Family Visit

My family came to Canada! Yeah!!!! Well, some of them anyway. My mom, Annalysa, Natasha, and Denise and their kids all piled into a minivan for an all girls (except for Chase, of course!) trip to the True North. We had a really good time. We went swimming and on a kid free trip to the mall (thanks SO SO much, Mom) and all us girls went out for desert and a movie (thanks Scott). But mostly we just visited and let the kids play together. The kids did really well with each other - there were only a few little tousles we had to break up. Moses and Tess mostly played together and Chase and Alexa were inseparable. Those two were ALWAYS together! It was so great to see everyone and I was so happy they all came up here just to see me! Here are just a few pictures from the trip. I uploaded the rest here.

Cypress Hills

Well, just as we finished in Drumheller, we had a another residency trip to go on. This one was for all the residents in Scott's program and their families. We went to Cypress Hills resort in SK. They gave us vouchers for golfing, swimming, and mini golf. Scott and I switched off golfing and babysitting. We tried to go swimming, but just as we arrived at the pool, they had to close because some kid pooped in the water! YUCK! So we went as a family to play miniature golf instead. We had a lot of fun teaching Moses how to hold the golf club and get the ball in the hole. At first Scott and I tried to compete against each other, but between me taking too many pictures (Moses just looked so cute!) and Scott having Kael strapped to his belly, we gave up after the first couple of holes. It was a fun little trip and I am so glad his program takes the time to plan this stuff for us!

My little Tiger in the making!

Random Summer pics!

Kael Looks so cute when he is all dressed up for church!

My boys working hard!

Grandma always seems to be trying to feed Kael, and now she has Moses in on it too!

They always seem to be falling asleep without me!

Hoo Doos

Moses had been to the Hoo Doos once already this summer, but the rest of us hadn't. So we went one night just to check them out. The first thing Moses noticed was that there wasn't anyone or anything in the snow cone booth! We found this tunel about half way up and convinced Moses to crawl inside. He had just barely gotten himself into it when he realized it was making his hands dirty. From inside the tunnel he yelled, "Hey there's dirt in here! Get it off, Mom! Clean it off me. It's dirt! It's DIRTY dirt!" While Scott and I just laughed outside. What can I say, like father like son!

We climbed up as far as we could go. Well, as far as we could go with kids. I have to admit, I am terrified of heights. Coming down was so scary for me! I had Moses with me and he wasn't too worried about it. But I have to admit there were parts where I made him slide down on his butt with me! (obviously I am not showing pictures of what that looked like, even if Scott did take like 50)

Dinosaur Museum

We decided we couldn't spend 2 months in the dinosaur capital and not go to the museum. So we finally made it a priority and went. We thought Moses might be a little to young to appreciate it, but he LOVED looking at the dinosaurs. He may not have learned as many little facts as some older children might, but he loved it none the less. And it was fun for Scott and I too.

Even Kael liked the Dinos! Well, he at least he didn't sleep through the whole thing!

The Tyranasouras Rex is defintely Moses' favorite.

10 years!

So the crazy summer continues! After spending 5 good days working on the house, we were off to the neighboring town of Medicine Hat. Scott has to travel there every other month to meet with his fellow residents for their teaching days. They have lectures, talk about medical research, and get more certifications. Meanwhile they put the entire family up in a hotel and provide us with meals for two days. The boys and I play in the pool, go to parks, and visit with friends in the area. I was a slacker and didn't take any pictures this trip. You are just going to have to take my word for it that it was lots of fun!

After teaching days, we went straight to Cardston for Scott's ten year high school reunion. Yeah, he's old! It was fun meeting some of the people he went to high school with, the ones that decided to go to the reunion anyway! In Cardston the reunions are all held at the same time, during Cardston Days the second weekend in August. Each class puts a float in the Cardston Days Parade for all the classmates to ride on. Scott was at the top of his float (you can see him in the light blue shirt) so he could throw water on all the innocent people trying to watch the parade! (He claims to have only aimed at his old teachers and people he knew.) When we went to pick up Scott after the parade, Moses said, "Dad you threw rain on me in the parade." I wasn't even sure Moses saw Scott, but apparently he knew who was getting him wet!

Moses had fun watching the parade and collecting all the candy that was thrown his way.

More Remodelling

Scott took a few days off work and we went to Lethbridge to work on our house. We took possession of the main level August 1st. There were renters living there so we were only able to take possession of the basement prior to August 1. The first day we arrived Scott and his dad started taking apart the kitchen. We took all the cabinets out and reinstalled them in the basement. We then started working on installing new cabinets into the upstairs.

We are not quite finished with the basement suite. We finished most of the painting this week (including painting the cabinets that were upstairs a color other than that beautiful green!). We still have baseboards and other finish work left, but we have renters lined up to move in September 1st, so we will have to have everything done by then. We are still staying and working in Drumheller for two more weeks, but taking these days off got us far enough ahead that we should be able to finish no problem!

This is what the kitchen looked like after all but one of the cabinets came out.


Scott's mom taking off the LAST tile from the wall. Scott's parents were both such a great help. We would never have gotten as much done without them.


This is me putting the finishing nails in the last hanging kitchen cabinet. I put together 9 cabinets that day while taking care of both boys! I know, impressive right! Just jokes, they weren't that hard to put together, thanks to IKEA's ways of making life easy on the "do-it-yourselfer". And Scott's mom was there to help with the boys (while she took down all the tile!).


Even Moses got in on the action! Grandma gave him a dry roller brush to use nearby while she painted. We had to leave him in his skivvies because I was afraid he would get paint all over his clothes. He refused to be left out of all the action! He only touched the real paint twice. It was cute the way he thought he was helping.

Kael's New Toy

We put Kael in his exersaucer for the first time this last week. He loved it! He would sit there and play with the little toys with a huge smile on his face. Occasionally we would even hear him giggle to himself. I probably wouldn't have even posted these pictures because they seem so ordinary and unspectacular to me (Kael is even still in his PJs), but people have requested more pictures of Kael, so here they are. I guess sometimes ordinary can still be GREAT!

I'm not sure who drools more, Kael or Moses!

TAG

I can't believe I'm actually doing one of these, but here goes...

Tagged By Annalysa

Four places I go to over and over:
The Park
The Grocery Store
The Library
Church
(I know - I am SOOO boring!)

Four favorite places to eat:
Yokozuno
Mongolia Express
Taco Del Mar
Kelseys

Four places I'd rather be:
Fiji
Sleeping (for more than 3 hours in a row)
Oregon
The Beach

Four TV shows I watch all the time:
So you think you can dance
Heroes
Lost
Survivor

I tag Sonia and Denise

24th of July - Glenwood Heritage Days

What a crazy weekend! It was so much fun packed into two days. I loved every minute of it, but I must admit part of me is glad that it is over. At least now I can sleep!

It was heritage days in Glenwood and Glenwood's 100th birthday, and Scott's entire family (minus Tim and Josh - we missed you guys) was there to enjoy it. This was the first big holiday since his parents have come home from their mission (to Australia if you couldn't guess by all the shirts), so we had an even bigger reason to celebrate. We got there Thursday night, but most of the fun things were scheduled for Friday. To start things off, we played our first game in the town softball tournament. Check out my all hottie ball players!

OK - so Kael didn't actually play, but he is a hottie none the less!

After the game there was dinner and a dance on main street (only possible in rural Alberta!). It was a lot of fun meeting some of the people that Scott grew up with. Believe it or not some of them I hadn't even met before! After dinner we went back to the ball field where they had fireworks set up. We weren't expecting much in the way of fireworks from a small town like Glenwood, even if it was turning 100. Boy where we surprised. It was better than any fireworks show I have EVER been to. It was pretty long and the fireworks were huge and well synchronized. It may have had something to do with how close we were sitting. We were the first ones there, and we claimed front row spots. Then the fire marshal came and asked us to move back. We did and he told us not to let anyone go in front of us. Later another fireman came and told us that maybe we should move back some more, but we refused and told him that we had already gotten the OK to sit where we were. Once the show started we thought that maybe we should have listed to him. We were right there. There was even stuff falling onto our heads. Notice how everyone in this picture is wearing sunglasses - it wasn't because it was so bright out! It was because we were all afraid we would have something land in our eyes while we were looking up at the most amazing firework show ever! It was a little scary, but I think that is the best way to watch fireworks - everyone should try it at least once!

The next day started out with an early breakfast in the park. Then the town parade! All of the kids went in the parade with Grandma and Grandpa. The were the "Awesome Aussies." Moses rode in the golf cart with some of the other younger kids. The older kids followed behind on their bikes. Grandma said that Moses wasn't to sure about throwing the candy at first, but once he got into it he was throwing it everywhere, even if there was no one to throw it to!

After the parade there was a picnic in the park and races for everyone. I wondered how that tradition got started. Basically the have a stat and end rope and the just have foot races in the grass for every different age group. This is a picture of Riggin, he isn't quite two yet and they figured out how to get him to run the race. He hates being held by anyone but mom and dad. So Tracy, Scott's sister, held him while his parents went to the finish line. Once they said go, Tracy let go and Riggin took off running to his mom and dad. He may not have been happy about it, but he won the race!! Moses did not do so well. I kinda had to carry him across the finish line. I think he was a little tired from all the fun because he fell asleep on my lap about 2 minutes after he "ran" his race.

After the races we had two more ball games to play and then church the next morning. What a whirlwind of fun times! I can't wait for next year!