1st - Canada's birthday. It is also the birthday of the town of Raymond - my hometown. It is such a fun time to be home - there are so many people around and lots of fun activities and family traditions.Our trip to and from Canada was LONG - yes, we drove - but the visit went by so quickly. With so much family to see it always seems way too short.
One of our favorite things we did was eat at Chopstix, Jeramy's dad Gary's new restaurant in Lethbridge. It is similar to a Panda Express, which is not in Canada, but much yummier. Not only is the food better, but also the decor and Chopstix has a drive-thru. After eating there two times, mine and Jeramy's unanimous decision for best dish goes to Lemon Chicken!
Another -errr- memorable thing we did was have family pictures done. It did not go well! Ten minutes into the session we were getting eaten alive by the mosquitos and Ella was having a meltdown, despire numerous bribes involving ice cream and Polly Pockets. A little while later both kids fell asleep, which was actually quite cute. It will be a miracle if we get a decent family picture. The girl who did our photos, Rebecca Cooper, does amazing work so I'm optimistic that at least something turned out - stay tuned......
We also had a chance to go to Ridge Lake with Jeramy's dad, Bryan . He brought out the boat and we had a great time tubing (after waiting in the cars for an hour for the rain and lightning to clear). Ella was a maniac in the tube and was constantly giving Bryan the thumbs up to go faster.
As for my little snuggle-bug, Finn, he just burrowed down into his life jacket and took a snooze.
One of my favorite things about the trip was the fact that I did the Raymond 10k! Despite planning on doing the race for about3 or 4 months, I only ran about 5 or 6 times prior to the race and my longest run in training was 4 miles. Needless to say, I felt a little unprepared for the run. But on race day me, my sister Kim and my sister-in-law Jessica were there ready to run. I ended up running every step of the race with a finish time of 1:08 - which I realize is slow at an11-min pace but I was just happy to finish!
A few hours after the race we ended up going up to Waterton with my family. Whenever we go home, Waterton is a MUST in my books! Even if it is almost always windy it is still great to go. While there we stopped at Cameron Falls, had lunch at one of the camp kitchens, drove up to Cameron Lake and a did a short little hike with the kids. On the way down from Cameron Lake, Jeramy and I stopped at "our rock "and took a few pictures. The picture we ended up using for our wedding announcement was taken on the rock - fourteen years ago! YIKES! Now every time we go up to the lake, we stop and take a picture.
After our pictures we headed back down to the townsite for some ice cream at Big Scoop - a must do!
We were able to visit with my good friend Melissa McKendrick at her parents home in Welling. It was so great to visit. While we were inside visiting, they got the horses out so the kids had a chance to ride a shetland pony. Ella was in heaven! Finn seemed to have a good time too!
On our last day of Canada was the Raymond parade. Such a fun tradition - especially now with all the little ones. It was rainy at the beginning but turned out to be a nice day. After the parade we all went to my parents house - grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles, counsins, etc. to eat and visit for the afternoon. It was great to catch up with everyone. The evening, and our trip, ended with fireworks. The next morning it was back on road back to Colorado. Now that the drive is a behind us, it was a great trip and we look forward to next year!
