Down To Earth Recycling

I bought a curbside recycling pickup business a couple weeks ago, and am really excited about it.  I bought it from a friend who is moving to BC, she started it over a year ago.  I have 53 clients, a cargo trailer, a bunch of bins, and a lot of enthusiasm.  It's a sweet job, I make money, get some exercise,  only work one day a week, and I'm my own boss.  I got all my invoicing worked out by using intuit billing manager, it's so easy and best of all it's free.  I also think it's pretty great to be helping the environment, no worries, I'm not a crazy, hippie, recycle Nazi.

We've had our truck for a year and it has been a work in progress, Spence put in a new starter and we flushed our tranny, it just hit 300,000km this week and I hope it lasts a lot longer.  As a side note, Spencer is so great at fixing things, we were having some idling issues and took the truck into Ford, they wanted us to replace a sensor.  Spencer took the sensor off and found that it was all gummed up with dirt and oil, he cleaned it with electronic cleaner and saved us the $500 that Ford was going to charge to replace it.  He rocks my socks off!!

Thanksgiving weekend

 We went to Edmonton this year for thanksgiving but on the way we went to the Calgary Zoo.  It's a great Zoo, we had so much fun, Kali and I spent over half the time waiting for Spence to read every info board, but we made the best of it.  My favorite animals were the Gorillas for sure, I also liked the spider monkeys, the wolves, and I kinda liked the tiger, I would have liked her more if she didn't try to spray me.

Kali chasing the peacock, which she did a lot.

A family picture outside the Zoo gates.

Another family picture at the Zoo.

Family Picture in front of the Edmonton Temple.

 The reason we went to Edmonton was to visit my famliy, but I always love to have a visit with my good friends. I got to hang out with my dear Sarah, and it was so good to see her. We went to a really cool park, talked, watched the girls play, and had a picnic, and the weather was perfect too.

 Last of all, we dug up our carrots last week and found a couple funny looking ones. I'm thankful for gardens.

I love Kali Torrie

Kali and I have had 2 great days.  I think general conference was a good wake up call for me, and I have felt that the most important thing for me to do right now is be a good Mom to Kali.  I am trying to have more patience, and we are talking about our feelings, and how they affect our lives and especially our spirits.

We had the best talk tonight right before bed.  She has a friend at school who bullies her, but she doesn't want to tell on her because she doesn't want her to get into trouble.  She's also scared of her and frankly, I am too.  I worry about the future especially since this girl is only in grade one.  I feel sad that I have to send my baby into this world where I can't be there to "save" her.  I love my little girl and am totally behind her.

3rd Ward BBQ

We just got home from our ward BBQ, and it was AWESOME!!  The salads were mediocre, I wish there were something with cookies or chocolate bars.  Can you tell that I love treats?  I guess cookies and chocolate bars are not the first thing I should think of when I think of salad.  The rest of the night definitely redeemed the salads.  I had a great burger, it was really juicy and delicious, cooked to perfection.  Then for dessert we had cotton candy and snow cones.  I got a huge apple flavored cotton candy on a stick, the only down side was that I had to eat it fast cause little black flies were getting stuck in it.  I loved visiting with our friends, our ward is so great, I love it.  I think the other highlight was playing ultimate Frisbee, it's not my best sport but I did okay, and it made me feel young again.  I played opposite teams from Spence and really had a fun time hassling him and taking him down.
We didn't see Kali at all, she was all over the place.  When we took her home at 8:00 she begged to stay longer but it was already dark out.  I asked her about her night, she loved it, she played at the park, climbed the hills, ran around with her friends and ate treats.  "How many snow cones did you have Kali?"  Two fingers go up, Mom's jaw drops (maybe in jealousy).  "How many cotton candy's did you have Kali?" one finger goes up, then oh, no, two fingers come up.  Mom's jaw drops further.  Well, this only happens once a year.  She was tired enough to go to bed when we got home.
What a great night, life is so good.

School starts tomorrow, I am pretty excited.  We've had a few bumps in the mother/ daughter road for the past couple weeks.  Kali loves school and is looking forward to her new teacher and making new friends, it'll be awesome to have some structure in our lives again.

I spoke in church last week, it went well.  I'm surprised at how comfortable I am up there.  I love telling personal experiences and I think people love to hear them.  My bishop told me "That was exactly what I wanted to hear from you."  I love that guy. 

We have an addition to our family.  A cute little tabby kitten named Caramel, it matches Kali favorite stuffy.  She sure loves this kitten, and I am surprised at how much we all do, he's such a cute little thing and loves to sleep with us when he can sneak in.  Kali mauls him practically to death, I think it's cause she loves him so much.  I think he fills in some kind of void we had in our family, we're all so excited to see him and play with him.   I can't believe I have a cat though, last summer I caught like 5 in 3 days and took them to the SPCA for pooping in my garden.

Spencer's baby sis got married on Friday, so happy for her and her husband, he is a great guy and if Kali were older there may have been some competition there.  It was a beautiful day, lots of fun pictures, good food and too much candy.  With almost 20 grand kids running around hyper on pure sugar, it was chaotic.

Here's a pic with the happy couple surrounded by most of their nieces and nephews.

Spence and I kissing at the temple.

My dear friend Eliza and her little man Karsten.

The "Cool Table". (I love my cousins!!)

Our family picture by a corn field near Taber.

Bikes and Cakes

She finally did it.  It took a lot of patience, tears, and scrapes.  My Kali can ride a two wheeler.  She is pretty excited and learned over two days.  Last Saturday, we took her to the local toboggan hill with 3 different bikes, a coaster, a small bike with 12 inch tires, and a bigger one featured below.  We had her coast down the hill using her legs as skis, but keeping her weight on her seat.  She did good on the coaster, but the bikes with the pedals caused some serious adversity.  After 3 hours and bribes galore we had to give up short of her riding on her own.  Then on Monday we took her to a park really close to our house with a really small hill, she was happy and picked it up really fast and rode a while on the grass by herself.  Then later that afternoon Spence had her riding in the back alley, she still has to master the steering but it will come in time.  We are so excited that she can ride a two wheeler, it opens the door to so many adventures for our family.


I've been wanting to do this for a while, I finally covered my pine, scratched, stained, kitchen table with countertop laminate.  It looks awesome.  I love how sturdy it is.  I love how I did it all by myself.  I remind Spencer often how awesome I am and how great the table looks, he's so good at agreeing enthusiastically.  I'll kill two birds with one stone here, the picture below is of Kali, our friend Jen and I destroying the leftovers of a Safeway cake, which was so liberating.  It also shows the table and in the background you can see how my kitchen has no wall behind me, the one that Spencer took out a few weeks ago.

Our kitchen is on hold till we get our electrical permit, I hope we can get it soon, it's Spencer's department.

Camping in Waterton

We finally made it to Waterton Tuesday afternoon.  But I have to say that we had lots of fun Monday just hanging out as a family, Spence took us to Five Guys Burger and Fries.... and I LOVED it.  We spent the evening with the Wallaces at the library playing Jungle Jeopardy and had some DQ.  Fun times.
Waterton was beautiful, I love the mountains, but the idea of camping in the townsite was a drawback at first.  I did feel safer with so many camper around, and the showers were nice and clean.  We were really close to my sister's campsite which made it easier for our kids to run back and forth between the trailers.  I think I have a few highlights of the week:
1.  Kayaking for the first time in Cameron Lake, I attempted to cross the lake, made it about 7/8 of the way then turned back.  I felt bad for using up so much time on the kayak.  My abs were pretty sore the next day, but it was worth it.

2.  Spencer pulled Kali and my nephew down from Cameron Lake on the bike trailer, 16 km (almost 10 miles)  I drove behind them with my hazards on.  They loved it, the trailer has them facing out the back so I could watch them the whole way, they snacked, sang, talked and laughed.
3. Wieners of Waterton a great place for a good wiener, smokie, and sweet potato fries.  I had a smokie with the special sauce, cheese sauce, crushed chips and a pickle, it was awesome, although I think I enjoyed the fries the best with the southwest dipping sauce.
4. Hanging out with my sister and her husband.  We had fun staying up and talking, they have some pretty crazy stories.

 This is Spencer Kayaking down the Cameron falls creek.  People were lining the creek to watch him, it did look kinda crazy to see him put the kayak over the fence and into the water.

Friday morning was our planned departure, but I've now noticed a trend in our departures.  Spencer noticed a slow leak, then found a wire sticking in or out, not sure, of one of the wheels in the tent trailer.  He decided to change it to the spare, which actually didn't look much better.  After an hour, at least, we got on our way, saw a mother bear and her cubs and made it to Raymond, AB for the next hiccup in our trip.  Things happen in threes??  You betcha.  We were driving through some construction and over and bump in the road when our "good" tire fell off.  It could have been worse I suppose.  Throughout all my complaining Spencer found a parts store, bought new nuts and dust cap, and fixed the problem and had us on our way.  I won't mention that he had an impression a couple hours before to check that tire.  We were actually on our way to Elkwater for our ward campout, it's about 50 minutes SE of Medicine Hat.  We had fun at the ward camp, we visited with friends, got to know some people better, ate more hotdogs, hiked, geocached, it was great!! I hope it can happen every year.

I'm so glad to be home in my own bed.  I love summer and having lazy days.  I'm looking forward to some sweet times with Kali before she starts grade one.