It's over...

It had to happen sometime I guess. Farewell bold blue skies, lush yellow leaves and crisp fall air. You have been so beautiful.  Hello to the comfortable sight of snow dusting the ground and the tops of trees and the familiar crunch of it underfoot, the deep darkness urging me to hibernate, hibernate hibernate.

 I can't hibernate.

This is me enjoying fall weather. It was a warm day and I went to school to pick up the kids. I just lay on the earth and soaked in the sun, listening to my kids play and feeling incredibly blessed and happy with life. Call me a wacko but I think when I lay on the earth, or walk barefoot on grass, I get some kind good energy from the earth. I have wrinkles and freckles thanks to you Sun, but I love you.

The year we moved here 6 years ago Brad said he would run the Harvest Half Marathon, which starts right outside our house on the same weekend every year. I know because it's Conference weekend. Then he said it every year after until finally this year, he did it! I was so proud of him. He had a great time despite getting low blood sugar toward the end of the race. He's a natural runner. He works so hard every day and to accomplish this on top of everything else, well, I feel very lucky to have him. My Mom came to watch which meant a lot! He was finished by 9:30am and we didn't even miss one session of General Conference. Later that day we headed to Nana's for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. What a glorious day. 

Post-dinner fun at Nana's house

Thanksgiving fun at Grandpa Bates's

Thanksgiving bike ride at Grandma Gough's

Afton waiting for her brother and sister to come home and play. 

Halloween came and things were still fall-like

We watched Legend of Sleepy Hollow, carved pumpkins, went to the Halloween Dance and trick or treated all night long! My favourite part of this Halloween was Jesse's haunted  room. He'd had it set up for a while, spent his own money at the dollar store to decorate it and on Halloween night I walked in there to find it perfectly laid out- eyeballs scattered about, werewolf head lying on the bed with glowing eyes,  gruesome picture hung, fan blowing the clothes, snake emerging from the radiator. He was so excited to show it to the trick or treaters. I couldn't break it to him that no one would be comfortable coming in to see it-my heart was breaking! LUCKILY, he had quite a few admirers! The friends across the alley came by, a few of the trick or treaters he knew from school came in to see it, and our old friends the Christensens came by for a visit. He would hide behind the door and jump out when people entered. It was awesome.

We handed out cans of pop this year and my second favourite part of this halloween was when on kid said "awesome, a can of pop!" I thought of my sister Rachel and knew in my heart that she would be proud.

Okay guys, so I'm not a fun Mom. I try and I want to be, but frankly I spend WAY too much time shuffling kids and ordering kids and organizing and cleaning and cooking and doing the daily stuff to be fun. But every once in a while, when everything is caught up and we have a free day, which is not often, I spend some time just being with the kids. NO nagging, or worrying, or saying no. Just enjoying life and loving them. This day did happen a couple of weeks ago thanks to a fairy godmother day when my Mom came and thanks to some good daily work on my part, and we went for a long walk. It felt so good. Seriously, why can't I just have a housekeeper so I can do more of this? But I know I have so much to be grateful for, I really can't complain.  So Jesse climbed trees, which he does now, and I love it. I worry maybe a tiny bit but mostly I just love it!!! Can you spot him in the green?

We stopped at this park for a long time. It's a little park but you can make anything fun, and we did. Then we walked across to Fish Creek park to the roller coaster hill as we call it and held hands and ran up and down it and realized, this is more fun on a bike. 

This is my amazing husband Brad doing pottery with our girls. He is my hero you know. He's really saved me and plus he adores me. He loves the kids and works hard for us and takes care of us. I just had to take a picture when I saw this  because it made me happy.

One day I was driving home from a workout class and was feeling a little crazy. If there is one thing in the world I HATE it's people talking about me behind my back because dang it, just like you I'm doing my best!! I am very authentic about who I am and I really wish people would say things to my face. I'm so much better with that. At least I could defend myself. I wish I didn't care but I do, and I let it bother me. So this one thing one girl I'm friends with on Facebook said got in my head and I started wondering if everyone was judging everything I said and did and I couldn't handle it anymore. So I made this video, posted it on Facebook, immediately regretted it, but it was too late, then I deleted Facebook, it was long overdue. But this is definitely a side of me, and every once in a while it makes an appearance so here is a clip of it :)

My Awesome Life

I chose this title for my blog because of my friend who says he hates blogs because they make everybody's life seem awesome. Well, here it is, my awesome life :)

Fall is in full swing. It's my favourite time of year, when I seem to reap the blessings of life and enjoy the harvest of my daily work. 

One day I woke up to see this out my window. It was summer, and then it was this. The trees were so heavy with snow their branches broke and caused a bit of chaos and excitement in the streets. Personally, I couldn't understand why people were complaining. If only snow were always like that: delightfully white and fluffy, perfect snowman snow, there one day and gone the next.

One day. The next.

Fall means one of our favourite family traditions, helping with the annual City-wide food drive.  It's getting so Brad and I are doing less and less work, leaving most of it to the industry of the kids, and they work so hard!

We've had many beautiful days this fall, and one of them we spent celebrating my nephew Christian turning one year.

Christian is the crazy cute kid on the left, but it seems every picture I take of him has Jacob in it because I just love the two of them. They're such a perfect pair and both have warm, brilliant little spirits. 

My Sister-in-law Katie pulled off a super fun, perfect little one-year-old boy party. She's always amazing me with her talents. I'm so glad to have her in our family.

The cupcakes are part of a train. 

And the indestructible train piñata. I wanted to break it so bad, it took a lot of self control for me to hold back and let other people (ahem, the kids) do it.

Of course I have to sneak in a pic of this kid (although blurry) because he is the funniest, cutest 2-year-old in the world at present.

Then, to top off a wonderful autumn, we had this awesome day! Every year on General Conference day we watch out our window as people gather at the starting line of the Harvest Half Marathon. We sometimes sneak out and cheer them on. Every year my husband Brad says, next year I'm going to do it. And then this year he did!! It was a beautiful day! He's so naturally good at running, he didn't have time to train much and yet he did awesome, I was so proud of him! Seriously I love this guy,  I'm so blessed to have him in my life.

This is what you get at the end of a race when you don't listen to your wife and eat too little for breakfast. He got low blood sugar in the last 3k of the race and slowed down his pace considerably so as not to faint, then collapsed at the finish line. He still did awesome, which tells you how good he really is. Afterwards we watched General Conference, my absolute favourite, a time to soak in love, light and truth, and then headed to my Mom's house for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, of which I have no pictures. Time for someone else to step up :)

These two pictures sum up just about how I feel right now. Free, grateful, healthy and happy.

But first, lemme take a selfie...

Today I'm 37 years old. What can I say? I have everything in the world any 37 year old could ever want, but here's a list of my favourites:

People: good people, cute people, strong people, nice people, loving people, spiritual people, people who serve, hard-working, smart people all around me, my favourites of whom I call family and friends. They are so good to me.

The Gym

September: I crown you the most beautiful month of all!

Canada: this most blessed, beautiful country.

Heavenly Father for giving me earth, giving me so many chances, giving me everything I have, helping me grow.

I wish I was a better person, but we are all trying, trying so hard to be good. I want to make other people feel as loved as I felt today. I've never made much of an effort with birthdays but I think I'm going to start because this day made me feel so good.

Isn't it cute? Made by Brad and Afton.

My friend brought me these flowers-she is a relatively new friend, but I can't tell you how good and loved this made me feel.

Fun run. I do this when my brain needs a break. Please don't judge me.

Camping and Powerlifting

This has been a truly amazing week. Our family camped in Waterton as we usually do. We stayed for 5 whole days and spent time as a family soaking in the beauty of God's creations and breathing the clean mountain air. This week lifted my spirits.

It started with the powerlifting competition I have been preparing for for months. I had a blast! I was the only girl and that was okay. Training for something like this as a busy Mom can be gruelling. Some days I was so tired it took everything I had just to lift the bar of the rack. For most of my training I felt like my bench press max would never increase and I realized halfway through my training I wasn't hitting parallel on my squats. I had to decrease my weights and do practice squats once a week from then on. It all paid off the day I competed. All of my lifts came up easy and I took 4th attempts on all three. Even the 4th attempt was easy! And I lifted more than I thought I could on the squat and bench press. For my deadlift I went for a Canadian record and couldn't lift the bar (although it bent), but it was okay because I know if I continue I'll be able to do it soon! I ended up with 192 on the squat, 115 on the bench and 242 on deadlift (which was pretty easy).

Then we left to camp for the week! I have to say, we had the most amazing weather. I felt it was a blessing from God and I thank Him for it.

Heart shaped pancakes and bacon cooked over the fire.

This is about half way up the hike up to Wall Lake. I can't get over the beauty of the red rocks against the green moss and the shadows of the trees. So here's the story. We woke up that morning and Afton said her tummy hurt. She was limp and wouldn't eat. Looking back it seems a bit crazy but we didn't even think about not taking the hike. Instead Brad carried her the entire 5k up and the entire way down. When she got tired of being on his shoulders he carried her in his arms and she laid her head on his shoulder. Brad was pretty much my hero this day. 

Approaching Wall Lake

Oh this smile of Afton's. I simply can't get enough of it. It is one of the true pleasures of my life. Brad and Jesse and Breanna went off to fish and Afton and I found a nice green soft patch of grass in the otherwise bushy terrain and rested. Poor Afton, but we really bonded.

Wall Lake. If you look really carefully you can see tiny Brad in his red hat and Jesse and Breanna fishing. They didn't catch anything for a long time, so finally they gave up and started heading back. As they walked back I heard Jesse yell, "look Dad! I see a fish!" So he cast and they caught it, then let it go again. I hated the horse flies on this hike and the way they hunted me and I will never hike without bug spray again :( 

 

One thing I will remember about this hike is Jesse whittling this rock into a sharp arrowhead. He worked on it the whole way up and down.  

When we got home we made a delicious chicken dinner in our dutch oven my Mom gave us for Christmas a few years ago. It was SO goooooood...but poor Afton said "I'm going to bed", and she really did. She fell fast asleep at about 6:30 and didn't wake up until the next morning. She sure missed out though, the whole chicken and veggies were delicious.

Brad makes the most AMAZING marshamallow-roasting fires. He makes a huge fire and then after the kids go to bed the fire dies down and all that's left are these hot burning coals. They give off a ton of heat. I love the crackle of the embers and I could watch the red-hot coals for hours, the way they dance.

The next day Afton perked right up and we headed up to Red Rock canyon. It was the first year we could climb all the way up with all of our kids. It was a nice hot day, the perfect compliment to the icy, icy cold water

This is just a gratuitous picture of my beautiful daughter. Too much?

A slide! Let's go down it!

Such beauty.

Later that day we met up with family. We love them to bits and everything is more fun with them around.  

On our second last day we really went big and hiked Crypt Lake. We went with some of Brad's family and the older cousins.  His Mom did it too which I loved, I'd like to be able to do those things when I'm her age. 

This is an 8k hike with 2300 feet elevation and some pretty steep and intense cliffside hiking. The recommended age is 12. I knew it was serious because as I looked around at the people we were boarding the boat with, they were all dressed in serious hiking gear. Boots, windbreakers, poles, hats, camel backs, you name it.

This hike was truly beautiful and worth every moment. I kept breathing in deeply and letting my eyes soak in the majesty of it all.

 Jesse and the other kids pretty much blew me away. They stayed near the front of the pack the whole time and maneuvered the cliffs like champs. Jesse thought the cave was awesome and wasn't even scared when he was holding onto the cable. I was trying to keep up to him the whole time! When we were approaching the lake he saw this big wall of rocks and said, I'm gonna climb that. Brad was not happy but I told him to let him do it. He scaled it and met us at the top and I was a proud Mom.

At the top we ate lunch and then Jesse was asking to go over to the glacier. We heard a loud crash and saw that part of the glacier had broken off. That made me a bit nervous but we walked over there anyway. The snow was so slippery and sloped into the lake. I was with some of the kids and was so nervous one of them was going to slide right in all I could think about was how I would rescue them, I kept looking for the nearest shoreline. When we got there Brad, after some coaxing from the kids, got on his swimsuit and jumped off a cliff into the COOOLLLD water below. It was pretty epic!

My legs were numb 

Look at the colour of that water. I heart it.

More danger on the way down overlooking the waterfall in the previous pictures.

Things started getting difficult about halfway on the way down. Brad and I were both in our minimalist shoes, which I did not regret until about 3/4 of the way down-ouchy!! Our poor feet on all those sharp rocks. I didn't feel nearly as bad for myself as I did for Jesse though. Mama bear kicked in when I saw that he was getting heat stroke and we had no food or water left. I kept stopping to pick him thimble berries hoping to give him a bit of a boost. And it was a sacrifice believe me because they were few and far between and soooo dang delicious :)  For some crazy reason we had taken the hard way down to catch a glimpse of  Hell Roaring Falls. Looking at it now, yes, they are beautiful, but I wish I hadn't done it with those poor kids. I will have to write a story with those falls in it to make the pain worth it haha.

We got to the bottom, Jesse and Brad jumped off the dock into the lake as we waited for the boat, and we all took off our shoes and rested our feet in the lake. Cold water never felt so good.

We finished our week on Friday lounging by the lake while the kids played and taking them for ice cream. As we were walking back to the car it started to rain. It was so refreshing. I quickly walked over to the lake, put my hands in it, looked up and thanked Heavenly Father for our Mother Earth and how she healed my soul this week.