Kindergarten

this is my last catch up post!!!

my baby is no longer my baby! Kaya started kindergarten this year and I am grieving not having her at home with me! She is super happy and loves to go each day. I have attached pictures of our first walk to school and her first time sitting at the carpet. She had Mrs. Jones to start with, but then was switched to Mrs. Ilett's class - this was quite traumatic - she had become quite attached to Mrs. Jones. She survived however BUT Mrs. Ilett goes on maternity leave in 6 weeks!

Some funnies from that first day ...

Mrs Jones said " we are going to the good morning song. do any of you know it?"

some randow child "how am I supposed to know it, this is my first day ever!!!"

Mrs Jones was calling out a child's name and got no answer - this had happened a couple of times, the kids were quite distracted and nervous at their first roll call:) She said "so evan didn't answer, are the parents here?"

another random child said "yup, they are."

Mrs Jones said "I know there are parent's here, but are evan's parents here?"

the same child said "Oh, I don't know, but my mom is here and her name is Irene and she is wearing a green shirt and black pants. she works at a dentist's office."

I am certain he would have continued to go on and on had Mrs Jones not - in the skillful kindergarten teacher manner - redirected the child and moved on!!!

in clearwater

Mike and the kids went to Clearwater at the end of August for a weekend while I was at a conference with Ophelia. They had fun with Gramma Lynn, Papa Don and Ashley and Kelsey. The took a trip out to some waterfalls near where they live. Here are some pics of the visit:

keidis' birthday

My BIG boy is now three!

He has very much entered the independent "me do it" stage!

He is happy go lucky and has a great sense of humor!

We had family and our neighbours over for his party. He wanted an ice cream cake so I made an ice cream bombe - layers of vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream and chocolate ganache and fudge laid into a round freezable bowl - so yummy!!! I really love my sweet sensitive guy - he is so cuddly and has a very thoughtful and gentle side. We love having you in our family, Buddy!

my friend karyn says ...

she always says that if you are going to start scrap-booking or journaling, you need to start NOW and work backward ... so that is what I am doing since this is as close to a journal as I get these days!  The two posts below this are for the last couple weeks and then I am going to do the end of august and the beginning of sept later ( i will, i promise!!! ).

the weekend to end breast cancer

so all year long we have been walking and fundraising and walking and fundraising to be able to participate in the 60km (about 38 miles) walk around Vancouver and downtown.  In order to walk, you have to raise $2000 which is a VERY daunting number.  

These are our air-brushed tats - NICE!

We walked 35 km the first day and 25 the second.  They fed us lots of snacks, lunch, gatorade and water.  Then dinner was at the camp - where I did NOT sleep (I wasn't prepared to do that with Ophelia after having walked for 10 hours that day). Bif Naked performed (recently diagnosed as well) and the food was yummy.  The next day we walked the last 25 km.  I ended up walking with two other ladies on the second day - one was amazing on the trails (most of it was pavement and when we hit the trail, she took off!), one was amazing up hills -seriously she just flew up them, and I seemed to thrive right at the finish - I dragged them across the last couple kilometres ... I wanted to get in there as fast as I could!!!

The closing ceremony was totally emotional, they put all the survivors in pink shirts and parade them into the stadium and after walking 60 km and being the overly-emotional girl that I am - I was done for!!!

A big thanks goes out to all my donors, Cooper's foods and Harvest meats (for donating to hot dog sales which pushed our team over the top), Uncle Animal who raised 1700 or so for our team, and my dad and his wife who cooked us dinner on Friday, took the kids overnight on Saturday and fed us again on Sunday night.

Post-60 kms, waiting for closing cermonies ... and just a bit tired.

So I have 2 heros of that weekend ... one is Mike - who on the first day, tagged along - meeting us at all the rest stops with all THREE kids, just so that I could feed Ophelia periodically.  So he entertained 3 kids ages 5 and under downtown for 10 hours!!! the next day he literally followed us around stopping at each pit stop (not as big as the rest stops) which were about every 2-3 kilometers, driving Ophelia (again so I could do the feeds) and some of our team members when they took breaks!

Keidis held his sign upside-down and all the walkers cheered as they walked past my sweet family!!

Our team, minus Trish (taking the picture) and Tamsen (who couldn't make it due to major move and who we missed dearly), PLUS Jamie (who was bravely walking SOLO and we very much enjoyed).

My other hero of the weekend is Jen, Mike's sister. She is the reason this all started and one of the people in my life affected by breast cancer. She finished treatments (mastectomy, chemo and radiation) 8 months before, was prepping for reconstructive surgery in 2 weeks and still walked 40 of the 60 kilometers! She has been truly inspirational to me!

I am so glad I did it! I am already signed up for next year - although I swore before we got there that I wouldn't!!! I did get a nice training T for signing up though! I am pleased with the $$ raised (1600 walkers raised 4.1 million bucks for breast cancer) and that I was able to complete this crazy physical challenge! WAHOO!!! 

salt spring

we had a great visit with friends Debra and Gerry Moore on Salt Spring Island on the weekend of the 13th.  We went to the fair and quite enjoyed visiting.

 okay so the face painter she went to wasn't my favourite - they both asked for butterflies and hers was this big black thing all over her face and keidis was this dainty little butterfly.  Kaya was happy to be painted up but when she first looked in the mirror she made a wee little "what the heck?" face!!

And my favourite picture (how come the back shots are always so cute) - here they are with Clara - one of the Moore kids!

Thanks for having us, Debra and Gerry and family :)