pools. No one ran from the pool shivering and screaming. In fact no one seemed cold at all. There was a woman taking pics of her family and she told us all about it. She said the changing rooms were very warm. Told us where to keep our towels and which pools were too warm for Mason. We decided we had to try it. It was awesome! I want a hot springs mineral pool in my back yard. It was so much better than any other pool we have been to up here in Canada.



When we told Mason we were going swimming he kept telling us "Too cold." Even at 2 he knew it was too cold to go swimming. When we walked out of the dressing room outside he screamed cold and ran back inside. I picked him up screaming, "no swim, cold" the whole way, but when he made it to the water he was so relieved. He loved it! There was a long wheel chair ramp and he could walk down it, then climb on the seats on the side of the pool, walk to the other end, climb out the stairs, walk all the way around, and then back down the ramp. Even though he was outside and wet he wasn't cold at all. He didn't want to leave. The water is 104 (39 C) and they have to cool it to that temp with water from the stream. It didn't smell like sulphur, but did have a different smell, but it was pleasant. If that were closer we'd have a season pass and go all the time.

And this year in Jasper there was hardly any snow at the top of the mountains. This would have been the year to ride the tram to the top. They had gondola's in both Banff and Lake Louise, but we didn't take any of them.

Icefield's Parkway

The next day we drove up the Icefield's Parkway to Jasper. The 3 hour drive took us all day. This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives in all the world. And it certainly was beautiful, but, for me, cold trumps beauty, so it didn't make for a great trip. It was 28 (-3 Celcius) degrees in the morning and it didn't warm up to the 40's ( 8 C) until the late afternoon. Had it been around 75 (23 C) degrees it would have been great for exploring, and we may have hiked a ways off the road, but at 28, the view from the car is nice enough.

We visited Glacier National Park, where we got to walk on a glacier. The area you can see is just 3% of the glacier and this is the largest glacier south of the arctic circle. In places it is deeper than the Empire State building is tall. We were at 7000 feet above sea level.

We also stopped at several of the falls that are fed by glacier melt water. The water is that color because snow forms around a speck of dust. As the snow/ice melts the dust runs off with it, but it is so fine that it does not settle to the bottom of the water. The suspended dust then makes the water look teal. It would be neat to see some of these falls and streams in the spring when things are just starting to melt.

Day 2

On day 2 we went to a boat tour, that turned out to be closed, so we drove around the lake. We went to Canada's oldest park, the Cave and Basin where the hot springs were originally found. Ate lunch in the city of Banff, shopped for snow boards, went back to the hotel for some swimming, and then went to a dinner show.

The "Oh, Cannada, Eh" Dinner show was very good. The Canadian food was good, although you had to add salt to make some of it good. They had split pea and ham soup, salad, roast beef, curry chicken, fried haddock, new potatoes, mixed vegetables, and marble cake with molasses icing. It was really some of the best food we've had in Canada. The show had lots of Canadian music, and a little bit of history, and info about the different regions of Canada. The actors were the servers as well. It was over 2.5 hours, and even Mason made it to the end, with a little break. Everytime he got bored they would bring out more food!

Mountains, Day 1

We headed out to the mountains for the long Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. We spent two nights at this Best Western in Canmore, just 30 min from Banff. We drove down Friday after the kids got out of school, spent the next day in Banff, then drove up along Icefield's Parkway and spent another night in Jasper. The last pics are the view out our hotel window. We were completely surrounded by mountains.

Pitch and Putt

Today was free day at all City of Edmonton recreation facilities, so Heather and Brian had the idea that we all go play Pitch and Putt Golf with all of the kids. The weather was great and everyone had a good time. Pitch and Putt is more like golf than mini golf, but on a smaller scale. Its just great for the kids to play and you only need a 9 iron and a putter. And even with all the leaves I think we only lost one ball.

Pictures of Fall

Bowling

Inspired by Shea's blog, we decided to take the kids out for bowling. Turns out its a really nice play though it doesn't look that way outside. They have pool, bowling, lazer tag, a small arcade, and a large bar. And no smoking inside, so it had nice clean air. The kids had a good time, and we went with Heather and her kids. Mason even got to "play" lazer tag. He ran around in the dark room screaming when he ran into people. It was just our group so it worked out well.

Last week we had our last rugby game and then family day at the park. I forgot my camera, so no pics. The kids had a great time, and Frank even got to play rugby. I guess we will start up again in the spring time.

More Hurricane Ike

We finally got pictures from our house. A few trees down, but it certainly could be worse. Doesn't it look like a beautiful day though?

Here is the few limbs and such down in the front yard. Plus we lost one of our shutters.

This is a pine tree from the vacant lot, now on ours.

This is a part of a tree to the left. I hope the rest of the tree is ok.

This is one of only 3 pine trees on our property. I guess now we are down to 2 pine trees.

This is a large oak tree that I just loved in our back yard. It just fell over.

Hurricane Ike

So far, everyone I know is Ok. Here are pics from my parents house. The tree was blown about 150 feet before landing on the shed.