School's out for the summer!

 As we approached the end of the year, I was originally dreading the thought of summer with Justin working nights and having to come up with ways to keep myself and the girls from driving each other crazy every day. Nobody love's when their husband is on the night shift, but I have learned over the past couple of years that the success (or failure) of those four months depends largely on MY attitude. Not that it keeps me from stressing about it, but it has been a blessing to discover this. I am realizing that we are just about half way through with night shift as well as almost one month into summer break.

We started the summer off with a wonderful family trip to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. The scenery is stunning! We were so fortunate to see many beautiful animals in the wild such as: Elk, Deer, Big Horn Sheep, Mountain Goat, Moose (a cow and two babies), Grizzly Bear (3 of them!), and some smaller creatures. On a few different occasions I was almost overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounded us, both plant and animal. I felt a respect for these amazing animals too, and just can't get myself behind the idea of hunting them. The girls played so well together while we were there. And in general, their behavior was excellent. I loved watching them together and it makes me so happy to know that they love each other. I will strongly encourage this as they grow.

Since being home, Katelyn has started with swim lessons and is doing quite well. She is not scared at all this year and just today told me that diving off the side of the pool (with the teacher's help) is her favorite thing to do. I am glad she is liking it. Alaina wishes she could go in the pool too, but she will have to wait until next summer.

After being away for a week it was really exciting to come home and see how much the garden had grown. Our blueberry bushes have produced this year (yay!) and it looks hopeful that we will have some things to harvest this year.

We enjoyed cherry picking last week and have been frequenting the Farmer's Markets as often as possible. It's so fun to live in this highly agricultural area and to have access to so much local food!