Ruben comes to town!

 My favourite 3 year old nephew came to visit. We spent a lot of time picking kids up from school. I like to park beside the dumpsters at David and Elisabeth's school and watch the squirrels. Ruben enjoyed watching them too. In fact, he told me that they were laying eggs in their nests in the trees.

 I was a bit frazzled the first day, and showed up for pick up just over 90 minutes early. After watching the squirrels for a while, we went to pick up a herbal tea for me and some timbits for Ruben. Below is his YUM face.

 Yah, we thought it was pretty hilarious.

 Then I let him drive.

 He really enjoyed playing Elisabeth's pony.

 But the highlight was sledding in the backyard.

I was super impressed; he was a little scared at first, but he quickly decided he needed to try anyway. And then he was a rockstar.

 The next day I took him to Toys R Us, just to hang out.

 Obviously he loved seeing Thomas. He may have asked to bring him home.

 Showing me his favorites.

 Then we found a Thomas bike.

And we drove the battery operated cars (and tractors)

Oh look, winter...

 I'm not complaining, we had such a mild winter. And I'm always happy when it's not raining. I just didn't think we'd get snow this year.

David had his last appointment for a couple weeks. This one was to attach the braces to his exposed  teeth. We got to the Orthodontist and they decided that now that the baby teeth are out, he might not actually need braces to pull them down. That's exactly what I've been praying (and my mum too!)

We celebrated with a smoothie!

 And may have stopped to take some pictures in the snow before heading back to school.

Saturdays

Tommy had band practice in Delta, we dropped him off at this school.

And headed to south Surrey for lunch.

Andrew's Ruben.

David's cinnamon bun.

And Elisabeth's lemon loaf.

And then we found signs of spring.

More signs of spring.

This is one of my favourite houses on the beach.

Since I've been off work, I've been watching a lot HGTV. It's not stressful so it's about as much as I've been able to handle ha ha. One thing I've realized is how much prettier our beach houses are than most of the ones on these beach house hunter shows.

Half my familia.

Sweet cadillac.

Just keep swimming

After 22 or 23 days straight of rain, we finally got some sunshine for Family Day weekend. Our home stay student, Tommy had jazz band practice in Delta so while we waited for him to finish, we drove up the road to Crescent Beach.

I reminded David of how big these rocks seemed when we first started coming here, and what a feat it was for him to stand on top of them. So he showed off by jumping from rock to rock.

Since David's surgery, he's lost 8 pounds. He still has about another ten days of not really being able to eat much in the way of food OY.

 Anyway, we managed the longest walk I've done since before Christmas. Of course, what with Andrew's foot and knee, we didn't really walk super fast, but it was a LONG walk. And the fresh air was amazing.

In my photography class I've been learning about high and low key photography. That's playing with over and under exposing photographs. It makes for a more dramatic photograph, depending on the purpose of course.

I've already been playing with exposure, especially on rainy days in the forest. The colours are so much more dramatic. But if you look on Pinterest you'll find all kinds of interesting ways to experiment with it.


Anyway, back to the kids: Elisabeth's hair colour has completely washed out except for the green. I may have called her my little leprechaun baby. Then I glanced back and saw both my children walking like this.

"What on earth are you doing?" "We're leprechauns!"

Seriously.

 Isn't our beach beautiful?

 Then we walked the Dunsmuir Trail till we got to these little guys <3

In the gardens, there were signs of spring. That's where I got to play with exposure :)

Tooth Troubles

My kids hae grown up hearing me talk about surgery I had back when I was about 13 or 14. I had a tooth growing in the roof of my mouth, and it needed to be exposed. I had the surgery done in my dentist's office and I was awake for it. First the freezing made me go temporarily blind, then I got to watch the blood spatter all over my glasses and face. And ever since, I've had jaw trouble. I love to tell the story, and I love to over dramatize it.

Then my kids went to the orthodontist and we found out David had not one, but TWO teeth doing the same thing and he would need the same surgery. OY. We decided to ask for an oral surgeon and for the surgery to take place with him unconscious. David asked not to know when it was happening. Sooooo it happened this Monday morning.

I woke him up and got him dressed and tried about five times to tell him, but was so scare for how he'd react. When I finally said, "today's the day!" he just calmly replied, "I thought so."

 By the time we got to the hospital, you could tell he was a little worried, but he was so brave. I got to stay with him until he was out. Then we waited for 90 LONG minutes while they operated. When David was wheeled down the hallway afterwards, he had one hand holding a popsicle and thumbs up with the other. Sitting up and looking like a celebrity except for the ice pack wrapped around his face.

 Here he is recouping in his hospital room.

 After another half hour he was allowed to walk around and get half dressed. I should add that David was relieved and Elisabeth was bitterly disappointed that he was not high at all after his surgery!

And then we were released! David can't eat very well, but he's recovering very well otherwise. So glad we have this behind us.

There's not much to post on the blog these days. As I mentioned when I was blogging in December, I got really sick over Christmas. It was Christmas, so I didn't really start resting until after boxing day. 

I still haven't gone back to work yet.

It's been a bit of a roller coaster, but our insurance company says I have to go back after Family Day, so I've been trying to do brave things.

 Like this week, I took pictures.

I can't believe I spent a whole month on our couch. To be fair, unlike everyone on my social media who posted yesterday about it being Day 74 of January, I feel like it's gone by in a blur. Kind of astonishing since I haven't opened my textbook for the course I'm taking; I haven't gone anywhere (well, I did today...), I haven't done anything. Time still marches on.

I also watch a lot of HGTV. It's not (too) stressful, I can zone out and I don't really miss anything, and I feel like I'm not alone. If you look at my twitter and Instagram accounts though, you'll see that they're starting to take over my feed.

All I can say, is thank goodness for the Internet (and social media) and thank goodness Andrew got us cable this year!

Once I was the King of Wales (now I eat humble pie)

David is in grade 8 this year, at middle school. Middle school means a home room teacher and being part of a pod. So he has three teachers and rotates between the teachers, depending which subject he's in. All three of his teachers are amazing, and he's had some fantastic projects this year.

Currently, in Humanities, they're learning about feudal times. His class is role playing the different parts of feudal society, so everyone has been given a role and they're responsible to carry out whatever the person in that role would have done.

You may be able to tell from my title that David is the King. When he came home and told me about this project, back before anyone had been assigned roles yet, he was adamant that he would do any role  but king. "It's way too much work!" And if he had a choice, he wanted to be the brick maker.

Sure enough, when his teacher chose the roles (picked out of a hat, btw), he was Baron of Wales which mean that if he could manage not to be assassinated before his coronation, he would eventually be king.

And funnily enough, David loves being king. On more that one occasion he's come home from school and said he misses his kingly duties. These include writing cheques for his noble men and women. He also had to design his coat of arms. That was fun.

Upon hearing that his classmates could only have him assassinated after speaking with their teacher decided that any students seen talking to their teacher should henceforth be executed (as is his kingly right). This boy was born to rule.