Connor's 11th Birthday

We were in the middle of replacing our flooring on the main floor when we celebrated Connor's 11th birthday so the house was a disaster and things were busy but we still had fun celebrating with family.

Happy Birthday Connor! We sure love you lots and forever.

Maira's Run for Mayor

Maira decided to enter the race for School Mayor this year. She was vying against 18 other candidates and didn't quite get enough votes to win but I was very proud of her for wanting to contribute to her school and for the enormous effort she put into designing her posters by herself and writing her speech by herself. Well done!

This is what her posters looked like:

And here is her speech at the candidates forum. Unfortunately, I was the one filming her speech and I couldn't quite figure out the focus on the camera so it's pretty blurry.

Walk in the River Valley

On a warm June evening, we went for a walk in Laurier Park and Hawrelak Park with Spencer and Hannah.

Jelly Bean Tasting

It's been too long since I've updated. We've been doing house renovations and they have sucked up an enormous amount of time. We're not quite done yet so I don't have time for a long update but I thought I'd just upload these videos of Connor and his friends having fun trying "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans" at his Harry Potter themed birthday party. Enjoy!

I'll post more pictures from my newly 11-year old son's birthday soon.

Maira's Figure Skating Performance

Maira started figure skating lessons in January and she got to perform a couple of numbers in the end of year recital. She absolutely adores figure skating and I suspect this may be her first performance of many.

She performed a one-minute solo followed by a group number with the other three girls in her level.

Skiing at Lake Louise

Now that Hudson and Maira can ski without falling down constantly, we decided to try skiing in the mountains on a real ski hill instead of the small ones around Edmonton.

We picked Lake Louise (partly because they're the only resort in the mountains that offers a family pass for lift tickets and partly because we'd never been there, winter or summer, and it's famous for being so beautiful). We were excited to see that there are dozens of green runs as none of us is a very adventurous skiier so the more green runs the better!

Well, it turns out that their idea of a green run involves a lot steeper inclines than anything Maira or Hudson could handle so we ended up spending a lot more time in the kids area (which was great for Hudson and Maira but still pretty boring for the rest of us) than I had expected. I went on one run up the mountain with Maira on what was supposed to be the easiest run on the whole mountain. Well, she ended up having a melt down about halfway down because the steep areas really scared her so she was happy to stick to the kids area after that. I did take her and Hudson up the gondola but we didn't get off at the top to ski, we just rode it back down to the bottom. We did that while we were waiting for Jess and Shae and Connor to get back from exploring the back side of the mountain. They were supposed to see if any of the green runs on the back were less steep but they ended up taking a wrong lift and making some wrong turns and they were gone for 2 hours! They had quite an adventure and ended up on a blue run part of the time but they survived and have quite the experience to remember!