Caitie Ski's Calgary

After a few attempts at the smaller hills, the determined Miss Beilby finds herself skiing on the big hill at the park where the Calgary Olympics were held. Whoo hoo!

CALGARY ZOO

Today we visited Calgary Zoo. It was OK as far as zoo's are concerned. Pretty dificult to appreciate other zoo's when you have been brought up in Sydney with one of the best zoo's in the world.

Calgary, Banff & Lake Louise

March 19, 2008, the Beilby family find themselves in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We came here to obtain new visa's that are issued only to Australians (an"E" visa) which give us more flexibility with work and other benefits.

So far, we have found Calgary to have many similarities to Sydney such as coloured money, dollar coins, the outrageous price of food, the array of older cars and the hoards of Aussies and New Zealander's that are here! It differs in that it is very plain, unadorned with scultpures or plants, the city is small and quiet, almost derelect. Oh, and as I write it is -8 degrees!

In complete contrast, Banff is a bustling city abound in wealth. A charismatic town, nestled amongst the imposing rocky mountains and surrounded by crystal clear lakes and rivers it isn't any wonder that it attracts visitors from all over the world. After the 35 minute search for parking, we took a leisurely stroll along the main street and then had lunch. We then toured the beautiful Vermillion Lakes which surround Banff. We were so excited to see some feasting Candaian Geese, a frolicking Bald Eagle and a fierce looking Coyote. We then headed to the glorious Lake Louise where Kevin and the kids skated on the lake outside of the beautiful Fairmont Hotel.

COLLEGE ALMOST ENDS

Oh my gosh! This term I took on 17 credits toward my degree. That is more than a full time load. Then add in kids, a husband and burgeoning photography business into the picture and you have one little fire ball of built up stress and anxiety. There were many sleepless nights and lots of hard work but the term is over. So far, the hard work has paid off. Hopefully now everything will get back to normal. I have one more full time term and then a couple of classes to complete the degree. Yeah!

BRANDON AND HIS SNAKE

Finally we were able to get a photograph of Brandon! Here is is with his beloved snake, Snakey (alias Mr White)!

CAITLIN LOOSES BIG TOOTH

Caitlin has been steadily loosing teeth for quite some time now but this big one puts a rather nice size hole in her head!

The boys are loosing their molars too. Brandon lost 5 teeth in one week. Between the three of them, we lost about 12 teeth in 8 days.

Needless to say that we are serving a lot of soup for dinner!

UPDATE

February has been a crazy month!

Brandon is at school until 4:30pm and it's dark soon after so we do not have so many photo's of him but we'll try to get some soon.

School is a challenge for Brandon but he is trying to get his grades up this quarter by going to school an hour before it opens to get his work done or re-do work he missed or did not pass the first time.

Caitlin and Patrick just had their 100th day of school for the year and are already talking about summer break. Patrick is about to sit the State tests which begin Monday.

Nina has three weeks left of this term. So far all "A's" but PE is the biggest challenge (can you believe it!) She is taking Tai Chi (not so bad) but Kombatan (Phillipino Martial Arts) is quite the challenge. Lots of fighting with sticks. Tuesday she was all but knocked out when her stick bounced off her 300lb 6 foot opponents stick and hit her in the head!

Kevin just returned from a whirl wind trip to Halifax, St John, Montego Bay, Atlanta, Toronto, Halifax again and home. He was gone for two weeks and by the time he returned, we all got sick.

That's all for now. Wish you all well.

Natural Wonders

The kids were very excited this week. We had an incredible lunar eclipse then a glorious rainbow!

Kids Play

The sun fought off the horrid black rain clouds and won today! I got some well derserved vitamin D whilst the kids played at the park.

The kids thought it was summer in contrast to the cold we have had lately. (It was only 10 degrees celcius.)

We went to Fields Park and the kids played basketball but the big favourite was the tire swing. Pat likes to swing the girls so hard and fast that he falls over.

The Beilby Christmas

As some of you are aware, The Beilby family does not indulge in the over commercialized event that Christmas has become. Instead, we choose to reconnect by spending countless hours in a car followed by eating and sleeping together to the point where we cannot wait to get back to our own and reality!

This year, we headed north to Everett, Washington, the home of the Boeing "Future of Flight" centre, the largest building in the world (approx 75 football fields), manufacturing facility and home to the new 787 "Dreamliner". Our informative tour took us through the facility where we witnessed work on several planes in various stages of creation.

Ah! Christmas in the magical land of Leavenworth. What a treat. Leavenworth is a quaint Bavarian style town East of Seattle at the base of the Cascade mountains (around 6 hours from our house).