Our Quirky Family

Upping My Game

2011-10-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

Hi all, it's been a long time since I had a post, but I'm pretty busy. I've been inspired to become a better me. Last year when we got a new principal, I became inspired to become a better teacher. She makes me want to be better, try harder, do more. Last year I started at a nutritionist, she inspires me to eat healthier, to eat clean, to eat natural, to feel better. This year I started with a physical trainer, he inspires me to work hard, to accept nothing less than the best, to push myself farther than I think I can go. This year Devin was tested for reading difficulties and it inspired me to become a better mom, to step up my game, pay more attention to the details and just be more present. Trying to be better in every aspect is very challenging, I can't help but drop a few balls here and there.

This year one big ball I dropped was in the little things, they seem little, but really they are pretty big. Like my dad turned 60 this year and I sent him 3/4 of his present 4 months late and I still haven't finished the main part yet. Sigh! My mom had her birthday and I didn't even send her a card. My nephew turned 4 and I was a month late with his gift, too. I haven't made time to spend with my friends, get out for walks and talks, even make phone calls. And I haven't written any letters or sent any pictures to grand-parents in a long time. These are things I used to do and feel really good about, now it seems my priorities have changed and I am very focused on myself.

I can't help but feel selfish, but in the same breath.... it's time I looked after myself. I do feel good, I feel stronger, less tired, healthier, more confident... but when you are trying to be better, it never seems to stop. Is there a point where you realize things are good enough? I don't think so, I think that as long as you live things can improve and we can reach for more, but seriously you can't always be concentrated on that, because then you are never happy with the way things are right now. I think balance is required. The desire to push yourself to be better and move forward, while being happy with yourself in the now.

So, to all of you that I have let down by not sending a gift, or not making a call, I haven't forgotten you, I 've just been busy and although my actions have not shown how much I care about you, please know that I do, very much!

Training & Friendships

2011-07-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

I originally sat down to write a post about my trainer, yes another one... well he is tall, dark and handsome! Then I read a post from someone else and now my mind is on a totally different topic, so I will give a quick update on the training and then change topics...

Training is going well and I am very pleased with my progress. I'm not sure I would have said that this afternoon when he was running me into the ground, but it is going well. I haven't lost a tonne of weight, but I am definitely slimming down. We do measurements next week, but I can see my waist trimming down, my arms toning up and even my abs getting tighter. I can lift more and get through the workouts easier, well I say easier, but he keeps changing it up and making it harder. Today's focus was running and we went outside for a run together. He was walking me through a 2.5 km run and pushed me hard. It took me 17 minutes and 18 seconds and the last little bit, I didn't even think I would finish. We were running intervals, so sometimes the pace was faster and then we cooled down with what would be more of a normal pace - very tough. Anyhow at the end of May, I ran 2 km in just under 18 minutes, so I shaved some time off of that and added an extra 1/2 km. It felt good in the end, even though I sit here typing with a headache from I'm sure lack of oxygen to the brain this afternoon. After the run, we did leg press, squats, abs, leg extensions, squat press and bicycle crunches. I don't think I said a word and Wesley's comment was something like, "I know I worked you hard when you stop talking". Too true!

My workout schedule for the next few days:

Thursday: Aquafit bootcamp class
Friday: 45 minute run at home
Saturday - Hike through Gatineau Hills with family
Sunday - Bike 15 km on the Parkway
Monday - Session with Wesley
Tuesday - Abs and Glutes Class with Mariko his partner
Wednesday - Cardio kickboxing class with Wesley
Thursday - Session with Wesley to plan holiday plan of attack!

I think I may just be ready to sit in a car for two days straight next weekend on our way east to the Maritimes.

Anyhow, the post I was inspired to write about is about friends and happiness. I wrote a post on laughing, friendships and anxiety a loooong time ago, and am sort of back on the same train of thought. The post I read today was from Joy and was all about being happy and making your friendships count. Wesley and I talked about this the other day in a breather between stations. I was talking about how hard it is to fit exercise into life when you aren't used to it. How if you were already fit and active when you had children, that you probably can incorporate children into the life you already have, but when you haven't started with that, it makes it difficult to find the time and fit exercise into everything else you are doing with your kids. I also talked about how most of our friends do not lead an overall active or healthy lifestyle. Imagine a life with friends who hike, bike, canoe, kayak, run and just live an active lifestyle 24-7. People who want to be outside playing games and having fun - it would be infectious to a degree, right?

In Joy's article, she talks about listing your friends into categories and how they fit. I started doing this, not the same way she did, but I listed qualities like: Active, Positive, Motivating, Healthy Eater, Helpful, Fun, Happy, Crafty, Good Mom and then I started listing my friends, not into categories, but just typing who my friends were. I separated my friends list into two groups, those I am closer friends with and those that I am more acquaintances with. I would say from my list, I need to start spending more time with my acquaintances. Many of them have the qualities I am looking for and I haven't taken the time to get to know them better. I can say, I really don't have any toxic friends though. Joy's advice is not to have too many friends, as then the quality of friendships goes down, so I'm not really sure how to make more friends and keep the ones I've got intact, but I plan to make it happen somehow.

I know this post is totally random and a bit all over the place, but it is what was on my mind. To sum up, I'm already busy and I'm going to become more busy trying to make better friends with some good people who will make me happier and healthier. I think I will have to use Oh, She Glows post idea from today: 9 Ways to be productive in your day.

3 week Maritime holiday in just over a week. Time to get excited and start packing - woo, hoo!

What am I doing?

2011-06-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

There is a new man in my life and his name is Wesley Wood. Oh, I'm not at all in love with him, actually on the first date I think I told him I hated him, twice! Wesley is my new personal trainer... it all makes sense now doesn't it! I felt very guilty when I said I hated him, it was more the squats and burpees I hated, but since then I have decided I should just grin and bare it, as I am paying him big bucks to do this to me.

I've been going for only 2 weeks, although it seems longer. The first session was a fitness test and measurements session and then we got into the good stuff. After the first "real" session, which was an arms workout, I had insanely stiff quads the next day. I know, quads aren't even in your arms, but stairs were my nemesis that day. (As part of the circuit he had me doing squats with dumbbells and hammer curls on the bosu ball). So, two days later, it happened.... he made me cry. Well, who wouldn't have honestly. My legs were in such pain from my "arm" workout that when he made me do lunges, leg curls, leg press, squats and then finally burpees, well my legs just couldn't take it and out the tears came. Wesley didn't hug me or make me feel better, he simply said... "3 more". He's not mean or nasty, no Jillian Michaels swearing in your face, thank God, but he makes you push it the best you can and that's why I'm there.

Right now he is working on building my cardio endurance of which I have zero, so it's a quick learning curve. This week he wants me to run 5 km without stopping and tell him how fast I can do it. I mean, seriously, I took a running room course on how to run 5 km and it took me 10 weeks. Now on week 2, I'm just expected to do it and of course, he doesn't believe in 10 and 1's (run for 10 and walk for 1) that doesn't exist in his world! He said maybe 10 and 10's (run for 10 minutes and walk for 10 seconds) - he's so funny!

So, I'm thinking of my... yes, handsome new man right now, because once again I can hardly walk and actually I can't even straighten my arms my biceps are hurtin' so bad! I'm a glutten for punishment as I bought 24 sessions, oh, dear! Next week he has me trying out a group class and then on Tuesday I am meeting him at Terry Fox Hill. Anyone who knows this place, just laughed out loud, because they all know I am in for pain that day. This is the toboggan hill in winter and it is nasty - I am just going to HATE Tuesday! Sigh- let me just say all this effort better pay off!

The goal... to be less tired and have more energy. Same goal as before, but when the healthier nutrition didn't totally fix my problem, I realized I had to take the next step. I'm hoping that with this many sessions and all his homework in between, I will become strong enough that I will be able to exercise easier and who knows, *whisper* maybe I will even like it?

Today when I was shaving my legs, I felt a ridge on my leg... I think it was a muscle? - SWEET!

Happy 60th Birthday DAD!

2011-05-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

What is it that makes dads so special? Every dad is different, and well... some just aren't so special, but my dad is a truly special guy. Part of why he is so special is that he is admired in his community, respected, revered by some as a "healer of his people". This always left his girls with a great sense of admiration for their dad. As we became parents, we saw what truly made this man great and that is his heart... it's pretty huge! He wants what is best for everyone and will do what he can to help them get it, whether it is a patient in need of advice, a friend in need of handy guy, a daughter in need of a listening ear or a grand-child in need of a hands on activity, Dr. Shadbolt, Murray, Dad, Grampa is there.

At our house, Dad always has a project, usually bigger and grander than what we need done, but whether it's a deck, a leaking toilet or air in the tires, you can be sure it will get done when he is here to visit. We've actually contemplated flying him out here once a year just to help us get work done around the house.

The grandkids love Grampa because he likes to do stuff, particularly build things like kites, model airplanes and paper mache trees. He'll read you a book, watch your favorite cartoon, teach you to ride a bike, eat your freshly baked cookies and even play Superhero squad on the Wii when Devin is cheating.

As a father-in-law, he is the go to guy. It doesn't matter what question you've got, you can ask dad: medical advice for sore knees, handyman stuff like how to fix the hole in the basement ceiling or just guy stuff like .... um, never mind, I won't go there.

Dad, sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate your big 6-0 - we did seriously think about it. It was unfortunately a lot of traveling for such a short time. We are happy to know we get to spend New Years with you this year - we haven't spent New Years together since, hmmm.... well I'd say since before we had kids, so a really looong time. We'll be sure to plan something special!

Here are a few pictures that I could find to remind you of some special times with the family. I do have a package to send you, but am not quite done it yet and I didn't really realize when I started it how much of a restricted diet you were on, so I am wondering whether I should just do you a favor and eat the Big Turk out of there? Let me know if I can help you out with that ;) I can't eat it either, maybe the kids will have to do it for you - they'll probably hate that, ha, ha! Have a GREAT weekend celebrating with friends and family!

Waiting for his turn to bowl.

Ready to get a strike

Building a paper mache tree for Jasmine's birthday

Pushing Jasmine on the air mattress at Cypress

Taking Allison out for kayak ride in Parksville

Hanging out with his boys. Scooter riding in Tofino, BC.

The love of his life - mom!

Which grandchild is this? Who knows, I'm pretty sure I've got one similar to this with every grandbaby you ever had!

Adventures of Mexico!

2011-03-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

For spring break this year we decided to go south. This is the first time in about 10 years that we have done this, so the second time ever!!! We did take the kids with us and we met up with Jay's parents, Sherry and Dave. We stayed in Puerto Aventuras at the Dreams Resort. We were very happy with, well pretty much everything. The service was by far the best part. Everyone took very good care of you and was happy to be there. Below is the view from our balcony. The ocean view was definitely worth the extra money, as we could sit on the deck and enjoy the waves while the kids were napping or sleeping. The weather was great, warm with a nice breeze. Without the breeze it was quite hot actually - I think 29 every day. Most days we were up early, but in no hurry to get going. We'd head for the buffet between 8-9 and then out to the beach or pool for a swim until lunch. After lunch, the kids and I often napped or watched the Cartoon network in the room with all the cool cartoons we don't get at home. Then after some down time we would head back out or go for supper. The group picture was taken in the gazebo just off the front of the beach at the resort. There were some rocks that acted as a bit of a wave break for nicer swimming.

The above picture is what we called the tide pool. It was a blocked off area that was very calm for snorkeling. Sherry and Dave brought their snorkel gear, so we tried it out, meanwhile the kids used the resorts life jackets and snorkel gear. Unfortunately Devin's life jacket was too big and riding up to his head, so he didn't really give it a fair shot, but Jasmine said, "it was pretty cool and I couldn't count how many fish were in there." At the beach they had a water trampoline that the kids bounced on one day and they also had a inflatable rock climbing wall that you can see in the below picture. Jasmine did climb to the top of it and slid down twice, but Devin didn't like it too much. It did seem rather high, so I don't blame him. Here he is below playing in the sand.

The resort had a schedule of daily activities. Jay played beach volleyball one day and found out the hard way that the court only had 6 inches of sand and then a concrete floor underneath, but he still had fun. Jasmine and Devin were brave enough to try the Euro trampoline, which was basically like a sling shot that fired them into the sky. I couldn't believe how high they went and both were very good sports. They weren't quite sure how to react, they knew they should be smiling and laughing, but it was pretty scary. They offered many other things like water aerobics, which I had good intentions of doing, but it was always right around lunch time, so it didn't happen. Although, we didn't get to take an official Spanish class, we did learn a bit of Spanish including:

Hola = Hello, Good Morning = Buenos Dias, Good Evening = Buenas Noches, Goodbye = Adios, Please = Por Favor, Thank you Very Much = Muchas Gracias, You're Welcome = De Nada, Yes = Se
1. uno, 2. dos, 3. tres, 4. cuatro, 5. cinco, 6. seis, 7. siete, 8. ocho, 9. nueve, 10. diez AND Jay's parents already seemed to know the word for beer = cerveza.

The buffet at the resort was pretty good. Well, if you only had to eat there once it was amazing, but after a week or so you were happy to have some restaurant options. The buffet did have a kids section, but it pretty much had hot dogs every day, although we did see chicken fingers and cheesy noodles as well. The 3 pounds I gained I am sure are attributed to breakfasts which are my favorite... eggs, toast, french toast, bacon, sausage... yum! They made killer guacamole and pico de gallo, which I missed so much already that I made them both for supper tonight to go with our fajitas. They had a great assortment of pastries and fresh breads and buns, so that was also a downfall. Plus you only saw melons and pineapple for fruit, and the odd overripe banana, and hardly any veggies, especially when you had been warned not to eat the lettuce (some resorts use tap water to wash their lettuce, we tended to eat it at the restaurants when served it, but not in the buffet - strange, I know!) We did try out most of their restaurants. Below the kids pose with the maitre de of the Italian restaurant and Jasmine is wearing the dress we bartered for the evening before. We had a really nice meal and Poppa taught Devin to arm wrestle, or was it the other way around?

Sherry and Dave had a bad experience at the Sushi restaurant the year before, so when they went for supper with friends Drew and Loretta, we braved it since we like sushi so much. The menu looked pretty normal, so we figured we'd give it a try. Jasmine had veggie rolls, Devin California rolls and Jay and I experimented with spicy tuna, smoked salmon and dragon rolls - nothing raw and no eel! It was St. Parick's day, so we all wore our Rider gear. It doesn't matter where you go, someone knows about the Riders. On the last night Sherry and Dave were with us, we took advantage of the opportunity and Jay and I ate out at the seafood restaurant - I braved the shrimp tacos and they were very good! It was so nice having Gramma and Poppa there with us. We had adjoining rooms, so we had an extra place to hang out when kids were sleeping or the ladies were cleaning. Devin had a couple of great swims with Poppa and he also took Jasmine out in the ocean wave jumping. Sherry and Dave had been to this same resort last year, so they knew how it worked and it really was a great place.

The service was fantastic and we were never short on drinks. The kids tried all kinds of virgin drinks, like the strawberry ones shown below. Always served in a fancy glass which they loved. Their favorites were the chocolate ones, including a mudslide.

We hadn't considered the different wildlife that we might see when in Mexico, but we saw a couple of different pelicans up close and it was pretty crazy how they just swooped down and took a beakful of water and minnows. I guess we have seen pelicans before, but not like this. There was an unusual rodent roaming the resort as well, but I never did find out what it was or get a picture. I laughed when someone tried to tell me it was a gopher. We saw tonnes of iguanas, they are just as common as squirrels are in Ottawa. The picture below shows how close they would let you get to them, but they were everywhere. The bottom picture is from Xcaret, they had all sorts of animals there, including parrots flamingos and this tapir. He was quite interesting to look at and stayed in the water for a lot of the day when it was hot.

On Wednesday we went to Xcaret. This is where we saw most of the wildlife and adventured through caves and old mines. Jasmine quite liked the mine. Here you answered questions and then would follow the direction of your answer, I think we hit about 3 dead ends and had to try again. The second picture below is from the mine adventure. Scattered throughout Xcaret were caves, small chunks of ruins and they had an old arena where they played traditional games. In the evening show they demonstrated a few of the games they used to play, but they didn't behead the losers like they did in real life. In one of the games they played hockey with a ball of fire in their bare feet. It was pretty crazy to watch. They also had a Flying men show and it was "spectacular" as Sherry called it. I really don't have a picture that does it justice, but these men and not young men either, I'm talking in there 60's and 70's, climbed up this huge pole and sat at the top of it - no harnesses. Then after the center man played the flute and drums, the other 4 men dropped off the edges with only their legs twisted around a rope. They slowly spiralled to the ground. This ritual is to help provide a fruitful crop and good soil. It was pretty wild because it was just so high and dangerous. We ate lunch at a Mexican buffet and saw a mariachi band perform. After lunch we swam/snorkeled through the underground river. That was pretty fun, but Jasmine got very cold under there, so I took the kids out about 3/4 of the way through and the other 3 finished off - too bad that all of the fish were apparently at the very end - darn! The last picture from this set is from the night show and you can see that it was a pretty big deal. They were blowing incense out of torches, music was playing, hundreds of dancers and performers showed off all the rituals and history of Mexico through the years.

On the last day we had to do everything we meant to, but hadn't done yet like get Jasmine's hair braided and get henna tattoos. Devin was so pooped that he fell asleep at the lunch table and then slept for over another hour at the beach.

Well, that was pretty much the trip... oh, yeah except the highlight of the trip... swimming with the dolphins. It was just soooo cool! I had to buy the pictures they took, so I have a whole boat load if you want to see more. Definitely try this if you get a chance, so fun! Devin wasn't tall enough to do the full adventure, so him and danced, sang, splashed, pet and kissed the dolphins, while Jasmine and Jay got to actually ride on one and get pushed on the boogie board - it looked pretty awesome!

So, even though I did get nervous on the way there and ended up quite sick for the plane ride and felt puny for the first day and Jasmine did get a cough after freezing her butt off swimming with the dolphins and in the underground tunnel, it really was a relaxing and fun holiday! We would do it again, but not right away. Likely in a few years when the kids are older and we can try some new adventures with them, like Chichen-Itza or Catamaran.

An on it goes with nutrition information

2011-03-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

So, if you have been reading you know I have been seeing a nutritionist, I should really give her a shout out for those of you who liked what she had to say... hi Rachel Hewitt. She is going on maternity leave right away, so consider her for a clean start this fall maybe. Anyhow.... I've been doing lots of reading and have started following a number of other blogs about eating well. Check out my blogroll on the side of the blog to see other blogs including these two: Oh, She Glows and Sweet Potato Chronicles.

A couple of weeks ago I set some more specific goals and this week I made a tracking chart to help hold me accountable and hung it in my bedroom beside my future board. The future board has all the things I want to do and accomplish in my life on it. After being on holidays, I got to cross of snorkeling - yeah!

I know I have made lots of great changes, but it still doesn't feel like enough, mostly because I know I am not being consistent enough to see any real results. I've been maintaining my weight and over time have lost a tiny bit, but not what I need to. So, after some more contemplating, I've decided the next step is to see a "life coach" of sorts. Someone who can help me deal with other issues at the same time. I mostly know what I have to do, I've done exercise programs and now have the nutritional information I need, but yet I don't have the willpower or determination to do it all the time - how come? I hope she will help me find out. I've also got lots of anxiety issues that prevent me from doing other things I might like... like the zipline. It wasn't that I wouldn't have given it a shot, but once you did one, you had to do the whole circuit, which was 18 ziplines - I was way too scared to commit to that. I'm not so worried about things like ziplining though compared to everyday types of things. I get worked up very easily about all types of situations that I do not feel in control of, so I hope I can conquer a few other issues as I continue through this process of living life to the fullest!

Thanks for all the support through this process. Keep sending me healthy recipes to try!

Parents

2011-02-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

I've recently realized in my profession, how helpful it is to be a parent. I mean, all the students that I teach have parents on the other end reading my newsletters and helping them with their assignments. Being a parent, I am starting to see how much school effects our home life. When Jasmine has projects for school, it can take weeks of planning to get them to the level that we find satisfactory. This last week, we left an assignment until the last minute and realized how much work/stress it can be. Being a parent helps me to be a better teacher and of course being a teacher helps me to be a better parent, so win-win!

There are so many responsibilities and jobs to do as a parent. Recently I was reading an article about a women who was sharing her tansformation story, here is a quote that really resonated with me, "I had become a human doing, instead of a human being". It is easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind and forget the bigger picture. I often see friends on Facebook listing all the things they have to do in the day (I'm guilty of it, too!) like we need some sort of validation for all our "busy"ness.

Last week my parents were here. I find as we get older, we almost forget that our parents were in fact parents and went through ALL the things that we have gone through with us. Sick babies, teething issues, potty training, growing pains, school, sports, homework... We reminisced about my childhood and different events that took place. One thing that always strikes me is all the things I can't remember, or maybe never really knew, like my dad was on the school council for 5 years. I honestly think this is a huge part of why I scrapbook (in years, I will still have a memory of all that I have done). Anyone in my family will tell you that I have a horrible memory. For example, I don't ever remember my parents reading to me. I'm sure they did, I just have no recollection of them doing that. I know there have been times where I have judged my parents on what they did, how they did it or what they didn't do and resented them at times for it. I think this is pretty normal for a kid, teenager, university student to do. We blame our parents for all the things wrong with us and promise we won't do those things to our children. But as hard as I try, I know I am teaching my kids bad habits that I promised I would not do. I know I have neglected them in some way or another. In years, I am sure that they will resent me in some form or another as well, but for now I am quite happy to report that I don't typically earn the "I hate you" or "You are the worst mommy in the world" phrase.

When you have your own kids and become a parent, you learn just how hard it really is to be a good parent. It is tough to find a balance that makes you happy with every part of your life.

When my parents were here visiting, we did so many fun, family things and I realized that being good parents takes many forms. My mom was so helpful while she was here on her holiday: she put dishes away, folded laundry, made lunches and just helped take care of all the daily work load and really gave me a little bit of my own holiday. Dad spent lots of time doing projects with the kids: a paper mache Pixie Hollow tree with Jasmine and a wooden rocket with Devin. They were both great sports and joined us for bowling, snowshoeing and hiking in -20 weather at the sugar shack - pretty awesome! Whether you call them mom and dad, or gramma and grampa - it's all the same! They are taking care of me and my kids, having fun with us all and it was simply an awesome week!

Even though I am no longer at home, my parents are still an inspiration to me, they still help me and teach me and it is just a truly awesome notion to think I will still be parenting even when my kids are "all growed up". I feel badly that I ever had any bad feeling towards them, but with ... age comes wisdom and a better understanding of all those events that happen when you are becoming an adult. One great thing about parents is that they love you unconditionally and forgive you when you make dumbass mistakes like I did.

So, here's to being a parent... a good parent! It's a hell of a lot of work and often unappreciated, but I know for me I love my parents and am so glad that I have them both in my life. I also know that I love Jasmine and Devin more than anything imagineable and it is pretty cool to realize that is how my parents feel about me, too!

Here are some photos from the great week with my parents. Thanks for ALL that you do mom and dad!

(We called this picture the invisible man - notice half of his head is missing - too weird!)

Nutrition and ALL that JAZZ!

2011-02-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

Going back and reading my posts, I feel quite hypocritical. Yes, I am doing all the things I said, but not as consistently as I would like or should be. And I am not talking about all the things I am doing in between those things that are still not the best.

Here is what bothers me:

-We've pretty much given up pop, but when I am out shopping and get thirsty, or I am out at the movies that pretty much has me always choosing Iced Tea. How many of you think Iced Tea is a better choice than pop? Yeah, I see all the hands flying up so fast... not! So I still have not solved this problem. At home now our treat drink is chocolate milk (made with skim milk), to me this is still not that bad, but not according to the articles I read.

-We have reduced our butter and margarine intake, and I haven't had mayonnaise in the house for months. I bought a bunch of butter for Christmas baking and convinced myself not to use it, but now have 8 sticks of butter in the house and they haven't been touched. We are using coconut oil in almost every instance where we would use butter, like on toast or of course the old replacement... EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil). The problem, how much coconut oil is too much? I love the stuff and use it even on my popcorn!

-Nuts, they are good for you! But not in the amount I eat, I love nuts. No, I am not eating the salted ones or the carmalized ones (well maybe in a salad), but still they are high in fat and I eat them too often. I finally switched from Kraft Peanut Butter to the natural stuff, but I still eat it fairly often, especially with apple slices or in a smoothie or my new favorite... on toast with apple butter. I do like roasted almonds, but my nutrionist says I should be eating raw, natural nuts and that I should soak them overnight. Apparently they absorb water and not only make them easier to digest, but the water content fills you up even more. *I haven't tried this yet.

-Sleep. I just do not get enough sleep. I don't know why I can't convince myself to go to bed at night, when in the morning I can't convince myself to get out of bed - weird! When I am tired, I have NO willpower. This week I am tired, so I'm not feeling very good about my commitment to the program. I'm still eating lots of healthy things, but just too much, too often and not concentrating on drinking enough water or eating veggies. I never feel 100% about my effort, which is just a lousy feeling.

I am still reading and coming up with new ideas. What is coming up next:

-soaking beans and not using canned beans as often because they are high in sodium
-focusing on the combination of foods, a carb with a protein (oatmeal and eggs at breakfast - could it be true?)
-focusing on me time... scheduling in time for baths, shopping, girl visits, etc.
-reading more books and websites, up next... Your Best Body Now, The China Study, The Whole Foods Diet Cookbook and The Omnivore's Dilemma.
-a focus on exercise, too. This is key, I never seem to be able to do both at once. If I am exercising, my food is out of wack, likely because I am even more tired and making bad decisions. Just for once, I would like to have an awesome week, where I do both things good for one whole week!

So, all complaining aside, we are making lots of changes and lots of changes have stuck:

-threw white sugar out, use agave nectar, honey, apple butter, applesauce, coconut sugar as replacements. Still some brown sugar on occasion for baking.

-eating oatmeal a few times a week and not the packaged kind, real oats, quick oats which from my understanding are still nutritional like steel cut oats, but just cut smaller for faster cooking time.

-using more beans and not only in chili, trying to add them to things like soup, spaghetti sauce, other casserole dishes.
-eating more kefir and plain yogurt, still can't eat them plain, but using them for smoothies or adding dollops to soups.

-eating more homemade soups, carrot soup, tomato soup, veggie soups, all made from real veggies and pureed and using animal bones to make broth for some first - supposed to be very good as you get all the nutrients from the bone.

-eating kammut sourdough bread

-eating spelt, multigrain or spinach pastas when possible.

-using coconut oil, instead of margarine or butter, and still using olive oil as well.

-switched over to sea salt

-trying not to eat processed meat, if we do we are buying the natural stuff from Farmboy with no preservatives.
-minimizing fast food and limiting to subway or something similar.
-switched to natural PB or almond butter - a big deal for me!
-making a meal plan each week and trying to stick with it

So, there you have it folks, the true confessions of a food-o-holic! I am trying, but it is hard to be consistent! I figure as long as I keep at it and keep moving forward over time, things will work themselves out.

I love feedback, so send me tips and ideas that work for you or great whole food recipes.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

A great start to a New Year!

(Some history, Pam and I talked about renting a cottage over the Christmas holiday. We got to talking and decided to simply save money and just PRETEND we were at a cottage and actually just have a sleepover at each other's houses, so we hosted The Dixons for the first 24 hour sleepover party!)

When the Dixons arrived, we joked about how long their drive had been to the cottage (they only live a block away) and how much stuff they had to bring for only 1 night! We had planned to start our cottage experience by skating on a nearby outdoor pond, but the +7 weather made it a little slushie and so we opted for a nice hike through some local woods. Pam was smart enough to bring bird food and the kids had enough patience to wait with the food on their hands and get some little chickadees to come a visit. If you look closely in the next few pictures you can see some of them. Jasmine was well liked and had about 6 little landings right on her hand, while Devin only had 2 (but he wasn't near as still as she was, Jasmine didn't even smile or look at the birds as they landed, she was too scared they would fly away). You will also see a deer in the background of one of the photos, there were 3 near the front of the woods. Next time we will bring carrots, too!

For supper we "went back to the cottage" to make crazy sandwiches. Everyone had a different favorite, but the kids liked Nutella with Smarties. I liked the one I had with smoked ham, Octoberfest mustard, avocado, red onion, bacon, hard-boiled egg and ripple chips - yum! Kevin and Pam were up for the challenge and by the end of the night Kevin ate a chocolate turtle wrapped in bacon - sweet and salty!

After supper, we had the kids New Years Bash. Jay tried to light all the sparklers at once, but as two of them caught fire, he couldn't get them separated from the pack and ended up dropping one on the carpet - yep, a little burn mark - oh well, more excuses to eventually get new flooring! We had glow bands and horns to blow, the kids danced around and sang songs, while the grown ups recuperated from the fun supper! We went around the room and all shared our goals for the New Year. (Jasmine's is to read short novels before bed, Devin's is to practice his lower case alphabet, mine is to eat more fish and oatmeal and Jay's is to jump higher). Well, that is some of them anyhow.

After the kids had gone to bed, the grown ups played Wii. We started with a murder mystery game, which we did well at (at least on the first two levels, we will see how much harder it gets), then we played a lie detector game, which was pretty funny - Jay had to say who had the loudest gas at our house - guess who it was? After that we Rock Banded our brains out and Pam and I tried harmonies on the new Rock Band 3, which was a little trickier, but very fun! We watched the Barenaked Ladies at Niagra Falls on TV and rang in the New Year, then watch the Air Farce New Year show and finally to bed after 1:00 - egad! Pam and Kevin didn't even have to go home, just headed to their bedroom in the basement.

The New Year brought another day of fun, a low key morning building Lego Star Wars Ships and King Cobras with Uncle Kevin. We had a pancake breakfast using my new insect pancake pan (makes cute little bug patterns in the pancakes). Then the men played board games and the ladies scrapbooked, while the kids played in the ...rain?, yes rain and watched movies, played dress up and on and on. The Dixons headed for home about 4:30 and had a loooong trip back on windy roads from "The cottage".

A super fun way to spend time with great friends and start the New Year off right! Hope you all had a fun New Years as well! Looking forward to talking to you all soon!

Nutritionist update

2010-11-22T16:58:00.000-08:00

I am slowing down my appointments to once a month and trying to balance all my new information with some normal home cooked meals. Each time I make something I try and change it a little bit using something new I have learned. Yesterday we had pancakes. Same old recipe from my dad, but whole wheat flour, substitute agave nectar for white sugar (threw my white sugar out) and added 1/2 cup pureed beets, plus a handful of dark chocolate chips (70% cocoa, so a healthier choice). Deanna had told me about adding the beets a long time ago, but I hadn't considered it because my kids actually eat veggies really well. It wasn't until I started trying to add even more vegetables into our diet that this came to fruition. Tonight I made a spin on cabbage role casserole, substituting quinoa for rice, adding black beans and 1/2 a pureed avocado. Only thing I would change is draining the liquid from the canned tomatoes as the quinoa does not absorb as much liquid as rice. Anyhow, my main focus is to be sure we are eating more vegetables, so always making sure we have a veggie in addition to the casserole that in this case already had cabbage, avocado, black beans, etc.

We've been trying to always have a healthy treat option on hand, currently pumpkin muffins or breakfast cookies, something that is made with natural ingredients, but feels like a treat when you need dessert or a fun snack.

We've also been experimenting with Kefir and have tried it in potato salad, smoothies and used the kefir cheese as a replacement for mayo in sandwiches. We are getting used to it and it is supposed to be a great probiotic, better than plain yogurt!

Anyhow, that is the brief update! Chat more soon!

Nutritionist update

2010-10-26T18:50:00.000-07:00

Things are progressing along nicely. Last week my homework was to lift 4 pounds of butter at the grocery store, because that is how much fat I lost. So, I went to the store and lifted a pound up to my bicep and put 2 on my stomach and pretended that is where they came from. After awhile they do get heavy, so no wonder I do feel tired so often- a lot of work carrying around all this extra weight. I've always known that, but I guess never wanted to really admit that was the reason.

In the last year and a half or so that means I am down 20 pounds, so a nice number to reach and I am heading in a positive direction. Today I bought 2 new books to help me out, Clean Eating for Families and Kids and Deliciously Deceptive. We will see if they help me or confuse me? Right now I am in the middle of watching a documentary called Food Inc. and it is... I guess what you would expect. Most of us have ideas of how our food is prepared, but you don't necessarily like to see it in action. They really show you the steps and I have to say I was pretty sad when all the little baby chicks were being swept down a metal slide and shoved around like potatoes :( It talks a lot about salmonella and E. Coli, things I have heard of enough times, but don't really know that much about, so it is interesting to learn more. This week we talked more about perservatives in the deli meats, she really doesn't like that we eat deli meat (I just find them so convenient) So, for now we are going to try and go mostly without, tomorrow we are making a roast and will have leftovers for sandwiches or salads all week.

We have tried a few nice recipes, here are a few:

Grain Free Crumble

6 cups choppe fruit of your choice (we used apple)
1/2 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350 and mix together in glass baking dish

2/3 cups nut or seed flour (we used almond flour, but she also listed coconut flour, pumpkin seed flour, or sunflower seed flour - whatever you could find I guess - I got mine at Bulk Barn)
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup pecans
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup honey
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp all spice
1/4 coconut oil (this is my absolute new favorite item, even spread it on toast - it is semi-soft like shortening, but tastes yummy, can be used in baking, cooking, etc. - I got mine at Bulk Barn, but any natural food pantry type store would have it)

Mix topping until slightly crumbly and spread over fruit
Bake for 40 minutes - very good, Devin ate 3 helpings!

Mexixan Bean Casserole

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup water
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms
1 red pepper chopped
3/4 cup brown rice
1 can kidney beans
1 can tomatoes
1 tbsp chilli powder
2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
grated low fat mozza cheese (my nutritionist would say organic, but I haven't got that far yet)

In skillet heat oil and water. Add onion, garlic, mushroom and peppers, simmer until tender about 10 minutes.
Add rice, beans, canned tomatoes, spices and cover and simmer for 25 mintues or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.
Transfer to baking dish and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melted.

We ate this with homemade guacamole (avocado, lime juice, garlic and a bit of salt and cilantro if you like it) and I'd like to say organic whole grain tortilla's, but it was multigrain tostitoes, oops! Plus a big side serving of sugar snap peas to add the extra veggies in there and help fill us up!

Another blog - yep!

2010-10-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Our Quirky Class, is you guessed it my class blog! There are 31 grade 6 students learning to blog along side me and we've just got it up and running. Part of the whole process is to meet new people from far away and become closer with the people we are surrounded by daily. Jasmine already made a post and quite a few kids replied to her question of, "what is grade 6 like?" Tyson and Allie may like to check it out and we would love to have them comment on there. Hope to see some of you on there!

A month has gone by

2010-10-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

So, today was my one month visit to see the nutritionist. I go once a week to visit her and get advice. Tomorrow I am going to the natural food pantry where she happens to work once a week to learn more about all they have to offer and what is good or not so good. I've been trying a few new products and 2 that I would recommend are coconut oil, which she says she uses as a replacement for butter, even to spread on toast or in baking. I've tried both and am very pleased with the texture and flavor. Apparently it is a good fat, like avocado and has many health benefits, still obviously used in moderation, but a nice option to have. Coconut oil is semi-hard, like a margarine consistency, but white with more flavor. I bought it at Bulk Barn, not sure where else to find it yet. The other item is hemp seeds or hemp hearts. I have tried a few new things like chia seeds and of course ground flax, but I like the hemp best. It has a nice texture and flavor and doesn't get soggy in your cereal or yogurt like the others.

Today we discussed the dirty dozen in produce, they are the 12 most likely fruits and veggies to have strong amounts of pesticide on them and so they are recommended to buy in organic. I have never bought organic and still have to do research on this, but thought it was nice to have a target list to maybe start with. Anything with a peel does not absorb as many pesticides, so not as necessary to buy organic oranges for example - made sense!

We also talked about deli meats and to stay away from nitrites, I need to look this up, too, but she said Farmboy has some options for natural meat, but of course you pay for it and it doesn't last as long because it has no perservatives in it. What I've read so far though, there is a reason for the nitrites and that is to keep the meat from spoiling and things like botulism, so I'm still thinking this one through.

I signed up for another month, so more posts to come!

And I am down 5 pounds - so yeah!

Jay's 1st post!

2010-10-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

Jay wrote the below to me in an email from California, he hadn't intended me to share it with everyone, but it made me laugh out loud. I figured I might as well make someone else's day by making them laugh, too. Here it is:

So I'm not a blogger, but I thought, here's the kind of thing people put on their blogs. Plus, I cant' just let it all out to you in person, so hopefully this just gives you something to read.

I'm having an issue with this office and its bathrooms. And coffee room. As you know, I drink a lot of water. I don't have a water bottle here- what I have is a paper coffee cup that holds about 1.5 cups of water if I fill it to the brim. Besides the smaller size, the coffee station where I can fill up the cup feels like it's half a football field away. If it wouldn't look so strange, I could probably get my daily quotient of jogging in running back and forth to fill up my cup. But that's not the only thing.

See the bathrooms are slightly farther away than the coffee station. And with all the water I drink, I make frequent use of them. In some ways it may seem to be convenient- I could go to bathroom and hit the coffee station at the same time, right? Well, I really have no intention of taking my open top cup into the can with me, either before or after I fill it with water. Especially since, ideally, my washroom experience should be a 2 handed affair. The alternative is to leave my cup lying somewhere close by, but do I really trust my water to be lying around in the open for just anyone to grab? I don't know these people. And I could grab a new water cup every time I fill up, but let's try to be at least a little bit environmentally friendly.

Now the bathrooms have their own charm, and by charm I mean that at some point the seven dwarves must have worked for AMCC. There are 2 urinals in the bathroom and one of them is at knee level. Perhaps there was an equal rights movement for pygmy immigrants in California. I'm thinking management is doing everything they can to encourage their workers to move in to their cubicles full time with their families.

Peeing downhill isn't an inconvenience, but let's face it, accuracy suffers with distance. Not to mention that compared to a toilet, the urinal doesn't quite contain splash back in the same way since it's not as deep. Half the time I hit the bathroom, I'm relegated to hobbit status as the full size urinal is in use. What's immediate apparent is the floor puddle from previous users who are under the same inconvenience as I am. Which doesn't help as you try to stand as much out of the way as possible to keep from needing rubber boots to go to the bathroom. Take my word for it, awkward foot positioning does not aid your targeting in any way shape or form. By the end of the day, the puddle is striving to achieve pond status and I'm doing my best Jackie Chan impression by hanging from the walls when I go to the washroom.

The end result is that about every hour, I spend 5 minutes getting my exercise by going down to get a drink, return to my desk, go to the bathroom, and then returning back as fast as I can before anyone can figure out where the wet tracks out of the bathroom are coming from or notice the water marks streaked half way up my jeans.

Don't even get me started on the actual toilets ...

Week #2 with the nutritionist

2010-09-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good week in some regards. My goal had been to eat 2 green veggies a day and to eat more veggies in one sitting. Often the diet was telling me to eat 2 cups of veggies and I was only eating a handful of raw carrots. I figured this had something to do with why I was so hungry all the time. Between the shrinking of my stomach from last week and the extra veggies this week, I was feeling better or at least not hungry. Mid-week I started fighting off a cold, but interestingly enough it went away without me really even getting too sick at all... maybe it was all the green veggies?

So, what did I learn this week? I'm allowed to email her questions, so here are some interesting tidbits I learned and hopefully will retain.

1) Eating eggs is a good thing and they have been given a bad rap. However you need to eat them with a soft yolk. Hard yolks have more cholesterol and less nutrients. Don't ask me the science behind it, but that is what I learned.

2) Cook using liquids. For example, again with eggs, I said what is the difference between fried and poached eggs if they both have a soft yolk, she said the cooking method does something to it, adds something that is bad for you. She said cook chicken in water with herbs or a tomato sauce for example. BBqing was also not her favorite method of cooking for this reason and she said do not eat blackened foods as they are known to be carcinogenic.

3) If I am going to eat something with little nutritional value, like Rice Krispies I should eat a fat with it, like Flax to help sustain me through until snack time. She said the same with snacks like rice cakes,etc.

4) Don't drink cold water. Cold water closes your blood vessels and makes it harder to absorb all the nutrients you are trying to feed it (or something like that). She says weight loss books say the opposite because you burn more calories warming the water up in your body, but your body needs the nutrients, so to drink it warm.

My goals for this week are to drink warm lemon water every morning to kickstart my digestive system. To track how much water I drink and aim for 8 glasses a day. To take my calcium/magnesium before bed as it can be calming? To continue eating my veggies and to add my exercise because I have been slack the last 2 weeks!

There you have it! I did sneak back under 200 pounds this week, a number I hadn't seen since before summer holidays, so that felt good!

Nutritionist update

2010-09-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

So, week 1 is over and I've had my first 1 on 1 session with my nutritionist. We didn't take any measurements, not even a weight. She isn't so worried about that number, but wants to teach me to read labels and consider what I am putting in my body. Yesterday's discussion included tidbits such as:

Always choose the whole grain option over whole wheat - read the label carefully!

Eating no yogurt would be her preference over eating a higher sugar yogurt or an artificially sweetened yogurt. I tried the plain yogurt, but seriously that was just not good! I've been trying to decrease to lower fat versions, but she said it really is more the sugar I should be concentrating on. I wondered if it was better to eat a yogurt every day to get your calcium and probiotics, even if it had sugar in it, but in her opinion, dairy was not the end all be all and she wasn't worried about me having it daily like my physician had suggested. I do take a supplement of calcium (now calcium citrate and I have to say I like the taste of this liquid calcium, especially right after the fish oil I am now taking). Her suggestion was if it said dairy on the menu, I could substitute that for a protein. I'm not giving up yogurt by any means, but I maybe won't eat 2 a day (sometimes that happens).

She likes the 90:10 rule, be good 90 % of the time and the other 10% you could have fun - celebrate a birthday or eat a fun snack. I thought this was a good rule and in the course of your week, if you eat 21 meals and 14 or so snacks, that is a couple times a week where you could have a treat and not feel guilty about it. It is good to know you can treat yourself and not feel guilty about it.

A good first session. I also learned from her body composition analysis that my water levels are low, so more water and more veggies and fruits that naturally contain water.

She also suggested, twice now, warm lemon water in the morning to kick start your system working. I haven't made that a priority yet, but should try it this weekend. I also need to focus on more veggies. I know I don't eat a full cup when it asks for them, unless they are cooked. A full cup of raw veggies is a lot, unless you are eating a salad, so I need to focus on that.

Anyhow, so far so good! I did lose 1.5 pounds when I weighed myself at home, but was quite hungry this week. That's why I have to focus on my veggie amounts to help fill me up more.

Hi, ho, hi, ho... off to the nutrionist I go!

2010-09-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I met with a nutritionist. My goal is to feel less tired and have more energy. The closest plan she has that matches this is a weight loss plan of course. I've said it before and I will say it again, I am done with dieting... I'm just trying to live a healthier life everyday and be happy. Since I started this mentality last June, as in a year and a bit ago, I've lost 13 pounds and kept it off (I won't mention the other 5 I had lost but gained over the summer, sigh)

Anyhow, I meet the nutritionist and I am slightly nervous and partially excited. I fill out oodles of paperwork, I think over 15 pages, plus a 7 day food log prior to our meeting. When we meet we discuss my paperwork and she takes my measurements and then basically sends me on my way saying she will send me the website and password later that night. Harumpf!

The night goes by and still no email, I think it was later the next afternoon when I finally had access and my initial response was disappointment. I mean, really it is like the online Curves program I had done 2 years ago, they give you a set menu and if you don't like it you can scroll down and replace it with something else. It is pretty much like any other diet, Dr. Phil, Ultimate Body Challenge... been there done that... chicken breast and veggies here I come. I'm not thrilled!

I keep looking through the website and more and more of my questions get answered as I read on and things become more clear. For example, in the first 2 weeks,I am not allowed beef, pork, potatoes, nuts, hard cheese, alcohol, and I can't remember why, but something like they are heavy and slow down the digestion. These food are slowly re-integrated starting week 3. So at least I know the menu changes as we go through the process. She also has a list of recipes on the site, including muesli and muffins, so apparently I will be able to switch from whole wheat breads after 2 weeks, too.

She had told me the key would be our weekly meetings and I think she is right, this is where she will have to help me tweak the menu to better suite my family and my needs. She didn't do that this week, which is why I freaked out a bit on initial reaction.

Based on her recommendations, items I shopped for today included: calcium citrate (instead of carbonate, better absorbed by the body and I bought a liquid from that also has Magnesium in), fish oil (I bought lemon flavored, we will see how that goes down, I may have to stir it in with yogurt or something?), wheat germ, wheat bran, spelt flakes, chia seed, ground flax seed... many of these are for the muesli recipe that looked pretty good and that I can eat for breakfast:

2 cups organic rolled oats
1 cup spelt or barley flakes
1/2 wheat bran
1/3 cup skim milk powder
1/3 natural almonds (chopped)
1/4 wheat germ
1/3 cup ground flax seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla (pure)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup diced dried fruit (pineapple, apricots, cranberries)
3/4 apple juice concentrate

in shallow baking dish, combine first 9 ingredients. Mix 1/2 cup apple juice concentrate with vanilla. Pour over mixture and stir to coat. Bake at 275 for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven and add remaining ingredients. Bake for another 15 minutes. Let cool, store for up to a month. 1 serving = 1/2 cup.

So, I'm signed up for a month. The first two weeks will be like a real diet, quiet restricting, but I think there are reasons for that, so I am willing to do it. Over time, foods will be reintegrated and we will keep adapting the menu, so I should lose some weight, but ideally am introducing news foods and habits that will stick around for the long haul and in the long run make me feel better... I hope.

I have my weekly meetings on Thursdays and will keep you posted as to how successful or frustrating things are going. Thanks for your support!

Blog Hop

2010-08-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

I really have NO idea how this works or if I have done this correctly, but based on the instructions, I believe if you click the link below, you will be taken to a list of bloggers who are all participating in the Kids in the Capital Blog Hop. A cool idea, if I can get it to work!

A visit to the Asian Superstore

2010-07-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

I had been wanting to visit the T & T Supermarket ever since I had heard it opened. I had read a few other blog articles from moms in the area who thought it was a cool adventure to take their kids on. I had to go to that end of town to pick up the cheque for my Taurus stationwagon that was written off, so it seemed like an opportune time. According to their website: T & T Supermarket's goal is to enrich the lifestyle of Asian families in Canada by offering them choice food and household items in a comfortable shopping environment. We also hope to introduce the colourful Asian food culture to the Canadian multicultural society. I figured that since they are hoping to introduce families who are unfamiliar with their products that they would not mind me pointing out all sorts of interesting things to my kids and taking pictures to show you, too! Upon entering the supermarket the belwo picture is what we saw. Not so different from your ordinary grocery store, except that most of the packages are written on in Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese...), sometimes with NO English translation. It must be very frustrating for them to shop here when they arrive, as we don't have Asian translations on any of our products. The kids and I roamed around the aisles, each kid with a little red basket on wheels. (You had to pay a loonie to get a real cart and of course, I had no change).

Next, you will see many pictures of foods that we found interesting. We talked about what kind of words to use to describe things we saw or tasted, because saying it was weird, gross or yechy, wasn't very polite. We tried to say, "that is different" or "I've never seen anything like that before, cool!", etc. They had many different types of chicken feet: marinated and ready to cook, raw, frozen and they had duck feet as well. I just can't get over in the picture below that they have little toenails - that does make me shutter a bit. We also saw for the first time, Gooey ducks. Deanna, is this what is underneath those green circular things at the beach? Jasmine seemed to think she had seen these, at least the very tops of them. They were quite the site to see. They also had Silkie chickens that had blue flesh. Then there were pigs feet, again something you saw in a few spots, marinated, raw or frozen. Then there was the cow tongue and we couldn't get over just how big it was - huge, really! Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to buy any of these items. After looking some of them up online (check out the link to the gooey ducks, very interesting video), I might be tempted to try a chicken foot at an Asian restaurant, just to try it, but I couldn't see preparing them at home quite yet.

Although we didn't buy any of the above items, we did manage to spend $78.00 on: pork and lamb for a hot pot (we'll use them in fondue, they are sliced really thin and rolled up), vegetable dumplings, steamed pork dumplings, chocolate steamed buns, passion fruit, mango roll with bean curd, mung bean bread with custard, Jasmine honey tea (like iced tea), mini-sponge cake, Asian popsicles, mini jellies and more. Tonight we taste tested all the drinks and dessert items. Jasmine loved the sponge cake, Pam and I loved the Mung bean bread (I thought Devin picked the coconut bread, but this was still good). Most of the desserts were cool to try, but necessarily to eat again... if you know what I mean.

Below you will see us on our way out of the store, we stopped for some bubble juice. If you haven't heard of this before, it is a Taiwanese drink that is becoming more popular in America. The bubbles are actually tapioca balls and taste sort of like gummy candies. I think all of these drinks have a bit of a tea base, so they sort of had an after taste we did not love, but the cherry slush one was very good and the mint chocolate one was not too bad, we did not really drink the pudding one though. It was a fun way to end the shopping trip and ensure we were hydrated and full before the 30 minute drive back home.

All in all this was a fun way to spend the afternoon. The kids said they would like to go again and I would go a few times a year to buy items for a sushi meal or a night when you wanted to experiment with something new.

Check out the Tapioca ball in the straw. You drink and chew at the same time.

Vancouver Island, B.C.

2010-07-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

First stop, Nanaimo B.C. After waiting 2 1/2 hours for our flight in Vancouver, it was a pretty crazy notion to find out that our flight to Nanaimo was only 8 minutes long. You honestly wait longer on the ground to get on and off the plane than you are in the air. We arrived in Nanaimo to beautiful weather at about 6:30 B.C. time, which is 9:30 p.m. Ottawa time. By the time we hailed a cab, checked in to the hotel, it was waaaay past bedtime for the kids. We stayed at the Buccanner Inn and upon check-in the innkeeper gave the kids a freezie, so we decided that it was fate and we were supposed to check out the surroundings while they finished them off. The below picture is from our little walk across the street from the inn. We also followed a flock of waddling, pooping geese into the water. The kids were off to bed and we were delighted to have a separate living area to watch TV as they fell asleep. The next morning we were lucky to be picked up by my Brother-in-Law, Trevor and chauffeured to Qualicum Beach.

The above waterfall and "fairy garden" is part of the beautiful yard at the B & B we stayed at in Qualicum Beach, The Tea Cozy. Hans and Tannis were our hosts and just happen to be the next door neighbours and good friends of my grandparents. Hans is a Swiss trained chef, so needless to say we ate very well in the mornings, but Tannis always made sure we had home-baked treats and fruit to come home to in the afternoon as well. They were very kind to let all the cousins take over the yard to hunt for fairies or play bocce ball. We rented both of their rooms and were very happy with that arrangement, as the kids could go to bed and we could watch a movie in the next room or read until we were ready for bed, too.

After the big anniversary party was over, we had a day to have some beach fun. My Uncle Dan has a couple of "yaks" as he calls them and brought them down to Parksville so we could each take a spin. I was a little too nervous to want to go far in the ocean water, but it was fun to get in and out and have the experience. Jasmine took a turn again this year, but Devin opted not to and he had fun scouring the beaches for crabs with the Japanese exchange student Akane. Parksville has a great playstructure and water park. I tried to use the panoramic view to show you, but it doesn't do it justice.

The above picture is the marina in Ucluelet. We stopped here for lunch our way to Tofino and ate lunch on a parked ship called the Canadian Princess. The road to Tofino was windy and Devin did throw up, unfortunate for Les and Trevor, as Jay and I were driving up with mom and dad. Good thing we were caravaning, so they walkie talkied us and we pulled over to get Devin some new clothes. He was fine and barely even noticed - what a kid! Below is our first beach visit to the farside of the island at MacKenzie Beach. We walked there from our B & B condo that we were ALL staying at. It was a cool experience, crazy windy, freezing water, but soft sand and cool rock outcroppings off to the side to climb and explore. You can see the panoramic photo below where we were trying to explore (our family had taken our shoes off further down the beach, so it was tough for us, but quite a cool view)

In the above pictures you can see snow on the mountains in the background. We weren't at a major beach here, actually we were at the botanical gardens and one of the paths had led us to this beaut of a spot. The next two are at Long Beach. I can only tell because of all the logs washed up in the background. Long beach, was well long - wouldn't really matter how many people were there, I don't think it would ever be too crowded. Below are some pictures from Chesterman Beach, which was our favorite. Going during low tide, you could walk right out to Frank's island and explore. We found loads of mussels and barnacles stuck to rocks and with a close eye you could see starfish, too. We did peel a few off the rocks for kids (and Jay) to touch and have fun with. Our kids loved jumping waves and I took some great video clips of that in action, too.

We ended our trip with a crabfest, which I also have some cool video of, and a campfire, including sparklers and colored flames. Your choice was crab or hot dog? Hmmm? Not tough for most people, but I love a cheap hot dog. My brother-in-law, Jamie and my dad dealt with the crabs the most, but they did give me the chance to put one to death :( Why is that fun? Who knows, but it kind of is! I'm trying to remember if the kids tried any, but for some reason I think they did.

After all of that, and many things I haven't even had a chance to mention, like homemade ice cream treats and the guys on their scooters, it was time to head back to Qualicum. We spent one more day with all the Gramma's and Grampa's, mostly treasure hunting for geo-cache's, which unfortunately we could not really find. But everyone was such a good trooper, including great-gramma and grampa. The only real problem is, it was soooo hot! Especially for there, as no one had air conditioning to cool down in afterwards. Great-gramma hiked all through these woods (and the picture below was the clear path, most were full of roots and stumps).

On our very last day, we headed to Parksville once again and had a final play with cousins Sam and Hayden. We collected baby crabs and Auntie Nanny made this crab hotel for them. We treated ourselves to Dairy Queen and then went for our best swim yet, low tide at Parksville. It had been so hot that day, the sand was warm and the water was like a bath. You could walk out a block and not even be up to your waist. The sand was soft, the water was calm and the kids had a blast. My dad drove us back to the Buccaneer Inn and the next morning we were off on our flight home. What a trip to remember!

My wish for the cousins!

2010-07-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

Growing up we had few visits with our cousins. Really all of my cousins lived far away from us, so there wasn't much to be done about that. I do however have very fond memories of my cousins, especially Cara and Jen, as that is who we saw most often. I hated reading, yet my cousins loved to read and my Uncle Glen managed a book store, so he had many, many books laying about the house. My cousins read for fun, do you believe it... sure not something I did as a kid. But at their house, I read Archie comic after Archie comic. I also remember playing operation on each other when we were supposed to be falling asleep. Jen would pretend to cut my arm open, fix a bone and re-stitch me up. Or sometimes we would write words on each others backs and see if we could figure out the message... funny what you remember. I also remember that my cousin Jen could take the sleep out of her eye in one long strip - weird! Why do I remember these things? I'm sure we did many more exciting things together, like motor boat or katamran at their cottage for example, why don't those memories stand out more?

I hope that my kids will have fond memories of their cousins. We don't see each other very often either and we are very far away from each other. We do what we can to keep the specialness to their relationship by sending videos, making phone calls and passing on hand me downs (seems silly, but little kids love getting stuff from their older cousins, Devin will wear it if it came from Tyson). We try to put family first when we can and this summer is no exception with a trip out to BC to celebrate great-gramma and grampa's 60th anniversary. It was great to see them on their special day, but it was really special because we got to spend that day with all the cousins and aunties and uncles and great-gramma and grampa got to see how all their great-grandkids interact and it was really cool!

Below we have Devin and Samantha buried in the sand at Tofino. These two are only a month apart in birthday, but just because of the nature of girls and boys, typically you will find Sam playing with Jasmine and Devin with her younger brother, Hayden. I love this picture because of the great smiles, they were loving this moment!

Below we have a couple group snaps with all the Shadbolt cousins, I say that, but unfortunately for grampa none of their last names are actually Shadbolt :(

Below we have the boy cousins and the girl cousins. The boys are especially funny and well rounded, but I think they all have a sweet, sensitive side to them... they really are Shadbolt's! Then you have the girls... very powerful and driven, they know what they want and they know how to get it, not necessarily a good thing at their age.

Crazy cousins posing at the beach. Jasmine thinks Tyson is smelling his armpit here, ha, ha! Devin is doing a karate chop!

Hayden is the most huggable, kissable, kooky kid you ever did meet and he is incredibly lovable. Here the boys hugs and almost choke each other to death, seriously, we had to break it up, too funny!

Jasmine especially loves her cousin Allison. I'm glad long distance plans have changed, or we would owe a fortune to the phone company in a few years. Jasmine is just starting to figure out that she can phone her cousins and talk (for what seems like hours). Allison is a great role model for Jasmine and helps her write notes to the fairies, gives her drawing lessons and more.

My sisters and I were each blessed with 1 boy and 1 girl, pretty strange odds, considering we came from a family of 3 girls. It's wonderful to get together, whether it is with only one set of cousins having special quality time or whether we are all together having a chaotic adventure - the cousins are a blast! I only hope that years from now the cousins will remain close. My cousins and I have drifted apart and besides the odd email Christmas letter (or now blog from my cousin Jen), we don't keep in touch as much as I would like.

One little cousin isn't mentioned above and that is Olivier, from Jay's side of the family. We are blessed to have him so close by and living in Ottawa. As Olivier gets older, he asks more and more to come and play with his older cousins and he seems to have a real fondness for Devin. He is a talkative little guy with a great spirit and ravishing appetite. Oli and the kids get along so well, that it is easy to have him over to just hang out and he fits right into our day. Oli will soon have a baby brother, Alexandre Justin and we can't wait to add another cousin into our family! Olivier lives so close, that we often don't think to go on a crazy adventures with him. Hopefully we will start making playdates to do fun and adventurous things and he will get old enough to come for sleepovers - can't wait for that.

One last thought on cousins... cousins last a lifetime. At the anniversary my dad got to see many of his cousins, and we even got to play with his cousins, kid's kids, so like 5th cousins. It's amazing how long the line up can go, especially on Jay's side with his mom's 16 siblings. Cousins are like good friends, you can hook up years later just where you left off when you were a kid, they don't judge you, they just hope you are doing well and I love that, even if you only get a Christmas letter (or more likely, your mom gets a Christmas letter from their mom and fills you in)... whatever, it's all good! Below is Sam with 5th cousins Bridget and Sidney. I remember selling lemonade with their mom, Christine, who is my 3rd cousin when I was a kid.

Inspiring!

2010-07-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

These two lovebirds are my Gramma and Grampa Shadbolt, my dad's parents! We recently returned from their 60th anniversary party and it was awesome. I have to say, you gain a whole new appreciation for your grandparents when you are older. Now that I have my own kids, you see that most of their relationship is really all fun and games. Most of the time the grandparents are taking kids on adventures, playing a game, reading a book or just listening to the kids tell a long-winded non-sensical story. As you get older, you realize that your grandparents are "real" people who have had real experiences and listening to my Gramps tell stories about his mom helping others and how you just have to help young people who are struggling, was well, simply heart warming! It showed me a whole new side of him and one that I think is remarkable. Here he is below with Devin - two peas in a pod, those blockheads are.

Gramma has always been a great inspiration to me. I'm not sure how old I was exactly, but it was over 30 years ago now when she had her stroke. Her entire right hand side was, still is, paralyzed. Imagining what possibly could have happened after such a health crisis, you can't help but be impressed with this women. When she visited Ottawa about 10 years ago, she not only conquered the downtown area, including parliament buildings and the market, but also our 3 flights of stairs as we had no elevator. What a trooper! And it's not just my Gramma that is inspiring, because you have to realize how much having a stroke changed all the life plans and dreams of not only my Gramma, but also my Grampa. To see them together over 30 years later and still smooching and grabbing each other's butts, well it was wonderful! Here she is below with Jasmine in her beautiful yard that she maintains so well.

Happy Anniversary you two! We loved seeing you, we love that you held a celebration to catch up with all your friends and family and we love that you are so inspirational to other around you, including us! Thanks for being great grandparents!

Summer is here!

2010-06-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

Once I live through tomorrow's PD day, I will be free for the summer. Although, it seems to me my summer is already full of things to do. It's always daunting to see just how much has to be covered over the summer. How does any normal person do it? Without the summer off to catch up, I am afraid my house would crumble and our friendships would fail.

I just made a list of all the playdates we would like to have over the summer and I have 24 seperate dates listed. Hmm, how will I ever fit that into my summer? I guess 8 of those are adults I want to see, so potentially I could do a kid playdate during the day and then grown ups at night. It could be a crazy schedule to fit them all in. I may just have to have a JK party here, with 3 or 4 little boy friends of Devin's over at once.

Then of course there is the TO DO list and it is crazy full. It includes everything from: go through all the closets (yuck, totally time consuming), dig trenches in the back for new bushes to be planted, fix the garage door, re-caulk the shower, buy a new vehicle and on and on for about 30 other items.

And last, but not least, all the fun stuff. We have 2 holidays booked this year and hope to do some camping as well. We also want to get to the Museum of Nature and Calypso Water Park. We are planning a ride on both a double decker bus and the O-Train, too! So, when will I get all of this done? Did I mention swimming lessons every day for two weeks for both kids? No, well yes, that too and it is right beside the public library, so we are hoping to visit there daily for those 2 weeks, too.

Right now it feels overwhelming, but once we just get into it and go day by day, it won't be so bad. It won't be bad... it will be great! Lots of time spent hanging out with friends, crossing things off the TO DO list and just having a good time!

What are your summer plans?

A picture is worth a thousand words?

2010-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

Well, if that is true I have nothing to say! I dropped my camera a little over a week ago and feel slightly naked now. Although I haven't been taking as many pictures as I used to, mostly because I know I won't have time to scrapbook them all and I already have so many of similar situations, but still I want to take some pictures. So far I missed taking pictures at the 2 km family run last weekend, the kids first soccer practices, rock band with the Howley's, Devin holding hands with baby Thomas and tomorrow is the street BBQ.

Problem is I'm not sure what kind of camera I want. I've always had a simple point and shoot camera. I'm terrible at taking good care of my camera, it's almost always in my pocket, in my purse, in a backpack amongst water bottles and snacks, etc. It's amazing it has lasted this long. I do however have this longing for a nice camera, one that I can take close ups with. I always use the excuse that I should have had it when the kids were babies and now there isn't as much point, but ... I still think I want one. Trouble is I don't always want to carry around a big lug of a camera. So...

I think I need both: a point and shoot camera for the day to day type events and a nice camera to have fun with when I am in the photography mood. What kind of camera should I get? Recommendations for both are welcome. What do you have? Do you like it? What would you not get? Do you know of any cool camera features?

I'd like to say it is part of why I haven't blogged lately, but it's only been broken for about a week, so I can't use that excuse. Summer time is coming though and it should be a good time to catch up. We'll be starting with the trip to BC and gramma and grampa's 60th anniversary party - can't wait to blog about that.

Salad of the Week

2010-03-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

Curried Quinoa Chicken Salad

Mix the following:

2 cups cooked quinoa

1 cup cooked, diced chicken breast

1 mango chopped

2 green onions sliced

1/2 cup toasted pecans

1/4 chopped cilantro

Mix the dressing:

2 tbsp curry powder

1/4 rice vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

Stir the two together! Very yummy, especially if you love cilantro, so flavorful! Quinoa is a protein, so you can eat this as a side dish or a meal. We had it as a meal, along with homemade tortilla chips (slice 2 tortillas, spray lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, oregano, pepper, etc., toast in the oven at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes not 12 like me.), we dipped our chips in hummus as well.

The original recipe called for dried apricots, not mango, it also asked for walnuts not pecans. Devin did eat this salad in small doses, with no cilantro bits. Jasmine did not enjoy it, but didn't really try much.

The 4 year olds, Sam and Devin!

2010-03-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

Devin and Samantha are not even a month apart by birthday and according to the below picture, almost the exact same height, too. I'm sure however, that Devin weighs 10 more pounds than her; if he sat on her he would crush her! Although Jasmine and Samantha played so well together, when Jasmine wasn't around (which sometimes happened being the sneaky mother I am), the 4 year olds had a chance to play together and they liked it! They especially had fun Irish dancing together; well after all they are the perfect height for each other!

On days like today, I need to remind mysefl...

2010-03-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

... they actually do get along!

It's the girl's turn! Jasmine and Samantha.

2010-03-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

As soon as Jasmine arrived in Samantha's bedroom, the two were almost inseperable. They must have played in there for an hour and my sister actually started to miss her little girl because she wasn't used to so much downtime with her being kept busy by others. (She'll get over that feeling, very quickly... at least, I did). Jasmine taught Sam all sorts of new games and ideas and Sam took to them all easily as they are very much the same... not only both tiny, but smart, creative and imaginative as well. Below you will see them posing in many shots, as well as getting their toenails painted by Gramma Shadbolt, hanging upside down at gymnastics (Jasmine actually tried hanging from her knees at one point, but we found out that wasn't allowed - oops), playing bingo, dancing their Irish jigs and sporting their green pride and more. I'm not sure who will miss Jasmine more, Samantha... or her mom, ha, ha!

Da' Boys! Devin and his cousin, Hayden!

2010-03-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here you will get just a glimpse of two very active boys... they got along well MOST of the time ;) They were good sports, humoring Jasmine by participating in her fairy/leprechaun/dragon play and they even let gramma paint their toenails (albeit was just clear sparkly polish). They both loved the gymnastics class and had fun balancing, swinging, jumping and all things boys love. Devin even taught Hayden how to be a walrus with his french fries, sorry James! I told you, you didn't wan't Devin to teach Hayden all that he knows.

Great Group Shots!

2010-03-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

What a cute family! Seriously, could these kids BE any cuter? Just picture Chandler from Friends saying that. My mom bought all the grandkids matching shirts in Belize, so here are 2/3 of the kids in their new shirts. The second picture is my favorite, Uncle Jamie was making the kids bust a gut in laughter, priceless moment caught on camera. After that you will see pictures of the kids posing on the bouncer; it was the only time they were still on that thing. Then we've got St. Patty's day celebration pictures, all dressed up like leprechauns to find the hidden treasure. Zoo and park pictures follow that with the last one being taken out in a field while on a geocache hunt! Even though kids were coughing and snotting like crazy, we still managed to fill our week with lots of fun - great troopers!

Scrapbooking lately?

2010-03-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

The above layout is the one I just completed at Linda's, my Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, at my monthly scrapbook night. I never would take time to scrap Jay and I anymore, too busy catching up with kid's albums, Christmas books and soon onto travel layouts. So, I thought this was cool. Unfortunately, every once and awhile, my camera (or program) decides to take the photos the wrong way (I swear, I took it the exact same as the below pictures, but yet, it won't place them that way) I have no idea why it does this or how to change them, so you will have to tilt your head - sorry! Below, you will see my latest Christmas album entries - I've only got 2008 and 2009 left, yahoo! I am attending a full day crop on Saturday and have all the pictures I need to catch up on my Christmas album and Halloween mini-album, then I plan to attack our Disney trip, finally! Feels good to get things done

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

Ah, Valentine's Day. We had a very nice Valentine's. Jay and I started off by sleeping in until 8:30 - love it! I left bowls of cereal out for the kids and made sure the TV was tuned into a kid station; can't beat that for a present. Above you can see the kids sucking on one of their Valentine treats - I thought they were too funny and couldn't resist buying them. For Jay, Jasmine and I made the board game below. It is a keyboard and the game all revolves around his work. On an orange square you have to pick a card from the deck. Some are good, like daddy comes home early - move ahead 10 spaces, while others are bad, like manager called a late meeting and you miss supper - go back 5 spaces... and so on. You also have to follow the directions on the board game itself, like do 10 jumping jacks, kiss your neighbour or sing a song. Jasmine wrote out about half of the cards and came up with many of the ideas, including go back 393 squares, just kidding, go back 5! She thought that was sooo funny!

These were the Valentine's that the kids gave out at school. Each was a little box you folded up and inside they put a gummy heart, a few stickers and a mini Valentine post it note package.

For lunch today, we met our good friends, The Dixons at Boston Pizza. Jay was the only one who ordered the heart shaped pizza, I guess he was in the mood for a little extra lovin' today. Jasmine has been fighting a cold the last few days, but over lunch she developed a mild fever and wasn't quite herself, so Jay snuch out to the pharmacy to get some Advil and see if she would perk up, because we did have big plans yet to come. For desert Devin had Worms N' Dirt and Jasmine had a mini-chocolate pizza, Grace chose a fruit cup - wow, you can tell she doesn't belong to me, ha, ha!

Next up, we headed to the bowling alley for the kids first ever game of bowling. It was packed at the alley and very loud with rockin' music and glowing lights. It was ideal for the kids, as they had bumpers set up in the gutters, so the kids always seemed to knock down pins. Grace and Devin had a BLAST, they were dancing around while they waited their turns and just had a great time. Jasmine bowled really well, in fact beat both her mom and Uncle Kevin, but she wasn't feeling good enough to be jumping around.

They had a handicapped score, which basically meant when you stepped over the line you were deducted 15 points. All 3 kids had some points deducted, but even with the deduction, Jasmine still hit 100 points - crazy!

So, now we are at home and the kids are taking it easy. We hope Jasmine gets a good sleep and wakes up fine, as we have a few playdates planned for tomorrow. Our nephew Olivier is supposed to be coming over in the morning and our good friends The Howleys in the afternoon for a Wiifest and supper! Sounds like the perfect way to spend Family Day to me!

Hope you all had a super Valentine's. (Notice I didn't say anything about what I got for Valentines? There is a reason for that, what do you think the consequences should be?) I'll let you know what I decide, ha, ha! Have a great Family Day tomorrow!

Keeping busy in winter!

2010-02-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

Often in winter we end up stuck inside with the winter blah's! So far we haven't felt that way too much. When it is a cold day, we have been having fun with our new Band Hero. The kids both love the drums, but are happy to take turns and have even been trying to sing songs like "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting" or "Ghostbusters". Jay has realized he is not very good at vocals, in fact the other night he was practicing on his own and the game kept defeating him. I always sing the vocals when we play in groups because I find I get motion sick from the scrolling (or at least that is what I tell Jay since his singing is soooo bad!) Ha, ha! I can say that because my guitar playing is horrible and I can't even do the easy level on it yet.

When we do get nice winter weather, we have been trying to get outside. These are pictures from our first skate of the year, taken a few weeks ago at the outdoor rink at the school. The kids have been taking lessons on Wednesdays and Jasmine can now glide and Devin goes out for lessons on his own (the first 3 were with dad) and he did super last week on his own, what a big boy! This first picture is our God-daughter Grace and her parents.

When we had optimum snow man building weather we headed outside to make this incredible fort, detailed with blue siding, built in seats and it's own bodyguard!

So, I hope the weather in your next of the woods has been good enough to get you outside to enjoy some winter festivities. This weekend we hope to venture to Winterlude and go for a skate on the canal (and eat a Beavertail), but we will have to see how Devin is feeling - today he woke up with a mild fever :(

Salad of the Week

2010-01-17T06:37:00.001-08:00

I haven't been very good at posting pictures of salads lately, or even posting many blog entries, but this week we had a salad worth sharing. I hadn't planned on sharing it, so I don't even have a picture - sorry!

This is from the Biggest Loser Cookbook - Thai Ground Chicken Salad

Dressing:

4 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tbsp fresh minced ginger
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Salad:

shredded romain lettuce
slivered red onion
slivered baby carrots
2 tbsp fresh mint leaves - chopped
2 tbsp fresh cilantro - chopped
2 tbsp roasted cashews - chopped
1 pound of extra lean ground chicken

Make dressing and set aside, I already doubled it for you, as they made it for only 1 serving. Easily I would make more - almost double what I listed above. The dressing was awesome, loved the ginger with the sweet chilli sauce, yummy!

Brown ground chicken, leave it in small chunks if you like or ground it right up into small bits. Pour some dressing on meat once cooked.

On a plate place torn lettuce, mix in cilantro and mint leaves. Add onions, carrots and cashews, drizzle with dressing and top with ground chicken.

The Quirk New Years!

2010-01-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

For New Years this year I didn't know what to do, so I headed to the internet for some ideas and came up with this: Jay's mom and I made 8 or 9 bags and each bag had a clock face on it. When the real time matched the clock on the bag, we opened that bag and followed the instructions.
Our first clock bag had a disposable camera in it and we were told we each had to take 4 pictures on it. I haven't seen the camera since this night, so when I clean the house today I will be on the look out for it. Otherwise I will have to phone gramma and poppa to see if they accidentally have it in a coat pocket or something.

Next up, we had to blow up balloons and then keep them in the air, transfer them to one another through our legs and fun games like that. Devin just loves playing with balloons all together. At the end of the night we had to pop the balloons, which proved to be very challenging. Our next activity was to put on glow in the dark necklaces and dance around. We eventually made the necklaces into one large limbo, although most of us were not very flexible to make it underneath :)

Earlier in the day we made our own noisemakers, as we could not find any of ours. We used cut up wrapping paper tubes and filled them with lentils and beans (things I have good intentions of using, but haven't). One of our clock bags had Christmas Crackers in it and so we had a chance to do those as well. We were all SO thankful for the whistle Devin got in his!

At one point we filled up our glasses to toast to the New Year, say what we were grateful for and make a wish for 2010. After this we headed outside to light the sparklers and the kids love that part. The Green Goblin photo is out of order and I can't seem to move it. One of the bags had 3 villain targets and 2 cans of silly string, so we headed outside to defeat the bad guys. Silly string does not last that long, so although the kids liked it, it was over pretty quick.

Anyhow, I think that sums up our night. Of course we had good company with Jay's folks and good food with Sherry's Shrimp Surprise Dip, along with spinach dip, chicken wings and scallops wrapped in bacon. So between all our activities you could find us sipping on our wine or grazing at the appetizer table.

We rang in the New Year at 7:00 with the kids, did the sparklers, wound down and had them in bed for 8:00 - awesome! The grown ups played a few games and then watched Four Christmases, along with another episode of Glee (have to catch up you know). At midnight, which were surpisingly still up for, we opened the champagne and cheered in the New Year! The best part, was Jay's mom and dad insist the kids wake them up in the morning, so we didn't even have to get up at 7:00! Jay's parents however will likely sleep all the way home on the plane today, as they have been up early EVERY day with our two kids.

Hopefully more posts to come, still haven't caught you up on December or Christmas. School and real life starts again soon, so we will see what kind of time I have for posting.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Could December BE any crazier?

2009-12-21T17:27:00.001-08:00

Wow, December is busy and it's not even over yet. Let's see where did the month start? ... Well, this technically wasn't December, but November 29th is awfully close and this is too important of an event not to cover... The Grey Cup! I still have students in the hallway coughing as they say, "you lost" or "Saskatchewan Sucks", all in good fun of course and mostly all grade 7 & 8's that I don't teach anymore. Not many kids I still teach are that rude to me, as I still have to grade them. We hosted a small Grey Cup Party. Pam, Kevin and Grace attended along with Jay's friend Dale from D & D. It's always a treat to have Dale come over, as he is a very good chef. For the party he made guacamole and last time he brought home made pickles, I am dilling my eggs in the leftover pickle juice right now, anyhow... Jasmine helped decorate by making little signs and hanging them all along the hallway. The kids all cheered with pom poms, screeched and ran around, it didn't take long before we made them go downstairs. As most of you know, the game was good, real good in fact, until the last 10 seconds when we realized the Roughriders CAN'T COUNT! 13 men on the field for a penalty, which meant Montreal got to kick, again, after they missed and WE WOULD HAVE WON, boo, hoo!

I can't get my blog software to work correctly with my new computer and Jay is currently sleeping with Devin on his lap - don't ask! If I keep adding photos now, they will all go at the beginning of my blog entry and I can't make them move for some reason - then my December will sound even crazier than it is, so I guess I will just start another post with the next stuff in it and this time I will be smarter and work backwards. If it doesn't work, just read the blog backwards and you should hear santa like messages, I mean satanic messages, no santa messages would be more appropriate being small children could be reading this.

Latest Scrapbook Pages

2009-11-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have been working hard to complete Devin's 1st year album (after all he is turning 4 in December). Below are the scrapbook pages for his first year birthday partyand his first Christmas. I started the birthday layout at my montly scrap club, although Linda the designer won't even recognize it. I'm not sure why, but I had a tough time getting into the groove on this one. It is very busy, but I had a lot of pictures to use, but didn't want to spread them out to 2 layouts.

For this layout, I actually dug out my embossing gun, which hasn't been used for a loooon time. I also got to use my new font sent that is all jumbled up. FUN! Devin would be 3 days old in the pictures below!

School Photos

2009-11-28T14:14:00.000-08:00

Here are this year's school photos. Jasmine is in Grade 1 - taking French Immersion, while Devin is in JK, Junior Kindergarten. In Ontario, they split the kindergarten curriculum over 2 years. So, yes Devin started Kindergarten when he was only 3 - crazy! Jasmine gets her first report card tomorrow and we have an interview with Devin's teacher Tuesday. I am very excited to hear how they are doing. Even though I am a teacher at their school and even though both their teachers are my closest friends on staff, I am still totally excited.

Trick or Treat!

2009-11-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

This Halloween seemed to sneak up on us so fast. I had to make the popcorn balls the day of Halloween and it was a bit of a rush, so kids didn't get to help as much as I would like. Same with pumpkin carving, we seemed busy so it just got stuck in the schedule and done quite quickly unfortunately. I don't think the kids noticed, they still had fun even though everything was quick and short.

Devin loved his dragon costume and his teacher said he wore it all morning, even with the hood up - wow! Today he was roaring around and even letting out dragon farts, where he basically stuck the dragon tail in your face and pretended to toot - he thought that was hilarious! For trick or treating we met up with friends we haven't seen in a long time, Anna and Graham, even though they live right across the street - it was nice for the kids to get to spend some time together again (last year they were at daycare together everyday, so it has been a big change to not see them). We turned off all the lights and trick or treated to our closest neighbours altogether and then Jay took the kids out and I stayed at home. It makes sense since I teach in the neighbourhood, I knew most of the kids who came to the door, so it was fun for me, too! Jay said our kids were pretty nice and polite in general, but that Devin did like being at the front of the line as opposed to the back and of course he did not like houses that played scary music.

It wasn't too long before our good friend Grace showed up and then I believe they hooked up with Avery and Nolan, too (I wasn't there to get pictures of that though :() - so in the end they were one rather large group of cute little trick or treaters! Kids were home and eating candy by 8:00 - I'm glad they napped yesterday!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Scapping fun!

2009-10-25T15:59:00.001-07:00

The "At the Beach" page below was my experiment using blown up pictures from my new printer. I had lots of fun trying to change sizes and get what I want, although I still really don't know how to get what I actually want. It came close enough, but I still have some work to do. This layout was designed by my good friend Pamela Dixon. When my mom came down we each made a layout design and then all 3 of us made a double page spread - a fun night out with the girls.

This is the scrapbook layout I did today at my Stampin' Up! Demo, Linda's house. I always seem to have to change her design, not that I don't love hers, but this week I had printed my pictures 9 to a page, so they did not quite fit the 3 x 3 layout she had in mind, but I made it work - loved the title Linda!

Below is the layout I made for my mom's visit and I was happy to get more camping pictures scrapbooked. I am really enjoying my time scrapping these days and hope to finish Devin's 1 year album really soon! Then I can start the travel album and catch up on the Christmas one and Halloween one... it never ends - I take too many pictures!

Steam Train to Wakefield - another great fall adventure!

2009-10-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

Here we are on the train - our table didn't stay clear for long. Ended up with lunch boxes, coloring books, card games... a sign of a quality trip I guess!

We just happen to have a little engineer outfit from out Thomas the Train Days, so Jasmine was quite happy to wear it all day long! Below is the conductor punching our tickets, just like in the Polar Express.

We had to partake in some hot chocolate as well. After we stopped in Wakefield and visited the bakery, we had even more fresh treats of the way home including chocolate train suckers, nanaimo bars and a fresh loaf of bread for supper - yuumy!

Geocaching - what is it?!

2009-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache’s existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS unit can then try to locate the geocache.

We were introduced to geocaching a few years ago and have done it on numerous occasions with friends and family. It is a great way to get fresh air, exercise, quality time with other cachers and treasure of course! Below is a picture of the first cache we went to while my parents were down, we did 4 in total. Uncle Kevin and Grace joined us on this one. This was an especially cool cache because our babysitter, Andrea, is one of the people who placed this cache in the woods for us to find. It had been visited previously that day even, so a popular spot I guess. Devin took some marbles, fitting as that was the caches title and Jasmine took a purple dragonfly toy. We left a swiper and cookie monster figure for someone else to find when they dig the treasure up. This cache is located about a 8 minute walk from our house and did require a bit of searching in the woods to find it!
The one below is actually a minicache that was stumbled upon by accident. Gramma thought the decoding clue said under a rock, but it actually said under a pine. Grampa was searching under all the rocks and he found a tiny little container actually embedded in the rock. They drilled a hole into the rock and stuffed the container. Not much would fit in there for treasures, but Devin was happy to take a tiny wheel (which would have been from a toy car) and we left a hair elastic for a little girl.

Below Grampa is helping Devin traverse the creek. Once Grampa went over, Devin just had to follow. They needed walking sticks to help them balance across, as there was at least a foot of water deep on each side. He made it no problem!

This is Devin posing with Gramma and Grampa after finally finding this one. For this one you had to solve a riddle first and then add the number to get the new coordinates, but the first time we messed up the math and weren't in the right location. The second time we went was much better. Devin took a toy gun from this one, most of the toys inside were unfortunately moldy, as it had gotten wet. Jasmine was at school still, so she didn't get to partake in these adventures.

Below Grampa is searching through the ammunition box we found at another location. We tried to persuade Devin to take an army man, but instead he took a bracelet! What a kid, at least in was camoflauge. This one was a pain to find. First you had to go to a memorial and record numbers and then add those numbers to the coordinates. We headed in the right direction, but he said it was a short walk... and he lied, it was quite a bit further away AND he said the treasure was under a pine and it was a spruce. Geez!

Here is Devin the Trooper dredging his way through tall weeds and grass to make his way back to the car. He did 3 geocaches in one afternoon and was mighty tired by the end, but had fun with all his toys in between caches. Fun, fun!

Like I said a fun excuse to get outside, get some exercise, solves some puzzles and earn some treasure! At each site you get to sign a log book and say where you are from and when you return home you log onto the website and let people know about your adventure - pretty cool!

Mom and dad actually put their own cache out in Shaunavon - can't wait to go looking for that when we go home next summer! They are in the process of building a second one already. I guess we will have to do one so that we can make them go find ours next time they are here! Now, we just need a theme, a container, a location and ... TREASURE!

Gotta' Love Saunders Farm

2009-10-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

When fall comes there are so many things to choose from. Simple things from raking leaves, going apple picking or heading to Saunders Farm. My mom and dad were in town and had never been, so we thought it was the perfect adventure!

I hadn't been in a few years and it seemed to me that many of the climbing structures were new. Such good quality, unique and just plain fun!

I think this was Princess Pumpkin above and below are a couple of pictures from Twi-Fright. Seriously, I loved this show. If you have read the Twilight series, then it is just too funny! Smella Yawn meets Deadward in the town of Spoons, Ontario - priceless humor. The kids loved all the musical numbers and the costumes were great fun!

Saunder's Farm also has these crazy mazes, must be close to a dozen of them and below is the most awesome pirate ship!

I don't even have pictures of everything... ginormous slide, corn shooting, beaver tails and more. We had a great little adventure with mom and dad and celebrated fall the way it should be done with a cool trip to the farm!

2 more sleeps!

2009-10-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

My mom and dad are coming in 2 more sleeps - can't wait!

Happy Birthday You Old Fart!

2009-09-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

Can I be talking about my husband? Well, he isn't that old - 35 isn't old is it? That's what I turn in a few months, too! Power tools, video games, clothes and gift cards, what more can a guy want? Okay, sex too, but we won't go there! For Jay's birthday we didn't do much, but his brother, Greg did make it over to enjoy some Mario Karting on the Wii and the kids did make him a special Spiderweb cake (that's what they called it - they are so easy to please).

Everything Good about my husband:

His absolute best quality is that he is an amazing dad! Sorry to all you other guys out there, but he is the best! He loves to play: play video games, computer games, board games, do puzzles, play at the park, run around, be a tickle monster... plus he does everything else too, like bath the kids, read them stories in the coolest of voices, watch movies with them, get up with them in the middle of the night, wipe their bums (almost done with this one), cleans up the puke, rubs their growing pains... he does it all and he does it without a second thought! He is a natural and I L-O-V-E him for it! Plus he gets up with them on Saturday morning to watch cartoons and I get to sleep it, you can't beat that!

Next, he is undoubtebly honest! He can not tell a lie and it is an amazing feeling to have this level of trust in someone. He would not, could not hurt a fly (okay that is not true because he has had to kill the mice in our attic when the trap caugh them only by the leg, but lets just say he did it for me!)

He is extremely smart and it makes teaching math that much easier, any problem I have trouble with he can help me solve it! Any money issues, he can figure it out. Any statistics need rolling up on dice and analyzed to the 100th degree, he is all over it! He is extremely dedicated to his work and integrity of his product is highly important. He doesn't like to disappoint anyone!

He is in good shape, not like he has a 6 pack or anything, but he can run 10 km without even training for it - sick! He can do 50 "real" push ups (he says 40, but I know if he had to he could do 50), oh and did I mention... he has his second degree black belt in karate, yeah!

He loves me! He loves me! He loves me!

Okay, so now for the bad things: I could go on to say nothing, but then I would be lying, sorry Jay!

Jay is not a putterer, he works so hard at work and spend so much time with the kids, then I get the rest of his time... so the house is often falling apart! We anxiously wait for our dads to come and help fix the place back up. (My dad is coming in 2 weeks, yahoo! Maybe the hole in my basement roof will get fixed?) Cars only get cleaned or maintained when relatives come to visit or they need a drive clean test (which is overdue). AND I mow the lawn!

What else? Hmmm... I can't think of anything, can you?

So, I will stop there and wish my other half a belated birthday! I know it wasn't too exciting and we owe you a night of Pizza Hut, but hopefully you know how much we love you! Happy Birthday, Jay!

Scrapbooking, finally!

2009-09-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm not the best at taking pictures of my layouts, but to help you figure it out, I show you the two 12 x 12 layouts first and then try to take a picture of the two of them side by side.

Whenever I do find time to get to the basement to scrapbook, I usually spend my time tidying up the junk I have thrown on top of my table or I mount stamps. The only time I manage to get any real scrapbooking done is when I go away to do it. Last weekend I went to a Breast Cancer Crop (Saving Second Base is what they called it, such a cute name) from 9-5 and completed the above layouts. I took the coordinators advice and did some of my journalling and prep work at home and not only did it make for faster scrapbooking, but the journalling is also much better - it tells more of a story and is not rushed - I like it! I think I am going to do that all the time! I started the "Winter" layout and have the title ready for the other half, which is the opposite "Summer", but I haven't completed it yet.

The below layout was done today at my Scrapbook Club with my dear friend Linda! Love the layout Linda - to see her sample, which was geared for a road trip - look here! All this scrapbooking is helping me to get caught up on Devin's 1st year album. Once that is done I can catch up on my Christmas Album, Halloween Album, Travel Album and then why not, even my regular everyday album. Oh, boy, lots left to do, but if feels good to start getting some of it tackled!

Schools out for summer... oops wrong song!

2009-09-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

Devin started school this year - wow! Cliche, but he's my baby and he's all growed up! It's crazy! I still think of him as 3, even though he will be 4 in December! He likes his teacher though and mentions lots of kids from his class. Tonight I drew "railroad tracks" for his name and he traced over all of them without a fight and held his pencil properly- alleluia!

Back to work for mom as well. I'm always excited to go back to school, but I miss the freedom and easy going schedule of summer. Routine is great, but it does make me more tired being this busy. I have a good group of kids this year - lots of fun and nice! Can't beat it!

Jasmine started full days this year! Grade 1 baby! She is one tired duck let me tell you! Last night I think she cried for about an hour all told - everything upsets her or is not good enough. Once she gets used to the long day and no nap, she will be great! We knew this day would come, but that doesn't necessarily make it fun adjusting! She loves school and her writing is taking off, so cool to see! She loves her teacher, too, so all is good!

Poor daddy, he doesn't get to go to school :(

Salad of the Week

2009-08-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

This was inspired by the pizza we had last week and my friend Heather, who I created the pizza for. I added the leftover pesto (Bombay style), sundried tomatoes (in oil), black olives, toasted pine nuts and light feta cheese. I would have added the artichoke hearts from the pizza as well, but they were all used. The pizza used the exact same ingredients and used the pesto as the sauce. Both the salad and pizza were super tasty! Highly recommended, not sure how much had to do with the type of pesto, as I have never used pesto before and I think this one had some nice spice to it!

Soccer season!

2009-08-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

This year we registered Devin in U4 (under 4) soccer and Jasmine in U6. Jay acted as the convenor of U4 for all of Kanata and had to find and organize coaches for 8 teams, with over 200 kids in total. For all his hard work, they gave him the white polo he is wearing below. He didn't mind this job, except that Kanata soccer is extremely unorganized and relies heavily on email chains. By the time it actually filtered down to the parents, often the information was too late. We did find this terribly frustrating, but overall it was a good experience and chances are he will do it again next year for the U5's.

I was one of the coaches for Jasmine's U6 team. In the end there were 5 of us running the team of 30 kids, but 3 of us that had the main responsibilies. I was in charge of the snack roster, giving out team photos and am still handing out the medals to those who couldn't make it to the last day. We were given a curriculum and each week I had a station to run. 3 groups of kids would take turns at my station over the course of 30 minutes, then we would end with a scrimmage and snack.

U4 is played with a grown up on the field with you all the time. There is a hired coach at this level and they run the little & big person through a series of drills and games. Devin wasn't much for some of the basic drills, like toe taps and "boring" things, but he did have his favorite games. One of which was constructors and destroyers, destroyers knocked pylons down while the constructors had to run around and pick them back up. Devin's practice overlapped with Jasmine's, so honestly I only ever saw about 10 minutes of it and then Jasmine and I were off to her field which was just across from Devin's. Below you will see Devin doing some of the drills with his "big person", daddy. In one he is trying to grab the ball out of daddy's hands from above and then playing tug-o-war with the ball.

Jasmine was #16, her favorite number is 6 right now so she really wanted a 6 in her number. Below you can see her in action during the last day scrimmage. This was a fun day, so parents and siblings are on the field, too! I didn't get any pictures of the water guns or water balloons, as I was pretty much under attack the whole time, but it was a fun last day!

Above Jasmine received her medal from Coach Paul and I happily took pictures. Below you will see a swarm for the final snack which were Tim-bits from our sponsor. The last 2 photos are the kids holding up their medals. Both very excited to have one and happy to have soccer season done - they were both ready for a break!

Beating the heat - day 2!

2009-08-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, technically it is more like day 5 of intense heat, but we spent the first 3 days primarily hiding out in the air conditioning, not too exciting! Today we made our first visit to Constance Bay Beach, about a half hour drive out of town. We met up with some old friends; I first met Lianne (who actually spells her name just like my mom - wow!) and her two daughters: Lauren and Leah, when Jasmine was just a baby. We met at the Abbeyhill weigh in clinic. A number of mommies formed a "mommy group" and we met once a week with our babies to chat all things baby. Lianne was our role model as she was the only one who had already had a child, the rest of the group were all first timers. Lauren and Leah attend the same school as us and Leah and Jasmine are in the same grade, even though they have never been in the same class.

I know my kids love the beach from past years, but what I wasn't sure is how wet they would get. Jasmine has been a little fish at the pool, but I wasn't sure she would like having her face in the water at the beach - it didn't seem to be a problem. She borrowed some of her friend's goggles and went to town. I did not expect Devin to really get more than his feet wet, maybe his bum if he sat in the water, but you can see in the photos that he went out quite far and with hardly any encouragement - I was impressed! By the end he was in the shallow end floating around on his tummy. He loved digging large rocks out of the water and throwing them, while Jasmine made a collection of mussel shells.

As for the beach itself, it was nice shallow water which I loved - they could go out far and you didn't have to be too worried. The water was also warm, which made it nice to swim in for quite a length of time, it was however quite rocky. The sand on the beach was so hot, like burn your feet off HOT and it too was not very soft. The view would be really beautiful, except today it was a little too smoggy to see the hills and trees on the other side. The port-a-potties were nasty, definately needed emptying! Jasmine refused to go in there and of course Devin had to go poo and there was no toilet paper (I got desperate and used a receipt from the car, but he doesn't know that). All that said, we had a really nice picnic lunch with friends and the kids want to go back to the beach when daddy doesn't have to work.

Hot fun in the summer sun!

2009-08-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Today was a HOT one, still is - 39 degrees with the humidity right now - PHEW! Ottawa has put out a heat advisory for the last few days up until Tuesday. Hot and smoggy! So far we have beat the heat mostly by hiding in our basement, but we'd had enough of that over the last few days, so today we tried something new with the help of Jay's gaming buddy Diggin' Dale Matthie.

Grampa Shadbolt, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think Devin has ever been in a motor boat of any sort? I know Jasmine had been in our family boat, The Baby Beezer for a quick ride, but I think Devin is limited to ferry rides, paddle boat and maybe canoe/kayak. Devin has never been real comfortable on the water and today wasn't much of a change, but he did go for a ride. He gripped his daddy's hands through the whole ride and did not like to go fast and thought it was noisy, but we can say he went for his first real motor boat ride. Yeah, Devin! (The boat could only have 1 adult at a time besides the driver, so I wasn't in the boat to witness this or take a picture - shucks!) When it was my turn for a ride, Jay stayed on shore with Devin and Jasmine wanted to see that boat go a little faster. She had to hold onto her hat, until we decided we should just let the wind blow through our hair. (or more like blow in our eyes, ha!) Then Jasmine decided she was ready for her first try at the tube!

You can tell the day was a good one because both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home, a rarity these days! In fact, Devin is supposed to be at soccer in 5 minutes, but between the fun and the early morning from his sleepover with his "girlfriend" Rilla, he is tuckered right out. Plus, did I mention it is 39 degrees - not my favorite weather conditions for running around and playing soccer for an hour. Jasmine and I are supposed to be on the field in half an hour, not sure she will make it either, as Rilla's sister Bronwyn was in Jasmine's room last night and they were up around 6:00 a.m., but I'll have to go regardless as I am one of the coaches.

Dale, thanks for taking time out of your busy pickling schedule to take us out on the water. Even though Jay and I are not water babies like my dad and his family, I would sure like to give my kids the opportunity to be out on the water. Jasmine is quickly becoming a little fish in her swimming lessons, so you never know maybe it just skips a generation? Thanks again for a great afternoon!

Salad of the Week

2009-08-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

We have still been eating salads and pretty much one or more a week, but not all seem worthy of blogging. This week I made a large couscous salad, still have some in the fridge - edible, but not worth sharing. Devin ate seconds of it the first night, but none after that. It was a little too plain for my liking. I did however make myself a salad for lunch this week, which I almost never do, but hope to do more regularly come the school year. I even bought myself a nice salad lunch bowl with compartments for dry items like nuts or croutons and it has a center section for dressing as well. I have great hope for this bowl... anyhow, the above salad was simple, but nice. Leftover grilled salmon with pineapple, mushrooms and fresh garden tomatoes on a bed of lettuce with toasted walnuts! Yummy!

Fun with the cousins!

2009-08-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

Here they are, 4 of 6 Shadbolt cousins: Allison, Jasmine, Devin and Tyson (Missing Samantha and Hayden). For not seeing each other very often, like once a year if that, these kids get along great! Jasmine and Allison drew pictures, wrote fairy letters, read stories, played Polly Pockets and generally had a fun girly time. Tyson was so good with Devin, a much larger age gap, but they played airplanes, read stories, played with superheroes and made up superhero stories, too! I can't get over how much Tyson and Devin look a like, both have that short buzz cut but also the long rectangular shaped heads, same pale, white skin and big, beautiful, blue eyes.

Allison and Jasmine were practically attached at the hip. Always wanting to hold hands everywhere we went, which made walking down the streets and busy tourist attractions sometimes difficult. It also made it easy to spot them in a crowd, because you only had to find one of them. Jasmine picked up a lot of "coolisms" from her older cousin and came home talking like more of a big girl. I won't be surprised when these two figure out they can phone each other and chat - they will be on the telephone every week.

When we got home Jasmine was sad because she realized she didn't get to spend as much time as she would like with Tyson. Sure they did lots of things altogether, but they didn't really have any alone time and I think the next holiday we spend with the Bennett family, she will want to be sure she gets in on some of the superhero action, too!

These two boys, both December babies, will have a lot in common as they grow up. Beyond their looks even their personalities are similar. Both showed great bravery on this trip, trying out many new rides they may usually not have been up for and both generally get along with their sisters, although neither would likely ever admit it! Both really nice boys in my opinion!

My kids had such great fun on this trip and not because it was Chicago and not because we did so many cool attractions, but because they got to hang out with their older cousins, who they adore! Jasmine's favorite part, ranked #1 and the first thing out of her mouth everytime we ask is playing with Tyson and Allison. When we ask her to pick something specific, then she says the waterslides.

As for Jay and I, we love these kids! Sure because we have to, I mean they are our neice and nephew afterall, BUT... these are really good kids! No temper tantrums, no grumping, no backtalk, no "I'm too cool to hang out with a 3 year old", just good listening, good behaving and nice personalities. Fun to talk to, fun to play with, just all around good, well rounded kids - you did a good job Les and Trevor! Our only wish... that we could see them more often! Love you Tyson and Allison - keep being the great kids you are and don't forget when you turn 12, we will fly you out to Ottawa for a visit (if your mom let's us).

Are we watching them or are they watching us?

2009-08-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

Day #6 - Chicago! Our day started with a ride on the subway. As exciting as it was for the kids, I am glad I don't have to take that everyday - another ride that made me motion sick. (I don't actually get sick, just feel queazy.)

Here we are waiting for the sea lion show to begin at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo is open everyday and IT'S FREE! At this point the kids had already taken a miniature train ride and crushed some pennies for the new penny passport.

Now you will see the onslaught of pictures I took of all the animals. I won't put them all up, but figured you might as well get an idea of what was at the zoo and what the kids had a chance to see. Below is part of the sea lion show, not really a show, but they showed us how they feed them and check them everyday. The lions were fairly active this day and we saw them on the move and the male was roaring even. The gorillas were quite the sight to see and it left us all feeling... a little sad actually. They had such depth to their eyes and you couldn't help wondering what they were thinking. One was curled up in an almost fetal position in the corner, maybe just taking a break, but he was right by the window and just staring out into our eyes. The silverback sat with such authority, but also an empty stare. It made you wonder if they enjoyed the zoo at all, if they were sad and helpless or if that is just how they express themselves in nature as well. The jaguar paced back and forth with a fury, like he was trying to plan his escape and was waiting for the right moment to get out! Again, it gave you this feeling that the animals weren't too happy to be at the zoo.

After the zoo, we headed home again for a break and my sister and her family took the bus to the Field Museum - they were like the engergizer rabbit and could just keep going forever. Leslie and I made plans to meet back at 5:00 to go the Oprah store - it was our last night and this couldn't be missed! We took a taxi, on our own in the big city, even that felt exhilerating (strange, I know). I expected a huge building, big signs and loads of people, but it was the opposite. The cab actually passed the building and we didn't even realize it, the studio itself had little signage and was a plain, brick builiding - seriously, I didn't even take a picture of it! The store had only this one spot with a sign, really not at all fantastic, understated and simple. We entered the store thinking there might have even been a line up to get in, but the store was empty, we pretty much had it to ourselves. In saying this, I have to acknowledge we were smart and called ahead to find out their hours. On this night they extended their hours due to another store opening nearby. I don't think most people knew this and we weren't there when a taping was going on. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside, well except in one spot. The chair below used to be on the actual Oprah stage and yes the large green bag is all that I bought while I was there. I couldn't help but feel inspired: Angel network shirts, Girls School of Leadership sweaters, workout clothing (how can I not be inspired to work out wearing an Oprah shirt, like come on!) The link above has Oprah take you on an actual tour of the store and I had taken the virtual tour before I went, so I knew to save some money for the big shopping day. Leslie treated herself to a cashmere sweater for work, while I blew a wad on exercise clothes and shirts with inspirational sayings to wear to school. It really was so much fun!

Phew! A down day!

2009-08-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

My sister and her family were heading to a White Sox game on Thursday afternoon. They had planned to head out fairly early to have time to see the area and stadium before the game, so we all had a slow start to the day which was nice. Around 10:00 we all headed out for our seperate adventures. They went to the game and we went for an adventure walk, as we call them. We started right across the street from our condo with the statues of legs. There wasn't much of description near by, so I did a simple search online "Chicago legs statues", sure enough many people asked the same question and here is what I came up with "Agora consists of 106 headless cast iron figures, posed as if walking in multiple directions or standing still, frozen in time." If you look back at the previous blogs, you can see these statues from our window. I think Devin ran through almost every pair of legs.

We continued to walk through Grant Park and we encountered many statues, flower beds, water fountains and I couldn't get over how many monarch butterflies - wish we had our nets and insectarium that day!

This larger fountain is Buckingham fountain and unfortunately was blocked off, so you can't dip your feet in our anything. I guess if it wasn't they would have tourists in there all the time. On this stretch Jasmine had found a piece of wood that she wanted to take home and color, so lucky Jay got to add that to the backpack and carry it home (later to remember we couldn't take wood over the border anyhow) From the back side it had a nice view of the city line.

Now we have arrived at Millenium Park. The first two below are pictures of Jay Pritzker Pavilion, one of the best outdoor music venues in the world. Each of those arches is suspending a speaker system - it was a pretty cool site! It appeared that many locals were here eating their lunches and taking a break from work laying in the sun.

The next few shots are all of Cloud Gate - "The Bean". This was a huge interactive sculpture, inpsired by liquid mercury. You can not see a seem on it, only a reflection. It is concave, so you can walk through it or under the center of it. The last picture is taken looking up into the center of it from underneath!

After this exhibit, we went to the little Children's Activity room and listened to a kids' choir, played with skipping ropes and hoola hoops, made a craft out of recycled materials and then did some building with blocks. A nice break from the warm day. We headed out to some shade and had our picnic lunch. Devin enjoyed shooing the pigeons away from our food by giving them his crusts. Then off to explore the rest of the park and the other fountains and eat some ice cream.

Below is one of the two displays that make up the Crown Fountain at the end of Millenium Park. Different visuals rotate through, including faces of people from Chicago. Some of the time water cascades down the entire structure, while other times, it spits water out the mouth. Lots of people were cooling off here - it was just like a large splash park. Chatted with a nice local man who had brought his kids for the first time this year.

So, we called it a down day, but we still saw lots and walked at least 3 miles. The nice thing was we had all day to do just the park, so we weren't in a hurry and took lots of time to enjoy the fresh air and all the scenery! Again tonight we hit the pool to unwind and I snaps of the two boys and two girls heading to bed. The boys slept on an air mattress that was in the walk in closet and the girls had their own bedroom. Tonight was the night the boys told the superhero story about "Gas-i-nator, who stinks out the villains to conquer evil" - I never seen them laugh so much and Devin is still talking about Gas-i-nator every day and having a good chuckle. The girls wrote fairies a letter every night we were there and asked them to leave bags of fairy dust or invited them to tea parties. Lucky for them Chicago had some water fairies nearby, but the fairies in Chicago don't seem to have an ample supply of fairy dust. I guess it's too windy there ;)

Six Flags - Great America - It's Playtime!

2009-08-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Check it out - day #4 started out with a limo ride! You may ask where the fancy occasion was, but we were headed to Six Flags - Great America! Not real fancy, but as they tell you over and over, it is the cleanest theme park you will go to. Six Flags was over an hour drive from our condo, so we decided to save on cab fare by hiring a larger vehicle and sharing. The kids watched the entire Space Chimps movie on the way there, so I guess the ride was closer to an hour and a half. The limo was nice because then no one had to drive and the driver took us along the lake, so the view for the first little while was pretty! Being that 3 of us get motion sick quite easily, we did find that staring out the side of the window was not necessarily a smart move however! No one got sick, but it took us awhile to get rid of the groggies.

We had planned to start the day with the rides and cool ourselves off at the end with the water park, but as we arrived there were signs posted that notified us that Hurricane Harbor would reach capacity, so we decided to head there first. We were glad we made that decision as we L-O-V-E-D it! It was our favorite part of the whole trip. Devin had great fun on this little yellow slide, he must of went on it over 20 times, no lie! He played around in the splash park as well, but that was about his limit.

Below is a picture of Skull Island, the water structure for kids. I know, crazy isn't it? Jasmine couldn't get enough and did both the green and turquoise slides numerous times. The craziest part was these big buckets filled with water and eventually tipped over and dumped out all over whoever happened to be below. It was a lot of cold water that would surprise you every now and again, Devin did NOT like that part, but we learned where to walk to avoid getting hit. Auntie Leslie and Ali got hit once and I'm not sure they loved that suprise, auntie got totally drenched! (We aren't actually in the below picture, I took it once I was dry)

Below is Castaway Creek, which Devin and I did together. I have to say that was my favorite part, he just snuggled on top of me and we floated down the river. Such a nice way to end a fun morning! He didn't like it much when I tried to get us out of the tube though and dumped us completely underwater - had to save the poor kid from drowning, but he recovered nicely! (Again, we aren't in the picture, but it gives you the idea)

Jay did a great job of seeking out lunch this day, Six Flags does not allow you to bring in your own food so you don't have many options... oh, shucks, we just had to have a whole bucket of fries and chicken fingers. We were all sooooo hungry, it went down soooooo good and was the perfect end to our waterpark morning. Next up, the actual park, wow, we might be here all night! We started at Wiggle World, seemed perfect for our kids.

Devin did the Big Red Car ride with me and Jasmine went off to do the Big Red Plane ride with daddy. Both loved their rides, the lines were short and I didn't get motion sick, so it made it even nicer!

Next up was Camp Cartoon with Hanna Barbera cartoons, including Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo. I knew Jasmine was brave and it didn't surprise me that she was willing to do all the rides we let her and of course she would have done more, but I was slightly nervous she might end up with a tummy ache so we opted out of the bigger rides. It made it easier to do things with Devin, too so it wasn't so bad, but back to my point... Devin is, well, he's kind of a woosy sometimes, so I was totally impressed with all the rides he did, especially the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine - I wouldn't even do that - just can't do things that go round that fast!

Onto Bugs Bunny National Park, this one looked very good, but many of the attractions were under construction. It made for very short lines on the 2 rides that were open, so that was great. Here we met up with the Bennett Gang again and then we all went for the train ride around the park.

Before we left we hit the souvenir shop and tried on hats - loved the tweety ones, but not enough to buy them. Six Flags has The Justice League as some of their characters, so we each purchased a superhero shirt or pj's as we all LOVE the Justice League (with Jay as their dad, they have no choice) The double decker carousel was right by the door and Trevor had also suggested the Sky Trek ride. The Sky Trek was a great view, wish we had done that first so we could have seen where everything was before we got started, oh, well!

The above two shots are thy Sky Trek. Looks so high and scary, but it was a very slow ride and super view - glad we did that one! The below two shots are just some of the view you got of the park from up above. Six Flags has A LOT of roller coasters - it was insane! We had done all we wanted to and it was already close to 7:00. We hadn't even eat supper, but between the bucket o' chicken and other amusement park treats, we were pretty full! We called our cab to head home. Leslie and her gang stuck it out until 9:30 or so and saw part of the finale show, but got a little nervous about the potential traffic jam and headed back to the condo then!

At the end of a very long day, this was our last picture! Pretty sweet!

A Whale of a Time!

2009-08-11T15:08:00.000-07:00

On our 3rd day in Chicago my sister said to me, "4 sliding penguins, 3 Beluga Whales, 2 Deep Sea Divers and an octopus with 8 legs" Well, those numbers may not totally add up, but you get the idea. This was our adventure to Shedd Aquarium. I have to admit that I honestly didn't see the millions of signs that said NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY, until we went into the Wild Reef Exhibit. So after that my pictures were too dark and pretty much useless.

Here is proof that Uncle Trevor did bond with Devin throughout the trip. Devin tends to be our shy guy and takes awhile to warm up to people, especially big men he doesn't see as often. Devin did come around and gave Uncle Trevor a few high fives and I won't even mention the temper tantrum on the last night and attempt at, yes... biting him - ugh! Sorry Uncle Trev!

Here is Jasmine being lifted to touch a starfish. They had a small interactive session, most of the exhibits here were fake, but the starfish were real. Devin didn't like this idea and opted not to participate.

Here is a snap from the Beluga whale feeding. They did a few minor tricks, but they didn't really have a show. We caught a few "chats" where you could see the animals up close and the guide answered your questions. I'm not sure I had seen Beluga whales before and they were beautiful!

The aquarium had two 4D shows, so we caught the Sponge Bob viewing with the kids. It was AWESOME! Sponge Bob was making a hamburger and then racing through the ocean to catch a pickle. The 3D portion was amazing, for those of us who could see it, Jay and Trevor had more difficulty with that part, but it was still cool they said. The seats vibrated, that little red button on the seats poked you in the back, you were sprayed with water, bubbles fell from the ceiling and it even smelled like pickles - pretty neat! Devin was a little frightened during the preview and didn't really love the water being sprayed at him. Ali got poked pretty hard in the back and that didn't feel very good, but we all agreed in the end that the show was COOL!

Here are two different pictures of penguins. The real cute ones and then the REAL cute ones. They had penguin costumes and an interactive climbing and slide section. The kids were ready for this by the time we got there and had a great time going up and down the slide and even Devin had his little Penguin waddle down - too, cute! The one time you were allowed to go down face first on a slide.

Here is the picture we purchased from the aquarium. We posed for a few different shots over the holiday, but this was the only one where all 8 of us were in the picture and it was decent. (Sorry, it is so small I scanned it, I'm probably not supposed to do that, but heck I paid $10 bucks for it!)

After a full day at the aquarium we once again headed home for a nap, while the Bennett gang visited the Adler Planetarium and then for a walk to the beach nearby. We thought the planeterium seemed too advanced for our kids and it seems we were right, in the end it may have even been to old for Tyson and Allison, but Trevor said the displays were all well done. When they arrived back and we woke up from nap, we all headed for a swim, while Uncle Trevor struggled to cook up the pork chops and potatoes in the WINDY city - it kept blowing the BBQ out! We used the pool and hot tub a lot and it was a nice way to unwind from all the walking and busyness of the day. Another great day in Chicago!

Chicago - The rainy day!

2009-08-10T10:43:00.001-07:00

(Before I start, I forgot to mention that we did actually go on the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier - Leslie and Tyson opted to stay on the ground, but Devin went for his first big ride and liked it! I however was holding on for dear life and breathing calmly - it was very high - thank God it moved very s-l-o-w-l-y)

Day #2 - The plan was to take public transit to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We first walked to the grocery store to get transit passes and as we left to cross the street, it started to pour. We took shelter under a nearby ledge. While we were waiting for the rain to pass a police officer passed us on a segway. When the kids (or maybe it was me) said, "look at that, isn't it cool!", he turned around and gave them all Deputy Sheriff badges - that was pretty cool! I didn't think to take a picture of the police officer, but those segways were quite popular, in fact you could take a segway tour of the downtown area and we saw many of them pass by Grant Park just out our window.

After much debating, we decided the rain didn't look like it was going to let up, so we walked a few blocks and took a bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. This was not on the top of our list, but it did make the "if we have time list" and since it was raining, it got promoted to the top. This museum was big and took a long time to go through and we didn't see it all. It reminded me of, well a... museum. You looked at stuff, you read about stuff (or in my case, didn't read about stuff) and chased the kids, hurried up the husbands and so on. It doesn't mean it wasn't a good museum, but for the age of our kids it wasn't quite interactive enough for kids that couldn't read. I think Tyson and Allison enjoyed the museum more than we did and I know Uncle Trevor liked it a lot. In the end we left earlier than they did and went back to the condo to have a nap and get supper started.

We did start a new hobby here though and that is Penny Pressing. I'm sure you've all seen them, the penny crushing machines, well we bought a passport to collect them in and crushed 5 pennies on our trip to Chicago. They have all these cool designs, so we have 2 different museum ones, 2 different zoo ones and a general Chicago one! I guess Uncle Trevor has done this for a long time and they have a collection as well. Seemed like a fun (and cheap) way to track your adventures. At the gift shop Jasmine filled a bag of tumbled rocks to keep (she loves rocks for some reason), we also bought a worm that does magic tricks and a science experiment to do when we got home. Below are a few pictures we took from the museum and a caption to explain.

This is a picture of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. She was a silent film star with an affinity for dollhouses and minatures. She designed this elaborate and intricate doll house. Each side of the doll house had a series of phones and you could listen to the explanation of each room and the significat pieces. Jasmine said this was her favorite part of the museum, even though the entire house was behind glass.

These shots were from a large exhibit focusing on the U-505 German Submarine that was captured by the American's. These dark pictures are of the actual submarine. You had to purchase seperate tickets for tours of the inside, but the outside and other exhibits were impressive. The kids laid in one of the cots and looked through periscopes. Jasmine is saluting in the above picture, I wonder how she knew that would be appropriate? Surprisingly, she watched 2 short films on the war in the museum without anyone encouraging her to. Who knew?

They had a small Lego exhibit as well, so we just had to take this picture for Uncle Kevin, who not only belongs to a Lego club, but also sells Lego online. We ordered a whole bunch of basic pieces from him, windows, doors, people and large bricks to make houses, etc. Check out his link!

The best part of this museum for me was the Harry Potter exhibit. Of course, you couldn't take any pictures inside this one and you had to pay through the nose to get into it, but for me, it was worth it! Being a Grade 6 English teacher, (yes, I know, I write using many run-on sentences, often have apostrophes where they don't belong and always use the wrong "their or there" in my blog, but I do teach Grade 6 English) this was a fun exhibit for me. Years ago this book was so popular that you couldn't teach it because so many of the students had already read it, but I think I will poll my class this year and see how many of them have read it? Our school has a class set of the first book and I bought enough Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans for each kid in my class to try one - they do have some good flavors, but they also include: Gravy, Pepper, Fish, Pizza and Onion flavors - yech! I couldn't bring myself to eat one; the whole bag just stinks! Maybe I will send home a note of permission first to release myself of responsibility in case anyone throws up - would likely happen, but would be fun nonetheless. I also sent my class a Harry Potter postcard (I had this same class last year) and bought a Dumbledore's Army T-shirt for myself! The exhibit itself had costumes (yes, all costumes and props were actually from the movies) from almost every student and teacher at Hogwarts, including a Deatheater. They had The Great Hall set up with floating candles and food of all sorts, Hagrid's Hut, including his wardrobe and cooking pots, they had hoops just like in Quidditch that you could try and score on (I scored 30 points- yeah) and just everything you could think about from each book! Knowing that the exhibit was going to be there, I re-read the first book and borrowed the rest of the series to keep re-reading! For me that was the highlight, but I don't think Tyson and Allison had quite the same appreciation being they had seen the movies a long time ago and hadn't read the books.

Tyson and Allison, feel free to post a comment on my blog and tell me your thoughts! We are missing you guys already - Love Auntie!

I'm back and Chicago Rocked!

2009-08-09T15:09:00.001-07:00

Where do I start? I guess a play by play of each day may be in order and it might take me a week or so to do it all justice.

We left last Saturday for our holiday in Chicago. Why Chicago? Well, quite simply we didn't want to go back to Saskatchewan for our holiday this year, but we owed my sister Leslie and her family some quality time so we let them choose a spot and agreed to meet them there. They chose Chicago because it was part way between the provinces and they could take the train across the country to get there, plus Chicago had lots to offer for a family holiday.

Our first mistake was taking the cab drivers flat rate without being assertive. We paid $60 and it should have cost us closer to $40 - we learned! We arrived at the Hyatt Hotel and didn't expect my sister to arrive for a few hours so went for a walking adventure. We walked to Soldier Field (Chicago Bears Football) over a bridge. Underneath the bridges are all the tracks for the train system. Devin was mesmerized by this and could have spent hours just watching the trains. When you ask Devin what his favorite part of the trip was, he says "going on the airplane and seeing the trains, going in the big car (limo) and the bus." Not hard to please that kid!

I took lots of pictures of bridges with labels just like the one above. Central Station, Grant Park, Lakefront... it was just such a neat walking area! This picture of Devin is him watching the trains.

We returned from our walk (over an hour and a half) to find my sister, Leslie and her family had already been there for over an hour - boo, hoo :( We went out for sandwiches and pizza and learned our second lesson - we didn't need to order so much food. My friends had all warned me that sizes were big, but with no fridge at the hotel we wasted over a whole pizza - again, we learned!

Everyone was tuckered from a day of travel, so we headed to our rooms to bath the kids and headed for a good night's sleep (sounded like the train was not ideal for that). We woke up the next day and headed to Navy Pier!

Navy Pier is the biggest tourist attraction of Chicago. The Pier is just that... a big dock out into the water of Lake Michigan. You could take every kind of boat tour from there, tall ship, sea dogs or a dining cruise ship, but we had our heart set on the Wacky Pirate cruise, which did not run from Navy Pier. (It only ran on Friday and when Friday came around, it was unfortunately sold out! Our pirate costumes went to waste - shucks! It was a sign, because it ended up raining that morning anyways!) We started with a basic tour of the Pier, the girls, Jasmine and her cousin Allison did the Fun Maze, which was dark, had strobe lights, loud music and a mild elevator drop. They did this with the help of Uncle Jay and although Jasmine was scared she did like it and later wanted to do it again. Then we chose what delicious Chicago treat we wanted and Tyson had a churro, while the rest of us shared funnel cakes with ice cream. The kids did the carousel next and then it was off to the Children's Museum, which is right on Navy Pier.

This was a great museum for the kids and my kids truly could have spent all day there, which I never imagined was possible at a museum. Lots of apartasus's for climbing, materials for building, dinosaur digging, airplane flying.... just a great kid's activity! We ended by splashing through the fountain and taking a bus to the condo and checking in!

Leslie said, she wished we had a video camera going when we arrived at the condo, because our expressions would have been priceless. The view was really breathtaking! Here are 3 shots from our front windows! This is the very end of Grant park and you can see statues of large metal legs in that first section. In the second one you can see Navy Pier through my zoom lens and the last one is the pool on the 7th floor!

Time to put the kids to bed, so tune in tomorrow for day #2 - The Museum of Science and Industry!

Theme Week - Last Day - School Day

2009-07-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

Today we are practicing for school! Devin will be going into Junior Kindergarten (JK) and he will need to be able to do a few things he doesn't right now. For starters, he needs to work on putting on his own shoes and doing up his jacket. He doesn't have to be able to do these things, the JK classes have student helpers who do come and help the teachers get the kids dressed and ready, but it would be ideal if he could put his runners on by himself. He can do most of it, but usually can't get his heel in; he can however put his sandals on by himself, even with the back strap. He can put his own coat on, but can not do up the zipper. Next he needs to be able to wipe himself after going #2! Jasmine's stools were... well formed we will say, while Devin's not so much, so this process is much harder for him to learn and much more important (you know they are gooeyer)... anyhow enough about poop! He can actually wipe himself now, except he doesn't seem to be able to fold up his toilet paper and he just prefers us to do it, so now we take turns and it seems to be working! Another thing is his pencil work or lack there of. He has no interest in writing, drawing or coloring. Well, he has started a bit more scribbling in coloring books the last few weeks, but his attention span is short! He can recite his alphabet and count into the teens and he can recognize likely over half the alphabet, but he does not do any printing. He can do a circle and a line and we have really been working on the "D" for Devin, but it's not great and it's huge! From nursery school we know that Devin loves circle time and loves playing and exploring. He is a very hands on kind of kid with great gross motor skills, jumps from very high, climbs up the stairs carrying heavy objects and rides a scooter like a crazy! He also needs to work on his conflict resolution - still, ongoing!

Jasmine on the other hand has to be able to go to school for a full day and she has to be able to feed herself 2 lunches due to our balanced day. I will also need practice in packing her lunch. It is suggested that I pack and label 2 seperate lunches or a breakfast and a lunch. They eat once at 10:25 and then again at 12:50.

Okay, so on to our day. Our day started outside with our backpacks on and we took a pretend walk to school. Put all our bags against the wall of the school and played outside until school started. The bell (a triangle instrument we have) rang and the kids came running in, had to change into their indoor shoes, hang up their bags and grab their show and tell and meet at the circle!

During circle we had calendar time where we counted up to today, talked about the names of the months that we knew and then Jasmine sang them to us "en francais". We discussed what summer was and the sort of activities you do in summer. The girls did great, Devin however thinks you go to the store in summer and have a fight - he needs some work I guess! As part of circle we had music time and each of them chose a song for us all to sing and then we tried doing a round with 3 songs that are all the same rhythm.

After music time was over we did some table work. I made them each a little stapled booklet last night, it had a maze, a number page, a letter page, a page with directions (like draw a line between the matches or circle how many) and then a coloring page. We worked our way through the first half of the book, but with Devin it was tricky! He did better than I expected though.

We were ahead of schedule and they were ready for a break, so they had free play in the basement until nutrition break #1. Jasmine had to know which snacks to eat and Grace and Devin got to practice opening containers and putting away their garbage. Then it was time for recess, where we played in the back yard. The kids had fun with our new patio swing - Thanks Cynthia!
After recess it was art and the kids got to make whatever they wanted with all our craft supplies. Devin glued many buttons and googley eyes onto paper, Grace glued sparkly flowers and feathers and Jasmine cut foam and stapled pieces together to make a train (all her idea - I was impressed).
Then it was time for gym and we headed outside to practice sports of all sorts. We started with throwing a beach ball and catching, then moved onto teeball, throwing a football into a pool of water, soccer passing/shooting on net/goalie, basketball, frisbee and duck, duck, goose. PHEW! I would say the collective favorite was teeball, although quite a few baskets were scored! And of course they LOVE duck, duck, goose! We came back in for nutrition break #2, with a hot meal program (Ichiban noodles) being served in addition to their snacks. We leave on holidays tomorrow, so my fridge is pretty much empty, making 3 snacks for 2 meals was a challenge! We had indoor recess next down in the basement for free play and then story time followed with nap time. (We will be travelling tomorrow, so I figured we needed to fit that nap in.)After nap the kids had time to work on math. My good friend Cynthia used to teach kindergarten and had boxes of counting supplies. When she moved she was going to throw them away, along with the patio swing above, so we took them off her hands. Kids did patterning with screws, bolts and washers, adding with little rubber chickens, color sorting with many different shades of buttons and on and on.

Devin says he wants to go to real school and being friends with his teacher, I know it will be a whole lot more fun than today's book work and twinkle, twinkle little star! I will caution you though Lisa, he did bite Jasmine today in their outside conflict - 1st one in a long time, but I will say I was preparing the hot lunch at this time, so was not readily available to hear what was happening and assist the conflict as usual! As for Jasmine, I know she will be quite good at school and I am friends with her teacher, (hi Natalie) as well, so am not worried about her at all, it's when she gets home that concerns me. She'll be so tired and temper tantrumy that I might go crazy! We are working on weaning her from her naps and teaching her strategies to deal with her tiredness and frustration, but when she is tired she simply doesn't care to use them!

All in all, it was a great, but BUSY day!

Theme Week - Day #4 - Beach Day

2009-07-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

You'd think my camera was broken or had no batteries, as I am pretty much always thinking to take a picture, but there just wasn't anything to take a picture of today. Well, there was the swimming pool, but it was tricky enough to ensure 3 children didn't drown without the camera.

The kids ran around in shorts and bathing suits all morning and played everything from cats and dogs to superheroes to Jesus and God, yep you heard right - our house was heaven in fact! Nice!

For snack we made some chocolate chip cookies (which we were supposed to make yesterday for PJ day, but the dough didn't thaw in time - what can you do?) and we made fruit smoothies and ate frozen mango.

We headed for a play outside, I picked weeds and they played tag and threw rocks on my deck (and then had to spend about 15 minutes picking rocks off my deck). Somehow they ended up running through the sprinkler naked again, they really liked that! Actually what they like best is sticking their butt right on top of the sprinkler - guess they are getting a good cleaning or an enima of sorts.

After lunch we headed to the local poop, I mean pool! They did have a pool "fouling" as they called it and so the large poop, I mean large pool was closed! This meant the kiddie pool was packed and it didn't help that there were 3 camps worth of kids in there - crazy! Jasmine is swimming like a fish. She spends more time under the water then above now or I'd say at least half the time. Both Devin and Grace tried to drown themselves once, well slipped underwater unintentionally and they did not like that one little bit!

We came home to ... NAP! All 3 kids crashed within 10 minutes and they all slept for 2 hours. So I read, ahhh! I started re-reading the Twilight series and New Moon is calling my name, but I am scared to start it before we go on holidays as I may not put it down. I also started re-reading the Harry Potter series. I have never re-read a book in my life and I have to say so far I am enjoying both! Who knew!

Last theme day tomorrow and then holidays begin! Can't wait to see my husband again - he's so busy with work right now that he plays with the kids when he comes home, we chat at supper and once the kids are in bed, he works again! It's getting a little tedious and we are all ready for a break from that! Bring it on!

Theme Week - Day #3 - P.J. Day

2009-07-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

P.J. Day was selected for today because the weather forecast had predicted chance of thunder showers all day. Well, we did get a mini storm for about half an hour, but that was it all day! It actually didn't look to bad out this morning, but we wouldn't know as we never left the house.

The kids love Pyjamma Day, I'm not sure why, because, well we don't really do anything. I love pyjamma day, because I don't have to do anything! They played for a little while and then watched Grace's movie pick, A bug's Life. For our morning snack the kids prepared a teddy bear picnic and brought down stuffed animals of their choosing, along with pillows and blankets. After snack, we had reading time and they all read books in the pillow filled area.

For lunch, we had to have more breakfast so we enjoyed pancakes and for dessert more pancakes except with chocolate chips, too! After lunch, the kids free played for a long time and then we did a craft. The girls had fun making their own little families with a stamp set and then we spelled their names with a font set! While we were in the basement the power did flicker out and we were in the pitch black for about 5 or 6 seconds. (I went up to get the flashlights in case it went out again, as that was a little frightening down there - totally dark!)

We were ready for some exercise by then, so we did some dancing even though we couldn't find our Barenaked Ladies CD to find the Popcorn song, which would have been fitting for our last movie and popcorn snack!

Grace is peeking out from behind the couch because she thought there was going to be a scary part, but it ended up being funny - we were watching Monsters Inc. this time - Devin's pick!

Theme Week - Day #2 - Adventure Day

2009-07-28T12:02:00.001-07:00

Adventure day was basically a 3 1/2 hour... well adventure! We packed up the backpack with snacks and water, greased ourselves with sunscreen and bugspray and headed off. but we took the long playful version. We walked through the woods with our bug house and nets - we did manage to catch 2 ladybugs (one red and one silver) and a dandy long legs. Below Jasmine is trapping the silver ladybug and it eventually climbs onto her hand.As we walked through the woods they pretended to be scared and that monsters were chasing them. Grace was fond of shouting, "Run for your lives!". And then they would pretend to take a nap on a rock, I can't figure these kids out! They LOVE climbing on rocks, under trees, through trees, anything but the normal way to walk.

We stopped at a few different parks on our way through the adventure, but besides the wooded areas, I would say their next favorite was the open fields and they would just run and chase each other.

When the kids were "pooped out", as they would say we went to a convenient store and bought ourselves some lunch... Ice cream, Smarties and Cheetoes - yummy! Don't worry, Pam I did buy them so real food, too, but we did eat the ice cream first as it was melting!

When it was all said and done and we came home, they cooled off in the sprinkler...nudy style! I just had them strip and run around to cool off!

Theme Week - Day #1- Castle Day

2009-07-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

This week we have our God daughter staying with us during the day as her daycare is closed for the week. So this week is THEME week and we started it all off with castle day. We would call it princess day, but Devin is here so we refer to it as castle day and then he can be a prince or a knight if he likes, although he usually chooses the lizard costume or a pair of high heels... go figure!

For lunch we had fairy wings, which were mini bagels spread with either peanut butter or cream cheese with sprinkles, cut in half and turned around to look like a pair of wings. They love it! And then we had chicken noodle soup and veggies as well, it's not like they were prisoners in the dungeon only getting a scrap of bread for their meal.

After lunch we played Cinderella which personally, I LOVE! If you have never tried this game with your little girls then it is a must. You pretend you are the evil stepmother and they are Cinderella or Devin's case he was Cinderfella, and then you boss them around and make them clean your house. Seriously, it works! Jasmine and Grace went up to her bedroom and cleaned it up and made the bed, then they folded the blankets from the front room and tidied up the shoes by the front door, soooo much fun for me to watch! Below is the picture I took when I told them to pretend they were the evil stepsisters! So funny!
Then the evil stepmother told them there was a contest that we had to win. The contest was to build the highest tower with Lego. They enjoyed this, but did need some help getting the tower to be taller than they were!

After nap time, which was basically 3 kids in 1 bed laughing and telling each other stories for 1 1/2 hours, I did the girls hair and make up for they royal ball. They danced around and played and another little squire by the name of Simon joined in on the fun until Grace had to go home. A great day at Quirk Castle!

Salad of the Week

2009-07-22T10:22:00.001-07:00

Couscous Feta Salad

This one also came from the cheese magazine I talked about last time, but it was much better! In a frying pan cook a chopped pepper, a chopped onion, 2 cloves garlic and 3 sticks chopped celery with a little olive oil. To this add half a can (28 oz.) of diced tomatoes, 1/2 cup vegetable broth and 1/2 cup orange juice and a dash of pepper, salt and hot sauce. Once boiling add 1 cup couscous, cover and remove from heat - let simmer for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and add a can of chickpeas (19 oz.), 2 tbsp of fresh chopped oregano and mint, oh and as much chopped feta as you like! This made lots and because of the chickpeas has good fiber and protein in it! We had it along side barbecued chicken breast and cooked green beans! A yummy meal! Although my kids didn't love it, our little friend Simon ate all his!

Good things growwwww in Ontario!

2009-07-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't live here, it's a song that gets stuck in your head, but the song is true and this weekend we proved it!

Our first outing was to Oven's Berry Farm with our friends the Dixons. We made a special trip to this farm because they grow Saskatoon berries (did you know other provinces and states call them service berries or SHAD berries - I thought that was cool because my maiden name is Shadbolt, anyhow...) As you will see from the pictures, Devin REALLY likes Saskatoon berries! Saskatoon berries are a huge item in Saskatchewan, in fact they flew in Saskatoon pies from Saskatchewan for the Univeristy of Regina reunion when the Saskatchewan Roughriders played the Ottawa Renegades a number of years ago. We went to the game, just for the pie ;) While we were at the farm, we also picked raspberries as they were practically falling off the bushes. Today we made a honkin' fruit salad, as well as Saskatoon muffins and for breakfast Saskatoon pancakes with fresh raspberries on top. We froze the rest for now and will make some crumbles and pies when we have an excuse to entertain!

Today's adventure led us to Thistle Springs Trout Farm upon suggestion of our friends, Bronwyn and Rilla. I can't remember how many fish they caught, but I don't think we came close with our two. It worked out well though because I caught the first fish and Jasmine was helping me and Jay caught the second fish and Devin was helping him. So, both kids got to have a chance. It was a good experience, but it does test a little kids patience. Jasmine said the best part was feeding the fish in the tanks at the beginning and Devin said his favorite part was the fishing rod and catching the fish. The kids didn't love the process of getting the hook out of the fishes mouth, but they still didn't have a problem eating the trout for supper!

Neighbourhood party!

2009-07-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

It all started, once again with the science experiment book. This activity was called, "Mystery Meeting Map". You've all seen it, as kids we used to write invisible notes with lemon juice and then heat them up in the oven to show what had been written. Well, this was the same idea and we started by drawing a map of the neighbourhood. Of course, I ended up doing all the artwork, but it was good for Jasmine to see where things were located and how to visualize something from above. She helped me decide what to put on there and where it should go. The instructions in this book have you use baking soda and water to make your invisible ink. We did our own experiment and tried a little bit of what they said and then we tried the good old lemon juice as well. In the end we liked the baking soda better. It seemed to leave a nicer trail and with less residue (just a slight sparkle from the dust), while the lemon juice stained the paper just slightly yellow. We delivered the maps to our neighbours with a time and the event, but they really didn't know who it was from until they decoded the trail and knew whose house the party was at. (Well, some of them did because they knew my writing, but whatever, it was still cool!)

Jasmine had her heart set on a BEACH party, so we got some water balloons ready, the big beach umbrella, laid out all the kid towels, had the bubbles ready to go and Jasmine even drew a bunch of pictures to hang up on the wall to help give it that summery feeling. Of course the weather was a bit hard to read: cloudy and a bit breezy, but the kids didn't seem to care. They splashed around the pool, burst balloons and got wet anyway!

After the water games, the girls played camp out, boys played board games and the little kids played dress up and then ... climbed up the back of the treadmill and flipped over the back of the couch (yes, I know we let our children do bizarre and dangerous things, but they love it and I pretend it is like their gymnastics time).

It's always a bit tough for the parents to just sit back and have a good time at these events. You always have to keep an eye on your children: make sure they are safe, not freezing from being too wet on a cloudy day, not getting sunburned when the sun does decide to shine, not fighting with each other or throwing a watermelon rind into the neighbours yard (that was too funny, and no those neighbours weren't invited) ... but all that said, we did manage to get in some nice conversations and our kids not only had a good time, but got to be closer neighbours and I love that. These kids will grow up living on the same 2 streets for potentially years and what better way to do it than by being good friends! Here is to more summer fun!

Salad of the Week

2009-07-11T14:40:00.001-07:00

Havarti Fish Salad

This one came to me through a Cheese Magazine I received in the mail. Obviously the purpose of this magazine is to sell more of their product, cheese! I did love the cheese and I loved the salmon, but the dressing was ... eek, terribly tangy, ludricously lime, sickeningly sour.

The dressing was basically olive oil, lime and cayenne pepper. As a baste on the salmon, very nice, but as a dressing on lettuce, cucumber and tomato - woah, toooooo limey!

We used a base of small noodles in the shape of rings, kids loved the rings! Added the veggies mentioned above with the dressing, then topped the salad with the grilled salmon and havarti cheese.

Next time, I would simply make the salad, use the dressing on the fish and then use a balsamic dressing or something on the salad part.

Rainy days are keeping me busy!

2009-07-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Due to the on and off rainy weather, the crafty mom in me has had to come out! Thanks to my girlfriend, Pam we had homemade play-doh to entertain us this morning. Thanks to some of my students I had free money at Chapters, so one of the books we bought was a science experiment book. We are working our way through the book and I think are on experiment #4 now. One of which was making shadow puppets. If I use the flash all you see is the puppets, like in the bottom of the 3 pictures below, without the flash they are pretty blurry, but you get the idea! We used them in Devin's bedroom with his car flashlight, then we also made some huge ones on the ceiling - very fun! Plus of course, you had to make them first.

Yesterday we did finger print experiments. It says to use paint, but when you have as many stamp pads as I do, I just couldn't bring myself to do it! So we used ink pads... of course that stain, wouldn't be any fun otherwise. Notice Devin's stomach (glad I took off his shirt first, just knew that would happen) and yep for swimming lessons today the ink was still there, too funny, anyhow... We first made fingerprint people. Jasmine did so well copying from the book for her first 2 little men, then the 3rd one she did of her own creativity. (this was her 3rd attempt before she got it perfect, but I honestly couldn't tell what was wrong with the first two papers, guess she has high standards). I copied the examples from the book and had a great time - I love stuff like that! AND, I actually got Devin to draw a "D" for Devin on his paper - halleluia!

After this we tried to be detectives and dust for fingerprints, but we had little success. Sidewalk chalk just doesn't seem to cut it for dusting purposes. We made up litte crime sheets, but you can't see the fingerprints on the tape really at all. Devin's crime was eating the toothpaste and Jasmine's was hiding toys. Mine, which the kids decided, was yelling at the kids... I don't even do that, geesh ;)

Young love!

2009-07-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, to be young again, well that isn't really the case here, sorry Cynthia and Nick, but nonetheless it is inspiring! Here is the story:

About 3 months ago I introduced Cynthia to my former colleague and neighbour, Nick. Both Nick and Cynthia have recently gone through divorce. I just couldn't get over how much they seemed to have in common and I started telling Cynthia maybe she should meet Nick. You know, just for coffee to talk about the divorce and have a friend with something in common. Well, wouldn't you know that the two of them would email back and forth for weeks and then finally meet and end up dating!

This week Cynthia has been sleeping over at our house, as she is homeless for a month while her new house is being built. So, Saturday night we had date night and Nick came over for a Sushi party! It was a lovely evening! Making sushi is the perfect date night because it gives you something to do, inspires its own conversation and of course the food is good! Even Jasmine and Devin participated in the night's events. Jasmine does eat sushi and Devin eats all the vegetables and rice that go into sushi, but not the sushi itself. AND, I'll clarify for all of you who are wondering... we didn't use any raw fish, we use shrimp, crab meat and this time experimented with canned tuna, not my favorite, but Jay loved it!

Afterwards we cleansed the pallate with a bowl of ice cream and berries, or in my kids case ice cream and sprinkles. For some reason berries just don't go on ice cream to them! We followed this with tea and good conversation.

After the kids went to bed the four of us played games including our favorite couple game, Telepaths. Telepaths is a fun game where you have to try and match words with what your partner says. Jay and I are old pros at this game, so it was difficult for the new lovebirds to keep up.

The following night, we had soccer at 4:00 p.m. and Nick and Cynthia used our kitchen to make us supper. We returned at 6:30 to Dijon chicken with Devon Cream and Jasmine rice - too cute! Another great meal! Kids went off to bed and the lovebirds babysat for us while Jay and I went out for a walk and hot chocolate.

Watching these two started off as irresistibly cute, you couldn't help but joke and make light of it all, by the end it was getting pretty, well... sickening! Seriously, they've got it bad for each other and all I was hearing about was Nick :)

Hard to remember back to those times and feelings. Jay and I have been married for 11 years this month, well in a little over a week and we've been together for 15 years, so it is tough to remember what it was like back then. I started having flashbacks and it was... what's the word? I guess it was nice, sweet, fun, romantic, exciting! I can only be happy for both of my friends and hope they continue to enjoy each other's company. As for Jay and I, who admit we mostly take each other for granted at this stage in our life, well, we are blessed to have each other. We see eye to eye on almost everything and in day to day life get along easily. We have the same outlook on life and the same goals for our children. We discipline the same and have the same expectations for behaviour. We like similar movies, except the whole zombie thing *shudder*. We both have hobbies to keep us busy and we "allow" each other to both spend money on our hobbies, too. We both have a ... perverse sense of humor and well, we simply enjoy each other and I can only hope we will continue to love each other as much as we do now for, well... eternity!