Early Morning Mistakes and other fun stuff.

Ever heard of Clear Care? If you're a contact wearer, and you shop at Costco, then my guess is that you have seen and/or tried the stuff. WONDERFUL product. I love the way it cleans my contacts and it is the only solution that I've tried so far that seems to make my contacts feel brand new every time I wear them.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I learned that this product is NOT an all-in one cleaning solution... in fact, it contains Hydrogen Peroxide...

and if you're wondering what happens when you aren't fully functioning at 6:30 AM and you accidentally decide to rinse your contact off with it before putting it in your eye...

don't ask me, I would never do something as silly as that.

I don't think that I've ever actually REALLY screamed in my life until the moment that contact hit my eye... scared Brody so bad that he started crying too. I'm glad it doesn't permanently damage the eyes, but my eye looked like this (actually worse at first) for about a week.

Moral of the story? Don't forget to read the warnings that are printed in RED on the bottle.

I FINALLY made it up to Edmonton to visit both of my amazing sisters last week. I know 5 hours really isn't that far away, but it seems like it is difficult to actually make it up there. I'm lucky that my sisters seem to make it down to Lethbridge often to let me see them and their kiddos, but

there is so much fun stuff to do in Edmonton, I just knew it was about time I make the trip. We had SO much fun. The boys did so great on the drive up, and the roads were perfectly clear the whole way there. My only note for another year would be to not even attempt to stop at the Balzac Cross-Iron Mall on Family Day - It was insane.

Because Deanna ended up having the flu right before I came up, I stayed at Kim's house. Man were Brody and Zach hilarious together. They always seem to learn some funny things from each other, and half the time are laughing uncontrollably, and the other half of the time fighting over the same toys. They are so much alike. I wish they could spend more time together.

Kim and I decided to try out the John Janzen Nature centre. It is targeted to kids probably 5 and

under, and has a beehive play centre, a big slide, a 'river' that you can make beaver dams in using fake sticks, leaves and rocks, 3-d flower puzzles, and a lot more in a separate area about all sorts of animals. The boys probably played there for 2 hours, and were still having a fun time when we made them leave. The best part about the centre was that there were hardly any people there. It was quiet and relaxing for us to watch them play. It was so great to run into my old roommate, Jenna, and her family and kids there. For a while we were the only people in the centre. It was great to see you Jenna!! Reading your blog just isn't quite as fun as seeing you in person! Wish we could have visited longer. I see from Jenna's Blog that she has much better pictures of the John Janzen Centre than I do, if you want to see what it actually looks like there (hope you don't mind me linking up Jenna).

Here's Brody and Zach walking up to the Nature Centre... they decided to hold hands :)

Here's Blake playing on the ground while the older boys ran around. Connor slept almost the whole time, which was awesome.

The next day we decided to venture to the Mall to do some clothes shopping (as I'm STILL not fitting back into my skirts since having Connor - however, several of those said skirts are from my high school days, so maybe it is time to let them go anyways.) Did I find any new skirts? No - but Kim was more successful. We took the boys to Galaxy Land before we headed home, as they are still free for the rides. Brody LOVE LOVE LOVED the train ride, and keeps asking to "ride the train again, Mommy?". I should clarify that I forgot to bring my camera to Edmonton, so all of my pictures were taken with my cell phone - sorry for the quality.

Auntie Kim took the boys on a balloon ride too.

On the way home from the Mall, I practically killed myself driving because my windshield wiper fluid would not spray, and I could not see a thing (ever happened to anyone else before?) I was on the main highway, and seriously couldn't slow down or pull over safely either. Anyways, this eventually led to me discovering that I could change a fuse in my own car, all by myself!! (well, sort of - Kevin was on the phone helping me a bit). I am seriously in the dark about how to fix or take care of vehicles at all, so I was totally impressed that I could figure out what was causing the problem and fix it without spending lots of money. I am so thankful to have such an amazing handy husband, and for my brother-in-law, Mark, for sitting in the cold trying to help me figure it out.

If you are from around Edmonton and you haven't yet tried out the Cafe O' Play, it is definitely worth a visit. We met up with Deanna here on Thursday morning, and the kids LOVED it. I love that this picture has someone vacuuming in the background... seriously, it was a clean place for your kids to play. Deanna treated us to a smoothie and a piece of white chocolate zucchini bread, which was so good. I love the idea of this place, and would love to see one start up in Lethbridge for us to enjoy more often. Brody spent 90% of the time driving the cars around the track.

I wish I had some pictures of it, but we also took the boys to a community gymnastics class on Thursday night. Brody was totally loving the tumbling and rolling and jumping. I am so wishing that Stirling had something like that he could do to help him get all of his wiggles out. Thanks, Kim, for letting us join you.

I've never gone away with the boys without Kevin before, so we decided to send him a picture one morning to let him know how much we missed him. Try as I might, I could NOT get the boys to smile in the same picture.

Mom and Dad also came up for Keira's birthday towards the end of the week. They rented a party room at a bowling alley, and we were able to celebrate with her and enjoy some delicious "purse" cake made by Deanna! SO cute.

Thanks so much for a fun trip Deanna and Kim!! I really enjoyed the visit, and had so much fun with you both! Thanks to Mom, as well, for helping us out on the way back down to Lethbridge.

Also, thanks to Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Orvil for not minding our surprise visit and for helping us out. Got to love children that get car-sick...