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!

Birthday Season - Hailey

The bonus of having two parties with the same theme in the same week is that when you royally mess up on the cake you get another chance. The problem is, I have lots of talents. Cake decorating isn't one of them. Why would it be? No on in my family even likes cake! Why would I bother to better myself at something that will never be appreciated. So, I tried a different approach this time on the cake. Instead of using a plain cake mix I use the WASC recipe - which is a cake mix with a few additions. So much easier to decorate. Then I used a thicker tip for icing the cake and things were also so much easier. It's still not amazing, but at least passable!

Anyway, Here are some pics from the day:

The difference between this Barbie Party and Paige's is that Hailey's was Barbie and the Popstar!! So we set up a stage and had a little concert from all the kids. I didn't take any pictures though...so I snapped a few after the party when Hailey decided to wear her bathing suit bottoms?? Interesting choice.

Then the next day we cerebrated her real 6th Birthday with gifts from mom and dad and sister (and Nana and Grandpa).

The big gift of the night was this easybake oven. Hailey has been asking for one for a LONG time. We promised her that if she stopped sucking her thumb she'd get one...and she did!! She still has a problem with her thumb if she's asleep and not aware, so she wears special mitts to bed to stop it. But the conscious sucking of her thumb has stopped entirely! Pretty impressive!

Summer days

I love summer. Did you know? One of the best things about summer is spending our days outside, in our bathing suits running through the sprinkler! Early in July we got to have our good friend Emma over for the day. It was a great summer day, until the icecream truck came singing down our street. THEN it turned into the PERFECT summer day! I quickly grabbed all the change I could find in our house and the girls and I chased that truck down! We only had enough for the cheapest Popsicle on the truck (note to self: keep more chance on hand in the summer). BUT, the lovely driver gave the girls all Hello Kitty Popsicles for the same price as the cheapo Popsicle! Thank you kind man!

Does anything scream summer more than these pictures? I don't think so!

Curb appeal

So these last few years Ben and I have been tossing around the idea of moving to an acreage. It's his dream...and maybe mine too. I'm not sure. I really like living in town...neighbour kids to play with easy access to shopping, parks, bike rides to the store, and did I mention neighbour kids to play with? That's my biggest draw to the city/town life. But I see the benefits to acreage life too. Lots of land to play with, the kids can explore all over, Ben can store all his toys (quad, side by side, 5th wheel etc) a lot easier, the business would have a better location to run, privacy etc. There are pros and cons either way.

This year we got semi serious about it and actually went and looked at a quite a few properties. We fell in love with two of them...and then realized that we own TWO homes! We can't own a third...which means we have to sell this house BEFORE we buy another one. AND, well, we just didn't quite get our act together quick enough. There are a few projects that need to get done around here first...one of them being adding a bit of curb appeal. The house isn't terrible...but we want a quick sell and we know that takes a little bit of effort. I totally believe in staging a home...and curb appeal is a small small bit of that. So one fine Saturday we dug up a bit of sod, filled it in with wood chips and planted some shrubs. Really really easy...but it totally makes a huge difference on how the house looks from the outside. It brings the 'rust' accent colour together a bit and makes it look much more cool! If you remember from when we moved in I hated the trim colour but it didn't make sense to replace it. But somehow just adding a row of wood chips and shrubs brings it all together...and it actually looks nice.

Anyway, I documented the day by taking pictures...

of Cait...

drinking water from the hose!

It's pretty much way cuter than pictures of boring old shrubs and wood chips. You've seen one shrub you've seen them all. But a baby drinking from the hose never gets old!

What has happened to this blog

I really LOVE having a blog. It's such a great way to journal...but I've been so terrible at it! But I have been taking pictures all summer and one day I'll catch up!

The last time I blogged was the last little taste of sanity around here! And then the flooding hit Calgary and High River. It flooded a bit in Okotoks...but not enough to change my little life. But the flooding in High River has impacted us more than expected! First of all our Church has been turned into the command Center for the Mormon Helping Hands. I've had the chance to volunteer in the call center where I took calls and created work orders for all the people that needed help. It was so overwhelming and humbling. The most amazing part of it all was how kind and bright and happy everyone was. People who lost everything were still just so grateful and enjoyable to talk with. Which makes serving them so much more rewarding. The gratitude has been so humbling as well. Everyone is just so overwhelmingly grateful for all the kindness they've received from us and all the other people so willing to serve! Anyway...the command center remains open and working strong, which means our Sunday Church meetings have been sort of pushed around...moved to the other building...or shortened etc. It's kind of fun and interesting.

So...besides that we've been pretty busy. Ben's in High River everyday helping people get water back into their homes. I started a photography business. And I also took on a friends day home for a few weeks. PLUS we've had two Birthdays and TWO Birthday parties...and countless weekend camping trips. It's been a good but busy summer!!

Here are a Three quick pictures that give the TINIEST glimpse into what our summer has been like:

Writing On Stone - playing in the hoodoo's

Watering our plants...and the Baby

Popsicles from the Ice Cream truck with a friend