Our Little Life

I have been a major blog slacker. This month has been a crazy one. So instead of catching up on housework, I'm doing a blog entry. Here's a recap:

Face squish!



Claire loves to stand and sometimes we can get her to do it for a little while - Ryan got her to dance with him for a few seconds the other day and it was so cute!



Even though we live far away now, our family still pops in for fun visits and to help us with babysitting. Mel stopped by one day and got Maddie all done up in her bandana.


To those who are about to rock, we salute you.



We had a fun date night with Thompsons & Jensens. Usually it's just the boys that go out, but we made a whole production of it this time and included the girls! Yay! We had a yummy Outback dinner and finally saw Harry Potter. It was lots of fun.

Here's Maddie and the Thompson boys enjoying superhero cartoons


I finished up all the dental work I needed done this month. It was nice to get it out of the way, but pretty sucky to get it done.

We've had about 5 furnace quotes this month and have finally settled on one. It's all very confusing with the rebates and the efficiency levels, etc. I've learned a lot from the different quotes though.

We also had James Johnson (a friend from our old ward) come over to do some plumbing work for us. Let me know if you need a good plumber and I'll give you his information!

We had some slave labour (family and friends) come over to help us plant our trees. They look great and hopefully will thrive again in the spring!








We've had lots of fun playing at the park(s) across the street.










We had my brothers and sisters come over for a badminton party but as soon as Ryan finished setting up the net, it poured rain. So we moved inside and had a hair-dying, hair-cutting party courtesy of Natalie!

The most exciting thing to happen this month was Kathy's wedding! It was a great occasion. Being the matron of honour I got to be a part of most everything - rehearsal, decorating, ceremony, pictures, reception. I only took a couple of pictures but you can check out some of the wedding preview pictures on this website - Chicks that Click.

Here's Ryan and I at the reception. We had so much fun dancing together. Kathy and Peter picked great songs.



Auntie Val came back from her trip to Tibet and brought the girls some beautiful dresses and cute T-shirts. It was fun to visit with her again.





Ryan and I are getting settled in our new callings. Primary is crazy in our ward! So many kids compared to our old ward, but it's fun. Ryan's class went well too. He's getting used to dealing with teenagers' attitudes!

Thanks to Greg & Steph's housewarming gift, we got a new swingset for the backyard and it's been a hit!


We went swimming a record number of times this summer with help from Grandma and Shauna and the CNIB arranging things. The downtown YMCA has a really fun pool with lots of natural light and fun toys. It was really a good experience.

Ryan's been officially back at school for the past two days. He's been working unofficially the whole week and is feeling better about getting back into the swing of things. He's a really valued member of his staff and even had to help the tech support guys who did a presentation at PD day!


I am now the secretary of the Malmo Prekindergarten Parent Association. Which basically means a tape recorder could do my job since all I do is take minutes. It's fun to be a part of it though. The whole association is very technical though, with bylaws and motions and official seals, etc. It should be interesting. Our annual general meeting is next week and then preschool starts the following week. I'm so excited for Claire. She's going to have a great year.

Olivia, Ryan's sister, just had her first baby yesterday at 9:50pm! It's a boy - name yet to be determined. We're so excited! Hopefully we get to meet him soon.

There is a great program put on during Capital Ex that we went to this year. It's called Monday Morning Magic and they open the kids' rides for a couple of hours before the gates open, for kids with disabilities and their families to enjoy a low stress environment. Normally it's quite difficult to get around with wheelchairs when it's so packed and it's hard to wait in line and often it takes a longer time to get situated in each ride - this was so great! I think we'll go every year. They had lots of mascots and Eskimo players and we even saw some Oilers there who would ride with the kids. It was just such a positive environment. I'm so grateful for programs with this.






















The girls and I checked out a fun spray park down town and had a blast.







We attended one last ward party before we moved and it was lots of fun. Playing at the park, a rousing game of kickball and freezies. We'll miss our old ward but are looking forward to a good experience in our new one.










We've gone swimming downtown at the YMCA with kids from the CNIB. It's been great fun. Here's a picture of the girls after the last swim:




Here's one of our last excursions out on our spacious deck.



I'm so grateful for our new backyard. It's such a luxury!

To cut down on the pictures and space taken up by this blog entry, I will just post a link to an album on Facebook for people to check out if they want to.

Move/new house/family reunion pictures link

The move to the new place came with some surprises - he had taken the window coverings which had been written in as part of the contract, he hadn't fixed a bunch of things that he said he would, he only had a key for the back door and had lost the one for the front door and we keep finding other surprises. I guess that's what owning a home is all about, right? Things falling apart constantly?! :)

All in all, our new place really feels like home. It's good to invest in something that you know is yours. I feel so indebted to all the people who helped us get the house and who helped us move and who have supplied us with things we need.
Our move went well.

I braved going to the dentist, the first time I haven't gone to my dad. I ended up needing quite a few appointments to get everything done. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

It's been a very busy few weeks. I'm glad that we are getting settled and I don't miss managing our building at all! I miss having our family in the same building though. Luckily we've had lots of visitors all ready so it's been good.