Trip to St. Albert!

I figured the St. Albert trip needed a post all to itself.  The day after the girls finished their RBG camp, we did our typical wake up at some disgusting hour, pull the kids out of bed and drive to the airport.  The journey to Edmonton was fairly uneventful, which is amazing.  Henry was tired from the early wake up and had a small nap on the plane.   He has his own seat now which is great in terms of the extra space! (and not to mention that there was a spare seat beside Mike and Rose--this makes no sense to me as they tried to upgrade mike to business class, and then he had to give his upgrade to someone else.  So bizarre to try to do that to a person travelling with their family! And then all of a sudden there was an extra seat. odd)  Henry didn't want to wear a seat belt very much, but he enjoyed the plane touching the ground when it landed so much that he wanted to keep going and demanded to put his seat belt back on.  Go figure.

I am coming back to finish this post many months after the trip! (I am so behind!).  So if there were any funny anecdotes to record, I cannot remember!

We had a great time in St. Albert, minus the less than stellar weather.  The kids still managed to play outside quite a bit, even in the water, so it wasn't too bad....just way colder than at home!!  When I asked the girls what they wanted to do at Lizzy's house they both said "Galaxy Land", so we made sure to fit that in.  We also drove to Marilyn and Hal's cottage at Pigeon Lake for some relaxing and boating.

Summer of fun!

A few summer activities!

A visit to the cottage with Aunt Robin and Aunt Mary Jo:

 Lounging in Mommy's chair:

The night I took the kids to DQ for dinner and ice cream.  40 degrees out.  Rose had been at gymnastics where there is no air conditioning.  It was very hard to get all the food for 3 kids and use the washroom, etc. at the DQ on a busy hot night.  Not the best idea in retrospect...

So so so sticky and dirty.

Daddy's birthday:

"A Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets!" (Yeti Roadie)

Fishing at Grandma and Grandpa's Fishing club:

Spring ridge farm with Claire and Bradford:

Second day of camp at RBG.  Paige was in Science Camp (complete with one night of sleepover), and Rose was at bug camp.  They both had a good time.  Rose's favourite part was the daily canoeing.  Paige was really looking forward to the sleepover, and i think she had a fun time, but there was rain in the forecast so they just slept in the building instead of the tents.  She was super bummed out about that, and apparently ate 3 hot dogs for dinner, which made her feel sick.  And she was TIRED the next day.  As I had to still do off and pick up Rose I got to check in on Paige who said "I'm SO tired".

On August 27 we had a little "1 year to go!" Disney Cruise count down party.  I put up decorations the night before to surprise the kids and then we baked a cake.

Henry wrapped up like a present after a swim:

Swimming in the lake to bring the summer to a close.  One final cottage trip and then home for a day to get ready before school started.

Girls weekend

In July I went on a girls weekend in Toronto with Katharine and Christy.  We stayed in a massive suite at the Royal York.  It was so big that we laughed hysterically about it for a good 10 minutes.  Mike had a coupon for a free night in a suite, which is why we went so crazy.  

The picture below shows Katharine in her "sleeping area".  After a big hassle with the concierge we were able to convince them to send us 2 cots so we all had our own beds.   I took the bed in the bedroom at K and C's insistence, Katharine set up shop behind the dining table, and Christy's area was in front of the fireplace.  So many places to choose from.  Also there were 18 places to sit.

Since we were in a lovely hotel we made use of the amenities and went for a swim and hot tub before getting ready for dinner.

It was while we were at an incredible Indian restaurant that I started to lose my voice.  It was after we went to the Irish Embassy for a beer afterwards, that I completely lost it.  Both places were super loud and I guess my vocal chords just couldn't handle shouting.  I had barely any voice for days afterward. Brutal.

The next day we went for a buffet breakfast of course and then changed into our theatre attire, and headed up to Queen Street for pedicures followed by a small lunch.

Then it was off to see "Kinky Boots"! A very high energy musical which was great as I barely slept the night before.  Also great that one is expected to remain quiet during a theatre production.  Easy Peasy.

It was decided we need to do this again next year. We can hardly wait!!