The Cookie Monsters

It wasn't raining when I woke up this morning so I got the kids set up in front of the TV with our new Wii game called Just Dance and ran out to mow the lawn. It's been cool and rainy the past week, so I wanted to take care of the lawn before the heavens opened up yet again. I couldn't believe how many mosquitoes there were! They were huge and hungry, like a flock of ravenous seagulls out for blood. I'm not wishing for snow, but the one really good thing about winter is the lack of mosquitoes. Somebody remind me of that when I'm shoveling through mountainous snow banks. On the other hand, never mind, I'd probably just get irritated by a comment like that!

This afternoon we made a batch of Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. I found the recipe years ago on Allrecipes and it's been my go to cookie recipe since then. I usually only put in a scant 1/2 c. of butterscotch chips and the same with chocolate chips. The best of both worlds. I don't like cookies that ooze all over the place.

All of the kids "helped" today. The girls rolled all the cookies into balls. They did a great job! Quinn mostly ate little bits of dough and chips. This is the look of right before the cry that I am taking too long getting him his next bite. See the big mosquito welt on his forehead!

"Here sis, let me help you shove that cookie in a little further. It seems to be hanging out of your mouth!"

We had spinach and black bean quesadillas for supper tonight. I even ventured out into the muck hole that was once a garden to get the spinach. Mmmm....

Gathering Stones / Canada Day Fun

We spent last week at a reunion for Matt's side of the family. We spent the first half of the week in Waterton National Park. It was beautiful. My mother-in-law rented the Northland Lodge and we all stayed there. It really was ideal for us. Each family had their own space and there was a room for the teenage boys, teenage girls and the younger princess girls too. The management left so we had the whole place to ourselves. It is located just a few houses down from Cameron Falls, so we were able to take several walks down there with the kids. We had a blast.
It was great for the kids to get to know the cousins they had either never met, or rarely get to see.

We went to Red Rock Canyon and had a picnic there. The water was really high and much too swift to hike down the river bed like we did the last time we were there. Ooh, a bear crossed the road just in front of our SUV on our drive back to the Lodge after our picnic. It was fun for the kids (and me too!) to see. 

We had yummy S'mores. Q fell and scraped up his knee on the rocks. I only thought about taking a picture after he was all bandaged up.

Here he is with his cute cousin tossing rocks in the water. He loved watching the splash, didn't like it so much when he was splashed with icy cold mountain water.

All the kids liked playing on the rocky beaches.

The kids liked watching daddy skip rocks. I like watching him too... Yowza!

 

Matt and I went to fly kites with his sister and her husband on a grassy area next to the Prince of Whales hotel. We didn't bring the kids since, the hotel is on the side of a cliff. It was fun to steer the kite off the edge of the cliff, so that your kite was below your body.  If there's one thing that's constant in southern Alberta, it's wind. As we drove to Waterton, we passed through wind farms. The huge turbines are really amazing!

Here we are in front of Cameron Falls.

Later in the week we went to the tiny town of Raymond to watch the Canada Day parade. As the parade floats drove by they tossed candy and the kids raced to pick it up. We still have way too much candy left from that parade...

Matt's family lives all over the place, so we don't see each other very often. Two of Matt's 5 sisters and their families weren't able to make it. I hope that next time we will all be able to get together. That would have made it perfect!