birthdays all around

 What an exciting weekend!

1. Canada Day
2. Burns Wood's 90th Birthday Party
3. Burns Harris' 25th Birthday
4. Matt and Steph are up from Utah

On Friday I got to see Boonie after a whole month of long distance. He's back up north now, but it was a pretty awesome weekend with him. I won't be able to see him for another month. How am I able to do this?? When he got to Calgary I was waiting for him at his mom's house. Kobe didn't really remember him, but then Burns said something that he always says to Kobe and I think it helped Kobe remember him haha. We drove down to Raymond that night. I couldn't wait to give Boonie at least a couple of his presents that I got him for his birthday, so I let him open the first 3. They were his watches with new batteries in them. He hasn't worn his watches for a while now because the batteries were dead, so I had them replaced. He loved it :)

Saturday morning was the Harlan Taylor Memorial Road Race! Alex, Arianne, and I woke up early to get to our package pick-up at 7:00am. The race started at 7:30.

• Out of 107 people in the 10k I placed 29th.
• I placed 9th out of 56 females.
• I was 3rd in my category (females, 18 to 25) out of 15. 

My time = 00:51:40.85
Alex = 00:59:41.20
Arianne = 01:04:56.90

This race was Alex and Arianne's first official 10k race. Great job ladies!!! It was my second and I think all three of us ran our fastest 10k's ever (we all have run 10k before, just not officially).

After the race, Burns and I headed to his Grandpa Wood's 90th Birthday Party in Taber. It was great to see his family and the program was pretty awesome. Burns Wood is an amazing individual. Tributes were paid to him by all of his children. His sister was even there to pay tribute. The Harris brothers performed a couple songs (so hilarious - "Grandpa Don't Allow" and "The Battle of New Orleans") and it was all around a good time.

Afterwards Burns and I headed to Raymond for a couple hours, then we went to Cardston to spend time with his family again. That night we went to the Cardston fireworks.

This picture was taken on our way to Cardston:

Sunday morning I was sooo excited for Burns to open his presents!!! Probably even more excited than he was (he says he doesn't like surprises).

1, 2, 3: batteries for his watches.
4: gum
5: candy
6: Safeway gift card with instructions from me specifically for him to buy healthy food haha
7: a painting I did with Kobe
8: a picture of the two of us
9: Alien Anthology
10: rafting package for two (I can't wait to go!)

I was actually going to do something I saw on Pinterest with these presents. I was going to have him open a present every hour, but then I realized that I'm too impatient to handle that so I just numbered them haha.

So after he opened his gifts (which he absolutely loved), I made his cake (which I also found on Pinterest) and Luke made Burns some amazing pancakes for his birthday breakfast. We then decided to head out to Waterton for a couple hours.

It was raining pretty bad when we got there, so we went out to a buffalo field to try to find them. My family was going to Waterton that day too, so I called Marshall up to tell him that they might not want to go if it was going to be that rainy. He then told me it's free to get in the park on Canada Day, so we decided to go in. We went to Cameron Falls first.

Burns' hair is long enough for a pony tail now! So Euro, so hot.

We got a little ways up a hike but then we turned around. The weather was no bueno and the kids weren't feeling up for it.

We then went to the lake and the weather finally cleared up a bit. The boys then declared they were to jump in the lake. But first, Burns found a deer and tried to feed it grass.

Kobe looks sooo much like it! Burns then later found out that the park rangers paintball aggressive deer to make sure people don't approach them. Yeah...this deer was paint balled.

We found a dock and Matt, Burns, and Luke jumped in!

That lake is freeeeezing!!! Props to them for obliterating their warmth all in the name of awesome. We then headed back to Cardston for Burns' party!

We had a great supper of spaghetti and then Denise had all the kids go downstairs to help put the candles in the cake. They then lined up on the stairs and started singing Happy Burnsday and I followed with the lit cake.

The cake was called Banana Poke Cake. I told Burns I would make him a Banana Cream Pie for his birthday, but I just didn't have the time to do it, and pie doesn't make as much as cake. Sooo I found this recipe on Pinterest and it was perfect! It was just like Banana Cream Pie, only it was cake.

1. Make a Golden Cake
2. Poke holes in it with a wooden spoon
3. Pour banana pudding on it, making sure to get it in the holes and let it set in the fridge
4. Put banana slices on top
5. Smooth whipped cream over the cake
6. Sprinkle crushed Nilla Wafers over top

Mandi gave Burns some muffin mix and a parachute man and Steph gave him a book about weird Canadian places. Luke got him a Canadian flag towel.

That night the puppies wanted to cuddle with me. I figured since Burns was here, Kobe would sleep with him all night, but he would go back and forth between us. Burns was on the couch downstairs and I was on the couch upstairs. Georgie wanted to stay with me all night too.

Monday was sad. I had to say goodbye to Burns for another month.

 I then went back to Raymond and Burns went to Cold Lake.

I tried to get to the Raymond Parade, but I thought it started at 11:00 when it actually started at 10:00. I missed it :(  The fam then had our annual potluck dinner at Uncle Val's house.

It was so hot out that day, so Arianne, Brad, and I went bridge jumping.

Maverick had to have a little pep talk to even go near Brad.

The caution was well understood. But Maverick loved the water after he got in and would always jump in from the side after people.

I made Kobe go in, too. He hated it, but that was no surprise to me.

This was my punishment from Kobe for making him go in the water:

 We had burgers and smokies at Parents' house and we saw this awesome thing:




And Nitty insisted on showing everyone her awesome faces including this one:

Great weekend! Now it's back to work...at least I have the house all to myself for a week. My roommates are out of town :D