British Columbia

(Note to reader: For the next few days, I'll be posting stuff from our big trip. I typed most of it on the road so the time periods in the writing might be off. Just go with it because I don't want to fix past tenses.)

We finally got out to start our big vacation across Canada and some of the northwestern states. We were barely just a few hours outside of Edmonton when things finally started to dry off and get amazingly beautiful. It was a full day of scenic driving through Jasper National Park and then to Mount Robson. We haven’t seen mountains in forever so it was a good feeling inside to be around the trees, and the views and of course, for me, all the rivers and lakes. This trip has been full of firsts: our first drive across Canada, first wild bear sighting (as a family), first time seeing a grown up pick his nose and eat it. [It was our housekeeper at our first motel. I was sitting in the car with the kids waiting for Greg to get our motel key and we were just all staring at this guy hauling sheets and towels to the laundry when he went for the dig. The funny part was how we all reacted at the same time, audibly in our car, and I was surprised that the dude didn’t even hear us. Funny. On the positive note, I guess we won’t have to worry about any troll bogies on our sheets (slurp!)] and first time to the west coast of Canada.

The kids have been great travelers. The big ones have been mostly entertained by looking out the windows and also watching movies. It has also been thrilling for them to see different wild life and scenery. Gavin has been a dream, angel baby. He only cries when he is hungry and then we pull over to feed him and let everybody stretch their legs. Other than that, he just coos at Chloe in the back seat and plays with his little toys. It has felt wonderful to be all together and frankly this is probably one of the most needed vacations ever.

Check out some of our awesome nature photos!

These bears made me a little bit mental because when we stopped to feed Gavin and nature pee, I was just certain that a bear was going to come out and attack us. Greg thought it was so humorous. If only, we all did.

Our motel after our first day of driving had an outdoor pool and all the girls needed to do was see it and that’s all they could talk about. Normally the idea of swimming sounds super fun to me but it had been raining all day and was still a little cloudy so by the time we had unpacked and eaten dinner, honestly the last thing either me or Greg wanted to do was swim in a cold pool so we decided to go lifeguard mode. That meant that Daddy put on his bathing suit but would only jump in in the case of emergency. The pool wasn’t that deep and both girls can swim pretty well with a noodle. Besides, in the end, Tati only really stayed on the stairs which was fine with us. They also only lasted about 20 minutes and then the shivering overtook their bodies. Ha, ha. We also stuck little Gavin’s footies in the water (his first pool experience) and honestly it was hilarious because he had zero reaction. Then we all showered and let the kids lay in bed and watch Masterchef with me and Greg until they both fell asleep. They are having a great time!

Goodbye to NASA!

So when I heard about the final space launch, I knew that we had to do something special. Part of me totally understands the space cuts because, hello they are so expensive and dangerous, and part of me is sad that we’ll miss out on the thrill of them blasting off into space. Honestly though, I was all about this launch but really had no idea of what they’d do after they were in space. Greg said they were going to the space station but even he didn’t really know what they’d be doing up there. We finally determined it would be probably to clean out their desks and lockers since they won’t be going back.

Doesn’t that just bring back memories from your youth? Here are some spacey things from my and Greg’s childhoods:

• Space Camp, the movie.
• The swing count down when you go from 10 to 0 and then ignition, blast off and jump off the swings.
• Playing with space legos
• Glowing ceiling stars and planets
• Tasting astronaut food
• And sadly, watching the Challenger explode

So we decided to have some friends come over because

a) we like them and

b) their little boy, Kalen (Tati’s age) is obsessed with space and you can often find him muttering something about planets and blasting off, and

c) things like this are always better when you have friends over.

Here are some shots of them getting ready. Gavin is priceless here.

And here is a cute movie of the countdown.

I forgot how intense and scary it is when they are lighting the fire and waiting to see if everything is ok. Then when the countdown stopped, me and Sharon kind of looked at each other and thought, “Uh, oh.” But luckily everything was ok.

The kids had a lot of fun and afterward the crafts turned out super cute too. We made an astronaut when Chloe was little and I have to say it was still fun all these years later. Note to you though if you make an astronaut, get the small slurpee lids so the head doesn’t take up the entire picture like ours did. And P.S. 7-11 won’t charge you for the lids but it is always nice to offer.

Here are the final results of the crafts.

Isn't it so cute how he looks just like his finished product?

And finally all together on the art wall:

God Bless the USA!

It was fun to have some friends invite us over for the 4th of July. They also have some relatives who are Americans so we had a chance to even celebrate with actual Americans. ;-) Don't get me wrong, Canada Day was a blast and we'll sorely miss all the fun, family friendly activities around here to participate in but we didn't see any fireworks (gets dark way too late for the kids) and even though we were dressed in our red and white, we were really also missing the blue. I wish the two independence days were farther apart because I would like to keep celebrating Canada Day in the future but having the two holidays just days apart and all the festivities being so similar it does make for a lot of work and prep. We'll see though, who knows for the future. In this case, I was glad that Katie did the work and I got to enjoy it. It was awesome! Katie is Tati's teacher at church and she LOVES her! Katie seems to really enjoy her except those rare times when Tati loses her wedding ring (but we found it). She also loves Katie's husband, Slader. They are some of the most kid friendly people we know so the girls had a great time over there. They even borrowed a jumpy castle thingy. I mean, come on.

I thought this picture turned out awesome--especially color wise--at least we're all looking.

The glasses were courtesy my friend, Jeanette. I have to give her a shout out for some awesome patriotic decore that she gifted us after her trip to the dollar store in AZ. She knows me too well. I am a sucker for the dollar store. I'm always a little hesitant to hang too much USA memorabilia around here. I don't know why but I guess it is because in California when I would see people with all these flags and stuff from other countries, it is more like the attitude of "Then go back to ______!" And I don't want people saying that to me. :-)

Here are some other fun pictures. I can't take credit for them all since I didn't take them, but I can take credit for the cute subjects of the photos--most of them anyway.

(photo courtesy of Sami)

We didn't do any fireworks but we did do sparklers. We've never double and triple lit them before though so that was a big thrill.

(photo courtesy of Sami)

And I never get sick of this cake idea. It was beautiful and delicious! Thank you Katie!

Canada Day

It was Canada Day on the 1st and we had so much fun doing stuff all together. Greg has been putting in some pretty intense hours so we can go on a much needed vacation, but that means we don't see him sometimes until breakfast the next morning because he'll roll in at 9 or 10 each night. Anyway, it was great to have the whole day together. We were going to try something new this year or maybe a new venue but Chloe was telling Tati about all the cool things they'd see at Festival Park so in the end we decided to go there again. It is just so fun and family friendly that we couldn't resist.

The girls got their spray tattoos that they love so much. Tati got a fairy and Chloe got dolphins (again).


Then they played inside of the butterfly pavillion which turned out to be a bit depressing because Tati wasn't the only coo-koo inside and there were dead butterflies all over the ground and Tati kept grabbing their wings and telling me, "Look Mom, isn't this powder stuff WEIRD?!" and I had to keep explaining how she was killing them.



We packed a picnic this year and found a nice, quiet place on the grass to eat it. Greg was being all artistic like and took a diagonal shot. Whew, whew! Way to work the camera, Greg!
Gavin ate first and layed down and enjoyed a few minutes with the girls on the blanket.

And we even treated ourselves to some cotton candy. In the past, Tati has always said that cotton candy is gross but suddenly she thought it was the most delicious thing she ever tasted. It was pretty delicious. I am a sucker for cotton candy. And of course we named our cotton candy. We name everything. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when the girls are naming mosquitos before they smash them. Anyway, our cotton candy's name was "Marge" and hopefully you can see why.

And that's pretty much it, all of it, or the end.

5 months old!

And somehow we love him even more than we did last month!