Tea Party

On Sunday we had our monthly Girls Night, except it was more of a Girls Morning! Elyse hosted a mad hatter tea party for us where we dressed up for a late morning tea & some tasty treats. Afterward we decorated our own tea cups. It was a really fun get together and something totally different than what we have done in the past. Actually all of our get togethers have been very unique and different from each other. Anyway here are a couple of snapshots from our latest get together. 

Freezer Meals

Last week I got busy with a few freezer meals. I saw on a friends Facebook that she had pre-made meals so that on hot summer days she didn't have to worry about cooking. Pull it out of the freezer, bake, and voila! So I did a bit of searching on Pinterest for recipes, as well as used my own and came up with this list of meals:

CrockPot

Lazy Day Stew

Healthy Mama BBQ chicken

Cheesy Chicken

Slow Cooker Spagetti

Bake and Serve

Hashbrown Pizza

Turkey Pot Pie

Beef and Vegetable Pie

Chedder and Cracker Chicken

Lasagna

Chicken Lasagna

Sheperds Pie

Hamburger Pie

Reheat and Serve

Chicken Salsa

Ham Chowder 

In total this list produced 26 frozen meals! On top of this I will be able to send Sandy out to the Barbecue and thus drastically reducing my number of evenings spent cooking! 

A few of the recipes I found on the internet so try clicking on some of the recipes and they will take you to the website I found them on. Some of the other recipes I found in a company's coming cookbook (all about cooking with ground beef) and the rest are family recipes. You don't have to make "freezer meals" in order to freeze them. I made a lot of one dish meals like lasagna, pies, and casseroles. I basically prepared and cooked what needed to be done ahead of time and then stopped at the baking step. Instead of baking the dish I sealed it up and put it in the freezer (but of course wrote the bake instructions on the front of the bag first). I think you can basically make anything into a freezer meal! I have a nephew on the way in a few weeks and am going to make my sister-in-law a bunch of meals for when baby gets here, but I think I will try more slow cooker meals for her. Much easier to thaw, dump, and slow cook! Another thing I did was prepare all the meals in disposable baking dishes (the tinfoil round and square dishes) so that we can simply eat and toss. No muss to fuss! 

Anyway that is it for my freezer cooking attempt number 1. I will DEFINITELY be doing this with baby number two, it just makes life so easy! 

Prepping for the cooking frenzy! Laying out all the
ingredients for each meal

A few of the crock pot meals complete

The grand finale! 26 meals later

Training Weekend

This past weekend we had a training weekend for our ultramarathon coming up in a few weeks. The race takes place in the Crowsnest Pass so we spent the weekend in Canmore hiking two mountains to prepare for the change in altitude and the hiking conditions that the race will present. It was a big weekend for training but also a big weekend because it was my first time away from Al for more than 24 hours. Daddy did a great job and everyone survived but it definitely marked a milestone. I have spent today trying to take care of the tornado that must have hit the house while I was gone but at least my little guy is in one piece (with only a few scratches).  Only five members of our team were able to make it this weekend but it still proved to be a good team bonding experience. There was definitely a wide variety in our group of age, athletic ability, relationships to one another, and maybe even sense of humour? But it proved that under stressful (mental and physical) conditions we are still a great team and group of friends / mother-daughters. We did two scramble hikes: Lady MacDonald and China Man's Peak. Here are some pictures from our hiking trip, Enjoy!

And just a side note, I haven't picked up my point and shoot camera in quite a while now, and boy can I tell the difference. My DSLR was just too much to carry up the mountain and sadly I think I missed out on some great shots! But these pictures are still great memories captured on the ol' pink Canon!

Live and let Live

Just wanted to pop in and share a quick note with you, my readers. I started this blog about a year and a half ago as a way to share my experiences in life. At the time I was pregnant, and as any mommy knows, pregnancy is a huge life changing journey. I had lots to share and it was a fun outlet to chat about my "pregnancy changes" without boring anyone who didn't want to hear about it. From there I started blogging about my new baby boy, my DIY projects around the house, my fitness goals and challenges and so many other things. The point of the blog was to share things with my readers in hopes of inspiring them, motivating them, giving them a laugh or to just stay in touch with friends and family. I have recently received some very cowardly criticism from someone who very obviously reads my blog and would like to take a moment to invite them to exit their browser and not visit my blog anymore. 

That is the beauty of it. If you don't like what I am writing or don't like what I am choosing to share with you, then please, by all means don't read it anymore. Seems like a very common sense concept but I am obviously a much more mature and self aware individual and can see it is not actually myself or my writing that is "offending" them so greatly. I am very aware of what a blessed and fortunate life I live (which I have shared my gratefulness for many times throughout my blog) but sometimes these blessings in my life cause others to become envious, jealous, resentful and sometimes even hateful. So again I will state: if my blogging has caused you to feel as though I am being hurtful to you in anyway I would appreciate that you simply stop following my blog. I am a very kind and generous person and do not intend to hurt anyone with what I share. Furthermore I do not share these things to be boastful, or act superior, I share my life stories in hopes that I am connecting with others as they go through similar journeys and can be a source of support and encouragement. Reading my blog is a choice by my readers and I am going to continue to share my stories with you in hopes that you appreciate what I have to say and do not feel anything but uplifted by my blog posts. 

First Family Camping Trip

We just got home from our first family camping trip and it was great! Minus all the pre-camping issues we had to deal with of course. Lets start with the back story. Sandy and I started looking into trailers for camping last May-June (2011) but because I was due with Alexander in August it didn't make much sense to invest in something that we wouldn't be able to use right away. So we decided that we would wait, not do Christmas presents for each other, and instead buy a trailer in the spring of 2012. So that is what we did. We only exchanged stockings with one another (except the diamond earrings Sandy got for me and broke the rules, but that's neither here nor there) and in February we went to look at trailers at the RV show. We had basically already decided what we wanted but thought it was still a good idea to go look. So one fun date day in February we went to the show, and within 20 minutes had decided on our trailer and purchased it! We were told it would arrive in March or April. So in the meantime I started purchasing what we needed for camping and making lists etc. March and April came and went and no trailer arrived. Finally in May we got word that it was here so we went for a quick peak and it looked great! Just as we had expected and everything looking like it should! We made an appointment for our orientation and pick up of the trailer. It was a Tuesday morning about two weeks before we had our first camping trip booked. But, when we showed up for our appointment, the trailer wasn't ready to go home. The salesman had forgot to put the work order through to have it pressurized and ready to go. So instead of getting it that day we ended up getting it Saturday, six days before our scheduled camping trip (and the day of Alexanders dedication). I spent Saturday night and Sunday (Mothers Day) filling the trailer and getting it organized and ready for camping. The only thing left was to fill the fridge! Tuesday Al went to my Mom's for Grandma-baby time, like he always does on Tuesdays so I took advantage of the free time and went and got our groceries. Five hundred dollars worth of groceries. 

the groceries

Not thinking, I didn't plug the fridge in ahead of time so when I got home I plugged it in and waited for it to get cold. The manual said about eight hours so I gave it eight hours, and it still wasn't cold. I gave it twelve hours, still hot, and by twenty four hours it was still warm inside! At that point we called the dealership and the short version was the fridge needed to be replaced, three days before we were supposed to leave. Luckily they had the fridge in stock so they replaced it and we had the trailer back that night. Which leaves us to Thursday. This is the day I went over our site we had booked and last minute lists. This is when I realized I had made a mistake with our booking and accidentally booked a non-powered site. Bahh. Not the end of the world but I was disappointed that I had made this over site. Oh well. Friday it was time to leave on our first camping trip. Fridge replaced, food and clothes packed, gassed up and ready to go. 

We hit the road shortly after lunch and got to our spot around 4:00pm. Within ten minutes of getting there and starting to set up, one of our jacks hit the gas line (our main source of power for the weekend) and blew the line. At this point we packed up, signed out at the office and got a refund, and were on our way home! All of this work and waiting and packing and planning, just to come home 10 minutes into our trip because we had blown a gas line. We ended up taking the trailer straight to the dealer and they were able to fix it for us immediately (I think they felt bad for all the trouble we had been having with the brand new unit). By 8:00pm Friday night our trailer was fixed and ready to go again. I ended up calling back to the lake for a reservation and got the last site in the entire park. We left shortly after lunch on Saturday and had a great camping trip! We put a couple little scratches into our new trailer but I guess that is going to happen! Anyway just wanted to share the adventure of our first camping trip as a family. Despite that I was very upset each time something went wrong, I can now laugh at it because it all worked out in the end. There are people in much worse situations so I have to smile and remember how blessed we are. After all, our fridge in our trailer malfunctioned, some people don't even have fridges in their homes.

All hooked up

Crawlin' around the new place

Now mommy can have her hands free
for a game of bean bags

All fenced in

My first bath in the new tub

Good Morning, had a great sleep in my new bunk bed

Hanging out with Dad

Checkin' out the beach

I can't wait to take it out again and spend more time as a family camping!