We've had another week of mixed weather here; everything from warm sunshine to hail and snow flurries, from freezing mornings to hot afternoons. It's just impossible to know what to wear!

Leigh is spending a huge amount of time out on the Prairie at the moment with some ridiculously early starts; this morning his lift was at 2.30am (and he only got home at 8pm the evening before) and that's not unusual! Thank goodness this is the last week of the exercise for this year and we can get back to some sort of normality... before we have to start getting up early again to hit the slopes! Grrr.



So the children and I have been spending alot of our spare time down at the ice arena, where I spend a back breaking hour helping Olivia & Charlie around the rink! Ben does help me as long as none of his friends are there... It's far too uncool to be holding your sisters hand going slowly around the ice - so uncool in fact that he will abandon her when one of them shows up! He's such a toad!



Olivia & Charlie love it though. Charlie can barely stand up yet and chuckles all the way around - he even asks me if I need a break to stretch my back! Olivia is improving each time and thankfully is reassuringly cautious! I did think she was going to throw in the towel though when she tore her favourite pink trousers!

Where does the time go? All is well in sunny Ralston though it has turned rather chilly recently. Some mornings on the school run it has been a brisk -12 but thankfully warming up by lunchtime. Tomorrow we are expecting a tropical high of +18. Weird Canadian weather! I have noticed a lot of geese heading south recently. Very sensible.


Last week I helped out on Bens school trip to the Dinosaur Park which was a fun! No need to re-read that sentence, I did actually volunteer to go! (I must have still been half asleep when I agreed to it!). We had a great day out, though my instincts were confirmed that Ben is indeed the class clown! Luckily he`s a very popular boy and gets away with it! Chaperoning 4 boys around the Badlands who are all keen climbers is a frightening experience though!


Leigh is thankfully on the last Medman of the year and will be very glad when that finishes at the end of this month - it's even colder out on the Prairie (of course!). All we'll be waiting for then is for the snow to arrive and the ski fest to begin!

Footage of Ben at hockey training - Olivia is still 'thinking' about playing; hopefully she will make up her mind before the end of the season! Thank goodness Charlie is too young!

Beware of the coyote!

Its been a pretty quite week here. Charlie and I are back in sync with the Canadian timezone and all is back to normal; school runs, swimming lessons, ice hockey... We have also been enjoying some fantasctic sunny weather with most days reaching +30. That's about to change though with an overnight of a chilly +1 forecast!

Ben is enjoying the ice hockey again and his '2nd year' status! He's improved vastly since starting just a year ago and he was more than happy to show the new ones his 'hockey stop' who were watching in awe! Olivia is still deciding whether to play or not. I think her main reservation is the fact that the hockey kit is not pink and sparkly and even worse, the ice skates are black! I think she maybe better suited to figure skating! Chilled Charlie is as laid back as ever and is happy being carted around from pool to rink - as long as he has a couple of cars in his pockets to play with!

I haven't taken any new photos for the blog this week, but I did managed to get some audio footage of a pack of coyote that must of been fairly close to the house late one night. They sounded alot louder than you can hear on the film (honest!), but it gives you a good idea of what the local wildlife sounds like around here! (Turn your volume up to max!)
Lol! Having listened to this now I have published it, they sound more like a couple of chihuahua's! :)