Papa and Mer Mer's Visit in July: Waterton!

On their last day with us we took Papa and Mer Mer to Waterton National Park. It was a BEAUTIFUL day there...slight breeze and sunshine! Love it! Such a gorgeous place.


I LOVE these moments. :) Yeah, they bicker and fight and bug and tease a lot, but these kids are mine and they are adorable and they LOVE little Miss Adaleigh. 1 second later she walked away...but I enjoyed that moment and smiled watching them.

 

Papa pushing the girls on the swings. They are working on pumping their legs to swing all on their own...YAY!!! 

I didn't know my dad took this picture, but Addie and I are the tiny specs in the center by the baby swings. I love how there is a great park and nice tennis courts right in the middle of the gorgeous mountains. It's a cool place.

 

Little Miss Independent. Don't you dare try and help her!  

Twins. Luckies. And we didn't even tell them to do it. I love moments like this too. I hope they are always BFFs.

Zach in "his" tree.

 

 Justin was on call, so he couldn't come with us. Bummer. It was a beautiful day!

 

 

Cutie patootie. Why didn't I wipe your face? Sorry... :( You are still cute.

And look how serene. She was trying to throw rocks in the water and saying "Hi-ya" with each throw...that drops at her feet IF it leaves her hand. She looked so cute so I snapped a picture...

 

And then went over to find that she was sucking the water off the nasty slimy rocks!!! Eeew! Not so serene anymore. That's just disgusting!

 
I wanted a picture of Addie with Daddy...his namesake. I totally named her after you Daddy. Addie. See? :) Don't let anyone tell you different! Anyway, Addie wouldn't stop staring at him! It was funny!

 Figuring him out...

 And the chuckle. :) Pretty cute.

This one's for you mom. Just look at it, take a deep breath, let it out, and relax...ahhh...because those are you memories of Waterton with your daughter and her 4 kids 6 and under, right?!! Right?! Serenity at it's finest.

 

Zach roped the girls into gathering wood for "his tree" house.

 They went far and near scrounging for drift wood...

...and hauling it back. 

Zach even waded out to get these beauties. He didn't know how cold or how slippery of a venture it was going to be! 

They got a pretty decent pile in the "furnace" under Zach's tree house. :)

 

My parents are such love birds. They've been married for 40 years this year!! That's A LONG time! They are such good examples to me of how you treat and protect a marriage. Plus my dad is a die hard romantic and mom is his Queen! 

I love them. And miss them. :)

 

Then Zach got in big trouble...Just kidding! He sure looks guilty in that picture! Zach found $10 on the beach! Just under some rock or something. I was really proud of him because he never mentioned how he wanted to keep it. We went to the police station and he gave the money to the officer. He took our number down and said he would call us if anyone claimed it. And that was that! Zach hasn't said anything since. Good boy.
 

 

Gorgeous!

 

 

On the way home we got ice cream. It was funny to watch Addie eat it because she licked it like a little puppy drinking water.

 

 After Waterton the kids stayed up a bit late to have a movie night with Papa and Mer Mer...Ice Age 4. It is a favorite in our house right now...The biggest fan is Adaleigh! She LOVES/is semi obsessed with the theme song "We Are, We Are..." Runs around and sings it all the time. Very entertaining. And cute. Ha ha!

 ...And Justin snipped beans. Don't worry. Kara and I helped him. :)

Papa and Mer Mer Visit: Continued...

After our lovely stay at Echo lake we took Papa and Mer Mer back to Cardston with us! Each of the kids got a turn to drive in their car with them. I rode with them too! :) Got to be the kid in the back seat again. We stopped at Lake Macdonald for a picnic lunch and of course they had to play in the water. Irresistible. Even if it is a freezing rocky glacial lake!

 

I stole all of these pictures from Dad. He got pretty good at doing panoramas. It is a gorgeous place! Come see it! And visit us!!  

Picnic time! 

Beautiful drive over Logan's Pass.

 

Triplets? I get that question a lot these days. The girls seem to be catching up to Zach Attack. They are only 20 months apart!

We stopped at the top of the pass and at several other touristy beautiful spots. The kids loved it and it was fun because we usually just drive on through to get to Echo as fast as possible! It was fun to stop and explore a bit.

Another panorama at the top of the pass.

 

My Dad loves these red tourist buses. We have to get him on one, one of these days!

The kids LOVED this creek. It was fa-reeeeeeeezing cold! Look at that BLUE sky. Big Sky Montana.

 

 

This place is my favorite. Sunrift Gorge. It is SO cool! I want to walk right above the sides and see how long it goes...alas there are no trails up there. It is so cool to watch the water fall down the rocks and out of the tiny crevice.

Then it just turns the corner and goes down. 

A little cave at the side of the road. The girls were kinda scared to go into it...can you tell on Kara's face? It was cold in there too...and I have to admit, I was nervous an animal would pop out at any second as well!

Brave Zachy Boy at the back of the cave. What a man.

My FAVORITE thing about summer in Southern Alberta (besides the lack of snow and cold!)...gorgeous canola fields!!! I will have family pictures in these one day!
 

A cute picture of a drive to Lethbridge one day. :)
 

We also had a major hailstorm while Papa and Mer Mer were here. These have been very frequent around these parts I've noticed. Honestly like 1/week in July. You never know what the weather will bring. It sure is a place of extreme weather. Wind, hail, snow, ice rain...wow. We saw the DARK angry clouds coming and knew we should get the vehicles in the garage. We even angled it just right so that we got my parent's in too!  

 They were just bouncing off the lawn and the roof...it was so loud. They ended up being about ping pong ball sized. Not the baseball sized ones they had last year, but the biggest I've ever seen!

While mom and dad were there we got our sprinklers put in. YAY! The worker was so great with Zach, letting him help in whatever he could. Zach is all about manual labor when he wants to be. Give that kid a job or a project and it will get done!

He even let Zach use his pocket knife and cut things for him! 

 

Here is our beautiful garden!!! Just look at that soil. We are so excited for this part of our new house. Especially since it was already done for us...minus the tilled soil. We decided to plant lots of strawberries and raspberries in most of the boxes. By the way, Justin is THE hardest worker I know. Really.

Justin and I planted the strawberry and raspberry starters as they worked on the sprinkler. I am SOO excited for berries! That's my kind of harvest. Thank you Rod Beazer for the starters! You are "The King" gardener!

Can you guess what we are trying to copy. Nailed it.