Snowboarding

We took advantage of the free babysitting (thanks Nonna, Pawpaw John, and Uncle Joel) and decided to try out snowboarding. Mike, Aunt Carrie and I drove the hour drive from Canmore to Lake Louise and took an all day snowboarding lesson. It was tons of fun. I think I like it better than skiing, but it is a lot harder at first. We will keep trying and see if we make the switch permanently.

Mike had had a lesson a few weeks before...what a show off

SSR looking okay, but...

quickly loosing it

MPR and SSR

SSR looking super cool

Canadian Rockies

The day after Christmas, we loaded up both cars and TONS of gear and headed for the Canadian Rockies. We have been in the summer, fall and now winter. It was stunning to see it all covered in snow. We stayed 4 nights at a fantastic 3 bedroom condo just outside of Canmore. It was a lot of fun to casually check out Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise.

The Original Rays plus Olivia

The New Rays

Pictures of her in the backpack in that hat, never get old!

She kept saying, "Cold, cold, cold", so we went inside and had lunch

A little too chilly for a 45 minute sleigh ride...maybe next time

Frozen Lake Louise with an ice castle and skating rink

At the other Fairmont, Banff Springs checking out the Christmas decorations

Dancing with Uncle Joel

Christmas Morning

Olivia really got into opening presents this year. She would get a present, open it, play with whatever it was for a minute or two, and then exclaim she wanted another one, "More". She also indicated which presents she approved of. We gave her some cute pajamas. She opened that box and said, "NO!" and through them over her shoulder...lame present, Mama! Aunt Carrie gave her a picture frame with a picture of the two of them. Olivia took one look at it and said, "NO" and handed it back to Aunt Carrie. Apparently, only books and toys make good gifts! It was really funny!

Books, still her favorite!

Loving tearing into the gifts with Aunt Carrie

Taking a book break with "PaPa"

Fun (and loud) new firetruck

Checking out her new tool box with Uncle Joel

A Firetruck book!!

The Princess' stocking

Favorite present of the day, no doubt...scarves from Gymboree

The gift tag is often more fun than the present itself

Cute baby girl in her Christmas dress

Santa's Elves

Santa brought Olivia a play kitchen for Christmas this year. She always gravitates towards the kitchen at playgroup and I found a fun, all wood kitchen on sale. I read the reviews on-line that said it takes 4 hours to put together. Surely two engineers, a handy mom and Nonna could do it faster. We opened the box to find the entire thing was in hundreds of pieces. We succeeded in beating the 4 hours, but it did take us 2 1/2 hours on Christmas Eve. We were up until midnight...just a glimpse of future Christmas Eve's to come, I am sure.


The finished product...she loves it!

Two Different, But Both Scary Santas

At Heritage Park there was a great Santa who Olivia thought was fantastic--only from afar. Olivia is obsessed with Santa. She spots them all over town and gets so excited. She also loves her ever growing Santa book collection. In all of her Chrismtas books, she lets you read the first page and then turns it to the Santa pages. While we were waiting in line to see the real deal, as soon as she saw him through the window, she was mesmerized. "Tant, Tanta, Tanta!!!!!!"


Once it was our turn to have our picture taken with him, Olivia was terrified. "No, no, no"

At first she wouldn't even look at him.

Warming up to him, but still no way ever going to sit on his lap. She wasn't letting go of Nonna for anything.

As soon as we left, she kept saying over and over again, "More Tanta". She likes the idea of him, but definitely not the reality.

The next day we went to the Farmer's Market and there was another Santa, who frankly, we were all a bit scared of.

He tried to get her to warm up with a duck puppet. She quickly stole that off his hand and REFUSED to give it back. We walked around with it for a bit and then gave it back.

Heritage Park

Our first Christmas visitor to arrive was Mike's mom (Nonna). We went to check out one of the few Calgary tourist spots, Heritage Park. It is set up to look like a Calgary town around the 1920's. It was all decorated for Christmas with many Christmas activities. it was actually pretty neat and not as cheesy as you would think.

Petting one of Santa's reindeer

Listening to the carolers

Awesome trains

Running in the snow

Oops! The deep snow is a bit tricky to maneuver through

Checking out the horses with Dada

Yaya

Olivia calls Maya "Yaya" and it seems to have stuck. We all now call her "Yaya" and she responds to it!

Maya being a "horsie"

Maya looking at me saying, "Please help me"

Chinooks

The beginning of the week, it was brutally cold here. The lowest I saw it was -26 F. That is instant nose icicles the second you step out side--cold. There typically isn't wind, so it really isn't as bad as you would think, but it is not weather you would want to spend a lot of time outside in. Thankfully, two days ago, a chinook blew in. Chinooks are "warm, dry winds descending the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains" (www.britannica.com). "A strong Chinook can make snow one foot deep almost vanish in one day. The snow partly melts and partly evaporates in the dry wind. Chinook winds have been observed to raise winter temperature, often from below −4°F to as high as 50°F to 68°F" (Wiki).

Whatever they are, we love them. Yesterday it was in the high 30s to low 40s. That is get on your snow suit and play in the snow weather.

Snow boots, puffy snow suits, and uneven surfaces are not the easiest for walking in. She kept falling and then couldn't get up again..."HELP"

Additionally, I thought it was a good idea to take Olivia and Maya on a walk in this fantastic weather. Well, playing in the backyard in the snow was great idea. Sludging through slushy snow with the BOB and Maya's 20 foot retractable leash that quit retracting halfway through our walk...not such a good idea. The sidewalks are all pretty clear, but the roads are still a foot deep in snow. We must have been a sight. Mike got home to the snowy stroller left on the front porch with the entire leash completely tangled in the front stroller tire.

O' Christmas Tree

Each year, Mike typically gets quite annoyed with my search for the perfect tree (as do the workers at whatever home improvement store we are at). I usually do not like the ones that they have on display and make them open tree after tree to find the best one available. So this year we head out to the Canadian Home Depot in this years said quest. We arrive at the tree section and not only were the trees I like, Frasier Furs, the only ones sitting in the falling snow, there is also no one there to help us. We go back inside and see if we can find someone in order for us to find that perfect tree. We flag someone down and they look at us strangely and ask us what exactly we needed help with. Essentially, they tell us that you can't unwrap trees to look at them. So, it was basically just Christmas tree lotto--Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, if you will. I ask, "What if you get home and there is a huge hole in the tree?". They told us we can just bring it back! So we did what they said and just randomly picked one. We brought it home and luckily it isn't too bad. Just one big hole, that we put to the back.

A couple days later, I saw a Home Depot commercial on an American channel and it showed the workers helping their customers by unwrapping trees, holding them up for inspection, cutting the trunk and then re-wrapping them up. Apparently, the Canadian Home Depot didn't get that memo!

We only put a few no-breakable ornaments at the bottom of the tree. A whole tree in her house full of her favorite thing right now, balls! Olivia only took the ornaments she could reach off for a few days. Thankfully, she is over it.