The end of warmness

Luckily our new furnace is working well because we've begun to use it! Every year I'm faced with almost a feeling of dread about the upcoming winter. Snow and cold brings with it longer preparations to leave the house, a dirtier wheelchair to lug around, colds and flus, heat bills and often, cabin fever. On the other hand, we live across the street from a rink so we can go skating this year, we can play in our own snowy backyard, we have a garage to park in and we have a fireplace and hot chocolate and all those good things. It also means we're close to Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas, which are very fun holidays!

Ryan's been busy with work and field trips and swimming and basketball and helping his parents build a new deck at their house. His love of games continues and we've had lots of fun with our newest game (purchased lovingly and carefully with PC points) - Beatles Rock Band.

I've been busy with the day-to-day aspect of running our home and I've also done something for myself - joined Spa Lady. I'm not making any drastic promises to myself, because I never seem to keep them (a.k.a. losing tons of weight for Kathy's wedding last month, which never happened - sorry Kathy!), but this gives me an outlet and something that will help me feel better about myself. I've also become more adept at navigating the Edmonton Public Library system as I've had to get all the books that Claire is reading at school so that she can look at the pictures while Miss Steed reads. I'm beginning to love the library - before now I was almost exclusively a book buyer instead of a book borrower.

We said goodbye to cousin Carrie as she headed off to the Atlanta North mission. I know she'll be such a good missionary and look forward to getting to know her better through letters.

We had our first Stake Conference in our new Stake and enjoyed listening to dad speak, as well as the other church leaders.

Claire's been very busy. She continues to enjoy her horse back riding lessons (we finally found a helmet that fits her!) and her preschool class. It's a great class and the kids are getting to know her better. She had her special "Busy Bear" day and brought a photo album of pictures of her favourite things to share with the class. She also does art work everyday at school and we're running out of places to display it at home! She went to her friend Sadie's birthday party and it was a very fun tea party/princess party. Claire loves her helper Lisa and they seem to get along wonderfully!

Claire was rolling around on the mat and rolled onto her backpack and managed to put it on all by herself! It was so funny. She was so proud of herself. I guess she must really like school.


Claire has a great new friend named Sadie who lives a block away. We had her over to play and had lots of fun doing crafts and playdoh and playing outside.


Maddie always likes to sit on the stretching barrel at Little Bits. Hopefully I can get her into a riding class someday.


I finally caught a smile at horseback riding! Usually it's hard to catch it in time. Although her face looks a little squished her, you can tell she likes her class.


Claire gets the two male side-walkers because she's super strong, so they have to be strong too. They are so kind to her and she really likes to talk with them.


Madeline is such a smart cookie. Everyone is always surprised that she is only 2 because she speaks so well. I love having conversations with her and asking her about her thoughts and her feelings and finding out what is on her mind. She's really grown into her role as Claire's interpreter and helper. She loves playing outside and she can't wait to go to school like Claire. Until then, we'll have to content ourselves with our Gymboree and library singing classes. She loves writing "notes" and her favourite is making grocery lists. She'll ask me a hundred times a day, "What do we need at the store mommy?"

Again, we've had lots of fun activities these past few weeks. We had our good friends the Thompsons (Jason, Kate, Ben, Brigham) and the Jensens (Jeff, Eva, Beatrix, baby on the way) over for a picnic. It was just as the weather started to get colder so we almost froze outside but were determined to eat out there. The kids had lots of fun together and we had fun playing Rock Band too.

Ryan and his friend Beatrix rocking the beat.


Rockband! It never gets old.


We dragged a table outside and had lots of fun. I guess next year we should buy some patio furniture or something.


Brigham, Ben and Madeline enjoying their ice cream sandwiches.


The kids found it hard to sit and eat. They kept escaping to play on the swingset and trampoline.


Ben gave Claire and Madeline great pushes on the swings.


I got to attend the Relief Society broadcast with my mom and sisters. It is a yearly tradition that I look forward to, and this time I wasn't crashing the Millwoods dinner because I actually belong to the stake now!

We had a ward carnival and silent auction for the youth to raise money for activities. Of course I forgot my camera, but they had lots of fun games for the kids and both Claire and Madeline enjoyed them. Claire spent most of the evening being escorted around the gym by the girls in her Primary class. It was fun to watch them.

I sometimes worry that friendships will be hard for Claire. I think, right now, the kids are intrigued by her and are treating her a bit like a baby to take care of or a novelty toy. I had to remind them to talk to Claire before just whizzing off with her wheelchair. I want them to connect with her as a person, not just a girl with a cool chair. I hope that the initial interest these kids have in her will develop into something more meaningful. I'm grateful that they do have an interest in her - maybe I'm just been to overprotective as usual.

We a fun Saturday October 3 - we missed out on Conference (That's why we have the internet and the Ensign, right???) but Ryan and I got to fulfill a life-long dream of seeing Fred Penner! We took the girls to his concert out in Spruce Grove and it was delightfully fun. He's 63 now, but doesn't look that different from when he was on TV - he certainly has lots of energy and we all enjoyed his songs.

Here we are at the Fred Penner concert! I love the Horizon Stage.


Fred himself. He was great! He really got the audience involved.


Then we rushed over to the Royal Alberta Museum to take in the annual CNIB Sensory Safari where kids with visual impairments are allowed to touch certain animal exhibits and meet some of the bugs they have upstairs. It's always a fun activity.

Maddie loved exploring and learning about the animals.


I told Maddie to make a walrus face.


Claire liked the feel of the "velcro" legs of the millipede.


Madeline was very interested in the leaf bug.


We had to take a "ride" on the escalator. This is my attempt to take a picture of us, but Madeline decided to sit down right as I took it.


We got another family picture taken this day at the museum in front of the bear.


Claire liked the feel of the different pelts and animal heads. It's not as gruesome as it may look.



We had a fun Conference Sunday with our traditional crepe breakfast. Ryan outdid himself this time with a great bunch of crepes. We had a lot more room for people to spread out in the house this time, so I think everyone had fun and we enjoyed visiting with our friends.

We've started the process of adapting our home for what Claire needs. We had someone come out from Shoppers Home Health and give us some estimates on an electric lift for the front door versus a ramp (a modular ramp is $10 000 and a mechanical lift is about $5500 - yikes!) and tracking lifts in her room and the bathroom for transferring when she gets bigger ($1200) and a lift down to the basement for her and her wheelchair ($12 000!!). I've started wading through the applications for all the various funding organizations, and while I'm so grateful that these places exist, they make you jump through a lot of hoops to get there! We'll also have to look into adapting our van in the future to accommodate her wheelchair, which can be up to $20 000!

Is it bad that I count down the days until Ryan has work off?

5 days of work until Thanksgiving weekend
24 days of work until Winter break
49 days of work until Christmas break

I can't wait!