Halloween and the Freezing Cold

 I feel bad for the kids in Canada when it's Halloween. Yes, they do dress up. Yes, they do go trick or treating and get lots of candy. However, they must do all of this in the freezing cold and snow. Mark told me that he was always hopeful that it wouldn't be like that one year, but pretty much every year it was and this year was just the same.

Rocky and Crew came over to get bigger candies from Grandma's house. For some reason Crew took off some of his ninja costume, but I got Rocky in his spiderman. He's actually more puffy than normal in it because they put him in warm clothes underneath his costume. Most kids that came to out door had on winter coats and snow boots over their costumes.

 (On the right, Rocky is "webbing" and he totally did this pose and the serious face...he's not just dressed up as spiderman...he IS spiderman!)

 Doxy was a skeleton for Halloween.

 Then we decided to make Blue try on Doxy's costume.

This past week on Thursday, I think, it started snowing again...A LOT...again! It never stopped snowing that whole day. Then it snowed some more the next day. This time I actually took some pictures of all the beauty...well, except for the bottom right photo of our car's CA license plate...that just ain't right!!

Calgary Temple Celebration

A couple weeks back Mark and I got to help in the Calgary Temple Celebration. I'd been going to practices every Wednesday night and a couple Saturdays, too, for about two months previous to the performance. I was working with some of the youth (boys and girls ages 12 to about 18). Mark worked with six youth from our stake who were our hockey team (the green team) and they played six youth from another stake (the yellow team). 

It was performed at the Stampede Corral where they have lots of different events, but it's most famous for the Calgary Stampede which is the largest rodeo in North America.

In all, there were over 1,000 youth (1300-1400ish? I can't remember the exact number) that were performing. Somehow it all came together after all that hard work! Those youth are so amazing! It was such a great experience to work with them and see them perform and hear them sing.

Mark's younger sisters, Tanessa and Mercedez got to perform in it. The scenes that they were in and I was helping with were the Calgary Stampede, the line dancing, and the hockey game.

You can watch the whole thing here if you want, but it's okay if you skip around too.

39:48-Calgary Stampede scene

48:02-line dance scene

1:20:05-hockey scene

30:46-one of my fave scenes, the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounty Police)

Party Like You're Turning 5!

My nephew, Crew, is turning five next month, but he had a friend birthday party today. He wanted a Halloween party so that's why they did it so early.

Mark and I got to stop by for a bit and the munchkins did not disappoint. Here's a pic and then two vids of the kids playing dance/freeze (dance when music's playing and freeze when it stops....duh).

Please note the excellent freeze poses by Rocky and Crew in this next video. They'd be the ninja and spiderman with one leg in the air.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Why does it look like Christmas outside? Why?!

When it snowed on my birthday it was okay because it melted and I was fine. This past week it started snowing, like, a lot!

There's still snow outside! And ice! It's not even Halloween yet! This is not good! What have I gotten myself into moving here! I've made a huge mistake (for all you Arrested Development fans out there).

Anyway, here's a pic so you know that I'm not kidding about it being a lot of snow (I didn't want to have to walk out in it to find a better photo op, so I just opened the back door and took a picture).

Now for a bit of random:

Last week I was driving around with my sister-in-law, Chelsea, and we had to pull over to look up directions on her phone. I couldn't resist taking a picture of what store we parked in front of. It looks legit, eh? Oh those crazy Canadians.

Five Not So Quick Takes

Kind of a catch up blog post. Here it goes:

1. While I was reading this hilarious blog I found a link to this white noise website and found a free download for thunderstorm noise. This is awesome! It totally relaxes you and helps in falling asleep. It's also great when you have young kids. My sister in law has a white noise machine for putting her son down for his nap.

2. We went to visit the new LDS temple in Calgary. It's up in the north (we live in the south). It's really beautiful. We brought the two nephews who were really reverent the whole time we were inside. I think I heard that Rocky (2yearold) asked grandma "where's Jesus?". Too cute!

 Rocky (aka: spiderman)

 Family shot

 For some reason I thought the whole building was going to be in the picture since my mother in law said, "I'm trying to get angel Moroni (the statue on top) in the picture." I guess he didn't fit.

 These windows on the outside were so beautiful. They're images of wheat (reflective of the building being in the province of Alberta...I guess there's lots of wheat in Alberta.) It kind of reminded me of peacocks though, which are also beautiful and which remind me of home.

Crew and Rocky partaking of cookies and water in fancy schmancy chairs.

3. Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone! What? No! "That's weird!" says all the Americans reading this. 

Canadian Thanksgiving fell on Monday 8 October this year. I think it's usually around the second Monday in October. My mother in law said it's because the fall season happens sooner here (and is over sooner too). They have all the same foods as American Thanksgiving. It's not as huge I've heard. Prob because they don't make a four to seven day weekend of it. We actually ate on Sunday instead. On Monday it was raining so we couldn't go do much. We did go see The Amazing Spiderman at the $5 theatRE*.

(*Canadian lesson: they spell some words slightly different than the states. They switch the "er" to "re" in words like centre, theatre, litre. I've also noticed they like to add "u's" in words where Americans got lazy and took them out of like colour, harbour, labour. Here's a  big old list of these differences.)

 Not the best pic of our dinner, but I had to document before everyone stuffed their faces. Missing are the sweet potatoes which were just coming out of the oven with the marshmallows getting huge on top.

I tried an autumn dessert recipe found on pinterest. It's called Pumpkin Better Than Anything Cake. I made a slight mistake. I was supposed to mix pumpkin puree and just the cake mix together, not the other stuff for the cake (eggs, oil, water), but it still came out okay. I think I would've liked a little more pumpkin flavor happening though which may come from doing the recipe the right way. There was also some helpfulness from this other blog about the recipe.

4. Since I made the above recipe there was still some pumpkin puree left over in the can so I decided to make some pumpkin cookies. This recipe comes from Barbara Terrill from Monrovia, CA. I grew up eating these cookies every year. They are delicious and pretty easy to make. You just mix everything up and throw 'em in the oven. So easy!

I got about four and half dozen out of the recipe and they were gone in a day. Soooo...they taste pretty good.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup shortening

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix together - drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes.

I cooked at 350 for 10 minutes and they came out perfect!

Here's some pics to show you how perfect and yummy!

5. It was my birthday yesterday. I hate getting older, but I love my birthday. It was a bit/really hard to have a birthday where I couldn't have friends and family call me because they don't have out of country long distance (except for my mom and stepdad - my mom did call). But my in laws did get me pizza for dinner (love) and an ice cream cake (looove) and got me some presents. 

Oh, and Canada got me the first snow to stick for the season! Whaaaat? Don't like that gift Canada! Take it back! Exchange, please!

Mark Turns 30!

A little over a week ago on September 26th my husband hit a milestone birthday. The big 3-0! I am exactly two weeks younger than him so next week I, unfortunately, hit the same milestone. I hate getting older. I'm not gonna lie. I like being young and the feeling of having my whole life ahead of me. I guess it helps that I look about 5-10 years younger than I actually am (people usually guess I'm around 21 years old). 

Anyway! This is not about me. It's about Mark's birthday. Here are some pics that I've taken from around his mom's house of him when he was a youngster and, yes, I did take them with my phone's camera because we left our printer/scanner in the states with half of our other possessions that wouldn't fit in our car...so that means you get to see some high quality, classy photos of him as a funster (my mom's made up word for toddlers).

Then there are some pics from some birthday celebrations with cake and Mark blowing out not 30 candles.

 Loving the mullet on the left and Chelsea's gloves. On the right: Mark has always loved cars (notice the look on his face = I look pretty fly in this sweet ride).

The Leaves Are Falling Down

Although I love, love, love summertime I also really like the fall. In California you don't get much of one, but when I lived in Utah it was a beautiful time of year. 

It's proving to be just as pretty in Calgary. It's been a good autumn so far weather wise (unlike in previous years from what I've heard) I just had to take some pictures! I couldn't help myself. The colors are so beautiful!

Sorry. I take pictures with my old phone's camera because it's easier to carry around. And I say "old" because it's my phone from the states. It doesn't work in Canada and we have yet to get cell phones here. Yeah, we're like the only people in the world that don't have cell phones. Well, us and my grandparents.

Flippin'

So the reason I've been absent from blogging for a couple weeks and I'm playing catch up now is because Mark and I are helping his mom and stepdad fix up this house they bought. Like they say on HGTV, we're flipping it. Although, the difference is that on HGTV they have a team of like 50 and we just have Mark, his stepdad, Dave, and myself who're doing all the work. And it is hard work! As I write this my lower back is killing from what we were working on today! KILLING! Not as glamorous as on TV.

We got the house mid-demolition so some things had already been started for us.

Here are some before pics and I'll post after ones whenever we get done.

 The front yard (Yes, that is a tub of broken tile on the front yard gravel pit. Nice, right?).

 Front entry way.

 Front room into dining room.

 Kitchen...or a lack of one.

 Garage (the house came with all this junk in the garage! Yippee! So much fun to sift through other people's junk!)

Backyard (With spa and firepit! Ooo lala!).

"Mandy's Home!"

One of the nice things about when Mark and I got married is that I inherited some new nieces and nephews. Most of my nieces and nephews from my older siblings are teenagers now and I've missed having younger kids around in the family. In moving to Calgary we get to live near Mark's sister, Chelsea. A couple Mondays ago she asked if I'd watch her boys, Crew and Rocky, while she went to work. It was a pretty great day...also a bit tiring, but really fun!

 Rocky is two and he l-o-v-e-s wearing his spiderman costume. That's what he wanted to wear to the park so I let him. It's cute. He actually has a new costume now that has a mask and he's always wearing it and "webbing" people. One time when I went over to their house Rocky yelled downstairs to Crew "Mandy's home!" He's so cute!

Crew is four, almost five. He can already ride a two wheel bike! He had one lesson with his dad and a couple weeks later he got on and just rode it. While Rocky took a nap Crew and I played with play doh for almost two hours. We had some good laughs!

Goodbye Summer :(

Okay, so it's only been like three or four weeks ago (no biggie, right?), but our ward from church had a bbq one Saturday at Sundance Lake. It was a beautiful, hot day and I was loooooving it! I knew there wouldn't be many days like this left in Calgary. 

(My sis-in-law, Mercedez is out on a paddle board on the left.)

It's crazy to think that when winter hits you can ice skate on this lake! I know because I did it two winters ago when Mark and I were engaged and I was up visiting.

So sad to see summer go :(