October 2017

The first few days of October our region had a massive snow storm. The boys even got to experience their first official snow day. Snow seems to make many people in my life sad, angry and other negative emotions. I'm generally indifferent to it. It looks super pretty sometimes, but mostly it's just part of living in Alberta and that's how I see it. This time, the snow felt like home. I live in the desert of Alberta now. It's hot, it's dry and it's crazy windy in this Chinook region. Snow gave me a sense of familiarity.


John and the boys stayed home on our snow day. I baked super amazing massive chewy chocolate chip cookies as well as some diabetic friendly peanut butter cookies for John. I also baked a Saskatoon Berry Pie that week. That's my favourite kind of pie in the whole world, but it was the first time I've ever made one. I also had my birthday that week, which I mentioned in my previous post. The highlight of that day was a surprise visit from my brother. Love that guy!

John and I actually were able to find Rod's grove. It's a bench surrounded by trees and flowers that was made by John's dad's friends after he passed away. I kept asking family here where it was and they'd always say something like "oh, it's by so-and-so's house". Um... I don't know where people live here. But anyway, we finally found it and we love it!

We had our municipal election. Holy doodle, I've never heard people in Canada get that nasty about an election in Canada ever before. It was not fun and I was glad when it was over. There was some humour though when someone grabbed some of the election signs from a neighbouring town (that we apparently have a bit of a rivalry with) and put them up here in town.

We had a heartwarming experience in the pharmacy mid-month. John and I were in the pharmacy to get my prescription for my meds filled. The store was having some system issues with their debit machine while they were ringing through the lady ahead of us. The cashier let us know what the total was for my pills in case we had the cash to cover it. We both realized we had no cash and kind of figured John would have to go to the bank to take out money for it. Then, the kind lady in front of us put down the cash on the counter to cover the cost of my meds and told the cashier she was paying for them. Neither of us knew her, but she was willing to pay for my meds for me, no questions asked. It was a bright ray of light in what has been a very dark time for me. 

John and I have been going on Saturday date in to Lethbridge in conjunction with our weekly grocery shopping. 2 weekends ago I got some jeans that fit (I had none) and then we went for brunch at Firestone. I had half of a club sandwich and cheddar broccoli soup. So delicious! We LOVE Firestone. It was my belated birthday meal since I wasn't doing well around my actual birthday.

The boys did their annual Primary Presentation. It was Caleb's last one. They all did great. Brettley even complimented Ty loudly after he said his part. It made us chuckle. 

Ty turned 9 and I did a post saying 9 things about him on Facebook. Here they are:

1) He is, hands down, the winner for recipient of 'most lines I never thought I'd have to use as a parent'.

2) His favourite colour is blue.

3) He loves Disney Princess movies. 

4) He is doing choir in school this year. He also likes to serenade the shower-head regularly.

5) He is my only boy who has hazel eyes or who is a south paw. Both are traits he shares with his dad.

6) Ty loves math, it is by far his favourite school subject.

7) He loves to talk randomly about cotton candy and/or pigs. He also randomly likes to rotate.

8) Well, really, he's just incredibly random in general.

9) Ty is an extremely happy person. I'm sure Heavenly Father gave him to me as my own personal ray of sunshine.

I had quite a few comments from people after my last blog post. It made me grateful that I chose to break my public silence about my struggles. Things seem a lot more positive having that added support. THANKS, GUYS!

Today we're enjoying Halloween, so here is our annual picture. Caleb is a military pilot, Ty is Harry Potter and Brettley is Boba Fett.