Before we knew it, Summer was coming to an end!

The Summer breezed by, as usual!  But it was a great one.  We had lots of fun time together as a family, and made use of our lake and beach right here in Chaparral.  The kids were all old enough to enjoy playing with their friends right here on the street as well.  Even Scarlett would ride her Strider bike up and down the street with the rest of the gang!  We are lucky to live on a street with so many kids!  They have so much fun.  The main thing our kids got into this Summer, was to play Bump (a basketball game)!  They would literally play it for hours with their friends and the neighborhood kids.  It was great for them to practice their basketball skills a bit too! :)  We also put the older 2 in a basketball camp for one week as well.  Heres a picture of one of the infamous games!  Griffin is even in his PJs since they play right up until bedtime most nights!

One day Jeff and Jocelyn organized a family picnic at Fish Creek park.  It was a very fun visit for the cousins!  I love the picture of all the girls together, they just love each other so much!

 And Griffin found a grasshopper!  Pretty cool.  Check out his long hair! Time for a cut!!

 Jeff took us to a cool sewer tunnel thing that they could walk through and explore!  The kids thought it was pretty neat.  Or at least, most of them did!  Mason wouldnt go near it. LOL.

We also had a fun surprise one day when the fireman came to visit and educate our street, and they invited us to come and sit in their fire truck!  Lucky lucky!!

Family Pictures and Bad News

We took family photos again this year with my fabulous sister in law, Kim Loewen!

Shes so talented!  This year wasnt such a great experience, however, due to unforeseen circumstances!  She was passing through Calgary with her kids on the way to her cabin and agreed to stay with us and take photos.  The day of the photos it was raining, which was a pain since we had to try to take photos in shaded places from the rain, and it made Scarletts cute curls all fall down.  But the worst thing that happened was that Kim received a phone call from Cody on the way to the photos and he was very emotional as he told her he was at the hospital with Karins 17 year old son Jordan who had suffered from a brain aneurysm and stroke and was going into surgery and fighting for his life.  We had no idea what was going to happen and we all felt sick about it.  We were waiting to hear an update from Cody to see if Jordan was going to be okay.  We didnt really feel right about taking photos and putting on a fake smile when we were feeling so scared for him and his family.  But decided we might as well try to take some since we were all there and ready and had nothing else to do while we waited.  So our photos were definitely not a joyful occasion this year, but somehow Kim managed to snap a few good ones!!

As for Jordan, he miraculously pulled through the surgery and woke up from his coma within a few days.  All the doctors were surprised he had survived and done as well as he did. We believe it was many prayers and priesthood blessings.  He was not able to speak or do much when he woke up, but he is gradually improving and re-learning to do things through a lot of rehab.  He has a very long road to recovery, but we are all hopeful that he will make a near full recovery.  It is sure scary to think that someones life can change so drastically in an instant.  Makes us all appreciate the life we have.  Thank goodness for the gospel and the perspective it gives us all too.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite photos:

Our Junior Spartans

After Lee and I loved our Spartan race so much, we decided to sign the kids up for the Junior Spartan in Calgary this August.  They were THRILLED at the idea of doing one, and Mason and Dakota even set up their own training schedules so that they could get ready for it! It was pretty cute actually.

It turned out the race was not nearly as hard as we expected it to be, so the kids had no trouble at all.  They had a blast doing it though, and felt pretty proud of themselves.  They had a couple friends who also ran it too.

Scarlett, my baby, turns 3!!

I can't even remember what my life was like before the craziest little girl I have ever met entered it, yet it is also SO hard to believe that this little baby of mine has already turned 3!!

Happy Birthday to this little bundle of energy who has brought me so much joy and puts a smile on my face every single day!  She is loud, physical, and we sometimes wonder if she was meant to be a boy, but she can also be so loving and sweet too.  She is definitely more work than my other 3 children combined, but also so much fun and I'm so grateful to have her!  

We decided just to have a family birthday party for her this year, so we did a "Minion" themed party since she loves the Despicable Me movies so much! She thought the minion goggles on all of us was pretty funny!  We had dinner, cake and presents and then we all went to the movie theatre to watch Rio 2.  She absolutely loves going to the theatre and as soon as the movie was over she yelled, "AGAIN!!"  What a cutie.  She was also pretty thrilled at the idea of opening presents, and every day after her birthday, she asked for it to be her birthday again.