Lost In the Prairies.....Found by God

 

It's that time of year.  Yes, vacation time for the Slomp family.  We are going on vacation and therefore I will be away from the blog for a few weeks.  I'll lurk about.  Pop in from time to time.  You won't even notice the difference.  I'm not even going to leave you in a lurch if you are wondering what will happen to your favourite Friday meme (OK, maybe my favourite Friday meme).  I am going to post some of my favourite blogs from when I first started blogging.  They may not necessarily be my best posts, but they will be posts that have moved me.  

Now you may be thinking to yourself "Didn't she already go on a vacation?"  Yes I did with my husband in Phoenix and it was lovely.   This is the annual family vacation.  I'm not telling you what we are doing - yet.  We always take the children for two weeks somewhere.  We've taken them to Jasper, Vancouver Island, and Silverwood.  This year it's exciting and it's only in one more sleep.  

You may also be thinking - why aren't her kids in school yet?  Or oh she's waiting to start her homeschool year until September.  It's neither of those things.  We don't homeschool.  The idea stresses me out and school starts here the day after Labour Day.  I know many of you have already started school and for the past 4 years, school has started for us the last week of August.  For some reason, yet unexplained, the school year is starting in September.  When I grew up that was what happened.  You spent Labour Day weekend watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon and then got ready for the first day of school.  I don't know why people would want to start school in August and then end school the last week of June.  I know many of you are done in May, but here the last day is June 28.  Then we get two months off.  I always thought it unfair of the school board to short change us and make our kids start in August.  It just felt wrong.  Now I know we get two weeks off at Christmas and one week in February for "Teacher's Convention" and one week off during Easter.  However, add in all the PD days and I think you owe us some time off when we want it - in the summer! 

For those who know me, I bet you are a bit perplexed right now.  Michelle isn't an outdoor sunshine bathing beauty kind of girl and no I am not.  However, this summer we've done lots.  The two big kids went to camp together.  Nic got to go to horseback riding camp for a week.  They both attended the local library's reading program.  They just spent a week at VBS and had a fun time.   We've had friends come and visit from Saskatchewan.  We went and visited my in laws.  We went and saw some of our Province's attactions - Frank Slide and Dinosaur Provincial Park.  We had some lazy days, some rainy days, and some unbelievable hot days.  It's all been fun, exciting and busy and yes, we are still going on two weeks vacation.  

Last month, I let you know about the first half of my vacation. As I previous wrote, we had an amazing time in the Rockies. We found new trails and new vistas that we hadn't seen before. The kids also got to touch part of a glacier in the middle of July. They thought that was neat.

After the mountains, we drove to coast in 1 day, only to get stuck in traffic at the ferry terminal. We ended up waiting 2 sailings before finally getting on the ferry with some very cranky, hungry children. We finally arrived at my aunt's house where we were staying at 9:30 pm. Which in our time was really 10:30 pm.The next day was my grandmother's 75th party. It went off without a hitch. She was worried and stressed about the party as many of my family members are usually not talking to each other at any given time. However, they were all on their best behaviour.

There were many people she had not expected to see - her ex-sister in law, one of her nieces, and some close family friends that I haven't seen in years. When I saw some of these people, myself, I felt like I was on that old show "This is Your Life." It was a blast. Some of these people, who hadn't seen me in a long time couldn't get over that I had three little ones of my own. They kept saying they felt old. Now that I have a 7 year old, I concur with them.

Leroy and I purchased a bottle of wine for Nana as her birthday gift. Growing up Leroy loved the Edmonton Oilers. His favourite players were Wayne Gretzy, Mark Messier, Glen Anderson. However, in my house these names were the names of the enemy. My grandmother and Leroy now have a little rivalry going on. So when Leroy and I saw that Wayne Gretzky had his own wine, we both immediately thought of Nana's gift. She thought it was hilarious, however, she still hasn't opened the bottle yet. I think she's waiting to beat Leroy with it.

The day we left the Island, we were under a tight time schedule. I also slept in by 5 minutes. We missed the Ferry we planned to take by 3 cars. Of course, I've been told that is because of those 5 minutes. So we again ended up in a ferry terminal waiting. Luckily for us just until the next ferry. We drove through the interior of British Columbia and stopped at the D Dutchman Dairy for some unexplained reason (ok, their chocolate milk is heavenly!). We walked through the barns and discovered that Sam is very frightened of cows. He screamed when one moved their heads to allow Thomas to pet it. We also saw a camel, llama and some chickens.

As I mentioned yesterday, we stopped at a hotel in the middle of two National Parks. It was a beautiful place and I can't wait to go back and maybe stay a bit longer. While we were there, I took one of my favourite pictures of the whole trip. It is of Sam with the background of the mountains. It reminded me of how we look to God. Small and insignificant compared to His greatness.