Delightfully Domestic

Quality Falls in the Fall

 

 

I'm taking us back to our September long weekend in Tumbler Ridge today. To a glorious weekend of Autumn hiking with my parents, husband and little girl. The weekend had a terrible weather forecast but we decided to brave it anyways and we ended up seeing the sun way more than we were expecting! We also saw Quality Falls, the Boulder Gardens, and the first snow of the season. 

 

 

Quality Falls is a favourite for my fam. It's right along the highway on the way to Tumbler Ridge, with a very short hike in that crosses a tiny creek. And Emery LOVES crossing tiny creeks haha. I can't count how many times I've hiked into Quality Falls with my parents before, and already this was Emery's second time (here's her first trip during her first Winter!) but I have never, ever seen it so huge before! It's been a very wet Autumn after a very wet August and Quality Falls had a ton of water. 

 

^^ The falls were flowing quite fast which made Emery rather nervous, leading to the best snuggles ever for mama! ^^ 

 

^^ and of course my husband ditched his shoes and socks to cross Quality creek barefoot and get up close to the Falls ^^

^^ note the mismatched gloves, haha. We hadn't gotten to shopping for Winter gear yet ^^

 

I love these two. And this place. And hiking!

 

Get outside. 

xo.

 

Delightful Water

 

This delightful little drink is what I've been carrying around with me every single day for the past few months since I bought a bulk amount of lemons and limes and chopped them up for easy access in my freezer. When life gets busy good hydration can be one of the first things to go (especially since busy-ness tends to also lead to increased caffeine consumption, I know it does for me!). I've managed to stay on top of my hydration this Fall for this most part because this is such an easy and quick way to make a water bottle more appealing every day!

All you have to do is hit up Costco for a HUGE amount of lemons and limes then chop them: 

freeze them on cookie sheets:

then bag the frozen slices:

If you don't freeze the slices before bagging them they will freeze in a clump.

 

I store my bags on the freezer door and toss a couple slices into my water bottle every morning, along with a sprig of mint whenever some is available. The water bottle is from Starbucks and Emery and I both love the bicycles! 

 

Enjoy!

xo.

 

A perfect Summers day

 

It's still snowing. Day 4 and my front yard is blanketed so I think that means it's time I wrap up Summer on this here blog with photos from one of my favourite days of August. One of my superstar mama friends and I had plans to go out to her parents family farm for an afternoon and pick apples. THIS is the picturesque scene we were greeted with and it made for a perfectly magical Summer day.  

^^ my superstar mama friend ^^

^^ she literally always makes it look this easy. but she had 3 kids in 2 years and the youngest are twins so I can assure you its not :) ^^

^^ Emery always loves hanging with these big kids, and learning big kid things like how to casually sip apple juice from a straw. Keep workin' on it babe.. ^^

^^ the gals, so cute! ^^

^^ and mama-daughter photos while the boys rolled around in the dirt or something ;) ^^

^^ an apple pie picnic. I'm telling you, this day was magic! ^^

The apples we picked have long since been turned into crisps, pies, jellies and salsa but the memories and photos will last forever because MAN those kids are cute! 

 

xo.

 

A lot has changed.

 

Apparently 3 weeks of Fall is all we get this year! The top photo was taken last night around 4:30 as my husband and I walked to my parents house after class/work to see Emery, and the bottom photo was taken just 24 hours earlier as I went running with a friend while the first snow was coming down. And it's STILL snowing! 

I had plans to be in Camrose with the running team right now for a race, but after watching the road reports and hearing about the driving conditions all afternoon yesterday I decided to stay home. The rest of the team decided to still go, and as they were preparing to go on the bus I felt so much guilt to join but the thought of leaving the town that Emery was in to travel bad roads terrified me and didn't seem worth it. It was in that moment that I realized yet again that motherhood has changed me. 

I've been having that realization over and over again this Fall- and I use the term "Fall" loosely because, HELLO, all the snow - and I think it's because this Semester my life is looking the most like it did before Emery, but yet it's so different because of course there's Emery. It's so interesting. My school schedule is back to being the same as before, the running team is the same, my evening job is the same... but I am entirely different. 

Earlier this week my class was learning about the different self attributes that students bring to the classroom (like self-handicapping, self-motivation or social comparison for example) and the attribute that stuck out to me was Self-Perfectionism. A common form of self-perfectionism is when students set such demanding standards for themselves that when they are not met they see it as failure. While a certain sense of pleasure can be derived from taking such painstaking efforts, it can be very stressful on the student as well. I was SO this student before having Emery, being only content with a 4.0. I took such "painstaking efforts" to make my notes perfect even though no one but me ever saw them and spent almost all of my spare time in the library (if it weren't for part-time jobs I would have spent a lot more). I remember writing a final for one of the advanced math courses I took and not falling asleep until I found out my marks the next day! 

I laugh now thinking about the student that I used to be only 2 years ago because MAN has she changed. My approach to school has relaxed so much, but interestingly the marks have stayed the same. The main reason for the relaxation is that I have something I want to do so much more than obsess over school work now, and that is to be with Emery. Plus, the time just isn't there. The hour and a half nap times she gives me don't leave room for re-writing notes and quadruple checking assignments, so when she wakes up I close my books and windows on the computer and have to be content with what I've done. I actually handed in a rough draft 2 weeks ago because after I printed it to read it over Emery woke up (probably because of the printer sounds, next time I'll press print after I hear her stirring haha) so I packed the rough draft into my backpack and handed it in unchecked. And you know what, it was fine! 

I don't think that there is anything wrong with setting high standards for oneself. In fact, I think it's great. If a 4.0 is the highest grade that can be achieved why not aim for it! I'm just glad for whatever the switch in me that was turned off when Emery was born was because school has been a lot of fun lately because of it. The first class I took after Emery was born was an english course that I started when she was 4 months old and I remember having so much fun in that class, and assumed it was because it was kind of like my social outing 2 days a week and because I really enjoyed the literature we were assigned to read. But now I'm thinking maybe the real difference was ME.

Man, who knew that skipping races made me so rambly. Time to lace up - and gear up in Winter running wear - and go for a hard tempo run to simulate the race I'm missing.

 

Have any other mamas out there noticed a drastic change in themselves since having a baby?!

 

xo.

 

 

Thanksgiving Getaway

 

Happy Belated Canadian Thanksgiving!

I'm still turning turkey leftovers into soup over here, and I hope you are too. Seriously what beats turkey leftovers? You're right- pumpkin pie leftovers... but those are long gone. 

We spent our Thanksgiving weekend with family - SO MUCH of family - in Edmonton and it was wonderful. I snapped the photo of my grandmother and Emery on our first morning in the city after waking up in Grandma's house ("GG's house" to Emery, all the great grandkids call her GG) and to me its the scene that long weekend dreams are made of. We had breakfast, Emery ran wild and banged around on the piano and then snuggled up with GG to read her favourite bible stories book before we hit the town (Mountain Equipment Co-op was calling to us, of course). 

My husband joined in the celebrations on Sunday (we had been there since Friday evening but he had to work) and we snapped this family photo in the club hall at my Grandma's place before the big dinner. No one kept track, but I was talking with family members during the evening and our best guess is that our family has shared approximately 30 large family dinners in this facility over the past years of Thanksgivings, Christmases and Easters. Amazing!

This year's thanksgiving celebration was especially exciting because my Grandmother just celebrated her 85th birthday, and on that day she got ENGAGED! Her fiancé's family joined in the dinner festivities this year, and we had a bit of a program running throughout the evening where people shared stories of Grandma, welcomed her fiancé to the fam and such things. There was some poetry. There were some tears. It was truly wonderful. I sang the song "The Way I am" by Ingrid Michelson because I just can't not sing when something as exciting as my grandmother getting engaged happens, and the lyrics are so sweet.  

We spent the rest of the weekend visiting family and showing Emery all that West Edmonton Mall has to offer. One morning my dad and Emery played all over the mall (she rode her first rides at Galaxy land!) while my mom and I shopped. On Monday morning before heading home the whole crew (my parents, husband, Emery and myself) hit the waterpark and that was so fun! Some of the kids stuff was still a little too big for Emery but she found a kiddie pool with 3 waterslides that she just LOVED to ride and rode those about a million times. It was cool to watch her confidence grow over our time there. She was ripping down the slide by the end (as you can see in the photo). I myself even rode a couple of slides that I was too nervous to ride last time I was there, so yay for growth and facing fears all around! ;) 

^^ West Ed basically blew Emery's mind. It was awesome. ^^

 

xo.

 

Anniversary Surprise

 

We celebrated FIVE years of marriage mid-September and my husband surprised me with a quick anniversary trip to the city! He arranged for Emery to stay with his sister (I truly have the greatest sister-in-laws) and booked us a night stay in a fancy hotel. We have this tradition where we take turns planning our anniversary dates, and it's funny to see how the trend seems to be that the person planning the date that year always plans it around the other persons interests rather than their own. Since this year was the big number five (I know we'll laugh about that when we're older, but it does seem like a long time right now!), he really went all out and I was completely surprised!

The 5 hour drive was so relaxing because, hello, no noisy toddler in the back seat! And also, he put together this great driving playlist of Simon and Garfunkel hits. Little did I know that he had tickets to watch The Story of Simon and Garfunkel dinner theatre production that night. Musical theatre is my jam. And I LOVE Paul Simon. He couldn't have planned something more perfectly "me" (or less "him" haha, thanks hubby!). And, like absolutely every time I watch a show, I spent the days after planning how I can quit everything in my life and just pursue musical theatre again.  

^^ Alberta was looking pretty Fall on it's last weekend of Summer! Made for a beautiful drive ^^ 

^^ Starbucks and fresh baked glazed donuts also helped.. ^^

 

I hardly took any photos over the weekend, even when we were dressed-up fancy for the show, but other highlights of the trip were the FOOD- in such large quantities from so many great places, I'm talking two huge buffets in one weekend (at the dinner theatre and an amazing hotel breakfast buffet the next morning), as well as cute local cafes and coffee shops downtown, shopping (I found an amazing deal on hiking shorts!) and a really great sleep in a really gigantic bed.

I'd better start planning anniversary number six right now, and make sure it features lots of rock climbing ;)

 

xo.

 

The Playground Mobile

 

THIS is the playground mobile. Our beloved Chariot stroller (which converts to a bike trailer).

The specific stroller model that we own is the Cougar, which is ironic because on this particularly picturesque Autumn morning of riding there was a cougar roaming the trails as well. We saw no signs of it, but obviously someone else did because soon after we packed up and rode home a large portion of the trail network was closed and teams of cops and wildlife officers went in. Exciting! 

I wouldn't have even known about the cat had my husband not told me that a fellow teacher from his school had planned to take her class into the park and it was closed just shortly after we had been there. So since we never actually saw any wildlife, the exciting thing that I have to share from this adventure was that on the ride home from the playground Emery ate this entire apple right down to its core:

^^ I was very surprised when she handed me the stem with a tiny bit of apple hanging from it when we got home because she, in true Emery fashion, never stopped talking the entire way home so I have no idea when she found time to eat it ^^

 

This is my kind of "leg day".

I absolutely love our Chariot Cougar stroller, and hope that we have many more opportunities to use it before the snow falls this year.

I also hope to never run into the downtown cougar. 

 

xo.

 

 

[ALL The Things]

 I love blog posts about the little things in life. The things that don't make up an entire post on their own, and aren't entered around a certain topic, but are just snippets of life. Reading them always humanizes the blogger to me and makes me feel more connected.

However, as a blogger they can be difficult to stay on top of, especially in a busy season of life. So today I will celebrating the little - and some of the big - moments of the past couple of MONTHs, not weeks, because October just began and this first picture dates back to the first weekend of July, YIKES! 

 

^^ passing time on a 12 hour road trip (atlas the little bit of time that the kiddo slept) making baby moccasins ^^

^^ If Emery had her way this is how we would get ready every morning: yogurt lipstick, a "sticker" (tape) on our noses and bed head ^^

^^ coming home from a Summer trip to a full garden and a baby watermelon growing in our greenhouse ^^

^^ a typical Summer afternoon ^^

^^ when my fingers caught the Fall knitting bug early and I turned my scrap yarn in to a scarf while cleaning up my yarn basket ^^

^^ Purple and yellow welcoming us home after every weekend road trip ^^ 

^^ pool parties with cousins in the Summer heat ^^

^^ drawing rainbows in the sand at Jasper Lake ^^

^^ Hiking into a climbing location for my husband. You can tell we're hiking because Emery has a "hiking stick" ^^

^^ sprinting from the pool to the ice cream shop in downtown Jasper^^

^^ All the water fun during our 10-day holiday with my parents in Jasper in July. Having a toddler around this Summer totally changed how we normally "do" Jasper. We had beach days! Normally we hike hike hike, but hanging out in the water and on the sand, paddling around on kayaks and building endless sand castles added some relaxation to the trip ^^

^^ we also explored every playground that the town had to offer and drank so much good coffee ^^

^^ my hiking crew at Cavell Meadows ^^

 

^^ duck lips for days while waiting for a break in the rain ^^

^^ a rainy pool day at Jasper Park Lodge's heated pool. I'm so happy we discovered that you can pay a day rate to use the pool and health facilities there, it's beautiful! ^^

^^ a common theme to the end of our holiday was rain. It made for a beautiful walk around Lac Beauvert though. Clear mountain lakes in a thunderstorm are mesmerizing! ^^ 

^^ After the most exhaustingly amazing July, with adventures both in the mountains and on the water from Saskatchewan to British Columbia, and 19 nights away from home, this is how I greeted our first morning at home in August: with a coffee the size of my face and an early morning bubble bath. This was especially needed because we threw a pretty epic bow on top of our  Jasper holiday to wrap it up: our 44km Skyline Trail day-hike then 4 hour drive home. My bubble-popping girl and all her foam bath letters are not pictured in this photo, but she was the only thing getting me out of bed that morning ^^

^^ "I up!" "I poopy!" "I snuggle!" - Emery's post nap proclamations ^^

^^ the rhythm of Summer days at home: hitting the playgrounds and trails with my girl in the bike trailer, eating from our garden and catching up with good friends ^^

^^ picking fresh spinach for smoothies while the girl clings tightly, you know, just in case the "big thunder" comes back ^^

^^ greenhouse views, my favourite ^^

^^ big-batch-cooking whole wheat protein waffles for the school year ^^

^^ garden fresh goodies putting a smile on my face ^^

^^ my wedding dinner dates ^^

^^ carrot pickling time! I cannot wait to taste how this years batch turned out. Spicy pickled carrots made with garden carrots, dill and onions, garlic, celery seed, red pepper flakes and one chili pepper grown in our greenhouse in each jar! ^^

^^ also, normal pickles pickling time! ^^

^^ being greeted by this picturesque scene when going to pick apples at my friend's parents farm. It was a perfect day, and one that deserves its own post ^^ 

^^ making a variety of apple jellies using my grandmothers method of straining the juice in a pillow case held over an iron board and feeling like a pioneer woman ^^ 

^^ a special mountain cake for my special mountain gal! ^^

^^ the calm after the storm, although I don't think the word "calm" is in the toddler dictionary. This was how I spent my last full day at home before returning to school full-time ^^

 

^^ obligatory first-day-of-Fall photo, because for me and my generation Starbucks determines the changing of the seasons. Pumpkin Spice Lattessssss! ^^

^^ unintentional twinning with my friend for a morning run ^^

^^ the best kind of whirlwind after a whirlwind of a week ^^

^^ to me, this pumpkin growing halfway up our fence is the epitome of urban gardening ^^

^^ a pool party at our friend's greenhouse pool! Which is the greatest idea ever by the way, and anyone with the space should totally do this (and then invite me over)! ^^

^^ cousin cuteness while riding my sister-in-law's miniature horses! Giddy up! ^^

^^ unconventional flower arrangements: a dandelion and a funky bolting onion ^^

^^ Emery's first day of gymnastics! My birthday gift to her was a 9-week parented gymnastics course. Tuesday mornings are the craziest and funnest morning of the week now! ^^

^^ taking my girl on a picnic lunch and being reminded why September is my favourite ^^

^^ beautiful sunflowers at my parents house ^^

^^ after getting warmed up from gymnastics we come home to hit the Emery-board (as my husband cleverly named Emery's section of our basement bouldering wall). Her project: climb all her teddy up on to the window ledge, my project: do enough squats to not get injured this cross country season ^^

^^ a refreshing night away to my in-laws cabin ^^

^^ and one of the two new border collie PUPPIES that now live at the cabin! I'm so in love. Emery has been begging to go see Tuffy and Gypsy nonstop since we got back home ^^

^^ pumpkin pie for breakfast? At the cabin, sure why not! ^^

^^ I think writing the labels is half the fun of canning ^^

^^ The nap time hustle, where mom life meets uni life ^^

 

xo.