Teeth...... to Ten Miles

Alas, the day I have dreaded has at last arrived 😭

My baby girl has officially lost BOTH of her top front teeth. That is a total of 4 baby teeth gone forever.... but the top two were the ones I was dreading the most.  I hope it takes a nice long time before those big grown up chompers come in and make this baby girl face into a "big girl" face.

And in other news.... "Lacey Bracey" lost a tooth this week as well. They've been tightening this and that, adding brackets here and there.  7 months down!

And in still other tooth news, I've had one heck of a week!  A week ago today (last Sunday), I developed a toothache.  I took some Tylenol and hoped it would go away.  It didn't.  By Monday night, it had gotten so bad, I could hardly sleep and woke up multiple times in the middle of the night writhing in pain.  I bee-lined it straight to the dentist first thing Tuesday morning.  Long story short..... my filling had come loose and some (bacteria-containing) saliva got under the filling and into the roots of the tooth causing a severe infection.  But the dentist said I needed to be referred to an endodontist for a root canal.  So she prescribed me some pain killers and antibiotics and sent me on my way.  I called the Endodontist and he said he couldn't get me in until Friday.  So, I worked all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in this condition (as well as spending all my evenings volunteering for Scouts, driving carpools to different sports activities, etc).  It was the PITS!  Friday finally arrived and I had my root canal.  Not a good experience because I thought I was going to choke to death and die (the stuff they gave me to numb my tooth area also numbed my swallowing reflex and I had no control over swallowing the saliva collecting in my throat.  They put some suction in and assured me I wasn't choking to death or "drowning" but it felt like that the entire time and it was terrifying.

Anyway, all that to say....... 36 hours later, I rallied and...... ran the Annapolis 10-miler!

Here I am with running partner and one of my besties, Lauren.

I ran this race with four neighbors/friends.... Nicole, Emily and Lauren.  Here is our "before" picture.

On your marks, get set, GO!

And our "After" picture.

All I cared about was finishing the race and running the whole thing without stopping.  And that is exactly what I did.  We had perfect weather and the views (downtown Annapolis, running over multiple bridges, the Severn River, the Naval Academy, etc) were beautiful.  It was a great (albeit VERY hilly!!) course.

For my own personal records:

I Finished in Place #1795 (so close to placing in the leaderboard!! 😂) out of 3066 runners.

I was 118/243 in my age group.  My official time was 1:43:14.36 (so 10:19 pace).  

And then in non-teeth and non-race related news...... Riley and this group of travel-soccer team cuties had their first Tournament of the season this weekend!

 And they ROCKED it!

(Riley is bottom center - she is the goalie).

They made it all the way to the Finals, where ironically, they ended up playing the other Severna Park team.  Sadly, they ended up losing in the Finals, but Riley did an awesome job and the Coaches awarded her MVP of the Tournament.  Way to go, Riley girl!  

Waiting for her team to take the field.

In her "spot" and ready to go!

Holding her 2nd place medal for the August Cup Tournament

And, last but not least, Tanner (who I have no picture of since neither Dave or I was there) had a scout campout ALL weekend long.  He had a GREAT time and we missed him!  Nice to have him home.

Johnston Canyon

Yesterday was our last full day with our extended family.  We started the day out doing the Johnston Canyon hike.

Ready to go!

We made it to the Lower Falls.  This is the line to go inside the tiny cave at the end....

In order to see the falls from this angle and get this picture.  We were probably in that line for 30-45 minutes.  It was super frustrating and we all agreed it wasn't worth it!  So, for future Johnston Canyon hikers, my advice is this:  If you get to the lower falls and the line is half the bridge or less, then go ahead and wait, because it is kind of cool to go through the cave and feel the mist and get up close and personal with the waterfall.  BUT.... it is only "half a bridge line" cool.  If it is any longer than half the bridge length.... don't waste your time!

Waterfall selfie.

Ella waiting in line at the lower falls.

From there, we continued on to the Upper Falls.

And Ella hitched a ride with her Dad.

The Upper Falls

My dad and I went to the very top for the "lookout" and it was cool to see the river flow into the Falls and see the start/source of the falls.

Here is also what I would say.  The line to see the falls at the Upper Falls was also long. It moved faster than the Lower Falls, because there was no cave to go in and wait your turn for.  However, it was still a long wait.  My advice is this:  If a long line (use your best judgement on this), then skip it and turn left and go straight to the lookout where there is an awesome view and no line or wait at all! Very few people up here and worth the climb!

The kids were all pooped after getting home from the 2+ hour long hike, so they chilled back at the hotel while Dave, Dad and I went to check out the Fairmont in downtown Banff.

Pretty spectacular!  We all felt like we were in Europe. 

Human-sized scrabble for the win!

And then we made our way back to our hotel and saw this buck right by the side of the road. 

He had big, huge fuzzy antlers and looked like he came right out of the North Pole!

And to cap off the day, Dave and I went out with Ryan and Carrie to a nice dinner at Tucini's in downtown Banff to celebrate their 16th Wedding Anniversary.  Nice of them to let us join them on their Anniversary dinner and nice of my parents to watch all 7 kids so that we could have a kid-free date night out on the town!

We were all laughing that, although we did tell them we were celebrating an anniversary, nobody said anything about it being their 20th (especially since it's "only" their 16th!), yet this is what came with dessert.  Ha!  Oh well, 16th or 20th, we all enjoyed the chocolate fondue!

Then, this morning, we did a big family group hug and said our good-byes 😓

While they all started their drive back to Utah, we started our drive back to Spokane.  However, we decided to spend the night in Couer d'Laene, Idaho, which is just an hour from Spokane.  And is absolutely beautiful!

None of us have been here before but we all love it!  There is a huge lake and surrounding the lake are boats, docks, beaches, cliff jumping, parks, splash pads, restaurants, etc.  And perfect weather to explore and do all of these things.  So great!!!

We made our way up Tubbs Hill...

And found a bunch of people cliff jumping and swimming.  None of us knew anything about this so of course none of us had our bathing suits or towels.

But I guess that's the joy of being a boy where you can just whip off your shirt and go for it!  Tanner went to the top of the cliff and jumped!  Dave got it on video and it was great!

Then we went to play at the splash pad and park.

And capped off the night with dessert from Gross Donuts.

They were (not) Gross!

Lake Love

There is so much to see and do in the Banff area.  But we are only here for three nights (2 full days) so we had to prioritize.  And the top two priorities: Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.  We heard the parking lots filled up, so it was recommended to get there early.  I thought we were doing AWESOME by having all 13 of us, including 7 kids, out the door by 6am and at Lake Moraine by 6:50am.  But.... apparently that wasn't early enough because the parking lot was already full. Sigh.  So, we drove to the overflow parking lot and bought shuttle tickets.  But the 7:30 shuttle already full, so had to wait until 8:00.  It seemed like a big ordeal at the time, but alas 8:00 arrived and we were on our way to Lake Louise.

And the first thing we laid our eyes on was this magnificent, historic hotel, The Fairmont.

We were all cold and our tummies were empty.  And we heard that the breakfast at the Fairmont was "the best I've ever had" (per the front desk employee at our hotel), so.....

We decided to splurge and put our names on the list.

How often do you get to eat an all you can eat breakfast buffet with things like croissant french toast and made to order omelettes with a view like this?

Two thumbs up to the Fairmont dining experience!

Then, we decided to make our way outside and explore this famed lake we've heard so much about!

Lake Louise with the Fairmont in the background.

My dad is the only one of the 13 of us that has been here before..... 56 years ago when he was about 16 years old.

Feelin' the love at Lake Louise!

We then caught the 12:00 shuttle to make our way to Moraine Lake.

And we thought Lake Louise was beautiful....... OMG, check out the color of that water!!!!!!! I have never seen anything like it in my life!

Contemplating renting a canoe..... until we found out they charged $120 (Canadian)/hour for one canoe. Yikes!  So, we opted for the (free) walk around the lake and watching the canoes from the shoreline.

Dave, Carrie, Ryan, Sophie and I walked all the way down to the very end of the lake where the glacier flows into the lake.

I honestly could have stayed here all day long.  Easily.  But alas the kids started getting tired from our 5:30am wake up call, so we made our way back to our hotel.

 But made a quick stop at the "Banff" sign on our way "home." 

And now we're ending our day at the hotel pool. 

Incredible scenery from sunup to sundown today!

All these kids first sauna experience.  General consensus.... "it was hot!"

Goodnight from Beautiful Banff!