Cookies and Crayons

Living next to a park sure has some advantages, we’re never more than putting shoes on away from a little trip over there.

Dougie loves the swing! He sometimes will use his legs to keep going but for the most part, he likes to be pushed.

Connie is content to hang out in the stroller

Dougie is also a huge fan of the slide

No matter what else he does, it always comes back to the slide

This last trip to the park, we decided to try Connie in the swing, and then Dougie decided to help

We love how much they love each other!

Happy Father’s Day! What a fantastic day we had!! We both got up early and decided to go for a hike. Not just any hike though, we were going to climb a mountain. We had tried a day earlier but after a few wrong turns, we decided we would shelve the trip and try again today.

The hike started off pretty steep. We were both a bit concerned but, fortunately, it would level occasionally to give us a little break. We both were carrying kids at the beginning but after the first big climb, Dougie decided he wanted to walk. Scott was thrilled though having a toddler climb a mountain did slow us down a lot.

Dougie took one of my walking sticks and he really enjoyed the hike.

One of the unfortunate things about this hike was that there were only a few opportunities for a great view until we were well up the train. Here was the first fantastic view we saw.

Dougie was in and out of the backpack carrier as we went up. He did surprisingly well in it.

Dougie did most of this very long very steep section of switchbacks on his own. We couldn’t believe what a trooper he was!

Dougie and Scott as they broke through the tree line

Kim and Connie stop to find a geocache en route

Dougie was taking a lot of breaks by this point. He’d go 10-15 feet and then just sit down.

Almost there…

Making a final assault on the summit

More resting

LOOK, snow!

Scott and Dougie finishing the climb to the summit

Success!

Scott and the kids at the summit cairn

Moments before this, Connie tried to eat a rock. Scott thought it was funny she was trying to eat the mountain and tried to get a picture.

Kim goes off to find the summit cache.

The hike down seemed almost worse than the hike up. Partially because we were already tired, partially because it was a very different muscle group being used and partially because there is no option to turn back at that point – you must go down.

It was a very different Father’s Day and won’t likely be a tradition but we were thrilled to do it and are excited to climb our next mountain!

The obsession with playing the piano continues in our family. Connie loves to tickle the ivories.

Really getting into it

The frustration of an artist

A little singing

The concentration

Who wants to sign me to a record label?

While we were in Vancouver, Connie started to really move herself. She had been able to go very short distances (< 2 feet) prior to our trip but she suddenly realized that this crawling thing could be a good way to get around.

She has a pretty good body position

But actually crawls in this position:

Notice her far arm is flat on the floor, that arm is used to pull her along the floor (it stays in that position). The other arm does some pulling as well. One foot is used to push her along. The other foot is for stability only. Despite the less than conventional method, she is quite fast and can easy go across and entire room.

As you would expect, Connie is thrilled with her new abilities. Dougie, on the other hand, is not as thrilled. Suddenly, all his toys are “up for grabs.” He’s started putting them on tables, I don’t have the heart to tell him that won’t work for long either.

We are trying to live here like tourists. We want to see a lot of what Alberta has to offer and don’t want to get into a rut and realize after our time here that we missed a lot. So, we took a trip to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. For those who don’t know, Scott has had a lifelong dream to go there – so we had to go.

Dougie and Scott check out one of the many buffaloes

There it is – this is *the* jump.

It was pretty cold that day. We thought tucking Connie into my jacket would be our best bet.

Here is the carpet in the center – Scott wants to put this into the house.

Since we had come so far already, we decided to head over to Frank Slide (click here for more information on Frank Slide). We hadn’t planned on the trip but it was only about an hour away and it sounded interesting. Nothing could have truly prepared us though. As we approached, all you could see was rock. In a matter of only a few minutes, all this rock fell and covered the town of Frank.

Again, our pictures leave some to be desired as the camera was still not fixed.

Turtle Mountain – the source of the slide

The rock

It was a long day but we’re so glad that we were able to go. On our way home, we saw a bear! There wasn’t time to get a picture (not that it likely would have turned out) as it darted across the road but it made the day for us.

We were so excited to be able to get out to Vancouver to visit Scott’s parents. It is a lot easier now that it’s just an hour flight!!

The weather wasn’t ideal, but we found some great inside things to do.

Grandma picked up some gluten-free cookie mix and Dougie, Daddy and Grandma all made cookies one afternoon.

Gathering around getting things going

Watching the mixer

Adding more mix

Almost ready for the next step

A few rolling instructions from Grandma and Dougie was off

“Okay, I’ve got this”

Daddy and Grandma step in to apply a bit of pressure

Taste testing before we start cutting

More direction from Grandma on the next steps

And Dougie can do it almost on his own

Let’s just be sure it still tastes good

Sprinkle on some sugar

Trying some different sprinkles

Our visit wasn’t only about sprinkles and cookies though. Connie got some good quality time with her grandparents. She’s changed a lot since the last time they saw her so it was fun for everyone to get to know each other again.

Dougie taught Aunt Judy about Thomas trains.

We had a great time! We took a lot more pictures but unfortunately, we dropped our camera while we were there and it broke the lens and the remaining pictures didn’t come out at all.

Now that it’s getting warmer and people are starting to come out of their houses, we decided that we need to start experiencing more of Alberta. Who knows how long we’ll end up being here and there is so much to see! So, we decided to make a day trip out to Drumheller – it’s about an hour and a half drive from Calgary.

For those not familiar with Drumheller, it’s most famous for its dinosaurs. We thought Dougie may enjoy it since he sort of likes dinosaurs. Well, I should more accurately say he used to “sort of like” dinosaurs, now, they are his favourite thing on earth!

This is the largest dinosaur on earth

Sitting on the dino’s foot

For $3, you could climb up into the mouth of the dinosaur. Of course, we had to do that.

Dougie at this point was so enthralled with everything dinosaurs that it was hard to get him to look anywhere else.

They just have these things on every street corner.

There is more to Drumheller than dinosaurs, it also has some of the most impressive Hoodoos in the world. Of course, we had to stop there.

Mum and Connie in front of one of the hoodoos.

Daddy and Dougie with a different hoodoo

Notice we didn’t totally escape the dinosaurs.

From the hoodoos, we went to an old suspension bridge that took us over to an old mining area. The bridge isn’t used for that anymore but it’s maintained by the province for tourist use. I was not a fan. We climbed a reasonably large hill there to get a better view of the area. We didn’t see the mine but it was a lovely little excursion.

After a long day, we were all very ready to get home. We didn’t hit all the sites we were hoping to so we’ll have to go back. We decided to let Dougie drive home, he has to learn sometime.

Happy Half Birthday to Connie!

It’s so hard to believe that 6 months have gone by already. She has changed so much and yet it seems like it was just yesterday she was born.

We started solids with Dougie when he was 5 months old. We decided to wait a bit longer with Connie. Now that she’s 6 months though, it’s time.

She looks ready, don’t you think?

We don’t really have what we need here to make our own foods, so we decided to buy food this time. I let Dougie pick which food we’d try first, he selected sweet potatoes.

Why yes, that is a shot glass of sweet potatoes (I did tell you we didn’t have everything we needed for this – I was lucky to have remembered the right spoons)

WHAT did you just put in my mouth?

Hmm, not sure what I think of this…

Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad

Sweet potatoes are a success and we’re off to a good start with this food stuff. Hopefully, this trend will continue.

We are back in Dallas for Connie’s six month check-up. Actually, she’s a week shy of 6 months but Scott had a golf tournament so we opted to come in a week early. The doctor went through all the usual questions to see how she is doing developmentally and she is right on target.

Her latest stats:

Connie did so well with her shot! She made a brief cry, realized it was over and then stopped.

We’re all back in Calgary now! Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before we get back to Dallas but we had a fun time while we were there. Until then, we’re just hangin’ out and enjoying our time in Calgary.

Editors Note: Pardon some back logs, we’ve missed several posts over the last while and are getting caught up.