Cousins Day

It's that time of year again - time to get together with the cousins!

This year's Cousins Day was at Auntie Shannon's house, and it was a hot one! What better way to cool off on a hot summer's day than in the water!

SnoCones help cool things off, too, and there were lots of flavors to choose from.

After corn dogs for supper, the girls painted ceramic unicorns on the driveway.

The littlest cousin, Sammy, was having his own fun.

And, at the end of the day we got to bring home some more hand-me-downs from the Walls. Not clothes this time, but a swing set and slide! I think the girls can put that to good use in our newly-grassed back yard! Though, it kind of looks like a catapult sitting in the back of the truck, there!

It's A Zoo Out There!

The girls and I decided to go to the zoo today. Thanks to a season pass from Oma, we can go whenever we want this year! And seeing as today was forcast for sun, but not too hot, we decided it would be a perfect day to explore the animals. We saw something at the zoo we've never seen before - eggs! Ostrich eggs, by the looks of them. That and the fact that it was in the ostrich enclosure! We saw lots of new babies at the zoo today. We saw Shadow the grizzly bear playing in the water and eating/playing with some corn on the cob. We took the bus and saw a black bear and an albino black bear. We watch the lions being fed (it was too hot for the tigers to join them today) and we saw the Birds Of Prey show. There were lots of neat birds. There were hawks and falcons, and even a bald eagle! This is a great horned owl. But the best part of the show was Rachael got to be a volunteer! We've seen the show before, so she knew what was going to happen. She got to pull Legless the "rabbit" for the hawk(?) to try and catch. And of course that's right when my batteries decided to die. Of all the luck! But, at the end of the show she got to have her picture taken with a great horned owl! Pretty cool! We were at the zoo from 11:00 until 3:30 and didn't once hear any complaints about being too tired to walk! Pretty good, I thought!

More Holiday Fun

After leaving Dutch Lake we decided to stop in Kelowna for a night. We stayed with friends Darrel and Debbie and their three girls. Rachael and Kayla hit it off like they'd known eachother for years! They both had a love for Webkins, which, I think, sealed the deal. On our last day of holidays we went to ride Go-Carts in Westbank. The girls had lots of fun "driving". It was nice we had the course to ourselves. We were going to go play at the beach or the spray park (the Winnie The Pooh spray guy is gone! Must have had some copyright issues?) but it wasn't quite warm enough. It was a bit overcast - still warm, but not enough to get wet. Kaitlyn was so tired from all the late nights and fun all day, that she didn't want to do much of anything, so after lunch we came home. Of course, once we were in the truck driving, she had all kinds of energy! But it was good to be back home in our own beds!

Home From Holidays

We're back from our holidays! We had a great time at Dutch Lake (which is just over an hour north of Kamloops) with my mom's side of the family. Rachael was so excited to see second-cousin Tim, and once together they were inseperable! Kaitlyn also had fun with Tim's sister Meghan. We stayed in a tiny cabin, but we were only really there for sleeping, so it didn't really matter how small it was. We were there for three nights and had great weather! The cabins even had air conditioning, so we could cool off at night. We played at the beach a lot. Here Tim, Rachael, Kaitlyn and a new friend are making a splash! We went for walks to see some waterfalls nearby, and we roasted marshmallows.
The lake was very calm. There were lily pads growing around the edge of the lake and the kids liked to pick some of their flowers. There were also pink lillies a bit further out that looked very pretty. We saw some wildlife - a deer, a huge frog - or maybe a toad? - some of us saw a bear, some fish jumping and some saw a painted turtle. These turtles have red and yellow bellies, though I think the tops of them are green/brown. There were pictures in the restaurant, but we didn't see one up close.

This is an attempt to get all the great-grandchildren that were there to pose in a picture. With preschool kids, some as little as 6 months, this is not an easy job, hence some parents in the picture. We did take a few pictures of the whole group, but I don't have one yet. I'll try and get one soon. We had fun and hope to do it again in a few years.

Swimming Lessons

Rachael and Kaitlyn finished up two weeks of swimming lessons on Friday.

Rachael was in level two for the older kids, and Kaitlyn was in Sea Turtle for the younger kids.

The last day of swimming lessons was a fun day. Kaitlyn went down the water slide by herself at least 5 times,

and Rachael got to jump off the diving board twice.

See the big splash she made?

They had lots of fun swimming!

Tea Party

Rachael asked me today, "Mommy, do you remember in our old, old house there was this special tea party set and you said Kaitlyn was too little. Is she big enough now?" Well, in our old, old house Kaitlyn would have been only 2 or so, so that was quite a while ago for Rachael to remember!

The special tea party set was one Auntie Kendra brought back from her trip it Italy when Rachael was a baby, and now they're finally old enough to play with it.

Let The Summer Begin!

Now that the incredibly late strawberry season has arrived, summer can officially begin! We were down to our last bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer, so it came not a moment too soon. As soon as we got these home, Kaitlyn and I each had a big bowl of them - with many more bowl-fulls to come! Mmm mmm good!

Passionate About Panago

Do you think Rachael loves her Panago pizza a little bit? She had to write this note to Daddy to save her a piece of pizza to take to school on Monday for lunch (the last Monday! Yikes!)

Sports Day

It was another chilly Sports Day this year, but at least the rain mostly stayed away. A few little drops, but nothing major. This year they divided the school in to different "provinces" or "territories". They went to the classroom they were in on the first day of school - k-5 in the same class, and these were the teams. Rachael stayed with her regular teacher in the "Yukon" team. I don't think they won, but they had fun.

There were sac races, even though the bottom of this sac had a hole in it, being dragged across the field on a tarp, carry everything from one hoola-hoop to another while blindfolded, and of course, freezies. They even let Kaitlyn have one. And all the while Kaitlyn just watched and entertained herself, playing in the sand, or pushing herself on a swing. Though, she's very much looking forward to being able to join in the fun next year!

Cousin Jonathan

The girls have a new cousin - Jonathan Brian David! Brian and Andree had a baby boy on June 12, at 3pm.

Jonathan weighed 8 lbs when he was born. He's got quite a head of hair under that cute little cap!

Rachael and Daddy played hookey on Friday so we could all go see him. We brought him this balloon, but he's so bundled up you can't even see him! Auntie Sharon wanted to hold him, but the girls didn't. They will yet. Welcome, little Jonathan! It's kind of funny, but if our girls would have been boys, they would have been named Jonathan! It's a good name!

BEE Nice

Kaitlyn and I went with Rachael and her class to the Honeybee Centre where they learned all about bees. They even got to see them up close and personal. Don't worry, there's glass between them and the beekeeper and, more importantly, the bees! They got to taste some honeycomb and "royal jelly" that bees make only for the queen. After learning all about bees they got to plant a sunflower.
They were going to paint the flower pots there, but we ran out of time because the paint would have still been wet getting on the bus. So they decorated them in the classroom.
They had lots of fun, and even got to sample some honey from different flowers. We tried blackberry honey and it was yummy!

The Path Of Least Resistance

We found a quick shortcut to the slushie store! Our neighbours told us there was a path at the back of our new yard, on the other side of the fence - hence the gate back there. It takes us to the overpass, and just on the other side of that is the 7/11 and the IGA. The path is a bit hard to find at times, and sometimes it's very narrow, right beside a steep drop-off, but it took less than 10 minutes to make our slushie run today. If you followed the road, it would probably take you 20 minutes! And then you'd have to put up with all that traffic! We also found some cherry trees back there and a bunch of blackberry bushes. I think we'll be using that path a lot this summer!

Sunny and 20???

The weather forecast for Sunday was nothing but sun and 20 degrees. Well, it was more than just a little cloudy and definately not 20, but we went to the zoo as planned anyway. After church we picked up some lunch to eat with the lions and tigers. (No, this is not lions and tigers in the picture.)

Rachael and Kaitlyn were excited to see Rachael's favorite animal, the mountain goat.

I think we scared them away.

We had fun, even though it wasn't as nice weather as we were expecting. We'll be back again.