Money Mountain/Colour me Rad

One of our family traditions is to go to Money Mountain every year. It's a...semi trashy campground with a huge pile of dirt in the middle that's loaded with money. The kids sit on the pile all day and dig for money. Every mom's dream! Even us hardcore campers have a hard time with the mess. But the kids love it. And just a reminder, when I say we're hardcore camper, you know I mean: people who camp in a 36 foot trailer with a huge popout, air conditioning, water, power, flat screen TV etc. We're hardcore!! lol. Anyway, we go with my Aunt and Uncle - their kids, Becc and Jar and sometimes other people from my family (those who are brave enough to battle to mess). The part I like about the campground is it gives us all the chance to let our inner redneck out. The campground is basically just a big circle of sites with a playground and the infamous money mountain in the center. So us parents just set our lawn chairs up on the edge of our site and watch the kids play in the middle. It's like Lord of the Flies out there with all the kids running wild. But no one cares. We're there to be rednecks and no one's stopping us...or should I say Ain't no one stopping us! Or whatever it is Rednecks say...because really, I'm not quite there yet!

 

Sometime in the middle of this weekend I drove myself BACK to Calgary to run the race with Laura Taylor and her sister and daughter. I felt just like part of the family! What's funny is the race was supposed to be MY sisters with Laura, and then my family cancelled and Laura's stepped up. Hmmmm. It was a lot of fun and maybe I can get my sisters to actually participate this year!! If not, I'll just join Laura's family again. They seem more reliable.

 

Dutch Creek - Family trip

We had tried to plan a camping trip with Ben's entire family this summer (beside's Rebecca and Randall who were having way too much fun in Arizona). But, Ashley and Caleb were pretty hard to pin down, with all their world travelling and such. Anyway, we did manage a little trip with his parents and Chris and Lauren back in July. It was a nice little trip. Cait was sick with another infection and my spirits were pretty low. I just want her to be healthy! I was tired from the lack of sleep we'd been getting lately (When Cait's sick she really struggles...and who wouldn't with a kidney infection every month??). So here are some pictures from the weekend...I didn't take a ton because I was just trying to relax.

Ben and his Dad cuddling under the trailer...or fixing our generator. One of the two.

Cait playing with her Nana...she's being a little stinker. Can you tell? Can you also see her forehead? She's a unicorn!! lol. Some sort of bug bite right in the middle of her eyes. She totally looked like a little troll all weekend!

my girls are posers...it's all about the runway these days!

Missing one tooth...with another barely hanging on! I love this stage! Now we just get to wait for those giant adult teeth to grow in!

Just a little bloggin update

The girls are in Summer camp this week for 3 glorious hours every afternoon! Which means Cait naps and I get to catch up on editing...and organizing pictures... AND blogging!! So since I like to think things are all perfect, I pretended I actually published all these new posts in the months they belong. So if you'd like to take a look this is where you can find them:

My Girls

Writing on Stone

Cait's Hair

Two Wheelin'

ALSO...there are two more days of summer camp...which means hopefully two more days of blogging! YAY!! I know you're excited!! There's more July posts coming and maybe even an August one! And one day...one day I'll get my photoaday caught up. I have the pictures...they just aren't blogged yet. You know me...always on time!!

I can't forget July Long

One of our favourite camping trips this summer was a trip that almost didn't happen. July long weekend was set aside for the Colour me Rad race. But, with all the flooding and destruction the race was postponed. By that point though we'd already declined on any other fun long weekend plans. So a day or two before the weekend we suddenly realized we had nothing cool to do!! And then thank goodness for the Asplund's! They called us up and invited us to come our to Dutch Creek with them and Andy's sister (and her family). We pulled in late Friday night...only to realize that half of Dutch Creek was shut down due to flood damage. So we had to find the Asplund's on the OTHER side. Well...let's just say, coming late on a long weekend to a place like that (when half of it's unusable) means you have pretty slim pickings for spots. BUT they had found us a little secluded spot that was a tight squeeze to get into...but perfect while we were there.

We spent the weekend just hanging out, quadding, eating and just having fun. We stayed up SOOOOO late hanging around the fire sharing all our most embarrassing stories. And I of course turn into a fool when I'm tired. It made for some pretty good times!

The weekend was HOT...like sooooo hot! It was great fun though. The best part was when we were leaving, things were so tight that the Leavitt's ripped off their jacks and few other things from their trailer. I felt like our trailer was going to tip over. It was a pretty tense hour of maneuvering, but our men our expert trailer pullers and got us out safely! It was really so fun and I hope we get a chance to camp with that crew again!

Teeth

It's the year of the tooth. Basically Hailey's having a hard time holding onto her teeth! They just keep falling out! She looks so darn cute without teeth...and now she's missing one more important tooth! One of her two front teeth. Do you know what this means? Those days of perfect little baby teeth are gone! Now I get to welcome the stage of awkward adult teeth. I'm so sad to say goodbye to this sweet baby faced girl of mine and I'm not sure if I'm ready to welcome the new big girl face into our family. I guess I have no choice, she's growing up with or without my permission! I love her no matter what though!