City Managers Cup Champs

It was a slow spring for hockey this year. Our team took a year off on hosting our charity hockey tournament and I decided against traveling to Ottawa for our annual rec hockey trip to instead spend more time with Christina and Sophia.

In attempt to get my "hockey fix" in I participated in a fun tournament at work - The City Managers Cup. Our team from last year did alright, losing out in the semi's to the eventual pool winner. So, I thought it was a little weird that they ended up dropping us down a tier. With a couple of pick-ups from our Section / Department we looked good going in.

It turns out not only did we look good, but we were good. We walked through the competition, never trailing once in our 4 games and took the Div 5 championship.

Everyone else looks fresh and it looks like I just ran a marathon.

My buddy Riley and myself

Flaunting our trophy and championship rings at work

Sophia's first trip to Edmonton Valley Zoo

As the winter was unseasonably warm Chrissy and I have been itching to get outside with Sophia. However, as first time parents were are still timid on excursions due to length of time between feedings, catching a cool breeze, and the need for Sophia to be in near constant motion to be content.

Finally, we decided that it was time for a quick sojourn to one of our favorite spots: The Edmonton Valley Zoo.

Sophia slept through most of it but her Mom and Dad had a nice time.

Even meeting an elephant for the first time wasn't as exciting as sleeping.

Even though it's a bit of a drive from our house I think Chrissy is going to get herself an annual pass and do many a walk-through with Sophia this summer.

Bonus - We ran into the Bells.

Sophia's First Christmas

Everything was new to Chrissy and I this Holiday season. Everything that we usually do like gift shopping, wrapping presents, Christmas cooking or heading to a family members home needed to be planned to a nap time and took double the usual time.

And as the keeper of a newborn we were popular! That's new - People actually wanted to visit us :) Us, being Sophia, but Chrissy and I will take it.

Highlights of the Holiday season included birthday parties, many meals with family, getting spoiled by multiple Grandparents, and friends coming by to visit:

Christina, her Gido (Grandpa) on his 92nd birthday and Sophia:

Christmas was in Edmonton this year and we were treated to multiple massive meals at Chrissy's parents, grandparents and aunts houses. With all of those meals came family all to eager to give Chrissy and myself a break by holding Sophia.

Cross-eyed to read the writing on her jumper :)

Shortly after Christmas my Mom accompanied my sister Monica's family back from Saskatoon to meet Sophia for the 1st time. Sophia, although gassy, was pretty well behaved for Grandma.

Mom of course is a pro with a baby. I am guessing her calm that comes from experience was picked up by Sophia. We haven't gotten her to burp so well or sleep so well in this position since Mom showed it to Claire and Ren.

Mom and her baby's baby

We haven't been the most mobile, so we have felt fortunate to get sp many visitors. I never even thought to grab pictures from the first few visitors (Monica, Mark, Alex, Markiana, Chris and Tara Foster) but did smarten up to get some from the later visits.

Below is a picture of Rob and Carryn's daughter Justine holding Sophia. It was a bit surreal to see as I still remember the day that Justine was born. We collectively celebrated quite late into the night and my Sociology 101 test the next morning was a bit of an adventure. Justine was a natural with Sophia.

Shortly after Ukranian Christmas we were visited by Andrea, Ryan and Tekyla (9 months).

Teklya was very interested in "the baby", I am thinking that over the years they will find some trouble together, not unlike their mothers.

With all the food eaten, visitors gone and tree put away for the year we look forward to more firsts and more memories.

Devonian Botanic Garden - Rooted

Arriving back from vacation we took the opportunity of being close to the airport to visit the Devonian Botanic Garden to see Chrissy's friend Oksanas' exhibit at the "Rooted" art-show.

In Oksana Atwood’s interactive installation passersby will be given a crafted mushroom and invited to place it touching other matching mushrooms in the Garden, and will collaborate in the creation of an organic ever-changing sculpture, much like in the world of mycology.

Oksana greeted us as we entered the space her installation was occupying and offered us a mushroom to plant as part of the exhibition.

We really liked Oksana's idea to have visitors to the park be contributors to the installation. Perhaps we were a little overzealous though as we chose to expand her installation outside of the exhibit area.
See if you can spot the little red mushroom.

Today, a little red mushroom lives in our ficus flower pot at home. It's probably the best piece of original art we own ;)

Ice Ninjas Charity Tournament 2015

For the fourth time in the last 5 years our Ice Ninjas hockey team has hosted a charity hockey tournament.

After taking a year off last year, due to our usual rink being refurbished, we came back with a few changes to our standard tournament structure: We moved rinks from New Sarepta to Josephburg, and changed our main charity from the Stollery to supporting research into Rett syndrome. Nothing against the Stollery (it's a great hospital) but one of our teammates has a special connection to Rett syndrome and as a relatively newly diagnosed disease it can use as much support in awareness and research as possible.

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by the loss of spoken language and hand use, coupled with the development of distinctive hand stereotypies.  This disorder is seen in infancy and occurs almost exclusively in females

The tournament ended up being quite a success with our team raising approximately $10,000 for charity.

For more information on the tournament this year and into the future click the following link.
http://iceninjascharitytournament.com/

Picture highlights from this years tourney below:

 Silent Auction Items:

Beer Pong

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50/50 Shoot-out Competition

Volunteers

Hockey

Looking pretty in my pink jersey

See everyone again next year!