Lucas is now writing his own Captain Underpants.
Watch out Dav!



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Music to my Ears

Rob and I are sitting upstairs catching up on the day whilst listening to Lucas read through the vents. We are amazed with his increased ability and grateful to all his teachers who have supported his journey through literacy this grade one year. I myself remember struggling with reading and sobbing tears of frustration when left to my own devices at Duthies in Arbutus Village after being told to find a book I could read before we left! (No offense Mom, I'm sure you were near and as frustrated as I was!) It was such a break-through to me when I realized I could indeed read, and the skill quickly developed into a love for a medium that remains one of my very favorite. Indeed to this day there is little else better than sinking into a good book.

So today I say thank you to Dav Pilkey, author of the Adventures of Captain Underpants series, for although I frown upon any book that uses gimme or wanna, I am thrilled that my son is sitting up reading, and asking to be allowed just a little more before bed!

A Seattle Getaway

Rob and I left town yesterday to spend some quality time together. After a 3.5 hour border wait, we made it to Seattle for a great gastro-pub dinner. In our funky room at the Hotel Max, Rob fell asleep after the movie was running playing for about a minute. A good sleep later, we shared a light breakfast, picked up a big wine order and headed downtown to have a walk around. After parking our car well underground, we got into the elevator where Rob decided to have a little jump. Many springy bounces later, our elevator became stuck, and this is where we remain at this point while the rest of you enjoy the warmest Saturday we've seen in months.


We may not have Internet connection, but at least we have our iPhones. I'm guessing at least an hour, but it's been 40 minutes so far and they just banged on the wall to say the elevator company was on it's way. Not sure this was what we had in mind for quality time!

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Update: Well I guess Carol was just in requesting an update; we are NOT still in the elevator. It took an hour and a lot of patience, but we were released with nary a scrape or a piddle in our pants. (Although the latter was constantly on my mind!) After we got up to level ground we decided we were too hungry and needed to head back in the car and get to our chosen lunch spot. The parking attendant was incredulous that we didn't think we should pay for parking, so we swallowed our pride and paid for our experience. Truly unbelievable! The drive home took twice as long as the drive down... but the border wait was shorter coming back and the Easter bunny arrived Sunday morning without a hitch. Next time we may tale our mini-vacation downtown?

Spring Break Goodtimes

Although I must admit to looking forward to Monday just a little, Spring break has been great so far. I was initially rather disappointed that Rob couldn't get any time off to go anywhere but in the long run I think it has been a blessing. The kids have really slid nicely into the rhythm of slower days with less rushing, and I have loved being able to drink the whole pot of coffee every morning! Miraculously the two monsters have also found a happy place in their relationship and have been caught playing together for longer and longer periods of time. Wonderful! I'm keeping my optimism high for a great spring.


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Things I Love

It has been a hard year for all of us.

But still, there are wonderful things all around us.

Here are some everyday things I love.

Everyone absorbed in their own medium. Mia playing on Starfall, Lucas playing Plants vs. Zombies on the i-phone and Rob working.

My dogs. How I love my dogs and the countless hours we spend in the forest together. They keep me sane on many a day. (Except for when hunter is on a chewing tirade!)

How often Mia is dressed up like a bunny. Often she can be found delivering home made paper Easter eggs to all. I find them in the pockets of all my things.

Lucas reading. And reading. And reading. This makes me blissfully happy and proud.

Food. Good food in particular. Like these llapingachos and fried eggs. Mmmmmm.

How I can actually mark 30 essays a week in these conditions. Honestly, is this not multi-tasking at its best?

Smiles, which make us all happy.

Ample supplies of red pens and mechanical pencils. These were all Christmas gifts. No joke.

And finally, no picture, but the sun. The healing sun reminds me that the spring will soon be here.

It's been a Loooonng Time...

Not up for writing too much yet - there is so much to catch up on and I don't know where to start and what to skip. Here are some photos to get me started and show you that we are still here! lol

First up is my purple hair which the kids love because it smells like Popsicles and I love because it averts viewers gaze from my grey.

Mia choreographed and danced an amazing dance piece with her dance partner and friend for their dance school's Christmas show. They were AMAZING and Rob and I were jumping out of our seats with excitement and surprise!

Lucas has grown and grown and grown. he's having some wonderful success with reading, swimming, riding a bike with gears (and I can barely keep up!) and growing muscles as you can see from the picture!

Christmas was blissfully quiet.

These are totally out of order, but Mia turned 4 years old! Wow!!!

We got a puppy who the kids named Hunter. His Mama was a Coonhound and his rascally Pops left without a trace so we don't know who to send the bill to.... We rescued him from a kill shelter in North Carolina. He doesn't like our rain here much but is enjoying our beaches and forests, so he says. He also wonders how his Mama got replaced by an overly furry black and white senior male. Pillo pretends to dislike Hunter but secretly loves the cuddles and walkies. And hey, what big brother doesn't love a little sibling to boss around?!

Mom turned 70 and the boys came from Toronto (and Boston) to celebrate. We had a blast!

Everybody participated in Movember.

Lucas turned six with an awesome climbing party. Rob took three time-outs from the party and we secretly thanked our lucky stars that we would only ever have to do one sixth birthday for Lucas. Large groups of six year old boys are beyond my wrangling capabilities.

Snails became pets and were finally named, labelled and released bearing permanent tattoos. They have not been seen since but we are eagerly awaiting their spring return.

That's all for now, but I have high hopes to return with more poignant stories and crazy photos for you all.

Until that time, I wish you all a Happy New Year. May it bring much joy. Lap it up. :)

Savary Year Three

Productivity is the product of???

I have had a busy, busy week, and I'm not sure why. After weeks of lethargy and apathy towards all thing domestic, I suppose that the arrival of August brought with it a big slap of reality and wallop of truth that the summer days are growing few and I need to get my house in order! With that in mind, and after taking all my "good" consignment to the store, I set about pillaging and plundering the dark recesses of our home for all stuff unwanted, forgotten, not needed or simply outgrown. I ended up with a basement full of "stuff," a desire to purge, a hunger for cash and the insanity of thinking a yard sale would solve it all. So today, on the rainiest of weekends we've seen since Canada Day, I set about manifesting my dreams in soggy reality. It went well. I came home with only half the stuff I left with and a pocketful of cash that the kids have pretty much pre-spent. How they see the sale of baby items as their return... well I'm not sure, because to me, the sale of things like a breast pump, baby carriers and potties all speaks of endless nights and days of work for meeeeeeee... but hey - who am I to judge?

My week also consisted of beginning a sewing class, making a batch of pickles, and attending a wedding; not to mention marking a class of English essays. Oh yes, and I also read a novel.

Why can't I be like this all the time?!

Summer Adventures Part I

Sorry about the blurry pic. One thing about blogspot is that editing photos once they have been uploaded is an impossibility in terms of placement as well as permanence.

These photos are from a crazy fun weekend wandering the sea-to-sky in a `borrowed` van that we bid for the use of and successfully won at Mia`s preschool`s silent auction in the spring. It was a riot travelling around in the Westfalia; slow, bumpy and way too far away to pass the kids anything from the front seat, but we all loved the novelty of sleeping in it at night. Campsites were at a premium and since we had not pre-booked anything, we ended up in a couple of weird places. The kids were so great about the adventure of it all, and equally thrilled with our odd choices of parking spots. We loved the knowing looks from other camper van owners, the contraptions of the van itself and the knowledge that we could pretty much park it and relax anywhere we wanted. Which we did! Such a joyous weekend of nothing but slow paced moving and swimming was a wonderful break from the everyday and two nights felt like a week.

The weather has been amazing! After the wettest, coldest spring in my short memory, summer hit with full force and we have been sucking up the rays and fun ever since.

After my last post, summer school began and I hunkered down to the job of getting 29 adult students in eleventh grade English whipped into shape in a short six weeks. This is no small undertaking as the classes are long, the weeks are short and the summer breeds ambivalence, slothfulness and exhaustion; the latter being formed from late nights up watching fireworks, drinking wine, sitting on beaches and in my case trying to get kids to sleep when they are too hot too sleep. Ok... you got me; they all apply to me except the fireworks watching. Fireworks bore me. Lol.

Truly, I have a wonderful class of very eager students who are devouring their assigned readings, doing all their homework and even thanking me for my insightful lessons. I am very grateful and slightly humbled (as usual) as I had entered the summer term feeling very burnt out and worried that I couldn`t or wouldn`t give my best to my students this summer. However when students work so hard it really makes me do the same and the resulting relationship is gold. I only have two and a half weeks to go with this set, and I am already lamenting the fact that I will have to say goodbye to this group.

After classes are done for the day (11 am - yay me!) I have the rest of the day to play with the kids. We have been swimming and visiting parks and doing lots of just hanging out. Lucas had a week at Southlands Young Farmer Camp. His week was an amazing experience for all of us. The camp was so relaxed and calm - the farm itself seemed to veil us in a speed reminiscent of un-named illegal narcotics that will have to be edited from this post when the kids are old enough to read it. The effect was delightful on us all as Lucas slipped into a relaxed week of harvesting fruits and veggies, chick holding, baking in the Cobb oven, feeding goats, chasing frogs and dragonflies, planting, pony riding, beekeeping and all sorts of other delightful things I wasn`t privy to. Mia and I hung out at the farm as much as we could and pet the horses as much as they would let us. As she was disappointed that she couldn`t do the camp, she got to have a pony ride mid week. Fantastic fun for all of us including Pillo, who got to sniff all sorts of delightful farm smells and hang out in the doggie paddock.

Canada Day Camping

Celebrating our home and native land in its home and native surroundings. If you look closely you can see that Rob is holding up two fishing lures.

We made it up to Porpoise Bay on the Sunshine Coast this last weekend to do a little camping. Sadly, so did the rain. :( After arriving very late on Wednesday evening (you try putting up a tent in the dark dark night with two sleepy kids who won't share the headlamps!) we awoke to buckets of rain being hurled at our tent. We did not emerge, and after an hour of not emerging, Rob decided he would boot out and buy a shelter. No, not a tarp - that would have required some super seriously soggy tree-climbing. A "shelter." Faaaaaaaannnnncccccyyyy! But it saved the trip!

Here is Lucas far up in a tree. He discovered that he could hide things in the trees and the girls couldn't get them... or me for that matter.

Our first rainy day saw the boys out on a fishing trip and the girls having a lovely long slumber in the damp tent. I desperately wished I had remembered a book, but it was relaxing to do absolutely nothing for a few hours.

On Friday we were joined by Julia and Ava. The glee was felt all around as the kids settled in to tent snuggles, biking and marshmallow roasting. We all enjoyed an awesome dinner of crabs brought back by Rob and Lucas.

Mia consumed a lot of marshmallows.

And by the end of the trip, we finally saw some sunshine and were able to frolic in the ocean and dig at the beach. Ju and I enjoyed a long and leisurely day of chatting and playing with the girls while the boys were out fishing again.

Now it is back to work as I undertake six weeks of summer school. I look forward to the day when I don't need to teach in the summer anymore, but in the meantime I will enjoy the time in class with another pleasant group of students and be home in time to spend the days playing with the kids.