Tag Archive | Athabasca Glacier

Life as Normal In an Abnormal House

And now we return to the norm… well what the Reinsch-Johnson family perceives as such! Welcome back to homeschooling, crafting, family fun and of course… random ramblings; BUT best of all they are all being said/done/typed/experienced AT HOME for a while. We have all pretty much willingly grounded ourselves to our house, or in the adults’ case – the immediate city for the rest of the week…

Wednesday was a rather unique day for our family – a day completely OFF from schooling! The activity of choice – Minecraft! Which worked well as the weather was rather crummy. So we let them take turns and play to their hearts’ delight.

Gaming with remnants of lunch... or was it brunch?

Still rather cranky children but with a fridge full of wedding leftovers (and flowers… really need to decide something about my bouquet – what is left of it – and Trinity’s basket) we were perfectly content to STAY HOME. And in the evening I had plenty of time to watch Top Gear (UK version OF COURSE) and work on blog entries… 

Naked baby popcorn time

Thursday was not a much more action packed day BUT we started with bubbles – wedding bubbles – which is always a good place to start. I ended up with a bunch of the bubble containers in various places. Everywhere from the van to my purse to various pieces of luggage in fact! So out the 4 bigger kids went and blew bubbles in the backyard. A bit chilly in the morning though so it didn’t last long. 

Wedding bubbles

Now back to homeschooling, and the activity for today – catching up on our Summer Adventure file… there is lots to go through and each of the twins had 3 pages to do for the day. 

Two of Zander's

Gavin's two

The glacier toe

Emanuel even did his own page with some carefully chosen words about the wedding – Wedding, bubbles and gold (the colour of his sash). He has been working hard on his letters and knows pretty much all of them by memory. Though he alternates capitals and lower-case depending on the letter and his mood at the time! 

Emanuel's page

I got spoiled with some more cousin time as well. Veronika had a dental appointment in town here and so came over after for a visit with a large bag of clothes she no longer wanted. It seems like we are about the same size in shirts for the most part! Bonus! And then we ducked out to do a wee bit of shopping. I have a plan (don’t worry it is a relatively simple one)… when fall comes I want to dress BACK up in my medieval dress, do up my hair and make-up and head down to a local park area for pictures. So… I needed stupid proof eye shadow and who better to ask for help from than my most amazing make-up artist of a cousin. This is one step up from the truly idiot proof stuff (that stuff  you take the sponge, sweep it across the palette and then across your eye – done!) and very pretty. 

Eyeshadow

And then there was the ribbon on sale – 5 spools for 2.00 so we HAD TO stop by and get some.

Pretty thin ribbon!

Oh and Cousin Veronika is also firmly lost in the Trinity Hello Kitty vortex… look what our little miss got from her cousin!

KITTY!

The van was driven on Thursday with less than stellar results… not a major overheat but a hissing sound would accompany an increase in heat on the engine then stop and it go back down. So no trip to the city on Saturday for Alexander’s birthday… I am hoping that once we fix the vehicle we can make a special trip. I do hate missing a birthday party! But better we stayed at home than got stranded on the road somewhere!

Friday was an overcast day here, perfect for diving into math… Gavin is nearing the end of his grade 1 level math book right on schedule (his schedule really as he is VERY adamant that he needs to move onto the next).

He is up to adding 3 different numbers at once... larger numbers at that

We decided to take our adventure to the Maligne Canyon into a poster. I had one piece of poster paper left from when we did our VBS poster and 2 postcards I picked up at the gift shop at the canyon. Since we learned about the Lichen and saw a squirrel it seemed like there was more than enough exciting information and memories of this place to make a nice poster. 

Poster in pieces

I finished a few scrapbooking pages over Thursday and Friday. I have so many pictures already printed out it is a shame to have them sitting there and not do anything. 

For Trinity

I did sneak out with the 3 kids that at the time were behaving (well Echo was a given) and we walked to the convenience store… Ken wanted chocolate and I wanted out of the house. Not the nicest day for a walk but we enjoyed it anyway!

Ready to walk

So we are back to normal… well normal for the Reinsch-Johnson household. The kids are still a BIT cranky and the baby clingy BUT we are home and that is wonderful. Our program for the year is in the works to be completed over the long weekend, next week Ken and Echo will get the last of her medical testing taken care of and call the cardiologist to check in for that surgery date. It was so wonderful to just enjoy our family and NOT be thinking about Echo’s health concerns (real or imagined) or the kids’ year of schooling, just how to have fun and learn about the world around us!

I am rather disappointed that we are grounded to home for the weekend but that is nothing new for the family… after all we still have lots we can do – there are toys to discover in the basement, a playset to finish building (FINALLY), a shed to tidy and of course bubbles to blow. As it is a long weekend we will just have to see if anyone is free and comes by, but either way it will be a GET THINGS DONE sort of weekend, which is  great timing as Tuesday we start to feel the grade 2 vibe… or at least the twins have decided they start grade 2 that day! 

That brings me to something has always made me giggle – so many parents who have their kids in the school system talk about how life has gone back to “normal” once school starts up again… so for those of us who homeschool (especially year round) does that mean that life is NEVER “normal”? If so… I think that is GREAT! 

I just love their hair in this one!

And the Answer to Yesterday’s Question… TONS

Morning came quickly at the Pocahontas Cabins… the last one up out of the kids was Trinity, though I woke up with Echo first and then after a bit of a snuggle and letting Ken get in some more sleep went back to bed. This coincided with the boys waking up so we were able to shuffle them out of the bedroom and not wake up Trinity. 

Trinity sleeping in

Well they did get up for a bit and then fell asleep watching tv

We had a route already mapped out the night before and a plan to put into action so after cobbling a breaky for the kids together out of the night before’s supper (Trinity’s) and the travel rations it was time to pack up and say good bye. Chris and Chris and Jocelyn were going on to the west coast and we had our drive through TWO national parks (well not the whole of Banff National Park, but some of it) to accomplish before getting home. Off we went with a van full of kids VERY unsure of how much fun was actually to be had in a vehicle for that long…

Don't the clouds look marvellous?

Our first stop was Maligne Canyon, 15 min from Jasper the information we had called it a “startlingly deep canyon”… well they were right!

All ready to walk the canyon path

A little info about the area... and the only animal we actually saw was the squirrel!

Out in the sunshine with Fat Sheep as well

We learned about lichen….

Reading the lichen info... the boys were quick to point out the example right in front of the sign on the mountain itself and its bright orange colouring

Crossed TWO bridges…

View from the bridge

And saw a squirrel eat a nut! 

SQUIRREL!!

With a quick walk through the gift shop to get two educational postcards and two children tripping and scraping knees (Trinity and Zander, thank goodness I had bandaids in my purse) we were off again. Next stop – Jasper and gas and food.

Such a pretty sign

Gas was 1.22 a litre (OUCH) but you HAVE TO fill up there as the road we were taking to Banff National Park had no commercial traffic allowed on it so no gas stations. The best we could do for “cheap” fastfood was an A&W that was pricier than any other we had been too. Great quality food though and HUGE ketchup packets. 

Ketchup

After Jasper it was on to Banff National Park. We were going to stop at some falls but were unsure of the access road and instead opted to drive through (with potty stops) to the Athabasca Glacier… of course we were super prepared… NOT… all of us in shorts or skirts (Trinity) and sweaters for me and the kids… and the only people crazy enough to drag 5 small children up the un-paved path to the toe of the glacier. BUT we did it! It was a slow progress and I was amazed that no one ended up wounded but it was well worth it! There were even signs showing the progression of the melting. Two stood out – one the year my brother was born and the other when a certain cousin was a year old! 

From a distance so lovely

1982

1992, the glacier actually shrunk rather quickly

There was a nice man who offered to take a family picture for us (they were just as crazy – two small children AND the wife was pregnant!).

Up at the glacier toe

Reading about the glacier

One of the signs talking about the dangers of going onto the glacier... the other sign mentioned 3 different rescue attempts on the glacier last year - all 3 were failures.

Yet so many ignore the warnings and climb on in

After trekking back down (VERY carefully) it was time to start the real drive home… with some stop offs to cool the breaks and see the sights of course…

Until in Banff National Park we hit a lovely potty stop and Trinity was SURE she had to go… and she DID! She was so proud we had to take a picture! And then Ken ran off to the vantage spot solo to see what was there…

Potty!!

At the scenic vantage point Ken checked out solo

The view

From then on it was home home home. Except when we stopped at a gas station before Nordegg for snacks and a nap for Ken. Then it was time to let the kids wiggle in the van while they ate snacks. Poor Kenny was a bit worn out already. We had been on the road since about 10:30 am and done numerous stops WITH hiking and kids… 

Kenny enjoying the mountain drive

Of course post nap we had a bit of a van scare (seriously is ANYONE who knows us surprised?? I think NOT)… what we later determined was water vapour came pouring into the van on my side of the dash so we had to pull over and pop the hood. After a very careful examination of the vehicle and a somewhat frantic texting on my part to Cousin Veronika and Karyn so SOMEONE knew we were having a van worry we figured driving on would be best… and while yours truly was tense (but then when am I not when it comes to vehicles?) and a little cautious and VERY unhappy in those patches of road where cell phone reception was NONE we had no further issues. 

Echo on the big rest... pre van scare

A first for us we drove through Rocky Mountain House on our way – Tim Hortons potty break with coffee and hot chocolate for the worn out adults. And then the last hour home. And you know, the kids STILL got excited over seeing cows??? Go figure! Their moods and attitudes while unsurprisingly crabby were MUCH better than when we had to drive on through places without all the stops. We managed to learn a lot about our province and the mountains… see places NONE of us had seen before and go on a family adventure. 

On the way UP to the cabins we drove past an interesting sign – Scenic Route to ALASKA!! OH how tempting! But no passports and too many children on board for that. Maybe a future adventure when either everyone is bigger and we have a trailer OR when we can go without all 5 in tow? 

It was about 7:30 when we got home, our camera full of pictures, our kids less than enthused. There was a van to unpack, kids to feed (yay for the leftovers we sent home with our lovely ladies that were there waiting for us) and Ken’s folks to call. Of course Ken called them while *I* was unpacking things and chasing kids and then talked for an hour… do I love the man or what? As shown by the fact that when he DID finally get off the phone I DIDN’T kick his bum! 

The kids did up pictures on our drive (thank goodness I did pick up crayons and colouring books especially for this weekend) and were very excited to explain what they saw.

Some of the "van art"

We are planning a special poster just for Maligne Canyon as well as our usual Adventure File pages… maybe do a mini book with the pictures made, there are some ideas rumbling around in my head! And once we get all of that out on paper we move onto our next year of schooling and our September focus – dinosaurs!!! But first – I promised ALL of the kids ONE DAY OFF… Minecraft, tv and NO school. 

A few more mountain photos

So beautiful

Sunshine in the mountains by the canyon