September

 September was a great month. The kids went back to school after a six month long break! Alberta announced that schools were opening, with some limitations. Kids except for K-4 had to wear masks at school, and there's a bunch of new rules in regards to visitors and how the days are run. They try to keep each class together in its cohort without mixing with other classes. It's a bit of a bummer that there's still restrictions, but the kids were still really excited to go back to school! Also funny thing was that CBE decided even K-4 needed to wear masks, but luckily Red Deer Lake school is part of the Foothills school division which did not make that rule. So I was super excited Bentley didn't have to wear a mask! She was excited to see her friends again, especially Violet who I think is her best friend. Luckily they were in the same class again! We carpool with the McNaughtons, so Bentley likes seeing Abigail on the drive, and I love only having to do one drive a day. 

Deacon went back to Renfrew for one more year of preschool. Preschool kids don't have to wear masks, but they take his temperature every time he gets on the bus. He was nervous to go back, but ended up liking it and making a friend named Lincoln. His teacher's name this year is Miss Courtney. He doesn't always want to go to school, but I think he has a good time once he's there and the kids on the bus always yell "Deacon!!" when they see him step on. We are still working on his speech in hopes that he will improve before Kindergarten or, more importantly, grade 1. 

Bentley is doing amazing in her grade 1 class. Her teacher's name this year is Mrs. Felske. She is reading everything in sight, so creative and great at drawing and coloring, and very organized. I haven't had a parent teacher conference yet, but I doubt they'd be able to say one bad thing about Bentley.

We love being a part of the food drive every year so once again, we delivered and picked up food bags. It was such a fun activity for the kids to help with and get some exercise too! I went with Jeff and the kids to drop off the bags on a beautiful night, but he was out of town for the pickup so we did it with my parents. The kids had so much fun running to grab the bags full of food. And apparently Calgary hit a record, even with the economic downturn because of covid, so that's pretty cool!

We officially announced our pregnancy, so I tried to take some cute pictures of the kids. It feels good being able to tell everyone, although I did tell most people I saw way before I should have! It was cute seeing how excited the kids were to have a sibling, although Bentley will be very disappointed if we don't have a girl. I still can't believe we're gonna have four kids, and honestly not really sure how we're gonna do it, but I'm getting really excited. This will definitely be the completion of our family! Jeff and I went back and forth about if we could do four kids and both felt that our family would be missing somebody if we didn't. We got pregnant super fast, so I guess it was meant to be! I had barely gone off birth control, and normally it takes about a month for that to get out of your system to be able to conceive, but apparently not for me. We were aiming for a May baby, but the baby is due Mar.29, 2021. We can't wait! So far things are looking good with my pregnancy, besides being sick and more tired physically than usual. 

This September, and beginning of October, was the best we've had in a long time. The weather stayed really warm the whole time, and we just loved every bit of it! We started up play dates with our friends and every Monday we meet at a park to play. We went to the corn maze more, and out to Bragg Creek one day with my parents to see the beautiful fall colors. It's not very often Calgary actually gets a fall, but this one was beautiful! 

Bentley started up piano lessons with Grandpa again, and basketball for the first time! We put her in tykes with SoCal, because that's the only one able to find a gym with covid. We got really lucky and registered her just in time to get the last spot. She has gone once so far and really liked it so I'm pretty excited for her!

Here are a few random pictures I found including a robot costume Dakota made, Deacon's funny face he loves to make, our back to school fashion show, and Leo chilling with Grandpa Cooper. We've been staying home a lot, playing in our backyard, and visiting my parents often. Being pregnant I don't feel like I have a lot of motivation, but we've been hanging in there!

Vancouver Island Part 2

 The second week of our trip was a little more blurry for me because I started feeling morning sickness. Luckily I'm not one who throws up, but just feels constant nausea and it was no fun at all! I was still able to do everything I had planned and it was fun watching the kids have a great time, but I look back at pictures and feel a little sick remembering how I felt. I had found out I was pregnant much before the trip, but it wasn't in the plans to be pregnant for this. It happened a little quicker than we thought! Anyways, I made the best of it and thank goodness Jeff was there for this part to help me out. He was amazing!

Our hotel in Victoria was one of our favorites, called the Royal Scot hotel. It was in a great location and had a full kitchen so we could make our own food, and a pool and hot tub. On our way in we stopped to eat at Boston Pizza and had the place to ourselves, then we checked into our hotel and headed to Beacon Hill Park where we found a ton of ducks and peacocks walking around! We fed the ducks some bread, explored, and then found a playground to play at. It was a really beautiful park. On our way back to the hotel we picked up some groceries so that we were set for the next few days. We were excited to actually stay in one place for three nights instead of one! 

The next day we went to the Butchart Gardens and the Butterfly Gardens. They were both amazing! Butchart had the most beautiful scenery, waterfalls, fun little paths, and flowers of course. The kids asked me to take a picture here, and there, and everywhere. They wanted one with every flower. Bentley loved the rose garden and Deacon loved the fountains, especially the ones with snakes, lizards, or some sort of animal on it. Leo did really well in his stroller. The butterfly gardens had so much more than butterflies - an insectarium, turtles, parrots, flamingos, fish, and iguanas. We loved them both so much! There was also a fun little food truck outside that we decided to grab lunch at. Any spare evening we had we swam in the pool and that was one of the kids highlights! I really loved the hot tubs, but was careful not to overheat since I'm pregnant. The kids swam just about every day on this trip and it still wasn't enough!

The next day we went to a place called miniature world, which is a really neat exhibit. It's got war, fairy tail, circus, and much more miniatures. I couldn't believe people had actually made them! There were buttons the kids could press to make things move, and they actually really enjoyed it. Then we headed to Fisherman's Wharf to eat fish and chips on the Pier. It was beautiful and super cool to see! People actually live in these houses on the water, and Jeff actually has a client who is one of them. He gave us a tour of the Wharf and gave us all the insider knowledge around the area, it was pretty fun! Afterwards we headed to Esquimalt Lagoon for some beach time. The kids played in the sand for hours and made a random friend. 

The next day was checkout day and I think we swam and then packed up to move on to the next destination which was only a few hours away in Parksville.

We stayed three nights in Parksville as well, at a resort call Tigh Na Mara. It was really nice and I would totally recommend going there without kids as well to eat at the restaurant and go to the spa! They did also have a playground and a full kitchen so it was also family friendly.

We spent a lot of our time at the Parksville community beach. It has a regular park, splash park, the beach, and food trucks. The tide was out and there were so many crabs to catch! The kids caught probably fifty or so in a bucket and it was definitely something they talked about a lot of our trip. We had to go back to the same beach just to catch more crabs, and collect seashells as well. We came home with lots of those. 

Things were pretty low key in Parksville and it felt good to just relax, but we also went to the bumper boats one day and a place called "goats on the roof" because there were literal goats on the roof. It was a market type place and we bought some yummy donuts and ate there while the kids played on a bunch of random statues. We also found a random market where we let the kids buy one souvenir. The pool and hot tub were also a hit of course, and there was even a steam room. We had a great time here, but I think we were also ready to start heading home when it came time. Leo was having a hard time going to bed without having his own room we could lock him in! Jeff and I remember one night where all the lights were out and all of us were in bed trying to sleep except Leo who was wandering around the place driving us all nuts. Some days were worse than others but overall we managed pretty well!

We took the ferry back to Vancouver and stayed another night there. We stopped in Stanley park to walk around and play at the beach and park right by the seawall. I would love to bike around there when our kids are older! Afterwards we headed to our hotel and ordered some pizza for dinner. In the morning we checked out of our hotel and then headed to the Capilano Suspension Bridge park. It was a little rainy that day, but we wore coats and were actually completely fine. It just made the park a little foggy, but it was still as beautiful as ever and the trees and wood smelled so fresh! We did the best we could to social distance, and it was a really fun place. The bridge was awesome, and then there was a walk through the treetops, as well as a cliff walk, which was a really narrow glass walk right on the edge of the cliff. There were railing on all sides so you couldn't fall off and it was super fun! We had fun exploring and the kids (well mostly Deacon), especially loved seeing the huge slugs we would find on the paths. They also had an owl out for us to look at. 

Once we were done we headed on to Kelowna.

We got to Kelowna that evening and stayed at a hotel with a pool, hot tub, and waterslide. Unfortunately because of covid, we had to book a time and could only stay in the pool for 1 hour. We did at least have it almost all to ourselves though, with only 2 other people there who didn't stay long. The kids absolutely loved the waterslide and just had the best time! We ordered dinner to our hotel that night and went to bed. The next morning we checkout out and went to the Kangaroo farm. It was fun to feed the kangaroos popcorn and pet them as well as the pigs, goats, ostriches, and other animals. Leo was a little grabby with them and wanted to feed them straight to their mouths, even though you are supposed to just put the food on the ground. He made things a little trickier. We ate lunch there and then headed on our way to Revelstoke. 

In Revelstoke, we were going to do the coasters, but we were feeling a little tired at this point. Instead, we swam lots in the pool and kids loved it even more! They had noodles there and the kids are convinced they only want noodles instead of life jackets. Bentley also made a friend and they had swimming contests from one end of the pool to the other with no life jacket, and I was pretty impressed with Bentley putting her face under the water and swimming pretty well. Peer pressure is great sometimes! After we had swam for a while it started pouring rain. A bunch of us were out and just sat in it for a while. It was quite fun! Leo giggled at first until it poured too hard that we couldn't stand in any more. We all ran inside to shelter, and it was a fun memory. That night we ordered some food and went to bed.

We were ready to make it home the next day and excited to be able to sleep in our own beds that night! We stopped in Golden for gas and treats, and then in Canmore for some lunch, and then made it home to Calgary. It was the nicest feeling being back at home. The kids immediately started playing on the trampoline and with all their toys they had missed. It took a while to unpack everything and get life organized again...probably like a week! haha. It was a great adventure though and I'm glad we did it! It was fun to explore places we had never been. 

One of the reasons I was glad to be home was to go see my doctor and get some diclectin to help with my morning sickness. Once I did, I found that it helped a little, but not a lot. I haven't felt great this pregnancy. Bentley and Deacon were so cute one day...they made me breakfast "because of the baby in your tummy mom and you're feeling sick." They learned how to use the stove and make scrambled eggs. Deacon cracks the eggs, and Bentley does the rest. It's pretty adorable! They even cut up some strawberries and poured a huge glass of milk for me. Let's just say I was happy to be home!