Love is... a Canadian Vacation

A lot of stuff has happened in between my Easter blog post and now. Obviously I need to be better at blogging. After this post I am going to back track and post about those things, but right now I just have the FEELS and I want to talk about Canada.

And about how I do NOT want to be home.

It's always really hard for me to leave Canada. I go through at least two days of solid depression trying to recover.
We got to Canada Thursday night and basically bunked down for the night since we were exhausted from the drive. Friday we bought some essential food items and headed to Waterton to walk up the Red Rocks.

Let's just talk about this for a minute. We could not stop taking pictures because it was that dreamy. It's basically like a river that you climb up... but the current isn't very strong and it doesn't get too deep.

The next day we met up with family and did a hike called Bears Hump. When you get to the top you get to overlook the town in Waterton and the lake and boy is it beautiful.

Jude also loved to throw rocks into the lake and we did that multiple times. 

I caught Ty singing the Canadian National Anthem and clearly he was not pleased. He'll be even more excited that I posted this pic. 

We attended sacrament meeting so obviously we needed a picture. 

And then another pic in front of the waterfall... I just can't get enough of his handsomeness okay!?!

My cousin Jenny has a daughter named Charlotte and she was just the sweetest caretaker to Jude. When they were walking here she turned to him and said "Jude, you know what nature is? This is nature." It was the sweetest and telling Jude that Charlotte was home in Canada was kind of a rough minute this morning. *side note* Jenny also has another daughter named Emmy (Emmeline) but I kind of scared her to pieces when I ran after her into a parking lot. My intentions were good but she was not a fan afterwards... thus, no pictures. 

The entire trip we hadn't seen one bear and I was kind of frustrated because Tyler had never seen a bear in Waterton. On our last day driving down from Blackiston Falls we saw three. And one of them was honestly 15' away if that. Literally, just on the other side of the road. 

The last bear we saw was a momma and her cubs, which was pretty adorable. You can kind of see the little guy climbing in this one.

On our way back to Lethbridge we stopped to visit my grandpa. He lives on a small farm/ranch. He has five horses and Jude was thrilled to get to see them. He also has an awesome 1940's jeep that he has kept in ship shape and we got to take a jeep ride. My dad got a lot of pictures of that so I will have to post more. My entire childhood/teen years were going to the farm and riding horses and jeeps so it was fun that Jude got to experience that a tiny bit too. There are no words to describe how much I miss it. 

Back in December, my sister in-law Sarah helped me locate my birth mom. We have been talking ever since then. So on this trip I got to meet my birth mom Heather and her two daughters, Taylor and Zoe... who has two dot over the E but I am not computer savvy enough to figure out how to add them. It was a really awesome experience and we will definitely all be hanging out again. 

 Allow me to just say, about the adoption/birth mom thing, that I realize a lot of emotions are involved in this. A majority of people have learned about my adoption and sincerely haven't given it a second thought, especially my family, both immediate and extended. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that if my parents hadn't told me about being adopted, I would have no idea. I feel 100% accepted and have never doubted their love for me, and I hope they've never doubted my love for them. I have never been more sure about needing the parents I have. I have also gotten some really mean, close minded and hurtful adoption feed back throughout the years. I'm really not interested in anything negative someone out there might have to say. If you have questions, feel free to ask me, but I am currently not accepting anything mean.

Love is... a kiss, a babe, and a newer babe

Before anything else is said, can we just acknowledge that these two are just the sweetest pair?

 We got the awesome chance to babysit baby Elliot. He is our best. Jude thinks he is pretty awesome. We've actually watched him twice recently, and had pizza to eat both times so now Jude equates pizza with baby Elliot coming for. It's a little heart breaking when I have to tell him "not today buddy".

 We went shopping for some new jeans for Ty and Jude saw himself in this mirror and spent the next 15-20 minutes checking himself out/dancing in the mirror. It was a good time.

 And last, but surely not least, our newest niece came! Sarah and Jamo had the sweetest baby girl and they named her Audrey. When Sarah and Jamo had Asher, I was pretty much in love because fat Asher was the best baby ever and I have high hopes that Audrey will follow in his footsteps.

Love is... Easter

I love Easter, especially when it is later in the year and warm outside. This year was almost perfect, except that it was also my brothers birthday and he was in the middle of finals and that kind of sucked. But we (as in my fam) still had a grand ol' time. Tyler and Jude always humor me and we dress to match. I pretty much live with the best collection of gentlemen. 

My in-laws always go all out on Easter and I just love it. I love festive things. Isn't her table decor the sweetest?

We also enjoyed the annual hunt and Jude was much more aware this time around and even helped up to find some adult eggs.

Also on the Easter front, and the reason for my momentary absence, I got called to be the 1st counselor in the Primary that day. Haha, I am sure you are all laughing out loud... I did too. I'm sure it seems somewhat out of place, with some of my views and all, but I will say that I have enjoyed it thus far and I am working with the most fantastic group of people. Pretty much I think I got this calling because I need to get... my life in line (which is my G version of saying get my $#@! together) because you know, I've got to keep it G now.