Wednesday, June 2, 2021
Thursday, May 27, 2021
Cake for dinner
One of the birthday coupons the kids got last year was dessert for dinner. Zoltan used his on something relatively mundane. Alex, on the other hand, came up with this gem.
She and Zoltan each made cakes.
She made the chocolate and graham cracker cakes. Zoltan made a plain white cake. He made chocolate chiffon frosting. She made marshmallow frosting. It consumed 2 containers of Fluff and still the "marshmallow" flavor got lost in "frosting" flavor. Next time it needs less butter and powdered sugar.
She stacked and frosted the layers. She decorated the top and sides (Zoltan helped made some of the design decisions).
This thing is both amazing and terrifying. Our slices were about 1/16 each and it was too much. I was impressed how it all came together. The graham cracker cake is the same recipe our chef friend had used when making Alex's birthday cake 3 years ago in Frankfurt and I doubted that Alex could pull off something as moist and flavorful. I was wrong.
* Note: Terry had nothing to do with these photos
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Raising children
This is what it is like to raise children.
The Scene: just after lunch, at Zoltan's room
Me: Zoltan, go downstairs and put away the mac and cheese.
Zoltan: I didn't leave it out.
Me: Then who did? Nobody else had any.
Zoltan: It's not out.
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Monday, May 17, 2021
Lusk Pass Trail
May is a challenging time for hiking in Alberta. With the thawing a number of trails are avalanche risks. Other trails are still closed for the winter season. Others are newly closed due to awakening bears. Some are too muddy or still icy. And yet others are simply too steep for our family to tackle (this one has nothing to do with the season).
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Thursday, April 22, 2021
Ha Ling solo adventure
Disclaimer: Terry neither took nor edited these photos.
After last week's aborted attempt to hike Wasootch Ridge, I realized I needed conditioning - more hiking. Everyone else in the family had other plans for the day, so over the weekend I took myself to Ha Ling. First impression: wow it seems like the road to nowhere as you head towards. I worried the potholes would break the car. Second impression: I was surprised and delighted to find a parking spot in the parking lot. Third impression: nobody should hike in the mountains in April without decent ice cleats and yet a full half of my fellow travelers lacked them. As some careened down steep parts I feared I'd be knocked over like a bowling pin.
This hike completely kicked my behind - I played a guessing game about which body parts would be sore the next day. (Spoiler: more parts than I expected) It was steep and challenging. All the scree at the top made me fear falling off the mountainside. During the hike, all the nice firm ice the cleats could dig into warmed up and became slush that provided no traction. The downhill was nearly as treacherous as the uphill was. It was AMAZING.
At the top, I was sitting on the rock ledge you can see on the bottom right of the above photo. The snow you see just above it is a relatively thin icing, the other side is just a massive cliff.
These are the mountains I could see during the entire hike once I got above the tree line.