Rock On!

Lennard took the day off work so we could put more rock up.  We got so much done and it’s looking so good!  I love it!

Another Year and Fun Times Together

Well, we’ve made it another year!  It was our 14th wedding anniversary yesterday.  We didn’t do anything crazy, but (thanks to my mom and dad) we had a wonderful evening all to ourselves.  They even took the kids to sleep at their house, so we got a whole night’s sleep without interruption too! 

This morning when I went to get the kids, I decided to keep driving and go to Waterton with them.  We had such a fun time!  We went for a ‘hike’ and walked around Linnet Lake, had a ‘pic-nic’ of cheese strings, grapes and crackers and threw rocks in the lake.  Emma even went for a dip in the lake!  We couldn’t have had a more beautiful morning to just play and have fun together.  Definitely the best way to spend a morning!

     

Tonight we got to babysit my nephew, Jeffrey, while his parents went to the temple.  To say that our kids were excited to have a baby in the house would be an understatement.  They were such good helpers!

Family Pictures

I heard of a gal on Facebook that was going to be taking family photos for a very good price… so I booked her to do ours!  I’m so glad that I did too.  She was SO good with the kids.  I was quite amazed at how well they did most of the evening.  By the end they wouldn’t cooperate, but by then we’d been taking pictures for almost two hours!  Unfortunately, Emma wouldn’t smile in a bunch of the pictures, but we got a few.  She also doesn’t look AT the camera very often, so it was tricky.

Note:  Even though we didn’t get the pictures until a few weeks after this, I decided to just post them here. Enjoy!

          

Big Changes

For the past three years (almost), I have been the Stake Bulletin Rep.  Translation:  compile all the e-mails from around the area that need to go in bulletins and send out an e-mail to all the ward reps once a week. When I had two tiny babies this was the ideal calling, but lately I've felt a little under-used.  I loved not having to worry about finding subs, but it's definitely been a very solitary calling.

Having said all that, when I got called to meet with the bishop two weeks ago, I was completely shocked to hear that they were going to be calling me as the new Primary President!  Yikes!  Talk about a change.

I was handed a photocopied section on Primary from the handbook, a ward list and the assignment to pick counselors and a secretary.  The next few days were spent pouring over the list, narrowing down names and praying that I would find the right people to support me in this calling.  To make matters even more interesting, the bishopric was also changing the Relief Society and Young Women presidencies at the same time!  Amazingly with all the names submitted, there was only one name that two organizations wanted... and I got her!

Church today was a bit surreal.  As Sunday School ended and we started to head in to Sacrament meeting, I felt like I was in a dream.  Pretty soon the Bishop stood up and started reading off names of all the people that were being released from callings... there were 28!  Then came time for all the new callings.  The Bishop got a bit choked up as he talked about how change is good and how these new presidencies will help the ward grow.  The new Relief Society presidency (4) was then announced and then Primary (4) and then Young Women's (11).  It was an interesting feeling standing there as all the names were being called.  It's been a long time since I've been in a presidency (since we lived in Fredericton!).

I was a little shocked at the number of women called into Young Women as it makes finding new Primary teachers a bit more challenging, but at the same time, I'm excited to see all the changes that are taking place and curious to see how it's all going to work in the future.  This coming weekend will be a bit 'interesting' as not only do we need to find teachers for nursery and Sunbeams, but it's a long weekend, so I'm sure there will be other teachers gone too!

I met with the past president tonight and got a brief overview of all the various programs that I am now responsible for overseeing.  It's a little overwhelming how large Primary really is!  Not only to you have the Sunday classes to oversee, there is Sharing Time, Set up, Conducting, Activity Day girls, Cubs, 11-yr old Scouts, Baptisms, Priesthood Preview, Ward Counsel meetings, presidency meetings, Stake Training, Primary Presentation etc.  I'm SO glad that I have good counselors to help with all this!

We meet as a presidency for the first time tomorrow afternoon, so I'm really hoping that we can come up with a game plan for at least this coming Sunday.  We're going to have to get going on the Primary Presentation by the week after that as it is already scheduled for the 22nd of September!  It's going to be busy!  A little different than sending out an e-mail once a week (which I'm still doing for now!).

Playing in the Creek

Just before lunch today I got a text message from my friend, Shannon, asking if we wanted to go play in the creek on their land this afternoon. At first I thought, no way… it’s naptime!  But then I decided that it wouldn’t kill the kids to skip their naps, and I was definitely ready to have some adult conversation!  We had lunch, loaded up, did a few errands and then it was time to head out.  The kids were SO excited!  Unfortunately, as it really was naptime, Ben fell asleep in the van before we got there and ended up sleeping the almost the entire time.  Guess he was tired!

Another friend, Mishel, came with her kids too, so there were lots of kids to play with!  Emma discovered that walking on creek rocks isn’t as easy as the sandy beach.  It was nice that there were a bunch of little girls for her to play with.  I ended up in the creek quite a bit and since it was such a nice day it felt good.

We were there until about 3:30 and then headed home to see if we could help Lennard with the house.  Of course, Emma fell asleep on the way home, so we opened all the windows on the van and just let her sleep while Lennard worked on finishing up the siding that needed fixed above the front entry.

Family Time

We had a busy morning around the house.  While I worked on laundry and cleaning up in the house, Lennard worked on getting the rest of the scratch coat onto the front entry.  It was hard work and by the time he got done he was definitely feeling it.  His arm was so sore!  I managed to get the lawns mowed while he was working on the house and then we all crashed after lunch for a much needed rest!

 

Emma and Ben decided that daddy needed some helpers.  I ended up washing Emma’s hands multiple times… and her shoes, when she decided that they needed to be ‘painted’.  Ben was just happy carting around tools!

After our late naps, we headed out to Mountain View and had dinner with my mom and dad and then headed to Waterton to play at the lake. 

  

We stopped at Cameron Falls.  I managed to get a couple pictures of them, though Emma was NOT going to let go of Lennard!  Ben was more than happy to hang out. 

 

They informed us that we needed to ‘climb a mountain’, but since it was later in the day we decided that the ‘hike’ to the overlook of Cameron Falls would have to work instead! 

We then had to head down to the lake to throw rocks.  Emma wasn’t content to stay on the shore and got soaked (Brrr!)  I really was there too, just always behind the camera… gotta work on that!  We finished off the evening by getting ice cream at the Barn Store and playing on the playground at the school in Mountain View.  It was a great way to spend the evening together.

Playing at Wally’s Beach

When Lennard got home from work we should have started working on the scratch coat, but we decided to go to the beach instead!  So much more fun!  Emma LOVED it and was in the water almost the entire time.  Ben… well, he took a little convincing.  He warmed up to it though and had fun digging in the sand.  We had a picnic dinner of ham sandwiches, carrot sticks and chips.  It was the perfect way to spend an evening. 

     

When we got home from the beach, Lennard got going on the scratch coat and got two sides done.

Getting Started

Lennard already fixed the siding that was broken on below the windows and so tonight was the start of the rock project.  We removed the siding (lots of it was broken from the hail) on the front entry and got the wire mesh stapled on and ready for the scratch coat to go on.

Kodiak Mountain Stone

We have gone back and forth a number of times as to what we should do with the exterior of our house.  The hail storm last year wrecked a bunch of the siding.  Lennard has always wanted to do stucco, but I am fine with the siding… especially when I look at the budget!  We finally decided to fix the pieces of siding that were broken and then put rock up along the bottom of the house and around the new entryway. 

Lennard got off work a half hour early, we loaded up the kids and headed in to Lethbridge.  Then came the ‘fun’ of trying to decide what kind of rock!  We finally decided on the color, but Lennard liked one profile and I liked another.  After a while, we made the decision… and picked the one I liked!  It took a while to get everything figured out and then loaded, so the kids were pretty tired of sitting around. 

We ended up having to have my parents come with their truck to put half the rock in their truck.  Each pallet was 1400 pounds! 

We took mom and dad out for dinner to say thanks for helping us out and then headed home.  By the time we got there, they had already unloaded their truck and then helped us unload ours.  This will definitely be a fun project!

High School Reunion and Family Campout

It has been a busy weekend.  Lennard and I dropped the kids off at about 4:30 with mom and dad at the airport and then headed back in to Town for my 20th high school reunion dinner.  It was a bit bizarre seeing some of the people I went to high school with… I was very glad for name tags!  We didn’t have as many people there as I had hoped, but it was nice to sit and visit with a few of them and have a good dinner. 

We ducked out at about 8:30 and headed out to the airport to take in a bit of my family campout that was happening at the same time!  The kids were having a blast with their cousins.  We got to visit for a bit, but then the kids were so overtired that we decided to put them to bed.  What a nightmare.  They screamed (literally) for 45 minutes!  By the time they finally gave up, Lennard and I were done.  We just went to bed and missed out on the card playing in the hangar.  (Darn it.) 

Mom made breakfast for everyone in the morning and then we headed in to Town for the parade.  I had to be on our reunion float, so Lennard took the kids to our usual spot while I hung out with my high school friends.  I was amazed how many people there were out for the parade!  I ran out of candy about 3/4 of the way through.  Lennard didn’t manage to get any pictures of the float as he was busy chasing kids. 

This picture was taken before a bunch more showed up… this is a few of us anyways!  I’m in the back row.

After the parade was done, we all headed back to the airport for lunch.  We had beef on a bun, corn on the cob, etc.  Yum.  Once again, the kids were overtired and so our ‘fun’ was cut short.  We missed out on the treasure hunt and visiting when we took the kids home for naps.  A little frustrating to miss out on family time, but the kids definitely needed to sleep!

My nephew, Will.  Such a cute boy!  Grandpa helping Emma draw something.

I didn’t get very many pictures, so I’m hoping to snag some off my sisters and then I can add more!