Fall in Phoenix

Since I went back to work at the end of June, my holiday is prorated for the year. And once I take a few days for Christmas, I really don't have a ton of holiday left. So this year we decided to take an extended weekend vacation in Phoenix with the girls.

Tom and I hiked the Grand Canyon in 2012. We flew into Phoenix,  but we were only there for an evening, before the hiking company we went with picked us up. All I remember is that the tour company picked us up at 4am, and the blast of heat was unbelievable when we exited the hotel in the pitch dark.

So Phoenix was a new adventure for our family. Spoiler alert-- I'd go there again. There was surprisingly a lot to do with a family!

So let's recap. 

First of all, a hotel, or in our case an AirBnB, with a pool was a must. We went in the pool every day, until the girls lips turned blue. Lacey learned to appreciate a hot tub, although Scarlett is still to little for them. Scarlett, ever the dare-baby, kept trying to jump into the pool when we weren't looking, so one of us had to trail after her at all times. NO LAPSES IN KEEPING AN EYE ON HER. Lacey has been enjoying the water more and more, since she started an unparented swimming class in the fall. She especially loves wearing her bright pink goggles!

Phoenix has an amazing butterfly garden. It's a huge facility with hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies fluttering around. Unfortunately, both of the girls were afraid of the butterflies! Especially Scarlett... She did not enjoy their wings, and random landing. At one point there were three butterflies on Tom. He and I were both super excited about it, but Scarlett was crying hysterically, and Lacey was pretty anxious about them landing on him.

Phoenix also has an amazing zoo. The best part about it is that they have a joint partnership with zoos around the world, and since we are zoo members in Calgary, we were able to get a 50% discount on our entrance fee in Phoenix. The zoo was huge and sprawling, with tons of animals to see. Lacey loved the komodo dragon statue, and we watched the orangutans playing for a long time.

As luck would have it, an old friend was passing through Phoenix on business, and we managed to have dinner together. That marks two visits in 2019! It's pretty challenging to meet up when you live half way across the country from each other!

Other activities on our trip included, shopping at the mall, ice cream, and the aquarium. I don't have any good photos from the aquarium, but it too is a very impressive facility, especially since it's out in the middle of the desert!

The flights went smoothly, and we had a great trip! Phoenix, I'm sure you'll be seeing us again.

For the Love of Pickling

Ah... September. How I love you for your warm days and cool nights. You are the month of my birthday and wedding anniversary... But what I love most about September is that it's garden harvesting time!

Our garden did pretty good this year. We had, lettuce, onions, zucchini, cucumber, beets, sugar snap peas, spinach, green beans, tomatoes and carrots. The onions all died randomly (and for seemingly no reason?), and only 25 of the 250 carrot seeds I planted actually germinated... But we had a huge yield of peas that Scarlett and Lacey enjoyed. And the lettuce has been flourishing in huge bushels!

And now, it's time for pickling. I just LOVE pickling. I love harvesting, I love prepping, I love arranging the jars, and I love treating them. I love hearing that satisfying pop when the jars seal. I love cracking them open to see what kind of flavour we managed to get.

Given our crappy carrot harvest, I've been forced to pickle some grocery store carrots. Which is a bit disappointing, but still delicious. My real pride and joy this year are our green beans. Last year, I bought the wrong kind of green bean seed. They made very small plants, and only yielded a small amount of beans. This year, I planted a pole-bean, and the vines have crept up our deck railing, and are full of beany deliciousness!

We also had a LOT of beets. Some of you may recall that I'm not really a fan of beets. I find their flavour to be too strong.. And their flavour, which I can only imagine is what sewage tastes like, does not sit well on my palate. But as a testament to my love and devotion, I pickled multiple jars of beets for Tom. And let me tell you, pickling beets is an involved process. You have to boil them and cook them, which takes almost an hour. Then you have to peel and cut them (while beet juice leaks all over your kitchen), and then the pickling solution is much more complicated than carrots and pickles. There's pickling salt, and bay leaves... The whole process leaves your house reeking like boiled beets.

Finally... This year we had enough cucumbers to make two small jars of pickles. And look!!! They look like real pickles, that you'd buy from a store! Things I didn't know about cucumbers--those suckers are HELLA spikey! They have wicked spines all over them.

All in all, this endeavor took more time than I'd care to admit. But I loved every minute of it (except for the residual beet reek). Every year, I think about how the girls will be bigger, and more able to help with the garden in 2020. You can bet you'll find out about it here. 

All Things Summer

Once I started back to work at the end of June, I knew the summer would fly by. And here we are, eight weeks later, with August already petering out into the coolness of fall.

I've been enjoying being back at work. Life is busy and hectic, but it feels good to be tackling new challenges. The girls are enthusiastic, energetic and thriving. Scarlett settled into our daycare routine with little fuss, although she has had two fevers and two colds already. She's feisty and adventurous, and has been happy to try each new experience daycare has offered her. Lacey becomes more expressive and sassy every day. Her imagination knows no bounds, and she loves making us pretend meals, and performing songs.

The weather this summer has been passable at best, so we've tried to take advantage of our very limited outdoor season. Scarlett's head is finally big enough for a bike helmet, so on any given week, you'll find us on a bike ride, somewhere.

Here's a recap of our summer in my favourite photos.

We celebrated Canada Day at Heritage Park, watching grandma line dance.

We went to the zoo!

We went to the Stampede. Lacey played a single game of Whack-a-Mole, and managed to win this gigantic pink unicorn. We just looooove him and his giant pink-hair-shedding presence in our house (*eye roll*)

We played in the river at Sandy Beach (which, FYI, has a very misleading name, it's not at ALL sandy). And despite the fact that Scarlett looks like she's upset in the photo, she loved the water!

We were silly.

We dressed up! Scarlett in particular has developed a penchant for wearing other people's shoes. And Lacey loves being Minnie, Elsa, Cinderella, Fancy Nancy or Rapunzel.

We played at parks.

Ice cream circa 2017.

Ice cream circa 2019.

We ate ice cream-- and I am happy to report Lacey no longer thinks ice cream and bike rides are the worst day ever!

With Labour Day about to roll around, we can say good-bye to summer. It was a good one!

Comfort Camping - Sundance Lodges

So, this weekend past, Tom and I decided to try our hand at camping. We were never big campers before kids, with the exception of our multi-day backpacking hikes. But the camping for those hikes was out of necessity for the hike, not really for the love of camping. However, we both feel that camping is an important experience for kids, and we figured we'd take some of the complication out of it by booking ourselves a tipi!

A tipi in July! That'll be fun! ... Right?

Yeah... Not exactly. 

First of all, there was a lot of rain. And I neglected to bring rain boots or rain pants for our kids, which would have solved a lot of our problems. The forecast had seemed like it wasn't going to be too bad, but the weather was changeable. I should have known to bring something for all weather!

Second of all, Scarlett wakes up at 5:00am EVERY. DAY. And this is fine when we're at home, and one of us can scoop her up and take her down to the basement so everyone else in the house can continue sleeping. But when you're in a tipi at 5:00am, everyone is awake. And when everyone is awake (I'm looking at you, Lacey), some people are giant sleep deprived monsters.

On the other hand, Scarlett was loving life!

Thirdly, kids under four years old don't really like hiking. Us adults might like hiking. But hiking while carrying all of the kids? Not really my cup of tea. Nevertheless, we made it up the "family friendly" Troll Falls Hike.

Finally, it was really freaking cold at night. There was a kerosene heater inside the tipi, but we ran out of kerosene the first night before we went to sleep, and the second night we turned it off because we couldn't handle the kerosene fumes. 

I know, I'm being a total Debbie Downer about this experience. I think Lacey and Scarlett had a great time... It just wasn't that fun for the adults. Will we do it again? Yes. But we will definitely be waiting until Scarlett can wake up at a more reasonable time! And we will also hope for better weather!

Chris and Minnie Tie the Knot (x2)

I don't know what it is about weddings-- but they give me all the feels. And there's nothing like a wedding for a long-time friend to invoke some serious nostalgia about friendships past, and present.

This past weekend, my long-time friend, Chris, got married. I first met Chris in 1997, which means we've known each other for 22 years. He and his wife, Minnie, got married in January in Thailand-- with Minnie's family and friends in attendance. But they also had a legal ceremony in Canada this past weekend, with Chris' family and friends in attendance. For logistical reasons, it wasn't possible for everyone to gather for one wedding ceremony.

Seeing my friends get married just makes me so happy! Chris and Minnie are such a lovely match. It's easy to see that they're going to make each other happy for many years to come.

A fun added twist to this wedding, was that Lacey got to serve as their incredibly adorable flower girl! I'm not sure if she'll ever get this opportunity again, but she LOVED every minute of it. She loved dancing at the wedding, she loved chasing Uncle Steve around, she loved holding her flowers, and she loved seeing Minnie in her white "marry dress".

After twenty years of friendship, Chris, Steve, Jeff and Ashley have become family in their own right. 2019 has been a big year for everyone! I'm back to work after Scarlett's first year, Chris got married, Steve and his girlfriend got a puppy, Jeff and Gwen are expecting a baby boy in mid-July, and Ashley is heading back to school in September. Everyone is doing so well! And seriously, we're getting more ridiculously good looking as the years pass.

So, congratulations Chris and Minnie! I'm so grateful to be here to share this memorable day with you!

And thanks for good friends. I'm even more grateful to be experiencing these milestones with you all in my life. May there be many more celebrations to come, and more opportunities for Walmart portrait studio sessions.

Love you guys!

Scarlett Turns ONE!

The last year at home has come and gone, and it has been amazing. Over the last few months, Scarlett's personality has been emerging and flourishing. Watching her roll, sit, crawl, stand, walk and run has blurred together to form our determined little ginger girl, with a mischievous smile and an easy laugh. She seemed so easy going in her early months, we worried that Lacey was going to walk all over her. But Scarlett has proven time and time again that she can hold her own against her big sister. She has a fiery little temper, if I've ever seen one!

I love her so much! She has made our family complete.

We celebrated Scarlett's first birthday with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Lacey opened most of Scarlett's gifts for her (but Scarlett didn't mind), and Scarlett ate pasta and pizza for dinner. She got toys, clothes, stuffed animals and shoes, and was generally spoiled rotten (thank you, everyone)!

I made chocolate cupcakes into a flower bouquet, with a few bumblebees and lady bugs for good measure. It was Scarlett's first time eating a cupcake, and she mostly enjoyed the frosting.

Lacey has taught us that life only gets more interesting after the first year.  So we'll have to see what Scarlett has in store for us. 

Happy 1st Birthday, Scarlett! You and your sister are lights in our lives!

Nanoose Bay

Have you ever heard of Nanoose Bay? It sounds like a fictional location that a children's book would take place in. But it is in fact a real place on the eastern side of Vancouver Island.

While planning for our trip to Tofino, I looked at Air BnB properties in the area, and I stumbled across this beautiful property. We booked the minimum five night stay, and I don't regret our decision one bit!

The house is right on the water, so we were treated to beautiful sunsets each night. 

And there was a rocky beach right outside our door to enjoy. 

Taste test conducted. Conclusion: disgusting

There were kayaks that we took for an outing. I've never been much of an ocean sport kind of gal (probably because I can't swim that well), but Lacey had a blast! 

And Lacey could photobomb Auntie and Uncle's family photo! Her life jacket really works with their shirt colour palette.

There was time for cousin bonding. Zoe loved watching Lacey run around, and Scarlett toddling back and forth.

We did a short hike to see the Old Englishman Waterfalls. 

We spent a couple afternoons exploring Rathtrevor beach. The tide was out both times, so it was more of a giant mud flat full of tiny wiggling crabs. Lacey didn't enjoy walking through the crabs, so she spent a lot of time on our shoulders. 

Scarlett in particular loved the house décor. Hairy pillows are her jam. 

There was a family of otters that we saw playing in the bay, as well as an abundance of varying ships. Tankers, cruise ships, small vessels. 

Lacey practiced her skills with our camera, and took this photo of Uncle Andy and cousin Zoe. It's a pretty good photo. But... Just remember. This was one of 85 photos, and 25 of the photos were of her foot.

I can only imagine how the chaos will grow as our family gets bigger, older and more mobile. We had to blockade two sets of stairs with chairs so Scarlett wouldn't climb down them. Even with the barricade, she spent an immense amount of time climbing up and down the stairs (supervised). 

If this holiday was any indication, future holidays are going to be even more fun! Cheers to 2020 holidays-- whatever they may be!