Grammie and Grandad Come to Town

This past week Grammie and Grandad came to stay with us for a week. It was lots of fun having them around.


There was excitement when the little boys surprised them at the airport when picking them up.






Then there was amazement as we watch the horse jumping.


Then there was deliciousness as Darryl made a turkey dinner.
Then there was laughter that we caught Grandad's birthday minutes before we were about to serve dessert and so we could all sing happy birthday to him. There was also lots of slapping mosquitoes. Then there was trying to avoid the rain.  It was really great to have them around, even Emma really took to Brian, which is rare for Emma to like a man (especially not a young one). 

Till Next Time

Jenn

Soccer Time

Spring time means soccer for us.  Nathan has it on Monday and Lucas on Tuesday and Thursdays.    So we have been a busy family.  It's nice because both Lucas and Nathan play and it's really affordable.  With Nathan I've realized soccer is hard with 3 year olds.  The drills are not too bad becuase I can make them into little games, Simon Says, What time is it Mr. Wolf.  But the games are a challenge.  To try to get them to kick it the right way and then towards the goal and then stop once they are out of bounds is as much as I can handle most night (I'm the coach BTW).   Plus an hour of running around seems to be a lot for them. 

Lucas's soccer is more interesting.  The kids are more cooperative and the game is actually kind of interesting.  Still there are kids on Lucas's team who don't listen, but the have longer attention spans then on Nathan's team.  Lucas has improved over the last 10 weeks, but I'm not sure soccer is really his thing.  I wonder if he has a bit of me in him, which means he's not that competitive.  But it's been great to watch him grow and get better and better at the game.  Darryl was the coach for his team and did a great job.  He got lots of kudos after the game tonight and was asked to coach again next year, so we will have to see.  I don't have any pictures from Nathan's soccer, it was rained out the last couple of weeks, but here are some good ones from Lucas's soccer.

Till Next Time

Jenn

U2

Last year for Christmas I gave Darryl two U2 tickets. Darryl has always really liked U2 and when I heard they had rescheduled a show to June 1st in Edmonton I booked tickets. One of the things about me is I often do crazy things. As I talked about before I love experiences, and sometimes do things (or say things) without taking everything into consideration. So I checked Ticketmaster and there were tickets available, so I bought Darryl two for Christmas. It was a Wednesday and we both had to take two days off work, and luckily my sister was around to take care of the kids, so it all worked out.


The concert itself was incredible. There were 65000 people there and I don’t think I’ve ever been to something that big. Bono can really sing and the Edge is an amazing guitarist. They also had a really cool stage. It is 167 feet tall and it takes 100 semis to transport it from city to city. The stage had lots of lights and effects with it. There was also an inner and outer stage to it. There are so many great U2 songs and they played a lot of them. My favorite was probably Elevation, but they played so many of the good ones. Like most Canadian concerts most people stay seated and danced in their seats, but I would stand and dance whenever there was a song I liked. Plus there was this story, which had people talking.

The other crazy part was leaving. With 65000 people trying to get out there was hordes of people trying to get on the train. It was crazy. It probably took us an hour just to get on a train.


It was a super fun experience and something I’m happy to cross of my life list.

Till Next Time

Jenn

May Round Up

I was at work last night and I haven't been there in quite a while.  I kept thinking of all the things that happened this month, some planned and some unplanned.  I thought I should maybe start a monthly round up since the blog seems to have gone on the back burner.  But here is I"m sure a lengthy roundup of May

•  Started with Darryl and I returning from our trip to San Francisco
• We played ALOT of soccer.  More on that coming up this week
• Alexis and I went to London and Paris ( I know I still need a Paris post too)
• We finshed off the patio at the back
• I got a piece of glass stuck in the bottom of my foot, which hurt and I couldn't get it out.  After a couple of weeks of soaking it I went to the doctor.  He seemed quite uncertain about being able to remove it.  But after jabbing very painful freezing in my foot, he did get it out!!  YEAH!!  Amazing how such a small thing can cause so much pain. 
• I've done most of my vegetable planting.  I'm trying to plant them in square feet so we will have to see what the gardens look like.  I'm also trying to plant them every couple of weeks, so we will have harvest for longer.  
• Nathan has been doing some stuttering again.  It seems to be worse when he hasn't had a good night sleep.  It also seems to come and go.  It's something I'll have to watch.  They say for most kids it resolves itself by the time they turn 5, so hopefully it won't be a life long thing for him. 
• My dad got a new job, which he seems to be really enjoying. 
• My mom had her gallbladder out.  
• Lastly, we went to a U2 concert this week.  It's great to get one of those things crossed off a bucket list.  It was a really good concert and if you ever get a chance to go, I highly recommend it.   There is lots of lights and very entertaining (although a different kind of entertaining then BNL or GBS) Also very political and lots of awareness about Africa and Amnesty International.  

Whew, and June is just as busy.  Although after months of winter and staying inside it's nice to stay busy again.

Till Next time

Jenn

A Dutch Girl....

I love spring time. I love getting flowers and gardening and growing things. I get such satisfaction in growing beautiful things and growing delicious foods and even this weekend when I opened the bottom of the composter and saw lots of good dirt in the bottom, there is a real satisfaction in that. One of the first flowers that comes up is all the tulips. I am a dutch girl, I have an Oma and Opa and my Oma gives me lots of tulip bulbs. They looks so beautiful in the spring. Our privacy garden in the back is stunning.

Love the springtime and the beautiful flowers.


Till Next Time


Jenn

London Baby!

May seems to be a busy travelling month for me again this year.   Although my new years resolution was to save money, I seem to be spending lots of it on going on vacations.   But luckily I have been spending less money on things.  I just love experiences and don't mind spending money on them.   That being said I've picked up some extra shifts at the hospital to pay off my "experiences."

So onto the latest vacation... London Baby!  Alexis has never been to Europe and has been wanting to her whole life.  She has really been wanting to go to Paris, so in planning we found it cheaper to fly to London and take the chunnel to Paris and that way we got to see a different city as well.   We fly Air Transat into London, if never taken a direct flight from Calgary to Europe and it was a long 9 hours.  I did take a benadryl to try and help me sleep, but only one and it wasn't enough.  The other cool part about the flight was that we flew over the top of the world, so I got to see Greenland too. 

Arriving in London was a bit of an adventure, once Alexis and I collected our bags we went to the washroom to freshen up and then I checked to make sure I had everything before we left.  I couldn't find my passport.  Luckily both Alexis and and I are pretty cool under pressure, so we checked my bags and double checked my bags.  I did have a photocopy of the passport with me, so I knew if worse came to worse and it was stolen I could go to the Canadian Embassy with my photocopy and they could issue me a new one.  But we also knew if it was lost it must be somewhere in that airport.   So we left the baggage area and went to the lost and found.  They told me nothing had been turned in, and if something was going to be it would be in the next little while.  So we sat and waited.  While waiting we checked with someone else who worked at the airport and they told us to ask at information.   So we grabbed our backpacks and walked around to information and asked there.  YEAH!!  They did have it.   So once we got that we figured out how to get into London from the Gatwick airport. 

We took the train to London Bridge station, which became our main station.  We stayed at the Southwark All Season Hotel.  It was quite good.   They had a included breakfast every morning, which was delicious and free wifi.  Also the beds were very comfortable.   That first day they let us leave our bags there till we were ready for our room.


While we were waiting we decided to walk up to St. Paul's Cathedral.  I don't know why, but it seems to be whenever, I'm exhausted from a long plane ride I'm drawn to churches where I need to walk hundreds of stairs.  (last time Darryl and I went to Europe, our first day after getting off the plane we went to Notre Dame and walked up all those stairs to the top.)   St. Paul's is a really beautiful church, we did get the audioguide, which was an ipod, and learned about the Nave and the dome and the choir and the Quire and the high alter.  But the very coolest part of St. Paul is the 257 feet up in the whispering gallery.  If you climb up to the dome one person can stand on one side and the other person cans stand 100 feet away and you can whisper against the wall and the other person can hear you.   It's super cool.  We did walk to the top and take some picture of London from up high. 

St. Paul's while walking on Millennium Bridge

After that we went to our first show in London, we didn't have anything booked but needed something energetic to keep us up.  So we went to Thriller a show/concert with all Micheal Jackson songs.   A couple of other observations from that first day.   Everyone in Europe dresses really well.  When we were at the airport in Calgary, every third person has Yoga pants on.  In Europe I didn't see even one person wearing yoga pants.   And you could tell all the toursists with there nike or new balance or some other brand of white running shoes.   Another observation, London is expensive and doesn't have the best food. 

The second day we took the tube up to Nottinghill and went to Portobello Road market.  It was fun with lots of antiques, food and clothes.  It was fun to walk around and see everything.

After Nottinghill went went to the "old navy" of London called Primark.  It is a good and inexpensive clothes.  It was SO busy as well.  There were people trying things on in the ailses and things were a mess.  Neverless Alexis and I picked up some goods and headed for lunch.  There we met some nice Brits, who were talking to us about London and all the preparations for the Olympics next year.  There are lots of improvements being made to the city and I think they will do a great job with it next year. 

 

After that we headed back for a nap and to drop off our goods.    For dinner we went out for classic fish and chips.  Which were good, but burning hot.

That evening we went to see Lion King, which was fantastic.  The costumes are so incredible.


Day Three we headed over to the London tower.  It was great to learn about some of the history of London.  It's amazing how we use to treat each other as humans.  How beheading people was a normal part of life and it use to be entertainment for people.   We got to London Tower early (don't always believe those guide books), so we also walked around looking at Tower Bridge (not London bridge as some would believe)



After that we got on one of those buses that drove us around and show us the sights and taught us all about London.  It's amazing how so much of those experiences are based on your guide and driver.  We had one guide that was great, I could have spent all day listening to her.  But then another time we had a driver that was horrible and made us want to vomit. =)  On the bus we saw....

Big Ben

The London Eye

Westminster Abbey

Beautiful Buildings

Us on the Bus

Tower Bridge

 The last day we returned some stuff to Primark.  We went at 8:30 and it was quiet, but by 9am it was really busy again.  Then we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard (which was not very good, especially for all the people there.)

Then to the Tate Modern, which is full of Modern Art.

To end off our trip we went to see Wicked.  It was amazing.  The singing and the story was so so good.

All in all I did love London.  The people were nice, the city is clean the tube system is easy to follow and people speak English, even if sometimes I still don't understand it.  It also has all the history that I love about Europe too. 

Next we were off to Paris...

Till next time

Jenn

Our Great Vacation

We rode cable cars....

And although it's not the most flattering picture of me, we biked across the Golden Gate Bridge...

And had our picture taken with the Golden Gate in the background

And watched cable cars with big jails in the back ground.

And I put my feet in the (freezing cold) pacific ocean.....

And we ate good food....

And we climbed to the top of Coit Tower (the tower in the middle)...

And ate sunny oranges in the California sunshine....

And drank lots of wine...

Snuggled at the beach....

And we ate lots of bread....

It was super fun. 

Till Tomorrow

Jenn