Parting is such sweet sorrow

It's been another busy week. The next two promise to be even busier with the move and a family reunion coming up. Tonight I am taking a break and blogging because Sunday is a day of rest...right? Tomorrow I'll get back to packing.

Speaking of packing, I've done a lot of that this week. It seems never ending. I'm feeling very anxious about getting into the new house and making it ours. Right now it still feels like a very foreign place. At least the roof has been re-shingled and we're making appointments for furnace estimates - yay.

Another exciting event on the horizon - Olivia's baby is due soon! Ryan's mom and sister Angela are heading to Toronto next week. I hope that the timing is good and that the baby comes while they are there. I hope we can meet him soon!

The girls and I spent a morning at the museum. I really like taking them there because the lighting is great for Claire's vision and there are so many things for Madeline to explore. The grounds are so beautiful too. It doesn't hurt that Ryan's working at a site right around the corner so we got to stop by for a visit too. While we were there, another little girl (about 6 or 7 years old) befriended Madeline and took her by the hand and began imparting all her knowledge about the exhibits to her. It was fun to watch them toodle around.

Here's Claire enjoying the pagoda outside the museum.


It was a beautiful day to be outside.


Claire was so focused on all the of the minerals and shiny rocks. It was a nice place to sit and observe.


We had our snack time at the tables outside the museum.


There was a place in the hummingbird exhibit for kids to make a puppet show about birds. It was great.


Claire and I


Claire was at just the right height to reach most of the placards with textured objects. She did a great job of exploring with her hands.


The girls looking at the live fish in the Wild Alberta exhibit.




The girls and I also had a wonderful music class at the library where we did lots of dancing and music games. We then went outside to do a craft, but we only lasted about 5 minutes before the heat melted us and we had to leave.

I got to attend the temple with my parents and Greg and Steph as our cousin Carrie went through for the first time. She's going on a mission to Atlanta in August.

I got to be a model again for Natalie as she did her final exam at Marvel College. This time I got a perm! Most of the clients getting the perms were "ladies of advanced age" so I felt right at home. :) Now I get to have fun curly hair for awhile. Thanks Nat!



Ryan and I had a fun date night at the No Doubt concert. They sang a lot of their old songs from Tragic Kingdom - I totally remember buying that CD when it came out and I felt so cool because it was one of the first alternative bands I listened to. It was the first concert we have gone to where we felt like standing up and dancing the whole time. Every song, everyone was standing - it was so much fun. The crowd wasn't too rowdy where we were sitting, the stage was cool, the opening bands were great (Bedouin Soundclash and Paramore) - it was a very fun date.

Here's the No Doubt stage - it was very awesome.


Paramore was so fun to watch. Hayley was hopping around like crazy the whole time.


Ryan and I before the concert started. We had good seats which was lucky!



We had our last Sunday in our ward today. It was bittersweet - we have friends that we will miss and so many people have been great, but almost all our friends have already moved out of the ward. It will be nice to settle in somewhere and start to make new friends and new connections. We had a fun dinner at Jeff and Eva's place - we will definitely miss being 1 block away from them.

Claire had her first and last talk in our ward Primary today. I think it went well - she talked about Family Home Evening and she used her Big Mac switch. I recorded a scripture on it and then we had pictures on an easel representing what we do at Family Home Evening. Claire was very quiet through the talk but pressed her button very well and right when I said "Amen" she gave a big smile. It was great.

We bought our first new couch and table this week. A furniture store in Edmonton is going out of business and selling things at 50% off so we bought a new dining room table and chairs and a sectional couch for the living room. It feels so grown up to have "real" furniture instead of hand-me-downs.

Here's what our couch looks like:


And the table - we can actually have people over and all eat at the table together!:


Madeline has been in quite a mood lately. She doesn't even behave for her fun playdates at Abby's house anymore. I hope that it's just the stress of moving because...I love getting a little bit of a break when she's at a friend's house!

Claire is such a happy girl. She's been very patient with the moving process.


I'm trying to come up with activities Madeline can do in our boxed up apartment. We got some sidewalk chalk and she's been drawing on our deck outside.


I found the shoes I wore for our wedding day while I was packing and Madeline liked them so they are now dress up shoes. You can't tell here but she's also wearing a head band backwards on her head to be beautiful.



Maddie's been on a dressing up kick. Here she is "ready for snow" as she says. Notice the fancy shoes. :)


Yesterday's storm was kind of scary. Our power was out for over 12 hours. Luckily the girls slept right through everything. The transformer right outside our back window nearly exploded and the lines were sparking. The power was out as far as we could see and there was so much rain, wind, thunder, lightning and even hail. We're lucky to have friends next door who gave us candles because all of ours were packed up. We found our flashlight but it really makes you appreciate how much you depend on power and other conveniences. I was grateful that we had our water supply, food storage and 72 hour kits in case things got worse. I'm glad that things were back to normal in the morning.

So that's what we've been up to this week!