Ready for School!

School starts on September 2nd! Yeah!!!

Carolyn took the kids for their school photos the other day, here is the group shot; notice B-man's knees?

Giving Mom a Break!

Yesterday Carolyn dropped the kids off for a week at the farm so she can get a bit of a break and won't have to worry about a babysitter!


Blair with "Tiger" sitting on the new deck at Mama & Papa's.


Erinn playing some basketball in the sunshine.


Kirby with her new friend, she spent the morning volunteering at the vet clinic and the afternoon cuddling "Tiger", what an animal lover!

Getting Ready for School

Carolyn has been doing some school clothing shopping.


Erinn with her new look for Grade 1!


Blair with his Grade 3 look!


And Kirby with her Grade 7 look!


Erinn with her new hair cut!


Blair & Kirby watching a movie!

Boat Course

This past week we finished EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operator's Course) at the Edmonton Garrison, I don't have any pictures yet except for a couple on my Facebook page.

The week prior we were on the Boat Course and Emergency Survival. For Emergency Survival we learned how to build fires & shelters as well as what we could eat in the boreal forest, than on the second day we built our own shelter and spent the night in the bush with nothing on but the clothes on our backs. If you go to my Facebook page you can see pictures of my super shelter.

Fifteen people in a 3 person boat....

We were in the Jasper Pool for half a day working with this little boat, PFDs, survival suits and swimming with our clothes on and 20 pound weight belts.

...Oops!

This was the boat trailering portion of the course...yes there is a trailer back there in the dust!

That's me in the passenger seat hanging on for dear life. We were following the instructor boat, if you look close you can see the top of the outboard at the bottom of the screen, that's how close we had to get.

My turn... it was hard to stay on that rooster-tail off the back of the lead boat.

In the back of this photo you can see one of the Trans Alta coal power generator plants which is right on the shore of Wabamun Lake.

Things got pretty choppy due to the high winds and the boat traffic, at times the waves got to be 4-6 feet high!

This is what happens when you lose control while trying to stay behind the lead boat. That used to be a $40,000 Crestliner boat, thank goodness for good insurance! No, I didn't do that!

Cabin Visitors

While at the cabin we had some visitors come see us...

Sitting beside Kirby is Troy Hilts, a Sask CO that I worked with, he's stationed in Creighton.

Sitting right beside Carolyn is Braden Cherney, him and I worked together in La Ronge back in the mid-90's, he's working out of Moose Jaw now and beside Erinn is Casey Howie, him and I worked together in Pelican Narrows, he is now in Beauval.

All three of the guys were up instructing at the academy, Braden was instructing firearms and other two were doing the boat course.

This is a view looking west across the valley, below is the cabin we stayed at and the mountain is in Jasper National Park. Reading the cabin guest book I noted that the Jasper wardens stay there quite often, there is a corral just outside the cabin yard where they keep their horses that they use to patrol the back country of the park.

This is the Luscar Surface Mine, highway 40 cuts through the middle of the mine where they are digging up the coal which is hauled by train to Wabamun where there are at least 3 coal power generators.

Wabamun Lake is where we went for the boat course.

Since the mine is all marked No Trespassing there is no hunting allowed on it's property so the Bighorn Sheep grow to be huge. Apparently the world record was shot in the area. These ones were right on the edge of the road, with more lining the adjacent ridges.

These one's we seen outside of the mine site, notice they are all ewe's and kids!

More Cabin Photos!

Here's some more pictures from our stay in the Cadomin Cabin...


You might notice the POS car made it into there too, unfortunately it made it out too!


The kids didn't take long to warm up to being in the bush which is a drastic change from the bald butt prairie that they're used to!


My family hanging out by the fire.


Snack before bed.


Me and my honey (boy do I miss her!!!)!

Hello from Hinton!

As you all know I left for Hinton on August 4th to start my 16-weeks of training at the Western Conservation Law Enforcement Academy. So far things have been going good, lots of refreshment of past training and experiences. Fortunately there are 2 guys older than me out of the 42 recruits who are from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C. and the Yukon. So far its been a big reunion for me with the Saskatchewan instructors whom I all worked with at one time.

My first weekend here Carolyn & the kids came up for a visit and stayed until my birthday. The first couple of nights we stayed at the Cadomin patrol cabin which is in the mountains just 30 minutes southwest of Hinton. The last night we moved into town and stayed at the Holiday Inn where the kids could go water sliding and we could enjoy each other a little more before the family had to head back home without me.


Carolyn & I cuddling on the couch in the cabin; you can see our fire burning in the background.


Luscar Creek is flowing through the bush behind the kids, they really enjoyed roughing it out in the middle of nowhere.


The kids sitting on the front porch of the patrol cabin, I will put up more photos when Carolyn sends them, she's been really busy since I've been gone trying to keep up with the chores and chasing the kids.

Harvest!

Last night when we got home from Pincher Creek I spent 3 hours cutting grass and watering, getting ready to leave for Hinton to start my 16-weeks of Fish & Wildlife training tomorrow.


This morning we woke up to a dark sky and intermittent rain.


Blair & I got the potatoes all dug, as you can see we ended up with a pretty good harvest. Today we are having my work farewell party so we plan on baking lots of spuds.


Someone missed us while we were gone, Sugar was out helping digging spuds, here he's taking a rest on the back deck in his favorite chair.

Home Sweet Home?

On Friday Carolyn & I drove to out to Pincher Creek for a night to do some house hunting, we pulled the camper out and stayed at a campground right in town; the kids were left behind in Bow Island.

I think we looked at 12 houses, only one was somewhat appealing to us, the rest were either too small, too old or too weird. We really like the community and especially the surrounding area, lots of opportunity for fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking and camping. I met my co-worker, Perry, he told me that we have the busiest bear district in the province, as well they have been having a real problem with cougars right in town with a few being trapped or tranquilized in peoples backyards, he also said my truck is waiting for me, a brand new Chevy 4x4!

We were introduced to an awesome realtor by the name of Dale Stuckey, at the end of the weekend he was referring to Carolyn as his 'adopted daughter'! Dale went above and beyond, as usual, it seems we have been blessed with good realtors wherever we go, he toured us all around town as well as some of the surrounding area, he owns an acreage just out of Pincher and said next time we come we can stay right in his yard.


We got so busy looking at houses and touring around with Dale that we forgot to take pictures until we were headed back home yesterday. This is a shot of Pincher Creek from Highway 3 looking back west toward the mountains.


This is looking east at a row of wind turbines; there is no shortage of these around the area, everywhere you look that's all you see.