Texas is Hot!

These were the words of Ben about 3 days in during our first week home to visit our first set of grandparents in Kilgore, TX. I must concur. It was unbelieveably hot. We definitely noticed a difference as soon as we stepped off the plane in Dallas. No more cushy mid 70s, low 80s with low humidity. We were back in the land of 100+ and who knows what kind of humidity. Regardless, we had a great time visiting my folks. We stayed very busy and the boys had tons of fun. Swimming, water guns, movies, and even a baseball game! Here are some pictures of all the fun.

When we were loading up to start the next leg of our journey Ben said that he was ready to go back to Canada because it is cooler there. I don't think he was a fan of the heat. To be continued...

EB

Happy Father's Day Earle!

We gave Earle his Father's Day a day early. We did a blurb book of random thought and poems that Ben and I put together. Here are a couple of things that Ben wrote about his dad to put in the book....dictated of course, the kid is still only four!

I Love Your Silly Face....

I love your silly face,

I love your stinky nose,

I love your silly giggle,

From your cheeks down to your toes.

You make me laugh and giggle,

You make my belly jiggle.

The End.

~BB

My Daddy

My daddy is really good at taking care of me.

He is good at sledding.

He is good at eating snacks with me.

He is good at playing with me and watching shows.

He is cool when he plays the Star Wars Wii.

He plays soccer with me.

He reads me stories at night,

He takes me to the park.

He is nice.

He is my best friend, Forever.

~BB

I guess nothing can capture the impact of a father's love, than the way his small son speaks of him. Earle is the best dad! Happy Father's Day!! And a Happy Father's Day to my dad, and to Pops and to Granddaddy Billy and to Bu!!

~CB

Western Day...

Just a few pics of Ben on Western Day. I thought he was pretty funny! Earle told Ben that we thought these pictures were funny and Ben's reply, was, "Really, dad, why do you think they are funny?"

Even more funny! I guess he was not posing for them just feelin' "cowboy"!

CB

Free Time in the evenings...

A quick shot of downtown.

Ben sometimes gets tired! Go Earle!

Walking down Kensington road with all of the cute shops, and coffee shops!

Kensington(little urban inner city district) apartments that I think are so pretty...I love walking by them!

I think this house has so much character charm with the purple tree...there are lots of cute houses like this on our street.

Three boys.

We have really been enjoying our free time in the evenings! All of our television shows are currently on re-runs and it has been staying light outside here until almost 10pm every night, so we have quite a bit of time after dinner to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather! I must say, the warm season here is so nice and pleasant! We have really enjoyed going on evening walks. We walk to blockbuster or the grocery store...or just take the kids to the park. The little trunk on Collin's little car hold a few DVD's nicely and we feel oh so Calgarian when we take our green echo friendly cloth bag to Safeway to carry back our groceries.:) We have really enjoyed living in a part of the city that everything is just a quick walk away. I think this will really be something that we either miss, or think carefully about when we pick our next U.S. house. I have been taking my camera with me taking random pictures so that I can bring my computer with me when we come back to the states in a couple of weeks and give people an idea of what it is like where we are currently living! I definately want to remember this beautiful city and what it looked like in the summer and how we enjoyed it!! Here a just a few pics from the evening!!

CB

Mommy's little helper...

Yesterday I decided to go out and see if I could clean up the garden in our front yard. Our neighbor, with whom we share a lot, has an amazing garden. She told me that a couple of owners back that the guy who lived in our house was a professional gardener and had put much work into our yard. I am no gardener but I do clean well and I cut my boy's hair..so I used those concepts! I decided to see if I could go and cut away the debris and find the pretty things....and so it worked! We have rose bushes that should bloom, and lots of beautiful flowers and a big lilac bush that should actually bloom this year. Collin was so interested in the whole thing and helped me pulled weeds etc...Ben helped too, but Collin stuck around and kept asking me to take his picture while he was posing amongst the flowers and weeds...too cute! I will post a picture of the garden after everything has bloomed! I had neighbors stopping me last night and saying, "welcome to the neighborhood!" Apparently the the garden had not been tended to in over two years...I must have been living at the house with the eye sore in the front! LOL! Oh well, I just saw what was under the snow about a month a go!

CB

Mommy-less weekend!

This weekend was an eventful one! I went on ladies' retreat from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening and had a great time while Earle held down the fort at home. I was not even able to call him all weekend because there was no cell-phone service at the Salem Bible Camp way up somewhere in the middle of Canada. We had beautiful weather this weekend!! This past week, it seems that everything has started blooming and spring/summer is actually here! It was so nice to get away and get to visit with other ladies without kids crawling on me or interrupting my conversation..and I must say, I do feel a bit more refreshed this week!! On Friday, Ben had a Bike-a-thon at school, that we got to see and Earle even surprised him by getting off of work a little early and showing up!

Earle had planned to take the boys to Heritage Park while I was gone. It looks like they had a great time on the rides and on the train.

I was told that there were movies rented, pizza and popcorn eaten and lots of time outside playing!! Thanks Earle for being such a good dad and husband! I am pretty sure I have re-gained some sanity cells in the brain! See Earle, I think I am nicer now that I am back, don't you think??? :):):)

CB