Canada!

Why didn't anyone tell me it has been three months since I've blogged? Yikes! I knew it had been a while but sheesh.

My trip to Canada was amazing. We spent a month with my family and thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of it! I love my family. We are a no-drama family and I'm grateful for that! We actually enjoy each other's company :) We played a LOT of card games. We had lots of good chats. My mom and my sisters and I had spent lots of time shopping. It was heaven! Harrison and Sterling loved helping Grandpa shovel snow :) The day we got there we had warned Harrison that he needed to be careful outside on the ice and snow and that he could really hurt himself. Well, it wasn't long until he wiped out! And his response? "But I took skating lessons!" So he spent a good part of the trip with a banged up face. Poor dude!

I just enjoyed being at my parents' house. It is the same house I grew up in and it was fun to tell Harrison & Sterling stories about mommy growing up. Seeing all of my nieces and nephews was awesome too! What a great group of kiddos. We spent lots of nights eating at different siblings' houses and just enjoying it! Brian was only able to join us for about 10 days of it but we were glad to have him for some of it! We did manage to have one day where we were all together -- all 33 of us! My parents were indeed beaming the entire day :) We did get to do a family picture. When I get it finally edited I will post it. We spent one night leaving all of the grandkids by themselves at my parents' house while all of the adults went out to dinner at our favorite Chinese food restaurant! The grandkids ranged in age from 19 years old to 3 months.
I thought we were going to get kicked out of the restaurant for being so loud :) We had so much fun retelling stories from when we were younger. I love listening to my siblings tell stores since I'm the baby of the family and I don't remember as much as they do. There were points where we were all crying we were laughing so hard. Ahh...good times :)

I did manage to hang out with some of my best girlfriends from Calgary. We went out one night and laughed so hard we cried again :) I miss them. I went out for dinner with other friends too while I was in Lethbridge. It was so nice just to see familiar faces when you're out and about in town. Every time I went to Costco I would run into a friend or a cousin. Loved it!

I also had a few families hire me to do their family pictures while I was there. So fun! So cold! Doing pictures on the beach when it is +25C is a lot different than the frigid temps in January in Canada :) Despite the cold, we managed to get great family images for them.

Another important part for me of the trip was going to see my Grandma. Great Grandma Jelly Bean as the kids call her. She was a lot more frail and just older looking than the last time I had seen her. I got up to see her four or five times while I was there. I had kind of said my good-byes while I was there. She passed away last week. I'm at peace with it because I know she is with my grandfather Virgil and my little Truman.

I didn't want to come back to Florida. Florida isn't home. Canada is home. As we were landing in Calgary I was watching out the windows with my boys and I saw Old Chief Mountain. I actually cried when I saw the mountains again. That is home. The beach is pretty...the Rocky Mountains...breathtaking.

Anyway, best trip EVER.