New York? Meet my kids.

This was, seriously, one of the best days ever.  I'll never forget acquainting these parties for the first time.

Can't wait for our next family trip to NYC. Ages 5 and 7 might be the golden age of children, people.  They are perfection right now.

August!!??!

How does time go by so quickly!  I knew there were going to be long periods of time between posts this summer because:

1.  We're super busy and having fun, all day.
2.  The husband has been gone more than home.  Work is crazy for himself right now.

3. I've got the kids everyday, all day.  Seriously.  Like, no camp, no sitters, no grandparent breaks, no hours off.  Intensive parenting.

So, I find myself saying 'what day is this?' more and more.  It's been really great and we're fully enjoying this crazy, hot, sunny summer.  The garden is happy and growing.  The kids are delighted with the freedom July and August have afforded.  And I'm all full-up on vitamin D and fresh air.

Life is good.


Here are some snapshots of summer:

 Sam, being obsessed with magic right now, shows me part of his routine.


Last week I had a break in sanity and made moon dough.

 It was a huge hit, but ME-SSSSSSSY!

 It's actually really cool.  Looks like snow, but totally moldable.

 Hike, on a rare dad-home day

 Harvest!  We have carrots, beans, tomatoes, beets, peppers, lettuce, spinach, squash, raspberries, herbs, and more!

 Here is Caroline, my friend and Sam's soccer coach 'guiding' him down the soccer field to score his first goal.  It was the first time he touched the ball all season and, oh!, the jubilation!  The celebration!  It was awesome.

Engulfed in Caroline love, post-goal.  Now, that's a supportive coach!

So, there you go.  Quick update from Summerland.  Now, must go and run our regular morning session of 'Mom-school'.  Just wait until you see some of the pictures the boys have been coming out with from these educational forays!  Hilarious....

Nooby fun!

Just returned from the land of nooby fun.  (nooby = New B., aka New Brunswick, for all you folk not hip enough to be a part of our family's cutting edge lingo).

It was a week of sun and bliss and marveling and relaxation.  Al and Jim have a pretty sweet set-up down there and we all enjoyed ourselves very, very much.

I took 836 photos of the trip, but here are just a few favourites:

Planning next year's trip already.  But who wants to drive the kids down this time!?  I think I'll fly...

NYC in a flurry

Had a great, quick visit to NYC with the family women-folk.  We absolutely lucked out on weather... sunny and warm the whole time we were there. (And considering it was freezing and rainy at home, extra lucky!)

My loved hasn't waned for the great city.  Loved it all.  Can't wait to go back again for round #6.

A few of my favourite shots from the whirlwind tour:

And Charley didn't even float away!

It's March Break around here, so things are all systems go!  Keep the boys busy!  Get them out into the fresh air!  Stimulate young brains!  Work on reading, writing, etc!

I'm freakin' exhausted from March Break.  Half way done!  Half way done!

We took the boys to Niagara Falls for a couple days.  You can get the best deals online for packages to the cheese-capital of Canada.  We got so many add-ons with our package that I think our suite worked out to about $5.  The boys, having never been there, were appropriately entertained.  And the grownups had a remarkably good time too, considering that there were about 7000 other families there having 'fun' too.  Haha!  There's nothing like watching families on a March break 'fun trip'.  We saw countless crabby parents and kids either running wild or attached to electronic devices.  (Not sure which is worse...)  At one point, we were using our dining credit at The Keg (all beef, all the time!) and we saw a family with a mom drinking wine, a dad on his iphone and a teenager with their head on the table.  It was awesome.

Niagara Falls is all that I remember from my 1983 visit.  That was when my good ol' Dad, Jimmy earned his super-heroic-dad medal by taking Sarah, Ben and me for 3 days on his own.  HE-RO-IC.  It's still full of cheesy, overpriced and mega-tacky activities and adventures.  We took the boys to an arcade (Dave and Buster's, I think it's called) and overstimulated them to the max.  Hey!  We had a $50 credit from our package deal and we were darn well gonna use it.  Nothing like introducing 4 and 6 year olds to gambling nice and young, I say.  We played games for a solid 90 minutes (Charley on Skee-Ball?  Priceless.) and then got outta there.  They didn't make a nickel off our visit, but we had a blast.

Here are a series of photos from the trip.  Quite a few, actually.  Sorry!

 The view from our suite.  It was... sweet.

 Sam's expresses his true feeling about 'the man' telling him what constitutes 'dangerous'. 

 Anyone who knows Charley in even a small way, knows that allowing him near the falls is a recipe for 'heart-in-throat' parenting.  He looks so darn cute... but don't take your eyes off him for even one second.

Misty good fun.

So, got home yesterday, dropped Charley and Chris off and went straight to the walk-in clinic with Sam.  Yep, it wouldn't be late winter if Sam didn't get a rip-roaring case of bronchitis.  He sounds like a seal.  A phlegmy, barking seal.

March break hurrah!  Any suggestions on how to get through now 'til Sunday?  Already had them do yard work for 2 hours today.  Turned into a mud-pie factory, but at least they were happy.

Later!

Sun time

Just back from an amazing week in the Florida sun.  We (Sarah's family and mine) went to Little Gasparilla Island and rented houses on the beach.  It's a barrier island and you have to take a boat to get there.  There are no roads, stores, cars, or many people.  Perfect!  The weather cooperated and we had head and sun and great deals of fun. 

A true vacation on a small piece of undeveloped Florida.  Sigh.  When can we go back??

Happy naked kids, sandpipers, sandcastles, swimming, sunsets and glowsticks on the beach at night.  Perfecto!

Back to reality now.  Will enjoy this Family Day before real life hits tomorrow.