Easter Fun

The third weekend of March we down went to Cochrane, just west of Calgary and stayed overnight. The next morning, on Saturday, my friend Eileen and I met up at the Cochrane LDS Church for a Family History Seminar that was broadcast from Salt Lake City by satellite. It was wonderful!! I learned so much more about researching my ancestors. I have been having some recent success in finding and taking names to the Temple. It's such a sweet feeling to do this work for them!

Doug met up with Mark and Jon and Tiffany and went to the new Calgary Temple and then they went out for lunch. That afternoon Jon and Doug drove back to get me and we stopped by Jon's home and enjoyed a Mexican dinner together with Tiffany, Ava, Josh.

Tiff had made a carrot cake for my birthday, it was so delicious! After dinner we had fun colouring and decorating Easter eggs. We all got into it, our decorating kit had stick-on faces and it was so funny to see what the eggs ended up looking like!

Ava loved all of her 'egg friends'!

 

 

The following weekend was the big move move, Lindsay and James moved into their new home... It was very exciting! Lindsay and I went together to pick up the keys because James was in classes. We went to their house and did the final 'walk through'.

 

 

 

They had arranged a lot of help the following day for the move and it was basically done in about 4 hours. The missionaries from their old ward helped them with the 'move out' and the ones in their new ward helped with the 'move in'!! Pretty cool guys!

We were finally able to get more of her stuff out of our storage unit- yeah!! Mark came up to help with the move and to spend the week with us during his school's 'Spring Break', it was so fun having him here!

Lindsay hosted her first dinner on Easter Sunday. It was really fun to be in their new home. She cooked ham, funeral potatoes, veggies and a salad...it was delicious!

 

 

 

She had all of us there, as well as James brother, Sam, our friends Eileen and Ron and grandma.

 

 

 

We also thought it would be fun to have kids there to do eggs with so we invited my friend Caroline Kennedy and her son Matthew.

 

Doug gave me an I- pad mini for my birthday and I love it!! I now use it for everything, even my calandering and pictures. Caroline and I were playing around with a camera option.

I love this picture and I am really enjoying this I-pad! It sure makes my 'blogging' easier!

 

 

It was good to get Lindsay and James settled in their new home. They are very happy with it! And even better news...on Lindsay's birthday, James got his Engineering ring. He has sure worked hard to finish his degree and certainly earned that ring!!

We missed being with Cam on his birthday, but we skyped and had a great visit with him and D and the girls. Only seven weeks and they'll be back home- pretty exciting! They are now looking for housing in Edmonton. We are so happy Cameron passed his Canadian Dental Boards!!

 

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March Madness

Well, a lot has happened since we entered into the month of March. Doug currently serves as the Teacher's advisor in our Ward, working with the young men, so they had a Winter Camp at our cabin during Teacher's Convention Feb 28-March 1st. They had pretty good weather, a little rain, but nothing to stop them from having fun. They made snow forts, went ice fishing, snowmobilling, and blasted each other with snowballs! A good time for everyone!

That same weekend Cameron was up to write his Canadian Dental Board Exam at the University of Alberta. He had come up several days earlier to study and to review some stuff with Doug. He wrote two six hour exams on Saturday and Sunday...he was exhausted by the end of it all! He really missed his family and skyped 'D'and the girls Sunday night when it was all over. We are just praying he passes those exams!!

Lindsay and James came over for dinner on Sunday along with Grandma, she was happy to see Cam again. Lindsay was good enough to make us up some of her delicious apple pie filling and she used her handy dandy pie maker machine to crank out miniature pies for all of us. They were so fun and filling!

It was a busy weekend!

The following Thursday, Doug and I caught an early flight out to Vancouver and to attend the Pacific Dental Conference. It was so nice being away and being able to be on the coast again, even for just four days! We love Vancouver!!

This is the Vancouver Convention Centre. It sits right next to the Olympic torch on the oceanfront. We stayed at a hotel in walking distance, it was fun to be out for a brisk walk to the Convention Centre each morning.

We enjoyed the courses, Doug took several Dentistry related ones, but I was able to attend classes on topics such as, health and well being, happiness, fitness, even one on office management. It was very enlightening and helpful...and the food was great!

After our courses on Thursday, we walked around the streets near our hotel and found a fabulous Thai Restaurant, where we enjoyed dinner. The Thai food is absolutely wonderful in Vancouver, we try it every time we go there.

Friday we skipped out of classes after lunch, and drove down to Washington. We had wanted to just go for a fun drive, so we told the border patrol guard we were just going down for a few hours. He was helpful and told us we should go to Fairhaven and take the 'Checkanut Drive'. So off we went to find Fairhaven, it is nestled just near Bellingham, Washington. It is a small little town similar to Banff, only right on the ocean...very artsy and stuff. We had a lovely dinner, and started to drive up the 'Checkanut Drive' but It was too dark to see anything, so we just drove back to Vancouver that night.

Saturday morning we went to a Conference 'special breakfast' with Brent Butt, the comedian from 'Corner Gas'. He is hilarious! He was given an hour to speak, but after 45 minutes he seemed tired, starting looking at his watch and really struggled for material. That was a little disappointing, but kinda fun to see him in person.

After our courses on Saturday, we went out for a drive around Vancouver and through Stanley Park. It is so beautiful. We took a nice walk along the ocean and met up with a couple that were eating fish and chips. They told us where to get it, so we bettled off and found a cute little restaurant called 'C-food'. We had a delightful dinner of freshly battered halibut with scrumptious fries. As we drove drove back to our hotel very content from our lovely dinner and oceanview drive, we thought how great it would to live there...but our kids and grandkids are not there, better to be close to home!

On Sunday we went to church, and after church we drive down to Washington again, we wanted to do the 'Chuckanut Drive' in the daytime. It goes up over the 'Chuckanut' mountains and is high enough to give a beautiful view of the San Juan Islands. We had such a good time. Doug decided to also take the road up to Mt Baker on the way back. We were told it was only about a 30 min drive up...but we kept going and going and never getting there, so we finally turned around. But what beautiful forest and trees. They say you can go from skiing to swimming in the same day! How fun to live on the coast, with a mountain to ski on and an ocean to swim in the same day! And so many bridges!

As we returned to Canada, we had to wait at the border as usual! Each time we went across the border, we were laughing and trying to tell the border guard that we were going down just for a drive for a few hours. They thought we were going just to shop!! We were fairly suspicious, as we were from Edmonton, and coming across in a rental car. But all in all, they were very friendly and usually understood that we were just on an 'adventure'! We had a great time in Vancouver and really enjoyed the Conference.

It has been a fun and busy March so far...but more is coming!!

 

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Valentine Fun

A fun Valentine's weekend...full of the things I love! Time with family, grandkids and...lovely roses from Doug!

Jon and Tiff came up from Airdrie to celebrate their 9th anniversary. We babysat the kids for them overnight on Friday.

 

We also had a fun visit with Cam and D and the girls, Brookie, Mckinley, and Brynlee on Skype! They are so cute...they showed us their new Valentine pajamas.

 

 

 

We took Ava and Josh to Chuckie Cheese's on Friday night. They had fun in the junior play area, everything was just the right size for them.

 

 

 

 

The food was really good, we were surprised! The kids loved the pizza, especially Josh... He was really eating his share!

 

 

 

After dinner we went around with them and I think dad and Lindsay had as much fun as the kids.

 

 

 

I love this picture of Josh...he is so much like his dad and just love to drive cars...watch out Jon!

 

 

 

 

Ava loved the tube slide we could hardly get her out of there!

I think this place would be a great place to have a family reunion with all the kids!

Funny how food is such a part of a fun weekend.On Saturday morning, just after we had finished our waffles, Jon and Tiff came back...the kids were so happy to see them! Later in the day, we brought Grandma over to enjoy dinner with us. We had our favorite...Cafe Rio Salad.

 

 

 

It was a fun time, Lindsay and James played with the kids and ended up in a dog pile just before Jon and Tiff had to leave with the kids on Saturday night.

 

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Weekend Fun

Well, our weekdays have gotten pretty busy again with work and returning to our regular Temple shift. We worked in the Temple this week on Wednesday, it had been closed for two weeks for cleaning and repairs. It was so good to be back, there is such a peaceful feeling there.

Our recent weekends have been really fun. Mark came up from Calgary on on Friday Feb 1, and he brought a few friends with him. They went to West Edmonton Mall on Saturday and spent most of the day at the water park. They came over after and had dinner with us and that's when the fun really started! Mark's friend, Kali, had worked at a youth camp last summer and learned how to do some team building 'stunts'. She demonstrated several of them for us...that's her upside down!

We had fun watching her, she is very athletic and we just laughed at what she was doing. We eventually moved the couch to allow for more room. She got Mark involved as her 'side kick', and he was really using some muscle to help her demonstrate the stunts.

 

 

Before long Lindsay and James were doing the 'Titanic' in perfect form! They are both very strong and well co-ordinated, and were able to do several of the stunts very well!

 

Even Mark's friends, Dave and Christie, we're finally convinced to give it a try. They were hilarious to watch...Dave is so tall and had to really adapt himself to get into the proper position, but they did great!

 

 

 

It was such an interesting experience watching everyone trying so hard to get in the proper position to have things work. Even Doug surprised me by asking me to try and do the 'Titanic' with him, we didn't do too badly! By the end of the evening, Kali had us all up with a big final 'stunt'! It was such a fun evening!! (And really good exercise...we need to do that more often.)

Sunday evening, we had our friend, Myrna, and her family over and made pizzas together. Mark wanted to try out the new juicer that we got for Christmas, so we ended up making several kinds of juices. Carrot juice with apples mixed in was a big hit...kinda. We had watermelon left over from dinner, so Doug and Mark decided it was best to juice it up also. I hate watermelon, but what I heard it tasted very good!

This last weekend we went out to the cabin to check on everything. We hadn't been out there for several months. It was a pretty warm day so Doug spent several hours trying to get the snow mobile up and running, he had some success, but it didn't stay running for long. Luckily, Lindsay and James came out to join us for dinner, and James helped Doug work on it...but no luck getting it to run! However, we did enjoy a wonderful dinner of lettuce wraps and green onion cakes!

As we left the cabin that evening the sky was crystal clear, and we were astounded at the view of the sky. It was if we could reach out and just touch the stars, they were so beautiful, bright and clear!

We are so grateful for weekends, we get to kick back with family and friends and laugh and enjoy eachother's company. Another fun weekend coming up, we get to babysit Ava and Josh this weekend...and that will be a fun blog for next week!

 

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Cabo Memories

A few months ago we decided we wanted to get away from the cold and spend a little time somewhere warmer than Edmonton. We remembered how lovely Cabo San Lucas, Mexico was last year when we went with Mark, so we decided to go there for out week vacation.

 

We invited Doug's sister, Rhonda, and her husband Jim to go with us. It as an exciting time planning to go and Jim was particularly happy to be there away from work for a week.

 

 

We had a very relaxing time, doing a lot of reading, but each day we would get out for a good walk around the area.

 

 

 

We went swimming and snorkelling one day near Pelican Rock Beach. It was a beautiful ride out to the beach in a 'glass bottom boat'. Rhonda stayed on the beach and read and tended our stuff, while Jim, Doug and I went snorkelling. We saw so many beautiful fish here, tangs, parrot fish, trumphet fish,and others...so fun!

We cooked most of our meals in our condo kitchen, we can get good food and groceries from the local supermarkets that carry very American type foods...and Costco is nearby! We did have fun trying out a few local Mexican restaurants.

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed our week in Cabo, and especially spending time with Rhonda and Jim. Just being in a green, warm environment really gave us a good boost.....we hope to get back there again!

 

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Dinosaurs and a Birthday Dinner

We've had a fun week celebrating Doug's birthday, he was born on his mother's 25th birthday...so each year on January 27th we celebrate Doug and Helen's birthdays together! This year she made him 2 dozen homemade cinnamon buns...he was in Heaven!! Our sweet dog, Rachel, turned five, so Doug shared a bun with her!

We took Helen out to dinner on Saturday night to Montanas Restaurant, and had a great time. Lindsay and James and Rhonda and Jim joined us and we all laughed so hard when the 'horns' went on Grandma and the whole restaurant sang to her... she was a very good sport!!

Earlier in the week Jon called and asked if we would like to join them on Friday in Drumheller, they were going to the Tyrell Museum with the kids. They wanted to meet up and celebrate Dad's birthday. So, we got up early on Friday and drove 3 hours to Drumheller and pulled in just as Jon and Tiffy arrived! It was so fun to see them all again! The museum was awesome!! It was so funny to watch Josh and Ava, especially when the dinosaur 'roared'...they weren't sure what to think!

Before long Ava was just a trooper...checking everything out and looking at each of the dinosaurs very carefully, especially the size of their teeth!! There were so many different kinds of dinosaur fossils, were all very impressed!

 

Joshie is walking on his own, and really tries to run everywhere! It is so fun to watch him just take off and go...it sure makes it easier for Tiff. He just wandered all through the museum and once in awhile would stop and play with some display he found at his level. He is sure starting to look like a little boy and not a baby anymore!!

We are standing in front of a dinosaur named 'Black Beauty'. It was discovered several years ago by two men out fishing on the nearby Red Deer river. They found what they thought was a small fossil, and as it turned out, this massive dinosaur was eventually unearthed!! So amazing that these great massive dinosaurs roamed right under our feet!! Of course that was 10 million years ago...

 

 

 

Looks like this dinosaur is coming over to take a bite out of Tiff and Josh...no way...he's mine... says Tiffy!!! Wow, we could almost imagine being surrounded by snorting, hungry dinosaurs!! We really enjoyed learning about their history here in Alberta and throughout the world.

The Tyrell Museum has the largest display of fossils in the world... It was so interesting, even the kids loved it! We had alot of fun together...and now we are all dinosaur experts!

It has been a great week, and I am so happy to be married to a man that doesn't seem older, but is always very kind and wise! He continues to be a wonderful example and friend to his children and grandchildren!!

 

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