Blood and Water(falls)

For Canada Day, we (of course) headed down to Raymond.
Kyler and I watched some fireworks alone the day before Canada Day, since all our kids were asleep already.
Raymond didn't have their Canada Day parade until the day after, so on Canada Day itself we headed to Waterton a bit. The wildfires of last year means that a significant portion of the park is closed.

Even a portion of the visitor's center shows its scars.
Still, we had fun. We went to Cameron Falls and hiked around a bit there.

Then we headed to Linnet Lake and hung out playing on the shore for a bit.

 Even though many things were closed because of the fires, we still enjoyed it.

 Plus, the wild flowers were absolutely beautiful!

On our way home, we stopped for a snack at the temple in Cardston.

Once we got back to Raymond, we spent the rest of the day playing at the park

 watching TV,

and helping Maria prep things for the next day.

Which was parade day!

Craig mostly stayed in his seat, but had a ton of fun.

Calista collected as much candy as she could and had a blast as well.
Caleb, well... he didn't want to sit still prior to the parade beginning, so we were walking up and down the road when he fell.

Poor kiddo got a nasty fat lip, and didn't so much enjoy the parade. Some nice people brought us a Popsicle for his to suck on, to try and get him to ice his lip. It was very kind.

Caleb had a fat lip for a couple of days, but even that has gone away now and he's doing great.
Still, put a bit of a damper on the parade, and we didn't get very many pictures after that. Oh well.

Happy Canada Day anyway!

The End of School!

Calista has officially finished grade 1, and Craig preschool. Can you believe he'll be in kindergarten next year?



Craig's preschool had a year-end gymnastics field trip.

 He loved it, even if it was difficult to get a non-blurry picture of him.

 But what else would I expect?

On his last day of preschool, the class did a little concert.

Sometimes he didn't want to participate, but mostly he did really well.

And he got a little paper from Mrs. O, too!

When he grows up, Craig wants to be a dinosaur. He loves the color blue, and to eat pizza. If he could be any animal in the world, he'd be a shark. Fingers crossed, he's going to rock kindergarten!

Calista had a few year-end field trips, too, and I was actually able to find a way to go with her as a chaperone.

 She was thrilled to have me there, and I loved spending time with her.

Yay, fun field trips!

Then it was finally time for the last day of school!

"Grade one was good. I loved it, especially because I got to get new friends and I also got to have a friend that pretends we're sisters. It's really fun. And, um, it's really fun."

"The best thing I learned was learning that trees are actually ALIVE! I'm going to miss Senorita Tara when grade 1 is over. But I'm looking forward to learning in grade 2. I love learning!"

And to celebrate the end of the school year, we made a fort in the basement and let the kids watch a movie and sleep down there.

They did eventually fall asleep.



Yay for summer!