The Pumpkin Run

 This is the second year that Matt and Grace have done the Pumpkin Run.  It's a fun run that encourages kids to run too.  The kids did a  2km race, and there are 5km and 8km for the adults.  Matt did the 5km this year in just over 26 minutes and placed 9th in his division.  Grace ran her 2km in 10:56 -- over 3 minutes faster than last year!

Anna and Rebecca went to cheer them on.  They want to take part next year.

 Grace is in the front row, and a few kids down is her cousin Makenna.  Makenna finished just a few seconds after Grace did.  Good job girls!

I think this will be a fun family tradition -- we may all have to join in next year!

The difference between girls and boys

 Don't let her fool you, but yes, sometimes Sarah is a fun little helper in the kitchen.

Don't turn your back on this kid though!

A Walk in the Coulees

 Matt took the girls out one afternoon for a walk in the coulees.  He even took the camera and got a few pictures too!  The girls came home very tired, but it was a fun afternoon for them.

Crazy Mountain Climber

Can you find Matt?  He and my brother Dave have been doing a ton of hiking up in Waterton this summer.  Some of them seem pretty dangerous to me, but they had a lot of fun.

Gideon is Three!

 My baby is now 3 years old -- how in the world did that happen???  He is such a funny little boy and I love the sunshine he brings to our home. 

 I found this awesome track online for $3 -- he loves it!

 And so did all his sisters too!

 The girls thought he needed a spiderman ball to play with.

It turned out that the Stake Fall Fair was on Gid's birthday, so after cake and presents, we headed down to the church for a fun evening.

Happy Birthday Gideon!

In the leafy treetops.....

We have some HUGE trees in our backyard, and they really needed trimming.  We got a quote to have them trimmed, but it was going to be $950, so we decided to try to do it ourselves.  Matt wasn't too excited to go up in the trees, so he stayed on the ground and gathered all the branches up.  I wasn't able to get all of them, but the trees are about 30feet tall and I was not quite that daring.

We were very grateful for our awesome neighbor that helped us haul all this mess away too.  It was nice to get this all cleaned up!

Peaches!

 My sister Mindy planned and ordered a TON of peaches this year for a bunch of us and we all got together and had a full day of canning them. (I was there too - just not in the picture!)

We started out on the deck outside -- it was a little windy, but we were managing alright, and it gave us all room to move.

 By that afternoon, the wind had really picked up, and a grass fire had started west of the city, so we had a hard time breathing with the smoke smell outside.  It wasn't so nice when ash and other debris started getting into our peaches as well.  So, we moved the whole operation inside.

 The "fruits" of our labors -- and this wasn't even all of them!  It was a very productive day.

First Day of School

 It is so hard to believe that summer is over and school has started once again.  We had such a fun summer it was hard to see it end.  It's also hard to believe that ALL of my kids are in school this year.  Brendan is in Grade 10, Grace is in Grade 5, Anna is in Grade 3, Rebecca is in Grade 2, and Sarah and Gideon are both in pre-school. 

Sarah had her first day of pre-school the same day as the other kids started.  She gets to go Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

 She is a seasoned veteran this year and had no troubles finding her way around.

Gideon's first day was the next day and he was excited to go as well.  Gideon goes to pre-school every Monday and Wednesday afternoon.  I had a hard time letting him go -- he won't be 3 for another week! 

He had been there so many times when we dropped Sarah off last year, that he had a few favorite spots too!

Here's hoping we have another great school year!

Day Surgery

Sarah has been getting bladder infections fairly regularly for the last couple of years, and we finally were able to see a specialist at the Children's Hospital in Calgary about this a couple of weeks ago.  He thought that she might have a condition called reflux where the urine in the bladder was going back up the ureters up toward her kidneys.  I was told that there were two options, either a test to see if this was the case, or a day surgery to see if this was the case and then have the chance to fix the problem right then.  We chose the day surgery option because I thought it would be better to have her not go through a procedure while she was aware of what was going on, and because they would be able to repair the valves while at the same time.  They told me that it would take about 2 months to get in and that they would call to book the surgery later that day.  I was surprised to hear that there had been a cancellation for the following Friday, and that we could get in so quickly.  It worked out that Mindy was going to be at the same hospital on the same day with Tyler for a dentist appointment, so we decided to go up the night before and stay in a hotel rather than get up really early, since Sarah's surgery time was 9:30am.  Tyler's appointment wasn't until 12:30, but there are some great play areas to play at, and so they came early to drop us off and then went to play for a while. 

We got all checked in at 9:30, but then had to wait until just after 11am before they were ready for her.  Sarah did not like her pajamas or her bracelet, and was pretty hungry because she was fasting, but did fairly well considering.

 I was able to come right into the OR and stay with her until she fell asleep.  They just had a mask that she breathed in and it only too a minute for her to be out.  The procedure they did was called a Bilateral Sting -- it's an acronym for something, I just have no clue what though.  While they were doing the surgery, they found something interesting.  Sarah has two ureters coming from each kidney instead of one.  The doctor said it was pretty rare, but that it wasn't a problem to have them, but that it definitely contributed to the problem of having the bladder infections.  They were able to inject something called Deflux, that created a barrier to prevent the urine from travelling back up the ureters, and we were told that this one treatment should fix the problem.

 It took Sarah a while to come out of the anesthetic, and she was a little concerned when she woke up and saw that I was gone, but she came around and was up to eating a popsicle soon after.  The timing worked out great, because just as we were finished and went to go find Mindy, she was just finishing up Tyler's appointment.  Tyler had fun giving her a ride out to the car in the wheelchair they insisted she had to be in.  I was glad that I didn't have to carry her all the way out to the van!

Sarah had a bit of a hard time with some nausea, vomiting and a fever for the next day or so, and we ended up taking her back into the ER here in Lethbridge on Sunday night.  They thought she might have a bit of an infection, so she is back on antibiotics, but hopefully she will be on the mend soon.  We are glad that we were able to get in so soon, and get the problem fixed, hopefully once and for all!