Boy Sandwich: Winter is Over!

Its really true, Spring has sprung much earlier than I could have ever hoped or dreamed. I thought I would see snow from October to April once we moved further North, but luckily we were blessed with the mildest winter Edmonton has seen in decades! There really are tender mercies. Nevertheless, it was a long winter. Here are some things that helped us get through it:

WEM or West Edmonton Mall has been a life-saver. We purchased a family annual pass for the boys' Christmas present and have not regretted it one bit. Even though neither James nor I are "Mall" people or even "Carnival" people, we have enjoyed going to the mall with the boys a lot so far this year. As Tommy says, "West Edmonton Mall is a landmark!" And it truly is! We have loved the water park, Galaxyland (with all the rides, roller coasters, etc), the bowling alley, the sea lion show and aquarium (very small, but nice to visit), and the two different min golf courses. We have so far been fairly successful in not spending too much money on anything in the mall! We have learned the routine pretty well and usually come between meals. The free pop at the water park doesn't hurt either. :-) As it turns out, the boys are at a pretty perfect age to enjoy all this and we are glad, because it ain't happening again!

Ready to start a couple rounds of very competitive bowling. :-)

Owen in front of the penguin tank--still has favourite animal!

The famous whale of WEM.

Another thing that made the winter fly by was all the basketball that was going on around here. The four oldest boys were in bball throughout the winter, and they learned a lot! We recently had a few spring games with the family and I can see that they have all surpassed my skills by far. George and I can still compete a little though. :-)

Tommy and his Coach.

Two buddies from church that played against T's team--they tied!!

And of course, the family fans are the best right?

Will and Ry even got to play against their cousins!

basketball was great, the true sport of the North was also enjoyed this winter--some live games and many games on tv were watched by these faithful Oilers fans:

They are especially excited about the new Legend--Connor McDavid

Owen went on a ski trip with his school and I got lucky enough to be able to come along. After he practiced on the bunny hill a little, I snuck him away for the rest of the day to the big hill. He was thrilled and caught on amazingly quickly!

"Mom, we've GOTTA do this again!!"

On the lift together

And of course, many crafts and projects help the time to fly by:

George got excited over a cardboard box (like many before him) and created this computer.

Pure genius! He can always take us with him wherever he goes.

The Friend magazine challenged the kids to draw their versions of these two Book of Mormon creatures. Here are Georgie's renditions. The curelom looks like an angry squirrel and the cumom--quite Garfield-like, in my opinion. :-)

William and Ryrie had an Aztec unit. This was Will's project--a temple with a sacrifice going on. Ryrie did a temple out of styrofoam, painted it and had it look like it was on fire--with tissue paper.

Scout trucks? Never heard of them before this year. Super fun and quite fast on the track!

Tommy's lighting bolt Kub Kar.

We have a really nice cub group this year. Tommy's got some good buds in there.

George and I enjoy our mornings together. He has really gotten the hang of Chicken Foot dominoes.

I taught the boys how to make friendship bracelets and they've been loving it. Tommy and Owen made some for Will and Ry as welcome-home gifts after their DC trip.

Yay! I've always wanted to start seeds indoors--I'm scared about the next step, although my mouth is already watering for this basil-to-be!

We finished the winter out with the twins going on their DC trip. They did so amazingly well traveling alone through the Toronto airport and beyond, they really seemed to grow up a ton after this trip. Now they have the confidence to do anything! They brought back some really thoughtful gifts for the family, and it was cute to see them and everyone else get so excited about it.