Summer Vacation 2011 Week Four

Week Four, well it was time for CubJ to head off the Scouts’ camp with three of his pack members for the week. As with last year, a great time was had by all of the boys. There were hikes, canoes, fires, stars to be gazed at, swimming and lots of other fun to be had. CubJ said that this year was even more fun than last year because he know all of the fun things that he would get to do and in fact that next year he would like to go for TWO WEEKS!  I could not be happier for CubJ that he so enjoyed his week at camp. He came home with fewer mosquito bites, a deep tan not a burn and fantastic stories.

SparkJ and I enjoyed some of our own fun while brother was away. We had two sleepovers, went to swimming lessons and got to meet the daughter of one of our most dearly loved friends NAng! Despite missing brother, who was represented by a large Pooh Bear in the car for the week, we had a lot of fun ourselves. There is a lot to be said for the one on one time while the other is at camp. I look forward to the same opportunities with CubJ when SparkJ is big enough to head to camp for a week.

Our newly found fish SparkJ enjoyed a week of swimming lessons immensely. She easily passed Swimmer One and was asking to take more lessons the next week. This is a dramatic change from a few weeks ago when we could not have gotten her to jump into the pool without being in there to catch her! Yeah SparkJ!

One day after swimming lessons, we got to meet CasAng the daughter of our dearly loved friend NAng! It has been an eventful year for NAng returning from an extended backpacking honeymoon, expecting a baby and being granted the greatest gift of all, the chance to embrace a daughter into her life! I can think of no one else who could so easily adapt to adopting such a wonderful little girl, I can only be thankful that CasAng had been given such an amazing Mom in NAng. Needless to say despite crazy schedules and a long awaited meeting, we are thrilled to be embracing CasAng into our little circle. She is a delightful little girl who SparkJ just loves. After meeting her for the first time, SparkJ could not wait to see her again and introduce her to her brother. CasAng, we adore you already and look forward to many years of fun ahead!

On Friday we picked up our camper and enjoyed the chance to be a family of four again. CubJ regaled us with stories from camp and SparkJ was blissfully happy to have her brother back again. What a great reunion!

Saturday was time for Cricket followed by the "Three Generations Dim Sum" fun. Great AuntieE & KG made up the wise generation, AuntieL, DaddyJ & MommyJ made the middle generation and the four cousins rounded out the group as the youthfull generation! A wonderful time was had by all, especially as we sat around talking with a trip to the park after stuffing ourselves at Dim Sum. Yum yum!

Week four was a great week and a good lead into our week of preparing and beginning our Family Road Trip 2011, Mount Rushmore here we come!

Summer Vacation 2011 Week Three

Week Three kicked off with our annual community Stampede breakfast. This is always a great start to our Stampede week. There is the usual breakfast offering of food, a live band and a bouncer set up beside the park for the kids to play in. As always, the organisers did another great job!

Then we were off to the Calgary Stampede for a day of fun. 24 rides were ridden, DaddyJ managed to join us near the end, much “fair food” was consumed, barns were visited, demonstrations watched, new and exciting things learned at Agi in the City and the kids even pulled 130+ lbs working as draft horses!  

Of course, we wish that our trip this year could have included some time with NAng & CasAng but BabyAng had other plans for NAng this week. Hugs and hopes to take it in with you 3NAng’s next year and a HUGE thanks to my 3J’s for the awesome day at the Stampede!

Following our trip to the Stampede, we headed down to Nanton to spend the day with AuntieL, CousinR and CousinC. We met at Chainlakes Provincial Park to see what the campground was like and test out the park. It was a nice way for the kids to burn off some energy. My favourite part was the cousins hanging on the spinner, it was like we had hung them up to dry on the clothesline! LOL

Next we were off for some delightful lunch at Ken’s in Nanton. We enjoyed some great War Wonton Soup, dumplings, green onion cakes and spring rolls. It never ceases to amaze AuntieL and me how great small town Chinese food can be.

After lunch we went to the Nanton Candy Store http://www.nantoncandy.com/index.html . Next it was time for us to visit Ultimate Trains http://www.ultimatetrains.com/layout.php where we marvelled at the outdoor display of all of the miniature trains and rode on their new train ride which tours the property. Strangely, despite how much older all of the kids are then when we first visited, they are still all just as interested visiting this fantastic attraction in Nanton. As always, I highly recommend a visit here, it is worth the drive, the admission and change to play with their trains.

After the trains we were off to see the planes on our Planes, Trains and Automobile tour of Nanton! The Bomber Command Museum of Canada is an outstanding stop in Nanton, http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/ . We enjoyed learning more about Canada’s roll in WW2, touring the Landcaster Bomber they have on display and watching the recruitment videos. In fact, I am sure that I would have signed up if I had seen one of those videos back in the day. The highlight of visit was the knowledgeable young man who led out tour. He presented the information in a factual way that did not glorify what the plane had been used for (bombing, killing, destroying etc) while making it all very interesting. The kids especially enjoyed using the flight simulator and sitting in the SnowBird jet!

The day was wrapped up with some time at the playground and slurpies. For our second summer "Cousins Exploring Small Town Alberta" it was a great success. Nanton offers quite a bit for visitors to see, learn and enjoy less than two hours south of the city! Cousins R,C,J & J give 8 thumbs up to Nanton. I can not wait to see what next year will bring on the CousinsExploringSmallTownAlberta adventure.

Friday, included a yummy trip to Cora with our dear friends MomB & BendyP. All three kids gorged themselves on waffles and crepes while the Moms caught up on the details of BPnS trip to Italy. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Saturday included an adventure with one of our cars being towed to the dealership, a chance for SparkJ to celebrate a birthday with a bowling buddy and the first annual Cricket Family BBQ and Kids vs Parents match. There was delightful food, hilarious games, a close match where the kids barely won and fantastic opportunities to socialize with the other families. This will definitely be my highlight of the Cricket season of 2011.

Week three was jam packed with exciting adventures. The theme of the week was "What a great way to spend my day with people we all adore!"

Summer Vacation 2011 Week Two

Week Two was a quieter week. It began with a trip to Calaway park which included eating ice cream and having a bit of fun.

Then it was an exciting lunch with AuntieC where we demolished great quantities of sushi at our summer kickoff Sumo Lounge Sushi festival! This was followed up with a trip to everyone’s favourite gelato place, Amatto Gelato.

Wednesday saw a quick trip to see Dr Low our fantastic orthodontist and making our own bears in the afternoon.

The rest of the week was spent doing some work on our summer journals, playing at the park and heading to Cricket practice. All in all it was a great week with fun, friends, family and new fury friends!

We hope this finds you all enjoying your own summer adventures ~ MommyJ

Summer Vacation 2011 Week One

Week One of Summer Vacation 2011 we headed up to Edmonton to swim in the hotel pool and visit our Edmonton cousins. It was a great quick trip where we enjoyed two trips to the pool, dinner with AuntieA, UncleP, CousinsL&N and wrapped it up with a fun session at the park.

June, the kids ended the month with the DaddyJ taking them to their first baseball game while Jose Canseco was in town. I am pleased to report that the kids enjoyed the game very much, despite the fact that the hometown team lost. They sat just above the visitor’s dugout, ate ice cream in tiny baseball batting hats, mini donuts and got to watch the fireworks at the end of the game! What a way to take in your first baseball game, not to mention some of the hilarious heckling they heard.

Then for July 1st, Canada day we celebrated with a trip to the movies and checking out the fireworks! Yeah Canada, there is not another place that we would rather live, even if the beaches are warmer or there is less snow, you are the greatest country we know! Oh Canada, our home and native land ....



What a great first week of summer vacation! Thanks for all of the great memories already family, I love you all and HAPPY CANADA DAY 2011 to all Canadians near and far.

June 2011

June saw us celebrating DaddyJ, the end of Sparks and the end of another school year. Yippie, summer vacation!

Father’s Day was enjoyed with presents, Julio Barrio’s and some good laughs together. We even had KFC for dinner as DaddyJ is always longing for a bucket of chicken when he sees the commercials!

With school ending, SparkJ made chocolate brownies in the Easy Bake oven to celebrate! They were delicious brownies, good job SparkJ. What a great way to end the week and start our summer vacation.

June was a great start to our summer vaction, be sure to check out our week by week adventures as the summer progresses!

Hugs to all and best wishes for an amazing summer,

MommyJ



May 2011

May  was a fun month! We began with a get away to Canmore for Mother’s Day and brunch at Lake Louise. High tea continues to be one of my favourite things: there is something about those tiny little sandwiches, miniature desserts and flaky scones! What is there not to like, especially if it includes a chilled glass of champagne?

At the end of the month, CubJ went on his first travel studies field trip when all three grade four classes headed out to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller for an overnight trip. This trip included a hike in the badlands, workshops on Ancient Rocks of Alberta, Fossil Casting  & Raptors in Action, a trip to the sportsplex for swimming, a sleepover at the museum and finally a trip to Reptile World! CubJ even managed to snap over 100 pictures of his trip.

This was a great introduction to traveling with the school and if this is any indication, I can not wait to see the pictures he will have in the years to come of Ottawa, Quebec City, Washington DC, Costa Rica & Columbia if he keeps up the great work.

April 2011

April included both an exciting field trip to Aggie Days with CubJ’s 4^th grade class, Easter and the loss of SparkJ’s first tooth! What an exciting month for everyone. Most excitingly, the basement was finally completed!

Aggie days has always been one of my favourite field trips to volunteer for. I love seeing all of the animals, enjoying the rodeo demonstration and watching the kids get  a better understanding of where their food comes from. This year, I got a huge kick out of watching them feel for the baby cow aka "you want me to put my arm WHERE in the plastic cow!?!!" Thanks for the great day!

The Easter Egg hunt was a great sucess this year as we all enjoyed tromping into the developed basement in search of candy treats. Pleasently, this year the Easter Bunny brought gift cards for the kids favourite places, Build a Bear and the Lego store! I wonder what he will think of next?

Our Easter dinner: corn bread and green bean casserole baked by CubJ, spiral cut ham, carrots and mashed potatoes! Yummy job CubJ, you were a big help making those two side dishes. Not to mention that BC Blasted Church wine was the perfect pairing with our meal. Hoppy Easter everyone.

The month was ended with SparkJ's first visit from the tooth fairy after the loss of her bottom tooth! Sniff sniff sniff, my baby has lost her first tooth....

March 2011

March, saw us continuing down the path of drywalling the basement. One gets a great respect for the art of sanding things smoothly, a passionate dislike of the dust it generates and ear fatigue from hearing the local hard rock station played! Despite all, things were continuing on in the basement like pouring molasses outdoors in January at the North Pole and we could sense that it would eventually be finished.

The March break saw us take a quick trip to Edmonton for a break from the construction in the basement while enjoying some time together. While there we spent some time enjoying the rides at West Edmonton Mall, bumping into some of CubJ’s classmates (much blushing occurred on all sides at running into members of the opposite gender! Lol) and generally very relaxing!



February 2011

February’s highlight was Chinese New Year! This year for CNY, the kids classrooms got together for a party where we brought in green onion cakes, dumplings and orange wedges on red plates. Many of the kids had not had green onion cakes before and were thrilled by how tasty they were. For me, the highlight of the whole thing was a close tie of seeing the kids' classmates enjoy something new and getting to make all of the yummies with CubJ and SparkJ! Thanks for all of your help making all of the little money purses (dumplings) , rolling all the green onion cakes out and serving it all up in the classroom guys! Xoxoxo Mommy

Near the end of the month, the boys were off to Winter Cub’s Camp at Camp Winchell. Thankfully the weather cooperated and a great time was had by all of the Cubs in the snow. The highlight of the trip seemed to be making forts both out of trees and packed snow. What a great way for everyone to start out the year.

January 2011

January saw us ringing in the New Year quietly as a family at home, eating snacks and watching the ball drop in Time Square and the development of our basement. 

After that we were off and running with school starting back up, SparkJ’s 6^th birthday party with her friends from school and our usual activities. This was SparkJ’s first big birthday party with her friends. We headed down to Let’s Play for a climbing, sliding, pizza and cupcake eating party. I think that everyone had a great time, especially the birthday girl!

January was a great start to the year!