Winter Break 2019

The winter break felt like it would never arrive! It marked several milestones this year, the biggest one being, 18 months for Scarlett (how did she get to be a year and a half old already?!) and six whole months back at work for me. The feeling like I'm drinking from the fire hose has slowed down, and I think I'm starting to figure out this work life balance. Sort of.

On December 23 while I was at work, I managed to snap this super cool photo of the Calgary Tower in the a foggy morning sunrise!

But this winter break, we were able to put work behind us (sort of), and focused on some uninterrupted family time.

One milestone this year, was that Lacey was not afraid of Santa. She marched right up to him, sat with him, and told him how she wanted Anna's coronation dress, and a skipping rope for Christmas. Scarlett, on the other hand, was dead terrified of Santa, and wouldn't even look at him. 

The weather cooperated for us, and we were able to go toboganning! I don't think Lacey remembered our precious sledding adventures. Scarlett, ever the dare-baby, thought it was the greatest thing we'd ever done. There was plenty of squealing "MORE! MORE!" 

We went skating... Lacey HATED it. I think she thought she was going to get up on her skates and go-- she hadn't thought about how hard it was going to be!

We went swimming with Auntie, Uncle and Zoe!

We went to check out the Zoo lights, which turned out to be a huge hit for both Lacey and Scarlett. Their favourite was a flashing dinosaur, that Lacey named "Roar Roar".

We had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house at Christmas, and everyone thought that was a fun time (despite not everyone having a great sleep...)

And as you can see, Santa fulfilled Lacey's wish for a Anna's coronation dress!

We packed a ton into our Christmas break. 

Happy holidays, from our family to yours!

Big Z Turns One!

My lovely little niece, Zoe, is turning one!

What a lovely, giggly little sweetheart! Watching Zoe pass all the milestones this last year has been so fun! She's a picture of her Mama, and has that wonderful baby-laugh that makes you smile when you hear it. She's determined, stubborn, and curious! She is every-intrigued by her big cousins, Lacey and Scarlett. And I love that Lacey and Scarlett have the opportunity to be big cousins to someone else! 

The other thing I love about Zoe, is that she has done things so differently in her first year, than our girls did. Scarlett and Lacey approached their milestones at different times, but they did most of them in very similar ways. But Zoe has approached life differently, and it's her own unique and adorable way!

My sister-in-law and I were lucky enough to have six months of our maternity leave overlapping. So we were able to hang out a few times, and took a Mom & Baby exercise class together.

Zoe's 1st Birthday has allowed me to do two things. First of all, make some pretty pink puppy cupcakes, after her pink poodle stuffie.

And craft to my heart's content. 

I've recently discovered sewing felt, and I put it to good use by sewing a bunch of fruit and vegetables for Zoe to play with in her new kitchen.

Happy 1st Birthday, Zozo! Auntie, Uncle, and cousins love you! 

Fall in Phoenix

Since I went back to work at the end of June, my holiday is prorated for the year. And once I take a few days for Christmas, I really don't have a ton of holiday left. So this year we decided to take an extended weekend vacation in Phoenix with the girls.

Tom and I hiked the Grand Canyon in 2012. We flew into Phoenix,  but we were only there for an evening, before the hiking company we went with picked us up. All I remember is that the tour company picked us up at 4am, and the blast of heat was unbelievable when we exited the hotel in the pitch dark.

So Phoenix was a new adventure for our family. Spoiler alert-- I'd go there again. There was surprisingly a lot to do with a family!

So let's recap. 

First of all, a hotel, or in our case an AirBnB, with a pool was a must. We went in the pool every day, until the girls lips turned blue. Lacey learned to appreciate a hot tub, although Scarlett is still to little for them. Scarlett, ever the dare-baby, kept trying to jump into the pool when we weren't looking, so one of us had to trail after her at all times. NO LAPSES IN KEEPING AN EYE ON HER. Lacey has been enjoying the water more and more, since she started an unparented swimming class in the fall. She especially loves wearing her bright pink goggles!

Phoenix has an amazing butterfly garden. It's a huge facility with hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies fluttering around. Unfortunately, both of the girls were afraid of the butterflies! Especially Scarlett... She did not enjoy their wings, and random landing. At one point there were three butterflies on Tom. He and I were both super excited about it, but Scarlett was crying hysterically, and Lacey was pretty anxious about them landing on him.

Phoenix also has an amazing zoo. The best part about it is that they have a joint partnership with zoos around the world, and since we are zoo members in Calgary, we were able to get a 50% discount on our entrance fee in Phoenix. The zoo was huge and sprawling, with tons of animals to see. Lacey loved the komodo dragon statue, and we watched the orangutans playing for a long time.

As luck would have it, an old friend was passing through Phoenix on business, and we managed to have dinner together. That marks two visits in 2019! It's pretty challenging to meet up when you live half way across the country from each other!

Other activities on our trip included, shopping at the mall, ice cream, and the aquarium. I don't have any good photos from the aquarium, but it too is a very impressive facility, especially since it's out in the middle of the desert!

The flights went smoothly, and we had a great trip! Phoenix, I'm sure you'll be seeing us again.

For the Love of Pickling

Ah... September. How I love you for your warm days and cool nights. You are the month of my birthday and wedding anniversary... But what I love most about September is that it's garden harvesting time!

Our garden did pretty good this year. We had, lettuce, onions, zucchini, cucumber, beets, sugar snap peas, spinach, green beans, tomatoes and carrots. The onions all died randomly (and for seemingly no reason?), and only 25 of the 250 carrot seeds I planted actually germinated... But we had a huge yield of peas that Scarlett and Lacey enjoyed. And the lettuce has been flourishing in huge bushels!

And now, it's time for pickling. I just LOVE pickling. I love harvesting, I love prepping, I love arranging the jars, and I love treating them. I love hearing that satisfying pop when the jars seal. I love cracking them open to see what kind of flavour we managed to get.

Given our crappy carrot harvest, I've been forced to pickle some grocery store carrots. Which is a bit disappointing, but still delicious. My real pride and joy this year are our green beans. Last year, I bought the wrong kind of green bean seed. They made very small plants, and only yielded a small amount of beans. This year, I planted a pole-bean, and the vines have crept up our deck railing, and are full of beany deliciousness!

We also had a LOT of beets. Some of you may recall that I'm not really a fan of beets. I find their flavour to be too strong.. And their flavour, which I can only imagine is what sewage tastes like, does not sit well on my palate. But as a testament to my love and devotion, I pickled multiple jars of beets for Tom. And let me tell you, pickling beets is an involved process. You have to boil them and cook them, which takes almost an hour. Then you have to peel and cut them (while beet juice leaks all over your kitchen), and then the pickling solution is much more complicated than carrots and pickles. There's pickling salt, and bay leaves... The whole process leaves your house reeking like boiled beets.

Finally... This year we had enough cucumbers to make two small jars of pickles. And look!!! They look like real pickles, that you'd buy from a store! Things I didn't know about cucumbers--those suckers are HELLA spikey! They have wicked spines all over them.

All in all, this endeavor took more time than I'd care to admit. But I loved every minute of it (except for the residual beet reek). Every year, I think about how the girls will be bigger, and more able to help with the garden in 2020. You can bet you'll find out about it here. 

All Things Summer

Once I started back to work at the end of June, I knew the summer would fly by. And here we are, eight weeks later, with August already petering out into the coolness of fall.

I've been enjoying being back at work. Life is busy and hectic, but it feels good to be tackling new challenges. The girls are enthusiastic, energetic and thriving. Scarlett settled into our daycare routine with little fuss, although she has had two fevers and two colds already. She's feisty and adventurous, and has been happy to try each new experience daycare has offered her. Lacey becomes more expressive and sassy every day. Her imagination knows no bounds, and she loves making us pretend meals, and performing songs.

The weather this summer has been passable at best, so we've tried to take advantage of our very limited outdoor season. Scarlett's head is finally big enough for a bike helmet, so on any given week, you'll find us on a bike ride, somewhere.

Here's a recap of our summer in my favourite photos.

We celebrated Canada Day at Heritage Park, watching grandma line dance.

We went to the zoo!

We went to the Stampede. Lacey played a single game of Whack-a-Mole, and managed to win this gigantic pink unicorn. We just looooove him and his giant pink-hair-shedding presence in our house (*eye roll*)

We played in the river at Sandy Beach (which, FYI, has a very misleading name, it's not at ALL sandy). And despite the fact that Scarlett looks like she's upset in the photo, she loved the water!

We were silly.

We dressed up! Scarlett in particular has developed a penchant for wearing other people's shoes. And Lacey loves being Minnie, Elsa, Cinderella, Fancy Nancy or Rapunzel.

We played at parks.

Ice cream circa 2017.

Ice cream circa 2019.

We ate ice cream-- and I am happy to report Lacey no longer thinks ice cream and bike rides are the worst day ever!

With Labour Day about to roll around, we can say good-bye to summer. It was a good one!

Comfort Camping - Sundance Lodges

So, this weekend past, Tom and I decided to try our hand at camping. We were never big campers before kids, with the exception of our multi-day backpacking hikes. But the camping for those hikes was out of necessity for the hike, not really for the love of camping. However, we both feel that camping is an important experience for kids, and we figured we'd take some of the complication out of it by booking ourselves a tipi!

A tipi in July! That'll be fun! ... Right?

Yeah... Not exactly. 

First of all, there was a lot of rain. And I neglected to bring rain boots or rain pants for our kids, which would have solved a lot of our problems. The forecast had seemed like it wasn't going to be too bad, but the weather was changeable. I should have known to bring something for all weather!

Second of all, Scarlett wakes up at 5:00am EVERY. DAY. And this is fine when we're at home, and one of us can scoop her up and take her down to the basement so everyone else in the house can continue sleeping. But when you're in a tipi at 5:00am, everyone is awake. And when everyone is awake (I'm looking at you, Lacey), some people are giant sleep deprived monsters.

On the other hand, Scarlett was loving life!

Thirdly, kids under four years old don't really like hiking. Us adults might like hiking. But hiking while carrying all of the kids? Not really my cup of tea. Nevertheless, we made it up the "family friendly" Troll Falls Hike.

Finally, it was really freaking cold at night. There was a kerosene heater inside the tipi, but we ran out of kerosene the first night before we went to sleep, and the second night we turned it off because we couldn't handle the kerosene fumes. 

I know, I'm being a total Debbie Downer about this experience. I think Lacey and Scarlett had a great time... It just wasn't that fun for the adults. Will we do it again? Yes. But we will definitely be waiting until Scarlett can wake up at a more reasonable time! And we will also hope for better weather!