Nana's Visit

I realized that I hadn't posted anything about my mom coming to visit with us. It was so nice of her to take some time off of work and make the trek up here. Luckily, she was able to get on all the flights with no issues. The first day she was here we went to the farmers market with my friend. They have a little play place and Jane had a blast in it.

Jane was not afraid to get in there and play with all of the other kids. She would have stayed in there all day if I would have let her. It was kind of gross though and she got so dirty.

We also went to Banff with my mom. We have been there a few times with different people but it still amazes me how pretty it always is.

It was really great to have my mom here for Jane's birthday. I have already posted all the pics from that. We had a good time. Of course me and my mom got a puzzle and spent a bunch of time doing that. We also ate a lot of delicious food. Jane loves spending time with her Nana and we do too. Thanks for coming mom.

Raw Birthday

I know that some of you people think I am kind of a freak about food (mostly Jeff's family ;) Jeff really wanted Jane to have a cake that she could eat with her hands and would get all over her. Well she hasn't had any sugar, wheat, oil and all that stuff. So I kind of didn't want to kill her with an overload all of those things. So I decided to make a raw dessert. What is that, you wonder? Well I made a chocolate mousse pie that was made out of avocado, agave (a sweetener) and cocoa powder. The crust was almonds, dates and a little lemon juice. Okay you are not going to believe this, I made whipped topping out of cashews, honey and vanilla. I was amazed by that one too. I couldn't believe how much it tasted like whipped topping. Delicious stuff. Don't knock it till you try it.
Enough about the pie. My mom came into town and so we decided to invite some friends over and make a little party out of it. We even got party hats.

Jane didn't really get opening the presents. She didn't get to pull of the wrapping and so my friends daughter just ended opening most of them.

Here is Jane with some of her swag.

There is the raw chocolate mousse pie. It really was a hit. Even Jeff really liked it and don't believe him if he says otherwise.

She was a little hesitant at first but as you can see, she went to town on that pie. In this last picture, the band holding on her hat had slipped up to her mouth and she kind of looks like the joker. We had a good laugh about that. Overall, the party was a hit and Jane loved the food. Unfortunately, mother nature decided to give Jane a present too and she has had a bit of a cold since her birthday. It is not horrible but we had a couple of bad nights because she couldn't breathe very well.
Here is a little video of some of the festivities.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. We especially loved the video from the Knudsens (we are excited to see you guys and meet claire).

A Year

It is is amazing how fast time flies.

We wouldn't take back one second of the last year with her. We are looking forward to so many more. Happy Birthday Baby Jane.

Nothin Much

My mom told me that I needed to post something on our blog. She said that she keeps coming here and there is nothing new. I realized that it has been a while since I did post anything. I guess I haven't because our life hasn't been too eventful lately. We have spent a lot of our time lately planning our trip to Hawaii. But also trying to figure out our holiday plans. Las Vegas for Christmas and possibly Utah for Thanksgiving (it is still in the works).
I was thinking this morning about what I could post about that might be interesting. Then I was thinking about the song that I woke up singing this morning. Sometimes I am really quite surprised at what songs will be in my head. I assume that would have heard them somewhere but often they are so random that I can't remember hearing them in years. Like this morning, the 'that's what friends are for song'. I don't know if that is the actual title but I don't think I have heard it in forever. Maybe it is a sign because I was thinking that I should write about some of the friends we have made since being here. You know it is amazing the difference it can make to have friends or not. We didn't for most of our time being here but lately have been hanging out with some people and it makes a difference in how we feel about being here.
Well about a month ago we went to the Zoo with the Cartwrights (Amy, Brennan and Hyrum). They are a family that moved here from Provo and so are also strangers here in this strange land. We can commiserate together about the things we don't like about Canada. It is fun.

Even though he doesn't look super happy here, Hyrum is quiet the cutie. Jane loves climbing all over him. It is probably a good thing that he isn't too mobile yet as he might really get back at her for all the times of her hitting and pushing him.

Jeff and the bear coordinated their outfits.

Jane was more fascinated by the trees than most of the animals. Maybe next year it will be more exciting for her.

Why do we even buy Jane toys when trash is just as fun to play with. Overall the zoo was a little disappointing. The biggest part was Canadian wildlife and we can go into Banff to see those animals. Plus zoos do make me feel a little sad. I mean it is a little fun to see the different animals but sad that they have to be in cages so that we can say that we have seen a giraffe.
Over this last weekend we went on a hike with the Harkers. Amy and I visit teach Jacqui and learned that we have lots in common. They have 3 super cute little kids. Two of them are in nursery with me. We hiked up to a place called Troll Falls. I didn't really understand why they called it that because the falls were really pretty.

There was also this crazy girl getting her picture taken in a wedding dress. She was in the water with it. I hope that it wasn't her actual dress. After the hike we went to the Harkers for dinner and ate salad out of super delicious lettuce and tomatoes from their garden. I have to say that I have a bit of garden envy. Theirs was pretty amazing and I hope that I can have a good garden like that some day.
So as our time winds down here in Calgary (only three weeks, but whose counting) we find ourselves being a bit sad to leave. We didn't think that we would feel sad at all but meeting such great people changed our minds. Don't get me wrong, there are other good things about Calgary and are grateful for our time here.
So now we are just waiting for my mom to get here for a visit. Also there is a big milestone coming up for Jane. More on that later.

The Provincial Bird

There is a joke here that the mosquitos are actually the provincial bird because they are so many and so big. We decided to experience them first hand by going camping in Banff. We put on our mosquito spray and hoped for the best. We hoped for this campsite near a lake but it was all full by the time we got there. The site we go was nice as well but had a lousy excuse for a fire pit. We made it work though. Jane loved sitting in the dirt and playing with the rocks and pine needles.

Our tin foil dinners. They were hard to cook in the little fire pit but they came out alright.

Jane had her food to and got it all over.

Did anyone notice how awesome Jane's outfit is? Yeah I just put on a sweater over her pjs in the morning. Who cares what we look like while we are camping, right? After breakfast, we packed up our site and took a long time to decide if we wanted to see more of Banff (we have already seen most of the park that is close). We chose to go on a hike to a water fall. It was an easy hike, which was good since we were both tired. 

Our first experience camping as a family and overall it was a success. None of us slept that great but we don't sleep that great at home either :) Oh and we did pretty well about not getting too many mosquito bites. Jane had one on her head and I had some on my feet. Jeff came out unscathed. Luckily, they mostly going away as the summer is winding down.

It's always fun when Grandma (and Grandpa) comes

So a few weeks ago, my parents came up to visit.  I had a 3 day weekend so we took some time to visit banff and other sights in the Canadian Rockies.  When Mom and Dad first arrived, they took some time to relax from their long trip up here.  It is about 16 hours from Salt Lake to Calgary - we are pretty far north.  We headed up to Banff on Friday morning and decided to drive to the Columbia Ice Fields.  I had no idea what all the hype was about, just that there were glaciers - but it turned out to be really cool. Here is a picture of the glacier.

 So after we got there, we found out that you can actually catch a bus that drives you up into the middle of the glacier.  But it's not just any bus, it's a $1.2 million 4WD bus driven by a teenager over the steepest grade dirt road I have ever been on.  Here is the bus.

Here is Mom and Dad and the Southern side of the glacier as viewed from the bus drop off.

 And of course, Kim, Jane and me with the western slope of the Athabasca glacier

 They say that the water from the glacier is the best tasting water you might ever taste.  I had to have a taste and I think it just tastes good because it's really cold.

 We stayed in Banff at a hotel and got some dinner and set off the next morning to go to Lake Moraine.  We heard it gets crowded there so we tried to get there by 9 or 9:30.  This is Lake Moraine.

 The light blue color of the lake is supposed to be finely ground rock powder mixed in the water that refracts the right kind of light to give it the light blue color.

Here is Mom and Dad in front of Lake Moraine after we finished hiking halfway around the lake.

And of course, a picture of Kim in front of the lake from the front moraine (a moraine is a mound of dirt pushed up in front of the glacier and then just becomes a small hill after the glacier recedes).  As we were leaving, the cars were lined up and parked nearly a mile along the road on the way out of the parking lot.  We were glad we arrived early.  When we got to the bottom of the road, we noticed that somebody was there letting cars in - 1 car in for every car that leaves.

Here is also a video of Grandma getting some big laughs out of Jane.

We really enjoyed having my parents here to visit us and Jane obviously loved it, too.  We look forward to Christmas when Jane can see Grandma and Grandpa Miner again.  That is all for now.

lightning and popcorn

A couple of weeks ago there was a thunderstorm in Calgary. We stood outside and watched as it hailed.

About an hour or so later we started smelling smoke. I looked out onto the golf course and there was quite a bit of smoke out there. Jeff went out to investigate. He came back and said one of the buildings was on fire. Our fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. This is what it looked like. 

We left the apartment for a couple of hours. When we came back the flame were gone but they were still spraying water on the fire. A cop said that there was a natural gas problem that they were still trying to extinguish. After being home for a while the power went out and we were told we had to leave again. We packed up some stuff (unsure when we could get back in) and went to a hotel.  Oh I forgot to mention that it was lightning that started the fire. Crazy.

There used to be a roof there. The firemen were still spraying water on it when this pictures were taken. This is about 4 hrs after the video was taken. Luckily we got back into the apartment the next day.

On a lighter note. Jane love, love, loves to be sung to. If she is upset and you start singing, she will usually calm down. One of her favorites is the popcorn song. I noticed something the other day when I was singing it to her. For those of you who know the actions to this song, you can appreciate this.