The Harrison-Helins: July 2013

Tuesday, July 23

Tour de Canada 2013: Blue Bombers home opener! (We made national TV!)

Shaena managed to score us a couple of great seats for us at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers home opener game and the official opening of their brand new football stadium in the end of June. We made sure we were thoroughly kitted out in bombers colors, complete with wigs and foam fingers, and made our way to the stadium. Once there, we had the opportunity to meet and greet Bombers football legends Milt Stegall and Matt Dunigan and our funky hair got so much attention so we even made national TV(!) Video clip below, of course.

Another treat was also the halftime show. As this was the first real game of the season and the opening of their new colossal stadium, they had brought in a whole parade of old Bombers players and Tom Cochrane (“Life Is a Highway”) performed. The Bombers lost (as they do nowadays) but we had a brilliant evening!

In Swedish colors, hanging with Bombers legends
Milt Stegall and Matt Dunigan

Monday, July 1

Tour de Canada 2013: The boys Canadian birthday party

Last weekend the boys had their joint Canadian birthday party and in true Harrison-Helin spirit, someone joined in on our celebration over Skype. This time it was Auntie Emily who unfortunately could not make it up to Winnipeg but wanted to see the boys open their pressies. Gotta love technology! Even though you are miles away, or even on the other side of the planet for that matter, you can still call in and join a party!

The boys were showered in awesome gifts and G.G and Nini had whipped up a beautiful cake with colored frosting (colors chosen by Ethan). Needless to say; we had two very happy and very tired boys that went to bed that night.

Oh, and for the record: Our sons do own pants; they just choose not to wear them very often! ;)

Tour de Canada 2013: Beach day at Grand Beach

I have a feeling there will be lots of beach- and pool days this summer as the sun on the Manitoba prairie is h-o-t! Our first beach day of the summer was at Grand Beach about an hour outside of Winnipeg (another item on Shaena's to-do list).

A fantastic day out with the boys and it is really cool (and a bit scary) to see how they develop and how they are getting more and more daring as they grow older. Ethan is next to fearless when it comes to water and does not fully know his limitations and he doesn’t hesitate to find out!

Tour de Canada 2013: Visit to the Winnipeg Zoo

Howdy!

Shaena and the boys have now been in Canada for just over a month and it has already been two weeks since I collected my luggage at the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport and reunited with the rest of Team Harrison-Helin.

On one of the first days of my arrival we paid the Winnipeg Zoo (item #2 on Shaena's to-do list) a visit with Auntie Nini. A zoo is a zoo and we’ve been to a few on our trips over the years, but this one was definitely a nice one and we had a great time checking out everything from butterflies to Polar Bears… to Deere and Bobcats…

The only thing that was a bit weird was that the zoo’s main attraction right now is named Hudson. Hudson is a polar bear cub and his name is plastered absolutely everywhere. They even have a Hudson-gift shop and a café and when we sat down for ice cream tried to get our Hudson’s attention, people must have thought we had gone off our rockers!