Canada Love a Day Early

Waterton National Park is not very far down the road for us, but for some reason we haven't managed to get here in years.  Yes, YEARS.  Daniel and Sophie loved their FIRST (yikes!) trip here and I have a feeling that we'll be headed back on a more regular basis.

Our first stop was Red Rock Canyon for a picnic lunch and preschooler friendly hike up and down the canyon.  Daniel's favourite colour is red so he was especially enchanted by this beautiful place.

 

Both kids enjoyed touching the crystal clear water as it rushed by.  Even though we were here from late morning to early afternoon, it wasn't hot enough to let the kids get too wet.

 Sophie liked to read all the informative plaques along the way.  According to her version, they all record stories about princesses.

 "Yes. Mom.  They are princess stories.  You read next one."

 When we made our way into the townsite, the kids wanted to play on the new playground.  The adjoining spray park looked like fun for a warmer day, so we have yet another reason to return.  Daniel did persuade us to rent one of these surreys for Keith and I to pedal around the townsite as he and Sophie cheered and asked for increased speed.  Let me tell you, I am going to feel that little adventure tomorrow.  They are a LOT harder to pedal than they look!

 Of course, we had to see the Cameron Falls before we took our leave with two very tired and happy kids, and a set of parents to match.  Daniel perhaps summed it up best, "You and Dad spoiled us today!"

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my favourite Dads! 

Keith is so involved with both Daniel and Sophie, and they absolutely adore him in return.  Daniel could hardly fall asleep last night because he was so excited about Father's Day (and Eggs Benedict for breakfast).

One of the upsides to not blogging for a long time is that I have lots of pictures to choose from!

I love how these family pics from the fall capture the twinkle in my Dad's eyes.  All children love my Dad, especially my own.

And I don't want to leave out my brother-in-law, Justin, although he probably wishes I would.  Ha, like he reads this!  Mom, shh, don't tell.  Anyway, Justing is another great Dad in the family and we are blessed to know him.  Now if we could just get those other two guys on the marriage and daddy track...

Threenager

Miss Sophie officially became a three-nager this week.  She's been practising for awhile.  A couple of weeks ago we celebrated with my parents, sister and nephew.  They surprised us with a weekend visit that Sophie has been asking for a repeat of ever since.  On Victoria Day, we enjoyed cake with cousins on Keith's side of the family (but I may have forgotten to take pictures), and on the day itself we celebrated with just the four of us.

Here are a few photos of Sophie from the last few month.  You might notice that she insists on wearing a dress every day, and sometimes more than one.  Thank goodness for an abundance of girly hand-me-downs!  Her princess inspired wardrobe doesn't stop her from running head first, full- speed into everything she does however.  On a good days we refer to her as strong-willed.  Sophie loves to sing, dance, jump and climb.  She adores her big brother and loves to either play pretend games with him or harass him mercilessly, depends on the hour.  Sophie looked forward to attending Kindermusik classes all winter and still sings along with the songs in the van.  Currently we have her in a weekly gymnastics class which she also really enjoys ("I do bunny hops!").  At home she doesn't miss an opportunity to jump on the trampoline or snuggle with Mom or Dad.

I present, Birthday Princess Sophie:

 It was only a matter of time before she began dressing up the cat.  Apparently it begins with accessories.

 "Look at my princess cupcakes!"  Princess Sophie assigned which princess cupcake went to each guest.

 While waiting to eat the real ones, Sophie was happy to decorate pretend cupcakes with Auntie Melissa.

 Grandpa and his favourite granddaughter:

 Grandpa & Grandma with their whole collection of grandkids:

Happy birthday to the little girl who makes every day an adventure!

Legofest: Everything Was Awesome

This morning we rose with the dawn and drove to Calgary for Legofest.  What a morning!  We were all a bit overwhelmed at first by the three acres of Lego filling the BMO Centre, but soon found something for everyone to enjoy.  Daniel and Keith built race cars to test out on the ramps and added a number of buildings to the Creation Nation display.  Sophie was enchanted by the full size Lego creations and the princess lego.  We all spent some time in the giant pile of bricks and checking out the many lego dioramas trying to solve the look & find style riddles.

 Where's Waldo?  Oops, I mean, where's my family?  You can really see how many people were there in this one, but we rarely felt crowded.  Each area had lots of places to build.

 Could Daniel look any more content?

 Daniel made a white hospital which is right beside the red and white church built by Keith.

 Keith went on to make a yellow and red Calgary tower (bottom right quadrant of picture below), and Daniel made a little white church to be beside it.

 The Lego gallery was impressive.  The pictures really don't do the works justice.  The tiger's mouth is actually open enough to stick a hand in and touch his tongue.

 Bucky the pirate ship in a sea of princess duplo.

 "Look!  Buzz Lightyear!"  Sophie's favourite find.  Daniel was delighted to discover Darth Vader labouring in the wild west coal mine.

I feel the need to add that I am not receiving any compensation from Lego for this glowing post, we just really enjoyed our day!

Back to Bermuda!

Hello again!  Remember us?  I used to update this blog before I lost my camera charger, started using my smartphone to take pictures instead, and hadn't figured out iCloud or Dropbox yet.  Still a little fuzzy on iCloud, but starting to get my pictures all in one place. 

We were very excited to spend this Easter break with our my cousin and his family in Bermuda.  We really enjoyed visiting with my cousin and his family, and the kids especially loved playing together.  Here are a few of our favourite family pics from the trip.

 Fort St. Catherine's:

 Mini-golfing at the Dockyards:

 On a replica of The Deliverance in St. George's:

Quarterly update?

Yup, I did it again.  Didn't even make it through January before I fell off the blogging wagon.  On the up side, I have been working on my photobooks again and even finally finished Sophie's first year one. She loves looking at it!

But for those of you who haven't been over for tea lately, here is what we've been up to.

 Grandma & Grandpa Snelgrove stopped in on their way to and from warmer places.

Daniel has been really into building things.  The box is his robot costume.  

We endured weekly snowstorms for most of the past month or two.  The good news: when it wasn't snowing, it was usually pretty nice out.  We have gotten a lot of use out of our rubber boots as all the snow often melted away before the next storm came around.  Those pics (and many others) are on my phone.  Need to get around to downloading those someday...

 Sophie is growing fast.  She is saying new words every day and mostly succeeding at keeping up with her big brother.  In this picture I think she is trying to convince her Daddy to play the ABC song for her again because it is her very favourite right now.

 And as of last weekend, Keith is officially another year older.  The shortcake wouldn't support the full amount of candles so I just went with the ones' digits.  

And that's it in a nutshell!  You're welcome, Myrna.  ;)