Where are the Nunns?

Time for an update from the Canadian Nunns.


What do your kids do when you leave them home to go out to dinner for Grandma's birthday?
What we find.... a complete photo shoot after they have created some fancy hairdos.






Family Day Activities:

Ice Fishing with Uncle Rod

Hanna's snow angel

Jill looking in the ice hole for a fish

Carnival at the Remington Carriage Center

Grandpa & Grandma's Mission Farewell

Grandpa & Grandma gave great talks!

Extra visitors: Robert & Becky DePoe (Martha's sister); Amron & Lana Gwilliam with their kids (Martha's nephew) ; Lily Gwilliam (Martha's sister-in-law) who came from Vanderhoof and it was a complete surprise - we didn't know she was coming until we walked into church and there she was!!!


Austin playing hockey in the Teachers vs Students Hockey Game - luckily there was no injuries. I think the students ended up winning in a shoot-out.

Junior Roping

Austin teaches a weekly junior roping class. They had a heel-o-matic jackpot on the last day. Jill was the heading champion and Wyatt Olsen was the heeling champion.

Hanna also placed.

The entire junior roping clan!



Cardston Music Festival

Jill plays the clarinet in the 7th grade band this year. She also did a clarinet trio for the music festival.

Lucy sang with all of the first graders at the festival.


Hanna sang with all of the fifth graders at the festival.





Hanna's 11th Birthday

We celebrated Hanna's birthday with sticky buns, bacon and fried eggs for breakfast. Then Austin and I went to a funeral and I had to stay to help with the luncheon. Then we went out to lunch/dinner at Athen Restaurant. Then Jill and I went to the Young Women's broadcast. Then we had cake and ice cream. Not the most exciting birthday ever, but we still love Hanna!








Champs
Another Champs basketball season has come to an end.



Notice Hanna's fancy new basketball shoes that she got for her birthday.

Cross Country Skiing in Waterton

What should you do to endure winter? Enjoy it and do something fun. I knew we had two cross country skiing trips to Waterton coming up, so I went to great effort to find skiis to borrow so we didn't have to rent twice. I had success.

First skiing adventure:
Me and my 4 girls, Karen & Lindy Bevans, and Dixie Bevans
We climbed in the gigantic van and headed to Waterton. It was a beautiful day, and the snow was perfect.

Lucy's first time skiing - she was a rock star!

The slower crew of skiers.

Jill and Lindy - the teenagers

Hanna - also in the faster group

Me pulling Carly - it really worked better than I expected - plus it is a great workout

Carly did get out and walk sometimes.

We ate lunch at Cameron Lake. Hanna was trying to feed the birds. This bird ate a piece of bread off Hanna's hat. They obviously knew that if they hung out there they could score some crumbs. A ranger stopped on his way by and gave us a speech about not feeding the birds human food because it messes up their digestive systems and then they soon die.




Carly posing by the frozen waterfall



The fun ending of the day was that Karen's husband met us in Waterton to surprise Karen. They stayed overnight, and so Dixie got to drive the Bevans mobile home.

Skiing Trip #2
That same night Austin went with his teacher's quorum night skiing to Cameron Lake. One of his boys forgot his poles, so he used Austin's. Austin used some metal poles they found, but they didn't work very well. They would just go deep into the snow every time Austin tried to push off.

Skiing Trip #3
We went with Sarah and Rod and their 6 kids to Cameron Lake again. Austin had to go to Teacher's Convention, so he didn't come with us.

Sarah


Julia


Carter "I am in control" That he was he kept saying all 98 times he fell down. It was his first time. He did awesome but his legs aren't very long, so it took him a long time.


Carly & Hanna


Kaela, Carly & Hanna




Kaylynn and Taylor

Another fun day of skiing!

Moving

Austin and Kaylynn's Homes 1996 -2012
1. Logan - little white house
2. Logan - apartment
3. Nibley - little brown house
4. Hyrum - bought our first house
5. Cardston, Alberta - yellow house on the dairy farm
6. Leavitt, Alberta - Austin's parent's house

We moved for the 5th time in our marriage into Austin's parent's house in Leavitt, Alberta (10 minutes from Cardston, Alberta). Buck & Martha left for their 18-month mission to Nauvoo, Illinois. We moved into their house so we can take care of it and take care of their animals.

Moving is good and bad.
Good - you sort through your things and de-junk and deep clean
Bad - it is tons of work

When you move, you wonder why you carry lots of things from house to house (like books and dress-ups and food storage). Austin wants to make a new rule that you just leave your food storage in the house for the next people, and you get the food storage from the house you are moving into. Plus you wonder where all of that dust under your furniture comes from.

We really enjoyed our time in the yellow house (1,050 square feet) near the cemetery.
Things we liked:
Being close to town but out of town
We kept our horses in the pastures at our house
It was protected from the wind because we were next to a big hill plus lots of trees and barns
Greatest landlords and neighbors (Robert & Lorraine Hull)
Great water and water pressure
Front door school bus service - plus a short bus ride to town
Great view from the kitchen window - Cardston, cemetery trees, pasture, sunrise

Things we didn't like:
Dozen mice killed in the house
Appliances that were as old as me (3 1/2 hours to dry a load of laundry, 2 burners that work on the stove, cold air flowing from the fridge, dishwasher that makes a loud grinding sound during the drying cycle)
Dogs that brought us tons of dead animals and animal parts



Now into our new location..

the Quonset behind the house

The barn, wind fence and some of our horses and Buck's horses

Things we will like about our new house:
New kitchen - flooring, cupboards, appliances
A bit more living space
Closer to the church - Leavitt is a great place to live

Things that we will adjust to:
Wind - the first three nights we all laid awake listening to the wind howl
Water - doesn't taste great plus it has its own special smell
45 minutes longer on the bus ride in the morning and 30 minutes longer after school

Thanks to....
*Barb Salmon for helping me clean, pack and move my kitchen
*Hometeachers, Larry & Morgan Leavitt, who helped us move our furniture and fed us Sunday dinner (well, really Carolyn Leavitt fed us dinner)
*Shauna Smith for bringing us muffins
*Rod & Jackie Olsen for feeding us dinner the day we moved in - plus they sent us home with leftovers for the next day
*Lots of people who offered help

Now for unpacking and decorating...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love - It's what brought us here today...

For our Valentine's Day...
The kids took valentines to school - except Jill who is past that but did have a fun Valentine's dance at school. She even danced the jive with her Dad.

When they got home from school, I had the string maze ready. They each have to follow their string throughout the house until they find their prize. This year the gift was pajamas with a bit of candy (less candy than normal because they eat a few pieces, and then I end up eating the rest).



Then we went out sledding on our hill. Austin pulled the tube behind the horses. It was a beautiful day with 5 inches of fresh powder.

Then we enjoyed a candle light dinner of heart pizzas and pink pop before everyone headed out for their church activities of the evening.

Grade 7 Girls Basketball Champs

Jill's Grade 7 Girls Basketball Season has come to a successful end. The Cardston Cougars are the Division Champs!



There are 7 schools in our school division (district). Four of those schools have 100 kids or less in grades K-9 or K-12. To get a basketball team they gather up most of the girls in the grade and even some from the younger grades. They try hard.

There is one team that beat us once this season by 3 points - Raymond, and we had to play against them in the championship game. It was intense and exciting.

1st Quarter - Cardston up by 5 points
2nd Quarter - Raymond up by 5 points
3rd Quarter - Cardston down by 8 or 9 points
4th Quarter - all of the Raymond starters fouled out

Cardston ended up winning the game 51 - 47. A few people commented that they have never seen Austin, who coaches Jill's team, quite so intense. Jill played well but had to sit out quite a bit because she had 3 fouls in the first half. She ended up with 17 points. Go Jill!

Good job girls!



In honor of their gym class (thanks Miss Burt) where they are learning line dancing....





Hanna, Savannah and Ashley - the great little sister cheerleaders!

Lucy's Birthday

We had a birthday-eve celebration for Lucy because we didn't have school. We went swimming in Lethbridge. It was a really fun pool, and we had a fun time. We weren't quite as excited when we left the pool and our car battery was dead because I didn't close my door all the way. After running from car to car ten times in the parking lot asking if anyone had jumper cables, I finally went and asked for help at the Backstreet Pub. Some very friendly men came and jumped our car for us. We were on our way to lunch and grocery shop.

On Lucy's birthday we had sticky buns and bacon. (*Note to self: instant pudding doesn't work in sticky buns. I couldn't find and cook and serve pudding in Canada. Okay, so I really only looked in 2 stores. I have to remember to stock up in "the states.")

We had Lucy's birthday dinner (steak and twice-baked potatoes) in between Lucy's basketball session and Hanna's. Grandma and Grandpa and Dixie joined us for dinner and Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

Thanks for all of the phone calls. She loved the song from the Lees!

Lucy got fun toys, 2 movies, and a shirt. She gets very excited. I hope she had a fun day!

Thanks to Karma for the cute Barbie clothes!

Thanks to "my favorite aunt" Diana for the shirt and Barbie movie.