Halloween 2016

Shae and Connor weren't interested in dressing up this year so I only had two costumes to prepare (with the Pride and Prejudice ball the week before Halloween, I was glad it was easier this year). Hudson chose Harry Potter for his costume (which was super easy since Shae was Hermione when she was his age and then Hudson had been Harry Potter before at age 4 so I pretty much had everything I needed already, I just added a handknit Gryffindor scarf to the ensemble).







Maira decided to be a deer. Kind of a Snapchat filter inspired deer. She almost changed her mind at the last minute when Connor not so helpfully pointed out that female deer don't have antlers but then decided she was actually a reindeer since that's the one species where the females grow antlers (heaven forbid she should be a male deer). Shae used her artistic talents to paint the antlers and paint Maira's face.







Hudson and Maira had a blast going around trick or treating with their friends.

Pride and Prejudice Ball

Last spring, in a moment of madness, Jess agreed to go to a Pride and Prejudice ball with me in October. He hates dancing and has little interest in Jane Austen so I was shocked but excited. I couldn't wait to go to a real ball! We signed up for dance lessons to learn English country dancing and we started researching Regency period costumes. As the date approached, Jess started to get more interested in his costume. He really wanted to make sure it was as accurate as possible. We learned that an easy way to make a Regency period coat is to take a trench coat and cut off the front. He shopped around at Goodwill (one of his favourite pastimes anyway) and found the perfect coat, as well as pants and shoes. I changed the buttons on it from plastic to brass and cut off the front as per his instructions. We rented a gold vest, bought him some tall white socks and I shortened and tapered a pair of beige dress pants and voila, he was transformed into my own Mr. Darcy! And much to both of our surprise, he actually enjoyed the dance lessons. We learned five different dances and when the ball arrived, we certainly weren't perfect but we were able to dance the night away without stepping on anyone's toes. The ball was held at Edmonton's poshest hotel, the Hotel MacDonald, in one of their beautiful ball rooms. There was live music, delicious food and lots of fun people! We had such a good time doing something new and wonderfully silly and now that we already have the costume and know the dances, plan to go to more - the next one is a Sense and Sensibility ball in March.

Back to School 2016

Now that Shae has graduated, we're back down to three kids in school.

Grade 7:

Grade 4:

Grade 2:

20th Anniversary Hike

After a long trip to Nova Scotia, neither of us felt like going on another long trip to celebrate our anniversary. We both love the mountains so we decided to celebrate in Jasper. We both love hiking in the mountains so we picked a reasonably do-able mountain to climb: Morro Peak. From what we read it was supposed to take 2-3 hours to get to the top. We are not exactly athletic so it took us over 3 1/2 hours but we still did it so yay us!

This is the view from partway up the mountain:

After our rest and snack break, we still had this much left to go:

At the top there was a bit of scrambling/easy rock climbing to get to the summit:

At the peak, there's a log book you can sign.

While we were having a rest on the way back down, Jess told me to hold still while he took a picture of my backpack. THEN he swept the spider off onto the ground. Oh well, better to encounter a spider than a bear.

Almost done: this is the trailhead for the hike.

We did it!