Lethbridge & Sinister 7

What do you do when you get a last minute invitation to do a long distance back country relay race? You say yes and hit the road!

One of my friends from the Edmonton Modern Quilting Guild contacted me one night to see if Dave might be interested in stepping in on a relay team for the Sinister 7 race in the Crowsnest pass. Corey's team had lost one of their team members to injury and he knew that Dave was already actively training for the Edmonton Marathon. The leg that they needed covered was leg 3. It is a 35km leg with 1400m in elevation gain! He was excited to tackle the challenge. 

We packed up the kids and headed out to Lethbridge to stay with Dad. Lethbridge is only about an hour and a half from the pass so it was the perfect base camp. The plan was to drive to Dad's house first and then Dave would turn around that same night and drive to the pass in Dad's car. The kids did great on the trip. Thank goodness for a sleepy baby and an in car DVD player!

David headed out for the mountains, taking a few gorgeous photos along the way. His team mates had arrived earlier in the day and were amazing enough to set up our tent so that it was ready for him when he arrived. David planned on staying just the Friday night and racing on Saturday followed by the short drive back to Lethbridge. 

Race briefing and pre-race dinner

Team Camp

View from Camp

Meanwhile, dad and I were back at the house in Lethbridge doing our best to manage three kids. It was exhausting and I really wished that I could be watching Dave at the race. The thought of having to manage three kids at a race site on my own was just way too overwhelming. 

The next morning back in the pass David was at the start line of the race to see of their first runner. The start line was on the main street of Blairmore and it was just the beginning of a long day of driving runners around to transition points and camp to get everyone where they needed to be. 

The transition zone

Back at base camp in Lethbridge the kids and I were occupying ourselves with stickers and colouring in the sun. Hugh was having a tough time adjusting to napping in a different place, so it was a long day of rocking a fussy baby in between trying to get the older kids to stop fighting. 

Around 2:30pm I started to get anxious. I had been following race updates all day and knew that Dave would be finishing soon. We stayed in contact all day trying to keep up to date on how the team was doing and when he would be running. Corey was great and sent me a quick photo of Dave finishing with a time update as soon as he arrived at the transition zone to pass off the time chip to the next runner. To say he was dirty and tired would be an understatement. In the end he ended up having the 4th fastest time on leg 3 for a male team.

Meanwhile, these two finally decided to get along for a while. Since Hugh was born we have been struggling with the kids fighting with each other and giving us attitude. I snapped this photo during a small period of quiet and calm.... and then I started counting down the hours until Dave would be home.

Finally at around 6:30pm David arrived home to a hot dinner and a little man that missed his dad desperately. We spent the night talking about the race, enjoying family time and working on some serious partner stretching and yoga. 

We woke up on Sunday morning and made a last minute decision to head out on a short road trip back to Coleman and Blairmore to watch the race finish and award ceremonies. We stopped at a miniature church that David and his cousins used to stop at on road trips to Vancouver. He loved showing the kids something that holds such a strong memory for him. 

Our next stop was at Frank Slide. I am seriously surprised that I had never been here. I was born in Lethbridge and spent so much time in the mountains growing up. The slide is only an hour and a half from my home town! The kids loved every minute of it and asked a million questions about what happened and why there were so many rocks. 

Driving up to the race finish line was so exciting! The official race cut off time was 1pm and we knew that we were going to see a few soloists doing their best to come in under the time mark. The kids cheered so loud for the handful that we watched run through. The pain on their faces was obvious and one soloist sat down in a chair only to find himself unable to get back up and needing David's help to get up. 

The actual awards ceremony was pretty cool. Seeing how some of these top runners looked after a 100 mile back country race was amazing. Some looked light on their feet and others could barely walk to the stage. 

The rest of the trip was spent being as lazy as possible. A few walks to the park, a few bikes around the neighbourhood, some more recovery running and stretching for Dave and lots of time just hanging out. It was perfect. 

Mrs. E

Cheating Eating ~ Flourless Chocolate Muffins

I love a good cheat treat! 

Let's be honest... diets suck. I like dark chocolate and I LOVE good food. Dinner with David is one of my favourite treats and I hate it when I am worried about the calories and I can't enjoy it. I have been working really hard to enjoy food but steer clear of any junk food. That doesn't mean I have given up on my dark chocolate addiction. I found these chickpea based chocolate muffins on the Beachbody site. They have a huge collection of low sugar, low fat recipes that I plan on trying out. So far these have been a hit and we have also fallen in love with their avocado brownies (more on that later). 

You can find the recipe and nutrition breakdown HERE.

Mrs. E

Our Happy Home ~ Backyard Progress

There is something so satisfying about completing a home project that has been on your to do list forever.  

This is the entrance to our backyard. For the last three years it has been a major eye sore. Grass refuses to grow along the house and most of the fence line so we have always had these huge patches of dirt. I decided that it would be the perfect location for some flower beds. We had torn out the sand box that the kids play structure sat in at the end of last summer and we were left with all of the bricks that had lined the sand box. I wanted to reuse them to create the border of the flower beds so the first step was to lay everything out. Here is what I decided on for the layout along with the perennials that I decided to plant along the house (Spirea).

The next step was to dig up all of the grass and create the trench for the rubber stripping and the bricks. This project took some major muscle strength, and for the three days it took me to complete (between feedings and naps) this was my workout. 

The last step was choosing what to plant in the smaller flower bed. Our perennials from last year and our vegetables look like this....

I ended up finding this beautiful flower that will fill in to be 36-48" wide and will grow up to 6ft tall. It's called Martha Washington's Plume. I know you are supposed to plant in odd numbers but one would have been to small and three would have been too much. I am so excited to see how everything fills in next year!

Mrs. E

Canada Day 2016

When your parents ask if they can take your two older kids to Phoenix for an extended long weekend.... you say yes!

David and I had been looking forward to Canada day long weekend for months. My parents had taken Sydney and Henry to Phoenix for six days and David actually had the weekend off. We were really looking forward to enjoying time alone with Hugh and meeting up with some friends. It's funny how easy one kid is now that we have three!

We started our day at 5:30am when we left the house to go to the November Project workout. I obviously wasn't taking part in the workout with Hugh strapped to the front of me, but we had a great time watching and taking pictures. Especially when the entire group of 250+ people ran through the pools causing a massive, unexpected tidal wave that ruined more than one phone and a few backpacks that day. 

After the workout we headed over to the Canada day pancake breakfast and the Canada day road race finish. We had so much fun enjoying some free breakfast and cheering on some friends at the finish line. Once we got home, Hugh and I had a long nap and then it was off to a BBQ at Randy and Stacey's house where Hugh spent some time with his uncle Ryan and met his cousin Addison. All in all it was a fantastic day. The weather was perfect and it was nice to enjoy one on one time with our new little man. 

Mrs. E

Postpartum Weight Loss

There is so much pressure on new moms to snap back into shape as soon as their baby is born. I felt an incredible amount of pressure to look a certain way after I had Sydney. I had just given birth to a 10 pound baby and my body had been through hell. All I could think about was the fact that I would never look the same again. I had gained 65 pounds and I felt like it would never leave.... but it did. It just took me an entire year to lose it. 

When I had Henry it was substantially more difficult to lose weight. I now had two kids to care for and time was at a premium. I had also gained 65 pounds with my second pregnancy and it took over a year to lose the weight. As soon as I lost everything, I got pregnant again. Two losses later I found myself holding on to quite a bit of extra weight. It wasn't until I started practicing yoga almost daily in preparation for Costa Rica that I started to get into shape. I left for teacher training holding on to an additional 15 pounds or so and when I returned I got pregnant again! Little Hugh was totally worth the 65 pounds I gained.

As my pregnancy rolled on I could not wait to get back to my old self. As soon as Hugh was born I started watching what I ate. I gave myself one week to eat what I wanted to (mostly out of survival) and then I jumped right on track. I really don't feel any pressure this time to lose the weight. I am more excited to be able to go for a run again and feel healthy and strong. I am also SUPER excited to be able to fit into some of my old clothes! I am loosely following the 21 Day Fix portioning system and returned back to hot yoga two weeks ago. Here is my progress so far....

One Week Postpartum: -20lbs

Two Weeks Postpartum: -25lbs

Six Weeks Postpartum: -35lbs

Mrs. E

A Dad & His Boy

All I can think about this morning is how fast time is flying by.... so here is a brief flashback to one month ago when these two men were falling madly in love. This is one proud papa and I could not love him more. Sweet moments that I never want to forget. 

Mrs. E