Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Whatever!



So, this is what happens when two, hyper girls
get a hold of your camera.  I had no clue.
They almost look like they're in a photo booth.
They took picture,
after picture,
after picture.
My girls.  Gotta love 'em.

Silly People


We saved the best 'til last and took them to experience 
BULK BARN!
Everyone picked up a little something as a treat and I bought some
gummy teeth,
the picture didn't turn out as funny as I'd planned, but we had a blast 
taking it, we laughed and laughed.
Kaitlin on the other hand looked stellar.  A real star!
Now that's funny!  
At least the teeth were tasty.

We have sure enjoyed their visit, we laughed and talked, ate
yummy food and treats, watched some major olympic events and
talked some more.  It was great.

Thank you Kent, Wendy, Karlee and Kaitlin, for spending
your summer vacation with us and for bringing Courtney with you.
We will miss you, but will see you in a year.  Yeah!

The "Ledge"


Then we went to play at the "ledge".  This is one of our favorite 
places to go and hang out.
Kent is doing the karate kid "crane" pose.
Cute family, I set up the pose.
Kaitlin was too darling!

They are so like their mother, the pilates queen.
That must make them pilates princesses.
They do a lot of this balancing thing, on all kinds of dangerous edges.
Silly girls.
I love this wading pond, it's so interesting and unique.
Pretty day, pretty picture.
This "100" sign is new since the last time we were here.
It says, celebrate Alberta's legislature.
Oh yeah, I had that as one of the questions on my missionary
Canadian quiz, Alberta's birthday was 1912.
We didn't think quick enough, we should have brought Chris' good
camera and taken some senior pictures.
So I took some, just for fun.
It helps that she's a poser, go Kaitlin, work it.

There were all kinds of people and families playing
in the reflection pool today, it was really fun.
More pictures of Kait,

The grounds were gorgeous,
and so was this lovely couple.  Gorgeous.
They looked so great and so happy.  We were just as happy to
have them come up and visit us.  We are so lucky and blessed
to have such good friends.
I caught Chris, just hangin'.

Downtown!


After the temple, we took Kent, Wendy, Karlee
and Kaitlin on the downtown tour. 
 The same old things we always take visitors to see, 
but there's always something new that we pick up on.
They are painting and covering all of these boxes, downtown
and all throughout Sherwood Park.  This one's kind of scary.
We showed them Chinatown, the gateway,
 the phone booth, see the cute little roof,
and the "gate of happy arrival" sign.
This was a unique little red brick building, it's pretty dressed up 
for this part of town.  Gutsy.

To the Temple, and Beyond


The temple has been closed for cleaning for the past two
weeks, so the Packer's made sure they were able to stay and
 do a session with us.  We even got special permission to have
 the girls do baptisms for the dead. It was a very special day.
Here are our cute girls with Moroni,
and the girls up close,
and Kent with his sweet daughter's. 
He performed all the baptisms and Chris was the name 
checker offer. (the one that feeds the names through the viewer)
We had a unique opportunity.  Because we needed extra
priesthood, we had our two assistants, stand in as the witnesses.
Very remarkable.
What a beautiful, eternal family.

And what a beautiful daughter of God.
we are so grateful to have our daughter here
and temple worthy!  We are so proud of all our
children.

After the temple visit, we took them on the rest of
the Edmonton tour.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Goin' swimmin'!


Today we are taking the Packer's to the best indoor water park in the world.
Or at least the best one we've ever been to.
Kaitlin's going to try a little surfing, right off the bat.
Dressed and ready to roll.
There is so much to do and see.
First up, the mega pink slide, it goes all the way around in a 
complete loop.  They went right for this one first.
Go big or go home I always say.  I graciously volunteered to
 take some pictures and get them on film.
Say "hi" girls, who gets to go first?
Ready, set, DROP!
Here she comes.
and,  she's . . . .
safe!
They all tried the loop and they all made it.  
And that was just the beginning.

We spent several hours there, in the wave pool, on the
tubes, in the water playground and on most of the slides.
Troopers!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sunday Supper


We enjoyed a wonderful sabbath with our dear friends.  We took them
to our ward and proudly introduced them to everyone as our dear
friends and Courtney's Mom and Dad.
For supper we had salmon, yum.  Everyone made it their own way.
Not quite sure what is in Kent's bowl.  Maybe he wants a bigger salad.
Kaitlin, she's so silly, I really miss her.
She zoomed right in on my fruity gum display, 
display being the optimum word here.
I bought these darling little fruit gums last year for a decoration
to put on my counter.  They were so fun I stored them 
away during the winter months and brought them out again
this summer.  Well, before I knew it, Kaitlin was taking one out of
the jar and attempting to chew it.  I thought for sure she would
break a tooth, but they were surprisingly still fresh and soft enough. 
 She ate a half dozen before the visit was through.
We have visitors that are staying around for awhile, mark
their cups so we don't go through as many.  
Here are the Packer's, Kent, Karlee, Kaitlin and Wendy!
The best friends in the whole world, we owe you our lives
for taking in our baby girl and letting her live with you.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Karlee Sue-shi


We took the Packer's to the West Ed Mall today, to look around,
eat some food and check out the amusement and water park.
Of all the choices in the food court, Karlee chose sushi, eeww!
She was pretty excited.  She's showing her more sophisticated side.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Capital X and The Packer's


We just got through with transfer, incoming, outgoing, cooking, 
doing dishes, meetings, and I am ready for a break.  
A baby girl and friends from Utah break.
The Packer's are coming and they're bringing Courtney with them.
Yeah!!!!!
They've made their way up through Glacier and they should be 
here by tonight. (thursday)  I had a crock pot full of chicken,
beans and corn with tortillas.  I thought they might be hungry.

I had the entire visit planned, I am so excited.
Tomorrow, after a crepe breakfast, we will head to Capital X.
I've already bought tickets, I hope they want to go.
We went to Capital X with Courtney the first year we were up here,
we missed it last year and thought it would be the perfect place
to take the Packer's and Courtney, there is a lot to see and do.
A whole park load of things to see and do.
We walked through all the displays first,
see the cute Packer family in front of the teepee.
Courtney's trying her hand at surfing, on a wave of records.
There was a huge mobile of guitars and gold records,
Chris like all the awesome guitars.
Kaitlin and Courtney took a stroll on Abbey Road,
sooooo cute.
Then we stumbled on this huge tribute to KISS, one of Chris'
favorite bands.
These were 18 inch dolls of the singers,
this is Peter Criss
and this is Gene Simmons.
And these are two scary girls (make it three) peeking through the glass.


The great bison and Kaitlin and Courtney
And just the great bison.
The entire conference hall was filled with Canadian heritage.
From handcarts,
to wild animals,
Ukrainian festive costumes
to the oriental influence.
Big Panda

After we had walked through everything and bored the girls silly,
Chris gave them some money to buy a few tickets and ride a 
few wild rides.


In the mean time, I hung out with my good friends, candied apples
and fancy caramel apples.

We watched a really cool high diving show, they were literally diving
 into a small pool of water from way, way up there, like 30 feet up.
Sorry, I filmed it this way so I could get the whole picture in.

Then we hung out at the all the wonderful, delicious, food carts.
First up, chicken tenders, the BIG ones,
homemade root beer,
fancy fries, curly, spiral and fresh cut.
Then there were these awesome looking funnel cakes, with
soft serve ice cream on top with toppings.
I almost caved for one of those, and then I saw. . . .
fried oreo cookies, 
now that I have to try.
I made Wendy hold them so I could take a picture.
And that's as close as she came to them, no closer.
They were ok, not all they're talked up to be, I wouldn't get 
them again, I'd try something else next time.
Or I'll try deep fat frying something of my own, candy bars, maybe.
Good old poutine, only in Canada, la poutinerie.
We met back up with the girls and caught a special show in the 
conference center, it was all done with aluminum hoses, like
clothes dryer vents.  But really big ones.

There was so much to see today, when we came out of the aluminum
show we ran into this "Beatles" group.  We just caught the last two songs.
We would have loved to have watched the whole show.  It looked fun.
The girls really got into it.  If we had caught the entire show I would have
encouraged the girls to go up front and be groupies.  Next time.
What a wonderful day.