Happy Thanksgiving!!

We are so fortunate that Grammie & Grampie come to visit us as often as they do. It would sure be a long year for me & the kids if we only saw them once in the summer when we go home.

It is such a comfort to know that Mom & Dad are willing & able to come here a few times a year. This is their 6th visit to see us!

the start of the skating season....

This poor blog has been so neglected!!! The start of the skating season brought some new issues resulting in us changing clubs from our home Club to the other Club. They are rival clubs and it was not an easy decision. It actually seemed harder for me than for Hunter. This decision ate up oodles & oodles of my time as I talked to & emailed anyone who would listen. I solicited opinions from the adult skaters that I know about what the best thing to do was...we actually went to team practices for both clubs for a week while we made our decision, sort of like test driving a new car.

In the end, after I peeled back all the layers, it was a coach driven decision. Which coach seemed like the best person to help raise our daughter in the next few years thru team-building, self-esteem raising, and hard work? Which coach had better people skills and was direct & communicative? This all led us to the other club. I think our home club was completely blind-sided by this and there are mothers who no longer speak to me. That is unfortunate, but I had to make the best decision for Hunter and I am satisfied that I did make the right decision based on the information I have..... Hunter seems really happy and her new teammates have embraced her.... I hope it turns out to be a great season.

after the cake..

the candy bouquet was opened and promptly poured into bowls for snacking in the tent... which the group wasted no time in getting to.I set up a cooler with drinks for them, and I gave out lots of extra comforters, sweaters and socks so they would be wonderfully warm. They had a blast as they watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I popped popcorn and delivered it to the tent. Then they decided to watch High School Musical. The most amazing part of all was that they were all asleep by midnight and I didn't heard a sound until morning. (One girl announced when she arrived for Hunter's party that at the last birthday sleepover she attended that she had stayed up all night, as Ron & I looked at each other with raised eyebrows.) It was a great little party!

the candy bouquet...

the first stop for getting ready for the party involved a stop at the local candy store to order this special candy bouquet. The kids have been salivating over these bouquets forever, we just needed an excuse to buy one. The bouquet included 8 kinds of candy that Hunter picked out herself, and it was to be the candy treat for the movie night.

Of course, we added our own gum stash on the plate below.

hunter's b-day....

Our sweet babycakes recently turned 11. With each passing birthday, we rack our brains with how we can celebrate in a way that is unusual & different from the year before. This year we celebrated with an Ice Cream Dream Party & Sleepover at our house. We convinced Daddy to set up the tent in the backyard with our small tv and dvd player inside so that Hunter and her friends could have their own little drive-in style movie night. After consulting the forecast for a few days, we chose a day that looked like the weather involved no rain and delivered invitations to 4 of her friends. My next challenge was to seek out & find movies that these girls have not seen, which is not an easy task with the techo-savvy kids of today. I decided on Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Mrs. Doubtfire, with Season 1 of Gilmore Girls as backup.

The biggest change that I have noticed with Hunter since her last birthday is that the barbies, polly pockets and the bratz hardly came out of the closet. . Same for the dress-up clothes....sigh...I knew this day would come.

tuckered out....

Chet gets us to the airport at around 7:30 pm to catch our 9 pm flight home. He drops us off and Hunter starts crying while we are going thru security because she has left her ipod in his car. Once we get thru security, I call Chet and he turns around to bring back her ipod and I go back thru security to meet him at the drop off spot. When we board the plane, I get out my book to read a little while the kids are looking out the window.... when it seems very quiet.... why am i reading and no one is bothering me????..... I look over and Tyler is out COLD.... sound asleep before we even taxi to the runway to take off. By this time, we have been up for almost 24 hours... since we got up at Grammie & Grampie's at 3:00 am to leave for the airport at 3:30 am.... to get to the airport by 5am for our 6 am flight. What a day!! But when we land, kids are running off to see Daddy!!!

TO...

Our plane arrived in TO at 7:20 am and my cousin Chet was there to meet us. He just recently graduated from U of T and he lives in downtown TO. We have not seen him for a year and we are so excited to see him. He knows TO like the back of his hand and we set off for the Hockey Hall of Fame. But first we decide to stop for breakfast since everybody is hungry. We go to a place called "3 Peppers" which is just down the street from his apartment. Tyler has toast, Hunter has a breakfast panini and Chet and I have 3 pepper omelet sandwiches. We arrive at the Hall of Fame around 10 am.