and the winner is..........Emma Heystek!

Summer reading paid off big for Emma this summer, she was the grande prize winner for her age group at the local library. We submitted our reading minutes all through the summer and entered the draw each week. Yesterday she got a call to come right down to the library, she was pretty surprised and somewhat apprehensive about winning something (and not sure she wanted a new bike - she really loves her princess bike with pink tassels, front basket and doll carrier on the back). But once she got home and started riding it, she realized a new bike wasn't so bad (she says Karly can have her "old" one). Besides this one has a new bell AND pretty tassels too!

Karly also won a prize in her age group.... a tugboat for the bathtub complete with a seahorse, crab, squirty fish, octopus and even a walrus! What lucky girls!

HAIL-O "summer" Vacation!

Well, we were really excited for our one week summer vacation this year. We decided we would venture to southern Alberta to visit beautiful Waterton Lakes National Park. This would be our longest camping trip with our new 31' "home away from home". So we packed up the girls and headed out last saturday for a well-deserved family vacation. First stop, Pincher Creek! What a crazy night! The rain started around 1am, and it rained and rained and rained. I told Troy to go outside and check on our friends (that were staying in a tent) to make sure they hadn't floated away, so he did, and came back a few minutes later and said everything looked fine. Well, it wasn't 5 minutes later and there was a knock at the door and there were our soaking wet friends, Jorge (their dog) and their sleeping bags. The rain got so heavy that their tent fell in on them! What a great start to our summer adventure. The next night things didn't improve any, Troy ended up in bed all evening with a stomach flu (not from the Beer he says). Then on Monday we made our way to beautiful Waterton Park, we were all getting comfy and setting up the trailer to spend the next few nights here when the HAIL hit!! not just little balls of ice and rain but GOLF BALL size hail! What a mess, there were holes in our awning, holes in every vent, holes in the skylight and water dripping EVERYWHERE! ahhh vacation..........we made the best of the next few nights but decided to head home early and inspect the damage to our not so new anymore trailer. Hopefully the insurance adjuster will arrive Monday morning and things will look up from here.