On the Podium Part 2

Look who's on the podium today! It's Alison, winning the bronze medal for her Level 3 Elements.

Congratulations, Miss Alison!

On the Podium

Who's that on the podium, collecting her gold medal for her performance of the Dutch Waltz?

Why that's our one and only Sarah.

Congratulations Miss Sarah on a wonderful skate.

Camera phones don't do it justice

The girls have new skating dresses and wore them to their lessons today. They look fabulous!

Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, and had only my phone to capture the moment. Here goes nothing:

Miss Alison




Miss Sarah

Alison's Publishing Centre

Alison, our prolific writer, has set up a desk and supplies in her room to enable her to publish her many books. Until now, titles such as "Snow," "I Love School," and "The Kids of the Forest," were known only to her family.



Today, a pink bedroom, tomorrow, the world!

Happy New Year!

We spent a lovely New Year's Eve in the mountains. We had some glorious weather to enjoy our favourite winter activities.

We skied at Lake Louise (Alison skied a black diamond - Lower Meadowlark, which is her mom's favourite run at the end of the day. Believe me, this is exciting stuff.)





We skated on the Lake outside the Chateau Lake Louise.



We stayed at the Lake Louise Inn, where we saw countdowns for midnight in two time zones that were not our own.



We decided that 2006 was a great year for all of us, and we are looking forward to lots of adventures in 2007. We wish you all a wonderful New Year too.

Christmas Eve

We were all ready for Christmas.

The tree was decorated.



We took time to read Christmas stories.



So we drove to Banff to spend Christmas Eve in the mountains.



There was a candy Banff Springs Hotel...



and the girls were two sizes too small.



We skated on the pond




and then came home to leave cookies for Santa (and oats and carrots for the reindeer.)

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

In an exciting and busy day, Sarah got to wear her pyjamas to school for pyjama day, she brought in chocolate brownies for the class, Daddy picked her and Alison up for lunch at Nick's, and they did art projects all afternoon. After she got home and dressed for skating, Mom got home to take her to the rink, and we were surprised with 15 bonus ice minutes! Yay! Free skating time!

Once we got back home, we had a wonderful dinner - lamb chops with potatoes and as a special treat picked out by Alison, artichokes! Then there were presents, and plenty of them, followed by ice cream cake.

It was quite a day. Mom crashed while reading Alison's story and couldn't even post a blog about it until the next day.

Here's the birthday girl in all her present-opening glory:

Birthday Party!

We celebrated Sarah's 9th birthday a bit early. We went to a rec centre where there was a skating rink, a wave pool and a party room. It was lots of fun. We'll see if turning 9 for real on Friday will be a bit of a let-down after the big party...

Soaring through the air

Sarah's skating coach strapped her into a harness at skating today to practice her waltz jump. Check this out!

Birthday Party

For Alison's birthday we had a Hawaiian luau party.

There were friends....



ice-cream cake...



and best of all, Gramma came to visit.



What a great way to celebrate!