Snippets from the Brodies: Pincher Creek again…

In mid November we headed down to Pincher Creek again to spend another weekend with Boyd & Brittany, and had a great time as usual, even if we didn’t get up to much! Lawrie headed to Stavely with Boyd on the Thursday night to play hockey with a bunch of other young friends, while Brittany and I had an ‘early night’, otherwise known as staying up talking until the boys got home… Although I think we managed to stain some door frames as well!

On the Friday the boys headed to lunchtime hockey in Pincher Creek (open to anyone in town for a few dollars), but it looked a little pro, so Brit and I went to check out some secondhand ice skates for little Beau, and she loved them (cried when she had to take them off)! So that night we headed to the free skate session in town at the ice rink, with a lot of the other local friends, and had a great game of tag on the ice! Beau tried out her skates, and although she couldn’t stand up on her skates on the ice at all (very much to be expected, she’s not even 2 yet!), she handled walking around on the rubber fine on her skates, and loved being on the ice held up by others and going around the rink! It was SO cute…

Little Rio :)

Beau just stoked to be on skates!

Beau on the ice...

Boyd & Beau

Savanna and I taking a break...

Playing tag - Lawrie trying to catch Boyd...

Brant with Beau

Rio wearing her new handmade toque

The next morning we got up early for the usual Saturday morning hockey game, and had a fantastic time as usual! And little Beau joined the line up on the bench as usual, but this time with her skates on! So she got a little skate around with Boyd too… A lot of us went back for a pancake breakfast at Ken and Dorothy’s place (Boyd’s grandparents) then the boys got to work moving some heifers they had bought from a neighbour’s place to Robin and Kim’s fields (Boyd’s parents), while it was snowing heavily – they planned on riding the horses and bringing the cattle back that way, but ended up carting them in trailers as it was too snowy…

Savanna winning

Brittany coming into the bench

Lineup on the bench

Erica vs. Boyd

Lawrie in the oh-so-stylish outdoor gear he borrowed :)

Beau in the snow :)

After that we had a pretty lazy day (much appreciated!), and the next day was a lovely snowy Sunday, so we had a lovely meeting and delicious lunch at Robin and Kim’s place, then a lovely last gospel meeting and supper at Sheldon and Larissa’s (more Lewis cousins, who live really close to Boyd and Brit) – couldn’t really wish for a better weekend! We spent lots of time admiring gorgeous little Beau and smiling little Rio – the cutest kids!

Ready to go on a beautiful Sunday morning :)

At Robin & Kim's on Sunday afternoon

Beautiful view from Robin & Kim's, looking a little different to in summer!

The Lewises - Stewart, Brant & Renita, Larissa (with Beau), Sheldon, & Kyla

Happy little Rio, as usual!

A couple of weeks later, at the end of November, we headed down to Pincher Creek again for another fantastic weekend! Lawrie played hockey on the Thursday night at Stavely again, and on the Friday Brittany and Dena (Trent’s wife) and I drove to Lethbridge to shop while the Black Friday (day after American thanksgiving) sales were on! We had a great day, and so did the boys – Lawrie and Boyd went out to Robin and Kim’s farm and saddled up some horses and took them to noon hour hockey in town before heading back to Boyd’s place, where they moved Boyd and Brit’s new cows to some cattleyards nearby, to give them injections and anti-lice treatment, as well as de-horning one cow. Lawrie loved being a cowboy for the day, and had a go on Pete (the horse he rode back in August) bareback too! No photos though…

That night Boyd and Brit had some other visitors from Calgary for the rest of the weekend, so it was great to meet Graham and Joey Pihrag, and their tiny little baby Asher, so we stayed up chatting some more, and the next day after a lovely sleep in (Saturday morning hockey was cancelled…) we had another lazy day J

We met some more friends that night when Jay and Britt Upham and little Juneau came from High River, as well as Braeden from Saskatchewan, and we had a wonderful day at the Pincher Creek Special Meetings the next day! Sad to say goodbye to a lot of people though! We had a great supper at Boston Pizza (mmmm!!) that night with Trent and Dena, Jeremy and Micaela, Luke, Joel and Berwin Lewis and a few others, so that was a nice way to finish a great weekend! Or so we thought…

Beautiful sky on the way down to Pincher Creek

Awesome clouds at sunset :)

Some of the Manarys - Brent, Val, Michelle, David

Morning view from Boyd & Brittany's window

Our plans were to head to the ski field at Fernie the next day, so we got up early and all ready to go, while Boyd and Brit packed their last few things to head to Hawaii with Brit’s family that day, and we got on the road… To find that it was absolutely covered in snow, and snowing very heavily, with almost white out conditions. So we conveniently headed to our favourite eatery, Tim Hortons, to see what was going on, and found that although Fernie was open for the day and would have some fantastic conditions and probably not many people at all, we wouldn’t be making it there, as the highway to Fernie would be closed before we got there, as were many other main roads, and many flights were being cancelled. Thankfully not the one Boyd and Brittany were on though, and they just made it through heading towards the airport before they closed one of the highways! Bet they’re glad they decided to leave early…

So we discovered that when it is plans vs. a blizzard, it’s ALWAYS the blizzard that will win! But we still had a great day – played noon hour hockey with a bunch of Lewis young ones (snow day from school too!) and then headed back to Sheldon and Larissa’s (Brant, Kyla and Stewart) for an afternoon full of Rook and Uno J. Rather than driving the 20 minutes or so back into town in still white out and windy conditions, we overstayed our welcome and had supper there before heading back to an empty house at Boyd and Brit’s!

Hmmm... we live in that purple bit...

Our favourite joint :)

Driving through the roads in town...

Main Street in Pincher Creek...

Savanna's car on Main Street - good luck getting home??

Lawrie and his footprints back to the car

The snow was pretty deep :)

Lovely day to be driving - that's a truck about 30m in front of us!

At least most of the roads are straight...

Oldman Dam, on the way to Boyd & Brit's

However, things apparently still weren’t over… The next day on our rather slow trip back up to Didsbury (the roads were pretty scary, with a LOT of snow drifts everywhere!), we were on one of the back roads on our way back to the highway from Boyd and Brit’s place, and saw a flash of fluro orange twirling as it plummeted towards the ground. Surely not… But it was in fact a guy working on a power pole who had FALLEN. Not nice. He is hopefully fine, but was in a LOT of pain, and it was all a little bit scary! So we stuck around almost until the ambulance got there, while they padded him with lots of jackets and gloves (not great timing at minus 15 degrees…) and tried not to let him move… So hopefully it’s all OK there...