Mexico with the Fisher women

This October my mom decided to treat my sister and I to a trip to Mexico with her.  I jumped at the opportunity as I have always wanted to go. I met with Mom in Lethbridge to travel to Calgary for our flight.  As we were traveling, Mike phoned us to let us know that P.V. was having a huge hurricane!  We post-poned our trip until November which worked out very well for us as we had great weather as opposed to the torrential rains we would have had in October.

 We went to Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific ocean side.  It was soooo much fun.  We had gorgeous weather - it was quite hot and humid.  We had a fantastic massage on the beach in a cabana with the ocean air blowing through and the sound of the waves adding to our relaxation.  The pools were so warm and unoccupied (I was glad I brought my flippers and paddles).  Food, food, food - whenever we wanted it - all day, all night!

 When Heather arrived, we scheduled some fun day trips.  We went out on a boat to a remote little island where we snorkeled, kayaked and paddle boarded.  Well, I attempted paddle boarding, but I couldn't stay up.  Heather got her money's worth laughing at me.  We had a nice lunch on board the boat and a pretty funny stage show.  Snorkeling was really fun, we saw lots of fish as we swam among the rocks and caves.  The water was warm but pretty choppy and I started to panic a bit as it was quite difficult to swim back to the boat.  Heather and I did quite a bit of ocean kayaking which was sooo nice!  I LOVED it!  Mom didn't feel to good on the boat which was sure unfortunate:(

The best day yet was my Vallarta Adventure - boats, jeep, mules, zip lines, rappelling, and jungle waterslides.  It was AWESOME!!

Fall 2015

Brett has a broken finger from jumping with Lily on the trampoline.  I'm not sure why he looks so gimped throwing this rock at Waterton during Grandparents Parker's visit?

Grandma and Grandpa's visit in Sept 2015

Proof that they love each other - she only had to give him a REALLY good birthday present to get this hug!

Our Halloween dinosaur

Peter LOVES cars - this was awesome!

Dad's birthday - the kids are getting really good at making birthday breakfasts - they only burnt the bacon.

Don't bug me!

Pretty sisters.

Well, Peter fits...

 We had a fun trip to Victoria in November.  The weather was beautiful and the kids entertained themselves while waiting for the ferry.

We had a nice visit with the Salas.

Our neighbour let Brett drive this huge tractor from his house to our house.  What a mighty machine!

Girls retreat with Lisa, Naomi, and Rebbecca.

Sophia is 8

What a beautiful girl!  We love you so much Sophia!

Sophia's baptism - she couldn't stop smiling!

Crazy summer adventure

Well this was one crazy summer! We decided that it would be a good idea to rent our house out for the summer and make some extra money.  The only trouble was, we had no where else to live - no where but the garage.  I thought it would be fun to "camp" in the garage for the summer, after all how bad could it be; it would be summer time, we would get outside lots, and it would be good for the family to "rough it" for a while.

We had a great time building the loft and setting up a slide and a swing.  This was going to be great!  We already had a shower and laundry in the garage.  We could use the laundry sink as our kitchen sink.  The beds went under the loft, on top of the loft, on the floor, on the loveseat and in the neighbours camper.  A picnic table served as our gathering spot and garage shelving turned into our dressers, closets and pantry.  We got an old fridge (which died on us) and then we bought another old fridge.  There was just ONE problem - no toilet!  No problem - a bucket with a lid will do.  Mike rigged a compost and we bought a bag of sawdust.  It all seemed so adventurous at the start...two months is a LONG time to be sitting on a bucket!  Needless to say, we were all extremely grateful to have our house back at the end of the season.  The first month was fun, the second month we needed to take some vacations from the garage!

We were able to make 2 trips to Utah during the summer.  The first trip was with Brett, Sophia, Peter, Mike and I.  We had a really fun 4 day trip.  We all had some stress release therapy work done there.  The kids enjoyed the hotel and pool and restaurants.  It was nice to focus on the younger kids and make some memories.  Later in the summer the older girls and I went to education week at BYU.  They were able to see the campus and get freaked out at how big it was.  We enjoyed lots of great speakers, caught up with Dina and Alonzo (friends from college) and watched a taping of "Studio C".  It was great to have some time alone with the girls.  Poor Mike was not enjoying himself at home in the garage during our trip.  Sophia and Peter were barfing, the dogs were constantly getting out and it snowed (in August)!!  When our last guests left we all raced into our house, hugging pillows, jumping on beds and vowing to never leave again! ha

The girls were pretty happy to be left at home alone!

First good restaurant on the foodie tour of Utah

Naomi is the reason behind every great idea!

Alonzo Gaskill - old friend - now popular author and professor.

Love these beauties!

Studio C

Poor Mike - snow in August.

The rascal!!

I am glad we did it, it was a fun experiment and it gave us some extra money for the summer.  None of us will forget it and it made us so grateful for our beautiful home and all the comforts of indoor plumbing!