Christmas and New Year

It's been a busy time here for us Stophers over the last few weeks. First we had Neil's mum to stay, then it was Jazzie's birthday, then Christmas, then a trip north to visit my aunt and uncle in High Prairie for a few days. Finally, New Year's Eve is here and before we know it, it'll be Monday and back to work and school for us!
We've had a wonderful couple of weeks, with a lovely Christmas day at the Ross' house with good friends, and a terrific short break in the snowy lands of northern Alberta. So I've just decided to put some photos that sum up the last 14 days for us.
1. The Christmas Eve Santa parade that passes our house, complete with police and emergency vehicles sounding their sirens and flashing their lights.
2. Jazzie's birthday cake
3. Christmas lunch
4. Present opening
5. A couple of photos of our trip to High Prairie










For all our friends near and far, in Canada, the UK and beyond. Happy New Year to you all. May 2010 bring you all happiness, peace and prosperity. xxx

Happy Birthday Jaz!

Jasmine has just celebrated her 9th birthday today, and her second in Canada. She had a party on Monday, when we took her and her friends Ella, Maddie, Keelin, Laura and Holly to 'Build a Bear' in the Chinook Mall, followed by supper at A&W. Today we gave her a hamster - she's named him 'Cookie' - and he has the most space-age cage ever! Jake gave her a gigantic Minnie Mouse as it was something she has wanted for ages. It was lovely for her Grandma to be here for her special day too.

Christmas at Heritage Park

On Sunday we took Neil's mum to Heritage Park, to the 'Once upon a Christmas' event. Even though it was a freezing cold day, good fun was had by all.
We started off with hot chocolate as we watched Jake and Jaz ice skate on the outdoor rink, and then we travelled around the park seeing Christmas traditions of the past. Jake and Jaz had a chance to buy us Christmas presents at the 'kids only' Christmas shop. We even had a glimpse of traditional Hannukah games in the tiny synagogue. It was a lovely afternoon.

Gingerbread Houses

We're trying to enter into the Canadian spirit of Christmas a little more this year with our homemade edible creations. We discovered last year that in Canada, people bake like crazy for the holiday season, and so this year we have litres of cookie dough chilling in the fridge, and have made a gingerbread house. Here is Jasmine's afternoon creation (with a little help from mum). Looks good enough to eat! I wonder how long it'll last before it gets eaten up?

Zoolights

This year we took Neil's mum to see the Calgary Zoolights exhibition. Every winter, Calgary Zoo decorate their grounds with millions of colourful light displays and there is winter music, firepits, ice sculpting and even a live satellite linkup with the big guy in red!
We spent a wonderful couple of hours wandering among the displays and marvelling at the amount of lights. It was magical.

Tree cutting in Kananaskis

After last year when we paid a small fortune for a not particularly great tree from Staples car park, we decided to do the Albertan thing and cut our own tree this year. For a $5 permit, you can cut your own tree (less than 8ft tall) from anywhere on Crown Provincial land, so armed with a map, the permit and our good friends the Ross family, we set out in convoy on Sunday morning to find our tree.
Bearing in mind the harsh winter storms of the previous 2 days, we fully expected to have to turn back at some point as we heading for Kananaskis country, just west of Bragg Creek. However, the roads were pretty good and we arrived about an hour later. We had to pick our spot, and ended up at Station Flats, where after wading (yes it was that deep) around in snow for a while, found a likely specimen.
The next trick was to cut it, drag it back to the car and try to load it onto the roof. We realised pretty quickly that the tarp that we'd brought was a little inadequate to say the least! After some problem solving and lots of 'to me.....to you' we finally got our trees aboard our cars and after having our permits checked by the park ranger, we headed off for a firepit cook out at McLean Creek.
It was freezing cold (-25) but we managed to get a fire going and roasted some weiners for lunch. We gave up before our marshmallows though, as all our condiments and milk had frozen solid! Instead, we headed for the Cinnamon Spoon cafe in Bragg Creek for some much needed hot chocolate and a good thawing!
The tree is now stored in the garage 'acclimatizing' to warmer temps (it's a balmy -11 in there!) before we bring it in. It's looking a little out of shape after a trip back on the roof of the Honda, but hey ho, we did it!
Pics of our tree will follow after we've got it up.

Arctic storm!

Yesterday (and today) we have experienced quite the worst arctic weather since we've been in Canada. It has been brutal here in Alberta for the last 24 hours. We've had gusting winds of 50mph as well as huge amounts of snow, which has made driving conditions extremely hazardous and has closed many roads in and around Calgary due to the number of accidents. I drove home from Calgary yesterday lunchtime in a whiteout, and literally couldnt see 3 feet in front of the car. It was genuinely one of the most nerveracking drives of my life. It took some drivers over 3 hours to make a 20 minute journey, and many abandoned their vehicles due to being snowbound. Temperatures are around -10 but it feels a whole lot colder than that due to the icy winds that cut through you when you step outside.
We've given up on clearing the drive and sidewalk outside the house as the blowing snow just covers it again in minutes. We've got drifts of up to a metre in places and its wild! There's not much in the way of winter weather that brings this area to a standstill, but this has done it! Definitely a time to be safely tucked up indoors with a cup of coffee and a fire going.......brrrr!
Neil's mum arrives next weekend....I hope she's packed her longjohns and thermal vest!

Christmas time....

Well, today is December 1st, the first day of Advent and I've never got the children out of bed so easily....the promise of the Advent calendar chocolate for breakfast never fails!
Canadians start the whole countdown to Christmas a little earlier than us, and many of us have had our Christmas lights up on our houses for a couple of weeks now. The reason being that if you wait til December, you'll get frostbite trying to attach fiddly little lights to your guttering. We said that we wouldn't switch on ours until today, but actually we caved in about a week ago. People seem to call them 'winter lights' here and they stay on until well into the New Year.
Last week was 'Light Up Okotoks' again, but the kids and I didn't go this year as I was sick. Neil opened the office and spent his night serving hot chocolate and tying endless amounts of helium CIR REALTY balloons for happy Okotokians. He came home with numb fingers and blisters.....bless him!
With the arrival of the Christmas spirit, comes the arrival of the cold weather and snow. We've experienced one of the warmest Novembers on record, with no snow at all, and mild temperatures with plenty of warm Chinooks keeping the frost just to overnight time. However, this week has seen temperatures plunge downwards and we've had a couple of snowfalls to make us happy again. More snow is forecast for the beginning of next week, and the world is turning white again!
We're off this coming weekend to chop down our Christmas tree in the foothills. $5 buys you a permit, and with this you can select up to 3 trees, chop them down and transport them home. Bargain! We plan to make a day of it with our friends, the Ross's and have a fire pit with marshmallows out in the forest. Photos to come later.
In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of the house in it's Christmassy lights, and our latest addition - a hand carved reindeer from Millarville christmas market.

Happy first Canniversary to us!

We've done it....we've been here in Canada exactly one year today! I can't believe how time has flown. I've just been looking back at old threads I wrote on here a year back, and it was such an emotional time. I remember crying as we took off from Gatwick, mostly from exhaustion I think, but also thinking of all the people we were leaving behind. I also remember how unfamiliar everything seemed to begin with, and how, although we were enjoying the adventure, everything was such hard work to begin with - like finding out where to shop for different items, rules of the road, food shopping took HOURS as we got to grips with new brands, foods etc. Everything seemed so strange and new.
All those unfamiliar feelings seem a lifetime away now. We feel so at home here now and have made so many great friends and met some fantastic people. There have been worrying times along the way - job searches, kids settling into new routines, all that sort of stuff, but we truly feel that we are establishing ourselves here now and feel so much richer in so many ways. The Canadian laid back attitude has rubbed off on us now, and we no longer fret about minor things in the way we used to, and their constant positive attitude has rubbed off too. There is so much less 'doom and gloom' here. When we left the UK, the recession was biting hard, and every time you switched on the TV, it was a torrent of bad news and pessimism. Here in Canada, it couldn't be more different. The news here looks on the bright side, even when times are tough, and it helps everyone feel good and look for the silver lining.
Neil and I are off for a fancy meal tomorrow night to celebrate not just our anniversary here, but also his recent success with his job. 2 deals this month! One year on, we feel proud to say we've done it....we had a dream and we went for it. It was a long hard road to emigrate here, with many months of anxiety, stress and worry, but it has been worth every sleepless night, every penny it cost us to move our lives 5000 miles away from Swindon, and every minute of stress wondering 'are we mad to do this?'. If you have a dream, you MUST go for it, or you'll always wonder 'What if?'
If we return to the UK on a holiday (which we plan to do in the next 12 months or so, finances permitting) then I feel sure that, although it will be wonderful to see friends and family again, and there will be a lot of nostalgia, we will still feel happy about boarding a plane bound for Calgary again, knowing that we are going 'home' to Okotoks, and feel that this is where we belong!

WoooOOOoooo!

It's the night when ghouls and ghosties come a knocking.....Halloween seems to have been revving up here for weeks, and tonights finally the night. Houses around are bedecked with orange lights, pumpkins and even entire graveyards with dry ice machines going......there's no doubt, All Hallow's Eve is HUGE here. I've bought a few hundred candy bars and chocolates and I'm waiting by the door. Jaz has gone out 'trick or treat'-ing with her friend Ella, so here are a few spooky pics of local houses, our scary spook Jaz herself, and a ....er.....lovely....halloween treat that she made for her Guide group party this week.....severed fingers.....ugh!

Alberta Bound

Shamelessly stolen from the 'Moving or new to Okotoks' group on Facebook, but for those of you who've never been here, a music video which kind of sums up Alberta for those of us who love it. It's more like a promotional tourism video than a music video, but we think it's a brilliant way to share all we love about this place we now call home. Mostly filmed around these parts, with the Okotoks Big Rocks themselves featuring about 1.07mins into the video....enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhkcjxLCm8Y

Jake's Field Trip

Jake has just returned from his first residential field trip since moving over here. He spent 4 days and 4 nights at the YMCA Camp Chief Hector near Canmore with his Grade 6 buddies. He was really looking forward to sharing a cabin with his best friends Spencer and Tom (Spencer is in the red jacket, Tom is just to the right of Spencer) and had an amazing time in the snowy mountains. He got back to nature learning about ecosystems, food chains and the natural world by playing games, hiking and team building. He came home tired and in need of a long, hot bath, but with plenty of tales to tell and a smile on his face. Great stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last weekend was a long weekend, with Monday off as it was Thanksgiving in Canada. All a bit early I hear you mutter, thinking of the US Thanksgiving which is celebrated just a week or so before Christmas, but here it's in October. In Canada, Thanksgiving is like a big Harvest Festival, where family and friends come together to celebrate and give thanks.....and eat loads of turkey!
Being as our families are all many thousands of miles away, we decided to club together with my friends Debbie and Kat, and their families, and celebrate together in a 'pot luck, but not so random' sort of way. We each took responsibility for part of the feast, and everyone came over for an afternoon and evening of eating, drinking and general silliness. Everyone had a great time, and we're going to continue the tradition with future festivals as they come up, as we all had so much fun together.

Jaz had her enrollment night at Guides last night. Despite never being part of Brownies or Guides until this year, she has fitted right in and is loving all the activities and challenges that they do. She's already had her first camp out, and has also taken part in selling Guide Cookies door to door - making over $100 in sales that has gone towards future guiding work. She was a very proud girl after the ceremony, and although she was nervous about forgetting her 'promise', she did us proud! Well done Jaz!
The temps as you know have plummeted over the last few days, and last night it was a very chilly -10 degrees. Nevertheless, Neil was out barbecuing our steaks in the snow.....truly Canadian eh?

Have just read that Canada is ranked the 4th best place to live in the world! Only beaten by Norway, Australia and Iceland....Britain didn't even make the top 20. Looks like we might have made a good choice then....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/6261469/Britain-slips-out-of-top-20-best-countries-to-live-in.html#

Snow again!

Ok, so here's how the seasons seem to go here.....winter... winter... winter... summer... summer ...winter. Last week we were still basking in temperatures of plus 30 degrees, and now its down to single digits, with a couple of below zero mornings, and this morning.......snow! We're still getting to grips with the whole 'extreme change in weather in just a few hours' thing that seems to happen here.
The re-arrival of the snow has transported us back in time to our first months here, and we've been reminiscing about how excited we were to see the first snowfalls of last year, and how Jake and Jaz couldn't wait to get out there and play in it. This year.....oh so different! Jaz woke this morning, looked out the window and said 'oh....the snow's back then' in a very casual tone. Jake got up and didn't comment on it at all! (Although to be fair, he is in that 'teenager monosyllabic grunting...surprised by nothing' sort of stage in his life now!) Neil is pleased to see it back....he loves the snowy look and I would be too if it was just another month on from now, but snow in October seems a little early to me. I'd have liked to hold onto the warm autumn days a little longer I think, especially as last winter was sooooo long (we were still getting snow in May!). The snow is a bit 'British' in texture at the moment.....a bit wet and sloppy, I prefer the snow around late November - February where it's dry and powdery, but I'm sure we'll get it soon enough. This snow is already melting fast, but more is forecast for the end of the week, so we'll see what happens....

Sunset in Alberta

I know I've posted on here already today, but have just taken piccies of the most amazing sunset. The whole sky just turned pink and it was the eeriest but most beautiful thing....enjoy!

September in Okotoks

Well, the season is officially 'fall'........or 'autumn' depending on who you talk to! It is now late September, and the farmers are busy in the fields with their combine harvesters, the trees are turning beautiful shades of golden and russet and there is a definite chill in the air come early morning.....but were it not for these physical signs around us, you would be forgiven for thinking that summer was still at it's height. The weather is still amazingly warm, a real Indian summer, with record breaking temperatures, including 2 days this week when the temps have been in excess of 30 degrees! If it weren't for the darker mornings (I'm getting up at sunrise now at 6.30am) and the clearer air over the Rockies, which makes them appear several kilometres closer, you would still think we were in mid August. We've had but one night of rain in the last 7 weeks! It is due to cool a little next week, but the sunshine is still here to stay, and it is definitely one of the reasons living here is such a pleasure.
The kids are back doing their regular round of clubs and activities during the week and at weekends - a variety of sports and social events. It keeps us busy, running them here, there and everywhere, but it is lovely to be able to do so at long last, without having the worry of working late, or extra work in the evenings. Even us adults get the chance to indulge a past-time now! Neil has started a photography course (see lovely photos of Sheep River here....after his first lesson!) and I am starting Curling next week. It's something I've been longing to try and I'll let you know how it goes!
Neil is continuing to work very hard, and now has his identity plastered over his car to remind the good people of Okotoks and beyond who he is and what he does! (see photo!) He's feeling a tremendous sense of achievement and is loving the challenges of setting up as a realtor.
All is good as we fast approach our first yearly milestone as permanent residents here in Canada.

Jaz's first camp

Jasmine has joined the Girl Guides here in Okotoks, and her first taste of fun was a 2 night camping trip at Camp Gardner near Bragg Creek. I wasn't sure if she'd want to go so soon after signing up, but she was very enthusiastic, even when she discovered she was staying in a proper tent, and not a cabin like the Brownies do.
We both went off to Walmart to gather supplies, such as a sleeping bag, tarp, eating utensils and a flashlight, and she loved putting together her list of equipment. We drove her over last night and within minutes of arriving in the woods where they were pitching tents, she waved us off with a shrug, and pitched in to help her fellow guides with tent building. The only thing she was a bit miffed about was not being allowed to bring any candy. There was a total food ban to stop unexpected visitors invading their campsite at night....bear shaped in particular! When we explained it though, she was more than happy to leave it behind. I don't think she was too keen on sharing her tent with any grizzlies this weekend!

Rodeo Time!

Yeehaa!
We went to our first Rodeo last night here in Okotoks and had a great time! The kids particularly got into it, especially Jaz who was whooping and whistling along with the best of them. We all had Stetsons so we'd look the part and after a bit of a slow start with the bull riding (them bulls were frisky so it was a bit of a risky business for the cowboys climbing aboard), we enjoyed such delights as bareback bronco riding (truly mad, boy must those guys need a chiropractor afterwards!), calf roping and tie-down, steer wrestling, saddled broncos and the junior events like 'mutton bustin'! (very small kids riding sheep, hilarious!) It all concluded with the final event where they release wild horses around the arena, then, in teams of 3, have to capture the horse, saddle it and ride it once round the arena without being thrown off. The horses definitely had the better of most of the riders that's for sure and I bet there are more than a few stiff and sore cowboys today! The animals were all well cared for and went home none the worse for wear, which is more than could be said for some of the riders, who limped off bruised and battered.