Update

Since I posted that last post about weird weather, it has started snowing like crazy! We have now got at least 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground! I just had to put a picture of this on because it will probably be all melted by the time Ryan gets home tomorrow.

Weird weather

The weather here has been so strange this week. Monday was pretty rainy, though I hear there was snow in parts of Vancouver. There was thick frost I had to scrape off my van yesterday morning but by lunch time when Evan asked if we could have a picnic outside, it was really sunny and actually pretty warm. We lasted outside for about half an hour eating our lunch before we lost our sun and started to get pretty cold. Today there was hail first thing in the morning and little flurries of snow throughout the day. My poor daffodils are so confused! :o)

Anyway, I had to post this picture so you can all see that we had a picnic in February but also so that Ryan can see what we've been up to while he's away in Edmonton, AGAIN. He's been doing some training there and this is the third time he's gone in the last two months but it's also the last one - YAY!!! We'll all be glad to have him home tomorrow. Life just isn't the same without him.

Square dancing

Yes, you read that right, it does say square dancing - that thing you haven't done since highschool P.E. class. On Saturday night a group from our church booked a caller and a hall and did some good ole square dancin'. It was the most fun I've had in ages (maybe that says something about my social life, I don't know)! Anyway, we had a blast but I did feel a little old when I woke up sore the next morning!

An eventful weekend

We had a nice busy weekend, with a night out on Friday, a surprise visit from Ryan's parents on Saturday, and friends over on Sunday.

Friday was a couples dessert night put on by the homeschool asscociation. It was nice for Ryan to meet some of my friends who homeschool and the speaker was a pastor and homeschool dad who was a real encouragement to me and to Ryan too.

Saturday afternoon Ryan's parents arrived at our house with a new (to us) couch for our basement and we got to enjoy a quick but fun visit with them.

Sunday I taught big kids church for the first time - I'm used to teaching the preschool kids but I had fun with this group of grade 1's and 2's. After church we had some new friends, Janelle and Greg and their 2 kids over for lunch. We really enjoyed having a chance to get to know them a little better.

This morning I went on a field trip with Evan and Grace to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. It was a presentation aimed at elementary school children and they did a great job. The conductor talked about the different kinds of instruments and they played songs which highlighted the different sounds of each "instrument family." I had never been in the Orpheum before, and it was amazing! I think I enjoyed myself even more than the kids did.

Here are some pictures of the first time scissors have ever been taken to Rachel's hair. She's never even had a trim before but on Saturday afternoon I gave her some gum. She went into her room for a quiet time and when I went to get her a little while later, she said, "Mommy, I can't find my gum." I looked in her bed and on her floor but of course, it wasn't there! Granny found it a few minutes later when she was touching Rachel's hair. Thankfully, it was only an inch or two from the end and you can't really tell that she has one chunk shorter than the rest. When I told her I would have to cut her hair she started to cry, and as I carried her into the bathroom she said, "No Mommy, I don't want you to cut me!" Of course, I reassured her that I was only going to cut her hair, and it wouldn't hurt but as you might be able to tell from the picture, she was still very unsure until it was done and she realized that it was fairly painless!

We had lots of fun playing "sequence" with Granny and Grandpa. For the record, Grandpa and Daddy are the sequence champs - until next time!

Grace decided that she wanted to use her rolling pin as a back massager. :)

Valentines

Happy Day after Valentine's Day everyone! Valentine's Day wasn't too eventful for us. Ryan arrived home from Edmonton about 9:00 pm so that was the best Valentine's gift. We had our Valentine's celebration while we were away at the retreat and we are going to a homeschool association couples dessert night tomorrow.

These are some pictures of the valentine's we got for the kids. They are puzzles that came with an invisible ink pen and decoder pens. I wrote a "secret message" on each of the puzzles with the invisible ink, then took them apart and put them each in an envelope along with a decoder pen. The kids really enjoyed putting the puzzles together and using their decoder pens to find their message. I didn't really want to get them a bunch of sugary stuff and these cards were the perfect substitute! They're made by the same company that makes the game "Cranium," for those of you game players.

I have been whining lately to Ryan that no one (except for dear faithful Carmen and Susan!) seems to leave comments on my blog even though I know there are a few of you who read it. Well, today I was made aware (by someone who will remain nameless, unless of course you can guess by the picture!) that you can't leave comments unless you are a member of blogger. So I changed the settings and I think it should be easier now for you to leave a comment without signing up for a blog account. If anyone wants to give it a try, that would be great and then I will know that it works. Plus, Ryan will be glad that I can't whine about it anymore!!! :)

Thanks Elise!!!

Fun learning

We are learning about the early Jewish people in our history curriculum right now. We have been reading the story of Joseph so yesterday we made colourful coats like the one Jacob gave to Joseph. Thankfully it was a nice afternoon so we were able to be outside while we painted because it was a pretty messy project! The kids had lots of fun, especially Rachel. She continued painting long after Evan and Grace had gone inside.

Today, when the paint was dry, they tried on their new coats and I told them that Jacob gave Joseph the special coat because he was Jacob's favourite child. Then I told them that each of them has a special coat and that means that they are all my favourite. I love the special moments like this that homeschooling enables me to have with our children.

Wonderful Retreat

This weekend Ryan and I had the chance to go to our church's marriage retreat at Stillwood camp, just above Cultus Lake. It was a wonderful, refreshing time of learning, and remembering what we have learned before, in order to make our marriage even better than it already is. The setting was absolutely beautiful and God blessed us with nice weather, even though the forecast was for rain!

The top left picture is of the speakers, Don and Chris Olson. They have been married for 48 years and they had a lot of wisdom to share with us. I think what I appreciated most about them was how real they were with us. They shared their struggles and what they have learned and really encouraged all of us "young marrieds."

Besides having a few sessions with the speakers, we also had time to spend with our friends, which was a lot of fun. We got to do lots of visiting and playing games. I learned a new one called "Killer Bunnies!" It's weird but fun too.

There were 3 unmarried people who attended the marriage retreat, but I don't think they learned much from the speakers, since they were sleeping through most of the sessions!! :) However, they did wake up to play sometimes and they got to play with almost everyone. I had to put this picture of Dave in twice. I'm not sure if it's Monica or Lanae he's holding but I'm pretty sure he managed to hold all three babies quite a bit over the weekend - and even announced that they might be the next one to have a baby - not bad for a guy who was planning to wait a few years (hehehehe). Just pretend he's holding Owen in one of the pictures because I didn't manage to get any pictures of Owen.

One of the extra blessings of our weekend at Stillwood was that we got to spend a little bit of time with Evan and Betty Warden, who are working out there now. It was wonderful to see them again and to renew an old friendship.

I don't have any pictures of what was going on at home but it sounds like Evan, Grace and Rachel had a blast with Grandma while we were gone and hardly missed us! Thanks again Mom.

That's all for now. I have some unpacking to do!

Swimming lessons

Yesterday was Rachel's first time in swimming lessons so of course I had to take lots of pictures! She did really well and had lots of fun after the first couple of minutes of nervousness about me not going in the water with her. After swimming was over she was telling us all about how she did good and her teacher "did a good job." I can't remember the last time I saw her so excited about something! It was very cute!

Evan and Grace have been in swimming lessons lots of times before and they love it. Evan was lucky this time and there are no other kids in his class so it's like he gets private lessons. He had fun going off the diving board and down the slide. Grace only had one other girl in her class so she got plenty of teacher attention as well. The pink blur on the bottom picture is Grace doing her front glide. We tease Grace that she is part mermaid because she just loves being in the water.

A Dishwasher and a Party!

Here is a picture of my wonderful husband who stayed up late into the night on Friday night, installing our new dishwasher so that it would be ready to use when everyone came over on Saturday. (Actually, I think this picture is of the old dishwasher on its' way out, however, the point is not to have a picture of the dishwasher but of the really cute guy who installed it!!)

Every year for quite a few years now, we have had a weekend dinner in late January or early February with Ernie and Debby and their family to celebrate the birthdays of Lindsay, Ernie and myself. This year was our first time to host the birthday dinner at our house. I'm not sure if we earned that privilege because Mom lives in Abbotsford too now, or if it was because Ernie and Deb have moved to a smaller place, but either way, we were pleased to have everyone in our home. It was a great night. We had a lovely dinner (thanks Mom!) and fun playing hockey and jenga.

Grace and Evan really enjoyed spending time with cousin Lindsay and Rich. Evan didn't even complain too much when Rich beat him at hockey!

The birthday trio - my 31st, Lindsay's 24th and Ernie's 51st

I got spoiled with flowers this year - thanks to Mom, Rosmarie, Kim and Ernie & Deb. I guess everybody knew that my favourite colour is purple!!

Fun with the White Board

I brought our white board upstairs to try a different way of doing Evan's math with him, just to keep it fun. After we were done with math, the kids had all kinds of fun drawing on the white board. Evan started this picture and told Grace she wasn't allowed to look until he was done. I thought it was so sweet, I just had to take a picture. And besides that, I need it so that on our crazy days, I can remind myself and them, that they really do love each other!

Grace was so pleased with the picture Evan drew for her, that she told him to leave the room , and drew one for him. Very sweet.

International Cafe

Friday evening was our international cafe evening in celebration of missions week at our church. It was great fun and great food. Our small group did a mexican theme so we served nachos with salsa and guacamole as well as margaritas (virgin of course!)

After we sampled yummy food from all over the world, we had a chance to go through four different stations to learn from people who are involved in different areas of missions work. It was very interesting and thought provoking.

I didn't take a s many pictures as I would have liked but here are a few. Notice the lovely sombreros and mustaches. Evan was so cool with the mustache Andrea drew on him, that all his friends wanted one too!!

My friend Elise doesn't have time to start a blog right now because she has just had her third baby and she is a very busy Mommy. If she did, I know she would put this picture on her blog. Since I think it is such an awesome picture and it really needs to be seen by my MILLIONS of viewers (hahahaha), I decided to post it here.
So this is Jake with his "doctor glasses" on. Jake has seen a lot of doctors lately so he is very into pretending to be a doctor. Isn't he adorable?!?!

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my 31st Birthday and it was a lovely day. We had a slow start to our day, staying in our pj's while we ate breakfast. Evan helped make breakfast which was very sweet of him.

We have been saving our airmiles and we finally had enough to get a new dishwasher! Yay!!!!! Hopefully this one will actually wash the dishes instead of just heating them up enough to cook the food onto them, like our old one did. Anyway, the new dishwasher arrived on Wednesday but Ryan hasn't had time to install it yet so it is sitting in our dining room , still in the box. I knew the kids would be excited about using the big box for a fort once we get the dishwasher out but I didn't think they would use it even while the dishwasher is still in it! They opened up the flap of the top of the box and made it a "roof" and played under their new fort for quite a while. During that time I was listening to a cd from last year's homeschool convention about "Teaching boys and other people who want to build forts all day!" I learned a lot about the differences between boys and girls and how I need to alter my teaching to accomodate those differences.

In the afternoon, I took Evan and Grace to skating lessons and then over to my Mom's house so that I could run a few errands. When Ryan got home from work, he and I went over to Mom's where we had a wonderful birthday dinner of pasta and seafood - yum! Mom made a blackberry pie instead of cake because that's my favourite. My Mom makes the best pie crust in all the world!

The sweater I'm wearing in the picture was a birthday gift from Dad and Loni. It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the necklace I am wearing has an amythest pendant on it, which is my birthstone. It was my birthday present from Ryan and Mom.

Although I don't know anyone who shares my birthday, there are quite a few who have a birthday the day after. So happy birthday today, to Jon Jarvie, Scott Johnson, and Sonya Brandt!