London's Calling

Let the games begin! Yesterday we celebrated the opening of 30th Olympiad with some British inspired cuisine. We started with beef stew and Yorkshire pudding. Then for dessert, or as the Brits would call it, pudding, we had Knickerbocker Glory, an ice cream and fruit treat served in a tall glass. Later we finished with an attempt at making butter beer. I used a very simple recipe from Mugglenet.com as I didn't want to cook much or buy too many ingredients. It wasn't the best recipe to use. It was much too sweet. Next time I'll have to try the more complicated recipe, or just wait till I get an original at Universal!

Our pudding. It was already melting by the time I grabbed the camera to get a shot. We also improvised with the tall glasses, this was all we had. They were tasty!

We watched the Opening Ceremony last night. It was LONG, so we only watched bits of it. But personally, they never are really my favorite. I've been watching events on and off today. I caught the Men's Road Race where 38 year old Alexandr Vinokurov from Kazakhstan clinched the gold medal. I love these sports where the athletes don't reach their peak at 22. It's so inspiring to watch them. I've also caught some tennis and men's swimming. I'm looking forward to tonight and the start of the men's gymnastics. As a former gymnast it has always been my favorite sport to watch, and when I was younger I only really liked watching the women's. In fact I can remember vividly watching the 1996 Atlanta games at Park where the USA women's 'Dream Team' took gold and the drama of the injured Kerri Strug as she landed her vault and sealed their victory. However, I think now I prefer the men's. You watch these guys and you can't help but be amazed by what they can do. It's incredible, their strength, and stamina, and grace. I love it. So watch some tonight if you can, and be amazed.

My Little Weapon

Just over two years ago when we picked out the name Macy and I looked at a couple websites for the meaning, they either didn't have one because Macy was a derivative from another name, or it said 'Place of Maccius', 'Matthew's estate', or even 'sea of bitterness.' However, when flipping through a baby naming book today, I found the name to mean 'wielder of weapon.' Just now I've found more websites with Macy meaning 'weapon'. This girl is pretty feisty. I wonder what this weapon of mine has in store for me?!

Visitors Welcome!

We were so lucky this weekend to have Uncle Spencer, Aunt Pam, and cousin Paisley come up and visit us. It was great to see some family and fun to watch Macy and Paisley play together. 

They arrived Friday afternoon. After some homemade Pizza's, salad, and fresh fruit, we went to Macdonald Island indoor waterpark. I have been meaning to blog about Macdonald Island because it is my absolute favorite place to go! They have a great indoor kiddie pool, a lazy river, two full size water-slides, and an awesome spash pad with Macy size slides and 2 more kids size water-slides. It was great to show off what I think is one of Fort McMurray's best feature's. 

After the kids were in bed we spent the night gaming. And by that I mean, playing cards and board games. It was fun to play more than 2 player games and to stay up late snacking and visiting. We also got a little firework show that someone was doing just outside our apartment building.

On Saturday it was Paisley's 1st birthday. Along with delicious DQ ice cream cake, she got a yummy chocolate cupcake to play with/eat. Pam and I and the girls went to the park in the morning, while Chris and Spencer checked out the Oil Sands Discovery Center. After naps, we headed out to Gregoire Lake. Unfortunately, it was a cooler day, so not warm enough to beach it up and go swimming. But it was perfect weather for a campfire, roasted hot dogs, and s'mores.

The birthday girl with her momma.

Waiting so patiently for cake.

At the lake eating some peaches.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, had a quick lunch/dinner, and said good-bye to our guests. Macy was napping when they left and as soon as she woke up she was asking for Paisley and looking everywhere for her. She was quite sad to find out they had left. Thanks for coming Coulam's, we hope you had as good a time as we did!

The Blog

It's not very often that I do 'serious' blog posts or just blog about what I am thinking, but here it goes. Lately I've been thinking about blogging in general and my simple blogs and how I've come to really appreciate them. Not only are they a family journal, but they make me realize that contrary to popular belief (and by that I mean my own belief) we do not just sit around and let time pass us by while we wait for the future to come along and sweep us off our feet. Chris has been in school a long time. We both have. We are coming up on our 5 year anniversary and there has always been one of us in school. We talk about the future when he graduates as if it is this wonderful perfect place where we will have all the money we need and none of the worries or stresses that life inevitably brings. I know that we are kidding ourselves. Life will not be perfect when graduation day comes. New things will come up, and sadly, we will not be millionaires! And so, I've started to appreciate everything that we have now. We are in Fort McMurray this summer and I deeply miss my house, and my friends, and even my job. But we are here as a family. We don't have a money tree in our backyard, but Chris does have a good job that provides for us and has blessed our family in many ways. We are healthy. We have time to spend together as a family and go swimming, and go to parks, and to play baseball together. And most of all, we have Macy. She is such a delight. She's smart, and funny, and incredibly cute, and never fails to bring smiles to our faces and laughter to our ears.
Just recently a girl on our baseball team was hit in the leg with a ball that caused the bone to break. It turns out that because of this, Doctors found out that she has bone cancer. This unfortunate story, along with so, so many others that are like it and that I have heard about or experienced quite a bit lately has made me realize we have to appreciate the here and now and what we've got. We never know what will happen or when it will.
So what does this all have to do with blogging? Well, it documents all of the 'here and now' moments to remind me how good I've really got it when I sometimes forget. So here's to living in the moment and fully appreciating it, and of course, blogging about it.

Happy Birthday!

On Saturday the Municipality through a birthday party for everyone in town. With the promise of free cake we decided to make this a priority! (Note: we did not get any free cake. Either there was none, or

we were too late, probably the latter). It was a hot day so it was nice to walk around the splash pad they have at the park.

We didn't bring swimsuits, but it was good just to stick your feet in it.

Chris treated us to some cotton candy! (He had to work all day, but he stopped by to say hi).

Most of the events were done by the time we got there, or a little too old for Macy. We stood in line for a balloon animal for a while because Macy loves balloons, but she got bored of that so we left to play some more.

Macy is in a real "Wheels on the Bus' phase and this bus was a huge hit. We could have stayed here all day. I literally had to drag here away kicking and screaming so we could get out of the heat. 

It was a fun idea, and a great reason to get out of the house.

the pear monster!

I wonder who the culprit is???

Love me a FREE pancake breakfast!

Chris always has the 'in' on what's going on around town. So when he called us last week to say there was a free pancake breakfast at the tourism center, we were happy to meet him. I guess it was in celebration of the 100th year of the Calgary Stampede. And there was cream and berries and ham too. It was great! I love pancakes, especially when they are free!!

Gregoire Lake

We are in the middle of a heat spell right now (above +30C forecasted for all week) so we took advantage of Chris having Saturday off to get out of our sauna of an apartment (no central air, thank goodness we bought a portable AC for our bedroom and we aren't paying the utilities here) and spent Saturday at the lake. We went with our friends, the Crawford's, and spent the afternoon at the beach and then roasted hotdogs and s'mores for dinner over the campfire. It was a great time and hopefully we'll be repeating it again soon!

 Too bad his shirt is on so you can't see his wicked farmers tan!

Macy wasn't lovin' the sand at first, it wasn't as nice as Grand beach.

Macy and Mabel, going for the cherries. I couldn't ever get a picture of both of them looking.

Hopefully we'll find ways to stay cool this week. Anyone have good dinner ideas to beat the heat?

Raining and Pouring and Beeping!

It has been raining and pouring and raining around here (actually a good thing, the cooler weather is a nice break), and last night we had thunderstorms which caused our power to go out right in the middle of Macy's bath! Good thing I like nice smelling rooms and we had two scented candles. Anyway, along with the power outage came the fire alarms going off. In our unit we could silence it, but it was still pretty loud in the halls, and many other unoccupied units. It just kept beeping and beeping. The fireman and their fire truck had to come to shut it all off which took about a half an hour. And when it finally stopped, Macy kept saying 'beep-beep, beep-beep'.

So in appreciation of the firemen, here are a few more photos of Macy and Chris from back when they had the Firefighters Awareness day.

 Checking out some of their rescue vehicles.

Macy liking the idea of this quad.

We like the fire and rescue guys around here!

Lunch with Dad

A couple of days ago we met Chris for lunch at a park right near his job site. It was fun to see him in the middle of the day, play a little at the playground, and eat some grub.

Macy loves climbing up the stairs, she can even do it herself. I think she gets more fun from the climbing than the sliding.

Thanks for the lunch date Dad!

A Happy Canada Day!

I love Canada Day and all its festivities. Which is why I was a little sad that it fell on a Sunday this year, but the fact that it rained pretty much all day, made it a little better. Also, our condo is right where the parade starts, so while getting ready for church Macy and I heard the bagpipes loud and clear practicing away.

So with the rain and Chris working so much this weekend we spent a relaxing holiday at home. We did dress up in our Canada Day gear though, and had BBQ chicken wraps and fruit salad for dinner.

 

In true red and white fashion we had cheesecake with fresh homemade strawberry sauce for dessert.

Happy Canada Day to all. It really is the best place to live!!