A New Chapter Begins

Well summer is almost over (in a couple of days) and with a new season, also comes a whole new stage of my life. Both of my kids are now in full time school! My daughter started kindergarten and my son is in grade two, now both of my kids are no longer at home during the weekdays, and it feels so weird. They are growing up! I get a little verklempt every time I think about it. I got especially emotional on my daughter's first day of school last week. They had the gradual entry system for the kindergartners, so the first day was only an hour, but I still got all choked up (I had to put my sunglasses on so no one would see my tears, luckily my husband was with me, so he could drive us home). Her new school is so big, and she is still so little, and full, six hour days seem so long for a five year old. My son had half day kindergarten when he first started school and I though that was perfect, but now the whole district has switched over to full days. I know she'll get used to it and she's getting bigger everyday, but it's still hard to think about. Certainly I will enjoy the time off and am looking forward to getting a lot done around my house, but hearing my daughter tell me in the morning that she misses me when she's at school, is hard.

I feel like so much has happened over the summer and I was just too busy to write about it. I felt burnt out and couldn't bring myself to post anything. I needed a break and I also wanted to focus my attention on my kids and not the computer. But now that I have some free time, while the kids are at school, I am going to try writing again. I do miss it and it's a good outlet for me to have some creativity in my life and have something that is all my own.

So I'll play a little catch up here and tell you about what's been going on with me and my family. My daughter finished preschool in June and my son finished his program at a special school for kids with behavioral difficulties. It was bittersweet having them both leave their schools. The preschool that my daughter went to was so great, and we had been taking our kids there for four years (my son for the first two and then my daughter for the second two). We will deeply miss the teachers that nurtured and cared for our children, they so were amazing! I can't say enough good things about them, and I feel like my kids went to the best preschool in Vancouver, that's how great they were! And then my son's school, they really helped him a lot. He was in a one year program to help him with his behavior and though some people might not understand what it's like having a child with behavioral issues, and might judge him (or me), I have seen so much improvement over the last year and I'm so happy about that. It's like night and day really, and though I know he's not perfect and certainly still has some things to work on, he's on the right path to success in his life, and I owe it all to that school.

After school finished we spent the summer at beaches and lakes and spray parks and outdoor pools and playing with friends and family, it was so much fun. We went canoeing, and peddle boating; we went camping and to Playland (my son was tall enough to go on all of the big rides this year and he loved it, he even went on the big wooden roller coaster and exclaimed when he got off "That... Was... AWESOME!!!"). My husband started a new job, my kids had both of their birthdays (now my daughter is five and my son is seven), and we got a new kitten. My son learned how to ride his bike with no training wheels and fully dunk his head underwater, and my daughter learned how to swing on the swings with no one pushing her and to climb to the very top of the climbing web at our local park. There has been so much growth and change this summer it's almost unbelievable to my husband and I, and we both welcome it.

Now my kids are at a new school together and it seems like a good fit for both of them. My daughter's kindergarten teacher seems really nice and my son's new special program seems really great too. I'm happy with the new changes life is bringing and I feel like things are heading in the right direction.

Here's a bunch of pictures from some of our fun, summer adventures.

These are from our annual camping trip at Manning Park, when we got to go canoeing for a few hours, it's one of our favorite things to do as a family.

These are from Playland, the kids always have a blast there!

These are from our day at the beach with the cousins.

This is when we went to Alouette Lake with friends, we got to go peddle boating and the kids loved it.

Here is my daughter on her birthday and she was very happy with her present!

A new kitten!!!

And here we are at a birthday party in the park, gotta love face painting!

So how was your summer? Did you get to do all of the fun things you wanted to do? Feel free to share, I'd love to hear about it : )

I Am Joining The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

Have you ever heard of the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSC)? I hadn't, until last year. It's pretty much what you would expect from the title. People join together to cleanup shores around lakes and rivers and the oceans, all across Canada, for a few weeks in September. After reading about it, I thought it would be a great thing to participate in. It would be good for me and my family, good for my community, and especially good for the environment in this wonderful and beautiful, coastal city I live in, called Vancouver. I thought, wouldn't this be a great lesson to teach my children? It would help me to teach them about giving back to mother nature, the way that she gives to us everyday. I always tell them about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place, with mountains and the ocean and so much to do outdoors. But isn't it also great to teach them how to take care of this place and not to take it for granted?

Photo Credit

 I was really stoked to do it last year, but then life stepped in and changed my plans. Not to make excuses, really it was just that a bunch of other things came up. Two birthday parties and an Aunt that wanted to see the kids on the particular day we signed up for. It ended up being a crazy day of driving all over and visiting and kiddie party madness, but it was a great day. I was really bummed that we didn't get to do the cleanup though, especially because I was telling everyone that we were doing it and I was asking friends if they wanted to participate too. So I made a promise to myself that we would do it next year.

And next year is here. I just signed up today. I am going to do it right this year. I was even contemplating being a site coordinator and taking on a whole area to organize by myself. But I decided to be realistic and just participate this year and see what it's like. If it's something I think I can handle on my own, then maybe I can be a coordinator next year.

Doing this kind of thing is important to me. I took an Environmental Studies program in college and it was really eye opening. I learned so many things in those two years. One thing that really shook me up was seeing a picture of a lake that was turned into a dumping ground for electronics. People would come there to find parts to sell, or scrounge for copper or other metals in the stuff that was dumped there. It was so filled with junk that it didn't even look like a lake anymore, it looked like a garbage dump, but it was just filled with electronics. I was looking on the internet to see if I could find that same picture (which I'm sure is really old, I saw it at school, about nine years ago), and I couldn't. But I did find some other horrible pictures. Like this...

The Citarum River in Indonesia

Photo Credit

And this...

Photo Credit

I really don't want the beautiful place, that my family and I call home, to end up like these places. So I am doing my part to help. If you feel inspired too, and you live in Canada and want to join, click here to find a cleanup site in your area. If you don't live in Canada, but want to help out where you live, here are some other shoreline cleanup programs:

• International Coastal Cleanup
• California Coastal Cleanup
• Clean up Australia!
• Project Aware
• The Daily Ocean

This list is from the Other Resources page on the GCSC website, which has tons of useful info if you want to know more.


"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Gandhi

Bring On The Summer!

Spring and summer are my favorite time of year. A whole six months (sometimes a little less, in this climate) of warm weather and being outside and really, just not having to stay in, makes for wonderful days. These are the days that memories are made of. I even love the smell. The fresh, sweet, spring night air is intoxicating to me. I breath it in deep and just feel better about life. I hate being stuck inside, but during the winter it rains a lot, so I find myself to be a bit of a hermit for half the year. I know lots of people still get outside in the winter here, and we do to some degree, but the rain makes it so hard (for me) to get out and be active. Also the short winter days just make me feel a little depressed, and if it's constantly raining (which sometimes it is) and grey, than it can feel a bit like perpetual dusk.

I am not trying to bad mouth Vancouver, or our climate, because if you can get through the winters, the spring and summer certainly make up for it. Vancouver is gorgeous in the summer, everything is green and people are out everywhere enjoying life. It's like the city wakes up. There are so many more things to do and it brings on a level of excitement that you just don't feel in the wintertime.

So, with that being said, bring on the summer! Bring on beach days, and carnivals, and barbeques and the water slides. Bring on camping, and birthday parties (both my kids have summer birthdays), and weddings and water parks. Bring on days at the lake, and car-free street festivals, and Playland and spending time with friends and family. I want to do it all!

This weekend finally felt like summer, it was hot (not too hot) and we got out and really enjoyed it! We went to Jericho Beach, with family, on Saturday and a carnival for my daughter's school on Sunday. It was a great, full weekend.

Here are some pictures of our beach day with the cousins. The weather couldn't have been more perfect.

 My daughter and niece are the same age, and will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. How are they that old already? Where did the babies of the family go?

I love how my son's eyes are peaking out behind his sunglasses here. It's almost like he saying I am wise beyond my years, and I know things you don't.

What beach day would be complete without a child trying to bury themselves in the sand?

 The sky seemed extra blue that day.

 My nephew was excited to show me this crab leg he found.

My daughter was saying "come on mom, hurry up, lets go down to the water."

But then, as soon as she realized I was taking pictures, she started posing. I wonder where she learned that from?

I found this teeny, tiny, little pink shell on the beach and gave it to my daughter. She was so happy, she loves pink and she loves teeny, tiny, too. 

 I told my nephew to start flexing for the shot, and he did a superb job I think.

I had to take a picture of this tree, the way it looked in the light, it was just glowing. It was begging for me to take it's picture.

So what kinds of things are you excited to do this summer?

Queen Spur Of The Moment, At Your Service

We just had one super busy, adventurous weekend, and it was all brought on by a bag left behind by my husband. He travels a lot for work, and on Friday he was in such a rush, at five in the morning, that he forgot his bag with his clothes and toiletries (can I call guy stuff toiletries, or is there some man version of that word that doesn't sound so girly or pretentious? Basically I mean his toothbrush, hair gel and razor, etc). When I realized he'd forgot it, I felt so bad for him. He's not the kind of guy to go out and buy all new stuff (we are not made of money), so I knew he'd end up suffering through his weekend work trip with no change of clothes or anything (okay he might have gone out and bought a new toothbrush, he's not a barbarian, and he's in sales so he's gotta have fresh breath when talking to clients).

After picking up my daughter from preschool that day, I walked in the door and saw his bag on the table and thought, poor guy, wouldn't it be nice if I could bring it to him? So that's what I did, I used his unfortunate mistake and turned it into a little vacation for the kids and I. Of course he was just on the Island, in Victoria, which is only a forty-five minute drive and an almost two hour ferry ride away. But it can be a lot to manage when you have to pack up everything in a matter of hours, make the quickest dinner ever, and rush the kids out the door to catch a ferry, last minute. Still, I did it. I kind of like the challenge. Certainly there are days that I wouldn't be up for it, but it's almost summer and I swear the sun gives me extra energy to accomplish amazing feats. I don't think I would've done it in the wintertime.

So after I started thinking about going, I quickly made all of the right calls to make sure it could be done, like ask my hubby if we could come and crash his hotel for the weekend, and make sure the hotel room was big enough to accommodate us (we ended up with a king size bed and squished the four of us in it, luckily our kids are still young enough to do this; you can bet in five years from now they would not accept this fate), and I phoned up an old friend that I hadn't talked to in a year (but who I love dearly) to see if she'd want to hang out with us while we were there. Luckily everything worked out in our favor, my hubby even had our extra car seat for our four year old in his company car, which he never does. I just had to carry my son's booster seat (and all of our other stuff) on to the ferry and hubby picked us up on the other side. It was a whirlwind takeoff and a whirlwind trip, but I did it. Queen Spur of the Moment made it happen, and it was well worth the effort.

While I contemplated going, I thought to myself for a minute, that it would be much easier and cheaper to stay at home. But really, how boring is that? We haven't been on any kind of vacation in years (aside from our yearly camping trips, of course). Then I thought, I have to take advantage of this opportunity, it may not come up again for a long time, and I will kick myself later for not going. So we went, and had a wonderfully fun, fly by the seat of our pants, unplanned mini vacation. I am so glad that I didn't listen to that negative nelly voice in my head and decide that it would be too hard or to expensive to go. Life is short and sometimes you have to make things happen in order to have a little adventure for yourself. No one else is going to do it for you.

Here are some pictures of our weekend getaway (sorry, lots of pictures), starting with the ferry ride to Victoria.

On Saturday we went to the harbour at Fisherman's Wharf Park, a block away from the hotel. There were four seals swimming around in the marina and the kids got to feed them. You can buy a plate of raw fish at one of the little restaurants, for five dollars, and feed it to seals. They swim right up to the dock and practically jump up eat it out of your hand. It was so cool.

 Then we went to a lovely beach and had a picnic lunch. It was such a gorgeous day.

Shockingly, my shy daughter snuggled up with my friend, who she hadn't seen since she was a baby. My little girl never ceases to amaze me. She's really coming out of her shell these days.

This is my friend's son who is the same age as my little guy. His mom and I met by taking our boys to the same baby group years ago. I am so glad we have stayed in touch.

The beach also had a great playground, with cool stuff to climb and lots of space to run around. The kids had a wonderful time. And I enjoyed watching them and chilling out with my good friend.

The next day we went to a different beach which was only a ten minute walk from my friend's house.

I saw these pretty flowers on the walk to the beach, and I had never seen them before. It's interesting how in Victoria, which is only a few hours away (and of course separated by water) from Vancouver, there are many similarities but also many differences in the two environments. I saw quite a few different types of trees and flowers that I don't see in Vancouver. It really made me feel like I was somewhere else, not still in our province. I know there are a lot places on Vancouver Island that are like that, like Tofino for instance, which has the most beautiful bog ever. It makes you feel like you are somewhere else in the world.

So all and all we had a wonderful trip. There were a few bumps along the road, like missing the 7:00PM ferry home and having to wait two hours to catch the 9:00PM one. The kids were crazy at that point, along with all the other kids on the ferry. But they sure had fun running around with them in the kids' play area, reveling in the insanity of a late night ferry adventure.