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)

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!

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.

Four (Semi) Quick Takes

1. So, yesterday I was going to finish doing permanent resident paperwork stuff (well, finish what I can - I still have to wait for a police certificate to be mailed and to go to a medical exam in two weeks :/ ) by making copies of stuff at Staples and getting two more passport pics taken at Walmart. 

The workers at the photo place said they had to lighten something or other on the camera because "my face was tan".

My face was tan. 

That's probably the only time in my life anyone's said I'm tan. I told them this and they said, "well, everyone we take photos of is Canadian so they're pretty white".

That was pretty awesome.

2. Also, yesterday was the first time I went driving around in Calgary by myself. Okay, it was only for a couple blocks and I still got a bit turned around, but I DID IT! (as nephew Rocky would say :)

3. Since I've been here and not had a super pressing sched to attend to I've been doing a jog/walk thing most everyday...about 4 or 5 times a week. I didn't want to get lost so I stayed pretty straight then turned on a street I recognized and then went to another corner I recognized and turned again until I did a big circle and got back to the house.

Yesterday I found out how long my jog/walk circle was.

3.3 miles. 

Okay, don't laugh if you think this is nothing because it's really good for me and if you're impressed then Thank You!

4. After going to Walmart and Staples yesterday I saw Petland and decided to go in and check what animals they had inside.

Not to buy one. Just to make me smile.

Do you ever do this? I think it's awesome.

Mark has realized there are a couple ways of cheering me up - let me look at kittens or puppies, but esp kittens and get me something sweet (ex: chocolate, ice cream, chocolate). He did this when we got back to Calgary after being in BC and the reality of the move set in and I was having a semi/full on melt down. My husband took me to Petland to look at kittens. He totally gets me.

Anyway, so I went to Petland and they had these little kittens in the back you could see through the windows. They were almost three weeks old. There were six from one litter and they were all playing with each other and it was so cute. I smiled. I laughed. It made me think of the kitten I used to have. My rescue kitty. Dinah. She now lives with my brother and his wife because they love her and I was moving around too much. She needed a stable environment.

Here are some pics (sorry for the overload - you might not find these as great as I do) of her when she was a wee one. These are actually the first night I had her. By her size and the way her eyes looked she was probably around two to three weeks old.

Fierce. 

A bit older.

Eyes went from blue to copper.

She loves climbing in plastic bags and wearing them.

She's def a Halloween cat. Almost all black.

Okay. Probably everyone has seen this, but it just shows how cute kittens are. Now go get lost on youtube watching kitten vids.

Labour Day

I know, I know. Two blog posts in one day. Too much! Oh well.

To finish off the weekend on Monday was Labour Day (yes, they have labour day in Canada and they put a "U" in it) and we got together with Mark's mom, Dave, Tanessa, and Mercedez who were watching our nephews, Crew and Rocky, while Chelsea and Steve were out of town.

We went to Peter's Drive In. It's near downtown Calgary and they have burgers, hot dogs, fries, onion rings, and (what I think they're best known for) milk shakes. You can get a shake in probably almost any flavor you could want. Oreo, please.

Then we went down to where this old mall is. It's not too huge and a little ghetto. We were mostly walking through until we saw a cool little store and stopped to check it out. Crew and Rocky didn't think it was as cool as the escalator, which they rode up and down until everyone looking in the store was ready to go.

Then we went to this nice park that was outside the mall and walked around. There was a river by it that the boys loved throwing rocks into. It kind of felt like a mini Central Park because we could see all the big buildings from downtown right next to the park.

Left: Rocky saying "cheeeeese" / Right: Crew going down

Mark isn't throwing Rocky over the side. He's showing him the ducks.

Okay, now I have to stop wasting time and go work on permanent residency stuff.

Sicamous (sick-ah-moose)

After our DAYS of moving up to Calgary we had Sunday to unpack, rest, and repack a suitcase and then we were off on Monday morning to go meet up with Mark's mom, stepdad, Dave, and two younger sisters, Tanessa and Mercedez in Sicamous, British Columbia. It's about a 6 hour-ish drive. Sorry for the picture overload. These were all from my camera phone, so sorry about that too. It's just easier to carry in your pocket and take a quick pic.

They have fences along the side of the highway to keep the animals from trying to cross and getting hit by traffic, so they had to build these animal crossings so they could get to the other side.

Once you get up past Banff, around Lake Louise area, the river water on the side of the road starts getting light blue/turquoise colored. It's so pretty!

Our first night we drove the boat out to this floating restaurant called the Shark Shack. Good food!

Mercedez, Tanessa, and Val at the restaurant.

After eating we went over to another floating dock across from the restaurant to fill up with gas...

...and check out the convenience store...

...nice one, Tanessa.

Tanessa and Mercedez on the tube.

Mark skiing.

Mercedez getting a boat driving lesson from Uncle Greg.

Stud at the wheel.

Mercedez taught me how to make these bracelets...Mark + Mandy = BFF

Blue, the boat doggy!

Margaret Falls = beautiful!

On the right: Dave and Tanessa in front of the waterfall.

 Blue just walked right into the freezing water...she was thirsty!

On our way back to Sicamous we saw a market by the side of the road. We stopped to get some produce and they had a little farm that we got to check out.

We stopped by Dutchmen Dairy which makes their own freakin' ice cream! It.was.amazing.

 Thank you, little cows, for such delicious ice cream...well actually, thank you to the mommy cows.

On Saturday we got together with Val's brother, Greg, and four of his five kids and some of there kids (a mini fam reunion). Greg and his son both had boats too, so we had three boats and went to this little beach they knew of. They had this old banana boat they call Jaws and everyone had fun getting pulled around by that. The falling off part...wellllll...yeah, it was fun that one time I fell off and got water up my nose...and that other time I fell off face first into the water....and that other time my head hit someone else's body as everyone fell in the water. After all that I just chilled on the sand with my friend, Harry Potter.

The rest are just random shots from around the lake.

After a week of living in a little trailer with six people and a dog and bumping around on a boat almost everyday I was ready to come back to a regular sized house and not swaying while standing on land (I really did sway while standing after being on the boat all day. It was a weird feeling).

I had a lot of fun and it was so beautiful. My first trip to BC was a treat! It has some really amazing places to see.

Great vaca!