March Break

Last week was our March Break and we took a little vacation to Canmore. It's not too far from Lake Louise (we made 6 trips there in the 10 days), and we were able to get away from it all, sort of.

It didn't take the girls long to discover the children's channels on the tv...

It was very quiet at Temple Lodge mid-week.
We spent some time walking around Canmore. Alison was trying to hide behind me, but I wouldn't let her!

Racing Girl

Last weekend, Sarah participated in the Doug Meyers Memorial Race at Lake Louise. She had a great time, and is certainly improving. Check out the look of determination, and can't you just see the speed? She's awesome!

La semaine de la francophonie

The girl's school celebrated the semaine de la francophonie with a big assembly and many wonderful performances. Sarah was in 3 groups - one using wooden spoons to tap along to some musique folklorique, one singing a very cute song about les pommes, and a lovely dance including streamers flowing from the dancers wrists which required at least a month's rehearsals.



Having never seen the dance, I was unsure when the best photo op would be. Here I just missed her face glowing with the joy of perfomance.

Best Skiing in Reverse Gear

Alison's 10 week stint with the Bow Valley Kids ended on Sunday. Her instructor, Ossi, awarded her a certificate for the "best skiing in reverse gear," in honour of her ability to ski backwards all the way down the T-bar hill. And yes, the backwards skiing was intentional.

There was a big pot-luck lunch celebration and a movie with coverage of the kids in the group skiing. Alison had a great time skiing with her group, and was slightly sad for it all to end. But now she gets to ski with Mom and Dad again. Oh boy!

Here she is with her group:

Alison is still wearing her googles. Ossi is the grown-up, although from other pictures we can tell he's really a kid at heart.

Happy Birthday Rustle

Today is our favourite golden retriever's first birthday. He's had a great day so far: girls singing "Happy Birthday," a big long walk in the dog park, and a birthday cake made of puppy cookies, peanut butter and kibble. He even got his favourite weather - it's snowing!

He is still very much a puppy, and could hardly wait for me to open his new chewy. We hope his day is as happy as can be.



Here's the birthday dog waiting for the kindergarten bus. What a good boy!

Alison meets Baby Benjamin

Baby Benjamin and his mom, Lissa, came to town for a little visit. We had about an hour before we all had to be elsewhere, and that did not faze Ben one little bit. He slept almost the whole time we were there. It gave us lots of time to chat and learn what fun the other Taylor family is having.

Ben woke up about 10 minutes before we had to leave to meet Sarah for the bus. Alison got a chance to cuddle up with him on the blanket.

Jump rope for heart

Sarah and Alison are practicing for Jump Rope for Heart, which their school will be doing sometime in May.

Sarah came home today very proud of a new skill she learned - she can now do crossovers! She grabbed a rope to show us in the garage, and she is quite good at it.

Here is a rather dark, blurry image of her working at it. Dark because she's in the garage, blurry because she's moving very fast. Her hair, you may notice, is a huge mane, and her smile is just huge.

Sparky goes to the Science Centre

Alison's Sparks group went to the Science Centre for a sleep-over on the weekend. She had a great time learning about all sorts of neat stuff, and even made ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Apparently the Science Guy who was explaing how it worked was speaking at an older level, so Alison turned to her leader and said, "I don't know why my mom put me in Sparks. I'm only 5."

She had a good night and is looking forward to the next sleep-over, which includes mom at the Brownie camp where Sarah went. Big girl stuff, that is.

Snowball catcher

Rustle has become an expert snowball catcher. We finally got some snow last week, and he is perfecting his technique.

Now, I've discovered that throwing a snowball for a dog to catch and trying to take a picture of that same action is rather impossible. Here is my attempt at the procedure:


So, we'll see if the snow will last long enough to try again (we had a chinook and the snow mostly melted except for the thick layer of ice everywhere.)

Rehearsal

I took the camera to skating last night to hopefully get some new skating shots. However, the groups are practising for a skating carnival, doing group routines, so there were no good shots to be had.

So here are a couple of pictures from the Christmas holidays of us skating at the Olympic Oval (we are on the short-track skating ice). As you can see, Alison is already pulling me along...