Sure feels like Christmas when...

The ice is frozen! We'll be able to skate soon! Or so we thought. After these four dedicated snow shovellers spent hours clearing a very large surface, we got a chinook! Gotta love Southern Alberta! Sara, Hannah and mom even played hookey on Monday - that's right - hookey, not hockey and we went to Castle to ski for the day. After two runs, we went and got our money back because it was a slushy mess. The upside was that we got to come home and make gingerbread all afternoon. The gingerbread house decorating is planned for tomorrow night. But, as for the ice, the chinook is now over so perhaps we'll be skating this weekend after all. And that, will feel like Christmas!

Alberta School Attire

We have had absolutely frigid weather here for the past few days. After swimming lessons today Hannah tucked her braids under her hood because she was afraid they would freeze and crack off on our short walk to the car! This is what a typical morning looks like when Sara and Hannah head off to the bus! On the bright side, it means that we'll be skating and skiing very soon!

Halloween!

Remember how you couldn't sleep the night before Halloween? And you would dump out all your candy as soon as you got home to count how many of each kind you got? What a fun holiday!

We had a Trunk or Treat at the church on Saturday and then carnival games inside. The weather was not your typical Southern Alberta Halloween weather. It was about 15 degrees and sunny! Later in the evening we made homemade rootbeer with our cousins using dry ice. What a delicious treat! But, right now, I think we'd all agree that we do not want to see any more chocolate until NEXT halloween.

Wishbone

Last night Hannah and I split the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey. I was amazed because Hannah did not know what a wishbone was. First we explained and then we both made our wish and then counted down 3 2 1 PULL!

We puled and CRACK! I had the top! Hopefully my wish comes true. I will find out soon!

What Makes You Happy?

This is what I asked Hannah and told her to give me her answer in pictures. I thought you might enjoy her responses as much as we did. To be fair, her siblings were not here at the time so her creativity is evident! I took the photo of her because she's one of the 5 biggest reasons I'm happy! What makes YOU happy? :)

Our Eventful Day

Thanks to all of our cheering squad on our busy Wednesday. All went well. The plate and screws are out. I will no longer set off alarms at airports! I managed to be awake for the surgery this time and saw what the hardware looked like. Modern medicine is amazing!

Matt had a fantastic run. He placed second right behind Matt Knapik, his friend from school. His time was 7:53 for a 2km run. Fairly quick. :) You can see from the photos what a beautiful day it was in Medicine Hat!

Conference Weekend

Early thursday morning we headed out to Salt Lake City, Utah for General Conference. When I say early, I mean EARLY! We left at 4am. Do you know how shocking to the system it is to shower at 3:30am? But, it was worth it as we pulled into Salt Lake at just after 4pm. When we got there we were all STARVING, we decided to go to a burger place that some friends had recommended called In And OUT Burger. That night we all went to BYU and mom and grandma went to the Stephanie Nielson talk and they said it was great. While they were listening to the talk dad and grandpa Parker, Matt, Hannah and I toured around BYU. It was great. We saw the MTC and we went to the BYU book store. Hannah got a BYU t-shirt it is blue with BYU written across it. Parker got a blue under armor shirt that has the 'Y' on it. I got a new blue football jersey. It has the 'Y' on it and is really awesome. We didn't find anything for Matt. After that we were on our way back to the hotel in Salt Lake. We were prepared for the BYU game now that we were going to on Friday night against USU in Logan.It was a great day/ couple hours. The atmosphere was very cool but the game absolutely stunk because BYU lost. Conference was wonderful. We went to the Saturday morning session. It was pretty amazing! Dad, Parker and Matt went to the priesthood session with Grandpa. They loved it. We drove home all day sunday and got home in time to sort the laundry! Mom was thrilled!

Football Player Extraordinaire

So Sara is playing football! She loves it! She had three games today and her dedicated fans (AKA her family including Grandma and Aunt Carolyn) endured frigid temperatures to cheer her on. She has fast feet and is not afraid to lower her shoulder and hit hard! Notice her new mouthguard she's holding in her hand. After having it made, she realized she'd chosen the colours of the rival team. Oooops!

The First Day Back!

The first day was August 30th this year. What happened to waiting until after Labour Day? Despite not wanting to go to school, the Stewart kids looked and played the part of happy school children! Parker started grade 10.
Sara started grade 5. This will be her last year at Lakeview! Middle School next year. :(
Matt is the "big" kid at Paterson this year.
Hannah started grade 3. Our "baby" is no longer a baby. Buddy was so sad to see them go...

Summer Goes Out With a Splash

We had a great summer! Starting with Trek and ending with a one night , magical camping trip to St. Mary's. We travelled to Ontario and had all our cousins visit us at our home in the month of August. We had a week in Waterton together and lots of little adventures in between. We managed to get all four kids up together on skiis just a few days before school started. Makes you think, "Why does summer ever have to end?"

Hannah's Biggest Day Yet!

As I was reviewing past posts, I noticed this one never got posted! What a day to miss. So, we'll add it now.

Hannah was baptized on June 26 of this year. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we had a ton of family able to come! Hannah could barely wait for it and was thrilled to be baptized by her dad in the same dress as cousin Samantha and her sister, Sara.

It's a little sad for a mom when her last "baby" makes such a big decision and the arms of "grown-up-ed-ness" seem to be beckoning. But, so far the vial of "freeze time" has not made itself known to us so we'll just have to keep cheering on all the milestones that make up the chapters in Hannah's (and everyone else's) storybook.

It was a great day, Hannah!

At school one of the teachers, Mrs. Firth, has started a running club. This year for the first time in 4 years we got t-shirts. On the front they say "I believe..." and on the back they say "...do you?"

We ran in the Little Souls Marathon on Saturday.

This one's for the BOYS!

Every week we seem to have lots of excitement around here. This past one was especially neat for the boys!! Parker was awarded his Chief Scout Award along with a great group of friends. They've all worked really hard!

As for Matt, he turned the big 13! We now have two teenagers! How did that happen? If anyone has a potion that will freeze time and make it stop, please let us know. You can be sure that our fridge is always full now - I seem to shop daily to keep these guys fed - and any friends they drag home with them!!!! My food storage planning needs to include a lot of munchies and processed foods I think!

Snow Woes...

Spring has sprung! But not quite literally here in the prairies! We have snow again today! Just think how green it will soon be here - at least by July. We did have our first Snow Day in 26 years two weeks ago. Only in Southern Alberta do you get your one and only Snow Day in the middle of April! Perhaps soccer will start soon. Sara and Hannah will be so excited when it does!

Terrific Tides

We went at the low tide time and looked at the clams, sea weed, sea anenomes, small crabs and anything in the ocean that we could find! We also saw 2 or 3 seals in the distance!

The Lucky Hog

We rubbed the hogs nose, that means that we have to come back someday! I'm glad, it's beautiful here!

Butchart Beauties

Butchart Gardens are quite big and beautiful! We had to search for 12 porcelain bunnies to get the prize, we only found 10 but they still gave us the prize!

Tree Huggers

Vancouver island has some huge trees! Linking arms around the trunk is hard work! They are gifungous! Supposedly some of these are 800 years old. Most of them are off trail and you can't get to them - but this one was accessible. They are well over 100 feet tall - certainly makes you feel small.

Dads 40th

Dad turned 40 in February. We surprised him by making a breakfast. Notice the pancakes are shaped as a 4 and a 0!

Stewart Family

We decided to start a blog! Hope you like it! Once we see if this works, we'll add more. We took this photo during the Olympics. We loved watching them and we are in denial that they are over!!