Gingerbread House!

The first of our Christmas decorations: we spent some time today working on Dave's "Birthday" Gingerbread house...looks pretty good--if I do say so myself! :)

Happy 31st Birthday Dave!

Happy Birthday Dave! We celebrated last night in true Calgary style, at "Ranchman's" cowboy bar, where Dave got to try his hand at bullriding.

Welcome Charlie Bailey!

I can't believe I'm a few weeks late in welcoming our newest little babe to the world, but here he is: all 10lb 9oz of him...Charles Giuseppe Bailey was born on October 29th, as a welcome addition to our good friends Jim and Andrea's family. Congratulations and welcome--we are so looking forward to meeting this not-so-little guy!!

More from Malcolm's visit

Drumheller with the Jackson/Fuchs clan...

Joel and Janet are here to visit this week with baby Malcolm. We took Mal on his first trip to see the Dinosaur museum in Drumheller: I'm not sure he will remember much of it in years to come, but hopefully he will be back again at some point when he's a bit older. Janet's brother Brian and his wife Kris have recently moved here to Calgary, so they joined us for the day, as well as a few evenings back at our place. It's been great having company, and especially our smiley little chubby-cheeked nephew! :)

A few random photos...

Dave Harman's birthday at the "Broken Plate" Greek Restaurant...
A weekend retreat to Canmore with PJ and Greg: lots of "Christmassy" snow--so pretty!


My book club was reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns": which takes place in Afghanistan. One of our ladies, Leah, spent some time there as an OT, and brought along her burqua for us to try on: can you tell who's underneath?

Oh NO--it's SNOW!

October 25th...last year it at least waited until the 29th...

"Field Trip": Edmonton

Christina and I at the "WEM"

I had a training session for work in Edmonton on Friday, so made the 3hr drive with my colleague Christina. We treated ourselves to a brief stop at the West Edmonton Mall for dinner and some shopping: a bit of a strange place, as it's not really the nicest mall (feels pretty old and outdated), but has SO much stuff (Ice Rink, Water Park, Amusement Park, "Underwater Adventure", etc.), and it was SO busy!! Edmonton itself is a nice city: reminded me in some parts of Toronto and Calgary at the same time. Now that it's getting colder out though, you can definitely tell that Edmonton is more of an "indoor" city, with so much of their year being winter!

Dave and I spent this weekend at home, getting things done around the house and relaxing. Dave had about 8 guys over last night for a boys night of watching "UFC" and playing poker, which was fun (Shandra and I escaped to go to the movies).

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Joel, Janet and Malcolm in a few weeks (Nov 7-14), and have our flights booked for Christmas: flying into Ontario on Dec 22nd, and back to Calgary on Jan 2nd. In the meantime, we have a few birthdays to celebrate, and are looking forward to hearing more about Tara and Joe's plans for their New Year's wedding. Our friends Jim and Andrea are due any day, so we are excited to hear their news...

Hope everyone is well--drop us a line any time! :)

Fall in Calgary...

Not too much exciting these days...Fall has definitely arrived here in Calgary, so we've done a bit of leaf raking and getting ready for the winter. Karen Thomas was in town for a visit this weekend, so Dave took that as incentive to single-handedly make all of us an amazing Thanksgiving/turkey dinner on Friday night. He took care of everything--from the groceries and the cooking to the flowers on the table--such a great Househusband! The results were delicious--hopefully this will become a tradition!

Thanksgiving in Jasper

Dave and I spent this Thanksgiving together just outside of Jasper at the Overlander Lodge. We were celebrating our belated Anniversary, and thought the long weekend would be a good opportunity for a getaway, especially since we didn't have any Thanksgiving plans. It turned out to be just as we'd hoped: sunny all weekend, nice cool Fall temperatures, and lots of outstanding views! We treated ourselves to a day at the spa when we arrived in Jasper on Saturday, then headed to the Overlander for a great gourmet dinner of steak and salmon. Sunday we headed out for a little hike at the nearby Folding Mountain, then checked out the small town of Hinton, where we had a hard time finding a restaurant open for Thanksgiving dinner, and ended up at Arby's instead! This morning we left relatively early, so that we could make a few stops along the way home: the Edith Cavell glacier, Athabasca Falls, and countless viewpoints along the Icefields parkway and through Jasper and Banff National Parks. Such amazing views everywhere you looked, which made the 5hr drive fly by. We came home to photos, videos and emails from home, making us sad to see what we were missing out on, but also is nice to feel like we are a part of the action. Happy Thanksgiving to all! (I think Dave is hoping to make a belated turkey dinner this weekend when our friend Karen comes for a visit, so hopefully we will still get our share of turkey...although the Arby's roast beef sandwiches were a pretty good substitute!)

Fall hike at Powderface...

I (Beth) went for a little hike today with some of the girls: Shandra, Tannis, Crystal and Jenn. The leaves are still changing, making for a really pretty view.

Happy Anniversary!

It's been 2 years now since our wedding--I guess time flies when you're having fun!

Amy and Jay's visit (and Nadine too!)

We were so lucky to have Jason and Amy come for a visit last week: while certainly cooler than Ontario has been the past few days, we did manage to have a few days of sunshine to enjoy the sights. They spent a few days driving through Banff and Jasper, taking Nadine on her first (chilly!) hikes through the glaciers and mountains. The weather called for rain and thunderstorms over the weekend, so we stayed in Calgary, and spent a fun day at the Zoo, before the boys headed out to the Flames vs. Oilers pre-season hockey game. Nadine was a good sport for her first swim at the Talisman pool, and we also had lots of time to relax and visit with good food and good conversation (and a bit of Fussball too!). It's too quiet here now that they've gone, but we will wait patiently for our next visitors: Joel and Janet are booked to arrive in early November. Thanks guys for the great visit--we are truly blessed to have such great family and friends. We miss you!

Some flamingos at the Calgary Zoo (notice how they stand on one leg)...

Getting ready for the Flames game with a visit to see the "Edmontonosaurus"...

Nadine's first swim...
Cuddle time with mom...

Out for dinner...

Such a big girl!!