Countdowns

Besides our countdown for Europe, each of our girls have had countdowns of their own:

Carmen counted down to the day her braces came off! 

Jaclyn counted down to a little trip she and I made to Idaho to go to the mission farewell of some guy she knows. Many of my friends thought I deserved either pity or praise for taking a weekend to do this, but it was actually fun. Thank goodness I liked his family! Ken tells me my going to Idaho with Jaclyn is just the natural extension of 18 1/2 years of accommodating parenting on my part. Jaclyn could have done the drive herself, but with her work schedule it meant late night driving through mountains, and I wasn't crazy about her going alone. 

I wonder how many Statues of Liberty there are in the USA?

Chloe counted down to her Harry Potter birthday party. She had to add four days on to her countdown when we postponed her birthday party to accommodate my trip with Jaclyn, which stretched her anticipation.

Some decorations were my creations, but many of the decorations were done by Carmen and Chloe.

I was really glad that Professor Carmonigal was available for the party. Her alternate personalities were House Elf (before and after the party), Mr. Olivander, Madam Hooch, and "the snitch."

The sorting hat sang a song (Harry Potter in 99 Seconds) and then sorted the guests into their houses with a little bit of help from its blindfolding powers and a bowl of house crests.

Chloe was sorted into Hufflepuff again, just like her Pottermore account.

Hogwarts houses merged to play Quiddich. Our original plan was to set up the rings on soccer goals at a park near our home, but it was really raining out and we decided that after 15 minutes walking to the field everyone might just want to turn around and come home rather than stay and play, so we hung the rings from our garage for one goal and borrowed a neighbour's driveway for another goal. The girls still got wet, but less so.

Following the athletics we held a grand feast. Sadly, the food didn't magically appear on the table as one guest pointed out, but the buffet that mom (aka The Head House Elf) put on was quite a spread. Jaclyn said I should take pictures of all the food to somehow embarrass myself at how spoiled Chloe was with this party. Happily, we will live off leftovers the rest of the week. I love leftovers, they're the dinners I didn't have to cook!

Hagrid delivered a cake. (It was a little smooshed like he sat on it or something.)

11 candles! No boyfriends!

"Expecto Patronum!" (A dozen times or more) until the dementor pinata was history, leaving gold galleons for a trip to Hogsmeade.

The *shopping* helped the girls load their loot bags with Butter Beer, Snitch Cake-pops, Liquorice Wands, every flavour beans, chocolate frogs, liquid luck, and so on.

I wasn't embarrassed by the feast, but I'm a little embarrassed by all the treats. As a dental hygienist, I mean.

Iron

The next time someone hears me say that I'm tired, will you please respond with, "Have you been taking your iron supplement?" I ran out a long time ago and I've been dragging and low energy without realizing or identifying it until I was hiking on Friday. Hello! I'm anemic! But did I buy my Proferin on Saturday like I said I was going to? No, I did everything else instead. Then this morning my yoga instructor actually asked me what was wrong. Hello! I'm not taking care of myself, that's what's wrong. And I feel like an idiot letting myself get to this point when I'm so philosophically against self-neglect. I went straight to the pharmacy after yoga.

Carmen had her final band concert, probably final as in forever. She thinks she will choose drama as her arts option next year. I'm afraid the band teacher will be heart broken.  

Chloe and I have been preparing for her Harry Potter birthday party next week. Pinterest is my best friend and worst enemy. Lots of good ideas. Too many good ideas. Can't do it all!

Oh, I'm on Instagram now. I'm drowning in social media, but my children and friends keeping moving on to the next thing. And I was hoping that Instagram would be a quick and easy way to stay in touch on our holiday. We'll see - no one is following me yet.

My new favourite app on my iphone is PathAway. It connects to satellite via bluetooth, so I have GPS on my phone without cell coverage in the woods. No data required, and plenty of fun features like adding points that link to photos I've taken along the way. Plus altitude, so we'll never again have to wonder on a road trip what our altitude is (not even kidding, this is something we muse over).

We used PathAway to go on a quick backpack trip with Steven on Friday night. He had a couple of requirements to check off on some scouting awards which is what got us out of the house this past weekend. We didn't hit the trail until 9pm, but we managed to set up the tent before it was dark which was exactly the timing we were going for. It was a short hike, a little steep. Nothing that adequate red blood cell levels wouldn't have been up for.

Here we are in the morning, ready to head home.

And the boys.

Part of the point of the short hike was to do an equipment check before we hike in and out of Mount Assiniboine in August, and it was a good thing we did it. Steven was my size when we bought him that backpack - time for something larger. My air mattress had a leak. Ken's headlamp needed new batteries. No big deal on a short hike, but things that will matter more on our 55k trip later this summer. I should have my iron levels up again by then.

But what of Jaclyn you ask? Well, 2 weekends ago her he's-not-my-boyfriend came up from Idaho to hang out. And she and I are heading to his mission farewell this coming weekend. Also, she's now a probationary writer for the BYU 100 hour board, and feeling confident that the 'probationary' status will be lifted at the end of her trial period since she received Editor's Choice recognition for one of her answers last week. If you are curious as to what this is all about check it out here and if you still want more, I suggest hitting 'I'm Board' on the sidebar.

Old News

1. Well, by now Easter is old news. (Actually, it was old news by the time we got around to dyeing the hard-boiled eggs.) We went to Marie's house for my dad's birthday and Easter Sunday combined.

2. Badminton is also old news, we've moved on to Track & Field - but no pictures of the latest sport.  Carmen was able to go to divisionals in the doubles category. Jaclyn was home from college by then and she provided a mixture of coaching and cheering. Well, not cheering. We don't cheer at badminton tournaments.

3. Steven has one game left for spring football next week on Wednesday. (It's almost old news.) The truth is if it had been up to me Steven would play piano rather than football, but I love it now. I've come to appreciate football as I've watched Steven learn discipline and dedication, resilience and accountability, and then apply those lessons to other areas of his life.

4. We're taking the family vacation of a lifetime this summer! This is old news because we decided to do it back in December, but it is ever on my mind.

We are travelling together to London, Paris and Ireland. I started out with a travel agent, but I guess I just wasn't communicating what I wanted very well, so I gave up and booked it all myself. For the most part we are staying in small (20 room) hotels. Our typical style of family vacation has been the road trip - this will be our first time flying as a family. Really, we've just taken our road-trip-style vacation across the ocean. I'm calling it our Planes, Trains and Automobiles vacation.
We're flying with Air Transat to the Gatwick London Airport. London travel will include the tube, a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, and a bus trip out to the Harry Potter Studios north of London. We are travelling to Paris via Eurostar, going through the chunnel (which apparently doesn't get called that anymore). In Paris we are doing a guided bike tour, and possibly renting golf carts to tour Versailles. We then train back to England, rent a VW minivan (right hand drive standard transmission), drive to Wales, spend a day, get on a ferry (with a bunk room for us)(to get a feel for Grandpa Stapleton's emigration to Canada), and we will then road trip our way around southern Ireland. After a few days of that we'll ferry across a different route returning to England, visit a family history spot, see Oxford, and then fly home. I keep joking I need to find a way to travel by horse just to add yet another mode of transportation.

While we're in Paris we're having family pictures done. The blurry iphone photo above is Chloe's outfit. Everyone is set for clothes but me, and I'm hoping the sweater Kelly has sent me will tie in to the colour palette. (I'm sorry in advance for our Christmas card. I'm afraid the Eiffel Tower in the background is going to be pretentious, but I'm doing it anyways, what does that say?)

5. A few weeks ago Jaclyn taught Carmen how to apply eyeliner, which is OLD news in a different way.

Something to Blog About

I'm laughing before I even type it, but Steven is back playing spring football. 

Football had a major bonus for me recently: The game film is now on a website called Huddle, which has a feature where players can make their own highlight reel (for college recruiting) (not that Steven is going to play college football). The template on Huddle includes a fill-in-the-blank form asking for GPA and class ranking, neither of which are a Canadian thing as far as I know, but it led to a conversation that Steven and I would never have had otherwise: Steven estimates his academic ranking to be 20th in his class of 700. He is on the Honours with Distinction list at school, and it turns out there are only 20 or so other students on that list. I absolutely did not appreciate what a serious student Steven is and how well he is doing academically before Huddle. I'm super proud.

Carmen and Chloe have been especially good friends lately, but they are growing up too fast!
("I'll put a brick on your head.")

They were my nurses last week when Ken was out of town and I was recovering from my AST laser eye surgery.

I had to put drops in my eyes every 15 minutes during the day for the first two days, and every 2 hours for the first two nights. Pretty much that's about all I did with my time for Friday and Saturday.

My "downstairs" litter along with books that Chloe read to me so that I wouldn't be bored laying on the couch with my eyes closed.

My "upstairs" litter (this is some high-quality blogging) with Chloe's bell that she shared with me in case I needed anything.

My fancy post-surgery sunglasses.

By Sunday I felt totally back to normal. Except I could see!

It is really remarkable to be able to see without contacts or glasses. I don't know when I'll get used to it, and I'm okay if I feel this grateful for the rest of my life. It is a blessing of modern medicine - I only wish I'd done it sooner.

I did not take this picture, but Flex gave me a lot of lap-hugs during my recovery. That dog loves everyone, even me.

New Wheels

My parents popped by this week, and when they drove up to the house our garage door was open - which is probably the only way they would have found out that Ken got a new car for a really long time. So I thought I'd just put it out here in case we aren't spreading the word adequately.

And while I'm on the topic I think I should confess: I'm jealous and plotting to steal it away from him.

(I've never felt this way about a car before.)

Spring Skiing

In beautiful Whitefish, Montana

Carmen: The Girl on Fire

Me in my hand-me-down helmet from Jaclyn. When did this happen?

Caught a picture of Ken this time

Our sole snowboarder

We're having a great time, but we're cutting it a bit short for Football and Badminton. Two more days!

Second best, or rather, Second to none

Silver should be Carmen's new favourite colour:

(Pose #1 in front of her science fair backboard, and:)

(Pose #2)

Carmen was awarded second place in the Health Sciences category of her school science fair tonight, and she is moving on to Regionals next week. I had the fun experience of judging science fair today (I didn't judge the Health Sciences category) which was interesting. I learned a lot of stuff I'd never known about batteries, airsoft rifles, and the potential benefits of doing homework with the TV on. Ha!

Carmen's experiment tested if students brushed their teeth longer with toothpaste or without. (Without.)

Silver #2: Carmen's basketball team took second in Divisionals!

Um, not silver related, but moving on: Carmen and Chloe had Choralfest on the weekend. The adjudicators were beside themselves impressed with the Westside Children's Choir. In this photo the adjudicator called Carmen up to demonstrate 'molar-izing' her sound. This girl has some good genetics for a wide palate from her dad - is it funny to anyone that Ken has contributed to an element of vocal talent? 

Westside Children's Choir is a non-audition choir that rehearses for 1.5 hours per week (senior choir) (and 1 hour per week for junior choir).



I know I've blogged about choir before, but it is the best value for musical education, and such a quality experience. I'm so grateful my girls are a part of it, and also grateful to my friend who introduced us to it.

The Audit

I'm not exactly sure when this started - sometime in the fall. Steven came back to sit with us in sacrament meeting after doing the count and Chloe asked to see his paper. Not knowing what was in her head, Steven passed it along.
Well, Chloe checked his math, and then looked up at me with a mixture of pleasure and worry. She had found a mistake. Steven had quickly added up the numbers in his head, whereas Chloe had carefully worked out the addition on paper and she came up with a different answer. She re-checked it a couple of times to be sure before she pointed out his error.
Honestly, Steven was annoyed. He felt that she was a little too pleased with herself, and when she asked to see his paper the next time he didn't want to pass it to her. But he did. And now it has become a little tradition which amuses all of us, even Steve. Mostly their numbers agree. A few weeks ago Chloe's total was different than Steven's, but it turned out they'd both made a mistake on their first calculations.

A couple of weeks ago I documented the audit with my camera on my phone in Sacrament meeting. (Set to silent.) (Which was possibly still wrong to do.)

A funny brother-sister bond.

Thirteen

I have this thing where I take a break from birthday parties during the jr. high years. It started out as the last birthday party being at 11 years old, which evolved into 12 years old (poor Jaclyn was cut off sooner than Carmen and Steven). Partly this came from my mom having no birthday parties past 10 years old, partly it came from having 4 children and getting tired. Actually, my mom having 5 children and getting tired is probably why she stopped the birthday parties at 10 years old.

However it happened, I stand by it.

Carmen was lucky enough again to have her birthday fall during a school break, so Carmen, Chloe and I drove up to Edmonton to visit Mark, Ortensia, Camille, and Monte and to go to the water park at West Edmonton Mall! There is really nothing like it in Calgary.

Chloe started off with Monte, who loved the splash park.

Then she warmed up on the Caribbean Cruiser.

Monte is hidden in the splash.

Meanwhile, Carmen found just the right big slide for Chloe.

It was a hit!

And here's Camille, who loved the slides.

What's this? No pictures of Ortensia or I in our swim suits? However did that happen?

The next day was Carmen's actual birthday, and we thought maybe that would be the day she would pass me in height. Ortensia found a book, and Mark pulled out a level . . . 

Oh, the bubble is creeping into the middle, but still solidly on my side. You will be taller than me soon enough, Carmen. 

We had crepes for breakfast, and then drove home to spend the rest of Carmen's birthday with Ken and Steven. We went out to Chianti's and came home for ice cream cake.

Happy Birthday Carmen! How can you be 13 already???

Five for Friday

1. I just need to get it down that I draw deep satisfaction from taking care of my family. Preparing food to meet Chloe's needs and taste good to everyone else, finding solutions to physical challenges, coming up with a helpful idea. It warms me from the inside out.

2. I've driven Steven and his friends to the movies a couple of times in the last month and each time I think, 'I won't be doing this much longer.'   I've been driving the same core group of boys around for more than 10 years!

3. A woman at work, another hygienist, has gone on stress leave - she's been away for more than a month. I've had a few people say to me jokingly about this that they'd like to take a stress leave, which is funny. But actually this woman is the sole provider for her family right now, her husband hasn't worked in 3 years, and so this is very real. And not making money has to be a stress of its own, I'm sure.

4. Because of #3 I've been working more. Filling in the gaps can't exactly fall to the people who are already there every day - so I've been picking up extra hours. I've been told I'll be rich, but my response is I'll just own more scarves from Winners. (Actually, I dropped my car off today to have a remote car starter installed. I find working more has forced me to be a better meal planner, and slightly more organized, but I have also found it to be inconvenient. The remote starter, however, will be very convenient.) (Let it be noted I've moved from working 1 day/week to 2 days/week and it is only temporary - as in 6 weeks at the longest. My full time working friends have no sympathy, and I don't complain about it to them.)

5. The Valentine's wrap up:

I made advance plans for my Valentine's Day with Ken. Not all of them pulled through, but we did go out to eat on Tuesday during Steven's football off-season training, which made me much luckier than the wives of those coaches!

For some reason I was not as on top of Valentine's Day for the kids. I did our traditional waffles with strawberries and whip cream thing, but let's just say that the evening of February 13th was a flurry of activity to have Carmen and Chloe ready for the next day:

Carmen prepared her first box lunch social. Thank heavens she was on top of things: she made two personal-sized homemade lasagnas on Saturday and stuck them in the freezer. But on Monday night she still had to shop with me for the *extras* and she also made two personal sized pineapple upside-down cakes. Carmen's lunch was bought by 2 boys who pooled their money together: it went for $85! They split the food up between the 3 of them fine, but I guess we should include an extra drink in the future just in case.

Chloe's Valentine's friendship bracelets were all done, but the night of the 13th still required putting them together with the Valentine printable (a la Pinterest):

We also made pink Rice Crispie Treats with marshmallow hearts on top for a class treat. I'm sure we would have contributed to the class party food anyway, but the no gluten/no dairy thing makes it a requirement.

Happy Valentine's Day!

(Steven gleaned the benefits of having younger sisters by getting a pineapple upside down cake of his own as well as a couple of Rice Crispie treats, and all the extra marshmallow hearts.)

(Jaclyn says she had the best Valentine's Day ever.)