Tag Archives: snow

Our Winter

Today is the last day of winter! To celebrate, I have a little (or kinda long) winter recap of what we’ve been up to. Thanks to El Niño, it was short and sweet, requiring not too many walk-shoveling days.

It’ll take it all the way back to Christmas, I suppose. It was spent in BC with family, as per usual. First we headed to Nanaimo for Christmas with Tim’s family, which was an adventure with 10 adults, 3 kids, and a dog in a house undergoing an extensive kitchen renovation. blog 1 Then it was back to the mainland for time with my own family! A little less crazy, but just as fun!blog 2 While we were in BC, Tim and I (along with my personal tag-along) were able to get away for a couple nights to Squamish. We spent a couple hours in Whistler, and did the Peak 2 Peak gondola. As expected, it was so beautiful! And then it was back home. I’m finding every time we do the drive between Edmonton and the Coast, the boys require less and less to make them happy. It’s great! blog 3 When we arrived home, one of my Christmas presents was waiting for me…Michelle and Mark had painted our living room! It was quite a great gift. You can see a little before and after below. Other household changes in January were that we got Calvin a twin bed and moved him into his own room! The first week was a rough go for him, but the change was no sweat off Victor’s brow. Honestly, I was very surprised. Victor is our child who has to have things a specific way, and doesn’t take too kindly to change. But, he IS the introvert, so having Calvin away from him probably brought him great joy. Calvin, the extrovert, thought differently. This change also meant that Patrick could move out of our room and now sleeps in the crib in Victor’s room. It’s nice having our entire room back for ourselves. It feels so much less cluttered.blog 4This winter, there was an ice castle here in Edmonton. We went with our friends and it was really neat! A bit crowded, but Calvin had lots of fun roaming and finding little holes in the walls and such.
blog 5 Of course we spend a fair amount of time inside during the winter. This is what it looks like:blog 6 In February, I made a quick trip back to BC to celebrate the marriage of a close friend! This was Patrick’s first flight and he did great! A little sad at takeoff, because it was past his bedtime, but he soon fell fast asleep once we were cruising. It was nice to have a weekend away with just one son. A little break from the demands of the older two. And Tim had a good time with them at home! The wedding (or reception really, because they had already been married in Africa) was beautiful, and I’m so glad I could be there to support them. blog 7 And then it was back to winter once again.blog 8But spring came quick! And the kids are definitely not strangers to mud these days. I think our patio is going to have to have a good power-washing one day soon. Oh, and just because we may still be in our jammies, doesn’t mean we haven’t left the house. I love warm winter days!
blog 9 In the past few weeks, we’ve enjoyed the company of three different parties. First Tim’s parents came through, then my friend Anna and her son Parker (who is just a couple months older that Patrick), and finally Jordan and Amy. We love having company, and are happy they all took the time to come visit.blog 10These days Calvin is as energetic as ever, never stopping until he is 100% asleep. We have him signed up for soccer this spring, and I think he will enjoy is a lot. It’s going to be so great for him, being around other kids doing team sports. That’s kind of what makes his world go around. He is also testing our patience these days, with bouts of anger and attitude. It’s so hard to know how to handle their emotions that they don’t even completely understand.

Victor is still mostly his sweet, cute self. His mannerisms are so endearing and often have us smiling or laughing. He loves playing Star Wars, and if he gets you with his light sabre or “pewer”, you must “fall gown on yo back!” He’s also a good sport at falling down himself, when you get him. He plays fair! He’s also still awesome at playing on his own, which is especially great these days because he is not guaranteed to nap every day. I think he actually naps less than Calvin, who also is no longer a regular. But on days that they don’t nap, if we go somewhere in the evening (like 2 hours before bedtime), they can be out in 3 minutes. They still need to nap! I’m trying to have a better attitude about this. Please pray for me.

Patrick is growing and learning, like all 7-month-olds do. He is able to sit on his own (since 5 months), and experiences what I call “accidental mobility”; the kind that has him falling off couches (yeah…I know…) and falling on his belly from a sitting position while reaching for something. He has recently displaced Calvin in the Costco buggy which has made shopping a different kind of experience. Calvin can either be happy or mad about not being in the buggy. It’s a gamble. Patrick has started eating food, as he’s a super star! Well, he doesn’t know how to open his mouth for food, but he keeps everything in, which is amazing! You have to remember my last child detested everything, and still does. So I’m happy with this little guy! I just have to work super hard at getting his mouth open. Making him smile usually does the trick, but it takes a fair amount of effort. Same with laughing. You have to prepared to expend a lot of energy trying to get him to laugh, and then all you’re rewarded with is some sort of grunt or throat spasm, like he is trying to hold his laugh in. He’s a happy boy, but keeps his emotions on the DL. His second tooth has broken ground, and I’m going to miss his lone one he had on the bottom. It was so cute!

blog 12 A two last photos, because they were looking so cute for church one morning. :)blog 13You get seven points for reading to the end!

SH – A Visit with Aunty Michelle

While Tim is up in Fort McMurray on his business trip, I am completing a photo scavenger hunt he created for me to work through so I stay busy and he can get new photos of our boy.
(see the whole list here

Calvin getting a shoulder ride from Auntie Michelle.

Last Thursday Tim’s sister, Michelle, flew in for a visit over the long weekend. It was looking like Tim might have been gone for the whole time, but he was able to finish the work up North and fly back down to join us on Saturday. I don’t have many pictures from her visit, but I did get the one I needed to check one off the list!

We had a good visit, with the exception of the two of us girls getting the flu and being rendered useless all day Monday. But I think I am pretty much back to normal, and hopefully she is too!

I also have to share my experience with picking her up when she arrived.
The day before she flew in, Edmonton got a pretty major snow storm and no clean up had happened between then and Thursday late evening when her plane was scheduled to arrive. The parent’s of friends of hers offered to pick her up and have her stay with them the first night since they lived fairly close to the airport and that meant I didn’t have to drive there in the middle of the night with Calvin. What a great idea!
So the next morning I got the address and directions from Michelle. The address was pretty remote, but Google pulled it up when I typed it in. However it didn’t match the directions Michelle gave me, so I kinda winged it. Google’s directions ended up to be completely incorrect, and Michelle’s directions looked to me like it was not quite right compared to what Google showed me, so I was completely lost. I stopped at a coffee shop and some guy looked up the address for me again, and found it! So I drove there (on a completely remote township road with tons of snow…don’t worry, it wasn’t slippery, and I stayed in control of my car the whole time), but I ended up at the end of the road at the banks of a lake before I got the house that matched the address.
I called Michelle and she looked it up and directed me from there. However, the road numbers she saw were differently named at the place I was, so I went out of my way yet again and made another call when it looked like I would be going way farther than I thought I should be. Here is a map that maybe makes it all clearer.

1: Where Google told me it was (makes sense – close to the airport)
2: Where the coffee shop guy showed me it was
3: Where it really was (not quite as close to the airport as I was expecting – maybe “close” means something different in more remote places)
The highlighted portion is where I drove. Not shown is another exit further north I took then got back on the highway.

So what should have taken me half an hour took about an hour and a half, but we made it there safe and sound!

Thanks for coming, Michelle!

SH – Calvin in the Snow

While Tim is up in Fort McMurray on his business trip, I am completing a photo scavenger hunt he created for me to work through so I stay busy and he can get new photos of our boy.
(see the whole list here

Calvin making a snow angel in his snow suit.

On Thursday is snowed what I consider a good amount. Probably between 4 and 6 inches. It is supposed to warm up in the next couple days, so before it disappeared, I thought I should get Calvin out there for his first real experience in the white fluff. He was incredibly emotionless and motionless the entire time. 

First Snow

I thought we just entered Fall. But this morning Tim texted me from his walk to the LRT saying it was snowing. What is it about snow, even a tiny bit of it, that feels so magical?

Does that feeling go away after seeing it so often?

Starting to stick!

I think I am really going to enjoy this big window through the winter.