Temple Tours

The month of October has essentially been dedicated to the new Calgary Temple. Public tours started on Sept 29 and run almost every day through to October 20. On the first evening of the public tours, R and I had the opportunity to be tour hosts for visitors to the temple. In our 8 hour shift (7 hours, if you subtract out an hour of training), we got to take 4 groups through the temple. It was such a lot of fun. R had a bit of a sore throat and wasn't anxious to be the speaker, so I was the tour leader and she brought up the rear, helping us keep together and move smoothly from room to room.

Some of the groups were members of the church and quite familiar with the temple. Some were visitors who were learning about the temple for the first time. Our first tour was a small group (maybe a dozen people) composed mainly of the latter. The first tour was also our first time being inside the temple. I admitted as much to them, and noted my personal excitement at finally going inside. I was totally reliant on the ushers to help direct me along the route, and the only real mistake that I made was to tell the group we were heading into the men's change room when really it was the women's change room. I was quite confused when I saw a sign in the back of the change room that said "Bride's Room", and I straightened out the error when we got back into the hallway.



The tour started on the bottom floor and worked its way upwards. The first time we came to the Celestial Room, I was really touched. It was a great moment for me to spend those few quiet minutes there, and I hope the tour group sensed it as well.

The rest of the tours seemed to just fly by, and despite having run a half-marathon earlier in the day, I felt pretty good. My feet were sore, but the stiffness in my legs didn't set in until the next day. We are really looking forward to our next shift, which will be at the very end of the open house period.



On Thanksgiving Day we took our children to the temple for tours together with R's parents and all the children and grandchildren that were in town (Brad and Katie were visiting, so only Karla was missing). Our children watch for the temple out the car windows whenever we drive somewhere, and they were very excited to finally go inside.



Scott and Hayden went along hand-in-hand, the two little boys squeezing to the front row everywhere we went. The kids were all very well behaved. Although, poor little Adalia was quite uncomfortable, given that she had hurt her arm the evening before and the appointment to see the doctor who diagnosed it as broken wasn't until the afternoon -- that is a separate story altogether.



Afterwards, I asked three of the kids, "What was your favourite thing in the Temple?"
Lacey: The baptism room.
Scott: The marrying room.
Hayden: The marrying room.

Later, as we were driving past the temple to our house--
Scott: Dad, we were right underneath Moroni, right? Up at the top?
Katie: I went inna temple! Inside a temple. It's nice inside a temple.

First Snow

We had a pretty big dump of snow on Oct 3. It had nearly all melted by the time I got home from work, but the kids got out there early and did a thorough job of digging around and piling up. The experience seemed quite novel to Katie, who didn't remember much about the previous winter.

Harvest Half Marathon 2012

I ran the Harvest Half Marathon in Fish Creek Park this weekend, and now my legs really hurt. This race is the latest in a series of challenges that I have participated in with my work colleagues. First we did 3 months of the P90X workout program. Then 6 of us signed up for this half marathon, giving us about 4 months to train. Prior to this challenge, I had run a 5km race in university (2001-ish) and barely survived the 10km run as part of my 2010 triathlon. Otherwise, I considered running a useful means of transportation for short distances, but not an end in itself.

By incorporating training runs into my work commute, I worked my way up from a 5km run once a week to as long as 15km and as frequent as 3 times a week. However, I did 15km only once, and at the end I came up a bit lame because of a sore calf.



To keep things interesting, we had 2 preliminary 10km races that we ran against each other around the Bow River pathway downtown, to set benchmarks for ourselves in the final race. I set personal best times in both those races, but came up with a really sore calf in the second one -- which started at the 1km mark and just got worse. Apparently, I was suffering from Achilles Tendinitis from running too much and too fast, too soon. I took 3 weeks off before the big race to recover.



Race day was a lot of fun, but there were some dark moments along the way. I came out too fast at the beginning and there were more hills than I'm used to, so I had to cut back a bit in the middle section to preserve stamina for the final stretch. However, despite the challenges, I never slowed to a walk (which did happen to me in the triathlon in 2010) and I came within 1 minute of my 1h 45min target time (final time was 1:46:07).







I tried to pick it up with about 3km to go and found I hit an invisible wall with just 1km to go and fought a desperate urge to walk all the way to the finish. Fortunately, I had some miniature fans near the end cheering me on, and I claimed the coveted "finisher" medal.



R joked that I am settling into the middle-aged stereotype very nicely, with all my running, biking and golfing that I've done this year.

Next stop, Full marathon.

Katie-Doodles

Katie loves to draw. When she gets a colouring book, she doesn't try to shade in the areas completely. Instead, she fills most of the available space with little doodles. A blank sheet of paper is that much better, because she gets to use it all. She loves pens, pencils, markers -- everything. She has observed Scott and has learned to hold her pen perfectly, and her artwork can keep her occupied for very long stretches.



Recently, R noticed that Katie had filled up an entire page with a series of face-doodles. She had been making little circle-people complete with blob-bodies, smiling faces and cute little appendages.



She filled up 3 sheets of these doodles and they are the cutest thing. We sense that Katie likes free-flow and creativity, which only seems surprising because we were so accustomed to Scott's preference for order and precision. Keep up the good work, Katie!

Pony Ride

The kids were all invited to ride the pony that R's parents' neighbours rented for their little boy's first birthday. He was barely old enough to figure out what was going on, but Katie was all over it. She loves all animals.

School Bus

Because Scott goes to afternoon kindergarten, he catches a special bus after lunch that takes him to school (but he comes home on the regular bus with all the other grades).

The only other student at the stop is a boy from his Sunday School class who is in the adjoining classroom. This photo is from their very first trip on the bus, on their second day of kindergarten.

First Day of Kindergarten

Finally, the big day -- the first day of school! Although he was a bit nervous, Scott was well prepared and handled his bit day like a star.



His kindergarten teacher mailed us a letter about a month before school to introduce herself. It included a photograph, so that she would already be familiar to the kids before the first day. The school also gave us a count-down calendar, with an activity to do every day to help prepare mentally or physically for school. They were mostly simple things, but it seemed to help Scott feel ready. He had also visited the school a few times and wasn't so intimidated by it anymore.



He had his new backpack, his new shoes and some new shirts to help him look the part. We had picked up some inexpensive shirts with no graphics on them, and we used printable heat-transfer paper to turn them into cool Battle Force 5 and Power Rangers Samurai shirts. Scott also had an extra aerodynamic haircut for school, provided by Dad. Apparently, I am getting out of practice cutting hair, and I cut the front shorter than the back, so R had to go back and even it out.



When he got there, he found that his class was on one half of a large classroom area, with another kindergarten class on the other side. To his delight, 7 children from his Sunday School class at church were in the combined group, 2 of them in his own class.



Scott and Noah are really good buddies, so Scott was really happy to be in a class together.



One of the kindergarten teachers took the children on one side of the room to learn a little song while the other provided some orientation for the parents. Then the kids came back and sang the song for their parents, giving their mom or dad a little sticker as a way to say good-bye. Scott had no problems when R and Katie left him there. He told me later that there was a girl who was sad, but he kind of shrugged like he couldn't understand why.



He came home with a plastic cup of soil with a bean seed planted inside. There was a little story with it for the benefit of the parents -- a story about letting your little kids climb the little beanstalks so that they can learn to tackle the bigger ones later on. It was sweet. I think the day was harder for us than for him. When the afternoon was over, he was a bit surprised that it went by so quickly, and he was anxious for another chance to try the activity centers. His career as a Toddler is officially over and he is now a Student.

[Sniff.]

Calgary Corn Maze

[From Aug 25, 2012]

Apparently, sandals (and particularly sandals that are too big for you) are the WRONG thing to wear to a corn maze. This is because corn grows out of DIRT and if you go to the corn field after it has rained, then the dirt turns to MUD. We learned this at the Calgary Corn Maze. We also learned that the green pig always loses the race, that a GPS is super-helpful in navigating a field-sized maze, and that fresh taber corn is DELICIOUS.

License to Read

Last September, R and Scott began afternoon "school" sessions during Katie's naptime. They worked on crafts, on writing the letters of the alphabet, and on reading. They used a 100-step reading program that was in a book that R borrowed from her sister, completing one lesson about every other session. They finished the 100th lesson the morning of Scott's first day at Kindergarten. He went off to school ready to tackle all sorts of words, phrases and sentences.



It's funny, even though he clearly was capable of reading some simple books right at the beginning, he refused to read our bedtime books. He did not consider himself a Qualified Reader until he had been properly certified. Since they finished the book, he has been devouring books that are classified as Level 1. For example, he read a 143-page Dick and Jane reader, and ploughed through a stack of new library books. However, if we see a level 2 book, he does not even attempt to read it. He figures he is not properly prepared, and sees no reason to give such an important responsibility to an amateur. It's like he has a learner's permit and feels he should not stray onto the freeway.



Therefore, it was my privilege to read "Super Hero Squad: The Trouble With Thor" and "Super Hero Squad: Team Spirit!" last night. Scott will eventually reach such elevated levels, I'm sure.

Funny Note: Scott keeps his place in his book with a "checkmark", which is in this case a flyer from a roofing company.

Throwing Rocks

And really, why wouldn't you wear a dragon costume to throw rocks in the river, if you had the option?

Labour Day Quotes

Waiting for guests to arrive
D: Scott, let's do a fight!
S: Yeah. But try not to get my hair too much. I already ... uh ... decorated it.

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R: Guess what? Last night uncle Brad asked Katie to marry him.
K: I get married? Yay!
[laughing]
S: I will have 8 aunts now. Dad, you got married in the temple, right?
K: I get married!

R: Katie, do you want to get married to a boy?
K: Yes. I hug a boy.
[laughing]
K: I get to hug a boy!
R: Are you going to hug the boys?
K: Yes!
R: Are you going to kiss the boys?
K: Yes!

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Driving to the Stampeders Game, we see a truck pulling a horse trailer that reads, "The Stampeders Touchdown Horse."
D: There's the touchdown horse in there.
S: Does the other team have a horse?
D: No. Just our team has a horse, because Stampeders is more of a horse-thing.
S: Oh. What's the other team have, then?
D: The other team is called the Eskimos. Do you know what Eskimos are?
S: No.
D: It's people that live up where it's colder than here, and somtimes they live in igloos. Do you think they have an ice thing instead of a horse?
S: No. That wouldn't be very fast.
D: So what do you think they have for their team?
S: A pig.

(We had recently seen pig racing at the corn maze, so this kind of makes sense.)

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K: I want Santa coming. I give a hug.

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At Bedtime
D: Good night Scott. Have a good first day at school tomorrow.
S: Have a good day at work tomorrow, dad.

West Ed

I wish I had a better picture of the sleeping arrangements in the hotel. We had a suite, so Scott slept in the pull-out couch. There was an armchair with a footstool which we used for Katie's bed. I put a pillow on it to even out the contours and it was the cutest little toddler bed.



The agenda for the day was to eat breakfast and then I would drop R and the kids at West Edmonton Mall while I visited the temple. Not only was the hotel suite really nice, the breakfast room had one of those pancake machines that looks and sounds like a photocopier, dispensing pancakes out the side. Scott thought it was pretty awesome. I did too.



Although the mall ended up being insanely busy that day, R and the kids arrived a few minutes before it opened, so they had it all to themselves for the morning to see a marine show and lots of neat sea creatures. R was the only one brave enough to pet the stingray.







I met up with them in the crazed frenzy of the food court for a meal. Katie was so put off by the din that she struggled to eat her food -- she needed both her hands to cover her ears.



After lunch we let Katie crash for a few minutes while Scott went on rides at Galaxyland. We definitely would like to go back and do some more rides sometime. Hopefully, sometime when it's not so busy.

Fort Edmonton

We decided to take a bit of an impulse-trip to Edmonton, staying overnight in a hotel and visiting the Edmonton Temple. Friday evening's planned activity was swimming in the hotel pool, but we visited the Fort Edmonton historical park until the 4:00 pm check-in time. Over the course of the last 30 years they have completely rebuilt the fort to look authentic and it is very impressive. Various streets in the park represent different periods in Edmonton's early history, going back as far as 1885.









In trying to explain how old the buildings were, I told Scott they were older than any people that he knows. I asked him, "Who is the oldest person you know?" I thought he might think of his great grandparents. He said, "Jesus."

Well, these buildings aren't quite THAT old.





We got to ride a vintage streetcar through one section of the park. The recent custom has been to let Scott take the point-and-shoot camera and get pictures of the things that interest him:

ScottCam