St. Albert Part 4

Here's a couple more pictures from our trip to St. Albert.

The more time that goes by, the harder it is to remember all the activities we did.  Other fun things were a trip to Galaxyland, visiting with Turcsanyi's, a dinner out with Janice and Andrew, a dinner with Cam and Lana Barr, visiting friends, a board game night,  trips to the park, a few comedy specials on TV, a girls dinner at Earls, a couple trips to the Servus place pool, and lots more.  The girls were at a great age this year.  They got along well, and Paige was a great older cousin.  Lizzy loved having her cousins there and apparently misses them a lot.  Paige and Rose mention Lizzy quite a bit and Paige wants to get Lizzy a "really great present" for Christmas.

The unfortunate part about St. Albert was that Rose only napped 3 times in the 10 days we were there.  Some days she didn't need a nap, but other days she was clearly suffering because of it.  Also Rose was pretty shy around new people.  Paige said a lot that she missed Scout.  I would have loved to stay longer, as it is never long enough, but realistically, we did need to get home to Scout.

Our return flight home was early morning so we woke up at 4:45am and headed off to the airport.  We had to say goodbye to everyone the night before,  so it lessened the blow a bit.  Always sad to say goodbye. 

St. Albert Part 3

On the Friday in St. A, James took the day off work and we all travelled to the Space Science Center.   There was a kid-themed star show that we wanted to look at, as well as a discovery area for kids. 

Coffees that we just bought and then had to down before going in.  I actually locked mine up in a locker and retrieved it later.  sick.

In the star theatre

Self photo...Lizzy got cut out.

In the discovery area there was a plane.  First you scanned the bags at security.  You could see the contents on a screen.  Then Rose loaded them into the baggage area at the back of the plane.

St. Albert Part 2

Pictures from a trip to the Keenoshayo park.  Completely redone from my childhood days, but fun to be outside the old school.  A beautiful day temperature wise.  Blue Alberta sky.  Ah bliss.  Afterwards we headed to a toy store and got the girls a toy each.

St. Albert Part 1

Eating breakfast together the first morning.  Lizzy was so happy to have her cousins at her house:

Real Abby took stuffie Abby for a ride:

Girls in the tub. Paige, Lizzy, and the Puerto Rican:

Cousins about the same size:

Much to our dismay, St. Albert was really mosquito-y, and quite hot.  Our visions of lots of outside time were kind of thwarted.  No one wanted 100 bites, and it was actually uncharacteristically humid.   But we still kept pretty busy.  More about the trip later. ...

Off to St. Albert

Well, at least that's over. 

Our flight left at 6:30pm out of Hamilton airport.  We swung by dinosaur camp to get Paige, had an easy check in for our flight and enjoyed some Tim Horton's smoothies and other random sandwiches. (Hamilton airport basically has no food at all). 

Things started out ok, with Rose happily watching the TV in front of her.

Paige was playing with some surprise paper dogs that I had tucked away in the carry on.

As the flight went on and Rose got restless and tired, things went down hill.  She didn't have a nap (of course she didn't), so by 8:00pm or so, she started to get a little nuts.  Now that we occupy 4 full seats, Mike was across the aisle.  Rose kept asking for "Daddy!", and sitting with him for 5 minutes, and then "Mommy!" and sitting with me for 5 minutes.  We were telling her she could sleep, but the sun was pretty bright as our plane flew west.  We were telling Paige to sleep to, but she didn't want to either.  At least Paige was just rubbing her eyes and yawning, but essentially acting normal.

Finally she sat with me at 10:00ish EST and closed her eyes and fell asleep face down on my nap mere minutes before the seatbelt sign would go on for landing:

She was so fast asleep at this point, that my moving her didn't cause any problems and I was able to put her in her seat with her seatbelt on.  She just lay there like this for the entire descent, landing, and while all of the other passengers got off:

As we didn't bring a stroller (we never use it anymore), we had no where to put her as we lugged our stuff along. At first I held her and then Mike took a turn.  She woke up at first and was screaming and trying to lie down horizontally.  She perked up when we went outside to load up our rental car and install the car seat, but promptly fell asleep as we drove off.  Paige still was awake at this point, pretty alert actually, but fell asleep after I told her the ride to Auntie Booze's house was long and boring (so basically Paige went to bed at 11:00pm.

Both girls were asleep when we arrived.  As we opened the car doors, Abby even jumped in my side and went into the back to sniff them.  Neither of them woke up.  We put Rose straight into her bed, and managed to take Paige to the bathroom and bring her upstairs to say good night to Jen, James, and Abby.

Obedience School graduation

Pleased to announce that Scout graduated from obedience school with honours: 94%.  Although Mike thinks she should have had 98% as she did 2 things perfectly, but was only graded 9 out of 10 on them.

The next step will be level 2 obedience when she is a bit older and more mature and less of a toddler.

Scout's stuffy montage...

These are all from different days.  She likes to fall asleep with her stuffy in her mouth.

Library book casualty...

What Rose was doing instead of napping a couple of weeks ago....
Basically she went from yelling and screaming to being nice and quiet, but it was too good to be true.

I actually taped it all back together so we could still read it, but obviously the library would NOT take it back and we had to buy it.  We always get Franklin books from the airport as Rose loves them. 

Dinosaur camp

I signed Paige up for dinosaur camp at the RBG (royal botanical gardens).  It is in the Burlington/Hamilton area.  Every day she goes from 9-4.  Each day includes dinosaur themed activities, canoeing, hikes, games, crafts, and generally lots of time outside.  They offered lots of different themed camps, but she chose dinosaur camp.  It also works really well as it is right in the middle of summer, breaking things up a bit. Also, it is the week before our Edmonton trip, so when Rose napped (2 days only), I got lots of things done around the house.

So far Page is liking the camp, but mentioned she wished it wasn't every day.  She definitely isn't used to going somewhere every day as her school was part time, and sometimes only 2 days a week.  She likes the camp, but would like days at home in the middle.  I am proud of her though-- day after day and not being crazy in the evening.  In the morning she's getting up on time and getting ready and out the door with no problems.  I'm not sure if she has made tons of friends in the camp as she is always playing by herself when I pick her up, but she has lots of stories to tell and seems to be having fun.

Every day she has to wear her camp shirt, pants or shorts, lots of sunscreen and bug spray.  Of course she brings her hat and she has some awesome Teva sandals that have a closed toe, which are perfect camp shoes.  On Wednesday it was costume day so she wore her dinosaur/dragon costume. Tomorrow (Friday) is pizza day.

Paige and Rose definitely love their play time at home.  Paige hasn't been at home very much this week so I hope she doesn't get too homesick going off to St. Albert tomorrow for 10 days.  Ever since Paige has been at camp Rose has been out of sorts.  She's sick with a cold, but also really misses Paige.  The first day we dropped Paige off, Rose just kept saying "I want Paige" over and over again in the car.  The first 2 days she only wanted to stay at home.  On the third day she agreed to go to Amazing Adventures and then when I mentioned that we were on our way she said "I want to stay home!".  "Ok", I said, "we'll go home".  "No want to go home!" she huffs.  "Ok, do you want to go to Amazing Adventures, or go home", I ask.  "Mazing ventures", she pouts. Then at Amazing Adventures she was not her usual self.  Lots of the things she usually does she deemed "too scary" this time.  Without her big sister she lost a lot of confidence.  I was trying to do everything with her, but she just wasn't the same.  What a difference it made without Paige this week for Rose.  It makes me so grateful that Paige is still part time in Kindergarten this year.

I'll make sure to take a picture of Paige in her camp shirt on her last day.  Here is one of her in her dinosaur costume at the front door, although she was mad that we wanted to take her picture.

St. Albert time

We're going to St. Albert August 3-13. This year is gearing up to be a great time.  As much as we like weddings, we don't have any this year and that'll be nice.  Just a relaxing laid back time.  Without Scout around things will seem pretty easy.  Sorry Scout.  The people who do the dog training also do boarding in their homes, so she's going to stay with Aaron, the person who teaches at obedience school.  During the day he will take her to the doggie daycare that he owns, which will tire her out beyond belief.  He also has collies at his house. Scout won't even want to leave. I feel sad to leave her behind.  I hope she wants to come back to our house when we get home! The really convenient thing about her boarding with the training people is that they pick her up and drop her off.  This is beyond convenient when we have to worry about bringing Paige to her camp, packing, etc.

Our flight leaves in the evening from Hamilton airport, which is conveniently in the same direction as Paige's camp.  We'll pick her up at 4:00 and continue on to the airport.  We'll probably have a lot of time to kill and the airport is pretty dull, but hopefully we'll have some dinner.  Hoping the girls have a sleep on the plane...they will technically need it.  Rose actually had a nap today which definitely means no nap tomorrow and our flight will go until at least 10:30pm Toronto time.  And after 5 days of straight dino camp, Paige is tired.  And all 4 of us have a cold. Oh well...West Jet has TV's at least, and I have bought them some new crafts for the plane. Planning on bringing pillows and pyjamas so they can get cozy too.