On May 17, 2020, our grandmother/great grandmother celebrated her final moment. Her daughter was by her side through it all. Here is the video of her funeral.
May 22, 2020
January 8, 2020
Lucy and the Number 12
Ms. Lucy is on the cusp of becoming a teenager – and given her height, she already look like one (we think she’s close to surpassing her sister and mother in height … next up … her Dad!).
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January 6, 2020
Universally Excited
For Christmas 2019, the elusive Santa gifted the kids with a trip to Universal Studios (which meant he “gifted” the Fuchster dad close to 35 hours of driving!
Here’s a gallery of some of our favorite photos from the trip!
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September 20, 2019
Joto 8
The little guy has turned 8 and gets to enjoy a classic joto cake. We’re all hoping he treats us to a six star dance!
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July 14, 2019
Vacation Day 6: Banff Hike
Since Day 5 was a travel day we didn’t get any photos.
But day 6 involved a guided hike to the source of the Bow River (Which cuts through Calgary), during which someone in our extended group of 34 set off their bear spray in their van…
View of Bow Lake
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July 12, 2019
Vacation Day 4: The police museum and more Stampede
Day 4 gave us an opportunity to check out a little more of Calgary in preparation for the evening finale of the Calgary portion of our trip – chuck wagon races and the evening fireworks spectacular (a variety show with a lot of interesting elements that don’t necessarily fit together – ask Lara about the “Chili King!).
We spent the morning at the police museum where we learned that Alberta only had around 50 homicides in the last decade (and St Louis….ugh)
Here’s Will in what I guess is “gently used” riot gear:
And here are the girls trying out different modes of transportation:
We didn’t get any photos of the evening event. Here’s Will trying to get a shot with one of the motor cross stunt drivers in the background:
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July 11, 2019
Vacation Day 3: Calgary and (new) Cousins
After a rousing experience at the rodeo, we felt it was necessary to do what we always do on vacations and walk the city. Our wanderlust took us across Calgary to St Patrick’s Island, the city’s public library, Fort Calgary and Studio Bell with its focus on Canadian music (who would have thought that Canadian Corey Hart, of Sunglasses at Night fame would warrant his own separate display??) (I was impressed with Inuit Throat Boxer Nelson Tagoona though).
We then headed south to meet (re-meet) a cousin (on the Fuchster side) that the Fuchster dad hadn’t seen since he was a teenager.
During Stampede, one must always start the day with a free pancake (bacon infused!):
From pancakes we walked to St Patrick’s Island – a park built on an island in the middle of the Bow River:
And we couldn’t miss an opportunity to pose with the official and highly unoriginal slogan of the 2019 Stampede (Yahoo! Perhaps next year they’ll make it something a little more unexpected like Yee Haw … and yes, I did check the spelling on this)
Why visit a city public library while on vacation? Because it looks like this:
The evening ended with dinner with cousin Bea, her husband Greg and their kids Ben and Daniella. We went on a hike after dinner to explore a beaver dam and almost on queue the beaver swam toward us. Here are the kids with their new found cousins:
And here’s Lara with Bea:
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July 10, 2019
Vacation Day 2: Stampede!!
Well – there’s no Day 1 posting since we spent the entire day flying (First to Atlanta and then to Calgary which seemed like one of the more inefficient routes). We did fly on the plane decorated like the Disney movie Frozen which would have been more exciting when the kids were younger – but they did a good job feigning excitement.
But Day 2 made up for Day 1 – we woke up and started walking through downtown Calgary where we were treated to a free pancake breakfast (a special thanks to the Calgary police for the photobomb):
We were then coerced into participating in two contests: pancake tossing and hat stomping. We also met friends from Philly at the event and roped the parents into participating in the hat stomping.
Here are the kids with the Stampede’s official mascots (Jake and Jackie);
Here are Grace and Will posing with the coercer-in-chief Cowboy Bob:
You may notice that Grace and Will have different bib numbers – that’s because they were on different pancake tossing teams (classic sibling rivalry). Grace was paired with her dad and Will was paired with a Calgary native. Will was even interviewed by the show’s MC after the event – when asked what his favorite part of the Stampede was he said “this event” ( quite the PR man! – and of course the crowd went wild!).
Here are some photos of the competition (Grace and her Dad won and were awarded official Stampede belt buckles!)
After the drama of the pancake tossing, Lucy and her Mom tested their hat stomping skills – but were defeated by a French lady who stopped stomping and simply tore it up with her hands.
Here they are prepping their official hat stomping bibs:
And here is Lucy, her mom and their friend Lauren after the brutal competition:
Lucy coming off the battlefield:
Here are some action shots of the competition (and those are Lara’s legs on the big screen behind them)
Following the competition we spent the rest of the day at the stampede and wrapped up the day with a little rodeo:
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July 4, 2019
America’s Birthday … without cake ?!
What? No cake! On America’s birthday??
Well, the kids did get tons of candy (the gross kind like Lucy likes), got sprayed with water and a confetti cannon, were handed squishy balls, and a had front row seat to see the veiled prophets in action. Oh yeah – and we got a front row seat in front of the Arch for the air show.
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- Will considering a career as a strongman
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- Lucy as the prophets approached
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- Lara got a ticket from the V.P. police for “blocking like Binnington”
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- Lucy also got a ticket from the V.P. police
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- Lucy and the prophets
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- Nothing highlights the sacrifices of our founding fathers like Optimus Prime
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- An appearance by Louie
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June 28, 2019
Like it’s 1776
With the Fuchster mom picking up Grace from her three week college course in Kirksville, Lucy, Will and the Fuchster Dad got to enjoy an evening of outdoor theatre – during which Lucy decided to pull her tooth out, lose it on the ground, whimper about it and then magically find it on the ground during intermission.
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