Curtain Call: Summer 2013

Well, it's officially Fall; otherwise known as Autumn. ;)

I found this tidbit of Fall trivia, courtesy of the online Old Farmer's Almanac (So it must be true, right?)

The equinox brings autumn on September 22, 2013 at 4:44 P.M EDT. 

It is the summer's great last heat,

It is the fall's first chill: They meet.

–Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

The Autumnal Equinox

The word equinox comes from the Latin words for "equal night." The fall and spring equinoxes are the only days of the year in which the Sun crosses the celestial equator.

From here on out, the temperatures begin to drop and the days start to get shorter than the nights.

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So, it's official. Summer is over and our nights are longer than our hours of daylight each day. (MUCH longer if you find yourself up periodically through the night due to discomfort from an increasingly HUGE belly)

Summer 2013 was pretty great and I have some evidence here to prove it.

Our Texas Family (my husband's brother with his wife and two kids) kicked our summer off well by coming for nearly three weeks at the end of June. We love them very much and wish that we saw them more, so we cherish the time we can have together. It was SO much fun watching these sweet cousins play and interact together. They are the same ages, which is great.

Kalena and Annie Austen enjoy playing house.

Jett and Cooper love to play on the swings (so do the girls).  

The car swing was a hot ticket item. ;)

River Landing spray park.

Jett sure loved his cousin Annie Austen.

This was a common scene most days. 'Inspecting' the farm with the Silverado.

Listening to the conversation between these two while they played was hilarious. 

I captured some of it in the following video.

We had to celebrate Canada properly, of course ;)

Such sweet interactions between these two girlies.

The 'big slide' at the Canada Day celebrations in Saskatoon.

On the beach. A day trip to Turtle Lake.

Fence building 101.

On the job ;)

SO sweet. Cooper and Kalena.

Grammy and Papa with their four grandkids. (In their glory :)

We had a visit from some other good Texas friends, too. We love the Larsons.

Lucy and Jett climbing corral fences.

Kalena and Liv (in a deeply riveting conversation)

Jett is one lucky boy, surrounded by sweet Lucy and Abby.

We had a good visit with some good friends from Vancouver, too. The Lepp's were Mitch's neighbours and close friends for many many years. Watching our kids now play on the farm was truly fun. Jett looks like he could fit in as a sibling to Hendrix and Charlie, don't you think? Charlie introduced Jett to the fascinating world of frog catching. ;)

Jett and Kalena

They may like to get under each other's skin, but as time goes on, these two are becoming close friends.

Cousin Lucy with Jett and Kalena at Pike Lake.

Kalena and Lucy sure love each other and we all love seeing them sharing a good joke! 

Our home is very safe with Spiderman living in house.

Tinkerbell also likes to make the occasional appearance ;)

Uncle Greg and Aunty Karmen were back from South Korea (where they've been teaching English) We loved spending as much time with them as possible for the week and a half that they were in Sasky.

Here is the whole Sawatzky clan (sweet Bella was napping in her stroller close by).

My sweet Kalena's hair is finally coming in! 

It's been a long wait ;) Here's her first ponytail

This grin melts my heart.... AND makes me incredibly suspicious.

Mitch and I took the kids to the circus. The snacks were a hit.

Our Family of four attended the Sawatzky Family Gathering in Pigeon Lake, Alberta this summer. We braved not one, but TWO nights in a TENT with both of our kiddos. Surprisingly, it went fairly well. The kids and Mitch slept pretty decently. 

We had several playdates at Papa & Damma Sawatzky's house this summer.

My two little mischief-makers. 

I love these two and all of their crazy... even when there are days when the 'crazy' actually takes over at our place. BOTH of my children have very little fear and are avid climbers, swimmers, fast-movers, rough house-ers, and mud makers. Thankfully, they are also both snugglers.

Jett and Kalena "painted" most of the play centre with mud.

Always on the move.

Summer brings different seasons of work on the farm. Both of my children enjoy rides in the trucks, forage harvester, combine and any tractor. This year, Jett set new records riding along with daddy for as long as five hours at a time! He has created his own job position manning the hoist on the trucks. He loves to hold the lever and watch the large trucks dump grain into the auger. One time when he was riding along with Mitch to a field, he said, "Daddy, do you know that you are riding with 'Hoist Guy'?" (I guess that's his superhero name)

Kalena's rides were much shorter than Jett's (out of necessity) but we had a few times where we took family rides in the grain truck. As you can see, there's lots of love in the grain truck! ;)

Ghetto baths still prevail but we've actually moved to bathing the kids separately now for the most part.

This little Miss has grown up a lot in the past months. 

I guess that's good since she'll lose her "baby of the family" status in a few months!

"Hi cows" is Kalena's daily greeting to our herd. :)

Fishing off of the playhouse.

Always "farming" in the garden.

All of the remaining pics are moments captured at Candle Lake from this summer. We have enjoyed going to Mariner's Cove at Candle Lake for the past four years and using our trailer that is permanently set up and ready to go. This summer though, we made the decision to sell. While we LOVE going to Candle as a get-away, we haven't been able to use it nearly as much as we'd hoped we would. Our kids were not given a vote in the decision (because they LOVE it there) but Mitch and I both agreed that selling was in the best interest of our growing family. Thankfully, it has sold! It is bittersweet looking at these pics of our last summer at a spot we truly enjoyed.

And THAT is pretty much our summer! I'm certain I did not cover every moment, but we were blessed with many wonderful memories this summer of 2013. It's crazy to think that next summer I'll have THREE bambinos to chase! (Okay, I'll likely not be 'chasing' the baby, but you know what I mean!)