July

This is my 100th post! I'm surprised I've written that many. It deserves a celebratory photo:

There you  have it. 

July - here we go. (Wait, wait! Rachel officially started crawling on June 30th! Okay, NOW on to July).

For Canada Day we went to the parade in Raymond. Grant collected a giant bag of candy (I threw most of it away after Trevor ate the chips).

(Although you might not be able to get him to admit it, Trevor's grandma and his dad live in Raymond so we watched the parade right in front of her house. She is the sweetest grandma we could ever ask for).

Then we went to Henderson and Grant loved all the bouncy houses.

The kids wore cutesy Canada Day shirts. I'm obsessed with them matching.

Swings are the best, aren't they?

More July:

Grant ate corn on the cob for the first time and thought it was fantastic. Rightfully so. He ate eggs for the first time too; easy over.

Trevor had this big project out of town - funny that while he doesn't work as a laborer of any kind, his job is so closely tied to construction season that summer is always crazy and winter is slow and dull. Not funny, haha - more like LAME. Anyway, he was out in Lake Louise for three weeks on a project that should have taken a week at the most. In the meantime, I took the kids down to the US border to pick up some packages I ordered from the states - tons of clothes for Rachel from eBay and Carters. The kids were real troopers and Grant had his own ice cream cone from Dairy Queen with shockingly little mess. (Why have I already spent so much time talking about Grant eating?)

Rachel tries to escape out the front door anytime it's open. Grant has started saying "Oooooo" when he sees something interesting and it's cute every single time.

We went to Calgary for the stampede parade and got a flat tire on the way. It would have been merely annoying except for the fact that we had a flat a few weeks ago which ended with a busted jack that had to be thrown in the garbage. After waiting a while and trying to figure out what to do, along with fighting cell phone reception, a very sweet older couple from church stopped to help us!!! Thank goodness. We made it to Calgary and decided it was best to put four new tires on the van. We were going to push the envelope by making them last until winter started, but we had to change the timetable. Oh well. Thanks to our rental customers for buying us new tires. And in spite of the tire thing, we had promised Grant we would stop at the train place in Nanton, so we did, and he even got to pick out a new train for being so patient with the whole mess.

Stampede parade: HUGE disappointment trying to see Will & Kate. We all got up at 4:30am, got downtown, set up shop, waited, waited, waited... FINALLY the Duke & Duchess are coming. Then... wait... was that them? That's it? 

Here's what happened: five or six identical black sedans cruise by at 40 or 50km/h, one of them has a back window halfway down and William is waving from inside the car. I can't even begin to say how disappointed I was. As disappointed as when I wasn't a bridesmaid for a friend who obviously didn't think I was as good a friend to her as I thought I was. More disappointed than when I watched Prison Break, because, hey, at least it was entertaining all along the way. Did I mention I couldn't see Kate AT ALL?

I panicked and this is the best picture I got. I had to laugh or else I would have been crying right there on the sidewalk of 9th Avenue.

We took the rest of the day off and napped.

More July:

We went to a fabulous stampede breakfast at the Masonic Hall. The pancakes were amazing. Trevor is dying to have the recipe. I told him to join the Masons. We went to Spruce Meadows and it was fantastic - I've never been before and of course that means neither has Trevor - his life didn't begin until we got married. He barely even existed before then.

Rachel has her left front tooth with no right one. 

We got our free 7.11 oz slurpees on free slurpee day. Grant must have been growing that day because he slept in until 11am!

I got to get an entire day to myself to go to Calgary with my childhood best friend, Casey! We went on the rides at the stampede, and, let's just say, I am not the person I used to be and thought I still was. I even puked after the last one (to which the carnie said "Nice one!"). But I had an absolute blast. Although it's been a few years since we saw each other last, it was like not a day had gone by. I vividly remember being five years old, as shy as can be, and walking into my first grade classroom where I saw her and thought "we are going to be friends". I would even say that we are still best friends. (Okay, Casey, I said it on the internet so now it is true). It was a wonderful day (puke notwithstanding) and I can't wait to see her again!!! (Plus my husband is amazing for taking a day off work to stay home with the kids with no car. He found it stressful and said I really deserved the break). Also, Casey and I committed conspired to moving heaven and earth to SEE the Royal Couple next time they come to Canada because she nearly got to see them and then missed out. 

Rachel is getting really funny - she objects so loudly to toys being taken away that she wanted. She yells if she's not getting the same food we are having. She occasionally pulls herself up to standing and when she does I cry "Too soon! Too soon!" - as if that will make her be a baby forever.

We celebrated Grant's half birthday with the frog backpack from this post and some Thomas pajamas. 

Grant tried watering the plants at Grandma Susan's house and thought it was a riot - giggling the entire time.

Rachel finally started clapping and she is so proud of herself! 

All four of us chatted with my older siblings, Megan and Evan, on Skype, which is a serious technological miracle in my opinion - my brother normally resides in the Philippines, but was in Saskatchewan at the time, and my sister lives in Singapore! Trevor has never met Evan before, so I guess now he has, and Evan has finally met the kids!

Grant actually went in the water at the spray park for the first time ever. He doesn't love it and would still rather play at a playground or just explore the outdoors. 

I fulfilled a long overdue promise to Grant to ride the bus. Actually we went twice in July. Partway through the bus ride Grant realized he forgot his blankie at home and then said "Forgot blue blankie" for a good ten minutes. Trevor and I joke that he gets stuck on repeat.

Trevor took his birthday off work. Grant got up, peeked in our room, saw Trevor sleeping ("Daddy sleeping"), went downstairs and before I could get down there had taken out the waffle maker, eggs, oil, syrup, whipping cream, and blueberries! He correctly assumed that since Dad was still home, we were making waffles. He's a smart cookie, that's for sure. 

We did our best to spoil Trev for his birthday - an ice cream cake with dinosaurs and a volcano on top, and now I can't even remember what his presents were. My mind is slipping from me... oh wait! One of them was the LOTR entire series extended edition on Blu-ray - thank you Costco for putting it on special in June!

At first we thought we wouldn't, then changed our minds and took Grant to the airshow this year. Well, I didn't go; Trevor took his dad and Grant. They all loved it and it will most likely be an annual tradition. (I might even call it the Time Out for Men Trevor's been longing for).

Trevor sometimes uses Grant's favorite show, Toopy & Binoo, to manipulate him. At bedtime, he reminds Grant that Toopy loves to go to bed and sometimes it works. Haha.

Grant now regularly says thank you in his prayers for waffles, whipped cream, and sometimes strawberries, blueberries, syrup, pancakes, mixers... these are the most important things in his life, so why shouldn't be thankful for them?

Grant has done his regular chores plus extra chores the past couple weeks to earn some Thomas trains that I got used. We also took out more track from the toy library - and he has now earned Percy, Bertie the Bus, and James! He loves them. He even said thank you for chores in his prayers one night.

We also took out a white metal shopping cart from the toy library which Grant has taken to Costco a few times, Safeway, Save On Foods- he is a ridiculously cute little shopper. Part of the fun for me is watching everyone else in the store look at him trotting along with his groceries. He is SO independent. I am not allowed to help him out of the van, help him unload his cart at the cashier, help take some of the groceries in my cart, etc. He was very offended today at Costco that the lady didn't put back exactly what he had had in his cart before the till.

That's about it for July. We went to a charity fun festival at Galt Gardens this past weekend and, aside from no lines at the bouncy houses, the highlight was me actually hitting the target at the dunk tank! Woot! And also going to show homes that afternoon - we found THE ONE. We fell in love with this plan that includes a fabulous family room upstairs. Someday we'll have a down payment...

The showhome for that particular plan even had a tea set in one of the kids bedrooms that when Grant saw he happily proclaimed "Just like Toopy and Binoo!" We had to drag him away when it was time to go. 

So there it is, all of it at once. I read somewhere when I started my blog that, like many things, blogging vs. real life have an inverse relationship - that is, when real life is boring, you blog more because you have the time, even if it's just about nothing, and when real life is busy, the blog sits neglected, and that has definitely been the case for July. Our business has been very busy, Grant doesn't nap every day and that's okay, we try to get out of the house for nearly every minute that we can - if a) no customers are coming, b) Rachel is not napping, and c) we can think of somewhere to go. 

We are all busy, happy, and extremely sad that it is already August. I've been slathering the sunscreen on the kids, drinking lots of water, and barbecuing every night, so on that note, I'm off to heat up the barbecue.