What Happened

What Happened...

to being grateful. Nothing really everyday, I have been noticing and acknowledging the things I am grateful for but the posting has just been put off. I have been so busy playing with my kids and making memories with them that I put the blog on the back burner. 

My priority has been my kids as it should be. With them being home all day and Christian busy with work and School I felt I needed to put the grateful posts on hold until september when school is back and I have a little time each day for myself. 

This summer has been full of tons of activity for our family. The first weekend after school was out I took the kids camping. I am trying to make this a tradition for them and they love camping as much as I do. We headed out to the Old Man River Dam. We just had a relaxing weekend with my Mom and Dad. We really didn't do much but enjoy being together.

 As usual we had the big July 1st celebration in Raymond with the parade and family BBQ at Uncle Reed's Place. Christian worked the Rodeo with Raymond EMS so I took the kids to watch.  It was fun to watch especially since the kids are older and enjoy it more and complain less. 

The next two weeks took us to the pool where we had swim lessons every day. During this time I had my Cousin come and spend some time with us at our house. He is 11 and him and Dallin get along so well. So by the time his time was done here I sent Dallin home with him to spend some time at his house. I remember doing this every summer with my Aunt (his Mom) so it was nice to see it happening with a new generation. 

Family is where I found my best friends!!

During these busy two weeks I took some time out for myself, thanks to some great friends! I went up to Calgary with them and saw Wicked. I have never been to a musical theatre production and was quite happy to find out that I really enjoyed it. The singing was great and the set was amazing. But I have to admit though that I enjoyed being with friends more and that is what made the experience so great. And to top the evening off with a delicious Peter's Milkshake....Yah it made the night one to remember. 

That very next weekend I took the kids camping again. Every year my dad's side of the family heads out for a reunion somewhere in Alberta. This year (and lots of years previous) we went to Gold Springs Park near Milk River. The kids love this place. There is a slow moving Horse Shoe diverted from the river that the kids can swim and fish in. It has a park and a pretty nice camp area. And they love the midnight (actually 11:00) safari hunt. They are given a hunting license for one animal and they have to search the area for their stuffed animal with flashlights. My kids love this and talk about it all year long. It is also good to see relative that I haven't seen in a long time and just spend time with family. As usual my Brother has a geo cache to find and he recruits all my kids and me to help him. The kids love the treasure hunts with Uncle Cody.

In between all this fun we have been planting, weeding, watering and eating from our garden. I love to garden which is something I never thought possible. As a kid I dreaded having to weed the garden, but now I find it a nice relaxing place to get away. You see, thats because my kids hate to weed the garden so they leave me in peace when I'm out there. 

With a weekend in between all this fun, I decided it was time to spend a little bit of time with my husband. You see he is so busy with all that he has going on that I just left him to it and did all this stuff without him. So I asked him on a date and we went out for dinner and Movie with some friends. It was a fun night, we went and saw the final Harry Potter Movie and then went out to the Firestone for a delicious meal. We stayed out late just sitting around talking and enjoying the evening on the patio. It was good to just be together. 

And I also got a weekend where Christian was able to come camping with us too. We had another reunion down at Tally Lake in Montana. It was a Parker reunion and Christian enjoys spending time with this side of my family. Sometimes I think they like him better than they like me. He fits in so well with them. 

Anyhow..We took the kids over Logan Pass and they love all the waterfalls and seeing the mountain goats up on the top of the pass. Christian thought it was real funny to drive me through one of the fall as my hand was out the window. I was soaked up to the shoulder when I came out. The kids laughed too. 

As we came to one of the parking areas going up the Pass, the traffic slowed right down to a crawl and all we hear from the back of the suburban is Logan saying..."What do they think this is? A parking lot!" 

I couldn't stop laughing cause that it totally something Christian would say. 

The reunion was one I am not soon to forget. I love spending time with the Parkers. It is always a riot laughing around the fire, playing game, goofing off at the Lake and eating tons of yummy food. It always feels like time has stood still in between the two years from each reunion. Sure things change and people are added but the closeness is still there.

This year we did a volleyball tournament, a minute to win it and the amazing race. All very fun activities that involved everyone. The little kids had games to play too. We spent Saturday afternoon at the lake with the seadoo's and water trampoline. It was fun and relaxing being out in the water. 

My favorite part of the reunion though was sunday morning when Grandpa got us all together and had all the men who had gone on missions to tell us a story that they had from their mission. I love hearing Christian's missions stories so this was great to be able to hear all these men that I love and respect speak about something special to them. There were a lot of tears and even a couple of the women spoke about how they were missionaries in there own homes converting there husbands. 

I have a great respect for them and admire there courage as missionaries. 

I truly felt the spirit at that humble meeting in the camp kitchen. 

It is amazing to know that from this one man came a great family and that I can be counted among them. 

That about wraps up all of July and summer is now half over. I am looking forward to another camp out with my immediate family and also a weekend down in the states shopping with just me, my hubby and the kids. Then I think a couple weeks to organize and clean the house and get ready for school to start. It will be nice to get back into a routine, have 3 our of 4 kids in school and be able to start back on a few projects that I have let slide. Including my 365 Grateful. I am going to pick up where I left off and continue until I'm finished.