I Need Another Weekend...

...to recover from the one we just had! It was a lot of fun but action-packed. As I said in my last post, we went into Toronto on Friday night to visit with our friend, Isaac, who was home on a break from teaching English in Korea. Isaac jumped right in and started reading Sam his favourite book, Richard Scarry!

And then we headed out to Pan on the Danforth, a Greek restaurant for supper. I LOVE Greek. When I ordered the Greek salad, our server asked if I wanted it with lettuce or without. I ordered without and my jaw just about hit the table when this was delivered to our table. (Sidenote: Our friends were wondering if Sam and Rachel would do okay with Greek and I said, "Sam loves feta and olives" which he ate a ton of, as well as about a third of my salad. My kids aren't normal!)

 

Saturday morning we had a dance party in the kitchen while Marika made crepes with peach sauce. (Sidenote: Can I go back to Saturday and have that meal again??? Sooooo yummy!) Rachel was insisting on holding every stuffed animal Donny and Marika had in their house and Sam was insisting on wearing Donny's "Noogler" (New Google employee) hat.

After a bit of time, which I spent helping Donny and Marika de-clutter a bit of their office (future plans for further de-cluttering are in the works and I can't wait! (I have an obsession.)), we headed home. We spent a quick hour at home and then headed out to Russ, Julie, Vanessa and Saskia's for supper. We got to see their awesome new house (they built a second story onto their house this past summer) which now includes a dance studio and a sauna. Then we had an amazing curry meal and peach kuchen for dessert. Sam monopolized Saskia's attention most of the evening and Vanessa and I made plans for me to go and spend a day with her in Toronto. I can't wait to discover her environment at the University of Toronto. Her college has a weekly dinner where they wear robes, just like in Harry Potter!

Sunday morning we went to church and, since there were only two kids in my Sunday School class, we had Sunday School at Tim Horton's! It was a lot of fun and we actually covered all the material in the lesson. Amazing what a little hot chocolate and donuts will do for Grade 6s and their ability to focus.

After church we went to Tim and Janice's to have our family celebration for Willem's birthday. We did our regular pizza lunch and had a delicious chocolate pudding cake! Oh yummmmmm... (Reminder to self: E-mail people and get their recipes!) And I think Willem like our card and gift, which to be honest, was not only suggested but also bought for us by his parents. Oh, and wrapped too because we're just awesome like that! Thanks again Janice and Tim for the suggestion, the shopping and the presentation. Sam did make the card though, dictating what should be on it and decorating it.

After lunch the kids all played. As you can tell, Rachel adores Tessa and Willem. There are no pictures of Sam because he was upstairs playing with all of Willem's "cool toys!" Sam adores Tessa and Willem too.

Last night I got Sam bathed and in bed, with stories read, in about fifteen minutes flat, and then Dave and I did our 2012 taxes. Since I wasn't working, we moved and Dave's work took off taxes as if he'd been working for them all year, we are getting a really sweet return. And now we're dreaming about what to do with it...! If only we could always get that much money from the government for taking about an hour to tell them about ourselves. :)