Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Thoughts On Eight Years Of Marriage

Eight years ago today, Dave and I celebrated our marriage. It was a beautiful day and so much fun! I loved being able to celebrate our commitment to each other with all of our friends and family.
Today we are celebrating eight years of being married. Of doing life together, the good, the bad, and yes, even the ugly.
We tried to have a celebratory anniversary date on Friday but things didn't quite go as planned. We had to go to two different places to get a complete supper, we couldn't figure out what to do next, and ended up being serenaded by a public poetry slam about random things like suicide and some guy who mostly was quoting from the Book of Revelation, as far as we could figure out.

It wasn't the most romantic evening together but, at the end of it we were laughing at the terribleness of it and it hit me -- there's no one I'd rather do life with than Dave. Even when it doesn't go as planned and slides towards the ugly. Maybe even, especially then.

Here's to more of the good and to more of laughing at the rest of it. Together.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The T-Ball Weekend What

This past weekend was fairly T-ball focused. Sam has been playing in a league this spring and this past weekend was the wrap up. First was the party on Saturday for the entire league. It was hot and noisy and they messed up Sam's pictures (they put a different kid with Sam's name) so we don't have his trading cards (boo) or his team photo with his individual picture.

However, there was a great children's entertainer and Sam and Rachel enjoyed the bubble machine.
After we had recuperated from that for a little bit we went to our pool. Rachel dunked her head twice and earned a treat. Sam refused to dunk his head, but he did deign to be in the pool for longer than normal (five minutes as opposed to thirty seconds). Both Dave and I agree that swimming is a life skill so it's going to be a long fun summer.
Sam was much more excited about the post-swimming tennis with Dave and reading.
This is a blurry picture of Sam but I made the first kale chips of the season and they needed to be celebrated. And yes, we ate them all at supper.
On Sunday we went to Sam's T-ball coach's house for a team pool party. We had so much fun! Sam enjoyed playing in the water with his friends, and Rachel got brave and "swam" short distances between Dave and I. After the pool time we needed a refreshing drink.
And this picture of Dave and I was taken by Rachel with our DSLR. She's turning into quite the photographer, as well as quite the swimmer. Seriously though, I think this may be my new favourite picture of the two of us.

The rest of the weekend was spent listening to/watching the Blue Jays play and tidying/organizing the house. It was great weekend!

Monday, June 27, 2016

Project 366: Days 142 Through 155

I haven't done a Project 366 post in awhile so, although I'm still going to be posting them on Mondays, I'm going to be posting two weeks at a time until I catch up. I may not have been blogging but my Project 366 is still going strong. Also, I forget what the reasoning was behind some of these pictures since I'm about six weeks behind in posting them so there may just be some really random ones without much explanation :)

May 21, 2016 -- This was the day we walked 12km to a local mall along the network of trails in our city. I thought these trees about to bloom were gorgeous.
May 22, 2016 -- Since there was no school the next day, Sam and Rachel had a sleepover. They were so cute reading together in Sam's bed.
May 23, 2016 -- The kids were so excited we'd set up the trampoline the day before that they were out there before breakfast, in their pajamas, jumping on it!
May 24, 2016 -- I had an eager helper watering my flowers.
May 25, 2016 -- I don't remember the purpose of this picture but since I took it at 6:43am, I obviously went for an early morning walk somewhere. Probably to the library. This is my favourite, most used trail in our city.
May 26, 2016 -- This is an Instagram repeat but "Sam was swinging for the fences" at T-ball!
May 27, 2016 -- Dave and Sam played some tennis at our pool's opening BBQ. Rachel and I swam instead.
May 28, 2016 -- My youth, A, and I took a selfie while waiting for Tessa to compete in the hurdles at a provincial competition. A and Tessa are best friends.
May 29, 2016 -- We had a few conversations about, and different ways of, supporting youth at church this day. Here are some of the youth getting ready to serve a soup lunch. I asked if I could grab a picture of them for this project and they all agreed. Random note: I taught 3 out of 4 of these girls Sunday School when they were four years old. One of them graduated from Grade 12 this past Saturday. Yikes!
May 30, 2016 -- Since I took this picture at 10pm, I'm guessing I was grabbing a late supper this day. I can't remember why though. Also, I LOVE a basic green salad which I usually dress up with feta cheese and peppers. Yum!
May 31, 2016 -- Rachel was curious about "when she was a baby" this day so I pulled out some of her baby clothes. Aw, the sweet memories.
June 1, 2016 -- Sam had a medical appointment in another city this day so we combined it with some IKEA shopping. He was being a goof at lunch :)
June 2, 2016 -- Rachel addressed her birthday party invitations at breakfast this day. She was sooooo excited to hand them out.
June 3, 2016 -- We had a PD Day (day off school) this day so I took a vacation day to spend it with the kids. We had a play date with good friends in the morning and Rachel was reading the youngest some books. It was the first time I'd heard her read books which she hadn't read before and I was amazed by her ability! And the toddler was highly entertained!

Friday, June 24, 2016

Coming Attractions...

Well, you know you haven't blogged in awhile when you have to go back to your blog and read some of your past posts to know where you left off. As I said in my Rachel birthday post last week, there hasn't been anything big keeping me from blogging -- I just haven't found/made the time to blog. It makes me sad but at the end of the day, I'd rather go to bed with a good book in an effort to re-charge for the next day than blog.

However... all that said, I miss this space something fierce. I miss documenting our lives. I miss interacting with all of you. I just plain miss it. So I want to catch up. And I want to re-connect with all of you. So this is my attempt to get back on the blogging wagon.

Here are some of things I will be blogging about over the next couple of weeks month :)

We've been doing a lot of walking. I love that I've discovered that it doesn't take all that long to walk to our pool. Or the closest mall :) I just love all the trails our city has to walk on. And I've even participated in a few official events. As has the rest of the family!
The photo of Rachel comes from here.
 
Rachel turned FIVE! How is that even possible?!?! We celebrated our girl in the most fun way and I can't wait to tell you about it.
I got to live my old life for a day...

Hanging with the kids at the pool on a PD Day.

I'm one step closer to my life being as I envision it and I can't wait to share that with you. (Oooohhh, the suspense!)

I no longer recognize my own yard...
Our house took one more step towards being perfect :)

We experienced a Blue Jays game with my parents and fourteen of my other relatives!

Awesome selfie photo from my cousin, Robyn!
 
It's almost my one year anniversary of owning a FitBit and I want to share some thoughts on that.

I explored the Chocolate Trail and it was amazing, again!
It's almost summer!!! After today, there will only be three days left of school. Whoooo hooo!!!

So yes, there is a lot to fill you in on. I'm looking forward to getting started on it.

Happy Weekend and see you next week!

Friday, June 17, 2016

Happy Fifth Birthday Rachel!!!

Dear Rachel,

Today you are FIVE! How did you get from our little baby Rachel Roo...
...to this???
Rachel, you have so much personality. You are friendly and loud and funny and sweet and curious and assertive and enthusiastic about life.
July and August 2015

You have loved going to school this year. You have lots of friends and I can tell that your favourite part of school is creating things at the art centre! It has been so much fun seeing your reading take off this year. You love to read books and you are learning so many words. I also like seeing you try to sound things out to spell them.
August and September 2015
 
You like to help around the house. You clean up the playroom so nicely and you like working in the yard -- watering flowers or picking dandelions. You like to help put laundry away. Funny Bunny is still your favourite stuffed animal and he and Target Blanket go with you to bed every night.
November and December 2015

Rachel you love all things girly. You love pink and bows and jewellery. Oma put some make up on you at Christmas and you thought it was the best thing ever. You always want to wear "a dress and tights" and we sometimes get into fights about appropriate clothing for what you are doing. I can already tell your teenage years are going to be fun :)

January and February 2016

Sometimes your personality leads to disagreements with Mommy and Daddy. You like to be so independent and grown up and don't like it when we try to put limits on what you do or steer you in a different direction. That sense of knowing what you want will be good for you eventually, even if Mommy and Daddy are pulling their hair out a little over it now!
March and April 2016

Rachel, your big brother Sam is still your best friend. I love how well the two of you play together. You want to be just like him and run after him and his friends on the school playground. You are willing to do whatever he wants to do and play baseball and Legos with him. I love how much you two love each other and I hope your relationship stays that way.
 
April and May 2016

Rachel Katie, I love you to the moon and back and you have brought so much joy to our lives. I hope you have the happiest fifth birthday ever!

Love, 
Mommy

To read about Rachel's surprising birth, click here.

I'm sorry I've been MIA on the blog recently. It was an unplanned absence and there was no one thing which contributed to it. I am planning on getting back into regular blogging next week, including some catch up posts. I've missed this little space and reading up on all of your goings on. See you next week :) I hope.