Okay, are you ready . . .

. . for possibly the longest post ever? Well, c'mon, I've got like 3 months to cover here! First, many apologies for leaving you all in the dark for so many months. Things have been so busy here, and it's a pace that likely isn't going to change anytime soon. I'm working on adapting so I can cope with the flurry of constant activity that is the norm around here. But I digress.

Every summer we look forward to a trip up to the cabin in Qualicum Beach. This year was no different. Mom and Al are busy building their dream home (though actually building it can at times be quite a nightmare!) and while they worked on that, we did what we always do at the cabin. Eat fudgesicles and slide around on the grass!











Hannah worked on her artistic style with a few portraits of her stuffed buddies.






Leif built a wooden tower (and then shot it down with his Lego cannon).



Ivy made a necklace for Grandma's birthday.



Hannah tried another money-making venture, opening her own Lego Exhibit in the livingroom.



We headed to Vancouver to celebrate Shona's Birthday at her Annual Birthday Extravaganza!! Each year guests must perform their gift for Shona, and this year our family blew the crowd away with our modern interpretive dance number.(Music is Pow Pow by LCD Soundsystem).

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A trip to Vancouver in the summer is not complete without a visit to Splashdown Water Park and The PNE. Man have prices gone up!!! At the PNE, kit said he and Leif wanted to try a ride called The Revelation. I honestly had to stand there and decide if I was okay with the two most important men in my life going on a ride that I feared could kill them. It was insane. I stood below and watched them and felt sick to my stomach each time they went by. Here's a clip of what the ride is like. Ugh.

We also rode the Wooden Coaster. Well, actually, Shona rode it in my place. It is so weird to me that I rode all these rides with pleasure in my teens and 20's, and now I'm too afraid of heights to handle it. But we make a good team, our family. Kit hates spinning but not height, I hate heights but not spinning, so between the two of us we meet all the kids' needs. Here's a great clip of the World's Biggest Wooden Roller Coaster, and the screams of the guy riding it. Love it.

Back home, blackberry season was upon us, and that means it's time to make blackberry tarts. Yum!!



For reasons I don't recall, Ivy dressed up as a devil one day (note her fab John Deer pants, made by moi).

The kids 'dug' for fossils with this T-Rex kit.

the finished model. He now sits on the shelf above our stove, my own Kitchen God if you will.

And then, oh my god, it happened. Hannah turned SEVEN!

She made turkeyballs for her birthday dinner (spaghetti and meatballs and corn on the cob).



And her chosen dessert was the usual, Strawberry Shortcake.

When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said a suit, tie and top hat. Okey-dokey my love.



We gathered her buddies at the beach for a party. (She's the only summer birthday in the family, so we get as much summer in as possible!). The Dads got into the bay and helped them build a raft.



Then they set sail!



And she got her coveted Playmobil Ghost Pirates set, plus some vintage Star Wars figures, so all was well in her world.

We played some Qwirkle, a fun new game I am totally into. It makes my brain work hard and that's a good thing.




As fall approached the kids decided their stuffies needed pants. All of them.



Then in September soccer began once again. Leif plays on a new team this year, with a great coach.



Hannah has a great team this year, and is learning the point of holding her position. Go Hannah go!



This month we discovered the skate park across the bridge, and the kids are HOOKED!







I got in some knitting, this time working on a very delicate scarf for Susan's birthday. I love the vibrant colour.




The kids helped me with a dietary cleanse I did for a month. I'm sad to say veggie juice just makes me feel sick. But now I'm off sugar and gluten, and life is good!



And then we got ready to welcome a new fellow to the family.




We are so happy to introduce Bruce the cat. His name came from his foster home, and it suits him well in such a weird way.



He is a gorgeous black cat, very tall and lean.



To illustrate how big he is, here he is curled up asleep with Kit. Whoa!



Now that we are firmly IN fall, we look forward to our usual activities. We took a mushroom walk last week, with ID books and magnifying glasses.









We got out our Hallowe'en decorations. This year we made shriveled heads with peeled apples. They turned out SO cool!



And then last night much trick-or-treating was had. The Werewolf, Skeleton and Scooby-Doo had a great time, and after much candy gorging, woke up with colds. Yay.



We decided next year I'll trade them Lego for candy. Let's hope they still like that idea in 12 months.

Onward to November!

C

Can I get that in triplicate please?

Why yes, you CAN!



This is my third batch of raspberry cakes. We end up eating one of each batch when I make them, so there are only 6 in the freezer. Still, six, yay!

Speaking of food, the oddest things are up with me and the grub. I've already accepted that since I hit 30, weird stuff is up with my appetite. Wheat makes me feel sick, chocolate gives me headaches, some days all I want is fruit, other days I live on rice cakes. After 5 years of this I've decided it'll just be like this until I get near 40 and then some logic will come of all this. In all of this time, I've slowly been moving away from meat. You'll recall, I was vegan for my early 20's, then vegetarian after Leif was born. hen I gave in to my big chicken craving for about 4 years. But in all of that, I've said I just can't go back to eating red meat. It grosses me out, I have no desire to eat it, I can't decide if it's good for you or not. So on top of all my current food weirdness, guess what I ate for dinner last night?



What is going ON here? Tonight I ate more steak, the night before last I had pork. I think at this point I'm just going to wait for a sign from the heavens as to what my body needs. In the meantime, I'll eat whatever strikes me and continue to enjoy lovely outdoor bbq dinners with my darlings.

Hannah got up to some more face painting today with some friends. Yes, my dear daughter is the one on the left grasping a sharp stick. I believe her chosen moniker is Mr. Evil-Nasty.



I finally got around to changing our seasonal table to summer. Waves and boats and elves on the beach, oh my!



And I'm happy to say that I finally got around to trying out a sunhat pattern. When you have a head as big as mine, you need to make your own hats.



I'm happy with the results and ready to hit my next project.


What're you up to this week?

C

It's the most wonderful time of the year . . .

. . yeah, that's a Christmas song, but anyone with taste buds can attest that summer berry season is THE greatest time gastronomically-speaking. Hannah and I have been waiting for some sun to come and warm up the crops here on the island. Berries are definitely more expensive this year due to the huge lack of spring sunshine. Wine too.

After a trip to the farms today, to fetch raspberries and wine, I tried a recipe of Susan's that incorporates my fave berry and cake too. Yummy! Since I'm such a baking maverick I messed with the recipe, so I could add my fave chewy thing (oats) to this lovely moist berry cake.



If my grandpa were still here, he'd love this cake I think. he and I shared a love for Candy Cookies, a simple mix of oats, brown sugar and melted butter. I added oats to this cake and made candy cookie for the crumble top. It tastes divine! I hope to make a bunch tomorrow and freeze them for the fall. While it was tasty with vanilla ice cream, it's even better straight-up in the palm of your hand.

The water guns have inspired a cops and robbers/wild west situation around here. I've had to protect myself (and our badly damaged wood floors) by instituting a no-guns-or-wet-butts-in-the-house rule.





We had a lovely visit with Shona, Isla and Bryn this weekend. We took in the organic islands festival, a Hannah Georgas concert, biked for gelato and watched the World Cup finals together. Much face-painting, playmobil and paddle pool fun was had by the kidlets.

When they drove away Ivy cried for her pal Bryn.



Leif has surprised us with another installment in his comic series, Bob and Lob. It is awesome, as always! I love how he draws the same background for each frame, the same as the previous one, as it goes with the story. That he remembers such a detail. I think my brother used to draw comics as a young boy. And Leif's father used to draw comics for me, back in our courting days. Though I've dropped many a hint about how much I adored his little literary adventures, the courting days are over (boo hoo) and I think our comic exchanges are a thing of the past. Thank goodness our son can pick up the slack for us, cause we are too dang worn out!




And I don't know if this will stop soon, but Hannah's teeth are just bursting out of her mouth. Now she's a total jack-o-lantern, and we're forever getting her to repeat herself, because her lisp is so darned cute!




This week we have soccer camp, more ice cream walks and much baking and crafting on the menu.

C

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Here are some pics.

Here are some of the windows I told you about recently. Hannah did a wizard:



I did some flowers:



We've been having some serious laundry-needs-folding denial around here.



I finally tackled it tonight (because Shona needs that sfa bed tomorrow!). Now we can see how long we'll all avoid putting it away.




And Hannah has lost another tooth, sporting an odd reverse-vampire look.




Now for a cool, non-cooking dinner. Not a big problem, we rarely cook dinner anymore anyway!

C

Summer!!!!!!!!

As a heat wave rolls across Canada, I try to tap into the minds of those wierd folks who love the heat. Me, I like living on the Wet-Coast. The rain, the clouds, the sun that's usually not too hot. Sign me up! So this week, we've found our own ways to say Hello, I love You to this god-forsaken heat.

We've found 3 different ice-cream/gelato options in our little nearby Oak Bay Village. We go daily. The Tudor Sweet Shop has a mint ice cream with chunks of mint chocolates in it, and it cools as it goes down my throat. Yummy! They use these crunchy, tasty mini waffle cones made by a fellow in Duncan (love the local-ness!). The kids are lovers of mango gelato from Ambrosio grocery around the corner from Nicholas Randall.

Our first ice cream journey we stopped in at our local toy store (Timeless Toys, independant and carries no electronic toys) and nabbed some great things: a book on balloon animals that we hope I can master in time for next week's block party (we'll keep you posted); stained-glass colouring books of dragons and flowers; these cool colouring crayons that are like lipsticks, you draw and then smudge them, like pastels but lighter-weight.

The next day we nabbed a cool little garden wind chime from the local hardware store (they're going out of business, retirement beckons, everything's on sale!). I love it because it's subtle, makes a wee tinkling but is not crazy-annoying to our neighbours. Four bucks! Oh, and I got the kids water guns. Yes, a decade after I vowed I wouldn't, and taught the kids war was not something you *played* at, my thinking has shifted. Ivy has two little ones and the other two have a big one each. Kit is hoping for his own Daddy-sized super-soaker, but I'm not so down with that just yet.

We stay in a lot, where it's cool and shady, colouring stained-glass windows, watching season 6 of Road to Avonlea and the World Cup. What happened to Ghana really pissed me off. I know, I know, it's how the game is played, and I'd have likely hand-balled it too. But still, it sucks. As I type this, they are all in the livingroom building train tracks and watching Winnie-The-Pooh. Awesome.

We went down to Seattle this past weekend. Kit was in a huge Ultimate tourney (1000 players, yikes!) and we were way overdue on our Ashley/Virginia and Mike/Gail visits. It was great. I was worrried we'd be overwhelmed by crowds in a big city on a holiday weekend, but we scored. On our first day we checked out Gasworks Park, then stumbled upon a kids carnival ride scene, and it was awesome! Rides were cheap and the right size, lines were non-existant and the caramel corn was delicious. We stayed for hours and garnered a parking ticket for our troubles. :) Aubrey came along with Ashley to meet us, and he did his first foray into the fun world of carny rides. Sorry guys, no pics. They we hit the playground and the kids joined in a game of baseball, then off to Ashley and Virginia's for some fab homemade pizza. They always feed us well.

The next day we set out for the Woodlands Park Zoo. Such a cool zoo (but fyi their caramel corn isn't so fab). We were there for hours and only covered half of it. Here's a bunch of pics because yes, it was a bring-the-camera-kind-of-day.

First, they have the coolest feature. A room full of birds that are trained to eat of a stick. They landed all over Hannah and gave Ivy the scratchy-on-your-skin-creepies. It was so cool!







Here are the girls (Hannah, Mike and Gail's daughter Amelia and Ivy) on the komodo dragon statue. Why not right?



My girls on a blue ball statue thingy. (A memorial to an elephant that died at the zoo).



The boy on the ball.



Leif and Ivy LOVED this way cool slide-inside-a-fake-tree thingy.



We are definitly repeating both activities on our next trip South. We may take in some concerts and do a Portland road trip ater this year, and Seattle will be one of our stops. I will have a new neice or nephew to say hello to by then! Woohooo!

Hannah was happiest when she got to hold this little cutie:



That's Mike and Gail's wee boy Finnegan Henry (such a cool name huh?). Leif and Hannah fought over him most of the time, and asked again why we can't have more babies. We've explained the mechanics, and while the guilt of denying them this joy weighs on me, the thought of never being pregnant again makes me one happy mama. It's all good kiddos.

Now, when we are not eating ice cream or having water fights, we are tidying house for a visit from Shona and the girls this weekend. The kids have already helped in the layout department:





For the record, Shona does not smoke, I don't know where that came from, and don't care. I'll take any help offered.

I hope you're relaxing, wherever you are. :)

kisses
C

Freedom!

Yes, that's how it feels. After blogging about the kids weekly learning for a year, I'm not liking it. Our blog is supposed to be fun, silly and enjoyable stuff about us. It felt so dry and chore-like, and took the fun out of blogging and made their homeschool reporting really irritating for me. So, that's it. We're back to blog-as-usual, and I'll do the reporting seperatly, and privately.

A quickie post before the weekend hits us. Here's what's been going on with us:



Yes indeed, Hannah has lost another tooth. And there are 2 more wiggly ones. Her teeth are so close together, any new ones are relly going to need to fight for space.

I am most happy, as I have cracked the secret to creamy, resaurant-style homous. I found a blog all about homous, and the secret is in the order that you blend your ingredients. Tahini, lemon juice and water FIRST, then garlic and salt, then oil and beans, in small batches. It is the most delicious, tsty paste I've ever made. And I plan to make more today. It's a house of garlic breath over here.



In other cooking joys, we're on a crumble kick. I froze lots of apple pie filling in the fall, and now I can thaw it and bake it and breakfast is oh-so-tasty and warm.



Comics and manga are still big around here, and getting bigger. I can get lots of different styles from our library and the kids are nose-deep in them every day.



And what are they doing when they're not in manga-land? Here's a hint:



Yes, rollerblading around the house in their skivvies is exactly it. Ivy chases after Leif and Hannah with her grape-vine and wool lasso, trying to net herself a new pet. It's an odd backdrop to our lives, and they love it.


This week we're watching Narnia's Prince Caspian every day. Oh and speaking of tuning out electronically, we are all hooked (I'm the worst!) on this new video game. Kit set a high score, so I went in to beat him, then Leif beat mine. So now I need to set a higher one. Yeah, we're basically eating snack foods and playing video games all day. It's great!


I've come across a new website I'm loving to read. It's right up my alley.

Oh and I am SO excited for Christmas this year. Know why? Because of THIS.


Now you're sort of up-to-date. I'll be back soon; right now it's my turn on Bubble Town.


lots o' kisses

C

He needed to retaliate (Week 36)

I've waxed poetic (or talked with excitement) about this great PBS tv show called Martha Speaks. Yes it's an educational show, but unlike all the rest, it is actually well done, so funny, and enjoyed by all ages. It's MY favorite show people! And lately I've been noticing some great things coming out of the kids mouths that I can relate back to this show.

As we all know, I have the vocabulary of a long shoreman. If I need a word, I too often rely on slang jargon that sounds crass, juvenile and cheap. I don't hide this, and I have no time to care about it, for myself. The kids know I have a lazy, unimaginative vocabulary, and I encourage them to find the right word for how they feel, to not fall back on my standards.

So Leif and I are out playing tennis one day this week, and I hit it too hard to the back of the court, and he returns it with such force it clears the fence behind me and heads into the field. Then he says "Sorry Mom, but you hit it so hard to me and I had to retaliate". Oh yeah, that's a word. I would've said 'get you back'. Lazy.

I'm trying to explain the title of an Avonlea episode to Hannah. The title is a play on words, based on a common saying. I'm falling all over myself trying to explain what a saying is, it's a thing we say Hannah, to describe a moment or a feeling, but it's a standard sentence we use . . . argh. And she says "You mean it's an expression?". Thank you lord for providing me with the word I was looking for! Yes Hannah, an expression is what it is.

Hannah has been hired for a dog walking job this week. It sounded lke a great idea, a perfect opportunity for this kid who wants to have responsibilities (and money). Benny is a young shitzu type of guy who lives 2 doors away. When Hannah went for her first walk, he wouldn't leave the house with her, and their bigger golden retriever dog kept knocking her over. We're working on a solution.

Leif continues to enjoy playing hockey, watching the playoffs and tracking the hockey pool. Our wekly homeschoolers hockey days are going well, and are the highlight of his week.

Both kids have been enjoying playing a game that Leif came up with. You go in the back yard and hide somewhere in plain sight, using camouflage. So Leif wears all green and hides in the trees, for example. Then I come out and stand in one spot and try to see them.

Ivy just stands in the playhouse doorway and says "I'm in here!".

We've started lighting candles at dinner, and it has become an issue of who gets to light them (Leif or Hannah). There are 3 candles, and they've worked out a solution of how to share this task. Hannah lights 2 candles, then blows one out. Then Leif lights the remaining two. Pretty smart huh?

I'll leave you with a little chat on motivation, and how what you think motivates people doesn't really motivate people.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html


C