Cookies and Crayons

Today is Connie’s last day as a baby. Tomorrow, she toddles her way into her second year.

Connie spent the day taking a few last minutes calls from her public.

Should we be concerned that she is trying to text this early?

Connie just discovered these chairs today and insists on climbing on them.

It’s strange, I can’t believe it’s been a year already and yet at the same time, it seems like Connie has been with us forever. We all excited to see what the next year will hold.

What an exciting Halloween! Our neighbourhood was the perfect place for trick-or-treating! A combination of lots of houses that are close together makes a perfect place for little legs to go to get treats.

For the first year, in a while, Dougie was not Clifford. He didn’t express any opinion on what he should wear so it was perfect when Auntie Lou offered to loan us one of Molly’s old costumes. Dougie fell in love with it. He wanted to wear it to the grocery store in the middle of the month. He decided he was a bumble bee (“bungle bee”). Now, those entomologists in the reading audience may recognize this costume is not a bumble bee – but sometimes, those arguments are just not worth having.

Connie’s costume lends itself to less debate. She clearly is an elephant. Oh wait, no – a flower.

Dougie inspecting Connie before they leave

Okay, let’s go!

One more picture with Dad before heading out the door.

This year went really well for Dougie. He didn’t try to go into anyone’s house and he actually selected candies that he liked if he was given that option. He said thank you at almost everyone house too. It went perfectly until the second to last house. That house had someone who was trying to scare the kids as they came up. Clearly, not realizing that Dougie was 3, he jumped out and yelled as Dougie waited at the door. Scott said Dougie’s screamed so loudly that the neighbour came out to see what was wrong. The next house had some scary sounds and lights so Dougie decided they were done. In fact, they were so done that Scott had to carry him home.

Overall, a great day though and the kids both had a great time!

Not tired

If I can just be careful enough…

He’ll never even notice…

Okay, let’s party!!!

It’s a sunny weekend in Calgary, so you know we are off hiking. This weekend, we decided to tackle Jumping Pound Mountain. When we first started hiking around Calgary, we laughed at the idea of climbing a mountain. That was for people much more athletic. There were three mountains at the time that were brought to our attention that we said we would never climb. Prairie Mountain was the first, which we climbed on Father’s Day. Jumping Pound Mountain was the second.

It was a cold day for climbing. Fall is definitely here! We didn’t take a lot of pictures on the way up. It was mostly trees and forest so there wasn’t much to take a picture of. When we got to the top, it was SO windy! Dougie was cold and not in the mood for pictures so we just took a quick one to remember the summit and then moved on.

Scott and Dougie headed down from the summit

Dougie was pretty ready to head home at this point but we had planned to walk out along the ridge for a while. Fortunately, we saw a helicopter parked on the ridge. Dougie was so excited to see Harold the helicopter. We watched it for a while before it took off. That improved Dougie’s mood enough that we could continue.

Helicopter in front of Tiara Mountain

Fortunately, this mountain wasn’t too high and the ridge went right along the treeline so we decided to go back down so we could get out of the wind and have our lunch.

Dougie is happy again eating his “ham crackers”

Daddy and Connie post lunch

Only one more mountain to do on our “mountains we’ll never climb list.” Hopefully, we can hit Moose Mountain next summer.

About a week ago, Connie took her first steps. Every day, she takes a few more. We finally managed to get them on video.

More back-posts coming soon but we wanted to share this one now.

A while ago, we went to my sister’s cottage in BC. One the way there, we passed a sign for Stanley Glacier. We’ve been wanting to go there since. I admit, I’ve become quite enthralled with glaciers since moving to Calgary. So today, we decided to drive back out there to go for a hike.

What was most interesting about this hike is the lower part of the mountain has been badly burned by two major forest fires and is still recovering. Though it means there aren’t as many nice trees, it substantially improves the view of the surrounding mountains.

This is near the end of the official trail. You can walk up the scree from here but we didn’t think the kids could handle that.

Dougie doing a bit of posing

Mummy and the kids

Connie did some posing too

No no, don’t look at me, look at the camera

Truly a beautiful hike! This was my favourite one we did all year.

Dougie loves his sister. He especially loves to “pbbt the Connie.” Here’s how it works:

Find a Connie lying down (shirt lifted slightly to expose tummy)

Face on the tummy and go “PBBT”

Wait for the giggling to stop

Go in for another one (notice Connie started laughing before it even started this time)

PBBBBTTTTT

Look Mummy, a phone

It’s ringing, I wonder who it’s for?

Hello? This is Connie

Teenage years are going to be tough.

Holy cow, is Maui ever a fun place! We’d heard great things about it from family members and friends, but it doesn’t quite compare to seeing it up close and personal. We took a boat ride to the Molokini volcanic crater just off Maui, which offered some fantastic snorkeling. One of us would watch the kids while the other played in the water, looking at coral and fish.

Kim doing snuba

Scott doing snuba

Dougie and Connie had fun with the glass bottom boat

Dougie decided he has a future career as a photographer

Our hotel had a great kiddie pool – including a thrill-inducing 8” deep section for Connie

Connie giving Daddy some swimming pointers

The pool had a big pirate ship in the middle – tailor made for Dougie! At every turn he was asking to go in the “pirate ship pool”. We had to learn to avoid windows and walkways within line of sight of the pool – otherwise we never would have seen the rest of Maui.

Dougie sliding down the pirate ship

The hotel was also right on the beach – so Connie and Dougie had lots of time to play in the sand

Having given up on photography, Dougie started thinking about architecture

Connie, meanwhile, seemed more interested in geology

Of course, we had to go to a luau…

Dougie was pretty excited about the luau – especially the dancers, who (according to him) were doing lots of “shaking and wiggling!”

We had a pretty great setup in our room – lots of space for the family

We drove the gorgeous “road to Hana” and made a bunch of stops along the way

Toward the end of our vacation, we took the long, winding drive to the top of Haleakala, the main volcano on Maui. Managed to cover over 10,000 feet of vertical drop along the way!

Of course, at 10,000 feet, the weather was a bit cooler than it was by the beach. We forgot sweaters for the kids, so Dougie managed to “acquire” Daddy’s sweater. Fits like a glove! … a horribly, horribly oversized glove.

All in all, it was a fabulous vacation – Maui lived up to its very high expectations. And gave us enough warm memories to live through an Alberta winter!

After spending nine often-frigid months in Calgary, we decided that a warm weather getaway would be in order. We usually try to take a vacation around this time (coinciding with our anniversary), and this year we spent about 10 days in Hawaii – a few days in Honolulu, and a week in Maui. We figured it was a good blend of exotic (fun to visit) and familiar (easy to take care of the junior Sharaburas). Aloha! Kim had already been to Hawaii when she was growing up, so she was able to serve as a tour guide of sorts.

We started our trip by taking in some of the sights on Oahu – including a volcanic crater

Dougie was impressed with the size of the plant life in Hawaii

Dougie showing Mummy around the island

“Hey, if I have to be on vacation with my parents, I’m still gonna look as cool as I can”

Mummy and Connie on the Pineapple Train at the Dole Plantation

Dougie and Daddy on the Pineapple Train

That a fine lookin’ pineapple guitar player!

Everyone but Mummy, looking out over the Pacific

Dougie was very kind to loan Connie his old stroller!

A scenic lookout on Oahu, along with Dougie and Mummy

One highlight of the trip was our visit to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach. While we didn’t stay there (that’s well beyond our budget!), it has a special significance in the Sharabura family history – as the place where Grandma and Grandpa Sharabura first met back in 1960. We figured it would be an appropriate place to bring two of their grandchildren.

A new generation of Sharaburas at the Royal Hawaiian (shhhh, we weren’t guests!)

After a few whirlwind days on Oahu, we took off for our week in Maui.