Friday, May 9, 2014

2014 Israels Update!

So I thought I would post a little update for everyone on the goings-on here in Alberta.

First of all, I think Spring has FINALLY made it's appearance here.  We had ice on the Lake until last weekend:
The kids thought it would be fun to go and play in the water.  It was actually 20 degrees the day this picture was taken, hence the shirts and T-shirts.

Who are the kids you ask?  They are the youngest son and daughter of my friend Pam.  The 2 of them actually stayed here with us for a week while Mom and Dad packed up their house and moved back to North Saskatchewan. The little girl is the same age as Spencer and in his classroom at school and both of them attended Cub Scouts with us.  Pam was actually a co-leader with me.

Here's a quick picture of the majority of my Cub Pack.  On this night, we were aiming to make some dessert to eat using some coals to cool with.  It wasn't too successful as we didn't have enough coals and we didn't start soon enough.  Oh well!  It was still fun for the kids.

Last month we went to Winter Camp with our Pack and stayed a little closer to the mountains.  Thankfully no tents... just some cool cabins...
Sadly, Spencer got sick the first day we were there and spent the entire day in bed.  He didn't get to enjoy our snowshoeing trek that morning...
We even did a winter walk one evening at Cubs here in town.  We did some Geocaching and cleaned up some garbage in town along the way...
Even though we had one hell of a winter this year, Todd and Spencer were the only ones to get out on the slopes this year. 
And only once at Lake Louise in March...
Lake Louise slopes are still open this week and next week believe it or not.  They actually got a new 40cm of snow on the slopes this past weekend!


We've had tons of cool birds fly through the area to take advantage of the lake.  One of the coolest things we saw was a couple of flocks of pelicans.  This flock of 10 stayed for lunch and a swim...
We even saw a pair of Bald Eagles fishing across the lake one night.

Spencer and our neighbour Kim even took the canoe for a tour last night...

The lake was super busy with boats last night and even a fisherman in hip weighters!

On the lump scene... I go for my 6 month check up on Wednesday this week.  We'll see what the latest ultrasound says.  Earlier in April I had some scar tissue removed under the same breast which went well.  Still very tender in the scar area but it healed up perfectly this time!


Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you a very merry 
Christmas and a happy 2014 from...

The Israels Family!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

We Survived the Snow!

Howdy all! We are all hunkered down due to the latest and greatest Southern Alberta blizzard.  The winds yesterday were wild and didn't let up for 24 hours.  It was wild!  This was taken yesterday...


This photo shows some of the snow we have at the back door.  It actually got even higher!

Here is what it looks like from the back yard...

Here is a peak at our neighbours front yard.  The drift is as high as their garage roof! There was NO snow there on Sunday.

Mom is here visiting.  She was due to go home on Monday but we changed her flight on Sunday night knowing that the weather was coming.  Good thing we did.  They actually closed the highway between here and Calgary yesterday for quite a few hours and over night due to low visibility, accidents and drifting snow.  It just reopened again just an hour or so ago.  Many people were stranded in Strathmore over night.

Spencer hasn't spent any time outside as the wind makes the temperature, -17, feel like -30!  He hasn't been to school for 5 days - buses were cancelled the last 2 days. We stayed inside and mostly watching movies and we did a lot of reading.  Hope everyone is safe and warm!  Todd is due to come home on Friday.  I sure hope we don't get any more snow between them and now.  The running joke is that...

"How do you know Allison is going to the airport?"
"There's a snow storm!"  I swear... every time I HAVE to go to the airport, it snows!

Happy and safe travels people!
Ally.

Thursday, October 31, 2013