Wiggledy Woggledy Woo...

So I know we were doing so well posting every day and sometimes twice a day. Well, then reality hit and this week has been a bit more pressure-filled. Monday (my day off) I had a last league game with my boys and we managed to play our worst game of the season. That's okay though, because then it's out of our system. Then Tuesday, I spent the whole day in Edson (45 minutes away) coaching our last tournament of the year, where I was more than proud of what our guys accomplished. Wednesday was a typical Wednesday, running to the max to try and get everything ready for Watermark nights. And then Thursday, I sat down and worked on my essay again, and got from 200 words at the beginning to 900 by the time I was done 30 minutes later. And that brings us up to this day, Friday.

My last essay of the semester came to a close about 25 minutes ago. That's 25 minutes early. That's what I call efficient. Or cutting it close. Whichever works for you.

Today was one of those average days when you just can't wait to get home. I sat in my office for most of the day today, recovering from my wounds of Gagaball, the latest game around these parts for our student ministry. Think of being crouched down for 4 hours straight while trying to hit a ball with your fist and not get too much rugburn. Now that's a sport.

So much of today was spent feeling the rugburns on my knuckles, and attempting to stay awake with various types of coffee (church coffee was spectactularly bad, Starbucks good, 7-11 surprisingly good). We managed to get something accomplished at work, but I'm really not sure what it was. Kaelyn and Michelle dropped in and helped me for a bit. Kaelyn has a good time at the church - lots of open spaces. She yells, "Baaaaaahh" a lot, and she can spot a ball just about anywhere. So she ran around and threw balls at stuff, and Michelle and I cleaned a storage room. To be honest, I would rather have hung around Kaelyn, because at least she was doing something fun. We later went to the mall, and while momma shopped, Kaelyn and I walked the mall and pointed at all the Christmas balls on the ceiling. She also tried to hold the hand of some 12 year old boy. Thankfully, he was too shy or else he would have been the first to feel my wrath.

It's pretty fun to have a little rugrat kicking around the house. Kaelyns is a pretty playful kid. She'll play by herself, walk around the house, and the want to play with mom or dad, which is great. I walked away from her a few times and she kept saying, "Daaadaaaaa! Daaaadaaa!" Which makes me feel like I'm a superhero. And when we were walking around the mall, just outside the music store, Kaelyn decided to dance for a bit. So that was a good time too. What a party animal.

Tomorrow we're heading to a Marriage Conference (Saturday only) for most of the day, and then we'll be back in the afternoon. It's in Jasper, so if I get bored, hopefully I can slip away. Hopefully it'll be good...we'll see! And now, another picture from today! I can hear the grandparents from here.

Squishy Faces and Greedy Grandparents

Hanging at Uncle Doug's & Auntie Meg's this summer!

I saw this next picture on NASA's website and immediately thought of my dad. He would take us out into the middle of nowhere - the less light the better - and we'd sit and stare at the sky until either the cold got to us, or we all started to fall asleep. "There's one." "Oh, there goes one." "Woah, that one was bright." Comments of that sort were common as you breathed in the cool night air and listened to the world at night. Those were some pretty amazing times.

I was actually talking with one of the teachers at our school on the bus ride back from a game a couple days ago. We talked about typical teacher stuff - vacation, students, the need for teacher's to have a place to escape to or they'll go crazy (if they aren't already) - and the conversation turned to a place where this particular teacher from Hinton goes to escape in the summer. Cool thing was, it was on Makwa Lake, which is two minutes from our own cabin. So that was kind of a nice break from reality and just a cool time to hear about someone else really loving it out there. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's our cabin and you should come visit. All this talk of "God's country" being in Alberta - it may be that, but if God wanted a vacation, He'd bail on Alberta and come to our cabin. It's a pretty amazing place with a lot of great memories.

The two little ones out at the cabin
So, you may ask, why two blogs in one day? Well, that's a good question for which I don't have a good answer. Perhaps it's the frustration of not accomplishing much on my essay today (sitting in front of the computer for over 3 hours and one paragraph to show for it...we should get marks just for that). I also don't take pictures every day, so I'm going to start using some of the pictures I've taken over the last while and never shown. I think that's what pictures are for.

Today was pretty uneventful. My volleyball boys played the worst game of their season, but that's good. We needed to get that game out of our system. Michelle, Kaelyn, Zoe and I all bummed around for the majority of the day - and Michelle and I again watched our weekly Prison Break. If you're not into it yet, or you haven't watched it, boy, you've missed out. Well, you probably haven't, but we like the show.

Tomorrow I'm gone most of the day out in Edson with my team. Last day, last time commitment. Can you sense the relief? I'm hoping it won't be too long of a day so I can come home. We're up at 7:00AM and meeting at Tim Horton's and then we're off to the "wonderful" little town of Edson. Hopefully a different team will show up or it'll be a looong day.

Kaelyn had a pretty good day today. She was all smiles, and she's got a pretty good sense of humor. She walked up to Michelle and I at supper with her see through tray pressed against her face. Hey, I thought it was pretty funny. So either my child has a good sense of humor, or I have the sense of humor of a one-year old. She's also got this really cute smile that's full of seven teeth, that just looks so cute. And she's got this mad look too, but she only does it because her parents think it's funny.

So that's all from the world of the Smiths for this night. We're not an exciting bunch all the time, but we sure feel blessed.

And yes, here's one last picture (from today) for the grandparents out there. You guys are always wanting more pictures.

Kisses for the Sock Puppet, Random Snowboarding and Avoiding the Plague

As I'm sitting here, there's a sock puppet on the loose who likes to bite little noses. The sock puppet and Kaelyn are making so much noise, I thought it might be a better idea to work on this blog, as opposed to working on my 1000 word essay which is due this Friday (which I'm avoiding like the plague at this point).

So my first snowboarding session of the year has come and gone. Yesterday, I was sitting in church and a friend, Luke Blackman, asked me if I wanted to go to Marmot Basin in Jasper right after church. So we were the first to leave church (at a run) and we snowboarded for a solid two-and-a-half hours before the lifts closed. I think that's probably the best way to end church. We were the last off the hill too, because we stayed on the side of a very large hill for a long time just resting. We had a funny moment on the hill too, where I came off a small dip and landed in about 3 feet of powder and I tipped the nose of my board in as I tried to glide over the top. Unfortunately, the powder was heavy and I ended up flipping and landing in a very soft pile of snow. Good times.

So today I'm looking out at a lot of deadlines. I've got my massive paper due this Friday, a potential sermon on Sunday, and a whole lot in-between. If we're difficult to reach this week via phone, that's probably the reason.

Kaelyn is at this moment carrying around her Winnie ball and her soft basketball. She's trying to put the basketball in the hoop (which is a large pair of headphones on the floor) and she's testing out her throwing arm by throwing it around the basement. She's also pretty good at climbing onto the futon, although she's too busy to actually use her arms to climb up. Instead, she runs at the couch with the two balls in hand and dives onto the couch. Not much stops this girl. Mommy's been throwing the Winnie ball at her belly, and Kaelyn just laughs. Yup, our little one is a machine.

So with that, I'll leave you for this morning. I've got one last Zones volleyball game today, and then our last tourney tomorrow. After that, the off-season begins.

And now, one last picture just because I know her great-Grandma is reading this blog and loves the pictures more than the words I write. I know her priorities :).

Pick a Card, Every Card

It's nice to have a daughter who likes to take things apart and spread them all over the floor. Upstairs, the lego was thrown all over the place. Downstairs, it's the UNO and Skip-bo cards. You can tell she hangs out with her mommy a lot.

Today was my last volleyball practice of the year (yahoo!) - now we've only got two games, one tournament to go. I got on my boys' case a bit, and it felt pretty good. But it's the end of the season, so it's to be expected. One week, and it's off-season for me. I won't be coaching basketball this season, and I'm pretty happy about that. Although, I must say, when I was hanging with the new crop of grade 8/9 (they're all my guys from last year) I noticed that three of them are over 6'5" and 200 lbs.! So, for once in my life, I felt pretty short. I'm going to miss not coaching this year, but I think it'll be good for my stress level to take a little break.

So a pretty uneventful day for the most part. Michelle, Kaelyn and Zoe all took a good long walk today; they got out in some +7 degree weather. Kaelyn's still having a rough go with her tooth, and she banged her head on the coffee table and drew a bit of blood. So dad had to be a hero and swoop in and rescue her. I almost forgot to mention - I got an 80% on my mid-term in Professional Writing, so I was happy with that, especially with the amount of studying I put in...

So with that, I'll leave you with some pictures of Kaelyn in action!








It's raining cards!



















The aftermath of Babyzilla's wrath...

You can't catch me!

"Now you see me..."

Don't be fooled. Our lives really aren't that exciting that we need to blog every day because something extraordinary has happened. Well, at least not earth-shattering. Extraordinary maybe. Today (Monday), we all got bored at about the same time. It was kind of a neat thing, because of the pace of our lives. We just sat and were bored and we didn't do a thing about it. That hasn't happened in a while.

So this blog thing has turned into a great thing. We've had emails and comments from friends and family all over - Ottawa, London, Morroco (at the moment anyway), Edmonton, Meadow Lake, Esquimalt, Idaho - from people we haven't heard from for a while. And what a great gift! Thanks for the comments too - they're certainly an encouragement to keep writing and posting pictures. So for those of you who haven't yet had the chance to check in, we'd love to hear from you. This week has really felt like a time when we realized friends we've left all over the place. And perhaps how bad we are at using the phone. And email. Or maybe we're all just so busy, so this is the way it works. But thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read this. We're very grateful.

So today, for this post, I was going to put on the video of the first few steps of Kaelyn, but I have to find out how to do it. So we'll wait for that yet (and if you know how, put it in the comments). So we've got a few centimeters of snow kicking around here. Nothing much else in the way of weather. Kaelyn's been into her new books pretty heavy - she'll just pick up a book, sit in the middle of the floor and point out all the birdies, balls, doggies, kitties, 'nanas and apples. She also carts her blanket around wherever she goes (thanks Grandma & Grampa Smith). She also helps me make coffee in the morning - got her trained early.

So we've got our weekly ritual coming up in the next hour - Prison Break. Can't miss a quality show like that. So I should get to my homework and stop procrastinating [this post was originally published on Sunday, but because of snow storms, this was down and I had to retype the whole thing].

"...now you don't!"

Here's one to you, Bri & Erin!

A couple of years ago I met this fantastic individual named Brian and we became pretty fast friends. I'm not sure if it was because he mooned me (and I was about to get him) or if it was just because he was an easy target at Settlers. Perhaps it was neither. At any rate, this guy and I lived for a few months on opposite sides of a little town called Ingersoll a few years back and now he's in Morocco loving the beaches together with his wife Erin (who, by the way, is also a close dear friend to both of us, but she's actually good at Settlers). These two are an absolute gift to us. So these two punks are off on an African Adventure (or A frickin' lion safari, if you're familiar with the one outside Rockton, Ontario).
So anyways, to the point. Today I took the time to have a coffee and think of my very close friends who are loving life, pursuing God, and having a ton of fun in the process. It kind of made today a real reflection point where I've looked back at "Auntie Erin & Uncle Bri", who have had a massive impact on our lives. A huge gift. Thank you two for your friendship. We are both praying that God shows you more of Him through your 4-month African tour and that you'll come home safe (and then come visit for a month or two and we'll show you the Rockies). [An edit note: I've read this four times now, and I just can't say enough about these two. We love them, I guess that's the best words can do.] So here's to you two adventurers - a very good Starbucks coffee that I just finished tonight in thinking of you (check the top of the page - that's real coffee drinking action).

On another note, today is the first part of my favorite part of the week. Sunday/Monday day off! Kaelyn's about to bust out another tooth, and had a pretty fun day chillin' at the church. I've just realized how much I love putting her pictures on blogs, as you may be able to tell by now. Tomorrow we're going to be chillin' like villains and maybe get out of Hinton and go see some mountains. I guess we'll find out...stay tuned tomorrow! And now, "Baby in Laundry Basket."

Kaelyn's safe hiding place (above) and striking an inspirational laundry pose (below).

Kaelyn the cute...

Another Day, Another Writing

I think the title says it all today. I'm currently enrolled in a professional writing degree while working full-time. Every day it seems I have some other project to write about. Today I have a mid-term exam, next week am speaking at Watermark (our student ministry at the church), next Friday I'm speaking at Thirst (our new city-wide worship time), and it goes on. But I am enjoying it, and thankfully, I can type fast.

So I just emailed everyone and let them know about this new place, so now I am feeling the pressure to put more content on. Either that, or I'm just procrastinating before my mid-term in an hour. But I just wanted to let everyone know where we're at as a family.

Michelle has taken on the role of stay-at-home mom. She's the glue that binds our family together. In December, she's starting as a tutor, and hopefully one of these days I can convince her to start teaching piano. Don't cross your fingers on that one.

Kaelyn has started walking as of October 28. We put the phone (which she likes to play with all the time...uh oh) on the other side of the room and she got up and started walking. For the next 40 minutes of that night, she cruised around the room like she was an old pro. Maybe it's all that practice from grabbing everyone else's hands and dragging them around the countryside. She's talking too, lots of words by now, but she always has been a big talker. And my favorite thing is when she looks out the window for her dad - kind of makes you feel like you're a hero every time you walk in the door.

As for me, I'm working in a very healthy and welcoming church. Those words still boggle my mind as I think about putting them together. But it is a good place to be. I'm very comfortable in my own skin there and I can be myself - rough edges and all. It is very nice to be in a culture that welcomes diversity and change. And, even in the midst of me never feeling like I quite fit into church culture, they love me and allow me to be me. So life is good in terms of the whole job thing. As for the rest of life, Michelle and I are feeling like we've just been welcomed over this past year into Hinton. It's really cool this way, and we just love the community, even if it too has the rough edges of being an oil town. To be honest, I almost enjoy that rough honesty a little.

God's been pretty amazing to us as a family. He's looked out for us, He's given us an amazing community to be a part of (even after the honeymoon of meeting people for the first time) and just allowed us to grow and be who He's made us to be. I can't believe how good that is to find.

So that's it for us at this point. In the madness that is our lives, I'm going to attempt to put some pictures on that link and on the website we've bought, but for now, this will have to do. We do miss many of the people who have impacted our lives, and we'd love to hear from you! Drop us a line!

"Boo!" "Aaa!"

I'm sitting here this morning listening to some classical Christmas music (and it's only November 11) but just enjoying the morning, about to take in some coffee and wake up.

"Boo!" "Aaa!"
"Boo!" "Aaa!"
"Boo!" "Aaa!"

That was the conversation Kaelyn and I just had. She's such a little cheery funny girl. Now she's trying to scare me as she hides behind a pole about two feet away.

We've had a pretty good week over here. It makes me wish for two days off more often, because I do actually feel rested and restarted. We've had the last week off at retreat in Banff, but it didn't feel too much like a retreat. So the last two days have been very nice.

This picture is from Panther Falls, where I ate my birthday cake underneath a frozen waterfall. We walked down quite a ways through trees and large boulders and came upon this beautiful waterfall. It was pretty incredible to sit at the bottom and look up and hear the shushing water. It was even more amazing to climb close to the cliff wall (within 2 feet) and go higher up where the waterfall no longer shushed - it roared! I was a little nervous, especially with the snow that could potentially guide us right off the edge to the rocks below. It was a great day, and a pretty fun hike. As much as I don't enjoy the redneck part of the equation, I can get over it because of the beauty that surrounds us. So now we sit here this Saturday morning. I'm watching Kaelyn cruise around the room here in the basement, and Michelle is making sure Kaelyn "stirred up like chocolate milk" or that her oversized toque stays on. Good times. And now, to the coffee machine for my daily dose of wake up!

The Journey Begins...sort of.

Well, this is the first post of our new site. This blog was inspired by the fact that we realize how much we miss some of our dear friends and family and how desperately we need to stay in touch. So here we are.

Our journey, for those of you who've been on hiatus or unable to get ahold of us, has taken us to the great white land of Hinton, Alberta (although the Chinooks took care of the snow for most of last winter). We're a fifteen minute drive from being deep into the Rockies, which makes for some beautiful mid-afternoon drives. I (Shaun) am working at Hinton Alliance Church and Michelle is at home taking care of the wee one, Kaelyn. And, as of a week ago, Kaelyn is mobile and able to walk across a room and find joy in just about everything. So here we are! We're comfortably settled into this community, I'm coaching volleyball with a great bunch of kids over at the school, and Michelle is loving getting to know some of the population of our city. It seems odd to fill in every detail in one day, so perhaps I'll cut it off for now. I don't want to give away too many Smith family secrets...

At this point in time, we're looking to head to Prayer Retreat in Banff for the next few days. So Grandma and Grandpa Smith are here, "forced" to look after their granddaughter while Momma and Poppa go and relax in Banff. Four days without dog or baby! I give us until day two until the desire to come home will overwhelm us. Either that, or we'll skip the country and invite everyone to a white-sand beach in Dominican Republic...hmmm. But, as for tomorrow, we're heading through Jasper National Park (located 20 minutes away), then onto Banff National Park, then through the Columbia Icefields and then we finally get there! Tomorrow we're heading out as a staff (and family) of HAC to go climb one mountain before continuing our journey. Then it's four days of Banff Park Lodge and hanging with old friends. So this should be a great week; we're looking forward to it!

So that's it for now! We're looking forward to hearing from all of you (even you Rowaans over in Afreeeka)!