Bode’s Canadian Birthday

The kids and I are in Calgary. I’m going to be bouncing around a lot on this blog over the coming weeks, alternating between Canadian fun and our final Colorado adventures. Normally, we’d be at the lakehouse in B.C. this week but I begged my family to push back the date with all the uncertainty with the sale of our house. It worked out pretty well. Of course, nothing has been ideal this summer but when we return early-August, we’ll have a couple of weeks to pack up the house and move. So, we’re trying to enjoy a bit of downtime with family while we have it.

Traveling to Canada for 2.5 weeks in the middle of a move is certainly not prudent but this is the only time I see my family all year and my Mom’s MS has grown from bad to worse. Undoubtedly this will be the last summer she will still be able to travel so it was especially important to be here. I’m just grateful for Jamie who made it possible and is holding down the fort at home.

We’re usually in Canada for Bode’s birthday and this year was no exception, except that we’re generally at the lakehouse. So, this year, he had a rather leisurely birthday at my parent’s house. I went on the hunt for his beloved Tim Horton’s Timbits (tougher than usual; who knew several franchises only carry a few varieties? The horror!)

He went on a golf cart ride with Grandpa.

Just minutes before, he informed me that he’d dropped his iPod at our hotel in Great Falls a few days ago, shattering the screen. Then, he narrowly missed Jamie’s car when he was driving.

Way to get it all out there when you can’t get in trouble on your birthday. Well played, Birthday Boy.

Since it was his day, I let him have free reign on what he wanted to do, which mostly involved video games. For a 10-year-old boy, that is the best birthday ever!

Later that night, we went over to my brother Pat’s house for a a pizza party and Kung Fu Panda 3 movie night in their home theater room. He and his wife Jane spent a minor fortune on a gorgeous outdoor pizza oven and they made the most amazingly delicious pizzas. Their family just got back from a European vacation where they took a legit pizza-making class in Florence, Italy and that crust was out of this world.