Highlight reel time since that's all I have time for :)
Boggling my mind that the first day of school is now in the "14 day forecast". Ready and not ready. But mostly ready :)
Not much big news lately... Except I got my embolization date! September 19th :)
Dave is out of town Sep 10-18, and then the procedure is on the 19th, and then we are off to Kelowna for a wedding on the 20th. Please wish me luck during that time haha...
Emilia got to ride one of her favorite horses on August 7! Picasso <3
He's big, and he's so so gentle!
On August 9th we trekked on out to Abbotsford for dinner, pool and apparently some hot tub time with Rachel, Kyle and Rebecca!
Why, children? Just why?!
Eva just chilling.
August 10th was the kids' last day of swimming lessons. We did 4 weeks straight from 930-10 at Greenaway Pool and we loved it! I will definitely be doing that again next summer. Both the kids also passed Swimmer 1 which is exciting (and honestly a bit unexpected)!
Afterwards we went to the Cloverdale Athletic Park water park to meet up with Kirstin, Wren and Nate.
Dom helping Wren see through the binoculars
In the morning on August 10, both the big kids came and asked if they could have some special time with me. I've been (naturally) struggling to balance my time between all the kids, and Eva (naturally) ends up getting the most direct attention because well... she's 3 and loud :).
Dave took Eva and Sherlock for a walk, and the kids chose Black Tiger Co. for our date location! They each got a donut, and then I brought this deck of cards that has fun questions for kids to answer. We went through most of the deck and they giggled away. I made them promise me to take a nice selfie with me at the date, and then it organically turned into silly faces followed by IG filters.
And we laughed!
Somehow, these sorts of things need to become more regular. That is one downside I'll admit to being a (mostly) stay-at-home mom. I am around so much, that I think the quality of interactions goes down. It becomes quantity over quality. Hopefully school starting up for all 3 of them will help with that a bit.
In the afternoon on the 10th, we went to the annual Kimber BBQ at Uncle John & Aunty Janis' house to watch the Abbotsford Airshow!
Eva wasn't a huge fan of the first one we saw. I cannot remember what it was called, but it was a LOUD one; the kind that gets you to your core.
Rides on the gator are always a highlight for the kids
And of course the gorgeous water feature in the back yard. Dom is checking out the alligator that "lives" in the middle pond.
We wanted to squeeze in at least one more dinner with Scott and Ash before their baby was born, so we did so on August 11!
I grabbed a chair for the girls and two of these little frogs were hiding on it! This guy took a leap right into Ashleigh's shirt and just hung out like it was the place to be.
Trying to get more pictures of Dom lately. I just feel like he's sprouting up way too quickly. He's almost up to my shoulders and it's suddenly catching me off guard! He's in grade 2! I have so many memories from grade 2.
Ash helping the kids pick some vegetables for dinner and to bring home!
We walked down the road to visit some horses and I got to meet Chocko(?). I love him. He was ginormous and so sweet. Total cuddly love.
Someone please tell me why I do these things! Eva had done a couple naps and one night sleeping in Emilia's big bed just for fun. I suddenly got it in my head that we were going to spontaneously transition her into the big girl bed (which we do not have a mattress for), and I would take down the crib and rearrange their room. It's great to have the extra space in their room, and we currently just have her crib mattress in the bottom bunk until we get a proper mattress, but I think I should/could have prepared her better for the transition, or maybe not just taken the crib apart immediately and kept it out as an option.
The first few nights were rough. Every night has been progressively better, and hopefully we are starting to turn a corner so that bedtimes are manageable when Dave goes away!
A Playmobil corner until we can get Emilia a small desk in here
Needs a bit more tidying up, but gives an idea of the layout of the room.
On August 13 Aunty Lasagna came to watch horseback riding. Emilia was placed on Horse, who has always made her feel a bit nervous because... quite honestly he looks a little intimidating and is known for being bumpy and fast. We had also just eaten pizza for dinner, so with his bumpy speed her tummy was hurting a bit and she sat out of some of the trotting. That was too bad, but she was still proud of herself for riding Horse, so I'll take that as a win.
On the 14th I worked all day as usual, and then we went to Mom & Dad's for dinner and to grab some things for our upcoming camping trip!
Dave reading some strange book about Walter the Farting Dog (not the original, an even stranger version)
Queen Elsa braving the playground
Again, I make poor life decisions sometimes, but they result in good memories usually! On the 15th the kids and I met up with Ashleigh and Phoebe at the zoo! Putting our zoo pass to good use here :) The reason it could have been a silly decision was because I probably should have been at home prepping to leave for camping the next day, but hey... I can be cool and fun sometimes!
We made it pretty well all the way around the zoo including the Wallaby Walk-through, the dinosaur exhibit, and even a train ride and trip to the playground. A great success. Dom biked the whole way, and Eva went between Striding and walking.
We learned a lot about Wallabies and kangaroos; particularly about how marsupials have babies. It was very informative and the young man who was giving us the information was articulate and passionate about it! Very cool! I don't know what I thought about how kangaroos had/grew joeys, but there were definitely some disconnects between what I thought and the facts haha.
It was so nice to go with Phoebe, who actually wanted to do some of the photo-ops! My kids always run away from them when I suggest it, but this got them involved too haha.
This brings us to our camping trip! August 16-19 at Emory Creek Campground with Gramma and Grandpa. We loved the creek play area and the sandy beach by the river! Everyone slept remarkably well (big kids in the trailer, Eva in the playpen in the tent with us). We had one night of rain and thunderstorms, but it could have been worse! We had one day of 35+ degrees which was super hot, but at least we had the creek to cool down at! We had a flush toilet right by our site and a tap with drinking water, so that made me feel happy :).
So so grateful to Gramma and Grandpa for providing main meals for us! Rachel, Kyle and Rebecca came up to spend a day with us too which was a lot of fun.
Pictures got out of order, but camping doesn't really have an order or schedule anyway, so here goes!
When the dads are in charge of beach play :)
Again, when the dads are in charge of beach play. They started digging holes, which turned into a feat to build a tunnel. They succeeded! Which preceded the kids stomping through the top and running like mad through the sand. #memories
So grateful for this flowing, clean creek that weekend. It flows right into the Fraser River, so it's nice to still have somewhere to cool off that's safe and fun for the kids.
Walked up to the store one morning for a coffee
Trying to get the kids a bit cleaner before bedtime haha. Maybe only sort of successful, but at least we tried.
Emilia building her "city"
Gramma planned a couple activities with the kids! Emilia was the most engaged haha.
Dom loved riding the trails around the campsite. <3
There were a bunch of these little voles running around the first couple days. They are apparently blind, and are not the brightest bulbs on the tree. So cute though!
So focused
From our first visit down to the creek. Eva decided to just strip down instead of rolling up her pants. When you're 3, you get away with these things :)
Gramma took the camera for a bit so I got a few proof of mom pics!
Our mondo tent that was gifted to us by our neighbour a few years back!
And here are some pictures Dave got on his phone :)
And finally some I stole from Gramma's facebook!
We had promised the kids a trip to the ice cream shop and hadn't done it, so we squeezed it in on our way out!
At this moment, I was fast asleep in the tent missing the Jiffy Pop
I had forgotten about this one! Haha
We headed home on August 19th and immediately showered all the kids. There was some disagreement from them, but it had to be done before anyone could go in their beds or on any furniture haha.
Clearly the trip tuckered Eva out. She crawled into bed and passed out on her own while the rest of us went about our day haha. <3
Jesse & Kirstin had us over for waffle brunch one day and I checked out their fish, Turtle. He reminded me of Kramer, our fish at Quibble Creek in Janine's office years ago :)
Kids found the dress up clothes. Emilia haha!
Dom came down at 9pm one night and said he wanted to go read and learn about vocal cords. When we went to bed a while later I noticed his light was still on. That's one way to try to absorb the information haha! He got a kick out of this picture in the morning.
Thank you Instagram for this idea! Built a marble maze out of Lego. He's been rebuilding and rearranging it for over a week now. Great brain activity!
