Calgary Temple Open House Prep

Preparations are still underway.  The Open House Tours start this weekend and there's still so much to do.

They've asked members to come out and help with the landscaping.  The contractors were further behind than they thought.

And when you ask for help...you get help.  300+ people a night out there planting, sodding, sweeping and cleaning.  People everywhere and all working on the Calgary Temple.  How cool is that?!?!  To say you helped complete the Temple.  Not many people can say that.  Jared was out here tonight while I was out with kids.  He got to haul mulch all over the place.

 But in the end it's going to look like this.  Absolutely amazing!

The kids love love love the Temple already.  We went for FHE and drew pictures and took pictures for them to put in their journals.  Sicily had me write things like, "The Temple is Beautiful.  The Temple trees are beautiful.  The dirt is very brown..."  and other such things.  It's so cute to see what a 5 year old observes.

And best of all is the Open House advertising.  It's everywhere.  I saw 3 of these such signs as I drove to Walmart.  Everyone of them made me smile, I just had to stop for a picture.

The youth are participating in a Cultural Celebration that they will put on at the Calgary Stampede Grounds the night before the Dedication.  The coolest part is they are doing this for the Prophet Thomas S. Monson.  London has been to practices 1-2 times a week for almost a month now.  He gets to be in the Ranch scenes and the Nativity scene.  We are so very excited for the Prophet to come, and I am so excited for London that he gets to perform for the Prophet of the Lord.

Halloween is Coming

I love Halloween and I love Halloween stores.  This one was a bit more on the creepy side of things for my taste.  But this fuzzy spider made it all worth while.

Laser Tag

Phoenix has finally reached the age where birthday parties include guns.  What an awesome party he was invited to.  Laser Tag, Boston Pizza and topped off with Marble Slab Icecream.

What little boy wouldn't love this party.  Thanks Cole for the invite.

Star Wars Party

Phoenix had the best Saturday of his life.  He was a guest at a 7 year old Star Wars Party, but he wasn't the only guest.  Darth Vader showed up, heavy breathing and all.

 Every boy had the chance to lock Light Sabers with the minister of doom.

 Wooom, wooom.  You can just hear the sound effects.

"Broken" Wrist

As you can see we have a cast in our family.  The first in 12 years.  I'm not really sure how we survived this long, but our record has been broken.  Sort of.  It's not officially broken.

The X-rays said the bone was not broken but that the cartiledge may be.  So we're in a soft cast for 7-10 days.

London was making a film at school with some friends showing them teaching him how to skate board.  All went well until he tried to Olli (jump the whole board in the air).  Needless to say he ended up on the ground.  And this silly little camera boy missed it, he was filming some other kids shoes.

4 1/2 hrs in the Urgent care and we ended up with a fiber glass cast.

1st Day of Ballet

Our sweet Sicily has been waiting to take Dance Lessons for forever.  And today was the day.  She was so very excited.

So her afternoon consisted of dance, dance, dance and pink, pink, pink.  It was Sicily heaven!!  And she pranced and shased (sp?) beautifully.

1st Day of School

London (7th Grade), Aspen (5th Grade), Phoenix (2nd Grade) and Sicily (Kindergarten).

It was a chilly morning but not too cold to damper the smiles.

About a 14 house walk to the bus stop, so fun to see them all together.

Aspen was the best big sister, looked after Sicily so well.

 Here comes the bus, "get ready Sicily."

Hand in hand, "this is where you go."

"Bye Mom!"

She made it through her first day in many wonderful ways.  This is Madame Anna, in the red, Sicily's French Immersion teacher.  They sang songs in French and English all day, painted and played.  Best first day of Kindergarten ever.

Windy Day

55 degrees outside and snow in the air.  Well, we thought it was snow.  Actually it was rather windy outside and our neighbors have a cotton wood tree.

Wind, rain, snowstorm...it doesn't really stop my kids from going outside.

"It wasn't that windy Mom"

Wind, jump, wind, jump, wind, wind, wind.  It only lasted about 20 mins but it was sure a lot of fun to play in.

Time for Dinner

Sometimes you have to feed the kids and the snake.  

Don't worry, I sanitized the counter top before I took the corn out.

Labor Day Rodeo

Woo Hoo!  What a good Rodeo.  I love small town rodeos.  Especially when Sicily's allowed to stand on the gate.  You just have to watch out for those bulls, they're pretty quick.

London in the hat, next to the round up cowboys.

Stubborn Bronco!  I love it when they can't make them go.

Love those small town Rodeos!  London still in the hat :) and Phoenix in the yellow.

Labor Day Parade

After waiting for quite some time we had loads of fun watching the parade and gathering lots and lots of candy. 

All the pretty Princesses.  They gave Sicily quite the wave.

Ron Casey, kind of the Governor/Senator of Alberta.

Awesome replication of the church in Morley. 

Where's the Beef?

One of the Vet's we've tried.  Cute little puppies.

Tiniest carriage around.

Spanish Arabian Horses.

Not exactly a horse, but apparently it's ride-able.

100th Year of Calgary Stampede.

1st Nations.

 Aliens in Cochrane.

 Hey???  Is that an American flag?

Horse Ca Ca, redecorated by the clowns, and the other clown watered it with a fire extinguisher.  There was another pile we saw on the way to the car that had whipped cream and sprinkles on it.

Rugby.

Love the Bagpipes.

Sweet baby horse.  Shetland pony actually.

British Soldiers.  Palace Guards.  One of them was in church with us the day before.

Airplanes, Airplanes.  I think these ones would actually make me less sick than the real ones.

Pooper Scooper!  Cleaned up the flowers.

Rigby City Park

Jared and I have been married now for almost 13 years and in the small town of Rigby, ID there are still things I've not seen or visited.  One of which is the Rigby City Park.  I may be lying in saying I've never been there because technically I think I have, but it's been a good few years and kids ago.  I'm remembering dutch oven and maybe a Ward/Family picnic, I'm not sure.

So this is a WWI gun thing.  Now just a climbing place for the kids, but with cool plaques to read and learn about.

 Aspen of course on the top most part.  Jared was trying to poke her.

 Coolest, hugest rings ever.  Sicily thinking she's bigger than she is.

 And Aspen at it again.  She never ceases to amaze me.

London was bored out of his mind so Jared and I challenged him to a swinging contest.  I totally won but then had to take some photos (and I was getting sea sick) so here's proof that London came in 2nd.

 Whoo whoo those are some dirty little feet Phoenix.

 Hello down there Phoenix.

 No one would play tag with Aspen so I jumped in.  Notice I'm wearing shoes for about 30 seconds.

 Then the shoes got ditched because Aspen's a bit faster than I thought she'd be.

Tag Aspen!  You're it.  Toes work just as good to tag someone as hands do, and with longer legs it's easier to get away afterwards.