Dakota's 9th Birthday

My sweet Dakota turned 9 this year!  She got to go out with Grandma and Grandpa on a date, also with her cousin Holli who almost shares the same birthday! (One day after).  They chose to go get manicures and Pedicures!  They had a blast!

 And then of course, we threw her a birthday party as well!  She had a bunch of her friends come over to our house for pizza, cake and presents, and then we drove them all over to Laserquest where they got to play a few games!  They had a lot of fun together.  Little girls can be so loud and giggly! :)  They were cute though!  She has such a nice group of her girls her age.

Crazy September Snowfall!

Shortly after school started, like we are talking the second week of September, we had a huge freakish snowstorm!  I have never seen anything like it!  It started out small and I figured it wouldn't actually be enough to stick to the ground.  But boy was I ever wrong.  It just kept coming and coming.  It was such wet heavy snow, and all the trees still had all their leaves so the snow sat on the tree branches and totally bent over and broke many trees.  It was quite sad actually. But the kids had a great time playing in the snow, it was kind of a fun surprise for them since it was so unexpected! 

 And Lee helped them make a HUGE snowman!  They were so proud!

 And here's a classic picture of Scarlett, running around in just her undies (backwards and barely covering her bum, no less) and out playing in the snow!  It is really hard to keep clothes on this girl!

Back to School

It was a sad and happy day to go back to school this year!  I will miss my kiddos but it's also nice to get back into a routine.  Mason started grade 5 this year, and Dakota grade 4 at Fish Creek School

 And Griffin started Grade 1 at Chaparral School.  Sad that he's at a separate school all by himself, but it doesn't seem to bother him!  He has a lot of friends there!

 And poor little Scarlett has to spend all day alone with me now!  She sure wished she was going to school too!

Some Fun Date Nights

So Lee and I had signed up to do the Neon Run in September with a few friends, but because of his knee, he wasn't able to run it with me.  Luckily, my awesome sister was able to take his place!  It was actually quite a fun run!  It was just 5K, and at night so we ran in the dark and they threw glowing powder at us.  It was kinda fun to get dressed up in Neon glow stuff too!

 We had a few other fun date nights, going Hunting together!  I got more into it this year, signed up for my own WIN card and tags and went a few times with Lee and the boys!  And this year I actually got some birds!  Lee smeared the blood of my first kill on my face and made me wring the duck's neck to kill him all the way since he was still alive... that part was kinda gross!  But overall, hunting was a big rush, and we had a great time!  I also went hunting for partridge one day too, which turned out to be my favorite kind of hunt! They all fly up out of the ground all of a sudden, and you just try to shoot as many as you can!  It's fun to have a hobby I can do with Lee.

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.