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Showing posts from 2018

Summer fun in Red Deer

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Summer is a long time to be home with young kids.  Young kids who have grown up with ready access to television programming geared to them and portable screens that they can take on the go with them.  As much as we want to send them outside to play or want them to just use their imagination it takes my kids anyways a long time to get into that habit. Throw in needing to do renovations and other activities that are adult only sometimes it can lead to a very impatient momma! I am so thankful we live in Red Deer.  It's so centrally located and there are so many free and inexpensive activities the kids can participate in, so once the day get started we usually had something to go and do.  I am also glad that Lil man is now old enough to go to the park for short periods of time by himself allowing me to have time at home with Teddy doing other activities. Discovery Canyon Discovery Canyon is an outside water feature in Red Deer that has a river run down a slope that kids can go on

My new Deck

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Since we've moved into our home nine years ago we've known that we needed to replace the deck and fence eventually, but it's a big cost and babies, weddings and travelling always seemed to take precedent, until this year, this year was the year of the Deck! Last year due to a ferocious wind storm we were able to use our house insurance to replace our deck and sheds that were damaged in the storm, but the deck still stood (I have no idea how!!) so we had to wait until we could replace the deck. The beginning of the deck tear down I really, REALLY wanted to go to California with my boys this summer but being a home owner means we have responsibilities that we must take care of and our deck was not going to last another winter without injuring someone.  So we cut our vacation to the states short, we still had a good time and then we came back home and tore out our old deck.  We took the old addition to the deck off and reframed and new section. That was the e

Spokane

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We spent half a week down in Idaho and Washington this summer.  It was a great time and we got to see so much! Here are a few other things we did while on our Lacourse Road Trip 2018! Spokane Valley Mirabeau Point Park: This was a cool little park, it had a spray park which was a lifesafer on the hottest day of the summer! Seriously, it was so hot and Teddy is a little thermometer and based on his behaviour you know when he is too hot. The more whiney he is the hotter he is. Frank's Diner: My boys love, LOVE trains and Teddy especially but Leigham also loves them, so when we saw that Spokane Valley had a train car that was turned into a restaurant we had to go.  It was so cute and cool and the boys thought all the little trinkets and displays were super cool. Spokane Valley Children's Museum and Science Center: After two days of hot temperatures outside we took the boys indoors! The kids were unsure of our day trip on this day but then they ended up having

12 Week Challenge Week Three Update

So I haven't really gotten back into my blogging but I am working on it so here is my update, on my 12 week challenge a 1/4 of the way through. I had a rough start, I caught some nasty flu the first week so I couldn't do many workouts and eating, well that was pretty much out of the question for a whole week. I did get two workouts in and I lost quite a few pounds I just wasn't really sure it would stay off since it came from being sick. The second week was better but I was still dealing with illness and my lower back has been killing me for four weeks.  I had trouble bending or putting my legs straight so I had to modify most exercises but I made it to the gym three days and I was starting to feel stronger and better. The third week went amazing, I still feel incredibly busy, but we are making it work so I am positive it's developing into a routine. I made it to the gym 4 times this past week and meals have been going great. Even with Thanksgiving happening I do

Silverwood

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Part of our summer holidays were spent in Spokane Washington and then we took the boys to Silverwood Theme park for a day. Theme parks with children are both a joy and a pain in the butt.  I loved watching my boys expressions on their faces as they experienced so many different parts of the park, but with so many regulations it was a pain making through the whole day.  The heat didn't help either.  Leigham was on board to try most rides, but he's not a ride kid, and spent most of the time stressing that they rides would be too fast, too spinning, or too high.  However we did get him to go on the rides with his brother and he was a champ. This was the only ride Teddy didn't enjoy, he wasn't expecting the swinging motion and it scared him. Adrian and I may have laughed a little as we watched him trying to crawl off the ride.   The train ride around the park was the boys highlight. They begged and begged to go all day long so before we could leave

12 week Challenge: Food Prep/ Meal planning

The last time I was on a challenge like this, the meal plans were provided but I struggled with making substitutions because I didn't know what could work for a substitution and some of the meal suggestions were yucky, well not yucky but not to my taste. This time around we are working with macros, so we can eat the foods we like and build our meal plan that way, but we have to track our macros. Not our calories, but our macros.  So this is a new thing for me, but I was able to go out and shop and now I have meal prepped for the week.  I have a plan for suppers, I have my lunches, breakfasts and snacks packed and my SIX cups of free Veggies.  SIX CUPS!! I like veggies, but I like veggies and dip and dip is not on the menu! I guess it could be if I watch the sugar content and let it count as a carbohydrate or fat whichever is higher on the nutrition label.... but that seems like a lot of work for so little reward.  I've figured out my macros for the day will include oatmea

Books of the Summer

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Did you know I love to read books? I I am a life long reader! Reading is one of my passions, and sometimes I think I should have, and would have gone into publishing if there had been any publishing houses around me! But I didn't and I am teaching which I think is a better fit for me anyways but I am a reader and I will always be a reader! I LOVE books! I am especially fond of YA books.  So every summer I take a tonne of books from the school library and I go home and read and read and read.  In the picture below you see 13 of the 14 books I chose to read this summer.  I ended up reading 16 books and listening to 3 audio books. To say this was a summer full of reading might be an understatement!  I think I loved all the books I read this summer, definitely there were some I loved more than others, but I loved them all. I am super glad I found read Philippa Gregory because the book was great and it also gave me the opportunity to have a new series or two t

12 week Challenge

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I'm actually going to write about this blog before I update all my summer blogs, I just feel like for my success I need to be writing my blog entries on this challenge in a timely manner as it will increase my accountability, and it will hopefully get me back into the habit of writing. So after leaving you all in the dark, unless you follow me on other social media platforms, of what happened this summer here's a look at what I am going to be doing for the next 12 weeks. My very good friend Tamara joined Fit Body Boot Camp around 8 months ago, and she's had amazing results, her husband got on board as well and has seen a huge change, he doesn't work out at the gym but does his own workouts at home.  Men don't seem to have the same problems with losing weight that women experience, biology sometimes does not work in our favour ladies. I considered joining a couple times, but the only time I have been successful, like really successful at losing weight I had don

Chapter 7 Genetics testing

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May 30 we had our last appointment for awhile, as now we are just waiting for genetic testing to see what turns up and what we will need to do from there.  Our Genetics testing took place at the Stollery Children's hospital in Edmonton. Now my first impression of trying to find the Stollery is that it is VERY DIFFICULT! Google maps doesn't take you to the entrance, and when you try to walk to find the entrance, at least for us, we ended up going in a restricted area that did not get us to where we needed to go. We were in the general location that we needed to be, but for all intensive purpose we were lost. Now my first impression of the staff that work at the multitude of hospitals in this location, because there are many, many hospitals that operate out of this location, the Stollery is only one of them, is that they are AMAZING! In the restricted area we ran into a gentleman who took us through the Staff only area to the main hub and walked us right up to one of the Stol

Friday Five: Five things I am going to do this summer

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Welcome to another edition of Friday Five! This Friday Five is dedicated to making five goals for myself this summer! Five things I want to do and how I am going to incorporate them into my summer. 1. Reading, reading and reading. I put myself on a reading hiatus for June.  I did this because I was reading a lot and I didn't want to clean out my school library before the summer hit!  I also used July to focus more on my novel writing so there was that too.  For the Summer I am going to read 14 books, I have already started book number 5 so I think I am on pace to reach this goal! 2. Writing, writing and writing. I love writing, but I find I always make excuse why I can't write, or find other things to distract me with so that I don't actually write.  But I am putting aside an hour a day to do some writing.  This is turning into an hour in the morning before my kids are allowed to get up for he day.  Teddy doesn't listen to this but he is usually willing to s

Summer Cleaning

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I just cannot adhere to Spring cleaning, our life is much too busy during the winter and spring months to take a weekend to clean the house. I mean I complete understand why people do it, but I cannot figure out where they find the time.  In my little world spring cleaning is a nice idea but it always gets pushed until the Summer holidays. Yes, yes I get it, summer holidays are for fun and relaxing and not busting yourself trying to do things that are boring and monotonous.  This all makes sense if you work a regular job where you only get two weeks off in the summer.  No way would I, or did I, want to clean my house as part of my summer holidays.  It just wasn't happening! Now that I have a teaching job and all of my summers are off I have to find things to fill the days.  If I could just ignore the cries of "what can we do?" "I'm bored" "Can I watch tv" and get lost in all the books I am trying to read this summer (there are 14 titles) then I