So it's the end of summer.....already.

I think the older we get the faster the days go....the longer it takes for the snow to melt, and the summer holidays seem to take forever then end so quickly. Welcome to Monday, August 31, 2009. Tomorrow. We are all a bit excited however that the school year is beginning. For me it means we can fall back into a regular routine, and hopefully that means we won't be so crazy busy. I usually feel anxious about 'normal' life around this time of year, after spending all summer doing whatever the heck we feel like doing, whenever we feel like it...lol. Avery will be starting kindergarten tomorrow, and Jaden in 1st grade. Ahhhhh how time flies....but it's good. A bit strange to be home with just Cohen again, but the plan is to drop the kids off at 8:30 then drive to the millar centre for a good work out. I'll leave Cohen with the babysitters there, then home we come, nap/shower time. Pick up Avery at 11:30, lunch....then work in the afternoons and later evenings on Photography. Now that I type that all out, it doesn't sound less crazy or busy...but at least it will become our routine :) I better get to bed....6:30 will feel SO early tomorrow....I'll end this post with a few more pictures of the kids in Jasper.

Pictures from our family trip

The kids were pretty good about letting me take their pictures in exchange for souvenirs! :)

Avery is sitting just outside of Miette Hotsprings in the picture above.

Glad we went there, but the road in was crazy.... couldn't imagine doing that in the winter!

We asked Jaden to take a few of us, and he did a pretty good job... people walking by looked nervous seeing him hold my heavy camera!

This was at Athabasca Falls.... what a beautiful place!!!

Thanks Rene for taking this one of Jaden, we were waiting around for the tram.


Jaden with his long mohawk, unstyled.... it was clipped off the next day into a nice brush cut. Easy maintenance :)

Both kids seemed to have grown up a lot over the summer.... in the way they look and act. In my opinion it can slow down now anytime. I love them both at the ages that they are =)

Miss Avery striking a few poses ;) She's hilarious in front of the camera!

Found this cool wall in an alley on our way to supper, couldn't resist taking a few here!

These little guys were all over the mountains, and on the road.... they blend in so well with the rocks!

Saw a lotta behinds like this one above! ;)

We stopped on the side of the road at this really cool water area.... so sandy, and the water was crystal clear and nice and warm.... the water was shallow and as you can see we were able to walk out a far ways.... it was a perfect hot afternoon to be playing in the water and extra beautiful to have the mountains surrounding us!

Just wanted to share a few (yes there will be more!) from our days in Jasper earlier in the week. Alix was kind enough to babysit Cohen just to make it a bit easier, knowing that at his age all the driving would have been tough on him, and we didn't think he'd enjoy waiting in lines, or able to go on the boat tours etc... while it did make it easier just have Jaden and Avery with us... we missed Cohen big time. Thankfully he was really good for his aunty and smothered us with love when we got home :) I tried loading these on facebook but I kept getting an error and it's too late to keep trying, so here they are. :)

Whitecourt has a new girl in town....

Alix's good friend Kelsey had a baby girl a few nights ago. We went to visit and snapped a few pictures for her. Congratulations Cliff and Kelsey! Looking forward to your newborn session!

~adrienne

Rene's thang....

IS DIRTBIKING! :)

So we headed to the track the other night after supper..with the kids. We had so much fun, especially Rene. He loves his sport, but doesn't get a chance to go riding as often as he likes because the location of the track is out of town, and well riding season is pretty short! Here are a few photo's from our evening there. I did some quick edits on them.... and they were taken without much thought as to where the sun was etc, etc.... i just shot as I could, while Cohen clung to my leg and ran off a few times.....

Playing around....

Playing with pictures (that I snapped in horrible lighting conditions!), playing outside, playing at West Edmonton mall..........fun times, good summer. Here's a few from our day in the city yesterday. We stopped at a small town on the way where Alix said there were a few older buildings...it was a VERY cool location, but we were there in full sun, lots of shadows, squinty eyes, but took some anyway. They are just for us anyway, and all for fun. Would love to go back and take more pictures another day closer to sun set. We hit the mall and the kids went on a few rides, then we ate in the food court. Next I took the 2 older ones into Gap and bought some school outfits. Jaden was awesome.... loved everything! Avery was po'd that I didn't buy her these "SO CUTE FLIP FLOPS" (because she has so many already!) but she did try on the clothes we picked, and she looks pretty cute I must say. From there I snuck into La Senza and bought a few new items for moi :) then back on the road to go home. We packed a lot into our afternoon, and the kids proved that when I finally woke up at 10am this morning and they were all still sleeping!

;)

Summer Rocks!

All I can think of this picture is that Jaden looks like a deer with his leg up like that? lol

The girls playing in the sand at Rotary Park.

Here's a quick pic of our new house in Whitecourt.

Having a water fight in the backyard!

Ahhh.... looking older and older every day!~

As mentioned in my previous post, this blog is going to be all about us and the kids, our friends and families :) My business blog is now over at www.photographybyadrienne.ca/blog and that will be where I will post session updates, promotions, and client previews.

So I can't help thinking the last few days how awesome summer time is! We go on schedule and off whenever it suits us best.... love that the kids sleep in some mornings and I have that peace and quite time in the morning while I browse facebook, ebay, etsy etc... some mornings the kids are dragging me out of bed for breakast, usually after a late evening out, or a full day in the sun. Either way, it's all good.

We are somewhat settled into our new house and making it our permanent home. It feels so right and so good. There's a lot of things we want to do inside the house but we'll wait until fall to tackle those projects. This past weekend we had another garage sale (yes 'another' one this summer! ha!) Knowing now that we are here to stay meant we could part with some of our things, and go through ALL of our boxes, some of which have been in storage for the past 6 years! I don't want to see another brown box with my black writing on it saying which room, and what's in it for a VERY long time! So our garage is taking shape, and it will be so nice to get the kids into a warm car in the morning come this winter, thx to the in floor heat!

Half the summer is now over and we've been very busy. We did a bit of camping and our last weekend in the camper was out at Beaver Lake for our family fish derby. We knew that it might not be as easy as last year, as our baby is now mobile and into everything! It was a bit challenging but we did have a lot of fun. Jaden and Avery played and played, and Cohen ran and climbed. Rene and I followed, chased, caught, cleaned and cooked ;) Thank God for the evenings when we could sit in our camping chairs with a beer and enjoy the fire. Jaden got to go in the boat with my dad for a few hours and he caught a fish right away. It was entered into th grandchild/grandparent category and they won 3rd place!

Both Jaden and Avery did 2 weeks of swimming lessons at the Millar Centre, which went really well. They were both scared to put their faces in the water to start with and in the end, they both can float and hold their breath under water! They loved going, which made it really easy to go twice a day for 2 weeks, and Cohen really liked going to the daycare that is provided at the center for parents who remain in some part of the building. I can see that we will be taking advantage of the millar centre a lot this year.

Here are a few pictures that I snapped yesterday at Rotary Park and around the yard. With Cohen being so wiggly and needing a diaper bag for him along with all the rest of the 'stuff' we need to spend a few hours outside at the park, it's rare that I get the chance to bring my camera out too...but since my sister Alix is living with us she SO KINDLY offered to watch Cohen while we went to the park, so I traded him for the camera for a couple of hours :) THX ALIX!!!! He is SO busy right now and having someone help out with him is just a huge help. We went with our new friends who live a few houses down, who have 2 very sweet kids. It's great having a family to hang out with, and it's almost freaky how similar we all are! Though our kids don't match up in ages they do play really well togeher. So *cheers* to summer and to family and friends :)