Kris ....

My sweet cousin Paul and his lovely wife Sharron lost their son Kris this week to a heart attack. It is awful news to start this day. So shocking. While visiting with Sharron a few weeks ago, she was telling me that Kris had bought a ring for his girfriend and Sharron was dreaming of grandkids and of Kris and Jen moving into the basement of their new house to get a strong start to the marriage and future. 

I met Kris at my cousins wedding in Winnipeg a few years ago. Paul and Kris had the very best father/son costume duo ever!!! And they had the personalities to go along with the costumes!!  He was just the best kid (man) .... It's just so sad that he's gone. 

Road trip up island with mama!!

Beautiful day for a road trip!!!

We arrived at the KingFisher Resort for lunch and hydropath - such a beautiful day!!

We had a few minutes before our hydropath appointment so we decided to walk a bit of our lunch off!  The sky was beautiful. This is no filter!

I brought my mom 3 suits to choose from!  She ended up wearing (and taking home the pink one)

Time for the hydropath fun! (Except the glacier waterfall, that wasn't fun.... That's crazy cold) ....

All refreshed and relaxed "after shot"

Arriving at Ross and Evies cabin up at mount Washington!!!  Mom made Chantrelle Risotto and salmon for dinner (thanks Chris for the mushrooms and thanks sis for the salmon!)

Mom in her happy place, she's such a great cook!

Yum! Yum!

We spent the evening in front of the fire just chatting .....

Here is mom chatting with dad about the day ...

I can't get enough of these sunrises and sunsets ....

When it was time for bed and I was lying in bed, mom comes out of her too. playing this song on her phone - something about some grandson singing a song that his grandfather made popular?? All I know is she's kind of dancing and holding her phone (as its blaring this song I don't recognize), and she's pointing to it and laughing!

She was having a great time!!!  I think she had a great day and I'm glad she finished off the evening with a song she likes!! :-)

Day 1 of mama's visit!!

With flights being so cheap with new leaf airlines, I couldn't NOT fly mom over for $39!! ;-). Picked her up at 10 and we headed downtown to Russell Books for some perusing before lunch. 

Lunch was at my new favorite little taco place down on Fort!!  

After lunch we stopped at Goldstream for a walk ...

It was quite beautiful out, we also checked out the visitor center.

We picked up the boys and came home. Somehow they got us to let them watch a movie upstairs so that Nona could see one of their favourite movies. Turns out this movie was like two hours long. Mom and I both had a quick little nap at some point during the show, and when I woke up I saw this:

I don't ever believe him, because he always fix sleeping. However this time, I saw drool!! Turns out he's just getting better at faking.

As initiation, Isaac had Nona push the button for his drool spit to drain from his trombone into the bathtub.  So gross. 

Chris went mushroom picking after work. Nora bought them all when he arrived home. Here she is happily cleaning roughly 4 pounds of chanterelle mushrooms!!!

We've had a really nice day.

Pools and cuddles ....

Isaac wanted to have his own pool!

Elliot is so excited to get some cuddle time with Mia. We're all laying here laughing at Jim Gaffigan on Netflix. 

Lately ....

Mia continues to settle into our hearts ...

No litter box to clean and a self feeder makes her the easiest pet to maintain, but her meowing at horrible times of the night keep me thinking she's a jerk. (Hence why I'm blogging at 1 in the morning.... )

Chris is busy prepping for the retreat-another fun medieval carnaval is heading our way!

The boys love to go and play out in the dry shed with him these days ...

Surprise visit on Friday from these lovely ladies!!

Friday night with this lady hanging out:

Lots of trombone practicing happening:

Elliot continues to wake me up in the morning (he's my coach) and here he did the final push of tabatas with me. I love having my own room to work out in---world of difference from being out in the open in the living room!

3K run after that workout, beautiful morning! Listened to a podcast while running. 

Saturday afternoon, Auxano students came by to warm up after tubing. 

Then we watched the Royals arrive!

And I still love this cat ...

Sunday ...

Met a new HRM who lives down the road! Who knew?  This hrm challenge attractiveness really great women ... Women who are busy, and driven with a desire to be healthier, stronger and have new adventures.  So when this new hrm says "let's go for a run?"..... I said ok. She ended up coming to camp and we did a 5k run and she was quite lovely.  She's a nurse with 2 little ones and it's her second challenge with hrm.  So we had lots to talk about!

Well deserved coffee when we were finished!  Sweetened with maple syrup and cream (neither of us have a desire to give that up yet!). 

Chris took Elliot mushroom picking this afternoon while Isaac and I stayed home. Elliot bought a game online yesterday that actually took his savings below $500 and he was pretty upset about that. So he needed $15 to get it back over the mark.  He made $20 with Chris today so was pretty excited to hand that over to get back into his savings!!

I read and napped and Isaac practiced his trombone!! He's getting really great at it!!!  So fun!

Lots of food prep tonight!! We've got chicken Parmesan and some individual sweet potato shepherds pie and one big one!!  Nice to have that done. It was a nice relaxing day ....

Big day in Nanaimo ....

Arrived to work on Nanaimo today to sweet hrm/coworker gifting me with an hrm mug!!!! I've often admired these mugs but would never buy one for myself.  The core Nanaimo group from the spring challenged consists of 6 of us and we've grown substantially this challenge, so it was sweet to get one as part of the core group. Denise bought everyone one :-)

Then it was lunch with one of my favorite people. She refers to me as the othe Raper of her brain, if she doesn't know the answer, I will, and visa versa.  Here we are in the staff meeting .... Wearing our prizes. 

We had to build impossible towers with a huge marshmallow on top and a bunch of spaghetti and tape that didn't stick.  I felt it was pretty symbolic of the acutely work we do.  We have a great time as a team... Love my workmates, but the job itself is impossible. 

After work was a long walk with Randi - fellow workmate and HRM.  She's been off for 2 months so it was wonderful to catch up.