Spring break in the airport

We made the long trip back to North America for Spring Break so we could spend some time with Madeline and get the house ready for our big renovation.  The trip did not get off to a great start as we had about 12 hours of heavy snow before our departure time and our flight was cancelled.  We managed to get booked on another flight in the morning but since our original flight time was about 2:30am and we arrived at the airport at 1am (and I had not gone to sleep before we left), we spent about 9 hours in the airport before we finally took off (and about 3 hours of that standing in lines.)  Here are our spring break photos before we even left Almaty:

Olivia was fully prepared with ear plugs and eye mask and slept on a bench for most of the delay

Waiting in line - this was after a good hour and half with only 2 agents for a whole plane load

Marcy, Emily and I finally crashed after we had new tickets on KLM and were in the departure lounge

Olivia took this picture of me after pulling my purse out from under me and taking out the camera and I didn't even budge.  Thank goodness later she woke me to ask how we knew when we were boarding.  Almaty has just one large departure lounge and you have to watch the screens for your flight to be called.  When she asked me I looked up and our flight was boarding.  It's a good thing she had spent all the rest of our wait sleeping or we would have missed our flight.

With all the flying we do this really hasn't happened to us too often.  We really have been lucky.  And all the other passengers were impressed with how patient the girls were.  They were certainly better behaved than some of the irate adults!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Back to Christmas, just because I missed a bunch of good photos.  Minimal commentary.

Ice staking fun - Christmas Day we skipped skiing and almost everyone skated and/or hung out at the lodge.  Mary was happy to find a winter sport that she could enjoy and that didn't scare her!

More skiing fun - Dad/Pop Pop was eager to ski and be successful.  We had him out of the slopes after 1/2 a day and on the second day had him all over the hill.  Only calamity was when he lost a ski, the break malfunctioned, and it flew all the way down the mountain with me chasing it at breakneck speeds until it flew off the edge and into some trees.  A skier below retrieved it but Dad had to walk down in his boots.  Almost as funny as the Mimi pile up under the ski lift the year before.

New Year's Eve/Day fun - We spent the day/evening celebrating with the Agnews and Lairds.  They MADE us stay up until midnight which we never do.  We played games, watched sports and had some beverages.  Lots of fun and we weren't even too tired!

I think I have finally fully covered Christmas now!  Took long enough!  Once again I hope they leave me free access to Blogger for awhile so I can manage more than 4 posts a month.

An even bigger blast from the past

By now if you follow the blog you've been looking at the most recent post of Madeline at winter formal for weeks now. Once again, the powers that be have seen fit to allow access to Blogger in Almaty. So, for a bit of comparison, here are Madeline and Austin before JPII homecoming way back in Oct 2009. I flew with her back to Dallas from Calgary just for the occasion. (Does she remember all the nice things we've done for her in her life??)

Blast from the past #???

Waaaaaaay back in January Madeline and Austin attended Hockaday's Winter Formal. We were not there for the actual event because we left the afternoon of but I did get to do dress approval while we were home for Christmas. She got the dress from Rent the Runway which allows you to use the dress for the weekend for $50. Good deal since she refuses to wear a dress for more than one dance. And it turned out really cute. Here are the photos:

The girls all pooled their money and rented a large limo and took their dates out to dinner. After they played video games at the "after party." I think she had a good time!!

Lake Louise Christmas Eve

Even though Lake Louise is an almost 3 hour drive from Kimberley we couldn't pass up the chance of having afternoon tea. And what better day to do that than on Christmas Eve. We got up early, picked up Olivia in Invermere, stopped at Tim Horton's (because everyone visiting Canada should stop at Tim Horton's) and then we all (me, Wowa, Mimi, Mark, Madeline, and Olivia) headed through the mountain pass for a nice afternoon.

Always a great view

(although we were in the dining room this time, not the lounge)

Cheers!


Cool ice sculpture on the lake

Out on the frozen lake

Wowa could not venture out on the ice

but enjoyed wandering in the cold (?)

It was a great day and the tea was outstanding as usual (scones and mango/cilantro sandwiches - yum!) I don't think we will ever pass up an opportunity to go back.

PS And Mark entertained us all with a lively reading for Harry Potter on the way back. He should definitely be one of those audio book narrators!

Kimberley Christmas Day

I'm so behind that this ought to be a "blast from the past" post but we'll just call it catching up and blame the funky work-around I have to use in order to blog in Almaty. (Hopefully everyone can enjoy the postings which have taken me HOURS to get up today.)

This was our 2nd Christmas to spend away from "home" while vacationing. Eight years ago we spent Marcy's first Christmas in a Thailand hotel room. This was much nicer. And while our tree was better than the 12 in plastic one years ago it was still definitely a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

I brought the ornaments from Dallas - just enough! And our innovative tree stand is a bucket with a cut off pylon inside to hold the trunk, surrounded by water bottles for weight distribution, stuffed with cut up towels for stability and covered with a towel the color of Christmas gold! I was very proud of myself for getting it to stay up. By Christmas morning you can see it had started to lean a bit.

But, no worries, it held up all the way through New Year's and there was plenty of space for the presents (which is what matters, right?) Here are the girls enjoying opening those presents:

Wowa and Mimi were there for Christmas morning as always and it was great fun to have Mark and Pop-Pop join the fun as well.

We'll be back for Christmas Day in four more years when it's our turn to use the condo again. I would definitely do it again and who knows who will come along next time!

Hockey

Emily decided to take up hockey when we moved to Almaty. We bought all the equipment in Calgary and she was ready to go. Just one little thing - she didn't know how to play. She refused to take skating lessons because "Coach Chris already taught me to skate" according to her. Luckily, we found hockey training on Sat mornings. It wasn't a team but it wasn't lessons either. It was hockey drills designed to improve players' skills and perfect for Emily. Of course, once again it was all boys but she's used to that by now.

They got to have one game and here are the photos!

Face off!!

Proudly wearing the Canadian Flag

Some of the boys are slightly bigger than Emily

Emily is taking a break from hockey right now so she can play Sat basketball at school. Since that is only 4 weeks she might be back to hockey or perhaps she'll try ski club for a few weekends if the snow holds out. Emily has figured out the she "stinks at hockey" according to her.