Summer Continues

Lake Friends (cousins) This was such a perfect day!! All the cousins came from Taber and we hung out at the lake all afternoon.

Snorkeling--getting sick of lake pictures yet?? :)

Date night again! Summer dates are our favourite because we like spending time outside. This day we went to one of my favourite restaurant on 17th Ave-FARM. I love that they do business locally with farms who are kind to animals. This is one of the appetizers- cheeses and meats with different sides. And homemade ginger beer, yummmmm. After this we went and got ice cream from Village Ice Cream. I got salted caramel and it was delish. We did have to wait in line for 1/2 hour for it though. My favourite part of this date was the conversations Brad and I had. Interesting, meaningful. We get to know each other are again and every time we do we are reminded how much we love each other and I am reminded how perfect Brad is for me. Brad is so interesting because he doesn't open up about serious things until the circumstance is just right, and then it's like sunshine coming out of his brain.  He says just things I need to hear, and with so much wisdom. So in those moments I soak up every word and love him so much. 

Kayben Farms! We did this spontaneously after visiting friends in Okotoks. There was hardly anyone else there which made it so much more fun! Can you tell I'm not a people person? Haha. Plus, spontaneous is always the best.

The corn maze. It was so hot and after looking at this picture I feel so bad for Afton who looks like she has sun stroke!

This day it was a bit colder and windy and we ended up at Heritage Park with some of our fave people, Candace, Lucas and Jacob. They left early so the littles could nap and we stayed all day.

The cuteness-oh the cuteness :)

My mini-me.

Pure happiness xo

Selfies on the ferris wheel, plus, we match :)

They love this ride!

We stayed and listened to this lady talk for a long time.  Jesse had lots of questions. I love that he is interested in things. She is a Metis from up North. She told us all about the fur trade and how they would get quills off of porcupines to decorate their jewellery and clothing-throw a blanket on it, pull the blanket off, then let the porcupine go. So cool. She was very nice and it was so interesting. 

This lady told us the story of Okotoks (which means Big Rock in Blackfoot). It was funny and interesting. Again, I'm so fascinated by this beautiful culture. 

In this house we picked out which rooms we would have if it was ours.

I love this picture of Breanna with the school master. She was so excited to show her signature off :)

And finally, backyard fun with cousins! Although I was very grouchy this day, we all survived and I went shopping that night to give everyone a break from me. Win-win :)

Family and Friends

Another year of Stampede Fun! Starting with Brad's work Stampede Breakfast.

This year Candace and Dave got to come because Dave works at Alliance now! It was so fun seeing them there.  Look at that boy's cheeks!

Cousins!

I love Breanna's pose in this one! I have some weird light reflecting off my face.

Then a night out with friends on the grounds!

Brad and I on the sky ride.

I was so excited when I won something...maybe a little too excited?

Brad waived down these police officers for a photo for some reason?? 

My friend Claire and I. Love her!

Then of course we've been at the lake almost every day. Happpppy days!

The best-we had tinfoil dinners down at Fish Creek Park for FHE and the kids explored and went on adventures. Jesse asked some pretty deep questions that night after I talked about the Garden of Eden and living in a fallen world. Such as-when was God born? etc. Good chance for me to reflect also.

Then on the weekend we headed back down to Taber for Brad's Grandma Wilmot's 85th birthday. They live on a farm. Jesse held a baby bird. I couldn't break it to him that he'd basically just murdered the poor thing :) They rented a bouncy castle and we had beef on a bun and cake. 

The little girls all tried on Grandma's old dresses. It was so cool! Breanna must have tried on at least three, she was pretty much in heaven.

This is my favourite picture from the weekend, his face is so funny and I loved hearing him say over and over "wohohoh!"

All the kids got to go for a spin on Uncle Matt's bike. These two are "best friends".

Dates to the candy store

Afton riding her bike to church (we don't actually ride bikes on Sundays but she's too slow on our walk otherwise). I love watching her. It took her about 5 seconds to learn to ride a bike, she's a natural!

Let's see what this next week will bring! I always start summer with imagining long lazy days, but we've been so busy. We have to take advantage while we can!

How many times can I say "fun" in one post?

For the first couple days, Brad was at Young Men's camp. He had lots of good stories to tell when he came back. I stayed in Taber and celebrated Canada Day with bike rides, barbecues and swimming at the Taber pool!

This isn't even all of us...

Wednesday we did something I've wanted to do forever, like since I knew it existed: We canoed the Milk River! It was one of the funnest things I have ever done, ever! It was beautiful, challenging, interesting and plain fun all at once. We took Jesse and left Afton and Breanna with Brad's sister Amy. 

Posing at Poverty Rock

This part was just plain FUN! Body surfing in our life jackets. We did it several times, it did make me a bit nervous with Jesse in the water but I always caught up to him and we managed to out-swim the current and get back to shore.

We make a good team.

There were snakes all over the place. This one was a bull snake Brad's brother Matt coaxed out with a paddle. It could have been a rattlesnake though, we found those at the Burial Caves. I took Jesse to get a good look at the rattlesnakes, he was scared and didn't want to but now he's glad he did :) Personally I love snakes. I'm not sure why but my Mom says it's genetic as she used to pick them up and scare her friends with them when she was a kid.

Now here are the burial caves. So basically, Native Americans would bury their dead in the holes of this rock. They say rattlesnakes live there to guard their spirits and there are lots of rattlesnakes. There are lines carved into the rocks inside the holes to indicate the age of the deceased. We're not sure, as far as I know, how many years each line represents. There's also carvings in the rock- mostly men with weapons and shields. You know they are men because they literally drew a penis on them represented by 2 dots and a line in the middle. Call it decorations on a loin cloth, I will draw my own conclusions :) It's seriously just amazing. I would like to spend more time exploring there sometime, and just thinking. I've always been fascinated by Native American history.

This part was especially fun. We found quicksand. I sank up to my hips and the kids were up to their waste in mud. 

The next day we went to Echodale Lake and spent the whole day in the sun. We had a blast, but on the way home I found out that my best friend's daughter and Afton's bestie had been in a car accident, with some of Brad's cousins' children. It was so scary. I was pretty emotional and overwhelmed until the next day when I found out she was okay, with just some broken ribs and a bruised lung. She's home now. It was some of the best news I've ever heard. I would have been totally devastated if she or any of the other children had been seriously injured or worse.

And finally, on the last day we went to the Taber parade and the kids got lots of candy. It was super hot so we also did some swimming in Grandma's fun back yard. 

   

 I'm so grateful for this family and all of our fun adventures. What a great start to summer!!