Butte, Montana

So you would think that driving through a city called Butte, Montana that you'd see nothing but Cowboys and Horses.  Well, think again, this is on the top of the mountain on the North part of Butte.  Looking at it our first time through Montana we thought it was a Christus.  Why, we asked, was it there?  But low and behold it is not a Christus, it's called...

Our Lady of the Rockies

This statue is dedicated to all women, especially mothers.  It's 90 ft tall and sits on the Continental Divide, it's base was poured with 400 tons of concrete.  It took 6 years to build, all from donation, and was put into place by a CHAR Sikorsky Sky Crane through the Nevada and Montana National Guard.  And it glows at night, rather brightly I might add.

It came about because a man promised the Virgin Mary to build it's like if his wife were cured of cancer.  Well, she was, and he did.  Check out their website  http://ourladyoftherockies.net/

60th Wedding Anniversary

These have to be the two most wonderful people in the world.  This is Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Walker (to my kids anyway).  We made a weekend trip down to see them and to celebrate their...

60th Wedding Anniversary with them and all their friends and family.  It was a quick trip, with a whole lot of driving, but well worth it.  We love you Grandma and Grandpa.

Jared could totally tell you who all these folk are, I'll make an effort.  Starting from the Left and going round the table.  Uncle Dan (Grandpa's brother), and wife, Uncle Dave (Jared's Dad's brother), Grandpa, another Uncle (Grandpa's brother), and wife, 2 you can't see and finish with Uncle Kevin (Jared's Dad's brother).  So sad.  When Jared's back in town I'll have him help me edit this.

Sicily really wanted a photo with her Great-Grandpa Lynn Walker.  I love this!  Cousins in the background L-R, Alyssa, Erin and Keylee.

Now onto the younger family that was present.  Little Boy Blue is Memphis, Jared's Sister, Katy's, little guy.  Phoenix decided to be the favorite cousin by wrestling non-stop with Memphis.  They had a ton of fun.

 Sicily, Memphis, Reagan, little guy Brigham, and Phoenix.  All 1st cousins.

 Brigham, Phoenix, Keylee, Alysa, Aspen, London, Ryker, Reagan.  1st and 2nd cousins.

Jared, Ryker, Aspen, Alyssa and London all going for a "big kid" train ride.  Way many more bumps and just as many screams as the little guys.  By the end of the day London and Ryker where the drivers and they all had a blast.

Thank you to all the Aunts who set up this wonderful weekend.  It was so good to see all the family and to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa.

Private Piano Recital

Since moving to Canada Phoenix has gotten better and better at his piano.  And due to unforeseen circumstances he had his very own private piano recital.  (We were going out of town for the weekend of the recital so she held this one just for him)  Miss Britanie is the greatest, and Phoenix loves her because he gives treats every lesson.

He did such a good job playing "Walking in Space."  Way to go Phoenix, we're always so proud of you!

Miss Britanie also teaches Voice.  And since Sicily sings ALL day EVERY day Miss Briatanie let Sici have a go on her Karaoke machine.  Listen closely for the best part right after she wipes her mouth...hint hint...she says, "I'm drooling."

Canada is Expensive

So we've mentioned to a few people how expensive food stuffs are up here.  And when I say expensive, I mean expensive!  Here's your regular size box of Golden Grahams for almost $9, for 1 box of cereal.

And then you have your Martinelli's.  I'm pretty sure you can get these for $3-$4 in the States, but not here. There almost $8.

Needless to say every time we go home to visit family we typically stock up on a 3 months supply of everything that's allowed to cross the border.  You would too if you had to pay $9 for a box of cereal.

Late-Overs

You can't tell so much from this photo but it's really about 9:00 at night.  You'd think it's around noon, but it's not.  Hence the campfire.  Aspen's always big on having her little friends over, too many boys are usually in the house so she tries to balance it out where she can.  This is Abby, Abby is going away for the entire summer, so we had to have her over before then.

The Guinea Pigs wanted to have a play date too.  We took the cage off the fire pit and gave them an outdoor playground.  But as usual, Beaux was very curious.  Notice the cocked foot?  He is a terrier after all.

Lori's Birthday

Sicily's stuffies (Canadian for stuffed animal) have birthdays about once a week if not more.  She's constantly singing to them and wrapping them presents.  So today she requested that we actually celebrate one of their Birthdays.  

Lori turned, I'm not sure, but we made her cupcakes.  And went to the Bounce Houses for her party.  This is Sici and Lori with our cute cupcakes, which Sicily was happy to "share" with Lori.  She was really good to make sure Lori got just at many as she did, which means Sicily got twice as many as she should have had.

This is one of mine and Jared's little sweethearts from Nursery, Sarah.  She was happy to eat the marshmallow flowers but had me feed the rest of it too her so she wouldn't get icing on her fingers.

Gymnastics

Another year of gymnastics come and gone.  Aspen just about finished her Bronze level, and has the blisters on her hands to prove it (my hands looked just the same when I was her age).  She can flip over those bars like no other.

Her hair is so soft her ponies always fall out.  She's constantly brushing her hair back after every flip or somersault.

Just a little stretch before she started swinging.

And Aspens favorite.  Handstands!  I'm always telling her to watch out for her siblings or the dog when she does these all over the house.  But practice makes perfect so I can't complain.  :)

Butterfield Acres Field Trip

One more Field Trip under our belts.

Sicily has happily been participating in a local Pre-School since we moved here.  And with the end of the school year just around the corner her teachers took the kids on their very first School Bus to Butterfield Acres.

I was helping out and since I didn't have younger siblings with me I got to ride on the bus with Sicily.  She was so very excited, if you can't tell.

They took us to The Butterfield Acres Farm.  I've been to many farms in my day, plenty of cows and sheep and poop to go around at any farm.  But as soon as we pulled up to this farm my only thought was, "Tourist Trap Central."  Every animal had their own red farm house, fenced in area and washing station for the kids after they played.

We started off at the duck pond, which also included turkeys, geese, chickens and emu.  And since it's Spring all the boys were chasing all the girls.  One Emu even stepped full on a chicken in his haste to get to the girl Emu.  Pretty funny.  The chicken was ok.

Donkey's and mules are sweet and lazy.  Good for little girls that want to pet them.

 Here's your turkey strutting his stuff.

I miss my chickens.  They even had the fluffy chickens with the "fur" on their feet.

Highlight of the day was milking the goats.  Sicily was not too keen on participating.  "But that's where they pee pee."

We had some education on girl goat anatomy, said a friendly hello to the little goat, and then...

finally milked the goat.  She was pretty good at it too, and informed Daddy when we got home that when we get a goat it will be her job to milk her.

They had 2 humongously fat pigs and then about 10 little piglets.  We thought they were ever so cute until we got in their cage and they started untieing our shoes.  Little stinks.  We got the heck out of their though when one piggy started nibbling at my ankle.  My only thought was of stories I've heard that if you ever want to get rid of a dead body put it in with the pigs.  They will eat the bones and everything.  So needless to say when they started tasting my heels, I was ready to run.

These guys were the real version of goats.  Not pygmy or dwarf.  When they stand on their hind legs they're over 6 ft tall.  Sicily happily feed them the dandelions they couldn't reach.

We got to go on a wagon ride out through the woods.  This is Miss Angie and Miss Tracey, Sicily's teachers. They are the sweetest ladies and do they're job lovely.  Sicily loves them to pieces.

Snack time!

The little goats were all too happy to say hello after our snack time.  They kept sucking the strawberry juice off our fingers.

 Sweet little newbie.  He couldn't have been a week old he was so tiny.

And on our way out the boy peacock shivered goodbye.  Sicily thought this was the coolest thing, but still does not want a peacock on our farm, "They're too noisy."

Calgary Zoo Field Trip

Whew!  What a day.  I volunteered to take Phoenix and a little group of boys around the Zoo for their 1st Grade Field Trip.  It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

We started out, of course, wandering through the Pre-Historic area.  They're boys, they're 7 therefore they like Dinosaurs.  I've never been into that part of the zoo, so it was fun for me too.

Next up was the Canadian Wild Life.  This beautiful Caribou had the most gorgeous rack of velvet I've ever seen.  And he, like every other animal in the zoo, was shedding off their winter coats.  Too bad these don't actually live by us, they are just amazing.

Next up, the Penguin Plunge.  This is Sicily's favorite, and we missed out last time because they close earlier than the rest of the zoo and we didn't know that.  So we were much pleased that we got to see the penguins this time.  Please note the crazy boy's I got to look after today.  :)

This sweet little teddy bear was taking a nap and must have been dreaming because he kept flinching a grunting.  I thought how cute he was until he rolled over and showed us his 6 inch claws.  There's a reason people take some major precautions when camping around here.  Grizzles are everywhere. 

We were so excited to see a few Peacocks in the neighborhood.  It'd started to rain half way through the day so we didn't think we'd see any.  We actually got told off by a Zoo Keeper for this one.  I think he thought we were going to stab the poor thing with our umbrellas.  But he wasn't a shy peacock, so we were just taking a closer look.  I mean really, they're just fancy chickens, and the spikes on his legs were bigger than any roosters I've ever seen.

The butterfly house was a much desired break.  It was warm and friendly and NOT raining.  None landed on us but even my most crazy boy of the day wanted to stay and hang out with the butterfly's.

Phoenix loves the tigers, and so do I.  They're so powerful and proud.  I think they have 3 or so and their enclosure is just massive, so they have plenty of space to roam.  That always makes me happy to see.

So after all the craziness we topped off our day with popsicles and ice cream.  Yes, I did bribe them into behaving.  Had they been my own children they probably would not have all gotten ice cream.  But to the credit of my 2 kids that were with me they deserved XL Blizzards compared to those other boys.

It was a good day overall.  I love the zoo, and I love seeing my kids have fun with their little friends.  Even if the conversation tends to revolve around poop and burping most of the time.  :)

10:00 AM?

When we moved to Canada at Christmas it was cold and dark most all the time.  But now as Summer approaches things have changed.  I took this picture out my back window at 6:00 AM.  

The sun comes up here around 4:30-5:00 AM and doesn't completely set until after 11:00 PM.  It really does something to your sleep clock when it's pretty much light ALL the time.   

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a Mother you are constantly on the lookout for better and healthier recipes.  As I prepared these though I couldn't help but think, "What kind of a crazy mother would feed this to her kids?"  The recipe includes the normal eggs, flour, oatmeal and brown sugar.  But it also has whole wheat flour, wheat germ, bananas, and broccoli.  

Strange as those ingredients sound, these were some mighty great cookies.  They tasted like individual bites of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.  And though they only lasted in the cookie jar for about 4 days they stayed so moist we were afraid they might go bad if we didn't eat them quick enough.  But 4 days proved to be just the right amount of time to finish them off.  ;)

Best Friends

Though it was a hard adjustment from the weather in Texas, Beaux is very happy that we moved to Canada because he meet Daisy.  Daisy is a Newfoundland and about 100 lbs.  Beaux weighs in as a whopping 35.  But that doesn't bother him in the least.  Daisy is his bestest friend and they have a ton of fun wrestling and chomping all over each other.

Footstock 2012

Aspen and I had a fun weekend running.  The Cochrane Footstock race consists of a 5K, 10K and a Half Marathon.  Aspen did the 5K and I did the Half.  Here we are all warm with smiles, ready to go.

The hosts had some booths set up inside selling water bottles, energy drinks and other random running paraphernalia.  But we also happened upon a Henna booth.  So we both got "tattoos" for the day.

Including our numbers of course.  It wasn't the best henna, I wished it'd come out a darker brown or black, but it was cheap so what do you do. 

Aspen didn't have to run alone.  Her friend Joselyn ran with her.  They came in at 47 min 10 sec, that's 15 min miles for 3.2 miles.  Good Job Aspen, that's a long run when you're only 9.

It was a misty rain all morning, and probably around 45 degrees.  I wore a hat, jacket and gloves plus the scarf/du rag thing they gave us just to keep warm.  13.1 miles in the mud and gravel takes it's toll.  I didn't realize till I got home, that I was just at filthy as everyone else in the race. 

I came in 7th place out of 38 in my age bracket, with a time of 1 hr 53 min.  44th place overall, out of 176 Half Marathoners.  Not too shabby.

Jared and I were meant to go to a Big Band Dance that evening.  That did not happen.  I could not walk too good for a few days and was limping that evening.  But come Monday, everything was fine and I continued my training with a 4 mile run.  We'll see how my recovery goes in July after my Marathon.  Wish me luck.