Oh Canada

Oh how we love our visits to Canada!
We love to visit Grandpa Bill and join in on the First of July festivities!



We love the Raymond Parade!

We love the simple and fun things to do, like rope swings and playing in the pasture behind the house or making forts in the big trees out front.

We love the fireworks at night!

We love the rodeo!

This year Hunter surprised us all and decided to enter the wild horse race.



A group of 3 kids ages 5-10 can compete. They have to catch a wild horse (a small one) and ride it.  One person holds a rope that is tied to the horse, the other catches the horse, and the third person has to jump on and ride it.

Hunter chose to be the one to catch the horse.

He held on tight and covered the horses eyes just like he had been coached to do.

Kinda Crazy, but he loved it and I'm pretty sure he'll always remember his rodeo experience.

We LOVE Linsey and it's kinda special that she gets to celebrate her birthday in Canada almost every year!  Happy 13th Birthday Linsey!

We love Waterton, it's beautiful... just like my sweet Linsey.  

What better place to go on her birthday?

We went on a great hike up Bertha Falls.

Jared brought his fly rod and it's a good thing he did.  All of the kids caught fish and had so much fun!

We were really proud of this little guy for walking the entire way.  Way to go Austin!!

One of our favorite hikes to do in Waterton is Red Rock.

This year there has been a lot of flooding.  It washed down a bunch of logs and created a really cool log dam that you had to crawl under.

Another hike, Blakiston.

And we love walking around the little town of Waterton, getting ice cream, and visiting the souvenir shops.

On our way home we stopped to take pictures with the worlds largest truck.

We got some silly pictures too.

We love visiting Canada for all of these reasons, and so many more.

Can't wait til next year.

A very busy month

It's been a very eventful, exhausting, fun, and busy month.

Here are some of the things we have been up to.

Linsey was chosen by one of her teachers to earn a PRIDE award at her middle school.  Way to go Linsey!

Linsey participated in track this Spring, it was fun sharing running advice and cheering her on at her track meets.  She loved it!

Emma participated in the most adorable dance recital I've ever seen.  She has been taking lessons from the Pacific Ballroom Dance company.  It's so cute to see these little ones dancing ballroom style.

Emma and Hunter had a piano recital that same day.  They both performed their songs perfectly and we celebrated with yummy dessert!

Linsey takes from a different teacher and had her piano recital on a different weekend.  This was probably the most entertaining recital I've ever been to.  It was movie themed and every piano student played a song from one of their favorite movies and had some sort of prop to go with it.

Linsey played a song from the Hunger games and dressed up as Katniss.

The end of the school year brings all sorts of fun our way.  Lots of field trips, a parent BBQ, field days, the school carnival and so much more.

Emma's class went to the zoo.  Hunter's class went to the state capitol (no picture.. sorry)

Wacky Hair Day

This was all Emma's idea.

Wacky Hair Day was also field day and a Sub Zero field trip.

Preschool graduation for Austin. (we still have one more year thank goodness...)

Emma has had such a great year in second grade.  She has had one of her very best friends in her class and to top it off has had one of my all-time favorite teachers, Mrs. Miller.  She has had all of my kids and we just adore her.

Hunter earned an award for his high math scores at the end of the year assembly.  So proud of this kid and all of his hard work even though he claims that he does not like school.

My favorite part of the assembly was when the fourth grade sang goodbye to the fifth graders.  Hunter really got into the dancing.

Linsey also had an orchestra concert, Emma had a second grade program, we had company visit for Emma's baptism, we travelled to Tri-Cities for an open house for the happily newly married Anthony and Elina, and we survived Linsey's painfully stressful first EOC in her Algebra class which we all celebrated when the school year ended last week!!!

In the middle of all the crazy fun.. we got the keys to our new house!!

We built a home not far from our current house so the move wouldn't be too difficult you'd think, but boy that statement could not be more wrong.  I felt like I just needed to hit pause on the rest of our life so we could "just move", but everything just kept going on around us.  I guess that's what happens when you move right in the same neighborhood.  There is no ending, no goodbyes, and no new start, just moving and trying to stay caught up.  It's been two weeks now and I'm still surrounded by at least a few boxes in most rooms and it will be awhile before we can park in the garage, but I can't complain too much.  We had lots of help from our family and friends and we could not be more grateful for all of them.  We love the neighborhood and love that we did not have to say goodbyes.  The day we moved in we were awarded with this most beautiful rainbow.  (Our new house is the gray one on the right end in the above picture.)

I worried that my kids would be so sad and bored leaving their fun backyard to an unfinished backyard full of dirt, rocks, and straw.  Nope, they are awesome like that.

Even Milo has adjusted to the new house just fine.  We bought a brand new rug to go in our living room and he thinks it's a giant dog bed for him.  Funny thing is it's the same color as he is so he really just blends into it.

Yesterday we decided to celebrate that school had ended, summer has started, and we all needed a break from the packing and unpacking.  We went to Wild Waves with some of our good friends!

 The weather started out fine, but a rain cloud hit by the afternoon soaking us with a warm rain.  I love that it didn't phase the kids and we still stayed til closing.  True Seattle kids.

And that's why I say it's been a very busy month.