May - Another Month Flown By...

Yet again the month has flown by with all the usual adventures - well strange weather conditions, Chris popping in and out and keeping Tegan and Fraser amused.

It was my Dad's 70th birthday in May which he celebrated with good friends who all live in Spain. Unfortunately we couldn't be with him but we will celebrate again as he is due to visit us in Canada in July so his birthday treat is going to the Calgary Stampede.

I must again refer to the weather - it is becoming a great topic of conversation. We started off the month of May with a huge dump of snow - so back out came the snow clothes in order to walk Jinx and get the kids to school. Then glorious sunshine so out came shorts, t-shirts and water sprinklers and of course the mosquitoes - yuk - however everyone was happy. Things were looking good then out of nowhere massive winds (the photo is off my new temperature thermometer as the wind ripped the other off the post) people had been carried away by the sun and erected their gazebos to which they became crushed by the winds and were no more. Finally this weekend I was woken up by Fraser shouting that it was snowing - he is getting very confused as he thinks it is going to be Christmas soon!! Apparently it will be 27degrees by Wednesday - we shall wait and see.

There has been lots of lunches, brunches and generally eating & drinking going on with the girls - especially as lots of our husbands are out on the prairie most of the time. One particular night I was invited to dinner at Andy & Sam's with other friends and by the end of the night we were all in the neighbours hot tub until the early hours of the morning after drinking far too much champagne - great night.
The circus came to town - so with 6 mums, 1 nana and 14 children we all drove to Medicine Hat for a evening of entertainment. It wasn't quite so much high thrills more of spinning plates, dogs jumping and hula hoops. However the kids had a lovely time and with a couple of elephants, horses and clowns thrown in it was good fun.







Friday 21st May was the SAFFA 10km fun run which I had entered. Unfortunately the weather was not great with really strong winds (always against you!) but the event still took place. There was a childrens 1km run to start off with followed by the adults 5km and 10km runs, several people had dressed up - there were a couple of batmans, a pengiun and other strange outfits. I of course took Jinx who could run 10km without breaking into a sweat but she set a good pace for me, my finishing time was 53mins. Once all the runners were back there was a short medal presentation which I managed to gain 3rd place in the girls 10km run, much to the delight of Tegan and Fraser who now want to fight over who wears the medal. Jo came in 2nd in the girls 5km run. It was a good fun event and money was raised for SAFFA.

Monday 24 May was Victoria Day which is a national holiday in Canada so therefore all the schools were closed - so once again a group of us packed up a picnic took the kids to a play park for a while and then met more friends for an afternoon at the cinema watching Shrek. You have probably guessed that most of this months activities do not include Chris - although he did get 2 days off as the first Prairie Thunder has finished and managed to play golf with a friend Tommo who was over from Germany - luckily on a sunny day.

Tegan along with 29 other Girl Guides has just spent the weekend camping at Elkwater on their annual guiding weekend. So Friday night with her suitcase packed, sleeping bag and pillow under her arm off she bundled into Sam's car packed with other children and litres of bolognese that Sam had prepared. Sam & Sam had volunteered to be camp cooks for the weekend and apparently did a stirling job keeping all children fed and happy. Of course the weather decided to play up - with snow but Tegan came home happy - although at 8am this morning still could not be woken up for school.

As I mentioned we were woken up with snow Saturday morning and off to a Caribbean Party that evening - dressed in shorts, loud shirts and hats and flip flops! Anything goes in Canada. Tom and Patty had decked out their house beautifully and turned up the heating - obviously no one was going outside. So with cocktails flowing - Chris did whizz up some very tasty ones, not too sure what was in them everyone had a great night. We finished off the weekend with Sunday lunch for some friends (and their hangovers) with lamb on the bbq and chocolate pudding.

Prairie Thunder 2 starts again on Saturday so Chris has a fairly normal working week until Friday and off we go again - hopefully the prairie will have dried out by then.

Apologies to those of you who do log on to read this blog that I keep lagging behind in my updates, I'll do better - such a busy life living in the middle of the prairie!