Moonlight Madness

To some, moonlight madness may mean a late night shopping trip for serious bargains! For our family, it means a dark, cold, starlit night, bright attire, crumpled race tags and our favourite running shoes. We all ran again this year and celebrated a successful finish with good friends, and of course... Dominoes pizza and Tim Hortons cookies. Doesn't get any better...

See you there again next year, friends!

Christmas Cheer

Sara and Hannah and a couple friends will be performing in church in a few week and we had a practice tonight. Thought you might enjoy a little Christmas music!


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Hannah's Hair...is gone

Today we had haircuts... just Sara and I. I could hardly sleep last night because I was thinking about what I wanted the hair dresser to do. I decided to have it cut right above my shoulder. My hair was down at the middle of my back before. When we got there I told the hairdresser exactly what I wanted and you could tell she was surprised. A lot of my friends have their hair short so I thought it would be neat. I haven't had my hair that short since I was about 3.

Before:

After:

Jumping in Puddles!

When we decided a number of weeks ago to come down to Phoenix for a weekend, Dave immediately started to search for a run to register us in. It is a great way to spend a Saturday morning and you get to see more of wherever you are visiting. Of course, you get a t-shirt too which we don't have enough of.... (Why don't they get creative and start giving socks, or toques or headbands? Just a question.)

Well, he found one. It was a bit different than anything we'd done before. It involved a lot of mud. MUD? I said I'd run, not get filthy from head to toe! But, love makes you do strange things...so I agreed. Dave was giddy. Look out Mad Mud Run! We were pumped!

This morning, we headed to the course early and I wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into. Many of the competitors wore costumes - from argyle socks, to bright patterned shorts. There was even a lady in a wedding dress. It was awesome! Dave and I chose green - little lame but at least we matched. My purple bandana was a late addition thanks to my good friend Amy who knows my day is not complete without a touch of purple. (Those were our wedding colours by the way...what was I thinking?)

A friend of ours lent us his Hero cameras so we could take video and photos during the run. Unfortunately, only the one Dave had worked so we have no photos of Dave in action. But, we did all the obstacles together.

After completing the 4 mile run and all the obstacles, there was a mud pit about 3 meters wide, 10 meters long and 2 feet deep. You have to go through it and go under all the flags. There is absolutely no way to stay clean. We even had mud in our teeth at the end! But we crossed the finish line feeling amazing!
There were hoses at the end to spray off. It helped but we're not sure those clothes will be clean again!

Who knew how much fun mud could be? We do now! Next time we'll wear costumes. Yes, I did say next time.

Halloween Fun!

Halloween continues to be my favourite holiday! It is so much fun to decorate, create fun food, make cool costumes and of course, have an excuse to indulge in chocolate!

Parker and his friend Jett hit the youth dance the Friday night before dressed as ???? We're not sure but they looked really good. Wonder if the girls thought so. In case you're wondering, Parker's shoes are size 18 and Jett's are size 21.

Often, we have a Halloween party or two. This year we had a pumpkin carving party with a few friends. The pumpkins turned out great!

Sara and two of her friends dressed up as the Three Blind Mice. Sara got an award that day and went up to receive it dressed as a mouse. Pretty funny!

Hannah had planned out her costume for weeks... She had convinced her cousin Owen to go as Prince William and she would be Kate - one of her favourite people. We found her the perfect dress, a coat, the shoes and even a fascinator. That picture is yet to be taken because William had to go without his princess. In the middle of the night before Halloween, she woke up so sick and missed the whole day. For a 9 year old, does it get much worse? I don't think so. My heart broke for her. So, there will be a Halloween party coming up. TBA At one point when she woke up, she rolled over on the couch and asked me, "What did Matt dress up as today?" I answered that he didn't. "Lame - o" was her response before she rolled over and fell back asleep. So, maybe we'll have to make him dress up for the party. Suggestions???

The candy haul was therefore a little smaller this year, but have no fear, we all still managed to get an adequate amount of chocolate. :)

Two Left Feet

Ever feel like you have two left feet? Hannah did. Literally.

At Hot Lunch on thursday, she reminded me that there was after school skating with the school. We haven't been able to make it once this year. She asked if we could please go. I responded with the most common response lately. "Sorry, Hannah, we have too much going on after school." She ( unfortunately) wasn't too surprised by the answer and said okay.
As I got on with my day, I realized if I shuffled a few things and got a friend to take Matt to football, I could find the skates, grab Sara and surprise Hannah by picking her up ready to skate. So that's what I did.
It actually wasn't hard to find the skates. ( Different funny story - Dave accidentally grabbed the skates and brought them to Waterton this summer thinking they were the life jackets... They are both in the same kind of hockey bag. Imagine our surprise at the boat dock.... :)
So the skates were just inside the shed still. I quickly grabbed Sara's, Hannah's and mine. As I looked briefly at Hannah's I thought they looked a bit small this year so I grabbed Sara's old ones thinking they'd work. I found helmets, gloves and tall socks, threw everything in the car and dashed to pick up Sara.
I was sweating when I picked them up but it was so fun to surprise Hannah. She was thrilled!
So, off to the rink. Sure enough last years skates were too small. I mentally patted myself on the back for packing another pair. She started to put them on while I turned to visit with another mom. Then I heard a little voice. "Mom...." I turned to look at her. "It might be a little hard to skate in two left skates....." Really? In my haste I grabbed 2 completely different skates. Both left feet!!!
We laughed so hard we cried! I asked her what we should do. She said "I came here to skate!" So, she did - on two left feet!
Thanks Hannah! I tried to make your day, and you made mine.






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Wow.

We are officially old. At least we are if the qualification is that you have a child who is 16. Wow. I've said that word a lot lately over the past two days. Wow. He was successful and got his license yesterday. Funny story...our vehicles all have September 23 as their expiry date for the insurance. I had forgotten to put the new pink slips in the cars. So, when the Driving Instructor checked the insurance, it was expired. He came into the office, inquired about it and told me sternly that I had a homework assignment when I got home. I felt like I was 16 again.

When they arrived back, Parker winked at me and gave me a discreet thumbs up behind his back. Wow. Did I say that yet?

This morning, he and Matt got in the Smart Car and drove off to seminary. Wow. We're growing up!