Strike a Pose

So I have a little poser! We were able to go to the Skates N Skirts Store in Mossbank over the weekend, and we got the girls matching Figure skating dresses. Jada is in love with her dress. She wanted me to take pictures of her different poses. Now, she came up with these all on her own. I will get pictures of the girls together and post them at a later date.

Linesman

Well, last week, Eric got himself a little 'job'. He is now old enough to be a linesman for any age group younger than him. He is very excited about this new adventure. And I must say, for his first two games he did well. Learning lots. The new boys did have a mentor and that was an excellent thing. He really helped the boys A LOT.

My camera takes really terrible pictures in our rink, but it was nice to capture his first game. I think his favorite part was dropping the puck.

Skate Boot Covers

So, these wouldnt load to facebook, so I am posting them here.

Jada's feet get so cold at CanSkate, so I decided to sew up some warm fuzzy covers for her to wear on the ice. Maybe this will help to keep her toesies warm. ANd I couldnt just sew them for one girl, so Sara got a pair of green snowflake ones as well. Jada's are the pink flower & butterfly ones. Both girls think they are awesome. I'll let you all know if they work. Till then.....

Happy Halloween!

What a beautiful day it was for all the trick n' treatin' there was to be had today!! Though we had a very sick Sara and she got no treating in. Earlier in the week we carved the pumpkins that we got from Grandma & Grandpa Welk. Jada would have nothing to do with the 'guts' inside the pumpkin. She was content to draw his face and hair on the front.

Eric and Sara are both very much into scooping the inside out with their hands. Ewww...is all I have to say about that. Both Eric and Sara get to use the knife and carve the creation of their choice for their pumpkins and each year they are gettin better and better.

Here is Sara with her finished pumpkin, it's a kitty. (I did help her draw it on and do some of the cutting.)

Jada wrapped her 'baby' in a blanket for the pictures. (She could carry around her pumpkin for days. It's so cute)

Eric did the vomitting pumpkin this year!!! NICE.

Here's a picture of the girls in their costumes. This was Jada's daytime costume, a mermaid. For the evening of trick or treating she was Sully off of Monsters Inc.

Eric was a homeless man, and I didnt even take one picture of him. Boo. So till next halloween...

A Weekend with Grandma & Grandpa

Two weekends ago, we went to Grandma & Grandpa Welk's place to celebrate Jada's Birthday. ALso, Eric & Nathan got to go to a Calgary Flames game (in Saskatoon) with Grandpa. They had a really fun time. My Mom made Jada this amazing house cake. Jada loved the cake! The candles were fun sparklers.

And the presents were very serious business to open. Jada got playdough!! JOY!!!

Jada's 1st Day of Preschool 2009

So the school year has finally started for all three kids. Sara is in Grade 4 and Eric is now in middle years in Grade 6. What a big step that felt like. Also, Jada started preschool yesterday. (She did go last year as well for half the year, so this is second time around, just with a different teacher) Jada doesnt want to go to "preschool" so she is going to "playtime" with her friends. (That's what we call it now) Here she is all ready to go, and she was actually excited this afternoon. She got to wear her backpack (which was Sara's backpack for preschool back in the day, which Jada thought was really cool that both Sara's name and hers is now on the backpack) The whole walk to school, she chitter chatted my ear off. It was great to see her in a good mood! Here she is finding her name tag with her new teacher, Mrs. Mittleholtz! She was so amazing with the kids.

She ran right to the babies and started playing with some of the other girls. It was great to have a different experience with preschool. Probably b/c she is a bit older and more mature that she is handling it better.

And when I went to pick her up, she was super excited about getting a smelly pencil and sucker from her teacher. The she chatted all the way home again. So proud of you Jada!

Day 12 - Aug 9

Woke up.
Went for Breakfast
Packed up the tent site for the last time
Came home.....that is where a whole new exhaustion starts. THe washing and cleaning of clothes, van, blankets.....now we have spent the next couple of days trying to recover from our adventure. For my record sake, I need to add that I slept with a toque on for 7 out of 12 of those days. So so long to our 2009 summer vacation....looking forward to 2010 already!!!

Day 11 - Aug 8th

Now that Sara is gone I have to narate for myself. Today we got up, and G & G Welk and Sara headed home to Assiniboia from Calgary. Casey, Jada, Eric and I continued on to Maple Creek to pick Copper up from the Kennel. (he spent all his time at G & G Welks but the one night they camped at Calgary with us he had to go there) Man, he was so excited to see us. and we were equally excited to see him. From here we headed back to Cypress Hills for one last night of Camping. While there we just chillaxed and had a fire, saw a family band play at the ampitheatre...pretty simple day!

Day 10 - Aug 7th

1.woke up
2. packed up
3. went to Calaway Park (we met Grandma & Grandpa Welk here. This was part of the kids Christmas Present from them. It was a great time. We stayed the night at Calaway Campground too. Grandpa has most of the pictures on his camera, so maybe once I get some of those I will add here)

4. adventure is over (that is for Sara. She went home with Grandma & Grandpa to have her special week with them. Casey's talking to her on the phone right now and she is working hard and having fun. Miss you Sara. We continued on with our adventure for two more days.)

Day 9 - Aug 6th

1. woke up
2. packed up tent (this is us with Jano & Sonia, the owners of Noah's. They are amazing people.)
and this was one of their dogs Tsoulene. She is the baby, only 9 months old. The kids would take her for walks and play with her. Very nice dog.3. ate breakfast
4. on the road
5. camping at banff
6. got a site
7. shopping in banff
8. horse carriage ride around banff (this is not us in the carriage. I had to lift this from the website, but it was a nice ride.)
9. went to lulu store
10. fire (firebans had been on since our second day, so this was a treat)

11. sleep

Day 8 - Aug 5th

1. woke up
2. got dressed (another very important part of our day)
3. going to eat breakfast at 3 valley gap
4. play at the park
5. argo rides (check out Noah's Ark Resort website to see what these look like. This is another event we forgot the camera for. In short it is an amphibious ride on a "thing" that has 8 wheels and goes from trail to water. It is kind of neat)
6. Play at the park
7.Stung by a wasp (oh the poor girl. Sara got bit right behind her earlobe. Her whole ear swelled up and was red.)
8. going for lunch
9. Kay Falls (these were an amazing sight. Off the #1 highway we just pulled onto a rest area, not even a marked one, just a random dirt spot to stop. With cars zipping by, we doned our running shoes to walk for these falls we heard about from locals, WELL, we entered the unmarked path and a 2 minute walk, no kidding. Like right behind the first layer of trees where these BEAUTIFUL falls. Huge they were.

You can see the kids and Casey at the base of the falls. They were huge. The river below it was amazing. Everything sparkled with "fools gold" in my opinion. Every rock you picked up and flakes of it floated everywhere. I couldnt believe this gem is hidden without a sign to guide people here. We were sure to share our find with other campers at the campground.

10. Sky Trek, Jada's trek. Jada smacked her nose. (So the day everyone else did their courses, this little kids course for age 2 & up and no harnesses required, was still closed and close to being finished they told us. So stopped in just to check if it was open. Well it had just opened that morning. So off the girls went. Sara went along to encourage her. Jada did wonderful. Never scared of any course they had. She even started being brave and doing summersaults in the nets and stuff.

They could do this course an unlimited number of times, so the girls went threw for quite a while. They Jada got going pretty fast and slipped and slipped through some steps and banged her nose. (see below) but it didnt stop her from going again. She was an amazing tropper.

11. Truck stop supper (HUGE meals, bigger than I have ever seen before. One order could have fed Eric, Sara, Jada and I (shayne). We also met some firefighters from Ontario who where fighting the fires close by and they let us know that it was finally under control. Thank you firefighters.)

12. Bed

Day 7 - Aug 4th

1. woke up
2. went to sky trek (here is the pictures. I have so many good pictures of Eric & Casey doing their first course since there was a professional photographer there, but it is hard to upload those pictures here, so just a few to share. Eric & Casey went all the way through to the black course. Man some spots looked scarey and at times they were REALLY high in the trees, but they finished all the courses. Here is Casey doing a summersault in the nets.

High fives while going down the ziplines.

Here is a picture trying to show how high it was. You can see the ground, Eric on the lower platform, and then Casey on the upper platform. THis was the beginning of BLACK!!!

The boys are still wearing their gear, and the girls are wearing their helmets so we could watch.

Here is Sara geared up to go through her course. She still wasnt tall enough to do the adult course. This was very upsetting, since we for sure thought she would be, but we will wait and see agian next year.

The guy that was running the course gave Sara some things to try to make the course more challenging. Like going backwards, eyes closed, one hand. So that was fun for her.

Doing a summersault in the nets (this is where Casey got the idea from)

Eyes closed on this course!

3. ate at three valley gap

4. on the road (going to revelstoke to check out some shops)

5. dad looks cool

6. mom looks awesome (ah thanks Sara)

7. shopping revelstoke

8. cook supper (Casey again bbq'd for us, boy was it yummy)

9. played at park

10. sleep (what a much slower day, though Sky Trek takes a long time to get through. I think we were there from 9am till 2pm)