Our kids

Well, we're back. Laura broke her wrist at church yesterday and we just returned from the Pasqua Hospital in Regina where the orthopedic surgeon succeeded in "manipulating" her wrist back in place without the need of cutting into her! So 6 weeks in a cast and a year with the braces. And here's Andrew too, in a fun pose.

Laura's Braces

Today was the big day, the braces went on for Laura. Here's a few pictures of the experience and a video of Laura's thoughts before it all happened.

A waiting room before the big event.

This is about an hour into the experience, I'd left with Andrew to go back to the church and returned for the end of it all. Laura looked happy and content enough.

She's all done, one last shot of her in the chair.

And a close up of the braces and her elastic colours she chose, pink and green.

Now comes a year of no apples, no hard candy, no gum or gummi bears, brushing and flossing after every meal, and just generally being careful. We go back every three weeks for a check-up, elastic replacement and wire adjustment. Hopefully that appliance in the back of her mouth will disappear in a few months.

The zoo in Minot, North Dakota

Well, we've just returned from another fun two days in Minot, about 4 hours southeast of us here in Moose Jaw. Besides the tornado warning and listening to the roof almost collapse with the heavy rain while in the theatre watching Shrek the Third, we went to the Roosevelt Zoo. It was great, here's some pics from there.




Watching the birds at the entrance, the animals got better but this is the only good video with the family in it!




This monkey was absolutely the coolest thing to watch. He(she) seemed quite happy to go end to end of the cage. One of them was named Lizzie, and the other was Ashley!

The kids in the obligatory "Stick your head in the wood so I can take a really funny picture of you" picture.

Ahhh, the funny animals.

An educational board (we didn't read it, but thought it was a good kids picture.

Baseball

Can't resist a few pictures of Andrew's first ever baseball game, he looks so cute in the catcher's gear! Everyone gets a chance to be catcher.

Lisa's Excellent Adventure!

SADDLEBACK CHURCH

This is the church where Donnie has been working for the past 2 years as a youth intern. This church is pastored by Rick Warren who wrote the Purpose Driven Life. This first building is the children's complex, the next picture is the steps up to the main worship centre and and the third is the main worship centre.

DISNEYLAND!!

Thanks to a friend of Laura's who works at Disneyland, we were provided with free admission to both Disneyland and California Adventureland - what a great day! This is Tyler and I in front of the castle.

Here's a few floats from the parade that runs down Main Street USA every day.

Later in the afternoon we decided to ride the train that goes around the entire Disneyland park - Tyler didn't see much!

Here's a couple of attractions from California Adventureland which is right next door to Disneyland.

We rode this huge ferris wheel. Our car was one of the ones on the inside that runs back & forth on a track and rocks back & forth - kind of nauseating!

Here we are on the ferris wheel, up high where it's constantly moving & windy.

While in Disneyland, Tyler got picked out of hundreds of kids to go up on the stage with about 25 other kids to learn how to fight in the "Jedi Training Academy". Once he learned his fighting routine, he had the challenge of fighting Darth Vador - he did a great job & was so excited!

LAGUNA BEACH!!
Laura, Tyler and I took a day and went to the beach - what a beautiful place!

This is the pool & hot tub area located in the complex where Laura & Donnie are living.

We spent a few hours one day at Downtown Disney which is a free shopping area with shops & restaurants. We enjoyed watching a parrot show and then our our picture taken with these beautiful birds.

California is a beautiful place and the views from all over the area are spectacular as seen here with the mountains in the background. Thanks Laura, Donnie & Tyler for a great visit - love you all!

Laura's Mouth

Just the kind of pictures you want to see with your morning coffee. Make sure you click on them for the LARGE version!! Laura will have this appliance in her mouth for two months, with us ratcheting it wider every two days. After that it stays there for 4 months to let the bones grow and solidify. So two months from now Laura will have her braces put on. The fun two years for Laura begins!

New Car

Here's our 2001 Caravan. It's been giving us trouble and we thought now was the time to replace it. (Go back to August 2005 to see a picture of Lisa really happy to get it.)



Here's our new 2005 Grand Caravan with the cool Stow 'n Go seats. It wasn't very nice to get a nice clean van on a day with snow and slush everywhere but it's nice, that's for sure. And Lisa gets to keep her very precious 7 seats, as we decided we couldn't afford what we wanted, a new Crossover type vehicle. At least the car payments aren't too much of a jump with this one!

A fun day on a Moose Jaw street

Here's us playing football, hamming it up, and even a quickie of Andrew!



Andrew riding his new bike!

Sleeping Beauty?!?!

I have so many pictures of Andrew sleeping in strange positions. This is just another one to add to my collection which we took last night.

Andrew's New Bike

Daddy and Andrew getting the new bike adjusted at the perfect height. This is still March, but the weather was so warm, everyone was out in shorts & t-shirts!

Always ready to serve Daddy chaperoned Laura on a field trip to 15 Wing Moose Jaw to visit the home of the Canadian Snowbirds. Here's a few snapshots of our day! As the weather wasn't all that great, we had the fortune to meet the grounded pilots, in a couple of the pictures.

Our old bed, on a (still) nice Ikea bed Frame. the mattress though, is about 10 years old and was very cheap. I was happy to push it out the door!

Our new mattress, on the new bed frame, with the new furniture. I asked the delivery guy if it comes with a pole vault to get into it!

Laura gets to have her bed back, actually it's her new bed, as we're putting our nice Ikea bed frame down there for her. she's not happy about this as she was enjoying sleeping on a piece of foam on hard futon slats. Ahhhh, to be young and have a good back!

The worst 8 nights of my life!!!

Hope that title grabbed your attention. We finally bought a new mattress today, our last one was rather cheap and has been giving us back aches for several months now. So now we have 8 more nights to sleep on it before the new one gets delivered next Friday.

The funny thing about the whole process was that I didn't mind paying the $$$ for the mattress, but my eyes shot out for the far less amount we paid for the sheets we got for the bed. But, boy, those sheets we got were the softest thing I may have felt in my entire life.

So here's the mattress below, because I know how much people want to see it! The lady doesn't come with it though!