Days 6-9 -More Gymnastics, Hanging out at Grandma's, Travel and Snow

Day 6:  We had another fun day at my moms work. Tavish is showing off his new skills he learned while going to gym with my mom.

Callen was not too sure about the pit at first but after he saw how much fun we all were having he started to climb in himself.

Day 7: As you can see Hockey has really had an impact on Tavish.  I think I might have a future hockey player on my hands.  I hopes ride with Callen to LOVE soccer, then again Tavish is only 3.75.  I'm sure all I need to do is take him to a soccer game and I'll win him over.

Here is just a cute picture of Callen, all he did today was run around my parents house causing destruction but how can you get mad at this face.

Day 8 - Travel day

One thing that makes traveling with kids easy is child friendly airports.  While the Grande Prairie airport is really small they did think about kids and have a few small play centers set up.  Small centers like these make parents lives so much easier (come on Toronto even Grande Prairie is doing a better job than you).

 The Edmonton Airport is by far the most child friendly airport that I have been too.  Even the US customs side had an area for kids.  If you are flying local through Edmonton and you have time you should take your kids to the playground, it really helps kid blow off some energy.

 I can't really say much about how child friendly the Chicago airport is (I know 3 planes in one day is so much fun), as we only had 50 minutes and had to change terminals.  It was a long travel day but having Callen in his own seat though really made my life much easier.

Day 9 - Finally at Home

Not much snow in Alberta but it was snowing here.  Let the panic begin.

Angry Birds - Tavish's new favorite game but not on the iPad but with blocks and stuffed birds and pigs.  It only works though if we can build the blocks faster than Callen can knock them down.

Day 2 - Hockey and Coloring

Wow can you believe it, two days in a row and I loose my camera, but I did finally find it.
Today was not one of our more exciting days as we just hung out at my parents house but Callen did have fun coloring a picture - well I did manage to get this shot before he threw both the pencil and paper over his high chair.

After spending a week watching the round robin of the World Jr Hockey tournament the boys have the hockey bug.  So all the kids settled down to watch Finland vs Slovakia in the quarter finals (Finland one for those who care).

Visitors

Whenever someone comes to visit us, I like to show them a good time.  There is so much to see and do in the D.C. area that it's not a problem finding stuff to do as long as the weather and my kids cooperate (when kids don't cooperate you can have a pretty big disaster).   When family and friends come to visit I try let them decide what they want to see as it's their vacation and really I could see most of this stuff any day I want.  On this trip my dad really wanted to see three things: Ford Theater, Mount Vernon and the Marshall House. We did managed to get to 2 of the 3 as the Marshall house was closed.  We also managed to pack in a trips to the National Archives, Natural History Museum, Swimming, Skating, Outlet Mall, Dulles Town Center, and Air and Space Museum, all in 7 days. Also this was my dad's first time meeting his newest grandchild so there was lots of bonding time at home too. Needless to day I think we are now all exhausted.

 Grandpa's First Time Meeting Callen

Tavish getting a Grandpa Snuggle while watching the Hockey All Star Game

You Know You Have A Canadian Child When...

...He asks for a hockey stick as your walking to soccer practice.

Tavish has only ever seen one hockey game on T.V. and that was the Olympic Gold Medal Game almost a year ago (A Proud Canadian Moment ... Sorry Americans it's OUR Game).  To be honest I did not even think he was paying attention to that game as I know my husband and I wern't (we were having too much fun drinking beer and socializing).  Anyway a few months later when the weather warmed up I bought Tavish a golf club and his first response was "hockey, hockey, I want to play hockey," I've never bothered to tell him its a golf club.  I really had no idea how much of an impact that single game of hockey had on my child.  One of this favorite Christmas gifts this year was mini hockey sticks.  It looks like I'm going to be a future Hockey Mom, well only if I can find place that lets kids under the age of 10 play hockey (the downside of being a Canadian Kid in the USA).