Lara's Skating AGM and Dan the Dude

Last Saturday was the AGM for Lara's Skating Club. It was usual Club AGM fare, with reviews of the finances, and election of officers to the board. It's a much bigger job than I imagined to organise the club, and most of the people are volunteers.
It was an opportunity to give out awards to the skaters who had passed tests, or had been chosen by the coaches to receive awards for their efforts through the last year. Lara wasn't among the winners this time, but hopefully next year she'll be able to go up and collect something. She has her first test coming up on May 20th, when she will skate with a partner. We're trying not to build it up as a big thing, but it will be fantastic if she does well.

Here she is on stage with all the other skaters that were present at the AGM:

Just in case she wasn't busy enough, now there's no skiing to occupy her, she's picked up her swimming lessons, so she's in the pool an hour after Dan's skating lesson finishes, luckily they're both at the same venue. That gives us time for a family breakfast at the fast food joint of her choosing. It was Subway last week for the first week of her lessons, for tomorrow she's announced it will be Tim Hortons.

Dan is continuing to do well at nursery, he seems to be fully over his broken collarbone, his hand, foot and mouth infection he had recently, and a little bout of conjunctivitis last week. He's sleeping well, hardly ever waking in the night, and not often insisting that one of us stay with him in his room until he falls asleep. We usually have to wake him at 6.15am to get him up for nursery, which seems a shame, but it's a necessary evil. When we let him sleep in on Sundays he will usually last until after 9am - it's usually his sister who's up first and goes into his room to play with him! There's only a little reprieve on Saturdays at the moment as we have get him up at 8am to go to his skating lesson.
He's getting very independent, liking to do most things himself, including climbing over the rails of his cot bed to get into bed. He is capable of climbing out, but only does so on Sunday mornings when his sister wakes him to play - see above! He has taken to running everywhere, he's surprisingly quick, and he has a very funny, slightly awkward 3-year-old's way of running. He still loves to throw things - balls mostly - and he seems to definitely favour his left hand at the moment.
I couldn't resist taking these pics of him one morning this week, on his way to nursery, looking quite the dude with his backwards-baseball cap:

Go Flames Go!

Calgary Flames, our local NHL Ice Hockey team, have found themselves in the end of season playoffs to try and get to their Final and win the Stanley Cup. The playoff are three rounds of best-of-seven series, then the Final series, best-of-seven, to see who wins the Cup.
The Flames haven't been in the playoffs since 2009, they last made the Final series in 2004, and haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1989.
I have found myself becoming more and more interested as the first round series, against the Vancouver Canucks, progressed. It's a team sport, and there are tactical similarities to football, but it's just sooo much quicker. The more I watch it, the more I can actually see the puck, which seemed almost invisible when you first start to watch.
I'm not so "into it" yet that I've bought a hockey jersey to wear, though I will have to one day, then I can be part of the "C of Red" at their home stadium, the Saddledome:

I have joined in in another way though. Many of the players - and supporters - grow a "playoff beard" for the duration that their team remains in the competition. Here's mine from early in the series against the Canucks:

The superstition worked - the Flames won the series 4-2. Now in the second round, they're up against the Anaheim Ducks. The Flames lost the first game 6-1 last night in Anaheim, but given that they haven't won a single game in that arena for 11 years, that was no surprise. The next game, on Sunday, is also in Anaheim, so it's possible that the end is in sight for the beard, but I hope not. Two weeks growth and it doesn't seem much different tonight to how it was when I took that first pic!

6 months already? Time to move the trailer

We had to move the trailer out of Mount Kidd RV Park before the end of April, so we watched the weather forecast closely last weekend, and decided to move it on Monday evening, April 27th. We wanted a calm evening with little wind. Rain isn't really a problem here unless it's late May through June, but wind could cause me some problems with pulling a 34' trailer, especially when I'm not very experienced doing it.  It was 18th October last year when we moved to Mount Kidd.

It took a little longer than expected to get it all hooked up, that's the problem when it's been 6 months since you last did something, so it was just after 9pm before we rolled out of the campsite. This meant driving back to Airdrie in the dark, which made it a little more tricky, but actually there weren't any worrying moments, and it only took 15 or 20 minutes longer to drive than it would normally have done.

We've parked it up in the same RV storage place where it was after we bought it, close to Airdrie. It's due to be "de-winterised" and have a couple of bits of maintenance work done on it between now and the middle of May, when we'll be going to Calaway Park for three nights, for the opening weekend of the amusement park there.

Hopefully we'll take it back to Mount Kidd for next winter, if they choose not to carry out renovations to the camp centre there, which would put the showers and washrooms out of use. Otherwise we'll need a Plan B for all those skiing weekends we're planning.