H-O-T

The kids and I have been keeping up our volunteering through the summer. And since I'm too cheap to pay for parking we have a bit of a walk to get on to the hospital. And today it was h-o-t!!

How convenient that there was a sprinkler on our way back to the van.

Fin de fin de semaine

My fearless co-adventurers. We spent the weekend down in the TO area to attend a baby shower.

Baby stuff is just so darn cute!!! And we were serenaded by the mom-to-be's friend Jill Barber. She sang two beautiful songs. It was incredibly special.

Even more special?? Pictures with the dad and mom-to-be.

Meanwhile, these two were enjoying their first ever "guys only weekend".

They look like a couple of run aways trying to escape by raft.

Hmm. I see they gave rides. That's right Grandad, show them where to go.

I see in this picture that A is showing Grandad where he missed a spot. I'll have to ask if E made it to the top of the trailer or if that's as far as he got.

Good job fisherman. I know E caught one too but there were no pics of that. Sorry folks.

Weekend Fun

We went down on Friday morning to see K graduate from her cadet camp. See Grnny's blog for more pics of the graduate.

Then the boys left for camping and the girls head towards Toronto. Girl Weekend!!

We were at the mall today and noticed that I am very in-style. Cool, eh?

Front Yard Makeover

Here is a look at the before and after.
 
It's been a busy year. Here are the changes detailed.

Garden Wowser

Look at that monster! The boys were thrilled when they pulled back the leaves and found this zucchini.
We also had some cucumbers, yellow squash and green and yellow beans.

We will be eating corn at some point this summer too.

But that was a lot of yellow squash-so I made squash/walnut/chocolate chip cookies. They're yummy. The yellow they can see kind of freaks the kids out but they taste great.

Is this normal??

The year for me is measured in School Time. So in the summer I often will take a look at our finances and programs in preparation for the next 'year'. And since we are record keepers I can pull out numbers from previous years and see how things are evolving.
It was really surprising to me to see how much of a cost change there has been as the kids have been growing up.
Can you imagine what it will be in another five years? When they are 11 and 13? Or when they are 16 and 18?

Quack Honk

We met some friends at a park today.

Is there anything more fun than herding geese and ducks?
 

Hello To You Two

I'm please to introduce Peeps our new budgie (foreground). Much like the second child as playmate for the firstborn....so is Peeps to be companionship for Paul.

In this very hot weather we have been staying inside and playing LEGO. E took this picture yesterday. See the fuzzy creature in the left front corner?

That's a guinea pig tank. With a custom made LEGO saddle of course.

I caught E in the chair yesterday cuddling his pig and I couldn't help but notice how....robust....it seems to have gotten. That's one healthy pig.
 

MuseumofCiviliztion(with friends)

Here's a good field trip. Make 'em work Granny!!

I couldn't decide which group picture I liked the best so I'm including both.

They all took a turn being the king/queen.
 
They look comfortable with the power.
 
I just needed to include this picture because I love that E chose to wear these glasses.

1st Soccer

Today was the first day the boys had soccer. Good thing it's in the morning because by 11a.m. when it finished it was hot!

E showed some pretty good hustle. He really liked the coach on the left in this 1st pic.

He is in the older kids group. It's supposed to be for ages 9 and up. But there's definitely a lot more 'up' than there is 9.

A is in the younger group. He put up such a fuss about taking soccer this year.
 
Of course once we got there he had a blast.
  
Lucky for them there's a water park there and they cooled off before we left.