Thursday and Today

A Rocky Day (Literally)

Our day in the mountains was gorgeous and fun, as always: Some gray clouds and the odd raindrop couldn't possibly stand in the way of that. We rented a van to transport the whole crew to Jasper, where we showed Paul and Juliet Maligne Canyon falls, Medicine Lake, and a few other sights. A mule deer passed very close to all of us on the lakeshore, tip-toeing and hopping through the grass just a few feet away, and we watched a colony of pikas zooming around getting ready for winter, hauling away huge bunches of grass and straw for their beds. I couldn't get a decent shot of the pikas with my camera, so the one below isn't mine. (Paul got some great photos of the deer; I'll ask him to upload them later, maybe).
The kids had a good day, learning lots of naughty Filipino and Chinese words from Paul and Juliet... and a few words that weren't actually naughty at all. (for instance, Paul tricked Demi into calling Aaron "handsome", hehehe).
The trip home was trouble-free (meaning no storms, roadkill, or rogue semis), but we were all exhausted. And Aaron wasn't at all happy that Demi and I chose one of our favourite movies, Hairspray, for the "in-flight" movie. Mwahahahaha!

Today

We sent the gang to the "big mall" for some swimming and gut-churning amusement rides while we caught up on laundry and whatnot. I had reservations about sending Demi out with her older brothers sans Richard along, 'cause she's in one of those moods and would possibly drive them bats**t , but Richard assured me it's fine: Paul and Juliet are teachers, after all, and Demi will mellow out once she gets to the mall, he said. It's now 8 PM they still haven't returned, even though we're supposed to head over to a BBQ. I'm wondering how things panned out...