Tuesday, August 31, 2010

splashie jr

In high school I joined the swim team. I was no good, but I had two friends on it so it was fun. My nickname was Splashie, cause no matter how hard I tried, I was a slow moving splash.

Miss mini-me has earned her rights to that name tonight. I turned on the bathtub water just after coming in from a dinner at the school. I wanted the boys to have a quick bath before bed. I was on the phone and a little distracted, and came back into the bathroom to find this:




That's not how a bath is meant to be, but she sure looks like she is having fun.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

new calling

Josh and I got new callings today. We are pretty excited. The ward here is starting to feel familiar as the faces start to be replaced with names and such.

Josh is the High Priest group secretary. We sort of laugh a bit at that. I didn't even know they had one of those.... then again there are 36 HP in the ward, so that is quite a few people to keep track of.

I am 2nd councilor in YWs. It'll be really fun. There are 30 YW or so, so maybe my job will be easier than Josh's. Next week our ward is having a joint meeting with 2 other wards in the area, so maybe my calling will be gone before I know it????

PS. I can see my home teacher's house from my front window. And my visiting teacher's if I look the other way. HA!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

back and gone again

After spending a fun week in Montana, the kids and I headed to Calgary to spend some time - seeing as we haven't really been there at all since Christmas. Monday we went to Calaway Park, something they have never done before. It was most definitely a big hit. Tuesday we went to the zoo. That was fun, too, but we stayed too long and should have left before few kids no longer had legs to stand on. And leaving the zoo at 5pm to take Deerfoot south???? What on earth was I thinking? Tuesday night was a cousin's birthday party. Yesterday I got to leave the kids ALL DAY and go hiking in Kananaskis. It was so fun to go and do a real hike and enjoy the outdoors and lack of diapers.

Today? I am recuperating. Hopefully I can learn to make crabapple jelly tonight.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

things to remember lest I forget

Living in an empty house really helped us to move and not look back remorsefully. Of course I miss the people in Saskatoon and our ward, but having nothing to do all day every day sure helped ease the ripping up of the root action while we transplanted to a new home.
Uncle Kyle did manage to save the day by bringing by old school toys of his that his mom had saved. Levi and Enoch enjoyed setting up GI Joes and taking pictures. I have a million on my camera.


I thought I got a picture of our meal area, but now that I looked for it I couldn't find it. We had two coolers next to an old end table for the boys, Monet in a borrowed high chair, and Josh and I stood to eat. every. meal. for. 2. weeks. Well, almost - we had nice friend invites for lunch or dinner sometimes. If they only knew the novelty we enjoyed of sitting down to eat......

We had fun at the Magrath parade. I cant believe the small town candy you get at these things!




Going to Writing On Stone provincial park was lots of fun. It was nice to go out with girls from my new ward and get to know them a but better- well, as good as you can with 28 kids running around. My favorite is that Enoch insisted on wearing his gumboots. Nothing could convince him otherwise.


Friday, August 20, 2010

stonelings are back

We just spent a fun week in Montana. My parents rented a cabin on Flathead lake, and we got to spend the week swimming, shopping, playing, snorkeling, sea-dooing, and everything but sleeping. (Note to self - a king size bed can never be replaced by anything smaller and still grant the same amount of sleep).

Enoch celebrated his 4th birthday while we were there. In the morning he informed me that now that he was four, he would no longer whine. He kept it up for a few hours at least - but since turning four he has decided that he actually does know how to do up his own seat belt. We could never ever get him to do that before, although we had our suspicions.

Meanwhile at home we have discovered that we have some chokecherry trees that are nice and ripe. Oh, and so are the crabapples and the sour cherries. I am headed to Calgary tomorrow but plan to bring a lot of fruit, so unless you want to pit cherries, you might want to avoid me if you live there.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

still alive

It has been awhile since my last post. Probably a record for me. Nothing like a move to keep one away from the computer. (Also, because we didn't have the internet for 2 weeks after we moved, rural internet is surprisingly pricey, I now see why so many get dial up).
Here is a recap of that has been going on.

Obviously, we are no longer the Saskastones. We are now is Stirling. I don't have anything quite as cute to call us. Any ideas?

We have removed the trees in front of the house under the window. You can now even see a door! I have also spent HOURS weeding a little flower garden in the backyard. Apparently grass is really really persistent. I have made 2 kinds of saskatoon jam (one is good and one not so good), homemade cherry pie from my own cherries, saskatoon muffins with fresh ground wheat and have plans for making some cherry preserves tonight. We are lucky to have so much fruit, but for some reason the people who planted all these trees planted no raspberries. Hopefully I will have some of those in the future.

The kids and I went to windermere for half a week. There were 9 kids and 3 moms. Not the numbers for a very relaxing vacation, but it was so fun to hang with such amazing friends and see our own kids learn to make friends with eachother.

We have been swimming at the Stirling pool a few times. It is almost like having a pool in the back yard. Not quite- but almost. We are really enjoying it. We went to a Southern Alberta parade and got lots of candy. We went to Writing on Stone provincial park.

Lots of family has come for visits. That is probably the best of everything. It is so nice to actually see people. Aside from my in-laws, no one made regular visits out to Saskabush. I guess trips here are more fun- especially when you can find dead, petrified fowl in the barn!

I competed in my first triathlon in Raymond. It was supremely awesome. I definitely plan on doing more of those in the future.

I think that is about it. We have spend hours and hours and hours in our yard. It is big and overgrown and hopefully overtime we can tame it a bit. Josh loves his new mower more than I would have ever guessed.

Check out these before and afters.