Another Awesome Camping Trip

We have best friends and neighbours (also good friends) who have trailers up at a property near Rocky Mountain House and the kids and I took our trailer up there for a week.  It was a long drive (for us) but worth it to relax and enjoy the company and scenery.  The view out my window on the way up was of gorgeous yellow canola fields.  We did see a Mama moose and her two babies run across the road, a dead badger, and several deer.

Poppy had an unfortunate accident a week before this photo was taken - she hit her head on a metal pole REALLY hard, right between the eyes.  It was one of those freak accidents kids have.  She had a huge swelling between her eyes and days later they went black.  She is healing nicely except for the hematoma that will take a few months to go away.

Anyway, with black eyes and all, she's still a beauty.  Having our first supper at camp.   We had our little Baby as well - his first camping trip.  Camping while bottle feeding in a tent trailer is an adventure.

One night when I went to bed I looked over at the kids and they were facing the same direction and in the same position.  Sweet.

The weather was overcast most of our trip - just how I like it.  We went swimming once in the outdoor pool.  The kids rode their bikes a lot, played games with each other, played at the park.  Here the bigger ones are playing Mastermind and taking it very seriously!

The littler ones were making geo shapes and look rather serious as well!

Rowan and her little buddy, Brandon, spent a long time making 'food' in a magical little spot in the trees.

Poppy LOVED these motorized kids vehicles and probably wore the battery out everyday.  Yes, I made her wear a helmet every time.  Can you blame me?

There is a petting zoo at the campground with lots of neat animals.  We brought a bag of carrots to feed them.

For some reason Poppy quickly fell in love with Zony, the pony - zebra cross.  She stayed with him for a long time and stretched as far as she could to pet him.  She even kissed and hugged him when we left.

There was a severe weather watch on our last night of camp so we ate dinner and quickly packed up the outside of our trailer (we've learned, in Alberta this year, to obey and respect Severe Weather!) although we didn't even get a drop of rain.

 Here everyone is having their last marshmallow roast with everyone together.

Was a great trip!  Does my heart good to see all of these children growing up together.  Most of them have known each other all their lives.  Pretty special to get to have adventures like this together!

July Thrills

Wow - July has been packed full of fun and neat stuff.  It is hard to believe it is already almost over!  With the Flood of 2013 some of our usual activities have changed.  Many areas are still not open due to extensive repairs being needed, some were all out destroyed by the flood, and others were cleaned up but I am leery of the germs and chemicals required for the clean up.  So we steered clear of some places and made mini trips of others.

Drumheller was in the flood zone but had much less damage than our city.  Some houses right along the Red Deer River were affected and the Newcastle Beach was a mess, but the campground we usually stay at was just fine.  We did wait until the night before the July 1st Canada Day parade to decide if we were going to honor our reserved campsite.  We pulled in late June 30th and had a great time at the parade on the 1st.  Rowan and Poppy LOVE the candy and treats that are thrown out into the crowds at the Drumheller Parade.  One of the nice things is you can show up right before the parade is due to start and get a great seat.

The Drumheller Parade was Rowan's favorite when he was really little due to the number of trucks in the parade as well as the John Deere vehicles.  I am not exaggerating when I say there are a LOT of trucks in this parade - probably the #1 entry!

After the parade we found a shady spot to have a picnic and climb a dinosaur.  If you visit Drumheller you will find a dinosaur statue around almost every corner, especially uptown.

We stopped at the Tyrell Museum after the parade.  The kids' favorite part of the museum is right at the beginning where there is an exhibit meant to demonstrate pollination in the prehistoric era.  Basically there are tubes and wind blowing things in a room where you can pop small balls into the tubes and they fly out across the room.

Traditional photo at the end of the camping trip with the kids being made into Dinosaur Soup!

One place we would visit through the summer is the Calgary Zoo.  However, our beloved zoo experienced over 50 million (yes, million) dollars in damage from the flood (our zoo is on an island and was basically under water at the peek of the flood) and is closed for a bit longer.  They have lost millions of dollars in revenue while they work to make enough repairs to allow people back in to visit.  Several other Calgary attractions are offering 50 % off admission to zoo pass holders, such as the Telus Spark, our Science Centre.  We have only been once before as we do not have passes and the cost is rather outrageous.  The photo above is of Poppy's favorite part of the Centre.

Our central library also experience much flood damage being downtown where there was a lot of affected area, which had a benefit to us in that the data was irretrievable for a period of time from library cards - meaning I had some fines waved until the system was back up again.  We did make it to our closest library where Rowan read to Poppy.

We decided the night before the Calgary Stampede Parade that we would attend this year.  The parade route was very much affected by the flood and while people worked quickly to have it cleaned up, there were still remnants of the dirty water in the grass and roads if you looked closely.  There was also a smell like no other that indicated something had happened in the area.   We ran into our neighbours there as usual (in a city of over one million people it is a bit funny that we run into each other unplanned almost every year!).

We were invited to a wonderful birthday party about Birds at the Bird Sanctuary - however most of the Bird Sanctuary itself outdoors was damaged by the flood so we were mostly indoors.

Surprisingly the same facilitator was at a birthday party the following day at the Ralph Klein Environmental Centre where the birthday attendees learned about wetlands.

Our generous friends have had us out to their community lake (for members only) where we have enjoyed some hot, sunny days.

We met up with Zoe at the Stampede Caravan Breakfast for the first time which was awesome!  Great food, entertainment, and music!

We have sampled not one, but TWO self-serve frozen yogurt parlours in our community this month!
Yum!

We tried to cross the same bridge we have crossed in my family to get to the Stampede Grounds for the last 38-ish years.....only to find it was one of the ones TOTALLY wiped out by the flood.  We had to walk further down to find a new one.

Rowan and Poppy look across the Elbow River wondering how they will get over to the Stampede!

 Lots of rides to be enjoyed!

We enjoyed the Closing Ceremonies at the Indian Village including a speech by our own Mayor Nenshi.

 Rowan enjoying a piece of deep fried bannock - so delicious!

A photo of my beautiful Rowan, with evidence of disaster behind him, in a spot I have taken many photos of my children along a pathway I have walked for many, many years to and from the Stampede.

Something very neat that has happened in our family I am not able to show a public photo of is that we have a new foster baby!  He is 5 months old and an absolute DELIGHT.  We are all adoring him and he is growing and thriving.  Rowan and Poppy are amazing with him and shower him with kindness and care.  I am bleary eyed with the night feedings and my fingertips are burned from sterilizing bottles, but it is a good feeling to care for this little angel in hopes that he will be a little further ahead when he gets to go back with his birth parents.

But that's not all......this only takes us to mid-July!  I'll be back with more!

Sweet Summer

I am delayed in posting this time due to the Flood of 2013 that hit my city, that I have tried to write about many times, that I will finish writing about another day.  Because now summer is here, time is passing, and I have other business to write about for now.

So I will start with June - PRE-Flood.

Rowan had his year-end Gala for his Junior Musicians Course 2.  This is his last year performing and taking classes with Sonata School of Music.  Rowan started taking courses with Sonata at age 2 and now at age 7 is moving on.  His reasoning is that he needs time to 'really focus on my sports', meaning he would like to play soccer and possibly hockey next year.  I will be looking for a music teacher to come in to our home for private lessons for now.

Rowan and his class played Baracarolle (C.M. v. Weber).  It was beautiful.

We took a week to camp at Mt. Kidd Campground this year in June.  It was amazing.  There were very few people there at that time of year.  The weather was cool but lovely.  We expected one day of heavy rain so planned to spend the day in Banff at the Hot Springs, which we did, but we didn't have any rain.

I had heard from a few different people about the hike going to a place called Troll Falls which turned out to be a 15 minute drive from our campsite so we went.  It was very cool.  There was an easy hike for about 1/2 hour leading to a beautiful waterfall in the woods.  It was like a scene from the Hobbit with trees growing in the water and little caves the kids could climb right in.  We climbed right up to the top of the falls which was a bit frightening for me, and very frightening for Rowan but we didn't realize it until after when he burst into tears.  I don't blame him - it was a very steep climb in spots until you end up right on the ledge of the falls.  We quickly turned around and explored the little caves before having lunch in the trees near the water.

We felt like we were in a little oasis with our perfect little trailer in the trees with not a soul in sight, save the squirrels, magpies, and crows.

We took a day to spend in Banff doing traditional Banff-y things.....candy shop, walk, coffee, and something new for us which was Fondue dinner at the Grizzly House!  We have always wanted to try the Grizzly House in Banff but it seemed a bit too luxurious with kids, however this time we decided that was the best reason to go.  We had cheese fondue, beef, chicken and lobster fondue, and chocolate fondue for dessert.  It was fantastic!

A really unexpected surprise was lunch on the way home at the Boundary Ranch.  What a beautiful little authentically cowboy spot!  We had a delicious lunch on our way home from our perfect little holiday.

So.....here's part of my reflection on the Alberta Flood of 2013.  These places we spent on our holiday were all affected by the flood.  Banff, Canmore (where we also spent an afternoon), Mount Kidd, the Boundary Ranch.  Bridges were destroyed, houses were flooded and many near destruction or uninhabitable, and much of the pathway and hiking trails were affected ONE WEEK after we left.  People were rescued by helicopter from Mount Kidd campground and had to leave their camping equipment behind.  Roads are being repaired still at the end of July and some areas will not be accessible this season at all.  We feel so very blessed to have visited this part of our beautiful province and so very blessed to have made it home before the danger and destruction of the flood.  But, more on that later.

Rowan and Rand wrapped up Soccer Season 2013 at the end of June!  It was an exciting year for Rowan and he loved every game and practice of the year.  There are no soccer photos of Poppy as she attended two games and decided soccer was not for her.

That is all for now - we have had many adventures since that I can't wait to blog about!