When things like "summer" come along, I've always said that I'd rather be working outside than stuck inside. This philosophy has permeated our lives and affected how we make decisions. Case in point: Homeschooling. We like to be done the beginning of May so that we can be outside once the weather turns nice. This has also proven true with blogging. Apparently, I've been quite negligent in the blogging department, and you know what? I'm not sorry. Not even a little bit. Now that we have that out of the way, I'll give a quick little blip about our summer, and we'll call it a day.
So. Summer. It was hot and dry and glorious and exhausting. Par for the course, yes? We made it out to BC a few times, not really for vacation purposes - they were work trips. We still made it a great time and had fun and enjoyed being away. We were involved in a wedding during one trip, and a demolition/renovation on the other trip.
My goal was to do a couple of fun day trips with the kids, and we were able to accomplish that, which was loads of fun. At the beginning of the summer, we loaded up horses and kids and took a day trip to the Ft. Assiniboine Park. We met up with friends, in 35C heat, and went on a ride. It was hot and dusty and beautiful and loads of fun. I was a bit nervous about the day, seeing how we'd never done anything like that, nor had our horses, but it was a stellar day and the horses and kids all did great. Let me tell you, air conditioning has never felt so good as it did that day, after we'd finished loading horses and headed home!
I was especially proud of my new 2 yr. old I bought this spring - he didn't bat an eye as we crossed streams and climbed steep hills and went through the bush.
Another fun day trip that we did was the Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail. We took Art's sister along on this trip, and it was a great day. At the zoo, there were lots of big animals who were very active in their homes. They had shows with the animals, you could watch training sessions, and you could also get your picture taken with some of them. Art's sister had her heart set on getting our picture taken with the bear.... so we did. And I was slightly terrified. Truthfully, the bear looks fake, but let me assure you....it was most real. And here he is, doing his "Scary Bear" trick. You choose which trick you wanted him to do while you had your picture taken with him.... And I think he looks quite scary, don't you? I think I'd definitely wet my pants, should I run into a bear like this in the wild...
We took another day and headed to town. Em-Te Town, that is. We went to this old ghost town when Hannah was a baby, so it's been many years since we were there. It was fun to take the Girls again, and since it's only about 40 minutes from our farm, it's an easy day trip. Incidentally, we also took them to Ponderosa City, which is just a few miles from Em-Te Town. It's a very cool western store with a bakery and some new-built-to-look-old buildings on site. They hold Cowboy Church every Sunday during the summer, so when my folks were out, we went and enjoyed a pancake breakfast and church there one Sunday morning.
Another afternoon was spent at the Lacombe Corn Maze with some friends, and that was also a great time. The fun thing about the corn maze was that all the kids loved it - from our teenager to their 1 yr. old. The weather was beautiful, the company was good, and we had farmer sausage for dinner there, which was the icing on the cake!
The last day trip we took was just last weekend, and actually ended up being a 2 day trip. We started off by going to a great gun store a few hours away, and then spent the night in Three Hills and took the kids to The Badlands for a drive. We were in Drumheller many years ago, when Ellie Mae was a baby, so again, it was great to go somewhere fairly close by that the Girls didn't remember. We hiked along the river valley, saw the hoodoo's, went up Dorothy Hill, and saw the other local sights. It always amazes me how the landscape of our province changes so drastically, even just 3 hrs. away.
I suppose that about sums up our summer. Of course, we also spent many hours going to the river, just a few miles down our little gravel road,
Going for lots of rides,
And playing with the 8 kittens that our 2 cats had.
My folks came out for a few weeks, the girls attended VBS, and we got to visit, on a couple of occasions, with old friends, which was such an unexpected treat! So there you have it.... our summer in a nutshell! I suppose I didn't talk about all of the projects we did on the farm this summer, but I'll have to save those for another day. I hope y'all had a great summer too!
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