June Happenings

Alec graduated from Kindergarten! They had a little ceremony and everything. :) Kinda silly, but I'm glad we got to be a part of it.

On one of my runs before Fathers Day I was mentioning to my buddies how much Chris would enjoy a Washer Toss set. One friend also wanted to build a set for her husband, and our other friend said her husband would just love to help us do that! "Help" in the case meant, buying all the supplies, cutting the wood to the right sizes and inviting us over for an hour or so to let us and our kids use his tools to make it. :) He's awesome. And Chris REALLY loved his father's day present.

 

 Even though it looks like Alec is pushing Charlie's head into the board, Alec was really just being nice by plugging Charlie's other ear so Charlie could help hold the drill. 

 Alec had his first end of the year Piano Recital.  He played two pieces and was the only one who had them both memorized, and I noticed he was the youngest student there (but only by a few months). He performed "Gallop Pony" and "This Land is Your Land." He did so well! No matter how many times I reminded him, he still didn't feel like introducing himself or saying the names of his pieces or anything...my cute shy little boy just melts my heart.

Soccer ended. We had a fun year and the boys enjoyed every minute of it! Chris included. He was a coach for Alec's age group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also we had a fun weekend trip with our good friends the Harker's out to Drumheller, and Calgary, AB. We borrowed Christy's parents 15 passenger van so we could all fit and carpool together. Hahaha. What a funny trip. Chris and Jay drove / navigated while Christy and I tried to keep all 7 kids under 8 happy.  We visited the Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur museum and then stayed the night at Christy's uncles house in Calgary to save on costs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We visited the Calgary zoo on our way home. The penguins, hippos and tigers were awesome. There were crazy moments, long detours, rain, and whining, but mostly lots of laughs and fun times. We can't wait for the next Harkchibalder adventure.

Simple math

3 kids with fevers + 1 pregnant mom + 1 probable cancer patient dad + 1 newly listed house on the market = 6 straight hours of the US Open.

Life is crazy right now but the house is still really clean, 1 kid is already in bed, the other 2 are bathed and pajamaed, Chris made smoothies for dinner, and we probably get to stay home tonight since no showings are currently set up....so we are looking good for an early bedtime. :)

Camping in Jasper

For the May-long weekend, we took some time to camp in the great Canadian Rockies at Jasper. I'm so glad we did. Our friends were camping Fri-Mon, and we joined them for Sunday night and then stayed Monday night ourselves. It was only 2 nights but it was still so worth it.

First night around the camp fire roasting s'mores.

The kids spent the first couple of hours picking up every rock they came across and putting it in the cup holder of their camping chairs. Why? Because every rock was a 'great skipping rock' of course. Here Alec is asking Chris which rock is THE best skipping rock.

 In the tent getting ready for to sleep. Its 11:00 PM and just barely dusk. The kids slept in until 8:00 and did pretty well the first night except for Gwen getting cold and needing to snuggle with Daddy in his sleeping bag from 3:00 on.  She did better the second night when she slept in 2 sleeping bags on her own.

 

 

 We played washer toss, and watched as our friend's son taught our kids how to shoot pine cones with a slingshot, and visited Sunwampta(?) Falls, and then our friends took us all out for ice cream in Jasper town. It was fun to both have times with friends and then to have some time just with our own family after our friends left.

 

 

 

 

We saw lots of elk.

 We were reminded of last summer when I took the kids on a rafting trip down the river on a boat like that.

We skipped rocks in Pyramid Lake.

 

 

 

 

 Ate lots of meals and snacks in the car. Somehow Gwen ended up with everyone's apples since she doesn't like the skin and that seems to be all the boys will eat. 

 We saw a grizzly!

 

 

 

It was super close to our road and we watched it forage for 10 min before some idiot shot a firework at it!! Chris was just about to barge out of the car and record the license plate of whoever did it and report them to the rangers...when... I realized it WAS the rangers who shot it. We were parked on the side of the road about 1 km from our camp ground and realized the rangers were trying to scare the bear away from the town and campground.  Getting ready for bed that night, just 30 minutes later, we heard the firework / flare go off a few more times... pretty close sounding from our campsite. The campground was like a ghost town since the night before was PACKED, and now that it was Monday night, it was pretty much empty.  We only saw 1 other tent besides ours.  I was nervous walking in the dark to brush my teeth and go to the bathroom but it ended up being just fine as no bears bothered us that night. :)

The next day was Chris' birthday! We celebrated by driving home, and quick dropping him off at work for a meeting at noon, letting him make dinner for us all (since I'm not into cooking recently), and by having a DQ cake and opening a few presents.  Happy Birthday Chris! I surprised him a week later with tickets to watch the Canadian national Mens Soccer team play Costa Rica in a friendly, with 2 other couples we're friends with. It was a fun night.