Thanksgiving - Canadian Style

We enjoyed some delicious Thanksgiving food at the Lee's house in Taber after our traditional football game in the pasture. We missed having Jill there, and next year Julia will be on her mission and Kaela will be on an island somewhere.

Jill's UVU Rodeo Days

Unexpected Adventures on our Trip to Utah

We left on our road trip Thursday afternoon after Austin was done with a mad parent at the school. We made it to Idaho Falls to stay at my parent's house a little after midnight. I knew the car wasn't quite right, but I thought maybe we needed the tires rotated or something. The next morning we visited with my parents for a little while and headed to Logan to see Jill. Right as we were going through Pocatello, the car started shaking and revving and the speedometer was shaking.  We pulled off, looked at the engine, and tried to keep going. Austin called our mechanic, Rick Olsen, and told him what was happening. He told us to pull off so we made it to the McCammon truck stop. Austin called Rick again and then FaceTimed with Rick to show him the bottom of the car. The transfer case seal that had been replaced the week before had come out. There was oil all over the bottom of our car. We needed a tow truck.  Austin started calling his friends in Logan, but we were still 1.5 hours from Logan.

I sent a Facebook message to a friend from high school that lived on my street that now lived near Pocatello, Maeli Mortensen Bastian.  She gave us the phone number of a tow truck. Rick's Auto gave us the number of a few mechanics that also used Napa AutoCare that would be able to fix the part because it was under warranty.  So the tow truck came and took our car back to Poctaello.  

Maeli came to pick us up so we could go and get her little red Toyota car that she would let us borrow for the weekend.  We are so thankful she was so willing to help us.  We had to only take the essentials since we only had half as much space as before.

We cruised along to Logan and found Jill. It was exciting to see her!  She is going to college in Orem at Utah Valley University, but the rodeo was in Logan this weekend.  We watched her goat tying run on Friday night.  She was fast, but her goat got up. Grandpa and Grandma Nunn came down for general conference also, so they came to the rodeo.  We also visited with Scott & Natalie Ward.  And my quality roommate Hilary (Price) Campbell came with her comfy chair to visit while we watched the rodeo.

We slept at Karma & Steve Albiston's house. Lucy and Carly measured to see if they were taller than Karma yet.  They provided us a great bed and breakfast hospitality. Buck & Martha joined us there, too.

 

The Saturday morning rodeo was a little rainy. 

Jill had a fan club.  A group of girls that Austin had coached in basketball at Mountain Crest decided to come and watch Jill's rodeo since she came and watched all of their games when she was little.  Amanda, Jessica, Shonnee and Nikki and their families came to watch. It was fun to see them.  They stayed for over 3 hours until it was finally time for Jill to rope. 

Jill caught her calf but it ran through the loop and kind of flipped so she got a no time.  

Les  & Hollis and their family also came to watch the rodeo.

Jill loves her rodeo team. They are quality kids.  It was fun to meet them. Austin talked to her coaches (Shane Draper & Colby Jones)for a few minutes, too.  Austin knew them both from when he was in college rodeo.   Colby  told Austin that they love having Jill. She is making their whole team better because of her drive to work and practice so hard that it is making everyone else work harder, too. That's a compliment.

We headed to Salt Lake after the rodeo. We got a hotel right next to Temple Square. Lucy and Carly went swimming (in the swimsuits we bought on clearance in Wal-Mart in Brigham City since we didn't bring swimsuits because I didn't think we would have time to swim).  

Sunday morning we got ready for  General Conference (and didn't eat the frozen breakfast burritos I bought since our hotel room didn't have a microwave. Actually I ate mine cold, but everyone else just ate strawberries and cinnamon rolls).  We had 2 extra tickets so Jill brought her two rodeo friends, Casey Ahlstrom & Sadie Fitzgerald. We needed to be in our seats by 9, and Jill called us at 8:20 and they were already at the Conference Center entrance waiting for us.  That's the Waite in her.  We were still getting ready, but we only had 2 blocks to walk, so we made it in plenty of time.

We had amazing seats.  We were in the front section near the middle. We were only a few rows behind the general authority families. We loved the music and the talks. We were sad that President Monson wasn't there because of his declining health.  They said it was the first conference he hadn't been there for 50 years.  Elder Robert D. Hales was also the only apostle not there.  He actually passed away in between sessions on Sunday.

I only got yelled at twice by police officers while we were driving in downtown Salt Lake. 

We ate lunch with Jill and headed north.  We went to Les & Hollis's house because Buck & Martha stayed there for a couple extra days and let us take their car home.  

We took Maeli's car back and then went back to Idaho Falls.  On Monday morning, Austin and I drove back to Poctaello to talk to the mechanic and get a few more things we needed out of our car. The mechanic that we ended up going to was so nice, knowledgeable and helpful.  We were lucky.  We did some paperwork to make sure the warranty would cover the repairs, and we were on our way home. My Mom met us with our kids at the freeway.

We had great roads through Montana. The three girls were thrilled to have spent most of the weekend in the backseat of tiny cars. As we were driving, Austin kept getting text messages that there was a terrible snowstorm in Cardston and that we should stop in Great Falls.  Three different cars had slid off the road through the fence at our house. Semi-trucks and tour buses had slid off the road. Cars and trucks were in the ditch everywhere.

We decided that we better stop, especially since we were in Grandma's car, and she hadn't put snow tires on yet.  We just laughed at our adventures.  We tried to make the most of it. We got a room at the Comfort Inn, went out to dinner, went to the mall, and then the girls went swimming.

We didn't think we needed an early start the next day so we could wait for the roads to be plowed and melted more. There were a few frozen ice spots that we bounced around on, but for the most part it wasn't too bad.  The snow was actually beautiful.

We were so glad to be home. Although we did have to stop before the cattle guard and walk up our driveway to get the truck because Grandma's car was not going up our driveway.

In the end, our car was fixed by Wednesday morning and Grandpa and Grandma brought it home for us.

Waterton Fire

Most summers in Southern Alberta bring a few nice days and then a storm rolls in. Most summers since we have been here, we only have to water our lawn a few times each summer because we get enough rain showers throughout the summer. Not this summer. We had a pretty wet spring.  Then it did not rain from July 11 to September 14.  Everything got so dry. Our pasture was very sad to look at.  There were lots of fires all over. We had smoke in the air a lot.

Then the Kenow Fire started in British Columbia in the forest that connects to Waterton National Park.  It kept spreading and eventually Waterton was evacuated.  We were praying and praying for rain.

On Monday, September 11 the sky was dark and eerie. We got in bed and were almost asleep. At 10:30 pm Hanna came in to our room and said that the fire was to the Waterton golf course. Right then Ryan Olsen called Austin and told us to post on Leavitt Community facebook page to be on alert for evacuation because the fire was roaring and spreading quickly and had cross the highway.

We stayed up until 1:30 am watching for updates, filling up the truck with gas, talking through an evacuation plan, watching an endless trail of emergency vehicles heading towards Waterton, and lots of cars heading into town of people who had been evacuated.

Once the fire got out of the trees onto the plains, they were able to mostly stop it, especially from coming west towards us. Almost two days after the fire went through Waterton, it finally rained.

I had taken pictures of our house earlier in the week because it is one of the first steps of being prepared for an evacuation - in case anything happened to your house you could document to the insurance what you have in your house.

Here are some pictures I took from Facebook of the smoke and fire.

On the last day of summer, I took these girls to Waterton to ride our bikes from the stables to the townsite.  The stables burned down. So here is a before and after picture.

We drove up to Waterton a couple weeks after the fire. It was a miracle how they saved the townsite. The fire came so close to the buildings, but they saved the whole townsite. It was sad to see all of the black and burned trees and fires but a miracle of how much was saved.

Labor Day in Glacier

I had an idea to go with the cousins and Grandma to hike Virginia Falls in Glacier. I was a little worried that it would be too smokey, that we might not find a parking place, or that we might end up in a big line at the border coming back to Canada. No need to worry - it all worked out with no problems.

2 days before our 21st wedding anniversary

Grandma was a trooper and made it to the top. Although she did fall on the way back - not good.

Austin led Hanna and Taylor through the water down part of the waterfall. Brrrrr

The nice man we asked to take our picture didn't include the waterfall in the picture. Imagine a beautiful waterfall to the right.

On the way back, Lucy decided she wanted to run back, so lots of the cousins joined her. Some people stopped them and asked them where their parents were. Then they asked them if they had bear spray. Annie-Jo held up their water guns and said, "No, but we have these."