Dreaming of the sun

Yes, this has been a most dreary and wet month. All we got in July was sun, sun, sun, making the clouds so dreadfully jealous that they took August hostage. What I wouldn't give for an Indian summer in September. Wouldn't it be lovely to just have to get out of the house because the weather won't let you stay in? So, I'm starting a petition. I don't know how many signatures God needs for a change in weather, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I've about had it up to here with mushrooms growing on my lawn.

The brain of a 3-year-old

Titus' birthday is coming up soon and we were talking about birthdays in the truck. He was wondering if he would ever have any more birthdays.

"Of course you will," Ethan replied. "You keep having birthdays until you die!" All was silent for a minute, and then a heart wrenching cry started in the back seat.

" What's wrong, Titus?" I asked.

"I don't want to die on my birthday!" he got out between sobs. As of today, he is still making sure that he will not die on his birthday. Poor little guy!

Wrapping things up

I'm getting a little bored regaling you with holiday stories, so I'm going to end off with a quick recap. After Revelstoke we ended up in Salmon Arm for some water skiing and sitting by the lake. We then travelled down to Kelowna for a family reunion that was a lot of fun. So nice to see my cousins and uncles and aunts and my grandma! Also very hot there - we sure used that air conditioner in the trailer. As per family rules, we did the required go-cart racing. I was second over all the cousins, and quite proud of that. Luke didn't count as a cousin, he competed in the highly professional uncle division and came so close to the top! After Kelowna we drove to Calgary/Okotoks for some visiting of friends and family. We then went to Edmonton for a day of West Edmonton Mall fun (the kids all agreed that this was the best part of vacation!). Rides, waterslides - can life get better than this? We then wound our way home a few days early because I was starting to get a little homesick.

The next week, Caleb went to camp for the very first time. So scary for me! Luckily our church was in charge of the cooking for that week, so I spent a day out there in the kitchen and made sure he was doing OK. After that week, the days have been spent in summer-like pasttimes. Swimming lessons, pickle making, drag race watching, etc. Now I'm all caught up! Hopefully I'll have something current to share with you next time.

The Wind

An interruption in my regularly scheduled broadcast - a commercial titled The Wind. I wish I was the wind...

Next Stop - Revelstoke

We meandered our way to Revelstoke to visit Dan and Jocelyne and their baby girl. I have never met a happier, more content baby in my entire life. Nyola is such a doll! Of course, we went swimming, hiking, swimming, canoeing, and swimming (can you see a pattern emerging?). It was pretty hot and we were again grateful for the air conditioned camper! We traded babysitting with Dan and Joce - I think we got the easier part of the bargain. If a person isn't use to all the energy that three strapping boys can produce, it can be a little overwhelming. It was nice to go out for supper with just Luke. It doesn't actually happen all that often. Dan and Joce, thanks. We had such fun at your place!

*This is just an aside for my dear brother-in-law Ken. If you guys are going to have another baby, that's great. However, you are sadly mistaken if you think I'm going to keep calling everytime you leave a comment with the implication that the next Krahn is coming!

On To Invermere

After we left Grande Cache we headed out to Invermere. Talk about nice and hot! We stayed in a beautiful campground and spent time with some friends from Rainbow Lake. Curtis took Luke and I on flights with his ultralight plane. So awesome!! Only two people can fly at a time; the pilot and one passenger. It was pretty tight quarters! Curt took the plane up to 8500 feet when I was with him - we could see so many mountain tops! I only wish I could have brought my camera. He advised against it because of the wind - if it blew off it would fly right into the motor. Not good at 8500 feet.

Luke and Curt went golfing so Erin and I took the boys mini-golfing (they wore their golf shirts - so funny!). Big mistake; it was 38 degrees Celcius. We told the kids that girls only golf 15 holes in mini-golf. I think they believed us. After ice cream we went and had a big steak supper at Curtis and Erin's place with a few other former Rainbow Lake residents. Ethan managed to contract a serious case of heat stroke and spent the evening throwing up and sleeping in front of the fan (poor guy).

We had such a nice time, and were very grateful that we had rented a trailer with air conditioning! That campground ended up being the nicest one we stayed in for the entire trip. Thanks, Curtis and Erin (and Bernice, the nicest, most kid-friendly St. Bernard I've ever known)!

Hello again!

Yes, I am still alive. July seems to have flown by, what with all the vacationing and post-vacation laundry and jam-making and ... well, you see the way my life has been. July just wasn't the month for blogging. It did give me quite a few things to blog about though, so without further ado...

We had been planning on leaving on Thursday (July 5th) so that Luke could help me pack for a day before racing off to British Columbia. Of course, planning and this family generally part ways at some point, and we ended up leaving Tuesday night after Luke got home from work. We were renting a trailer, so we packed all our clothes, pots, pans, camping gear, firewood, and groceries into the Suburban to take to the rental place. Luke was the only one who could get into the 'burb without some major manuevering. The rest of us had piles of food, books, backpacks, etc. at our feet. A bit of a stuffy drive, if I do say so myself. Of course, no picture. I was just a wee bit too frazzled to be thinking about such things at the time. It was our hope to make it to Grande Cache and camp there for the night, which was only a two hour drive - what could go wrong?

We only had fifteen minutes to go when we saw the elk standing in front of us. Luke hit the brakes and we narrowly missed getting our front end smashed to bits. A mile down the road we came across a truck that hadn't been so lucky. The elk had come over the hood and broken in the windshield before sliding off and dying. We stopped and Luke helped drag the elk off the road. Being in the mountains, we had no cell service to phone an ambulance, so we brought one of the men whose face had been cut up into our trailer and tended to him. Both of the guys were in a bit of shock. We were there almost an hour when a police car came on the scene and took charge. We stayed for another hour and loaded the luggage and speakers from the truck into our trailer to take to Grande Cache for them. It was 2 in the morning by the time we got to town - we stayed in the mall parking lot that first night with a reassurance from the police that if anyone tried to bother us we were to tell them to phone the police station and it would be taken care of. What a way to start a holiday!