Sunday 30 June 2013

Spartan Race

On Saturday, Brad and I competed in the Spartan race, here in Edmonton. It was a 5K race, with more than 15 obstacles and over 4000 racers. It was fun!


Here's us before the race.


Here's a glimpse at one of the hills. From this point, we ran into the trees and followed switchback trails up to the top of the hill.

This is the start of the race. You begin by running up the slope of the ski hill. This thins out the crowd nicely, so there's not a lineup at the first obstacle. It also makes your legs feel like jelly right off the bat.

In total, we ran up and down the ski hill 5 times, went over walls, swung across monkey bars, bogged through mud pits, carried weighted sandbags, drug a cinderblock up and down a hill, threw a spear, crawled under barbed wire, flipped tractor tires, jumped gates, went through gates, went under gates, navigated net ropes, climbed a 20 foot rope from 3 feet of mud, crossed a bouldering wall, jumped over fire,  and probably a few others, but these are the ones I haven't forgotten.

And for every obstacle we couldn't complete or slipped off of, we did 30 burpees. Unfortunately, we did some burpees... but it was fun and we're both looking forward to next year.


But, we got muddy! Here are some after shots.



The first obstacle required you to jump in a mud pit up to your armpits, so that added a few extra pounds to the weight you were carrying up and down the hills and over obstacles, plus it made you and each obstacle nice and slippery.






And the hosing off station. In the background, you can see people climbing over one of the walls. This side had a nice ladder, but the other side was slick panels of wood, so you had to climb and pull each other over.


This is the garbage can full of shoes that people decided weren't worth cleaning because of the mud. We ran into one guy whose shoes got sucked off in the first mud pit. He ran the rest with his dad's shoes, complete with orthotics, while his dad watched the rest of the race in his socks. 

Does this make any of you want to join us next year? 
;)

Friday 28 June 2013

Sunshine is Back! Hurray Summer!

We're back in the backyard in a big way, frequenting parks, going for adventures, and enjoying the sunshine. Hurray! It's still rainy in the evenings, sometimes, but that's fine by us. We're in bed by 7 :)





Wednesday 26 June 2013

Dusk on The Harbour

I made this layout on a quick evening getaway to the local scrap store with my scrapping buddy, Jacqueline. 


I had big plans to use some of my 6x6 paper pads, and I like how this one turned out. The middle two pages are literally torn from the paper pad, and stuck down. I kind of liked the roughness of the torn edge, and don't even mind the hole punch.... Let me know what you think.

The pictures are from the Lagos harbour in Portugal, and the papers are Glitz Designs, with a little My Mind's Eye

Monday 24 June 2013

My Girls

Lovely in a tutu.


Getting stronger by the day.


And loving each other. According to Gracie, each day this week has been Sister's Day (very similar to Father's Day, I assume).


Friday 21 June 2013

Visitors

They came up last week, and I have only these two pictures to show for it, but Grams and Papa came to stay, and we had so much fun!


I love that one.  :)


Love these 3. And Papa. I think we took some pictures of him and the girls on mom's camera. Maybe I can get some copies.

We played, we parked, we sidewalk-chalked, we ate, we watched ball (some of us) and we got rained out of soccer, all in about 24 hours. 

It was such a nice visit. It could've been longer, but it was great to steal a day from them. Gracie's already looking forward to the next one.

Thursday 20 June 2013

Gracie's Soccer Ends

That's right. Spring soccer is already over. It was far too short, especially since two of the six games got rained out. Just when she got the hang of it, it was over. 

A few pictures of warm-up.




Lining up for free kicks. 


Gracie's turn!


Cheerleader Emma was always there. 



Another fierce line up. Gracie wore her very intimidating heart bucket hat each game.

Some kids were more aggressive than others ;)




In the last game, Gracie finally started to chase the ball more and even got into the fray.


Look at her go! (And check out the other kid's poor shorts (with her back to the camera).... seriously mom, too high! I can't even tell what number she is).


A fun few weeks, with a good wrap-up party complete with jumpy castles, face-painting, and hot dogs!

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Park Play

 I seem to only take pictures when it's sunny.... It seems like it's been beautiful up here, and it has, but the last week has been rainy and gloomy. I can't wait for the sun to come back!

We walked to a new park the other day and it was a hit. 


Emma even got in on the action.


There's hardly anything Gracie likes about parks. Not the tire swings, 


Not the sand, 



Not the slides,


And tunnel slides are a real drag...


Ha! She could spend the whole day at a park. And she's fearless, so watch out, she'll be swinging overhead when you're not looking.


And this little cutie likes everything.


Sunday 16 June 2013

Gracie's Favourite Place on Earth

Yep, she's go back to this aquarium on any given day. 


This was a quick layout using a fancy shaped piece of patterned paper that I've had in my stash for a good year or so and some cardstock. I topped it off with a ton of pictures, a few stickers, some doodling and a title. 

Done!

Friday 14 June 2013

Quickie Layout

Sometimes, it's hard to be creative when you are constantly forcing yourself to be creative only between the hours of 9 and 10 pm, when you're tired, the house is a mess, and you've got other things on your mind. 

I decided to change my creative process a little to spur me on. I thought I'd try someone else's scrapbooking style on for size, so I picked a scrapbooker who is nothing like me, and tried it out. 

I love Jaime Warren's style, so I thought I'd try it out on a layout of my own. Here's my take on her style. I like it. 


So much white space.... 

Note: The doily at the top is supposed to stick out over the top of the page, so in 'real life' there's no random white strip along the top.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Backyard Soccer Stars

Check out these pictures of Brad and Gracie playing soccer in the backyard (back when it was sunny enough to play shirts against skins).



She's an All-Star! No backing down when she plays her dad.






I wish I could put a video up here. They don't seem to work anymore, for some reason. It's a very giggly game, as you can probably tell from the pictures. 




And speedier than my camera.



Joy!!!