Morning time plans

Monday, February 21, 2011

Happy Family Day

A holiday in Alberta.

We plan to head to the foothills, not enough energy for the mountains.

Will take the camera......

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Monday, February 14, 2011

Chinook fun

We were out at the Sewlal's for brunch on Saturday morning.

I love brunch it really is the best meal of the day.

Anyway, we set off all happy, knowing that is was due to be a warm day, and that we could have some fun outside with the snow without feeling too cold.

We got a little more than we bargined for on the way there.

Blowing snow overnight had created drifts about 6-8 inches deep accross the road so Tom was taking it careful.

We slipped and drifted toward the side, all in slow motion, and whoops, we ended up in the ditch!

May I emphasis,
we were not going fast
we were not in danger
we did not go far into the ditch, in fact we thought that we could get out with a little digging! The back wheels were still on the road.

In a short time we had 3 trucks stop.

The first was an elerly gentleman with his wife and a friend.
"How did you end up in there" he asked in a joking fashion.
"My husband was driving" said I, smiling and relieved that is wasn't me driving.
His wife smiled and said sweetly "Isn't that a good thing!"

The third truck pulled up just as we were out of digging in the snow options, and as I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make brunch. They had a rope and pulled us out, all with smiles and friendlyness. We were grateful.

What made me laugh was Heidi's perspective.

When we were digging out, I was in the drivers seat and Tom was pushing. We went no where.
Heidi saw me going to the other side of the road with the lady and Tom get into the drivers seat. He then popped the car into reverse and with the help of a big truck, got out of the ditch.
This is Heidi's take. "When you went to talk to the lady, Dad tried to get us out of the ditch and we just vrooomed out"! Nice one hun, Dad did vroom out with a little help from his friends!

Anyhoo, all was well, the roads had been scraped by the time we headed home, and brunch was superb as always.

They are huge in real life.
Hopie is completly safe in this picture.
Fun jumping off the snow hill created from clearing the driveway.
A gorgeous bunch.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

I am a little bit, well quite a big bit excited about this.



I got the pattern here and decided that seeing as my Gran had let me crochet blankets with her on various occasions and I had recently made a scarf under close supervision while snowed in at a friends, I was vastly able to whip up a bag in the course of an evening.

But it really was as easy as it said it was, as long as I kept counting right!

The flower was a little fun at the end with the wool I had left over, so I doubt I'll ever be able to reproduce it again!

And all for the bargin price of $1.31 as the wool was on sale this week!




Happy Birthday Ivey Grace, who as Heidi keeps pointing out has already had her birthday. So, I guess more accurate it is Happy Belated Birthday Ivey Grace!


And on the note of belated Happy Birthday's I missed my wonderful sister in laws because I muddled it with the coffee date I had with my neighbour of the same name next week. I am sorry Karen, you really so mean the world to us, and we are excited about seeing you soon. Happy Birthday Karen! I could always make a bag for you too!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Monday, February 7, 2011

Go Flames Go!

On Saturday night we went to the Hockey with some friends after a very generous gift from some other friends! Thank you.

So, here's what I know about hockey before I came to Canada.
1. It was a girls sport, played in the winter on a muddy pitch, and involved those awful hockey socks and lots of running around.

In Canada, not so much.

More like national sport, institution on which this great nation is built and divided on depending on who you support, male sport, on ice!!

What I know as hockey is field hockey, not to be confused with street hockey and definitely do not taint the great game of Ice Hockey with either of those lesser forms of the game! Oh and do not call it ice hockey, there is no need for the ice, everyone in Canada knows what we mean when they say hockey......

So in Calgary the team is know as the Flames.
Here they are warming up.


And here are the LA Kings. From LA.

I do love that at every sporting event be it the hockey or the rodeo (probably others, I have only been to the hockey and the rodeo) they sing the national anthems of the teams. Canada has such a nice anthem that it's fun to be in a stadium with thousands of people singing away.

So the rules of Hockey still evade me, but I do know that you have to get the puck in the net.
There are 5 men and a goal keeper on at any given time and that they change over at any given time during the game. Tom assured me that there is a system to the jumping on and off the ice directed by the coach, but to the untrained eye there is a lot of spontaneous oning and offing!
The players are incredibly on skates I am not sure it should be possible to do some of the things that they can do.
Nachos taste so good.
Periods are 20 mins each, there are three, so the game lasts 1 hour. Except that there are commercial breaks, and ice scraping breaks and intermissions etc, so in effect you get entertained for 3 hours.
Oh and you can get sent to the other side of the ice and made to sit out if you do something bad like hooking.... although I am yet to be able to identify when someone is hooking. There were many people sent to the little glass box though throughout the game.
Which leads to me to my last observation, in a game where you are sent off for hooking, why is it that it is perfectly normal for teams to get into big punch ups when they do not like what the other team is doing? Look. Two teams not happy with one another. I maintain that I saw a fight, but no one else who saw the game will back me up. But I am pretty sure you are all wrong!

We loved it, it was a fun evening, a good game to see, fun people watching.

Lets not talk about the end result though.

Go Flames Go!

PS There is poetic licence for the last picture, it was taken right at the beginning and not at the end, but it fitted well there. The truth is I have never moved so fast as we did to get out of the stadium that night. Home to our babies fast asleep and dreaming.

Edit:
PPS I am now reliably informed that all the comings and goings on the ice/pitch/field are on a timer. Clear as mud.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

My sweet girls were outside playing in the snow on Tuesday afternoon in lovely plus temperatures. We found this cool icicle so I went in to find my camera.

Scrolling through later I loved the expression on Heidi girls face. So adorable.

Then there was this one. Not so attractive.

And next this lovely one!!!! Nice!

Why do I care? Because of this. Always watching, always learning, soon to be pulling funny faces too just be be cheeky!

Heidi thought Hope looked chubby in her outfit. Can't see it myself!