Wednesday, August 21, 2013

This, that, and the other

Oh hello internets! I do believe I remember you…it’s nice to be back, but I didn’t miss you much…

Summer arrived and with it came beautiful warm weather and an apartment that felt more like a greenhouse than somewhere to live…so, we decided that we would spend our evenings outdoors and, whenever possible, we would leave town. And that’s what we did. It was wonderful and it gave us a chance to disconnect from the Internet and social media and all that stuff…

In no real order we:

80th birthday number 1 (533x800)

Went to an 80th birthday bash

80th birthday number 2

Went to another 80th birthday bash (adventure #2)

daddy swinging

Did a lot of swinging

learning about bottles

Reluctantly learned how to take a bottle

flying

Flew on a few airplanes

i see trees

Discovered the trees and the clouds

deck time meal time

Ate our meals on the deck in Kelowna

learning to swim

Practiced swimming

monkey bars

Practiced swinging on the monkey bars at the playground by the school where J will go in September

new car

Unexpectedly purchased a new vehicle (which J absolutely loves…in part because the paint sparkles!)

popsicles

Ate lots of popsicles

reading

Read lots of books (although some of us would have preferred to just eat them)

steveston smile

Spent a day in Steveston (adventure #1)

stuff

Packed up our life and had our apartment painted

sunset

Caught some beautiful sunsets

train building
Built elaborate train tracks on the deck

water tree

Visited a tree growing in the lake

waterslide

And spent a lot of time at the waterpark on Granville Island riding the waterslide.

Summer isn’t quite over yet, but the mornings are feeling crisp and the evenings are getting darker sooner. Back to school this year really is back to school for our family and it’s a pretty exciting time! Hope your summer has been just as fun as ours!

Monday, August 19, 2013

Five whole years?!

Today this little lady turned 5.

j is five

She has grown from a teeny, tiny, cuddly baby into a long-limbed, always-moving, fiercely independent ball of energy with a "special" camera smile.

home from the hospital

She loves reading, art, cars (especially Mercedes and anything with both a roof rack and a rear windshield wiper), Cars, [literally] smothering her sister with love, dresses, and dirt. It's hard to believe it has been five years since our lives changed forever and it's hard to remember what life was like before her! Happy Birthday Miss J!

Her daycare does a special birthday walk around the “sun” for the kids. They hold a little globe and walk around a candle once for each year of their life. They bring in a picture for each age to show the other children. Except for the very first picture, these are the pictures J picked this year. J chose her going home from the hospital picture as her “zero” picture.

wheres the ball

When she turned 1, she received a ball and it was one of the first gifts she opened. This is J, wondering where the ball went when it was briefly hidden in hope that she would open some of her other gifts.

two

By the time she was 2, J had perfected her camera smile.

now shes three

When she was three, she had a birthday in Kelowna (see that camera smile?!?!).

apricot farmer

When she was four, she spent a few weeks with my mom and dad and helped them harvest their apricots.

spider girl

And just last week, J demonstrated that she doesn’t have her mom’s fear of heights as she climbed to the top of the spider web in Mission Creek Park in Kelowna (hmmm…we seem to spend a lot of time in Kelowna!)

Happy Birthday to my little lady!

Friday, August 02, 2013

Russia - “The Motherland”

ru-1820738

Postcard from Russia from prostim

Description: The statue The Motherland in Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd. When it was dedicated in 1967, it was the tallest statue in the world at 87 metres.