Ready for some nice weather!

And just like that, April is almost over! It's supposed to warm up to the mid-twenties this week! We have been here for just over 8 months. Some days that definitely doesn't feel real, and other days, it feels totally normal to be here. Lynsey and I have a really fun weekend coming up! We are flying out to Edmonton Friday night so I can run in the Kidney Foundation's Gift of Life Run/Walk on Sunday! There are something like 30 members of my family participating, and every one of my siblings (except for Joyce who is 9 months preggo) and both of my parents are signed up to participate! There was much enthusiasm at first and many people signed up for the 10K portion of the race, but it looks like now there might only be a few of us 10Kers left:). I have been training hard and I am ready! I was running intervals on Saturday (2 minute sprint (and I am aware that my sprint is some people's normal pace!) then one minute walk) and I ran 8.8 km in 53 minutes. At a steady pace, I should be able to do 10K in under an hour - might even shoot for 59 minutes, we'll see how I'm feeling about the course! I am so looking forward to the family time, too - this is the first time we've ever gotten together to do something like this, and it's for such a great cause so close to my family. I can definitely see this becoming something we do again! Brian has already planned to take the boys to Snoqualmie Falls, so hopefully they can have some fun this weekend, too:).

We did a VERY small Easter egg hunt for the kids. They are used to a big time hunt that Brian's mom puts on every year, so searching for 4 or 5 bunnies/eggs is quite a step down! It was still fun:). I wasn't on the ball enough to catch a pic of Adam finding his one egg before he lost interest unfortunately, but Nathan was pretty into it this year! We didn't do a whole lot on Easter weekend, it's just so much easier to hang out at home.

Nathan is using some pretty grown up phrases these days! After his swimming lessons on Thursday, I met with my friend Wendy at a McDonald's playplace. He was having some trouble and sitting on the floor pouting. I told Wendy he was just a bit grumpy right now, and he says, "I not gwumpy". He also informed Lynsey this morning that no, he was NOT cute when she told him he was! I'm definitely hearing more spontaneous language out of him all the time which is really fun! Him and Lynsey are the best of friends most of the time and play together a lot. She has been dressing him in her clothes a lot lately, which he is tolerating for now. I've also noticed that he is more content playing by himself in the basement in the mornings, which I am hoping keeps up!

Brian and I got to go to Seattle Sounders soccer game on Saturday! It was actually really fun! We had bought tickets at the school auction and originally, Brian thought he might take Lynsey. We decided in the end that she would never sit through a game and I'm really glad I got to go, it was a lot of fun:). There is something really neat about going to a live sporting event, even if you're not totally into the sport. Definitely will have to hit up a Mariners game sometime this summer!

It's almost time for us to put our house in Calgary on the market. I am ready to tie up this loose end, but it's such a major thing and we're not there to oversee everything, it's causing us some stress right now. As it turns out, the guy that is living in there right now actually wanted to rent it from us for another year (we were very upfront with him at the beginning that we were selling the house, so he knew our intentions) so he is now talking about buying it from us. He is some big construction guy that has some other rental properties so he would just turn this into a rental property when he was done with it. I'm not sure it will work out because I'm not sure he will be willing to give us a fair market price for it, but it could potentially be a great thing for both of us if we can agree on a fair price. I am praying right now that this will all work out, it's a bit of a load on our minds right now as we consider our housing options here. Our landlords (thankfully) agreed to let us go month to month at the end of our lease in August, but they weren't enthused about it and really want to rent it to new tenants before winter (they have this idea that nobody moves in the winter, which might be partially true, but the rental market is so tight here I think they would probably find someone). So the pressure is on for us to get the money out of our house so we can buy something, or basically give up on buying (at least in the near future) and find a nicer (and pricier) place to rent. It's all a bit complicated, but I continue to feel no regrets about the move, even though it has added some complications to our lives! Finding a house to buy here will be tricky because we would like for Lynsey to be able to stay at her school, but buying something in this area just doesn't look likely. There aren't many houses for sale, and the ones that are are either dumpy or new construction and way out of our price range. I'm sure we will find something that will work for us, we will just have to make some sacrifices, just like every other person that doesn't have a million dollars to spend:).

Celebrating 10 years of wedded bliss!

Yikes I'm about a week behind my goal of catching up every ten days! Hopefully I can remember it all!

April has been a great month so far! We've had some great weather (sorry to any Alberta folk that might be reading this, I have made a point not to brag about the weather on Facebook, but since this is my personal blog I feel I have the right haha!) and my kids are just loving the freedom to go outside again, Adam in particular. My bathtub is once again grainy with sand all the time, but the kids are happy and that's what matters:).

We had a great Spring break last week! The first half of the week we took it easy, did one outing to the zoo on Monday to meet up with a few friends but it didn't go terribly well. I dropped my phone in the first 10 minutes of being there and it broke, so that was kind of a bummer. It was a high stress, high maintenance trip - Nathan kept wanting to get out of the stroller and it was busy because the weather was fantastic . . . did not go down in the books as the best outing we've ever had, but the kids did have fun so that makes it worth it, right? On Wednesday afternoon, we left for our night at the Hampton in Surrey. We had an awful experience at the border crossing - picked the wrong line and ended up waiting an extra 20-25 minutes. It was an infuriating experience, hard to put into words. If you have ever been waiting in a line, helpless, as the line next to you is moving steadily past you, you will understand how I was feeling. It was dinner time and we wanted to eat dinner and get to the hotel so the kids could get some swimming in before bedtime, and there we were, parked in a line with the world's slowest border agent at the front of it. Sigh, not the best start to our vacation! But we recovered and still had lots of fun at the pool! We even saw ADAM get in the water and have some fun that night! So great to see, haven't seen it since we were in Hawaii and even then, he was pretty hesitant. He did even better the next day - went down the waterslide with Brian! My heart was bursting with pride, he was just like a typical little boy laughing in the water with his dad. Those moments make my heart hurt a little bit, too, just because I realize how few and far between those "typical" moments are for him. I can only pray that they will become more and more as he steps out and tries new things!

We just barely made the ferry to Victoria (note to self: leave yourself more than 7 minutes of buffer when you're not 100% sure where you're going, and also follow the signs and not the GPS because there might, like in our case this time, be a brand new road that the GPS doesn't know about). We missed the road we were supposed to take because we were blindly following the GPS, and ended up having to turn around. We got there and the ferry was 96% full - there were only 6 cars that got on after us. Phew! We dropped the kids at James and Sarah's and off Brian and I went for our anniversary night celebration! What a great time we had! The hotel was beautiful with a great view, and our dinner was just fantastic! We had a nice walk around Victoria's downtown and I really did fall in love with the city. I was asking Brian about software jobs there, but only a little bit seriously . . . how nice to be on the west coast and still be in Canada! That is my new dream:). Maybe someday!

The rest of the weekend was really nice! We hung out with James and Sarah, went to Butchard Gardens on Saturday, which was a great outing! The trip home on Sunday was long but it went well. We left James and Sarah's at 2 and got home at 8:30 - long trip for being geographically so close together! Oh well, it was worth it! Our kids did so well this whole trip, even on the night that we were at the hotel and they were at James and Sarah's (at least, that was the report I got!). I am so proud of Adam especially for being able to adjust to new situations so well. It's so nice that as he gets older, we can explain to him what's going to happen and while it's not always apparent at the time that he understands us, we know that he does because he rolls with things so much better than he used to!

Nathan had his first swimming lesson today and he did so great! By the end he wasn't having any more back floating, but I couldn't have expected more from him than I got, I was so proud of how he did:). Having said that, I have done baby swimming lessons before when Lynsey was a baby, and why is my kid always the only one that is wiggling around like crazy?? Seriously all the other toddlers are just floating there, watching the instructor and doing what they're told, and Nathan (and Lynsey way back when) is just ready to get going, twisting out of the back float with all the strength his little body can possibly muster! By my standards I thought he did really well even with the wiggling, but I have to wonder what everyone else thought lol!

A cute thing that Nathan is doing right now is saying "sorry" and "thank you". The other day, he bumped into me and he says, "Oh sowwy Mom" and moves on. And today, I had grabbed a handful of grapes for myself and was walking out of the room, when I meet Nathan who sees the grapes in my hand and so politely tells me as he is grabbing them out of my hands, "Oh thank you Mom. My grapes." It was just so innocent, he was sure I had been bringing those for him haha! He is just becoming so grown up and while we of course have the typical toddler issues with tantrums and not sharing etc., I do feel like he is generally a pretty easy going kid. The other day in the grocery store, he asked for chocolate milk and I said no, and while he didn't care and moved on, some lady behind me took it upon her self to ask me why I wouldn't give him chocolate milk! I can't imagine having the nerve to question a complete stranger's decision on what her child could have. It wasn't like I was even being upset or mean to Nathan, I just calmly told him no, and he didn't care! Why say something to someone in that situation? So bizarre the things people think they should speak up about.

My trip to Edmonton to run in the 10K for kidney research is coming up in just over 2 weeks! I have been training hard, well, what I consider to be hard anyway! It feels good to see my endurance getting better and better each time I head out for a run or even on my elliptical. I am excited to hang out with my family for the weekend! What a neat opportunity for us to do this thing together!

We have pets!!

Well, we SORT OF have pets! We got some fish last weekend, and so far we love them! We just got a little 5 gallon aquarium with 5 tropical fish, and they are fun to watch and pretty easy to take care of. The novelty is wearing off a bit for Lynsey (which is actually a good thing in a way, I'll tell the story later!) but she still likes to look at them, and she knows that feeding them is her job. Adam just in the last few days has started looking at them a bit more - it always takes a bit longer to get his attention! Nathan likes looking at them for like 10 seconds, but he mostly just really wants to open the lid and turn the light on and off. He can just barely stand the fact that these little guys are swimming away in there, and he doesn't get to touch them! So far, we have had only one fish death, and that was within the first 24 hours (he just couldn't get used to our tank I guess) but we replaced it right away and they are all doing great now:). I'm glad we took the plunge, and we are already talking about the possibility of a salt water aquarium when we buy a house. I guess we'll see if this honeymoon phase comes to an end haha!

We had a few battles with Lynsey this last week, and of all my kids, battles with her drain me the most. It was Tuesday after school and I was getting ready to take Lynsey to her gymnastics/dance class. She decided she didn't want to do it after all. We had about 10 minutes to get dressed and out the door, so of course, I was thrilled to hear this revelation. I tried to stay calm and reasonable, saying that she should put her new outfit on and hopefully she would feel differently once she did. I was inwardly just praying that she would change her mind on her own, we had just spent a bunch of money buying her two pairs of dance shoes, an outfit and tights, and I was excited for her to have this chance to do both dance and gymnastics in the same class. She really liked the trial class she did, and I knew she would have fun once she was there. However, our fish were only a day old, and she just didn't want to leave them, so she decided she could sacrifice her class for them, even after putting her outfit on. At this point, we have about 5 minutes to get out the door. What a situation! I tried to empathize, saying that I understood how much she loved the fish and that she really didn't want to leave them, but that they would be safe until she got home from dance, etc - I really tried to stay calm and invite cooperation instead of using force to get her to go. Unfortunately, I ended up having to force her out the door:(. Brian and I had talked on the phone and agreed that she had made a commitment to go and that she needed to follow through on that, but it was a tough one for sure! I got everyone in the van and after a minute of driving with her crying, I remembered that I had bought some new fish food (they didn't really eat the stuff we had given them the first day) and told her that the pet store guy said fish loved this new stuff. She perked up a bit, and then I told her she could feed them as soon as we got home, and that was it, she was fine after that. Loved the class, too! I feel like parenting is so not cut and dried, and sometimes you have to do things that maybe don't seem quite right, but in the end, have a good result. I think making her go was the right thing to do, I guess we'll never know what the outcome of allowing her not to go would have been. I did talk to her about it after a bit, and she seemed to understand that going was the best thing, but all she really cared about was watching the fish, not talking about our problem! I guess she is a 6 year old:).

Adam is loving his Sunday School! What a turn around from his last Sunday School, it's really amazing. A friend of ours volunteers in the class, and he said that he really responded to him yesterday, and even got excited for some of the activities! I'm so glad he enjoys it, it sure does give us some peace of mind! Nathan is just growing up, telling us, "Okay" whenever we guess right about what he wants, so cute:). We took away his booster at the table and haven't looked back! He is eating like a pro on the big chair! There continues to be some tension between him and Adam, but Adam has really backed off on getting so upset over everything he does which is such a relief. The weather has been intermittently nice so everyone's been able to spend some time outside which really helps with everyone getting in each others faces, too. There's been some rain for sure, but the sunshine is really nice when it happens!

Seasons changing once again!

Spring is just around the corner and once again I am struck by how different the seasons are here. I can see the buds coming in on the trees, some flowers are blooming, but the weather hasn't really changed. It's a bizarre feeling knowing that winter is over but I never felt like it even showed up! It is gradually getting a bit warmer, lots of afternoons have started inching towards those double digits, but Spring certainly is not the same without the big snow melt off! I wouldn't say I miss it exactly, but it is an odd feeling!

We've been going through a bit of a tough time with Adam again. He has started objecting to every little thing Nathan says and does. Not even exaggerating. He imitates him word for word, or shriek for shriek, whatever the case might be, and gets extremely agitated. Some days are really bad, like this past weekend. The tension in this house has been through the roof! Nathan picks up on this and being the little two year old that he is, he tests his limits with Adam a bit. Adam has become much more aggressive with Nathan and often pushes him or pulls his hair. It's been a very trying experience to say the least. Today we had a bit of a reprieve which is giving me some hope, maybe it was just a short phase. I am choosing to look at this as positively as I can and say that it might be a good sign, that he is starting to pay more attention to other kids. Unfortunately, he doesn't like what he is taking in at this point in time, but we can always hope that his experiences with other kids (his little brother in particular!) will only get better from here! We do know that they are seeing positive results from him at preschool, and have just recently upped his "workload". He also just started staying Tuesday afternoons as well, meaning he is there for 4 full days and only 1 half day per week. This may well be the reason for him acting out a bit at home, but hopefully it's just a transition until he gets used to the new demands they are placing on him. We want him to be challenged and continue to meet his goals, so I guess we will live with a little backlash at home!

Lynsey just had her performance in her after school drama class last week! It was cute (the bit that I was able to see, Brian and I had to trade off taking the boys out). Just yesterday, she did a trial class in a gymnastics/dance facility and she really liked it! It was a half hour of gymnastics, half hour of ballet and 15 minutes of tap dancing. It's a really relaxed atmosphere and she liked it so we're going to enroll her in the weekly class! I'm happy to be back at a point where we feel like we can manage this sort of after school activity - the drama class was easy, because it was just her staying after school and we had to pick her up at 4:45, but this one I have to actually bring her to the facility at 4:30 and pick her up at 5:45 (or stay if I can manage it! It sort of worked yesterday, but I don't know if I would want to do that every week!).

Nathan - what can I say about this little boy! He is just so interesting! Today we were watching "Frozen" and he was actually involved in the movie! He was talking about the big snowman and was getting scared when he would chase after people, and after the movie, he kept talking about some of the characters! So cool to see him becoming this little person! He still loves playing with trains and cars, sometimes with Woody and Buzz, and is so good at letters, shapes and colors. He just today decided he wanted to sit in a big chair at the table and had lunch and supper there! Not sure if it will last, I think I will keep trying to put him in his chair because it is a bit easier, but I won't fight it too much:). If he wants to assert his independence and say he wants a big chair, I think I'm ready for that, messes and all! It's not actually that much messier anyway, he's a disaster no matter where he sits;).

Lynsey and I went to a ballet on Saturday! It was a very kid friendly one about a girl that gets invited for tea at the royal palace, pretty cute:). Lynsey enjoyed it, that's the main thing! Tomorrow, Adam's preschool is taking a bus to a kids museum and Nathan and I are going to tag along. We'll see how it goes! Field trips are not terribly exciting for Adam, he would just as soon not go on them, but we want to continue to push him to have new experiences. I just hope it's manageable with Nathan!