Canada Day 2016 (and how much I'll miss the Mellish family!)

My friend Sarah.
I love her.
She's moving. And man alive, am I pretty dang sad about it.
Three years ago I noticed this mom walking back and forth from the school, past our corner, she had three boys that looked about my three boys' ages. So one day I walked up to her and just started blabbering on. She looked pretty confused...who is this strange chatty women? But from that first awkward interaction eventually grew one of my most cherished friendships.

We both agree and are so grateful that the Lord knew we needed to be friends. I have loved sharing our joys and struggles of motherhood and just life in general especially on our early morning runs (before 3 consecutive pregnancies between us put a snag in our routine!) She is an amazing person, who I have learned so much from. Her devotion to her boys, and determination to create a full but simple life for herself and her family inspires me constantly. I have loved sharing our faith with each other, she's someone who when she offers to pray for you, it's more than just a kind sentiment-- you feel the power! Despite coming from different faiths, I love how we have always found common ground to build upon and been able to openly recognize and rejoice with one another over feeling the Lord's loving hand in our lives. 


I'm so grateful for the last couple years that I've got to chat after school at the park with her, or let our boys run wild down at Popson, or sent texts on bad days knowing the other will understand and offer empathetic encouragement. Her boys are so good. Just good natured, good hearted, good good good boys and I'm sad my boys won't get to continue to benefit from their good influences on a daily basis. 
But, you'd hafta move a lot farther away than Medicine Hat to get rid of the Bretzkes!!! You can bet we'll be planning visits and keeping in touch with you! Our dear, wonderful friends. 
So glad the Lord brought you into my life!

I'm also glad you came out for the Canada Day parade so I could get some pics of us and our boys together:)

Levi always makes this face, I'm so tickled I caught him on full on nose squint

We'd had a horrible night (Enoch was miserable, Hadley was up a lot, we just stayed up late and Aaron was up by 4am) and I told Ben to just stay home so I could head out to my moms and not worry about him needed to catch up on work. But he surprised us and showed up anyways. I was so glad he did. Aaron was pretty miserable so he went back home with Ben and I took the rest of the kids out to my moms. Funny how just being down one kid makes a big difference. 

We sat by Desi. Oh how I love her....but that;s another Blog post for another day...maybe after we go camping next week!

Sometimes when your babies are cranky and you had a bad night you just need your mom.
I love being out in Glenwood. And I love that my kids do too.

Plus Glenwood has a fun new spray park!

Missing Aaron, but how cute are all these Bowen cousins?!?!?

Krista's 5 all snuggled up....

....While mine are jumping in the mud!

After a watermelon (and rhubarb crisp!) break it was back to more water fun on Grandma's awesome blow-up...thing.

They started playing
"WipeOut" and thought it was soooo funny.

It was a good day. I love my family. I love that we live in Canada. As we drove past Cardston I was telling my kids how when I see Old Chief and the temple I feel at home. I'm grateful that grumpy nights can still become good days.