August

Lucy hanging out at home before we left for 28 days.

Ellie feeding the horses.... and dog.

The parade. Heritage days. Everyone goes.

Meeting Belle.

Who knew Disney supported heritage days?

Ellie thought maybe they heard we were "thinking" about going to see them so they came to tell us to go.

Nice try kid!

Waterton. Look at Lucy's face. It kills me. They both looked like they were going to blow right into the lake.

Picking rocks.

Quadding at the lake.

Back at Fort Steele.

Ice cream break.

Dark skies and Cluttered Thoughts

Hey all. I am back (hold the "a" for a while) (oh and think sly and conniving). Much much better. I have ONE MILLION er or TWO HUNDRED pictures to download. Since it is my first full day back I decided best not to over exert myself sooo I shall instead rant or rave. I haven't decided yet. I bet you all missed me more than words can even express. I know I missed all of you. (lets be honest here. I didn't miss you that much. and I can even stomach the cold hard truth that perhaps I'm not the pinnacle of excitement in most of your lives but it's always nice to sugar coat the truth... just look at st.nick.... so I did miss you more than words could possibly express ** wink** **wink**)

My rant.

I have chosen (mostly by circumstance) to live in a desert... not to be mistaken for dessert (which is delicious but would be much to sticky to live in... although I have imagined it upon occasion) WHAT IS WITH ALL THE FRICKEN (YES i SAID IT) RAIN?

I am not a farmer. I have however learned to appreciate the beauty of a rainy DAY. I have NOT mastered my appreciation for rain SEASON in a non-rain season month. What I do appreciate is a sun filled vacation. A golden tan. Melty ice cream. SO SO many grasshopper guts on the front of a vehicle that it actually STINKS. I appreciate the NEED of ac and of swimming pools and other large bodies of water. I like summer. I know that I live in the great white north and that we may only get two months of "warm" weather out of 12 BUT COME ON. I will be writing a LENGTHY letter to the big guy just to let him know I EXPECT a reimbursement of my august.

I don't know if I have a rave. I feel it might be necessary to combat the negativeness of the post....

hmmm...

Well I don't know if this is positive of negative but maybe just something to chew on. I've been chewing on it.

I have been thinking a lot about people.This subject gets talked about it a lot and I'm not going to say anything profound of life altering. I've just noticed that through the course of my very short (don't want it to end anytime soon) life is that I get busy and I end up neglecting existing and potential relationships and then I end up feeling exhausted or lonely. I will then spend time seeking out a relationship to fill that void. Since graduating and moving through college portion and then through being newly married and now having two busy preschool kids I have find it more difficult to cultivate a "deep" connection to other people. It's something I think is so important to do. I think a lot of societal problems are because of a lack of connection we feel to our communities. My mothers voice in my head is saying, "Get involved". BUT I feel like I do. I feel like many of us get involve. BUT what I think still causes the lack of connection is our own personal guard. In my situation, of having children and being young while doing so, has made me feel very "out of touch" with other women my age who managed to stay "trendy" and who enjoy "freedoms" (etc. not worrying about two small children constantly). I feel this strain in my existing relationships with my sisters and friends who also either aren't married or are yet to have children. I also find myself guarding myself with other moms who have children the same age as mine. I feel like I end up talking in a "safe" zone. The farthest that relationship goes is parenting subjects and children activities. I feel like they (the other women) get to know and understand the parenting side of me BUT there is a lot more to me than that (I don't know what that is just yet... but I'll get back to you on that...;) ) BUT seriously that is the other problem I've encountered. In this early part of parenting I have found it EXTREMELY difficult to find a balance between myself and my kids. I still don't have it. It makes finding other people to connect with difficult. I know that this problem is encountered by both Men and Women and by people who DO and DON'T have children. Human Connection.... I hope I didn't bore you. It's just whats been on my mind.

Love

"God breathes and the beauty of nature is revealed,

You

are His

most beautiful creation

& I am left

breathless."
s. brown

The Lake.

The Hillbilly Hilton

Dusty prefers Redneck Toy hauler

We haul our quads or horses, all our camping supplies, AND we get to sleep in this baby!!!

Ellie getting ready to go quading.

Lucy decided to bump up the rating to PG.

The tree fort by Moose lake-

I actually think that it's called Deer lakes but whatever.

We have to stop here multiple times.

Turtles. There are loads and loads of turtles.

There are teeny tiny baby turtles.

Pretty fun to watch.

The kids don't really care.

This, however, they do care about.

Ellie LOVES the beach.

Not really the water.

She is getting better though.

Lucy is a fish.

I'm surprised she's not webbed or scaled.

We had to force her out of the water when her lips would turn blue and she couldn't stop chattering.


Everyone was sad when it was time to pack up.

Especially Dusty, since it was his turn to do the dishes!

Hi Ho HI Ho it's off to the Lake I go.....
tootles to you all.
I hope your jealous.
I would be.
I have 4 days of quading, swimming, tanning, farmers markets, etc.
AND 30 degree heat.

Adventure Part 2 and 3

It feels like tons has happened since this "little" road trip and now I'm going to have to catch-up.

Our destination for the road trip was Elk Lakes. We drove on a dirt road and it seriously just ended. I went to look at the sign at the end of the road and it said that lower Elk Lake was a 1 km walk and that upper Elk Lake was 3 km. We thought we'd see how the girls fared.

Ellie ran the entire 1st km. We stopped and threw rocks and let the dogs play. I thought it was neat to see the mouth of the Elk River. Lucy had enough of the walking business so we turned around to go back to the truck. They both whined the remainder of the walk. It was awesome. We got them to the truck and they slept.

We woke them up when we came across the most amazing camp place ever. We were driving a more back road then the one we took to Elk Lakes and we came across a clearing. It's at mile 153 on the power line road. It has a little creek that goes through it. There are horse corals and tons of places to hang food. There is also a cement pad. There is tons of room. I think it would be so much fun to group camp at this place. So much to do. We stopped to have supper. I think the girls were relieved to just be able to run and walk and just play. I think Dusty was just happy to eat. I think he thought I was starving him. What a guy.

I'm sure he'll love this picture going up.


You know it's been a good adventure when your children's faces are this dirty.

It was a fun trip. BUT I think I'll wait awhile before next time....

9 Hour Adventure- Part 1

Dusty and I decided to go to Elk lakes. It's a provincial park in the middle of

NOWHERE.

We had heard that it was pretty and that there was some great fishing.

We decided to take a gander.

We left our house at 12pm, hoping to stop somewhere and have a picnic lunch. About 130 we got to mile marker 120 and to the beautiful

Blue Lake

(that's actually it's name... I didn't make it up.

Although if I was going to make up a name for it I would of called it Blue lake.

It is crazy blue.

The pictures don't do it justice.)

The water is so shallow that it is actually warm. If you've ever swam in a mountain lake.... then you know that's AMAZING. The girls had so much fun throwing sticks to Ruby (my parents dog.. we were dog-sitting) and rocks and splashing.

Ellie got a little rambunctious and went in a little farther than her jeans would allow.

Dusty decided that it was fire time.





It was a great place to picnic. There are two campsites, only one with a picnic table and there's also an outhouse. We were the only people there. It was an awesome spot. A friend told us about this spot so I'm so glad we went out there.

Ruby was glad too. She kept trying to sneak off for a swim....

Naughty dog.

Belle also went for a dip but she preferred the picnic.

Eggless Peanut Butter Cookies

Eggless Peanut Butter Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1-1/2 cups shortening
1-1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
1-1/2 cups white sugar
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Lightly grease cookie sheets.
Mix the shortening, peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar and buttermilk until smooth and fully combined.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt to the peanut butter mixture and mix until well blended.
Drop cookies 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Flatten with a fork that has been dipped in flour.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes.

I got this recipe off of allrecipes.com

I've used it twice. The exact recipe comes out flaky and dry with a soft center.

I'll post the "tweaked recipe" it makes a soft chewy cookie.

Back with a Birthday

Oh my Gosh!

I feel like I've been out of the loop for AGES.

Seriously.

It speaks volumes to my Internet addiction.

I do everything on here. I check the weather, email, blog, news, everything.

Did you know Micheal Jackson died??

I'm sure you would have to be under a rock to not have heard it. I was under a rock today. i didn't find out until I checked my phone messages... thank-goodness my friend remembered the oh-so-primitive form of communication!!

Okay but seriously. SOOOO SOOO much stuff has happened in my life.

I'm going to start with the most important.....

Lucy's birthday.

She's two.

That's unbelievable.

This is my BIL. He brought a friend. She is now Lucy's best friend. She (the friend) fed Lucy smarties all afternoon.

The fastest way to Lucy's heart is Smarties.

(who doesn't like candy coated chocolate... everyone does...)

These are Dusty's Grandparents.

We love 'em.

we also love her.
and
she loves presents.


These are Baaaaaaa's and (whatever a panting sound is).
They were supposed to be cows.
Good thing she's two.


This Luc eatin' cake with my mum and dad.
They were leavin' on a jet plane so they had to come the day before.


Her party was fun. We had a great time. We're so thankful to all the people who could come and party with us. We're also really thankful for all the people who couldn't come (but really really wanted to be there)... oh shoot well I'm at it. I'm also really thankful for all the people who we know that didn't even want to come. We're just thankful for the lot of of y'all.
(I'm mostly thankful for those gosh-darn genius' that came up with this wonderful world wide web and computers)

My computer is broken. BUT when i'm back i have A LOT to say.