Eat your heart out, Napoleon!

Preston's thoughts on choosing to get married

A Christmas Concert Sampler

This week was the week of Christmas concerts at the school Monday night was the Jr/Sr. High band concert and Thursday night was the elementary Christmas concert. Tomorrow, Alyssa plays a piano duet at a casual style recital in Lethbridge.

This is the Grade 8 band. Alyssa is in the second row playing the Alto Saxophone. She is wearing black and has her hair up. The Grade 8 band played 3 numbers. This is their third, about the magi.

At the elementary school, each grade performed a number. This is the kindergarten (all 3 classes) doing "Must be Santa." I know the video is too fuzzy to pick out Preston, but he is in a white shirt and tie next to a kid in a red sweater on the end of the first row on the higher stage near the right hand side of the screen. Through most of the video, the lighting pole cuts him in half. This number was quite a crowd pleaser.

I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to get the video of Austin to load, but apparently, I accidentally switched my camera to high quality mode when I videoed him. Because of that, the video uses a lot of memory and won't upload very well. Austin's grade played hand chimes for various carols between each of the other numbers. About 15 kids performed at a time. He participated in Jolly Old Saint Nicholas and Jingle Bells.

The elementary concert more than packed the Tom Karren Gym. Apparently the audience was in excess of a thousand people....the band concert wasn't quite so packed.

The Grade 6 Zeniths Season Opener...highlights and interviews

On Friday, December 4th the Magrath Grade 6 Zeniths played their season opening match--a scrimmage between blue (the handsome devils) and yellow (the more handsome devils) at half time of a game at the Senior Boys tournament. Coach and referee Jeff Jacobs led his team to success in the brief match up.
It was a hard fought game with many willing hands ready to accept the pass. At this moment, I believe Austin was calling out, "over here, I'm open under the basket."
Quick breakaways were the story of the game, but strong defence (read: airballs) kept the score down. Final score, more handsome devils 6, handsome devils 4.
Coach Jacobs plans to introduce new concepts to the boys before their next match up. One such concept is "the pass."

Stay tuned for post-game interviews from All-stars, Austin Doig and Mike Runquist.

Tires (v), tires(n) and more tires (n)

To tire, conjugated, she tires (top ten definitions)

1 piano solo practiced and performed

2. home basketball tournaments

3 sharing times in 4 weeks

4 am phone call to babysit for a VTee having a baby

5 Christmas parties

6 am runs at the gym m-f

7 loads of laundry (today)

8 christmas ice cream rolls (5 successes and 3 failures) for a baking exchange

9 online Christmas gift orders

10 homecooked meals since nov 1....or has it even been that many?

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Tires (n) definition #1

We got winter tires on our Mazda car in late November because the front tires were worn out and we thought winter tires would be a good idea. Price tag $550.

Tires (n) definition #2

Last Friday, Preston and I went to Lethbridge to buy food for the concessions at the Senior Boys home basketball tournament. On the way back, the van got really loud. I was about 1 km from Welling, so when I got to Welling I pulled over and took a look around the van. Turns out, I had a completely flat front driver's side tire. I called Rob, and started looking at our owners manual. I had to move the whole back full of pop to get out the spare tire. Then Rob left work and drove over to Welling to change the tire for me. It was very hard to jack the van since the wheel chair conversion makes the floor really low. It was also -17 with the wind chill. Anyway, after quite a while he got the van jacked up and put on the spare.

We were just ready to caravan back to Magrath when Rob got out of the van having noticed that now the spare was also flat! He had to again jack the van up and remove the spare. I moved the concession food to the car and we loaded the two flat tires in the car and left our van at the side of the road.

Meanwhile, Alyssa had taken the special needs bus home with Mark and was babysitting the boys since I wasn't there when school got out to meet Mark's bus and take care of the boys.

Charlie, the mechanic at the Magrath Co-op, blew up the spare, which just needed air, and we went back to Welling and brought the van to the Co-op. As you might have guessed, I completely wrecked the flat tire by driving on it, and so we decided to get winter tires on the front of the van. Charlie, who was very busy that day, arranged a special tire delivery to his daughter's house in Lethbridge and installed the new tires at 10:00 that night after a long day at work and an evening at his daughter's. He is so awesome! Thank you Charlie!

Today we had the back tires replaced with winter tires too. Total price tag for van tires $665.

Today I was driving the kids home from school and two vehicles in front of me were spinning their tires, having trouble on the ice which had fresh snow on top. I just drove on like it was the first of July! Considering my my past experiences with a terrible icy road car accident and the anxieties I always feel on bad road, I'd say the feeling of satisfaction was worth the $1200!

Little People Christmas Party

Last Saturday we went to the Little People of Alberta Christmas party. It is a lot of fun. They have a raffle and a Chinese gift exchange. Santa also brings presents for the kids. The afternoon ends with a potluck dinner. It's a chance to get together with all the other little people and their families from around Alberta. Unfortunately Austin's friend Andrew couldn't be there this year as their family had a wedding that day. It was still fun though.
This is Santa with his wife and baby son. They all have achondroplasia. Cute, eh?

Preston was a little confused. He was speculating that he couldn't be the "real" Santa because he's short.

Austin and Santa
J.J. (the guy beside Austin) who is on the ALPA executive called our place about a month ago, requesting that Austin announce the raffle winners. That's him drawing out a winner. He did a pretty good job, had a nice loud voice and a few funny jokes. His biggest problem was that if people laughed at a joke once, he used it again and again. (I wonder who he inherited that from).

Joy

About Alyssa

I won the Academic Award for having the highest average for my grade 7 year. I tied with one of my bestest friend Megan. Here are some pictures of the event :By myself with my plaque
Me and MEgan
All the kids who recieved high honours
My volleyball team is SUPER AMAZING we placed first in our league. We finished in the top three in all our tournaments (would have been the top two except for a very awful semi-final game against D.A Ferguson.) If you

Here are some pics from Volleyball:

This is my team after wining the ICHS tournament

Me hitting a ball against Foremost
Me and my friend Danae ready for a vlock against Cardston

Celebrating after a three set win over Cardston at Divisionals in Raymond. (We played Cardston four times and won ever

y single game)

Happy Birthday, Granny!

All about Alyssa

Alyssa has been busy so far this school year. She is playing volleyball and running cross country. Her volleyball team hosted a tournament this weekend. It was amazing how much better the whole team is since last year. Alyssa got some playing time and did really well. She spiked a few balls over, hit most of her overhand serves, and got subbed in so that she could pass up some powerful serves from the other team in the final. Her team came in 2nd in their tournament.
Alyssa didn't like this year's school picture so we took a few in the yard.

At MHS cross country works like this. All the kids run in gym class and the top six girls get to run at 2 cross country meets. This year, Alyssa made the top 6, so she ran in the Cardston race. This is her coming into the finish. Her time for 2 K 10:51. She pulled her hamstring (again) partway through the race, descending from a high sidewalk) and had to walk it out for a minute. She still did great. Her cousin, Kaylene finished about 20 seconds ahead of her.
Another shot from the volleyball tournament.

Nuh-Unh!

Technically, it is still summer today. But I saw THIS from my back door last Friday. And, last night I stayed in Waterton with Rob because he had a conference. Nearly an inch of the white stuff fell there. It's just crazy! Just for the record, the average daily high for today is 18 C.

What a load of........

......Gravel!

Our summer project was to take out the grass, tree and top soil on the south east side of our house, build a retaining wall, and fill in the area with gravel. The purpose of this project was to create parking for the trailer, truck and boat so that our street & driveway are cleared off and so that there is room in the garage for the car and van. It also means less grass to mow which makes Alyssa happy. We were lucky that some friends were looking for sod and topsoil, so they came and took both. The gravel arrived on Tuesday and just last night be moved the trailer onto it. The boat needs to be winterized and covered in its protective cover before it joins the ranks. But, halleluiah I got to park the van in the garage today and didn't have to go out in the rain to get in!

Writing on Stone

On Saturday, Sept 4th, our family went to Writing on Stone Provincial Park. It is less than 1 1/2 hrs from here but we had never been there before (except Austin who went with this Gr 4 class). It is in the valley of the Milk River about 45 km from the town of Milk River. The valley is full of geological formations called Hoodoos. They are columns of Sandstone that didn't erode when softer rock around it did. the river valley there was a sacred place for Native Americans and they carved in the stone. The picture below is of a battle scene. There is also a nice sandy beach on the Milk River. We had a fun time walking the Hoodoo trail (about 4Km) and then playing at the beach. We finished the day with a picnic dinner. Another time, if we go, we'l have to do what we saw some other people doing--bring nerf guns and have a nerf war in the hoodoos. They are super fun for climbing! We didn't climb nearly as much as Austin wanted to because the hoodoos on the hoodoo trail have steep drop offs/cliffs in many places. Other hoodoos in the park are more climbing friendly, but exploration of those ones will have to wait for another day.

First Days of School

This is a big year for our family doing back to school, because all the kids are in school now. Preston started kindergarten & Mark Gr. 4. Austin is one of the big kids now at the elementary in Gr. 6 and Alyssa is in the heart of Jr. High in Gr. 8. the "first day of school" didn't really happen exactly. Austin and Mark went for half a day on Monday, Aug. 30th, and Alyssa started on Tuesday after a little orientation on Monday. However, I didn't get any before school pictures of her because she had 7 am Volleyball tryouts on her first day. Preston started Wednesday afternoon. So far everyone is doing well and getting back into the swing of things. Normally, I would feel jipped with school starting a whole week before Labour Day, but since it was cold outside, it seemed to fit.

It is nice for me to be back into morning scripture reading, FHE, dinners together, etc. It is strange though to have afternoons to myself. I both like it and am scared of the time to myself. I guess I haven't been alone much.

Rocky Mountain House visit

After our trip to Kalispell, we hosted the Magrath Swim Meet and had our club year end BBQ and annual general meeting. That was all successful, except that it was very cold the morning of the meet, and warmed up incredibly to be quite nice in time for the BBQ. (Strange weather could be the story of the whole summer). Anyway, later on Saturday the 21st, I took Alyssa, Austin and Preston and went up to Rocky Mountain House for three nights. We stayed with friends, Satermos and Eklunds and got to see lots of people at church and visited a few others. I got to go out to Boston Pizza with some of the ladies on Monday night. On Tuesday, we went to the Colllecutt Centre (indoor water park) with Eklunds. It was really nice to see so many people and our old stomping grounds. I didn't remember to take many pictures, though so we'll just have to remember it in our hearts...Austin and Preston with Liam Bolton.
Alyssa with Lauren Bolton. The Boltons have 2 kids. Alyssa and Lauren were friends as were Austin and Liam. I also really enjoy visiting with their mom. They used to have lots of playdates when we lived in Rocky and we spent a really nice afternoon with them on our trip.
The Satermo kids and our kids. Alyssa and Doree Ann were the only 2 girls their age at church.

Big Sky, Big Fun!

From August 18th-20th, we were in Kalispell. We stayed at Michelle's house, did some back to school shopping and spent the day with them at the Big Sky Waterpark in Columbia Falls. We had buy-one-get-one-free coupons if you bought the tickets to do all the extra stuff at the park, so we had fun doing bumper cars, mini golf and water balloon wars too. Preston spent the first 2 hours not wanting to do anything, but once Rob finally talked him into going down a waterslide (with the threat of taking away his Nintendo DS), he decided he loved it and made me take him down again and again.

Also, last year, Austin was nervous about the slides that you go down in a tube...I think because he fell out of one or something) but this year, he discovered these slides were super fun and couldn't get enough of them. Notice the picture of him carrying that big tube up the hill. He did it over and over!

It's a lot of fun to spend time with the Hemsleys. they even decorated their house and got a cake for me for my birthday which was while we were there. Thank you!