We were given awesome tickets to the rodeo today and spent a most enjoyable time with my cousin and his kids. I always forget how much I love the rodeo until I’m there.
We also spent time walking through the barns checking out the animals. Those heavy horses are huge!!
My favorite always is the barrel racing though
Out community hall had its annual stampede breakfast this morning. It was the third year the kids and I helped (since I’m a board member) and it is more enjoyable every year.
This year for the first time we had a dunk tank to raise money for the hall and it was a huge success. Some very good sports volunteered to be dunked in less than ideal weather which was greatly appreciated.
I love our community. I’m so grateful we are back home.
We went to Canmore to watch the Canada Day parade – a tradition we started in 2014 when we were home visiting. It used to be a quiet, small parade and now it seems the word has got out – larger but still a lot of fun.
And the weather was perfect for it.
Then the boy was called into work which ended the rest of the party plans, which was unfortunate, but that’s life with one car when you live in the country.
Happy Canada Day. I love this country, I’m so proud to be a Canadian, and I’m grateful this is where my kids are growing up.
The girl had plans with a friend after her final today – they were going to hang out at said friend’s house. Perfect for me, as it meant I could grab her at regular time.
Well, as it happened, the friends mom apparently came home in a bad mood and turfed my girl out of the house so they could deal with family issues.
The problem with this is we live 20 minutes out of town and suddenly my girl was standing in the rain at the park calling me.
Frustrated with that mom? You have no idea. But we needed to problem solve.
I sent her to The Hub, which is the local coffee shop. We have spent many hours hanging out there waiting for one or the other of the monsters to finish a school activity. It’s warm, welcoming, and a good safe place to be.
The girl walked in, explained that she lived out of town and was unexpectedly stranded and asked if I could give a payment over the phone so she could buy a drink and wait.
He told her to grab her drink, wait for me, and that I could just pay when I got her.
When I picked her up, he made a point of saying that anytime she needed to hang out there she was more than welcome.
It takes a village. It really does. I try to be one of those adults who looks out for other people’s kids, and I sure appreciate the adults who look out for mine.
We had full out family and community (which really is mostly family anyway) events today with a branding and a bbq. After cold, crappy weather yesterday, and not a great forecast for today I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was perfect.
I mean seriously, how blessed are we that this is our life?
And I had great visits with people I haven’t seen in a long time.
It was a good day.
Today was a beautiful day at the ranch. Inside this little tornado of stress that is happening in my life, there was this feeling of peace and calm as I looked out a the fields, the mountains, the view that I love.
Home is grounding, it is love, it is safety, it is peace.
Mother’s Day is still kind of a bittersweet holiday. I love being celebrated by my kids, but I sure miss my mom.
I was really grateful that my cousin and her family invited us over for supper tonight. My girl went over early and spent the afternoon helping cook the feast. She did her speciality – lobster bisque – and together they all put together quite the feast.
I am so thankful that we are part of this tribe
We had our 4H highway cleanup. Our club had been really lucky and we have a great (and quiet) highway to clean. And showing how awesome our community is, we had several non member volunteers come to help us out since we are such a small club.
The weather was less than ideal, but the kids were great sports about it, and we were actually done quite quickly.
After we joined together for lunch, laughs, and visits.
The slough on the way home was full of swans – happily swimming even though the snow made it feel much more like winter than springtime.
I feel so blessed to be part of this community.
I had a riding lesson today. I was tired, I had a crappy night sleep and I’ve got lots on my mind, but horses are my therapy and I knew I needed the healing time.
I was having a hard time holding him properly in the trot. On one transition I felt totally unbalanced, and basically like I was riding like a sack of crap. I tried to right it, felt myself getting off balance, it felt sloppy, I was annoyed with myself that it wasn’t going how I wanted, so I pulled him back to a walk.
My instructor got after me see, you dropped him and he fell into a walk. I said no, I’d felt like it was all falling apart, I couldn’t get it together, so I asked him for the walk so I could stop and get myself together.
She said you don’t get to stop to get it together, you need to get it together while you keep going. YOU ARE NOT A NOVICE AT THIS. The only way to actually get where you want to go is to keep pushing ahead.
And I was like
You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.
My horse may be my therapy, but my instructor is like my life coach.
