Family Fun At Calaway Park!

Before I had Jacob I have to admit that I didn't give much thought to wheel chair accessibility.  I knew that there were wheel chair parking spots, automatic doors on some buildings and the odd place had a ramp, but that was about the extent of it. 
This week we visited a place that seems to have given accessibility some real thought, oddly enough, it was an amusement park, Calaway Park in Calgary Alberta.  A place full of family fun, spinning rides, challenging games, yummy food and fun entertaining shows!
But here is the inside scoop on accessibility.  We stayed at the campground right beside the park.  We had a power only site because the full service sites were full and I am glad.  The campground is all about being close to the park, not about space and privacy, however the power only sites do have some trees and shade.  Full service was pretty much a big field with some little trees that will need a few years yet before they are ready to shade anyone!
There are bathrooms and showers on site.  A Canadian toonie ($2.00) will get you five minutes of hat water in a very clean shower.  I was very impressed.  But what I loved even more was the family bathroom.  You need the access code to get into this bathroom with a wheel in shower and room to manoeuver a chair and a couple of helpers.
We got up each morning, ate breakfast, stepped outside the door and walked across a field to the gates of the park.  No fighting the traffic or worrying about parking! Admission to the park is listed below and if you stay at the campground they offer discounted tickets and meal vouchers too. If you have a family member with a disability they get in for $11.55 (at the time of this post) and their aide (or mother/father) gets in free.  That is not all!  Once you have your tickets you head over to the guest service counter and ask for a bracelet.  This allowed Jacob and up to three others family members to beat the line ups.  We were put on the ride in one or two turns.  Someone was thinking! 

Regular (7-49 years):  $35.95+gst
Junior (3-6 years): $29.00+gst
Fifty Plus (50 years and up): $27.00+gst
Family of 4: $89.00+gst   Each additional family member: $22.00+gst
After 2 PM rate: @20.95+gst
children 2 and under are FREE! And you can purchase season passes.

That being said my sister in-law found tickets for $20.00 each at her local Co-op store.

Okay, now that we have all of that out of the way, let me share with you our adventure!
We spent two days at the park. It was great fun. My dear husband, Colin, our daughter, Mackenzie, son Jacob and nephew, Sloan joined me on this excursion.  Nathan was being 17 and decided that he would have more fun if he stayed home (Dang it all, he thinks he did)! 

Our first stop was the junior bumper cars for Sloan.  We were too big and Jacob couldn't go alone so we headed over to the "egg" ride where you climb aboard a giant egg that spins around and goes up and down.  This is where we discovered Jacob is no longer 3 :) He was so excited to get on the ride and squealed as it started, but soon turned to me with a very serious "You have got to be joking" look on his face!  Apparently he has out grown the "egg" ride.  We moved up to the junior roller coaster...better, but still not enough.



Kenzie and Sloan on the Eggs!



A very excited Jacob, ready for adventure!

Jacob on the Spider ride!  Getting ready for it to start!
(We tried to get a picture while it was running, but couldn't catch us!)



So reluctantly I got in line for the Spider.  This is what Jacob had been waiting for!  Spinning, tilting, up and down and the turns made "your heart feel funny" (quote by Sloan!)  Jacob laughed right out loud!  Then we headed over to a ride kind of like the swings, but in a car instead of a swing.  This was Jacob's limit I am sorry to  say.  He came off a very pale boy.  Wasn't to interested in lunch either. Poor guy,  but I am sure he was happier going on the 'big boy' rides.  It was a good reminder to me that he is growing up!
Kenzie and I had a turn on the roller coaster, we all took a turn on the carousel ~ tradition of course!But the favourite for all of us was the bumper boats! We came out dripping!  It was the best of both worlds, "big kid" ride without the crazy spinning!

A tired Boy on one last ride!

So what would we keep and what would we change?  We would do it again but I don't know if we would go two days in a row.  Day two was exhausting and I don't think we had recovered from the first day.  We would stay at the campsite again~  Loved the convenience.  Most of all we loved the time we spent with our family creating wonderful memories!
Thank you Calaway Park for helping All families to enjoy a fabulous day together~ everyone!
Have a wonderful Day!  I plan to!

Possibly My Last Post

Hello Everyone.  I want to thank you for following me this past year.  I have enjoyed writing this blog and reading your comments. 
Because our year without T.V is over, I have started a new blog.  It will be about our travels and adventures. If you are interested, you will find us at http://www.thetravellinmom.blogspot.com/
Hope to see you there!

The Year Ahead

Well here we are at the end of our year without T.V.  What a year it has been.  I am so grateful for this challenge and all that I have learned.  I am grateful for the time I found to do many new things.  I only wish that we could have truly hung on for the whole time.
I have just returned home for my father's funeral.  What a hard thing to go through.  I am thankful again for the time we had together in October. What a blessing it was.  As I helped to go through his house and belongings I was overwhelmed with the thought that these things were the accumulation of his life.  I wondered what would be left at the end of my journey on this earth.  Then I thought of my Dad's children, grandchildren, brothers, sister, nieces and nephews and friends.  And realized that that is where his true love and life was.  That is where he found his greatest happiness and those relationships are what will last far beyond this life. So as I am at the beginning of another year I wonder what will lie ahead? Will it focus on what is really important? YES, of course it will if that is where I put my energy! 
That is what I plan to do!  One very important lesson I have taken from this past year is that I need to write.  So I am beginning a new blog.  I am not sure whether I will revise this one, or begin afresh.  But it will take a look at service, family life and the joy and challenges that come to a family with a dear one with limited abilities.  I hope that you will continue to follow along and.  And thank you so much for taking the time to read my bits and bobs this past year.  I have so enjoyed it.
I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful, love filled year ahead of you. I know I am!

A Better Day!

Yesturday was a complete No good, very bad day. 
I have these every once and a while. You know the kind, the one where nothing seems to go your way, and really it doesn't matter what did go right, you wouldn't recognize it anyway?  That was the day I was having.  I am hopeful that today will be better.  Because Today I will remember to write in my gratitude journal, I will remember to get the sleep I need and I will remember to stop comparing myself with others around me.  I will work on being the best version of me I can be and I will focus on the good and the positive.  There is so much of it.  I will remeber the lessons I have learned over the past few months and put that knowledge to work. 
Yes, today will be a better day, and I am looking forward to it!
I hope you have a better day, I know I plan to.

Time to be Grateful

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends!  I guess it is official and I can decorate for Christmas!
We had our real first snow fall last night.  I have admit that I love the white stuff.  I love watching it fall, cozing in by the fire, playing in it and the way that it changes the light in my house when it is on the ground.  So thank you mother nature for sending it my way!
There is so much to be grateful for right now.  I am excited for the season, my warm home, my dear children and dear husband, my health, my chickens (heehee), food on my table, my sight that I can see the beauty around me, my hearing that I can hear Jacob's giggles, my legs that allow me to get out and enjoy the weather, my voice that I can be heard and sing carols...I wonder if others are grateful for this ;)
The list could go on and on.  I love Sarah Ban Breathnach's book Simple Abundance.  She suggests that we all keep a gratitude journal. It is a great way to see the joy in your life.  She has a website too that I will add to the side bar.  She shares a quote by Melody Beattie, who also has a great blog that I will add.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."
-Melody Beattie

So I challenge you all to take a look at what you are grateful for in your life.  It doesn't have to be anything huge. I came across a gratitude journal I had started when my children were babies.  My lists include things like, my dishwasher, my bed, my family, nap time, warm apple pie and fitting into my old jeans! It is usually the simple things that bring the most joy

Hey and check out these other sites!

I hope you have a happy, grateful day, I plan to.

Just Be Still

Since coming home from my visit with my Dad, I find I am filled with a great sense of contentment.  I have always been the one who has tried to prove I could 'have my cake and eat it too'.  I took the statement, "You can do anything You put my mind to", very literally.  I have always fully believed that to be true and have spent the first 30 odd years of my life trying to do it all. 
In high school I was involved with basketball, yearbook, students council, badminton, cross country running, S.A.D.D, (but I think it was called something else), and somewhere in there I managed to pass my classes, hold on to a boy friend, attend most football games, carry a job and hang out with my friends. I remember my dear mother trying to tell me that I was doing too much and something would have to give...hummm, maybe I could have earned A's instead of B's and C's...
Then I moved away from home, got married and had three wonderful children. Still trying to help out at church, have wonderful birthday parties for each one of my sweet darlings, babysit other peoples children, write, keep up with laundry, and occasionally homeschool my children, work full time, take care of chickens and sheep, remember date night, renovated our home, attend all of Jacob's Dr. appointments and be a good wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, aunt and neighbour.
I have always been on the watch for the next project, something I could throw myself into and feel I was doing enough.  Something that would fulfill my need to prove I could do hard things. 
I am still working through why I have felt this way and what has changed.  But what I want to share is the joy that comes from just being still.  Still enough to listen and to hear what it is you really want to be doing.  What is it that really brings you joy and contentment?  If we stop running around in circles trying to keep busy, doing what we think others want or need us to do, if we can carve out some quiet time in our lives where the T.V, MP3 players, cell phones and computers are turned off, we will be amazed at what we hear. 
I have spent the last few weeks creating a chicken coup and yard.  I have calmly and quietly, built the nesting boxes out of old 2X4's and have enjoyed every minute of it.  My family is still alive.  They have eaten and have clean clothes on their backs.  Because you know what?  When we stop and listen to that inner voice and do what it says, we have more energy and desire to do ALL that needs doing.
I have signed up for an online writing course.  It feels so good to be taking another look at my book.  I love reading others ideas and suggestions about ways I can improve it.  It feels great to be taking myself seriously.
I have spent some mornings just standing watching my chickens...I LOVE my chickens!  They make me so happy!
I have just about finished organizing the basement and the laundry is all caught up!  I feel I am doing less and getting more done.  I am NOT trying to accomplish someone elses To Do list, just my own  and it is working!
There is a power in trusting ourselves.  I think for a long time the world has been telling us that we should have it all, do it all and be it all.  I believe we can, but not the way the T.V commercials show it to be.  We can HAVE all we need to be happy today, just by opening our eyes and seeing the blessings that are right in front of us. 
We can DO all we need to be content if we stop trying to keep up with everyone else and begin living our own life. 
We can BE our very best self when we take the time to be still and find out what that looks like and trust ourselves enough to follow through.
I have never been happier!
I hope you can take the time to be still day!  I plan to.

Musings of a Happy Chicken Owner!

I have to tell you, I am in love with 31 beautiful hens!  We have adopted them from two different friends of ours who had to give them up for various reasons and we are glad we did.
I get up every morning, get the kidlets out the door to the bus, come in for breakfast, tidy up a bit and then I rummage around my fridge to see what looks wilted or past it's prime.  I take it to the cutting board where I chop it into chicken bite size pieces and fill my #10 can. I then slip on my rubber boots and head to the beloved chicken coup.  I open the Door and there are 31 beautiful ladies happy to see me, yes I guess it could be the can full of food, but I like to think it is me! 
The best part is that I don't have to be out there at the crack of dawn because they need time to lay their eggs.  That fits perfectly into my day.  Just about everyday some of them get out and we have to go out and put them back in. But secretly, I love watching them roam around the yard.  Today I found two perfect brown eggs tucked away in a thicket behind the coup. 
If you have ever dreamed of owning your own lovely hens, do it!  They are wonderful!
I hope you have a cheery day, I plan to!