In spite of the cold

We had a pretty great weekend, in spite of the blowing arctic winds that caused us to stay mainly indoors. On Thursday evening, before the wind really hit, we headed out to Cochrane High School for their annual Dinner Theatre - starring Miss Janeen Williamson...and some other people. This year they put on the production "Nunsense" which is a Christmas production with a bunch of crazy nuns. Janeen played Sister Amnesia. She was named such because she had a head injury a few years ago and forgets most everything...this of course, made her part particularly funny as she is able to get away with A LOT. The kids enjoyed watching her and having a night out. We made her some Tissue Paper flowers before leaving so they'd last longer, and it's more exciting for the kids to help making a gift, then just buying one. Lucy was excited to see her teacher at the production too. Her daughter was the director for this year's play. We're all looking forward to the Spring production of Les Miserables.
The wind settled in over night and on Friday we woke to a chilly howling day. There wasn't much to be done, so we settled in for a day at home and got to cleaning. Tyler and I nearly spent the entire day cleaning our room...sounds disgusting doesn't it? Let me explain, so you don't think so badly of us. Our room doubles as a bedroom and office, so most of our cleaning consisted of filing and sorting through stacks of papers that had accumulated. My mother would be happy to know that I do not allow ANY clothes to sit on bedroom floors anymore...that teenage tendency is gone. The kids busied themselves playing, and unfortunately, without much supervision, the rest of the house ended up looking like much of a disaster...but our room feels glorious! They cuddled up together a few times with some books in Max's favorite cuddling spot - behind the rocking chair in his room where we've stored a bunch of linens. It makes a comfy pile for two little people, and they were quite content there. We finished the evening with dinner and a movie - Night at the Museum 2, which we all really enjoyed. They had a warm-up tubbie and used Tyler's old glasses (which he took the lenses out of) to play "Dr. Rob." Then it was off to bed a little late as the wind made it difficult for our kiddies to fall asleep, but sleep they did. Max always gets the worst of it, as his room has 3 outside walls, so the wind really whips around him. But he managed to sleep through the night, a fact I was worried about.
Grandma and Papa were supposed to fly home from Mexico Friday evening, but they were grounded in Houston due to bad weather...Houston's, not Calgary's. Yes, we had arctic winds and blowing snow; poor visibility and icy roads, but Houston got about half an inch of soft flaky snow, and they shut down the airport. It was a blessing though, since Tyler no longer had to venture out on Friday evening to pick them up from the airport. Instead, we all headed out Saturday morning (my primary party was canceled due to weather too) and picked them up together around 11:30am. The kids made paper flowers again, and had fun waiting at the airport and looking at the fountains and horse statues. We brought extra coats for them, as they had only worn sweaters on their way out and were coming home to -15 weather. We decided to stop in Airdrie on the way home and do some Christmas shopping at the Walmart out there, hoping it would be less busy than the city. That Walmart is HUGE! But we were successful at completing a lot of shopping in a short amount of time, and Papa was great at distracting the kids so we could get that accomplished. We all piled into our van to head home. And I mean piled! We had 6 passengers, 3 suitcases, a shopping cart full of Christmas gifts (minus the shopping cart) and a small load of groceries that Janie picked up to sustain them for the weekend. One of the toys Grandma got for Max was a Megatron Powerbot that has buttons all over it that cause it to speak or make exploding noises...well, somehow that ended up underneath a number of other items, and if we hit a bump the wrong way you'd hear "I'M MEGATRON!" or something similar. Papa was coy enough to cough or make loud noises every time it happened until we could locate the thing and hide it in a less conspicuous spot. I'm not sure if Max clued in, but Lucy sure did...even if he did, he'll forget soon enough, and we all had a good laugh over it.
We spent the afternoon with Grandma and Papa until they had to leave to go and see Janeen's play themselves, and we headed home for some thrown together dinner and to watch a movie - Little Mermaid 2...which Lucy loved and Tyler and I rolled our eyes over a number of times.
Sunday was a special day as Lucy gave her first talk in Primary. We practiced a number of times during the week and she did a great job. She didn't even look nervous. (BTW, I took this picture when primary was over and everyone else had left the room...I'm not one of THOSE moms). I was so proud of her, and although I wrote the bulk of the actual talk, she came up with all the ideas of the things she wanted to say. I'm going to record it here, for our own posterity/memories sake. Feel free to read or not.

"My family is blessed when we remember Jesus. I like to think about Jesus."
"When we say prayers, it makes me feel happy and safe to know Heavenly Father and Jesus are there."
"When I take the sacrament, the bread and water remind me how Jesus died so we could be with Him again."
"At Christmastime, I remember how Jesus was born and think about how He was so good and did good things and that helps me to know what to do. When I am good, I feel good and I feel happy."
"I like to think about the resurrection and how one day our bodies and spirits will be together again and our bodies will be perfect. Mom and Dad won't have to wear glasses anymore (everyone laughed at this comment), my Auntie Kari will have two arms instead of just one, and all our bodies will be strong and healthy."
"I love Jesus and thinking about Him and how he blesses my family. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Lucy is such a great girl. I'm so proud of her. Her understanding of the gospel amazes me sometimes. I'd like to take credit, but some of the things she says I think must come from a memory she is able to access from before we were here.
We had a family dinner at Scott and Janie's after church to give us a chance to catch up. Unfortunately, the guys were all outside most of the day dealing with sheep, so there wasn't much catch-up happening. A coyote got to one of our sheep, so they spent the afternoon chasing 6 coyotes away, and trying to get the big truck started so they could ship the sheep off to a friend's farm so they could be a bit safer. Lucy looked outside at one point and asked, "What are they doing?" We explained, and she said, "Oh, that's boys work." and went back to her coloring.
We enjoyed watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional as the 'boys' took a break from their work and then they were back outside to finish up. Not exactly the nicest day to spend outside, but they managed to stay warm carrying 150lbs sheep from the coral to the truck about 50 feet away.
It was a great weekend and now as the cold has settled in, I'm beginning to eat my words I grumbled earlier in the week: "I would much rather deal with -20 degrees than -5 and wind!" Well, it's about -20 and not too windy, so I guess I got my wish. But I still say it's better than wind!