Easter

This is the first of 6 new posts, so keep reading :).  We had a good Easter this year, but I sure missed going to my Mom's house.  She always does the best treasure hunts.  I was reading my sisters blog and she talked about how she tried to make the hunt good like my moms by making it spiritual and fun, and to rhyme the clues.  That is exactly how I felt.  I just kept thinking, how did my mom do it? But I did my best.  The rhymes definitely left something to be desired :).

Sailing

Erik works with a guy that owns a sailboat and he offered to take our family out last week.  Leading up to it I was so nervous.  The ocean just scares me.  It ended up being a cool experience.  Erik and the kids drove the boat almost the whole time.  The guy that took us was so nice, and so patient.  I got a little sea sick.  I tried not to show it though because I didn't want to ruin it for anyone.  I am really grateful that my kids get a chance to experience adventures like this, but I have no plans to do it again anytime soon.  Way too stressful for me.  The kids would go out on the front of the boat and I just kept thinking about what could happen.  Of course nothing did.  It ended up being a neat adventure.

Afterwards we went out to eat at one of those restaurants where they cook the food right in front of you.  The guy we had was really fun.  

Projects and Tail Wars

Lexi had a big school project to make a 3d animal.  She was assigned a cat.  I found a sock cat that seemed simple enough for her to do.  Erik and I only guided her, but she did all the sewing and gluing herself.  She was so proud of how it turned out.  Her teacher said to her at school that she did such a good job on her report too.  Then she said she looked down and saw 100%.  I am glad that she got a good mark because she worked so hard on it.

I had to take a picture of this and share because I thought it was so cute.  Hunter is always making random things.  But this day he decided to do this.  It says on the outside "My Awesome Journal".  On the inside it says "some cities get destroyed because of fires.  Sometimes cities get destroyed by mountains,  Some get flooded by seas." So cute.  

Most people on our block have pools.  It makes me so sad that we don't have one.  It would be so fun.  Instead we went and got this water slide.  The kids think it's pretty fun.  

I wish that time could stand still.  My kids are getting way too old.  Sometimes I wish I could have more kids.  I know I am not supposed to.  I had a really strong confirmation of that.  But sometimes I wish that I was the type of person that could have 12.  It makes me sad.  I love being a Mom.  I love my kids so much. Anyways, the reason I say this looking at these pictures is because all the kids were going down the slide having so much fun and Lexi says, "Mom, can we put some music on?".  So I put music on.  Then she comes down the slide and does this at the bottom:

Between the music and the peace sign, it's just too much for me.  She's only 7!!! Lol.

This is the last random thing.   I came upstairs the other day and this is what the boys were doing. They  called it "tail wars".  It made me think of my brothers.  I am pretty sure they had head butting wars, so this might be a little less violent.  But I thought it was pretty funny.  

  

Yee-haw

This year in Hunter's kindergarten class they had a mini rodeo.  It was so important to Hunter to look like a cowboy.  Erik went to get him some cowboy boots, and while he was there picked himself up a pair.  He volunteered for the rodeo and some real cowboys were there, and came up to Erik and asked him if he owned a ranch.  He was so proud because they said he looked like a "real" cowboy.  I love cowboys, so it made us both happy :) Don't they look handsome?

It was at the same time as the Houston Rodeo which we got tickets too from Erik's work.  It was fun, but the actual rodeo is way better in Calgary.  The chuck wagons were hilarious.  I think they had 2 sets of 3 wagons, and it was all indoors, so they only had a tiny arena to go around.  But it was still so much fun. The food.  Oh my.  The food was so good.  I love the rodeo.  Erik thinks I'm a little weird that way.  He likes it, but doesn't love it like I do.  Here are some pictures from the day.  

Friends forever

We are so fortunate to have good friends in our life.  Family and friends have always been important to us, but moving here made me realize that the people in our life are everything.  I miss my family and friends so much.  So much.  I cry often because of it.  I feel sad that I miss out on important events in people's lives.  I wish I could make the people who are important to me feel how much I love them.  But, I am really bad at that.  Anyways, our friends the Hollands came to visit us.  It meant so much for us for them to make the sacrifice to come.  We had such a good time with them.  We got to go to San Antonio and go to Sea World, and the river walk.  But it didn't matter what we were doing, I was just so happy to have them here.  They are wonderful, forever friends.  For some reason I did not take very many pictures.  I guess we were having too much fun :).  I did take some they day they got here though.  It was Valentines day, so we had a nice dinner together.  

The first shot is to get Jolie back for some lovely bathing suit shots I found on my phone :)

Sports

Putting my kids in programs is a constant battle for me.  I know we are not supposed to over schedule ourselves so that we can spend time together as a family, but at the same time I really want my kids to feel like they have talents and interests that are being developed.  I also feel like most sports end up being on Sundays which makes me crazy.  The ideal, I have decided, is for us to find interests as a family, things that we can all do together.  This last semester though I let the boys do a sport because Lexi started doing piano again.  Asher chose football.  Football is huge here.  I would say even bigger than hockey is in Calgary.   Asher ended up doing so good.  By his last game he got lots of the flags from the other team, passed the ball for a touchdown, and got a touchdown himself.

Hunter decided to do basketball.  The kid was such a natural.  It was so fun to go to his games because he would get so many baskets and rebounds.  He is definitely a Bates boy.  

And Evie started gymnastics.  She loves it and asks every day if it is on.  Her instructor says "Evie ivie over" every time he sees her.  I thought Evie was a name that you couldn't tease until he started saying that.  Haha.  

This semester I was burnt out, so we did not put the boys in anything.  Instead we are doing stuff as a family.  We got the kids some dirt bikes.  Last year they did a lot of quading, but Erik wanted them to try dirt biking too.  So we took the kids out to a street where there were no cars and the kids gave it a go.  Our camping trailer is on its way here.  I am sooo excited for that.  We were unsure what to do with it for so long, but as soon as we decided to bring it here I knew it was the right decision.  We love to camp.  It is one of my favorite things actually.  So now we can go camping and dirt biking.  

And of course Evie, who happily played in the dirt the whole time. 

Another thing that we are taking up as a family is golf.  When we moved here I told Erik that I would learn how to golf since he loves it so much, and he wanted the kids to learn.  I did not have real intentions of learning or loving it.  But a few weeks ago all the kids had a birthday party, so we had a couple of hours to burn and we decided to go golfing.  Oh my goodness.  I loved it.  It was so much fun.  It was relaxing, peaceful, challenging, and such a fun way to spend time with each other.  Once a week the kids are doing a lesson, and then they have a "kids night out" at the golf course, so we can golf.