This Girl

Just before Christmas Sydney got a whack load of teeth pulled and braces. She has such a tiny little mouth her teeth were struggling to fit in there so they have to do some rearranging and get things aligned and ready for the next batch of adult teeth so they can grow into the proper spots. She's been a trouper and the only complaint she's made was when the wire was too long and poking into the back of cheeks cutting them up. Once that was sorted out it's been smooth sailing and things have been moving pretty quickly for her. She's still just as pretty as ever with her adorable dimples.

Zoo Enrichment

The kids and I went to the Calgary Zoo today. We made it just in time for the penguin march where the Emperor Penguins have the choice to go outside their enclosure and waddle around before being led back into their space and fed. Today on the march 5 1/2 month old baby penguin Nero joined his parents on the march. He's a beast! They explained that in the wild the parents will feed the baby as much as they can to quickly build up a layer of fat to keep the baby warm. Apparently the huge size is normal for a baby and when it looses the fluffy feathers and gets his new waterproof coat he'll be able to swim without getting too cold and start loosing weight from the exercise.
The baby penguin was a hit for me but the rest of the animals we quickly stopped off were pretty active as well. I've only ever been to the zoo in the summer before and we'd try to schedule our trips around feeding times so we would see the animals in action instead of hot and lazy. Going on the cooler day we got to see the bigger furry animals up moving about, the camels humps jiggling with every step. We almost got pee'd on by the Rhino's laser beam urine stream and for the first time ever the snow leopards were up and about.
Not all the animals seemed to enjoy the cooler weather though. The poor Meerkats were huddled together in what seemed to be a desperate attempt to stay warm.

Our First Winter Hike

Being Canadian I almost feel like a traitor when I talk about how much I dislike winter, especially living in Alberta where we pretty much 9 months of it. The truth is the cold makes me cranky. I like making snowmen, I like tobogganing and ice skating and I enjoy how beautiful and clean it looks the morning after a snowfall. I just don't like any of those things in the cold. I can handle a nice -5*C. What I can't handle is the days of -20*C and colder and that's why I hibernate for those 9 months of winter.
A while back Ryan and I mentioned to some friends that we wanted to find hobbies that we could enjoy during the winter so that we didn't dread it so much. They mentioned one of their favourite winter hikes is kid friendly and includes sliding down frozen waterfalls and they offered to take us. That day finally came and off we went into Kananaskis.
Ryan and I had been looking forward to checking this place out that I sort of ignored the signs that Maddy might still be on the mend from the fever she'd been fighting. Nothing was going to stop me from spending our Family Day in the mountains proving to myself that winter is fun and so I had to coax Maddy step by step bribing her with gum and the promise that made someone feel better but only if they weren't crying. These are the things I do when I act out of desperation, hopefully I'm not the only mother out there bribing their children.
We hiked up a frozen river bed that was nestled in the mountains. It was slippery and the kids had a great time finding mini slides to pass the time while they waited for Maddy and I to catch up. The view was humbling. So beautiful with the ice, trees, mountain rock and fresh air. I just love the mountains.
At one point we reached the source of the river. It was these natural springs coming out of the side of the mountain which had frozen making these patches of ice walls. To the side there was one waterfall that smoothed out into a more gradual decent to the river bed making the perfect ice hill to slide down.

It was a great day. I enjoyed the fresh air, the company with good friends and experiencing something new together with the family. Maybe winter isn't always so bad, at least not when this is your view for the day.

We Have a Birthday Boy

You know you are a well loved young man when even your cat leaves you a present for your birthday! I can't believe that Brayden is 11 years old. Time flies and I know this may sound sappy but man, I feel like I blinked and BOOM, he was big.
A few things that make Brayden extra amazing are:
*The way he owns his freckles. He knows they make him different and he embraces it.
*He loves his family and still enjoys spending time with us. He's not embarrassed to be around us parents yet.
*Brayden loves science and learning how things work.
*He wants to choose the right and lives his faith each day.
I'm so proud and honoured that Brayden chose me to be his mom and that this is the family he chose to teach him here on earth. He is an amazing person!

Buzzzzing

Ever since we got out sheep Ryan has been talking about getting some bee hives. I was hesitant because winter is coming and it seemed like a gamble to get hives right before they go into their hibernation period. What if the winter is really long and very cold? Would they all die and would we have just wasted our money?
Ryan spent a lot of time educating himself on the different types of hives out there and the pros and cons that go along with the different models. He found someone who was willing to take Ryan out to his hives and show Ryan how he extracts the honey and stores his hives. He shared how to properly winterize the hives and care for the bees throughout the winter so that they don't get sick and all die off.
Not only did Ryan think he needed one bee hive but he was convinced that you need to get two hives. That way you can watch the hives and if one seems to get sick or is struggling you'll be able to compare it to a healthy hive and pin point the problem more quickly. The logic was there but I was reluctant to spend that extra money on something I had no idea would make it through the winter. We compromised and with the sale of our sheep he was able to get his second hive.
I guess I am now officially married to a bee keeper! Hopefully they survive the winter.

I Know It. I Live It. I Love It.

Every time we go to Cardston we have to drive by the temple. I love that my kids want to see it or get out and walk around the property. This is the temple that Ryan and I were sealed in and I love this temple. It makes me so happy when my children talk about getting married to their future husband or wife in the temple so that they can have an eternal family of their own. It's so beautiful inside and out and I'm grateful for it and the peace it brings into our lives.

Bikin'

In this house we don't let our kids learn how to ride the dirt bike until they master a two wheel pedal bike. Well, for Madison that time has finally come. She has learned how to balance on her peddle bike, use her legs and manage steering. Today we took out the kids dirt bikes and let them go out for a little drive. This was Maddy's first time on the bike and she took to it quite quickly. It's always fun watching the kids as they try to figure it out and as they grow with confidence pick up the speed a little bit. Maddy still has to master the stopping part of dirt biking but she's been good managing her speeds. I'm not sure yet if she's going to love it like Brayden does or be more like Sydney and not to concerned about it either way.
One thing is for sure, she's dang cute on that little bike!

I Love HATE Sheep

I want to start out by saying that sheep are the most annoying creature on this planet. No, I am not exaggerating. They are not my friends. In fact I think they are my arch nemesis. Let me tell you why:
A truck arrives at our house where Ryan proceeds to choose three little lambs to call our own. They are all super cute and we name them Buddy 1, 2 and 3. The cute little lambs are scared of us and Banks seems to absolutely terrify them which is not surprising. Buddy 1, 2 and 3 get fenced into their little section and off Ryan goes leaving me with the sheep. All is well until my neighbour calls me to let me know the sheep are loose. Out I go and sure enough there they are wandering around like they own the place. Thankfully between my neighbour and I we are able to herd the sheep back into their little area and away I go to call Ryan and tell him to get back here so he can secure this fence before our money walks off the property and becomes road kill.
Ryan comes back with re-enforcements and they secure the fencing so the sheep can't escape and off he goes back to what he was doing before. I get this strange text from Ryan saying to watch the dog. I have no idea what this means so I put the phone down on the counter and as soon as I do I hear this "BAAAAA ... Baaaa!"
I look out the window to the side of the house and sure enough I see this lamb darting across the yard chased by the dog. Out I go and here I am chasing the dog who is chasing a lamb around and around in circles between the vehicles parked in the back section of the property. OH, I'm ticked and not having any fun at all. I'm calling Ryan telling him these sheep have got to go! I finally catch the dog and lock him up in the garage and start herding this rouge lamb when I hear this loud clatter from the garage and out busts the dog from his doggie door escaping the barricade I've set up and off goes the frightened lamb and we start the chase all over again. By the time I go to bed that night I am praying I will never see another lamb as long as I live.

Let's skip ahead a couple of days. Ryan and I head down to Lethbridge for a funeral leaving the sheep tucked safely away in their enclosure. We get home late in the afternoon to find an empty sheep enclosure and no livestock to be found. Ryan and I are scouring the property looking in every corner, combing through the tall grass, looking for signs or hints of where they could be but nothing. All I can think is that we just had $400 walk down our driveway never to be seen again. I leave Ryan searching the property and I head next door to care for the neighbours animals while they are out of town. I turn the corner of their driveway and look up at their door and there they are. Buddy 1, 2 and 3 just standing there on the door step as if this is a normal thing for lambs to do.
Did I mention I hate them?

Behind The Scenes At Best In Show

Over the weekend my moms dog had been strutting his stuff at the Dog Show down in Spruce Meadows on the agility course. He was doing great and had received enough qualifying times to advance into the immediate category. Today was the final day of the show and so we went down there to cheer him on and show our support. I've only been to one other dog show before and at that show he was just being shown, not jumping and weaving. I didn't really know what to expect but what I saw was not what I had pictured. I was seeing more "Best In Show" in my mind and although there seemed to be those crazy dog show people around, it was set up a lot nicer then I imagined.

We were shuttled from the parking lot to the agility rings where we met up with Mom and Brian. The dog had his spot set up in the shade and beside a doggy pool and they sat under the tent while they waited for the agility course to be prepared. Once the course was ready all these people came out and started running the course without the dogs. The first time we saw this Ryan and I laughed to ourselves until Brian stepped out and started doing his thing. He had to familiarize himself with the course so that he could successfully lead the dog through the obstacles in the correct order.

Once we watched everyone run through the obstacles with their imaginary dogs it was time to get started. Kael was the first dog to go out and attempt the course. In the beginning he was pretty excited and sniffing around but once he got going he was going. There were all these jumps, three tunnels and a set of 8 weaves and they were set up in an order where you just didn't go in a circle but you had to circle around and go back the opposite way over a jump. I'm not clear on how the points work but you loose points for being on the wrong side of some obstacles and if you do them in the wrong order you get disqualified and you don't get to complete the course. Kael successfully completed the course which I decided was a pretty big deal when we watched dog after dog get disqualified after him. If agility wasn't an individual competition then Kael would have kicked butt but you don't compete against the other dogs. There isn't a first, second, third but you just earn points and those points go towards your next level and each level opens up a more challenging course with more obstacles.

I hope that my next few comments don't offend anyone but to be honest there are all sorts at these dog shows. We saw women in the ring yelling at their dogs, calling them silly pet names, men clapping at their imaginary dogs during the pre-run through and then the guy with the picture of his dogs on his trailer. Now that's hard core. Not only was he parked right up to the ring but he had everything set up so he would be comfy all day long. I'm pretty sure that Brian was the most sane man in the joint!

Our Third Inglewood Sunfest

My folks came up to Calgary today for a dog show this weekend and so we met up with them at the Inglewood Sunfest after our morning of garage sales. I thought this would be perfect because we could spend some time outside, dogs are allowed and my kids love gathering all the free stuff they can get their hands on.
We took Banks and of course he got a lot attention as usual but he was so well behaved. We briefly stopped to watch a few different street performers and weaved our way through the people. Not only did we meet up with Mom, Brian and their dog sporting this awesome 'cooling jacket' but we ran into Kait and Matthew as well. Talk about family fun day.

It was a fun afternoon, nice to walk around and people watch. Banks was happy to have smelled so many doggy bums and thankfully this year he saved us the embarrassment of peeing in the middle of the festival street (in his defence, last year he was still a puppy)! Favourite thing was probably the dude who put the drill up his nose ... that takes talent.

Busy Wasps

Our neighbour has the most amazing garden and she approached us in the spring asking if we wanted to use it. She's got too much going on to take on the entire garden and so we totally jumped at the opportunity. Her husband rototilled it for us and she made sure all the automatic underground watering was ready to go and all we had to do was plant. It's been so great!
We were over there a few nights ago when Brayden spotted a wasp nest in the apple tree beside the garden. Our neighbour was on her way out of town and left us with wasp spray after we offered to get rid of it while they were gone. Ryan went over there last night and sprayed the crap out of the nest and I guess he could hear it buzzing like crazy. Today we went over there in the afternoon to take it out of the tree and pulled the nest apart. Inside were all these wriggling larva growing. Gross. Now it's onto the next nest, it seems like there are about a half dozen nests started between the two of our places. I had always thought that they were territorial and didn't start a home where there was one already started but it looks like i'm going to have do some further research. How do you stop wasps from building their nests around your house?

Heritage Park

The kids and I met up with Auntie Kait and Uncle Matthew for some good old fashioned today. My sister had been wanting to do a Heritage Park day for a long time now and finally the scheduled day arrived. The kids were excited but I have to admit that I was a little hesitant and had low expectations. It seemed like I would be spending a lot of money for a lot of nothing. Sounds fun, right. Well guess what!? It was fun, and I got a lot more bang for my buck then I had anticipated. Apparently they just changed their admissions to include everything inside the park (with the exception of food) so we got to ride the train, the boat and the amusement park rides at no extra cost. There was more to do but we hadn't allotted enough time to really get the full experience and what really surprised me was that I would totally go back for an entire day.
The very first thing we did was hop on the train and head to the boat. The timing was perfect and so we didn't have to wait for either. The train ride was fun as we passed the ranch and saw all the animals and they had these cute old men as the conductors. The boat ride was beautiful and it was relaxing to just look out over the water and see so much green.

From the boat ride we booked it to the bakery where we bought some lunch goods. I splurged and bought a loaf of sour dough bread and bribed the kids to eat it without olive oil and balsamic to dip it in with fresh chocolate chunk cookies. We sat down to eat just off Main St and the older kids raced through Uncle Matthews obstacle orders while Madison forced down her lunch. At one point Kait joined in on the races and eventually had to forfeit due to summersault dizziness.
The amusement park was next and each of the rides has a plaque that explains the history of the ride and when it came out, for example: The caterpiller was made in 1929 with courting couples in mind and was so popular they couldn't keep up with the demand. This was probably due to the fact that not long into the ride a big cloth covers goes around and covers the ride so that if you wanted to make out and kiss your companion you wouldn't have an audience. I think that you would really have to work for that kiss on the ride because it was really quite bumpy and Madison jerked around quite a bit. There is nothing wrong with a man having to work for a kiss though....
On our way out we walked through Gasoline alley and admired the old cars and how they changed over the years. Our last stop was a little Big Rock Brewery show room where the kids learned that Hops were used to make beer.

Like I mentioned before, it was fun and I would definitely go back again for an entire day. The kids enjoyed it as well, their favourite part was the rides of course!

Who Says Facial Hair Is Only For Men?

I'm not sure what's going on with Brayden but I think us ladies are totally making the moustache look good!?

JCK

Today the kids and I went over to Auntie Kait's home to meet my new nephew, James Compromise Kliewer. They had been talking about getting a dog for a little while now but couldn't find their perfect new addition. They settled on a breed and picked out a red lab a few weeks ago and then waited until he was old enough to come home with them. When they went to pick up their James they ended up coming home with a different pup (a brother of original James) and I'm pretty sure they made the right decision with this new James. He is just so adorable.
He was sleeping when we got there which was a good thing because when he woke up the kids were ready to exhaust him. We went outside and watched JCK puppy run after the kids and go nuts for balls. Madison wasn't so impressed with the puppy nipping going on and had quickly forgotten that we went through the exact same thing a year ago with Banks. She was having an off day anyway due to vaccination soldiers marching through her body so she just laid around in the sun. Syd and Brayd however couldn't get enough, even when little JCK was trying to go to sleep they wouldn't stop touching him. He ended up having to hide in the very back of his crate behind a little barrier and away from little fingers.