Canada Trip--July 31, 2017

Oh Canada, my home and native land.  It was SO AWESOME to be back home, however briefly.  There were more things to do than we could get done, but we had a marvelous time.  

The drive down was pretty uneventful.  Annabel cried for the first four hours, but then seemed to mentally adjust and hasn't cried again in her carseat since that day, so that is one great thing that came from the trip.  Pre-Canada, Annabel was what you might call a "homebody" and would cry any time she was put in her carseat.  

We listened to the second in the Mrs. Pollifax series and despite my having forgotten how much swearing is in it (oops), we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  Books on tape are the best to help the time fly by.  

We stayed with my brother, Derek, and his wife, Brooke, and family.  They have a lovely home, well stocked with many essentials like nutella.  I might have eaten a lot of nutella during the trip, for which they still harass me.  Hey guys, there's a reason why I never buy it!  I understand my addiction and deal with it.  You're the ones who had the stuff on hand.

The first few days we just hung around Derek's house and relaxed and let the kids get to know each other by playing a lot of video games together.  They all seemed to think that was awesome.  Brooke and I whipped Derek and Timoth's heiny at Codenames.  We had three cards still to get and Derek and Timothy only had one so Brooke threw up a hail Mary and gave me unlimited guessing.  Oh yes, I DID guess every single card correctly. Cha-ching!  

A highlight for me is when Timothy was teaching Brooke and Derek how to play For Sale (a fantastic game) and Timothy mentioned that it was a good idea to hide how much money you have during the buying round.  A little while later Derek took the top part of the game box and dragged it in front of his coins.  I thought nothing of it because I am still the most trusting idiot of all time.  Timothy, however, said, "I think the most important thing we need to remember, here, is how often Derek cheated when he played games with Andrea when they were little."  Then Brooke grabbed the box and we all saw that Derek had taken all the leftover money and added it to his own supply.  Good thing Timothy has his wits about him.

As a sidenote--Derek comes up with some ridiculous clues for Codename and then sits there with this hopeful look on his face while Timothy has to figure out what in the world Derek was trying to get him to guess.  It was pretty funny.  One time I gave the clue, "tube," and Brooke and Katelyn didn't get river and I had to have an internal mental breakdown while keeping my face impassive.  I'm not good at the impassive thing.  

One day (Tyson and Derek's birthday) we went to a small lake by Derek's house.  We were supposed to be boating but the boat wouldn't cooperate.  Instead the kids swam and played with some rafts somewhat close to the beach.  We had a rather scary incident at the lake.  

Harriet's Near Death by Drowning Complete Story:

We were at a lake by Derek's house.  The beach sloped down pretty slowly so the kids could touch fairly far out so I was laxer than I should have been about keeping everyone close. At one point Timothy walked over (he'd been by the food over on the grass a ways away) and asked where all the kids were. That was the first miracle--that he came over right then and asked about the kids right then.  I pointed out Oskar, Clover, and Annabel, who were all right by me, and then started scouting for the others. I quickly realized I couldn't see Harriet. Timothy coming over right then and asking about the kids was a miracle because, like I said, I was just casually checking for kids every few minutes--not being vigilant. The second miracle was that Eli walked by right when I realized I couldn't see Harriet, so I was able to ask him if he knew where she was. He had been playing with the other kids and came to shore for no apparent reason just then.  He said Harriet was by the boat. The kids had a boat thing out in the water and a bunch of them were playing on and around it. Timothy and I both focused our attention that direction and we saw her head bob up and then disappear again. She couldn't touch and nobody on the boat had seen her even though they were literally right beside her. That was the first really bad moment because we didn't know how long she'd been bobbing, but Timothy sprinted out there and grabbed her. At first she looked alright but then--the second really bad moment--she went limp and it looked like she passed out. I still think she did (and so does the lady who was there with us), but Timothy said she didn't. Whether she actually passed out or not, she stopped hanging onto Timothy and went all limp and horrible looking. I wanted to run for Derek, but Annabel and Clover were still in the water and I couldn't decide what to do, so I dithered for a few seconds and then Harriet opened her eyes again and started gasping/choking/labored breathing, and her color got better. About then Timothy got to me and gave me Harriet (because I wanted her), so I held her for the next half hour until she'd calmed down and was breathing easily and normally. Then she went and played for another hour or so quite happily. It was pretty terrible for me and Timothy.  

At church on Sunday a lady came up to me in Relief Society and asked who I belonged with in the ward and I told her that I was Derek's younger sister.  She then went on at great length about how she was related to me in three different ways.  #momentswhenyouknowyouarehome 

On July 31, we went to Waterton and played at Red Rock and walked along the lake.  It was still beautiful (I mean, it's Waterton), but it was also dry.  So very, very dry.  Right now Waterton has been evacuated and has a huge wildfire threatening.  It is so sad.  I'm glad the kids had a chance to see it this summer in case it takes years to grow back.  #prayersforwaterton

At first the kids were whiny because we'd been in a van for four hours (we went the wrong direction from Derek's house and ended up in Bow Island, place of my birth, and added two hours to our drive) and they couldn't tell how amazing Red Rock was from the road.  Then they whined because there were too many people.  But then . . . then the glory of Red Rock opened up to them as we went past the tourists who stay by the bridge, to the sparsely populate inner part of the canyon.  Timothy went with the older kids almost the whole length of the canyon, and only turned back when they reached a part that was really hard for Harriet.  I stayed in a shady little part with the younger three and we had a blast splashing around.

More crowded part closer to the parking lot and bridge.

 Farther in, where there weren't very many people.

 This is where the younger three played while Dad and the older kids explored.

 Red Rock--one of my favorite places on earth.

 The kids had fun sliding down the rock into the pool.  Just as I did, when I was a child.

 The water was pretty low though.  It's been so dry.

 Walking back to the van.

 We saw a bear as we were leaving Red Rock.  Some nice people in the vehicle in front of us let us use their binoculars.  You can see how dry the hills are in this picture.

 By Waterton Lake.  I was shown many, many excellent rocks.  I loved it.

 Look at Miriam's long-suffering face.  Hilarious.

 Emeline had run off somewhere so she is missing from the picture, as is Timothy because he took the picture.  Miriam managed to say hi to the other people on the beach and two kayakers turned out to be two women from Mountain View who grew up on a ranch adjacent my Grandpa Walburger's ranch.  They told Miriam to say hi to her grandma from the Watson sisters.  #momentswhenyouknowyouarehome

So gorgeous.  I wanted to stay all night but the children were hungry so we headed back to Cardston and had burgers and poutine at Dairy Queen.  Yum.