School started, and Ada and Ruben came for a visit.

David's first day of middle school.

Larry and Tommy's first day of high school.

And Elisabeth's first day of grade 5.

This happened.

And Ruben came over to play with trains.

(He really liked the trains...)

Adelaide started a music career.

Then my dad came for a visit.

And I scared him with ugly faces.

Dave and Alexis went to Ikea so Ruben and Ada hung out with us for the day.

We went to the park. Hmn. I must have camera pictures of this somewhere. But anyway, then we went to another park.

Whew. I was starting to think I forgot to bring my kids.  But there's one!

And the other!

Larry won't let Tommy eat bananas.

And then we celebrated the mid autumn festival.

Happy birthday Mayah Bethany

This is probably my favorite stretch of highway west of Agassiz and south/east of the Port Mann.

I think it has something to do with the fact that it always feels like coming home.

Plus, skies like this don't hurt either.


So anyway, the Abelmans invited us out for Mayah's birthday and you all know how we love to party! I got ready in my finest mustache.

Natasha and I have been friends for a long, long time. So funnily enough, we dressed alike for the party.

Egads! Even Elisabeth got the memo!

Okay, I can't carry the joke anymore. Obviously there was a theme. We looked pretty dashing in our matching mustaches.

My sweet boy - he had a bit of a rough morning so it took him a while to warm up to the party. Luckily he had Seth to watch over him while the rest of us partied.

The kids played a bowling game and they all won gum - it was Tommy's first time trying sour/fizzy bubble gum. His reactions were awesome!

Then it was present time!

The biggest hit of the day was this sweet One Direction frame.

BFFS since they were babies.

Then Charlie brought out a bunny.

And we had the coolest cake ever.

Evening at the mall

I had a hankering to go shoe shopping at Guildford Mall, and funnily enough, all the kids wanted to come. So, of course when you go to that mall with these kids, the first stop is the Lego store. I mean, c'mon on...

No sooner had we entered the store than a salesman invited us to create lego figures of each other. In fact, he lined us up, told us who was creating who, and then set us to work.

I think this is Elisabeth.

As you can see, we had a lot of fun with this.

Here are our finished products!

Then we went to the Disney Store where Ashlie got a complete makeover.

And found her soulmate.

Jade realized her alter ego.

Ashlie changed her mind.

And then changed it again.

And Elisabeth had a tea party.

We stopped at the shoe store, and then went hat shopping at H&M.

All of us did.

Poor Elisabeth, she just wanted to show me this scarf, but everyone wanted to monkey around. She wasn't impressed.