Catching up on a busy few months

We sent the kids to school in shorts today, so I think it's safe to say the long, long winter might be over. Maybe I could even put away the snowpants?

Sadly, I am not joking. We had what a university prof called one of the hardest prairie winters in more than NINETY years this past year. Snow, snow, wind, cold, wind, snow, snow... from November until April, when the last storm dumped 10 inches of heavy wet snow on the poor bulbs that were trying to poke through. It made me realize how good our winters usually are here -- some snow and cold, of course, but lots of days of sunshine in between.

Well, we survived, and everyone is giddy with the great weather now -- and it coincides with the end of a very busy semester for me and John, too. So -- a few months late -- I though I would catch up on the blog. What follows are a ton of photos of some of how we spent our spring. There are quite a few more of Katie and Livie in their classroom, as I have spent time all year volunteering there (and with twins, you have twice as many snack days as you do with a singleton) -- but Jack has been busy and happy, too -- just not photographed nearly as much these last months!

Enjoy! (Oh, they aren't in any kind of chronological order, sadly. But hopefully you'll still get a pretty good glimpse of these last months!)

Grandpa Jay with Katie at Whitefish, MT, skiing in February

Grandpa Jay with Liv in Whitefish above, and kids ready to hit the slopes (sooooo patiently) below.

Below, a dozen or so photos of Katie and Olivia at the last ballet class of the year. They did a great job and have loved to dance (and LOVE Miss Mary, their teacher who has a daughter MY age. Seriously. All of the moms kind of want to be Miss Mary when we grow up!). Kate is in the pink tutu and short sleeves. Liv is in the blue tutu and has long sleeves.

Jack has been doing a TON of singing this spring with the university's children's choir. It has been so much fun to see how much he loves to sing. The group had its concert last week and did an awesome job. For the last song, the children's choir, the middle-school choir, and the high school choir all joined voices to sing Leonard Cohen's beautiful song Hallelujah. My friend has a video clip of it that I will try to attach later. For now, here is a beautiful version of the song by k.d. lang. Just imagine 70 or so voices together and you'll understand the chills we all felt last week at the concert.

Jack clearly loves the music, and has done a great job with all of it with one exception... it is REALLY hard for him to stand still when he sings! At the concert, we were amazed that he (as he said) kept his feet firmly planted on the ground as he sang. But that didn't stop him from swaying... especially on the last song (he told us the director told him he should try to not move OR sway so he could conserve some of his energy for singing!).

After the big concert last Wednesday, the children's choir and middle-school choir went to the town of Red Deer (between Calgary and Edmonton) for a workshop singing with other children's choirs. Jack loved that too.

In the photo below of the three choirs, Jack is in the second row on the left side.

In the photo below with the two younger choirs, he is left of center in the second row.

Below, Livie watching the concert. Both girls loved it, and can't wait to join choir next year.

The children's choir singing "Hamburger and an Order of Flies"

The other excitement of the last few weeks has been both girls learning to bike without training wheels. I remember that moment so well -- and think they will, too. Below, Liv is wearing the tank top and Kate is  wearing the purple t-shirt.

 For our friends Amy and Jorge in New Jersey -- a photo of Kaia (who is at least 13 years old), pictured with Kate. She is doing great -- always ready for long walks as well as napping with anyone who wants to nap.

We took a FAST trip to Montana over Easter weekend, and had a great time with John's aunt and uncle who live on Flathead Lake. In the winter, the lake goes out, leaving a mucky mess for much of the time. But when we got there, it had dried in most places and was more like a sandy beach. Some of our closest Lethbridge friends were also in Montana for Easter and came to dinner with there with us on Saturday night... their kids loved the mud and sand as much as ours did. Our kids played for hours in the sand and mud on Saturday and Sunday -- and had enough time to pose on Uncle Ron's motorcycle. Below, Liv is in the headband.

The kindergarten class had a BIG and WONDERFUL Easter party -- including rolling hardboiled eggs down a steep hill (and when the eggs fell apart, the kids rolled themselves down the hill), egg-in-spoon races, and delicious food. Below, Liv is in the red coat/blue dress and Kate is in the blue coat/yellow dress.

Earlier that week, the school had a special science program. The girls loved it. Kate is below with one ponytail in the top of her hair and Liv is in her headband.

The photos below show what I REALLY hope will be the last snow of the year. It was huge and heavy, though -- but melted fairly quickly. Jack and Kate spent hours playing in it, moving water and mud around, making dams, and who knows what else. Liv was happy to watch the action from inside.

A week earlier, we went down to the river bottom to take a short hike and play in the new park there. You can see Lethbridge's famous high level bridge in the background. Kate is in the purple shirt. Liv is in pink.

Below, one of Jack's building creations. He stayed up really late one weekend night to finish this and asked us to take a picture as soon as he woke up the next morning (look at those sleepy eyes!) -- he was clearly SO pleased with himself. It's a shark (in case that's not obvious).

The big excitement for me and John these last months was a quick but wonderful trip to Hawaii! John had a paper accepted at a conference there, and when he was booking his flight last fall, the tickets were really reasonable... so I bought one too! He had to work for almost 2.5 of the 3.5 days we were there... but we still had a great time. I even managed to get a picture of a fire department for my brother (beautiful, isn't it?)

The girls' kindergarten teacher is amazing -- and asks for a lot of parent involvement, including a snack day and day volunteering in the class every 17 days. Well, with two kids in the class, that means I am there at least every other week (John has even made it twice this school year). One of the days I was there, the girls got to do "take aparts" -- where the students use screwdrivers, hammers, and other tools to take apart broken machines. Katie took apart a broken espresso maker; Liv took apart a broken toaster. Jack LOVED this activity when he was in kindergarten (in fact, my mom and dad brought out a huge broken part of  their copy machine, which Jack and my dad took apart during the course of a week's visit!). Kate and Liv loved it too.

And one final picture of the girls sleeping. They often end up in this position -- which is also how they were in my belly when I was pregnant with them. Weird, eh? And cool, too. Liv is on the left in purple.

If you made it to the end -- congratulations! That is a LOT of photos. Sorry I wasn't better about keeping on top of things these last months. Now that classes are over and some deadlines are being met, I hope to be able to post a bit more regularly. And now... we're heading outside to enjoy some of that sunshine!