House Update

After our house in Lacombe being on the selling market for 38 days we got an offer. Right now the offer is conditional on the buyers financing and the house inspection. Please pray that the buyers financing is approved and the house inspection goes well. The buyer has until September 4th for the conditions to be removed, and if they are removed the buyer will own our house on September 16th. We are looking forward to closing this chapter in our lives and excited for the new chapter God has for us here at Frontier Lodge as a family.

Fat Tire

The beginning of this month our camp held our annual Fat Tire Festival, a big mountain biking competition over the long weekend. Events include cross country races, downhill slolom, trials, jumps and a lake jump. Some of these events I had no idea what they were before the weekend like trials, it is an event with lots of small rails to ride your bike on and platforms to jump to. It was really fun to watch every age group go on it; the youngest ones to try were 3 years old! Next year if Liam wants to he can go in some of the events just for fun and the experience. The event I enjoyed watching the most was the bike jumping and the lake jump they had at the end of the weekend with a BB-Q. The lake jump is something that doesn’t require a lot of skill, you just need to put on a PFD and ride down the hill to the jump on the end of the dock and try not to hit the bike when you hit the water. We had some people who had never done it before enter in just for fun, it was fun to watch and the kids enjoyed it to.

 

Bike Jumping

 

Trials

 

 

Lake Jump

 

 

 

Mckaleigh Grace

We welcomed our sweet baby girl Mckaleigh Grace into the world on July 24th. She was "due" to arrive August 8th but she seemed to have other plans. I was glad she decided to be born on a different day than Liam's birthday, which is July 26th. She was born in the Rocky Mountain Hospital which was a huge answer to prayer! My doctor was a little worried that we would not make it to the hospital in time since our son Liam's labour was only 2 hours total and we are living 1 hour from the hospital she was worried we would have her along the way to the hospital. We made it with 1 hour to spare before she was born. She was born at 4:46 am, weighing in at 7lbs 15oz and was 48cm long. Joelle and Liam are in love with her, well Joelle is over the moon in love being a big sister wanting to hold her all the time and Liam loves all the things that come with a new baby...like her car seat that has buttons, the swing, play mat , and so on. She is just over a week old now and is doing great. We are so blessed to be living in such a caring community of people. Every day we have people dropping by to see if we need help with anything which is unexpected but such a blessing to us.

Here are some pictures of our beautiful Mckaleigh

 

Just brand new getting weighed

Newborn "smiles"

 

Love baby feet!

Sleeping beauty

A good look at all her hair

 

Joelle and Liam meeting Mckaleigh for the first time and are so in love with her

Chillin' at home

 

 





House for Sale

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, we had no internet for 3 weeks which made it impossible to post anything. Now that we have the wonderful world of internet back to connect us to the rest of the world I can catch you up on what is going on with us.

Moving out to Frontier Lodge was the beginning of a big change in our lives, new home, new job, and a new camp to learn. We are loving every moment of it and Joelle and Liam have settled right into life as camp kids, welcoming everyone who comes to “visit” us. We are now closing the door on our Life in Lacombe for good. Moving out here in the middle of the winter didn’t seem like the best time of the year to be selling our house so we rented it out hoping that we would get long term renters that were awesome. Sadly it was not the case and the renters moved out this last week which was ok with us because it ended up being more of a stressful experience than anything. Our house is now listed and on the market for a new homeowner to fall in love with. It is a little sad to think of shutting the door for good on that part of our life, but I know that this new chapter is going to be even better than our last one. A prayer request we have is that our house sells quickly as it is financially stressing to have it sit empty and have to pay for all the bills that go with the house. Right now a house for sale in Lacombe can sit on the market for an average of 102 days before it sells. We are trusting God to help us sell the house before our finances are stressed out. If you know of anyone who is looking for a nice affordable home get them to check it out. http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=13438718&PidKey=1632692784

Bunkbeds and Rain

I had written this last week when the rain was pouring and we had no internet for a few days.

One of the biggest adjustments we have had to make for the arrival of our new baby in 7 weeks has been moving Joelle and Liam into bunk beds in the same room. Unfortunately it has not gone how I had hoped. We expected some talking and playing but now bed times take about 2+ hours before they are asleep some things they are doing it is hard not to laugh because it is so ridiculous. The first few nights Joelle would lower her blanket so Liam could grab onto it and she would try with all her might to pull him up into her bed…it never ended well, we are guessing that Liam got part way up and then would fall with a loud bang and tears.  The reason they are doing this is we took away the ladder to eliminate Liam climbing up into Joelle’s bed. After a few nights of this they gave up and Joelle began to climb down into Liam’s bed. Other times we have gone in there to check on them because there was too much laughing we found Liam packed into the costume basket with only his face peeking out, I don’t think he could move if he wanted too. After we pulled him out of the basket we noticed that Joelle was in her bunk bed and was not wearing her pajamas or her nighttime diaper! She was standing there buck naked,  it was really hard not to laugh since we have never had this happen before.  I am hoping that in 7 weeks bed time is not a 2 hour process to get them to sleep; we have had some really grumpy days because of all the sleep they are missing out on. We have tried putting them to bed one at a time but they seem to wake each other up once they are in the same room. Putting them to sleep in different rooms doesn’t work because neither of them will fall asleep in our bed and both of them will not sleep in the play pen anymore since they have learned to climb out of it. At this point we are just praying that they learn to go to sleep in the same room soon.

 A prayer request that we have is that the two of them learn to fall asleep quickly in the same room well before we add a new baby to family.

Since the fire was put out earlier this month we have had nothing but rain, almost every day since. The ground is saturated and the water has nowhere to go right now, I am really thankful that we live on a hill and all the rain is running down to the lake.  We are currently under a heavy rain fall warning with over 70mm of rain falling in the last 24 hours and another 50-100mm forecasted for the rest of today and tomorrow.  Troy has been kept really busy with new leaks that are showing up in buildings around the camp. Please pray that the rain will let up so the maintenance guys can fix all the leaks safely and that no more appear.

Quick Update

We arrived home from holidays earlier this week to some great news. It rained everyday we were gone and the fire was put out! Praise God for answering that prayer. Firefighters will have to check the burned area periodically this summer to make sure hot spots don't flare up and start burning again. It is nice to finally unpack after a month of living out of baskets and backpacks and just focous on what is in store for us this summer here at camp and the arrival of our sweet little girl. Thank you everyone for your prayers and kindness through the past month.

Nordegg Fire Pictures

I have borrowed these pictures from various media sources to show you the fire. As of this morning the fire is still being held at the mine site and we are on 20 minute evacuation notice.