not giving up

My sisters last week told me that they quit checking to see if I would update my blog. What is with that..... It has only been 3 months.... It could be worse.

I really do write blogs in my head all the time, but I just never get around to typing them on the computer... Such is life.

So in order to not swamp people with all the fun things that we have been doing, I will try to stick to a few!.

1. End of school for the girls (In Canada that is at the end of JUNE!!!) We spent much of June doing track meets, and sports days, and school triathalons, marathon club.... SO cute. Halle raced the 100m against all her grade and ended up in 6th!! She was of course wearing her super fast, multi-purpose boots. She got called to the office to get her ribbon, and she came home and told me that she won her race.... she got 6th place. She is happy with a ribbon!!
Mads finally caught the fire of competition. She is my little sprinter... The morning of the school track meet Mike sat her down and worked on showing her some Carl Lewis videos so that she could learn proper technique. She did AMAZING. She ended up going to Districts for quite a few events and ended up winning first for the 100M. She was not going to let anyone pass her. If I ever figure out how to do it, I will upload video to you tube so that you all can admire her technique....

Mads and her peeps at the track meet. Those are her lucky clothes!!

2. First of July.... We love the first here. It is Canada day and the whole town triples or quadruples in size. We have a parade that is so cute. Mike thinks it is hysterical. He loves that anyone can enter, and there are kids that ride bikes, cars that have signs on the side, the local plumber had a toilet on top of his van and a kid was sitting on it and reaching in the bowl, to get candy to throw!!!

We class it up. This year for a change of pace we decided to enter the family soft ball tournament. Our family did not do so well.. We got 10 runned in both of our games. But we had a fantastic time!

3. Chicago Trip. I got to go on a trip all by myself this summer.. I feel a bit like the Mercer Meyer book. I can stay in a hotel, all by myself. I can get on the plane all by myself. I can go to Chicago all by myself.
I got to go and visit my little sister. She is lonely this summer and she needed me. I went out the last weekend of June, and just stayed for a few days, but we had so much fun. We went to Taste of Chicago. I lived close for 4 years and never went, but it was tons of fun, and great people watching. They had it combined that day with Latin-fest, so there was alot of fun latin polka music, and funny people dancing to it. I convinced my sister to leave at 2 in the morning so that we could go to the Notre Dame Garage Sale again. Thank you Emilee for introducing me to such a fantastic event. Between that and hand me downs I think it constitues most of my wardrobe. You could see the signs of the economy not doing as well, but it was still fun to go! I will miss it tons. I got to go to one of my friend's little girls baptism and see some of my favorite South Bend people. Sorry I was so out of it that day at the baptism. I was a little on the tired side... but it was SO fun to see you all! We went to the beach, watched tons of movies, went shopping downtown! Great trip! Thanks Cath!

4. Swim Club, Swim meets and Swimming lessons.

5. Triathalon. Mike has started to try to get himself into triathalons. We have made Madison do triathalons for the last 2 years. We made her do one again this summer. It was tons of fun, and Mike's mom and dad came up to visit and to watch. Mike did really good. He learned that he needs to practice transitioning from biking to running, but he really did amazing. I couldn't do it. Mads did fantastic. In her age group she got first... of course it was 11 and under and she was the oldest, but she did fantastic none the less.


6. Cathy came to visit. My sister has been alone most of the summer, her hubby is away doing an internship, So my mom, aka the party planner planned lots of fun outings. We wanted to go to Writing on Stone, but there is a warning that you are not supposed to swim in the river because the level of fecal matter in it is too high, so we opted for Red Rock in Waterton!

The kids and I at red rock!! it was a different day, but still so much fun!
We did a Mom and Sister hike... that is now lovingly referred to as the "Eternal Hike". I was trying to get everyone to do it in 4 hours, and we were lucky to get down in 8 my mom has a bunch of pictures tagged on my facebook. We also got to go biking down Logan's Pass. I love Logan's pass, and it was SOOOO fun to bike down it. It was scary watching Mads bike it though. She has a tendency to swerve a bit, and ride either in the MIDDLE of the road, or on the very edge.

7. We did get to go to Writing on Stone at the beggining of summer! It is such a fun place to go. We love hiking and then playing in the river. The kids could spend HOURS digging and collecting mud. Those are the best days ever!!

Hiking in the HooDoos. Or however you spell that!

8. We have been trying to get grass to grow in our backyard. It is coming in, slowly, and I am trying to fight a battle with the weeds. The town is also going to be paving our road. They dug it all up and are supposed to be curbing it soon. We hope, our fingers are crossed. Anyways, when they were digging it out they had a bunch of tractors doing the work, and a certain boy in my house thought it was the best day ever. He spent most of his morning either watching them, or out on the deck with his tractors mimmicking them! So cute.