Oh Happy Day

Random things on a great Friday:

* I found my wedding rings. I'm ashamed to admit I even lost them. I won't even tell you how long they were missing, but it was long enough that I started looking on Ebay for exact replicas.

* Today I am so thankful for great friends and their great kids, who make it feel like we have family close by when we really don't.

*Hayley is absolutely in LOVE with Kindergarten. I am convinced that Kindergarten is what this gal has been waiting for her entire life. It makes sending my baby off to school alot easier when she is so happy to be there.

*My house is spotless right now. I kid you not. It's a product of having both kids in school. I could get used to this.

*Where we live it's a great time of year to see bears right now. Here in town a mama bear with 3 cubs have been hanging around we finally got to see 2 of the baby bear cubs. These are Spirit Bears, which are very rare and I'm feeling lucky to have watched these little guys...from the safety of my vehicle...

*Carter lost one top tooth, and the other is hanging by a thread. He looks absolutely adorable and we've been calling him "Toothless" like on that movie "How To Train Your Dragon".

*Today was Picture Day at school. After I sent the kids off I realized that Carter wore the same thing to school pictures 2 years in a row. At least I know THAT shirt went to good use.

*I remembered garbage day!!!!!

*Tomorrow morning our family will be heading on a much-awaited vacation that involves this:

and this:

and lots of this:

I'll update again in 10 days...if we decide to come home :)

Five.

Five years ago today, this squishy-faced little baby girl completed our family.

She made quite the entrance: came out of the womb screaming and proceeded to scream for 2 1/2 hours. That's kinda like her entire life - not the screaming part - but she makes her presence known. When people first meet her she acts quite shy and reserved, but in reality she is our completely off-the-wall, crazy, fun, dramatic, spunky spitfire.

She wanted to have a Mermaid and Pirate party.

We played "Pin the Patch on the Pirate"

Ate some lunch and cake with all our friends

She requested a mermaid cake (it looked less creepy in real life, I promise)

Opened some presents

And did a treasure hunt outside with our pirate maps to find the "buried treasure" aka Treat Bags

Happy Birthday baby girl! We're excited you're 5 now...but that's it, okay? Stop growing up so darn fast!

White Trash Awesome-ness!

It's been forever and a day since I blogged. We have been busy. Between adjusting to a new school year, a busy time at work for Jared, and this incident in our little community... our thoughts and efforts have been preoccupied.

A couple weekends ago we went to the Smash Up Derby in Fernie. We went for the first time last year and absolutely loved it. Basically there's a bunch of vehicles, they crash into each other, and the "last man standing", so to speak, is crowned the winner.

First round of cars lining up.....

...during...

(I love that there's a random tire laying off to the side)

We watch the cars demolish each other, get pelted with mud, and everyone cheers!

Some after shots:

It was awesome! Next time we'll come more prepared though...by wearing our wife-beaters and possum hats. We stuck out like sore thumbs ;)

First Day of School

Today we sent our babies off to school. Carter started Grade 2 and Hayley started Kindergarten. They were both so excited and nervous leading up to it. Here's a picture before we hopped in the car to go: (not sure why Carter's making such a silly face)

And here's another picture at the school:

The best part of the whole day was watching little Hayley carrying around this HUGE backpack, haha. Someday she'll grow...we think.

Stay tuned for pictures of the first bus ride tomorrow...

Elk Lakes

On Saturday we took a drive up to Elk Lakes Provincial Park. It's about 70 km north of our town and it's BEAUTIFUL, however the drive sucks. It's a dirt road that is not maintained so we don't drive there that often. Once you get there, you can do a few different hikes to various lakes/waterfalls/mountains/etc.

We hiked to the Lower Lake with the kids. Pretty neat because this glacier lake is what forms the mouth of the Elk River. Even though it's a glacier lake the kids decided it wasn't too cold to dip their feet in.

We played there for awhile...until Hayley fell into the lake. Yep, she wasn't too pleased. Good thing she had mom's extra hoodie to use as a makeshift dress :)

Needless to say that ended our time at Elk Lakes. It was a fun little adventure there and we plan to go back soon....maybe even to do some real wilderness camping!