Farewell and Update

Busy, busy, busy, as usual!
Yesterday was the Girls last day with us; so right after breakfast I got them each to make this little 'brag book' that Sarah had shown us on her blog. Since they hadn't at that time yet, been able to meet our Baby Girl, I thought I would give them the opportunity to make a special booklet/album for "her". I'll send them each 6 photos of Baby when she finally arrives and they can fill this booklet up. Sarah, love this idea. I made a couple of my own which I haven't filled completely until Baby arrives and will then give them away and I have plans to make 3 more for Aunts who are in Quebec and a Great-Grandmother... waiting for Baby though to complete!
Alexa and I arranged to let Jade, Sara and Katie go for a swim on their own yesterday morning too... for the last time. Then we got their luggage completed and went out for ice cream to DQ after dinner as our goodbye treat. I asked my Family to meet us there so the Girls could say their farewells too... Here is my Mom (Grandma) sharing her blizzard with Sammie. Yummy!
Then today we were up at 6:00 (I had insomnia from 4:15 on, so by 6:00 I was ready to get going for the day) to get the Girls off. It was sad to say Goodbye after such an experience with them. Five months is a long time and it was a VERY good experience for us. Elijah knows 'the girls are going to China' but what that menas to him, who knows. I'm sure and expecting to hear "where are the girls? At school?" for a bit here UNLESS Baby decides to come soon, then that'll be a good distraction.
My Dad (Grandpa) and Paul came to see the Girls off this morning too. My Dad works nights so he missed out on DQ last night...And us, before the tears...Goodbye Jade and Sara! I've shown them my blog last night, so now hopefully they'll be able to navigate their way to it at home and see the kids grow... oh, and tonight when we got home there were 3 messages on my machine, none of which said anything, but I could hear them in the background. My Girls already called home!!! (they are in Toronto for 4 days before returning home)


Update: (boy, this is a long post) Obviously I'm not as busy as Laurie, Rachel or Korinne who are all moving this week... nor have I had my Baby, yet. My Midwife tried today, again, to "sweep" (I'll leave it at that for those of you who will know what that is) but no luck again. I guess this Baby is quite content inside. Man, these third pregnancies are unpredictable! But, now that the girls are gone and it's obviously not a possibility for them to meet Baby, I'm completely fine with going as long as Baby wants/needs to. We even dared to cross the Border today in search of a double stroller. We found one and I didn't go into labour (we thought maybe we'd work Murphey's Law a bit and see if crossing into an other country [not the best idea at this stage of the game] would bring labour on, but nope)... so stay tuned all you faithful bloggers. One of these days I'll have a post for you. (however Alexa was the one who was going to log onto my blog to post the update for you after Baby arrived... now she is gone for the weekend... but I'll get here as quick as I can...)
Until next time...

Slip n' Sliding

It was a wonderful hot day today! It's been a little wet around here since our last heat-"wave", so we welcomed the warmth again. After school I thought I'd pull out the new slip n' slide I bought after Dana told me about them (superstore is selling them for 9.99 with either a Dora, Backyardigans-which I bought, Spiderman, Diego print). I thought that was a good price for something fun-water-related. and they did have fun! We could use a bit more room to run before sliding, but it worked still...

Father's Day

Yesterday the Girls, Elijah and I made a "Skor Cake" (this cake is sooooo good, thanks to Alexa who past the recipe on to me a couple years ago, and to Karen W who past it onto Alexa before that yet). We mainly made it because Sara got a Skor Bar from a friend this past week at school and I told her instead of eating it, we'd make a cake 'with' it. This is today, finishing it off...
Sara crushing the skor bar outside:sprinkling it on top of the whip cream:licking the whip cream beater, mmmmm:doesn't it look good?we sat down after dinner and sang "Happy Father's Day" to Jason...here he is doing "woo" after each phrase, know what I mean?Here's a nice shot I took of Samuel and Jason this past week at the park. Thought I'd share, 'cause SUZAN he's even got his mouth open for his smile!

Couldn't believe it...

Today after school it was my plan to take the kids to the Water Park since it was 27* today... we were all ready and out of the van with our stuff in the parking lot... on our way down to the park when a lady passing by with her 2 kids said, "thought you might appreciate knowing that the water park is NOT open!" "What?"

Yes, it is situated beside the outdoor pool in which is under construction and running behind deadline for finishing... BUT c'mon, do they have to keep the water park closed too? Man, did I have words flying through my head! What was I going to tell these 4 kids, all in their swim gear with sweat dripping (not really) from their brows... this is what I came up with at spur of the moment: "okay, well we would like to play in some water, it's a very hot day... so off to the fountains that the boys and I had a picnic at a couple weeks ago." :) They are not for wading, BUT if someone would have the time to come and tell me that, then I would be sure to tell them why my kids have to play in the fountain and not in the intended water park on such a day!!!

They all had a great time and kept cool! And no one bothered us...

KEEP IN MIND, THE WATER PARK IS CLOSED, apparently until the pool opens...

GV Zoo

So today I accomplished one of the things on my list of "things to do yet with the Girls". We have 1 month to go, that's it. Seems like we've been having great weather, however it seems like and has been that we get the lousy weather on the weekends and come Monday morning the sun shines bright! Kinda annoying!
After school yesterday I took home 2 of the students with us, in exchange for a night Jade and Sara went to their place when I went on my weekend away.
Last night we went scrapbooking til midnight... it was great fun!
Then today I looked outside and at the weather network to see what we could do today. It was supposed to rain today, but only a 20% chance, so I took that chance after much comtemplating and took the Girls and Elijah to the Zoo today! Jason and Samuel stayed home.
What fun! And it didn't rain one drop on us which I am grateful for and glad that we took that chance and went today! We are running out of time to do the things I want to do yet with the girls.
We saw the Lions and Tigers feeding, we went on the train around the park and on a bus into 2 of the encounters. This zoo is mainly large, wild animals, not small animals one after another in small cages... so the park is huge, but we did great walking around it from encounter to encounter. Check out some of our photos:

McHappy Day

On Wednesday Jade stayed at Katie's house (Alexa's) after school to play (Sara gets a turn on Monday), so I took Sara, Elijah and Samuel to McD's for ice cream. Thought we'd be in and out, but it turns out it was McHappy Day, so there was a Dance Club performing outside that we watched...while we ate our Sundaes. Here's Birdie with the kids...

Saturday

This morning the Girls and I made an apple pie... they had a hard time peeling the apples, let alone cutting them. Too funny, but they did get the idea and helped a bit at least!
Then this afternoon we went to the local West Coast Amusement "carnival" set up in our Mall parking lot. We had coupons for each Girl and Elijah too, to do 6 rides each for $12. The Girls have not done this in China...so it was very fun for themthis is their classmate Katie, the one who is staying with Alexa. We ran into them there and so they went on one ride together.A hopping Bunny ride, how appropriate! Elijah did 4 rides, 3 alone and then the Bumper Cars with Jaosn. He enjoyed himself!Jason and Jade went on the Zipper ride too (not pictured)... Jade loved that!

Still enjoying some warm weather here, although you can see the blue sky isn't accompanying the temperature... oh well, it's still beautiful.

Dying Eggs

On Thursday after school, I invited a new Canadian Friend of Jade and Sara's over. The girls decorated eggs for the first time (not Caessia's first time, obviously) and then we went to see a FREE production put on by one of our Middle Schools... Aladdin Junior. Elijah came with us to that too and we really enjoyed the singing, dancing and acting of these Grade 6-8 kids. Elijah was looking forward to this all week, especially seeing the "Genie". He is very familiar with this story, mainly b/c of our trip to Disneyland at Christmas. He saw an entire drama there too, although it had a real flying carpet!
Here's the pictures... easiest to show on a slide.

Spring Break

Well, we made it through 2 weeks of Spring Break! It wasn't that bad; we actually had a great time! The girls are back in school this week, which is nice to have a regular routine back in order and not have to "entertain" them all day long!
The first week the School brought their group on 3 field trips...so that was nice.
Then since we had the wedding a week ago, the Girls went to Jade's Aunt's house since they aren't allowed to cross into the USA. Shucks, because that could have been neat for them to see.
anyway, so last week was our busy busy week. Last Tuesday I invited as many of the Chinese Students to join us for McDonald's lunch and 5 pin bowling. 4 Families including us came, so all of them had a great time including Elijah!I got the gutter guards put up and that made it easier for the girls to bowl and very fun for Elijah (and me, b/c that meant I could just sit down and watch).
Before we went bowling that day, I had a Midwife appointment. So along came the Girls. Which was also fun b/c they got to hear our Baby's heartbeat AND I had a bit of time to kill, so we walked next door to the hosptial to pre-register me into the Maternity Ward too. I brought them up to that ward for a peek....

We went to the park a couple times last week. One of the times I had again, invited all the Students to join us if they were available. Three Families joined us (you can see some more pictures on Alexa's blog; she was there too)A little boy had this Diego car there and allowed Samuel and Elijah each to have a turn.

Jason took the Girls and Elijah swimming on Friday afternoon... while I stayed back with a 'teething Samuel' and scrambled to get the house vacuumed and bathrooms cleaned while it was empty! We then headed out (the girls and I) to our local Scrapbooking Shop for a Free Scrapnight. The Girls had a blast. Mostly using the die cut machine like mad. Alexa and her daughter, Danika and her student Katie and the Chinese Teacher (also staying with Alexa) joined us too...Alexa is helping Nancy (the teacher)Sara is loving scrapbooking. They each asked when we'd be going there again!Jade, also loving itSara using the die cut machine for titles and for shaping her photos

So that's what we've been keeping really busy with...nevermind all the other normal things to do and take care of.

Keeping busy with 2 ten year olds!

On Friday after school I took home 2 friends of Jade and Sara's... we went swimming first, had a good ol' kids dinner (hotdogs and chips) (side note: except for Laurie's kids that is, they don't eat hotdogs!) and then they wanted to play outside... blowing bubblesand warmed up after outside time, with some good Orange Pekoe (spelling?) Tea. They just love "american" tea! I gave them each a real tea cup... and showed them how the Queen would drink it...We're having a great time with the girls... and I can see already it's going to be extremely hard to let them go at the end of June.

we've been keeping busy...

On Thursday, Dana had us all over for a wonderfu dinner! Kurt is away in Montreal for 13 weeks training for Customs... but she still had us over! Oops, it's supposed to be us hosting her and the girls. Next time! So the kids all had a great time playing afterwards and then we watched Survivor with Dana.
Today I had 2 of Jade and Sara's friends with us for the day. We went shopping this morning, then they watched the "real people" Peter Pan and we baked some cupcakes. It was a busy but good day... Katie joined us (another student, Alexa's actually) before dinner and for a sleepover while Alexa and Andy go and enjoy a date (Rascall Flatts concert!) tonight. Enjoy!!
I was "challenged" to try this slide thing out... it really is simple and a fun way to display a few pictures at a time. Thanks Laurie!

Seymour Snow

We had a very busy weekend! Started out Friday after school with a swim for Jason, Samuel and girls (Elijah was sick during the night so I stayed home with him); then shopping in the evening... the girls got to go to their friends house yesterday for the day and then today we went to Vancouver and found some snow. The girl's dream was to make a snowball... well, they got to! Up at Seymour.the parking lot area was very slippery with compact snow, and Samuel did awesome keeping his balance walking all around on it!This isn't a great picture, but a Woman standing nearby offered to take it of the three of us before we jumped back into the truck... the girls made a snowman, so that was a huge thrill for them!
We did a bit of shopping today too... what a great weekend!

Park Day

Today after school we headed to the park... it was such a nice day!I didn't even have to chase after Sammie very much because we now have these 2 little live-in big sisters!Looking at the ducks and the geese just below their feetSmile! Well, by this point it's time to go home for dinner and Samuel knows it!

After School Activities

Well, I try to have a plan for after school "entertainment"... not all days, just can't do that... but this is some of what we've done:paintingAnd, imagine, but this was the girls first experience with Play Dough at age 10!!!! I made up this batch on the stove, and as I was stirring it to consistency of mashed potatoes, you should have seen the look on their faces... 'what is this woman going to feed us?' LOL

Sunday Stamping

On Sunday we did a Valentine's Stamping afternoon with Jade and Sara. Their first time stamping! And they loved it! It was so cute to watch them stamp, stamp, stamp.They have a bunch of cards ready to go now for Valentine's Day at School. yea! I was amazed at all the stamps I had around my craft area that were suitable for V-Day cards too! Cute cards, huh? (thanks Cindy for the idea)