60th Birthday Party!!

I started writing this blog last week and finished it today.

It is still hard to believe that my parents both have now turned 60.  WOW!  We had a big celebration for them last Saturday (May 21st)  and invited friends and family.  It was so nice to see everyone.

Being part of a big family definitely makes putting on a party like this a lot easier.  There was 5 of us girls to prepare the food, decorate the hall and make the day special.  Make that 6, my mom helped us with the baking, she made 3 tortes and the birthday cake.

I took on a huge project of putting together a slideshow with pictures of my parents, mostly of their married life.  They have definitely done a lot in the 40 years that they have been married.  Starting out in Calgary then moving to Wetaskiwin in the mid-70's.  There were many pictures of different vacations that they went on and lots of pictures of us kids.  It really made me realize again how important pictures are to preserve our memories.

We had a great day with friends and family and lots of food of course!!  Thank you to everyone that came out and made the day special.

Looking through all the pictures reminded me again of all that my parents did and still do for me.  Thank you mom and dad for all the wonderful memories you gave me as a kid, for everything you did for me and everything you still do for us.

Most difficult picture to take!!

God has truly a blessed our family!!

Mother's Day!

Flowers from my girls!!

I thought I would continue to share on my blog.  We are no longer on vacation but we continue to make new memories on a daily basis around here.  With six kids there is always something happening and some sort of memory that I would like to lock into my memory to cherish, as the time is so quickly slipping away.  Life seems to be passing by faster and faster each year.  I cannot believe we are already approaching summer again.

Yesterday we celebrated Mother's Day.  I feel so blessed to be a mother to my six beautiful children.  I still remember being a little girl dreaming of the day I would be a real mother and telling my dad "but I am a mommy to my dolls."  Those days seem so long ago.




In the morning we went to church and after church we took these pictures to remember the day.  I have come to realize that even though I do not like to be on pictures I need to force myself to take pictures with my kids so that they have pictures of me when they are older.

We went to my mom's house for lunch after church.  I think there was 39 of us there in total (21 kids and 18 adults).  The kids are now outnumbering the adults, not a good situation!!!   It is always a bit crazy but the weather was nice yesterday and the kids could be outside.

Mark's gift to me!

That night, the kids gave me their presents that they had made for me.  Mark surprised me with a very special gift that he had brought back from Colorado Springs.  When we lost our little Joseph, I really wanted some sort of wall hanging that expressed how special my children are to me and to remind me how blessed I am that each one is healthy.  I never could find anything and I had even looked at Focus on the Family but missed this one.  Mark did see it and bought it for me.  It is perfect, the verse on it is very special to me. (Psalm 139:13,14) When I was pregnant with the twins, I listened to a CD with the kids that had a song with this bible verse in it.  Then when we started having problems it comforted me because I knew God was in control and that He loved my little boys even more than I did.

I love my children very much and I thank God for them each day.  My greatest pray is that they will grow to have a personal relationship with our heavenly Father.

Me and My Mom!

Coffee Sweet Coffee!!

While we were on vacation, Mark and I definitely missed our Tim Horton's coffee.  We aren't big Tim Horton drinkers but we do enjoy our daily coffee at home.  When we are on the road and especially driving so much and through the night we like to have a good coffee.  In the states though it is very hard to find a good coffee place.  Whenever we could we got it from Starbucks but we found that it was very strong and bitter.

We really looked forward to our first Timmy's in Lethbridge.  I think someone could make a lot of money if they set up a Tim Horton's just after the border!!!!

We arrived home safely on Sunday night at 7:10pm, which was funny because when we left two weeks ago it was at 7:13pm.  The last part of the trip was tiring for Mark so I drove from Calgary to Wetaskiwin.  So in total I drove 3 1/2 hours out of about 70!!  I figured out we covered about 7000 km.  It is amazing what you can do in 16 days.

It is nice to be home but we are definitely planning to do something like this again.  Thank you to everyone who prayed for us.  God definitely kept His hand over us!!

We saw this big dinosaur in a little place called Milk River just across the border.  Mattias is really into dinosaurs so we thought we would stop and take a picture with this big creature!!








We thought it would be interesting to see how much stuff we actually fit in our van.  So we unpacked the whole van onto our living room floor.  Here is what it looked like.  We were just missing 3 people and two car seats on this picture!!!!

Las Vegas - April 29, 2011

We arrived into Vegas just as the sun was going down, it was beautiful.  We went to an In-N-Out! burger place.  They have good food for a reasonable price.  When we stepped out of the van we could feel that it was already a bit cooler.

After supper we found a place to stay.  It is not much to talk about, a typical motel room.  But they didn’t care that we had six kids and we could pull right up to the door and unload.  There was no free internet or free breakfast but it was a place to sleep.  We were not too far from the strip so we walked and walked and walked.  I think by the end of the evening we walked about 7 km.  Thank goodness for our stroller, the three little boys could ride and the three older kids walked the whole way.  I felt so bad, they are all little troopers because we didn’t get back to the room till midnight.

There was definitely a lot to see in Vegas and a lot of people to deal with.  We were able to see the water show at the Bellagio, which the kids really wanted to see and I got to see the Venetian Hotel.  Not sure I would take my kids back but it would be neat to go with Mark and look around a bit more.

Before we started heading north we decided to go to Hoover Dam and show the kids one of the most spectacular water dams in the US.  This was really awesome to see.

Now it is definitely time to head home:(

Five Days in Indio, California!!!! - April 24 - 29

Five days in Indio!! - April 24-29, 2011

We spent 5 beautiful days in Indio.  We all loved and enjoyed relaxing by the pool.  We again had a wonderful hotel room.  This time we had a full kitchen, so we could make our meals in the room.  The weather was great and we all were able to take home a tan.    We spent most of our time by the pool, Mattias was able to practice his swimming and even William became more brave in the water.

On Wednesday morning we went and picked up my parents from the airport in Palm Springs.  The kids were very excited, they haven’t seen my parents much in the past two months. (they were gone for a month, then we left shortly after their return)  We then were able to check out their new vacation house.  We are very excited for them (and us)  to have such a beautiful place to go for vacation.

On Thursday night we went to Palm Springs to a street fair.  This was neat to walk around and see all the different things.  So many touristy things to buy, but I have been very good on this trip to not pick up things that I will not use once I get home.  We have walked into quite a few gift shops and walked out with nothing.  I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff in the last few months in my house and realized pictures hold great value in remembering things we have experienced and they usually take up less space.  (especially when they never get developed!!)

On Friday morning we packed up and got ready to leave.  We were all very sad to leave the beautiful weather.  We are not ready to go home yet.  The kids all wanted to stay with Grammy and Grandpa.  We drove to the Cabazon Outlets and did a little shopping and had lunch before we said good-bye to my parents and headed to Las Vegas.

Here are some pictures by the pool!!!

Vegas here we come!!!