My Birthday

What a wonderful birthday I've had this year. The weather was beautiful. We ventured out on Saturday to Prairie Gardens and enjoyed ourselves. There is a corn maze, tractor ride (wagon/hay ride), petting zoo, hay bales to crawl around on, a haunted house, stores selling candy, pumpkins, gardening goodies, restaurants, making a scarecrow, pumpkin painting, peddling a tractor, puppet plays, people dressed up in Halloween costumes, panning for gold.....etc. A really fun place to spend the afternoon and lots of people thought the same thing. Then a quick dip in the pool and home for cake and ice cream and present opening. Megan finally told me a bedtime story, after years of me reading to her and Evan and Aaron showered me with hugs and kisses. Spencer eventually bought me a beautiful silver bangle that I've had my eye on for about a year and he also got me these flowers and black forest cake (I just had to pick them up from the store for him).

Our start at Prairie Gardens. The corn maze....

At the start of the corn maze. We "chickened out" and didn't complete it. Lets face it, with kids in tow and having to find 12 letters in this huge maze....it would have taken all night. We were starting to get hot, tired and frustrated with how things were going....

We also enjoyed ourselves at the petting zoo. Aaron loves animals and pretty much mauls them whenever he gets the chance. Evan on the other hand, is quite scared that the animals are going to get him. We won't break Aaron's heart by telling him that his dad is allergic to all the fun animals; Evan on the other hand is fine with that fact and will be content with trying to keep a fish alive.

While Megan was painting a pumpkin ---Evan had his heart set on riding the tractors. So off the boys went.

Here is pirate Spencer and what is a girl equivalent called?......Arr, Matey....Happy Birthday!

Kids say the funniest things

This is what Megan told us in the van as we were trying to find the best spot to park, so we could go swimming.
Megan - "Oh, mom....I know that you just can't wait until you become handicap so you can have a good parking spot." Said in all innocence...but alas, it is true....the part about getting a good parking spot, not about becoming handicap. (The place were we swim has a lot of handicap parking, as the pool has some design features that enable handicap people to access it easily).

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While the kids and I were waiting for Spencer in the van so we could go vote in our municipal election this is the conversation that I over hear......

Evan - "....Luigi wears underpants....ha, ha, ha"
Megan - "That's so silly, Evan! He doesn't wear underpants, he wears garments....ha, ha, ha"
Mom - laughing in the front seat, as does Spencer when I relate what I just over heard the kids talking about.

Said Evan...

For the morning breakfast prayer....

Evan said, "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the food, Bless the food...(some thought and a pause)...bless mom to be nice to me today, help me be happy, Name of Jesus Christ Amen."

We had a bit of a struggle this morning as we were gathering for family scriptures, listening ears weren't yet turned on and some yelling/screamy voices and not sharing. So I took away the source of all the problems; a pool blow up toy of Buzz and Woody that is in the shape of a rocket ship. Evan spied that one and a couple of other floaty toys that I bought. He then proceeded to break them out of their boxes and retrieve the pump and blow them up. Surprisingly he is very good at using the pump. Once again his listening ears weren't on as I repeatedly asked him to not blow them up and to quit playing with the pump, for fear that they would pop and the pump would break.

Only 2 more sleeps until he can use them at the pool.

Crazy about....

Give this guy a ball and he is all over it. He loves toys with balls, our basketball net, and just holding and throwing them. He can literally be entertained for about 1/2 hour or more. So needless to say we have a few balls around the house.

As a result of a love of balls he also loves balloons. Here he is with some balloons that Megan and Evan got from somewhere and he is all tangled up in them. Too funny!

On Top of the World!

So I'm finally taking some time to blog about my fabulous weekend in Banff at the end of September. Spencer and I rolled our Anniversary celebrations and the Mellissa's Road Race into one weekend. I would like to thank my sponsor who made this trip possible....First my mom and dad, who came up to watch and chauffer my kids around thanks, Spencer for doing the race last year, and I had to watch the kids and all the other racers; I vowed that next year we would run it together and we did, lastly my sister joining us in our race adventure and helping to secure a great hotel for us.

The highlights of the trip include:

• Sight seeing:
  
  
  

  We rode the gondola up Sulphur Mountain and we're literally "on top of the world" or our portion of it.

Here is the resturant/gift shop/gondola at the top of the mountain. It is always breathtaking and humbling to be so high on a mountain and to view the beauty that surrounds us.

We did the jaunt up and around Bow Falls. It was a beautiful fall day. We bought toques to wear, since we both had colds and wore our warmer jackets and a light pair of mittens.


Our final touristy thing that we did was go on a boat cruise on Lake Minnewanka. It was very interesting and nice to be out and enjoying ourselves. It was once 3 separate lakes and has had 2 hydro dams built on it. When they decided to dam it up they flooded the area with 30 meters of water, resulting in the one lake and also burying the hydro dam and a small town that was built around the dam. Our guide said that there are a lot of scuba divers that dive there to see all of these things that are under the water.

• Running the Mellissa's Road Race:
  
  

Here we are after finding parking and walking to the starting line. We all ran the 10K. Spencer and I ran it in 1 hour and 7 minutes. I didn't walk the whole race, but the race course is very crowded and in some places very narrow so sometimes you got caught behind walkers and couldn't hardly move around them.

Our timing chips...


This is my best 10K result so far (it's my only 10K that I've done). The sun was shining, a bit of a wind to cool us down and great refreshments after the race. It is always an awesome feeling to complete a goal and do better than you thought. I might even be itching to do the 1/2 marathon next year.....any takers?

My other observations that resulted from this trip:

I forgot just how quite it can be without the kids in tow....no arguing, no crying, no responsibility, no little ones to look after and help it was nice and muchly needed for Spencer and I to just get away.

Why in the heck did it take us 8 years to do this? It think that it just may be a more regular occurance for us....a get away without the kids.

I need a hot tub....we used the hotel one every night....nice!

I should also have a maid that takes care of some of the house stuff....it was nice to have our garbages emptied, beds made and other things done, cause I didn't have to do it.

It made our kids miss us and realize just how much they do love us, and the same goes for us. We missed our kids in the end and were glad to be home.