O Canada

There have been countless times these past few months when I thought "I should blog about that"... Clearly it hasn't happened. I have a special talent for finding something seemingly more important to do. So today I woke up, went to the gym, came home, cancelled out my workout with a bowl of Lucky Charms, looked around our home that is in great need of a cleaning, justified not cleaning it because we have to move in three weeks, so here I am. Baby's napping. I have no excuse.

The biggest adventure as of lately is that A) My little brother got home from his mission and B) We went back to Canada to visit him.

BEST FAMILY VACATION EVER!!!

We were able to plan it around my mission reunion, so we embarked on our giant roadtrip. First destination: Park City, UT. The following picture perfectly describes the whole drive that day. hahaha.

The reunion was kind of strange. I didn't know anyone really... There were some girls there that had gotten their mission call after I was home. haha. There were a couple people there that I was able to catch up with and I was really glad that Ray and Warren got to meet President Drewes. I didn't take any pictures there though. Woops...

We stayed the night with a friend in Provo. We got up bright and early the next day with the intention of making it all the way to Edmonton that day. Ambitious, yes. But we did it. When we got on the road from Provo, we noticed a lot of people in their cars wearing their Sunday best and we didn't know why because it was a Saturday. Then after a few minutes, Ray declared "IT'S GENERAL CONFERENCE TODAY!!!" haha. Sure enough, as soon as we passed SLC there were no more nicely dressed people in their cars. haha.

This is my attempt at taking pictures of downtown SLC with the hope of getting the temple in one of them. Didn't happen...

12ish hours later, we made it to the Canadian Border!!! YAAAAAY!!!!!!!!! I was so happy. And just so you know, Warren was a champ. He's such an amazing kid.

Finally at around 2:00am we made it home. I was fully expecting a dark house with Mom and Ian asleep. Nope! Ian was right there infront of the computer, and as soon as we pulled into the driveway, he bolted out to greet us and Mom shortly followed. Pretty much the best greeting ever.

Ian and Warren became instant friends.

We conveniently arrived in Canada the day before Canadian Thanksgiving. Oh. My. Gosh. I think that's up there on the list of best holiday's ever, but just because of the food. This is the 26 lb turkey my mom made.

Of course, the family being all together is another great perk of Thanksgiving. Warren and Lily finally realized they can play together instead of just laying there on the ground next to each other wondering how another little person like them can possibly exist.

Lily got a lot bigger from when I saw her last. haha. The two of them were amazing together. They were totally content to share and figure things out together... and make giant messes.

Warren also got some quality time in with his Great Grandpa McLennan.

I think this was the moment that Ian became Warren's best friend. They shared a slice of Apple Pie.

I also got to go to Superstore. I realized they spelled yogurt weird. But I also found a sweet winter hat for Warren there!

We went for a visit with Great Grandma Dyer. She showed us this rocking chair that was made by my great great great great grandpa. A lot of little butts have sat in that chair in our family. Apparently mine was one of them at one point.

Grandma couldn't have been happier.

Ray and Ian have done a lot of bonding over longboarding. Ray made sure that Warren didn't feel left out.

We got to have a steak dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's. Again Warren and Lily played wonderfully together.

She's pretty cute.

Warren supervised while Grandma Olive washed dishes.

Ray found some red pants at a thrift store. From then on it became a thing between him and Ian. This is how he would display them. " RED PANTS!"

 This kid's hair was a mess...

We got a four generation picture!

Mom took Warren out for some sun while she did some gardening. Apparently Warren wanted in on the gardening too.

Warren's hair was terribly unruly... So I fixed it. haha. Poor photo credits go to Ian.

How handsome! He did pretty well though. I was proud of him.

We stopped at what we call "Edmonton's Balls". We just wanted to say we touched them. Art is weird these days...

We went swimming with Lily and Cecilia and Monie. I love swimming. Thankfully so do the kids.

Also I have the coolest friends ever.

After two weeks, we had to go back to CO. Saying goodbye never ceases to suck, but I know the time we had there was well used. I did more haircuts than I would have if I had been at school so that was pretty awesome. I did 4 women's cuts, and 4 men's cuts and one baby. haha. I definitely didn't miss out on my education. That was another thing that I should have been better at taking pictures of. My mom's hair turned out awesome and I'm bummed I didn't think to take a picture. Oh well.

On the drive back, we hadn't even made it to Calgary and Warren threw up... like... emptied the entire contents of his stomach threw up... We stopped at a mall in Calgary that was stupid busy and I spent an hour trying to clean him and the stuff he threw up all over while Ray tried to clean up the carseat... What a mess... And an awful smelling one at that.. We cleaned as best as we could, got some baby Gravol to drug the kid with and got across the border with no problem for the first time in almost 3 years. We made it to Great Falls, MT that night and made it safely the rest of the way home the next day.

It was so good to see my family and friends. After getting back to CO, I felt so rejuvenated. I was able to catch up at school fairly easily and I'm looking forward to what's to come.

As I said... BEST FAMILY VACATION EVER.