Back to School

I am not going to lie, this summer went by rather fast despite breaking my ankle.  I can't say that we did anything huge but what we did do this summer made memories.

Back to school this year had one major change...Armin is going full time! I am happy and sad about that because he is still my little boy, my baby!  It was tough on him that first week going for 4 full days.  He came home rather grumpy and if he didn't have his chocolate milk in hand upon coming through the door the anger instantly escalated!  Him being in Grade One means there will be no more one on one time with Grandma Puzey on their lunch dates to Subway :( he will definitely miss that!
 

With this being said, Emry is now in Grade 8, Calum is in Grade 4 and Armin is in Grade 1!!!  They all love their teachers!  Calum is happy to have Miss Rupp again, and Emry gets to have Mrs. Beagle, our wonderful principal, for Social Studies and Language Arts, as well as Mr. Jackson again for Math and Science! And Armin gets to have Mrs. Schmelke, he thinks its really fun to say her name.

I am excited for each of them.  I'm excited to watch them learn and grow.  This will be another great year at our little school.

Week with the Calgary Cousins

Ashton, Bowen and Cadence spent a week at Grandma's house while their parents went to Las Vegas.  Jason had work there and Lalainia tagged along for a little getaway!!!  My kids were in heaven having their Calgary cousins so close!!  Myrna about killed me with all we did to keep them entertained but it was fun and it got me out and about on my foot, preparing me for going back to work!!

Friday, Ashton and Emry went to do baptisms with Blake and Leah.  I watched Bowen and Cadence.  Bow and Calum played video games and were in heaven together!!  Cadence played barbies with Armin, which he kinda secretly liked!!

Monday night after Jared was home from work we took the gang out boating at Little Bow.  They had a blast!  We went to a beach where Bow and Cadence could play since Bow wasn't a fan of going on the tube!  Ashton and Calum had a riot tubing together!  Ashton got some good air and landed it upright even!!  It was spectacular!!  The sky that night was stunning and so calm, not a breath of wind!  We headed in after the sun went down.  Myrna's car had locked on her before she was able to get her keys out.  We knew this before going on the boat and decided to just have fun anyway and deal with it later!!  On our way home we all piled in our truck, and found out it is really very roomy!! We got the other set of keys for Myrna's car and the next morning  I drove her back to the park to pick up her car!

Tuesday, Myrna and I took the kids to Lethbridge to meet up with Rachel and her crew to go to the Henderson water park!  Again, everyone had a great time riding the slides, climbing the climbing wall and just swimming!  It was a very hot day which made being at the pool a great way to spend it!

Wednesday, Emry and I had hair appointments in the morning and then later that afternoon we took all the kids down to the beach at Little Bow!  Ashton and Bowen brought little blow up rafts and Armin had a blast with those!!  Calum played in the sand and Cadence sunbathed with Emry in the shade and then we were all treated to an ice cream cone by Grandma!!

Thursday, Myrna had to work at the temple so I had the kids for the afternoon and evening!  Calum, Cadence and I headed into Lethbridge to get parts for Jared so he could fix the wheel bearings on the boat.  Ashton, Emry, Bowen and Armin stayed home and played video games and built things with Lego!  That evening Emry and Ashton went to a youth BBQ at the Bishop's house while I took the other kids out for pizza and to the park to play!  At 8:30pm the Recreation Board was showing one final outdoor movie for the summer, they were playing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean.  Jared met us up there for the show and stayed with the older kids while I took Armin and Cadence home to go to bed!  They all said the movie was great, even Calum who gets scared quite easily!!  He did however fall asleep for the last hour of the movie.  Jared said he was laying on his back, Ashton was using his tummy as a pillow and after the show when they all stood up to leave there was Calum still laying on the ground out cold!!

Friday, Myrna and I took the kids into Lethbridge where we met up with Rachel and her kids again to watch Captain Underpants at the Movie Mill!  On our way there though I blew a tire on the van!  So I pulled over into the ditch and we waited until Myrna got our message and came back with her crew in her car!!  We split the kids up into different cars so it wouldn't be such a loud ride!!!  I also called Jared and asked ever so sweetly if he would come and fix my tire while we took the kids to the movie, we still had enough time to make it, even with a blown tire!!  So we all piled into Myrna's car. Jared was able to fix it while we were at the show, which was actually a good movie!  Even Cadence sat through it!!  Bowen had read the books and loved every minute of the show!! Emry was gone with Lily and Grandpa Glen for girls club so we only had the two little girls and five boys!! We took up a whole row in the theatre!!  After the movie we headed to McDonald's for supper, we also met Jared there!!

Saturday, the dreaded last day :( everyone had been having so much fun.  Just minor spats would happen but nothing serious!  We decided it was a day we needed to spend at the lake, one last hurrah! The only problem was so did everyone else!!!  The lake was very busy with lots of boats!!  Making the water very choppy, but great for tubing!!  We were able to find a nice enough beach where Cadence, Myrna, Char and I stayed.  We watched while Bowen and Blake swam out into the lake and Ashton and Calum went past on the tubes.  It was a fun afternoon and even though it took us until almost dark to get the boat out of the water, everyone had the same thought at the same time to leave!!  It was so worth it!!

It was great spending the week with cousins!  And even though both Myrna and I were worn out by the end we had lots of fun.  Making memories with cousins is by far the best memories to make!!

Healing

It has been just about three months since I broke my ankle.  I am definitely on the mend.  I start physio today and I am hoping that will help relieve some of the tenseness in my muscles.  In the three months since my freak accident I have been able to take in some much need rest and relaxation despite it being summer holidays, I think we all enjoyed ourselves!!  Even while in my wheelchair we still went on little outings and even took a trip to Great Falls for a weekend getaway!!  I am so grateful for Jared and the husband he is, he took on a lot of extra responsibilities without complaining!!

While in Great Falls we did some shopping, Jared and Myrna took the kids to the local outdoor water park (which they had a blast at), and we ate some good food!!  Jared also took the kids on a bike ride along the Missouri River, they said it was a beautiful ride, with smooth paved trails!!  We had a lot of fun just being together as a family!

For the last week of wearing my dreaded boot Lily and I became twins!  She cracked the plate under her big toe and in order for it to heal properly they put her foot in a boot to wear for 6 weeks.  So we got our picture taken together and captioned it "Twinsies!"  Getting out of my boot was scary, I had depended so much on it!  While at my appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Hiscox, she wanted to see how well I could walk on my foot without the boot, I was terrified to take that first step since I hadn't put much weight on it for two months prior to that day.  I took a step and when I realized my ankle wasn't going to buckle underneath me I took another step and then another!  I could do it, though it hurt, a lot!! The pain was from not using the muscles in my foot.

I have successfully been hobbling around, some days I look more normal than others, it still hurts (not really sure what that's about?) but I can do it!!  I have been back at work for two weeks and I am loving my new position! Definitely more busy than I was in my old position!  I love coordinating teachers for the different programs we offer, making new forms for families to fill out and searching Pinterest for activities for upcoming events!!!!

This summer is definitely one I won't soon forget.  I enjoyed the down time with our kids and I feel we grew a little closer!  I feel they all grew up a little too, Emry took on more responsibility and excelled at it!  Armin now goes to bed great without me laying with him.  Jared just reads them a chapter from the Book of Mormon or the Bible, or now they are onto a novel and then they go right to sleep!

Life is good and I am thankful for each and everyone who has helped us during this time!  Whether it was by bringing meals into our home or coming to clean my house, or taking me to appointments, I appreciate you all!!

Mini Puzey Reunion

In August Myrna was able to get everyone together for a couple of days to celebrate being a Puzey!!! The cousins are finally getting to an age where everyone gets along and has so much fun together!!! Friday night we had a yummy steak dinner complete with the whipping cream potatoes!!!  

After, we broke into two teams and played minute to win it style games.  That was a real hit!  There was blowing a ping pong ball across three cups full of water, emptying a tissue box with one hand, sucking smarties up with a straw and transferring them to a cup, bouncing a ping pong ball into the holes of an egg carton, knocking plastic cups over with ping pong balls stuffed in the end of panty hose worn on your head, grabbing coins out of the end of a pair of panty hose and dropping a ping pong ball into a plastic cup while standing on a chair!  All the games went over well, and we didn't finish until it was almost 10pm...before everyone departed to bed for the night we had a quick talent show.  It was a great night!  

During the games we only had one fiasco!!!  While spectating some of us were sitting ON the dinning room table and then in an instant we were not!!!!  The table collapsed, and I mean really collapsed!!!  Metal bars were bent, it broke right down the middle.  Thankfully no one was badly hurt.  Bowen managed to get a nasty scrape and Emry had a wicked bruise on the back of her leg.  While we were standing looking at the mess Grandma mistakenly says "The table is fine!!" In actuality meaning the floor was fine, and no major scratches were made.  It was funny because the table was clearly not fine!!

The next morning we all met for breakfast, visited while the kids played then had a quick and easy lunch before heading to the lake to go for a boat ride!  Everyone had a blast on the tubes and with it being so hot the beach was a real hit too!!!

We finished the night off with hamburgers!  It was a great weekend, quick but fun! I love spending time with Jared's brother and sister's and the spouses and kids!!  I truly feel like I belong to the Puzey clan, they have accepted me and welcomed me with open arms and I truly am grateful to be able to call myself a Puzey!  I love how different we all are but when together those differences melt away and we catch up on all the coming and goings.  We may not talk to each other everyday but it doesn't seem to matter, we always pick up where we left off!  I am grateful for Myrna, for the insight she has in putting these get togethers on and all the prep time she puts in to making it fun and getting everyone involved!!  Next year she will be away on her mission so we will have to take it upon ourselves to get everyone together!! Maybe a camp out at Little Bow?  Whatever we do will be fun, I'm already looking forward to it!

Floating the Bow River

Grandpa Glen took the boys on a little adventure this summer!!  For boys club they floated down the Bow River in a raft!!  Dad's friend, Deb, dropped them off at their drop site and they floated down to where they left Grandpa's car, it took about 3 hours!!

While they were on the river a police boat rode by, the boys got their squirt guns out and sprayed them as they went by!!  The next time the police boat rode by a little closer!!!  The boys again sprayed at them, laughing hysterically.  The police officers got quite a kick out of it too and came even closer the next time by.  Dad was slightly panicked, but all turned out well and everyone had a great time!  The squirt guns were courtesy of Deb, and were a real hit!!!  The boys also sprayed Grandpa in the crotch making it look as though he peed his pants, they got some funny looks walking to their car after the raft ride!!  Again the boys thought they were hilarious.

The boys stayed a few days with Grandpa, they hung out, ate pizza and ice cream and just had fun bonding and making memories!!

The girls also had a girls club date with Grandpa!!  Lily and Emry got to go on a train ride at Aspen Crossing, it was called the Twilight Ride.  They ate supper at the restaurant there, Emry had salmon to eat, her absolute favorite. They then boarded the train, they had their tickets punched and found a seat.  They were able to walk all around the train and move to different cars.  There was even a mock train robbery where the money "stolen" was given to charity!!  Emry and Lily each got a little train as a souvenir!!  Emry is so proud of hers, she even carried it around with her for a couple of days showing everyone and telling them about her train ride experience.

I love how my dad takes the kids and does something fun with them!!!  I love how he has a girls club and a boys club and the memories they make while they are with him!!  Grandparents are a child's special friend, someone they should always feel close to.  I'm thankful our children are as close as they are to their grandparents!!  The other night at Young Women's we were playing getting to know you games and one of the games had some deep questions.  One Emry picked up asked if she had ever lost anyone close to her.  As she said yes, her eyes welled up with tears and she barely was able to say her Grandpa Puzey.  They were pals, and she remembers spending lots of one on one time with him while Myrna and I worked at Weight Watchers!!  They played fun games in the car as they came up to stop lights, they went grocery shopping together and walked across the overpass foot bridge one day to watch all the cars speed by underneath.  They had a special bond, one she will always remember!!  It so great she gets to make memories with Grandpa Glen that she too will always remember!