Amanda & Judy on Vancouver Island

A Humpback Tail.

Halloween, Hockey, Judy, Carving & Kathleen.

It's been busy. We can feel our time here slipping away. We look forward to home but feel sad about leaving such great people and places behind. Will, Jack & George have just dropped Amanda & Judy at Edmonton Airport. They are on their way to Victoria B.C. We will meet them on Wednesday in Seattle where Will has a conference (Environmental Education Association of Washington) until Saturday.

We have a ski in Jasper with the Australian Hamiltons lined up for the weekend of December 1st.

We leave the day after school finishes on December 22nd and spend 4 nights in Hawaii on the way home.

Outside right now we're hearing Geese, Coyotes and Cows. We'd be in Alberta, Canada!

Judy providing George's class with an update on John.

George's carved and air-brushed Bear's Head.

Carved pumpkins with Dodge at Strands.

Jack-o'-lantern. George-o'-lantern.

Line up.


Puck control.


Edmonton Oilers v. Nashville Predators at Rexall Place. Oilers downed 1 - 4. Wouldn't want to offend anyone but the Oilers were ordinary.

Kathleen cleaning the air-brusher. George on paint drying duty.

George awaits the puck in front of his new home.



The best of the Halloween loot. Sorted then sampled.

Lucky George with head of ex-deer. Don't the Coyotes do beautiful work?

Sleighs at Donna's - Kathleen's neighbour.




Demon Devil & Hockey Player.

Trick or Treat?

Cross Country

Jack joined the Barrhead Elementary School cross country team, trained hard and did well. He ran in four races in total and if we can, we'll get him to write about it.

Here are some photos from the final meet.


Can I reel him in?
Highly valued support from newly arrived Australian contingent - Alec, Sam, Will & Anita.

Golf Season begins & ends

The mixture of Golf-Carting and Golf kept the boys amused for a few hours on Thanksgiving Day holiday. Sun was out. No-one on the course. Main hazard was the fallen leaves which provided endless hiding places for little white balls.
Chip!

Whack!

Youthful optimism.

Splash!

Fore!

Rattle, rattle.

Fore!

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving long weekend saw action galore. Saturday - Hockey in morning, Smoky Lake in afternoon. Thanksgiving Day at Hewitt's on Sunday plus cross-country training for Jack. Monday - Golf Day for Will, Amanda, Jack and George on the sun-drenched, leaf littered Autumnal slopes of the Barrhead Golf Club.

The Hewitt's Giant Turkey must have been fed with the same stuff as the Smoky Lake pumpkins. This would not have been the kind of turkey that one would have wished to tangle with in a dark alley. The fact that it had been slaughtered, plucked, stuffed, laid on its back and cooked at 375 (degrees Fahrenheit) for many, many hours made it easier for us to relax in its company.

Eating it was not a problem.

The Hewitt's taught us a new (for us) family game called '4 on the couch'. Short-term memories were challenged.

We felt privileged to share such a great Thanksgiving meal with such a fine upstanding Canadian family. How can we ever hope to repay such generosity when the Hewitt's visit us in Australia. Roo Tail Soup? Wombat Stew?

Four-on-the-Couch. Traditional 'extreme' Canadian family game normally played outdoors in sub-zero temperatures, but is was too warm so we played it inside this time. Will's tie was a recent purchase from Harrods.

This looks to me like a candidate for a 'caption competition'. Any suggestions?

The glorious centre piece of the table was a very fancy collapsible paper Turkey that Nadine (school deputy sheriff) had purchased at the Westlock Dollar Store and given to Will for his birthday. For some reason the Hewitts insisted that we take the folding paper turkey home with us. Not sure why...

Goalie first time for George

Passing puck (me George goalie)

Match. Me in net.

It was weird because you had to get a whole different bunch of stuff on. Like I didn't have to wear shin pads because I had goalie pads on. The goalie pads were tied onto my skates so they didn't fall off. I didn't even have to wear my gloves because I had the catcher and blocker on.

The Annual Great White North Smoky Lake Pumpkin Fair and Pumpkin Weigh-Off

We took the 2 hour drive east to the Smoky Lake Pumpkin Festival straight after hockey. Amanda's whim - boys all prepared, on this occasion, to go with the flow. Landed in town to be momentarily distracted by the very fancy cars in the main street and the concrete pumpkins by the railway station before being shuttle-bussed to the real action - the Weigh Off at the town Rec Centre. The ice was out of the hockey arena to be replaced by thousands of seats all of which were full. The MC was a local radio identity who might have been related to Dennis the Rodeo Clown - judging by the number and quality of his mother-in-law jokes.
Sculptures at the Smoky Lake train station.


The On-Stage Smoky Lake Pumpkin Carrying Unit delivers another big one to the scales.

The Winning Pumpkin. That's 1137.5 pounds.* It's a bit discouraging really isn't it. Until now we'd been impressed with the vegie growing expolits of Doug & Sally and Judy & John. Not so much any more. What can they use as an excuse? Drought? Top-soil? We didn't research techniques for growing large pumpkins. We might though.

* 'Scuse me, Dad - what's that in kilos?

Pumpkin Flesh with Family.

Amanda's fetching new pumpkin hat, modelled here by George.


Autumnal rural Albertan scenes.