Dryland Ski Training & a Canyon walk

The weather on Saturday was great, sunny and high 20s, so we took the opportunity to have a trip out, in case this is the last warm Saturday of the year.
Lara had to attend the first session of her "dryland training" for her ski club at a park in Calgary in the morning, which was 90 minutes of various exercises designed to build up her strength and stamina, as well as helping to create bonds and friendships with the other "athletes" as the club refers to the children.
From there we headed out towards Banff, to a place called Johnston Canyon, between Banff and Lake Louise. I'd read in our "Walks in the Rockies with Children" book that this was a very popular place, and indeed it was. The car park was full, and there were dozens of cars parked along the roadside, but with a little bit of fortuitous timing, we ended up with a space very close to the start of the walk and the gift shop/cafe. The path goes alongside a stream, heading up through Johnston Canyon, where in places the path is a walkway attached directly to the canyon walls, and on a busy Saturday afternoon, there were times when the foot traffic came to a halt at narrow bits. If you walk the full route, you pass seven waterfalls, and it's a 5km round trip, but we just did the first half, as far as the first set of large falls, where we stopped to play by the stream, then we headed back for ice creams. It was a 2.5km round trip, but the kids didn't complain once, mainly because when the path wasn't a narrow walkway screwed to a vertical cliff, it ran through a lovely forest with lots of side trails to explore and trees to clamber over, under or around. It would be an amazing place to explore if there weren't 10,000 other people around, and it's open (almost) all year round, apart from a month from September 15th when they perform any maintenance on the path. So we'll head there in the dead of winter, when the falls will be frozen, and you can snowshoe along the path, with - hopefully - no-one else around.

Cochrane Labour Day Rodeo

Monday was a public holiday here for Labour Day, and we took the kids to see the Rodeo in Cochrane in the afternoon. The weather wasn't quite glorious, we had a bit of everything from warm sunshine to heavy rain showers - one was heavy enough to convince us to head into the nearby McDonalds to feed the kids, and the second shower was heavy enough to make Lara nag us into going home. So we didn't see too much of the rodeo itself in the end, but the kids enjoyed what we did see, and they probably enjoyed the mini donuts and candyfloss more.

From one extreme to the other - boredom to crazy busy

Lara will be going from the extreme of boredom at home in August to not-enough-hours-in-the-day in September.
This is how the Armstrong family calendar looks for September:

As well as going back to school, skating starts up again, and she's got three sessions a week after school - Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
She still has piano lessons on a Wednesday, and that gets more complicated now by throwing guitar lessons in there too. Then there's practice time at home everyday (fat chance!)
On Saturday afternoons she'll have dryland training for her skiing club, this is fitness and balance work initially in a park during September, then it moves indoors from October, until the actual skiing starts in December.

We'd known about these activities for some time, and in putting them on a calendar, we noticed that there was a glaring hole on Mondays (Sundays we decided to keep activity free, at least for now!), and Lara has been pestering us for karate lessons. So Olga did some investigating, and found that there is a taekwondo school that operate from Genesis Place (the sports centre near where we now live), and lo and behold they have lessons for beginners on Mondays and Wednesdays, and they were having an introductory lesson today, so Lara went along, loved it, and has now been signed up. By Canadian sports standards, it's very good value, with 2 x 1 hour lessons per week for $65 a month. I think it will be really good for Lara, not just in her physical development, but also helping to channel those emotions - that are getting stronger - in the right direction, as well as keeping her busy and tiring her out.
On top of all this, we should try and fit in some reading and writing practise for school...

As for Dan, he resumes his skating lessons, twice a week, in October, and then he has 5 skiing lessons in December at the Olympic Park in Calgary.

Back to School (at last) and tales of poop

Lara returned to school today, after 2 months and 6 days off. She's been counting the days for a week now, it's great that she's been so excited about going back. It's also a reflection on her getting bored at home, of course! Olga and I have to work, so we're not there to play with her or do crafts with her, and this caused friction from time to time.
We used one of my old phones to set an alarm for 7am, and she got herself up, and into the shower (complete with shower cap!), and dressed all without any interference from us. She packed her own school bag and was ready to leave 10 minutes earlier than necessary. Long may it continue!

Somehow she has convinced us to buy her a guitar, and split her piano lessons into piano/guitar lessons. We'll see how long the enthusiasm lasts, but at the very least it gives us grown ups something to use to keep her behaviour under control!
Only yesterday I was accused of ruining her whole school year, as she was too upset with me to go to school today - I'd taken her guitar off her because she wouldn't get her apple core out of the truck, where she'd left it on her seat. We had a stand off for 20 minutes or so, with Dan acting as mediator, passing messages between us, that bit was very sweet! In the end I got a very begrudging apology out of Lara, and she got the "I'm your dad, not your friend, you have to do as I tell you" speech. I had to get the apple core though!
Within an hour she was all sweetness again, and offering to help me to get Dan ready for bed, and she got her guitar back today ;-)

Speaking of Dan, for the first time last night he told Olga that he needed a poop, and he made the toilet in time, so that's very good news. Tonight he put himself on his potty in front of the TV, he thought to do a pee, but the look of complete surprise on his face when he discovered a poop in there was priceless!

Nursery home time

OK, sometimes, just sometimes, I'll admit that the kids can be quite cute, like today on the way out of nursery..

And Dan is wearing the same clothes on the way out as he wore on the way in, for the second day running - good boy!