House hunt

We looked through three more houses this past week. We feel like we are bursting at the seams in this house and it is time to move on! Our definite must-haves are: garage, 4 bedrooms, office, and family room. Our wants are: good location for at least one of the three schools, 2.5-3 bathrooms, parking for our trailer and vehicles, great natural lighting. We looked at one this week that would totally work...it has 4 bedrooms and an office, it is in a great location (you can see the middle school), it has 3 bathrooms, a large family room, a private low-maintenance backyard with a garden space and a double garage. It is needing new flooring, paint and a kitchen, which is all do-able. My worry is that it's only 2100 sq. ft which is exactly what we have now. It isn't large and every square foot would be used. I don't mind not having extra space but I also don't want to feel like we're crammed in there. Moving is such a chore that I don't want to move again any time soon and want to be in this place til our kids leave home. We may need to go back for a second viewing of that one with another set of eyes to give us their opinion. Then we went to see another house that I absolutely LOVED. It was already redone with new carpet, vinyl plank, paint, white kitchen, tiles, skylights etc. I walked in and was ready to move in. It was set up really strange though, with no office, and no wiggle room to fit one in. It had lots of space in the basement bathroom and laundry room but not a large family room. It had a bedroom right off the kitchen which would be difficult for the noise factor. It had a tiny undeveloped yard with little privacy. No matter how hard I tried, we couldn't figure out how to make the layout work without adding a large/expensive reno. So sad. I loved it. We were looking at it on a grey rainy day, and in the huge vaulted living room with skylights, there was no need for lights. It was so bright. It did make me think that I could finish that other house to look like the one I love, but it doesn't have the same vaulted ceiling and is a little smaller. Our realtor says we should love it. But part of me thinks, it's a practical choice and with new paint/flooring/kitchen...it would be so much more attractive. So I'm laying awake thinking of what to do. I am reluctant to spend $100,000 more to build a house exactly the way we want it. I can't really justify that kind of spending just to get the perfect house. I think I'd rather put the money into travel and fun, and not worry about the kids ruining my perfect house, and enjoy making an older house look better than it was. It was so rewarding in our current house to update the old kitchen, to put in a beautiful door, fan and light fixture and appliances, to remove wallpaper and fix up my bedroom, to replace the closet doors, to add a suntunnel in the dark bathroom, to replace our living room windows, new gutters, to replace the rotten deck and do many yard updates. The sad part of our house is that it has such a long list of things that still need doing and we aren't talented enough to do entire bathroom renos etc. It can be a joy for another family to finish! Anyway...hoping we find one soon, or can decide on whether we should make that one work. I like the idea of having only enough house for what we need, without having to spend hours cleaning/fixing a large one. We'll keep you posted, and any feedback is welcome!!

My three dates

This week Greg has been away. It went so quick because we are SO busy! We had stuff going on daily, and I even took two shifts of work as someone there was sick. We actually did quite well and only had minimal break downs and not til tonight did we have a rough bedtime. But all in all, we did it. So dad is home late tomorrow and we will be glad to have him back. Here are my three side kicks... I told Greg that it is like having three dates that never go home! They are quite loving, demanding of my time and attention, taking turns trying to please me or drive me insane! So ya...triple date and I need some space! but I love them! We've had a lot of fun.

September startup

We started September with a bang! The boys all returned to their schools.

The older two are now in high school and middle school. So far so good, and it has been a good change. Riley (grade 9) is especially loving the freedom to leave the school grounds over lunch hour and skateboard around town! He loves his new electives of computer programming and digital photography. He started jazz band with G's old band teacher, who we love! We enrolled him in guitar again and he continues to play bass in church. Liam started drums again, and for the first time, BOXING! He is loving it! We think it's a great way for him to get out his anger on something other than his brothers! Shea watched him one day, and wanted to join too, but I didn't want the two together. So Shea has started Judo! It is so funny to watch the kids throwing eachother to the ground and just giggling away! I am a bit nervous for him, as he's the youngest and the only newbie, but he has a great teenage girl mentoring him alongside the rest of the pack. He loved his first day and gets to go 2x a week. He is back in piano again and not loving the practicing part, but I'm hoping it'll get easier. On the boys first day of school, I went back to work full time to cover at the hospital for a lady on holidays. I love working at the hospital, and the physios I work with, so it was a great week and a half. Juggling the rest of life was a bit of a challenge though! I couldn't work full time without a housekeeper and a driver to take kids here and there! So I'm staying on casually, but already have a few shifts booked in the next while, so it's working out great. I love being able to say that I can't work in the summer, or in the next week when Greg goes away for work (in NEW YORK!). Today we're picking up a truck in Vernon! It's our first truck (a Toyota Tundra) and our first time having two vehicles! We will drive our van until it finally croaks and then will probably just get a little beater car. So September is going fast and it's going to be a busy year!

How can we be at the end of August already? We're already at that time of buying school supplies, finding the evenings chilly and finishing up our canning. It went so fast. I posted a million pics on Facebook of our amazing trip down the Oregon Coast, going from Long Beach down to Florence. It was our longest family holiday yet, sleeping 18 nights straight in our tent trailer! We also did two other short campouts in the Shuswap and the weather was perfect. Nothing has progressed on the selling and buying a new house thing. We haven't seen one that we like yet, and don't want to sell ours unless we have something else in the works. Next I'll be posting pics of my back-to-school boys!!

My grade 5 grad! I got to do the head shots for the grade 5 slideshow again...here they are... Liam had the best finish to his elementary year of school. Well technically they have 3 1/2 more days, but it's all party party! And here's Shea...done grade 2! and Riley...finished grade 8 and moving on to high school! I finished up my last day of work yesterday for the summer. I'm bracing myself for being home all day with the three crazies, but have already booked 2 campsites in the first two weeks!

Celebrations

Well we survived all the many March birthdays (Liam is 11)...and the two weeks of Spring Break. We took a few days to go to the coast and visited family and went to the aquarium. We went with my brother and his family to the Chris Tomlin concert in April. We celebrated Hugo's 4th birthday at our place, followed by a cousins wedding in Kelowna. We had Shea's 8th Minecraft birthday party here this past weekend with a few friends and then my family. We have been there and done that. We have been battling on/off flu with the kids since April. Every Monday in May, I had one of the kids home sick. Today, though it's June, that trend hasn't ended and Riley has his barf bucket at his side. :( I started running faithfully again and am up to 15k a week. It feels good and I've been noticing my clothes are fitting better again. We came close to selling our house and buying a modern one in Raven...but it didn't work out, so we're not sure what we'll do next. Maybe we'll need to find a spec house in the area as we are feeling crowded in this house. The yard however is wonderful right now, and I have many flowers, beans, tomatoes, raspberries etc. going crazy outside due to our unusually high summer temperatures. Though we were getting the house ready to sell, we are enjoying our new living room windows, a new ceiling fan, new foyer light, microwave, ensuite sink, cabinet knobs, white light switches and I have new white closet doors which I just learned to install as well! I have done lots of painting and replacing rotten fence boards. I can't believe that school is coming to a close already. Liam is finishing up his elementary years. I may just be the mother at the back of the gym crying during the grade 5 graduation slideshow. He has attended this school with most of his classmates since kindergarten. There is a french track at the middle school and I know many of his friends will be going that route (not us). And the rest of them are divided among 612 students! So things will definitely change for him next year! I got to go on his gr. 5 trip to a local camp. We got to go kayaking, horseback riding, do archery, and riflery. It was so fun. Riley is finishing up with middle school. He has not had the best time there and daily it's a struggle to get him to go. We are hoping something changes soon and that next year goes better in a new school. I'm working 2 days a week or sometimes less. It has been nice to keep in the loop and one day I hope I'll be ready to take a position, but with the way our mornings/sick kids have been going, it's nice not to be committed. Greg and I were talking about it being June already and realizing that we need to plan our summer holidays! Hard to believe we're thinking about that again.

I've been working 3 days a week since before Christmas, so as you know, this blog has been low on the priority list. Things may slow down a bit with work soon, as the open position I was covering is now filled with a new employee. I'm actually looking forward to a little break and can't believe I've been back to work for over 2 years now with Interior Health! It has been so great to do a job I enjoy and to feel appreciated there. We also got ski passes this year and have spent most weekends up on the hill, so our winter is flying by. Here's a bit of a recap of the last few months... We had our Davidson Christmas at the coast this year. It was short and sweet. Since we were down at the coast, we decided it would be great to spend some time with the Zinks (my grandparents) as well. Riley celebrated his 13th birthday there!! They took us to see "Fly over Canada", at "a huge dome screen with the latest in projection and ride technology creating a true flying experience (complete with wind, scents, and mist!)". It was amazing! My knitting club friend had a baby, so I got to take some pics of her... My mom turned 60!?! I've been working on some home projects, like painting, mounting curtain rods, hemming the curtains and sorting. I have the itch to move into a house with one more bedroom and a garage, as we are just squashed into our upstairs and feel the need to upgrade. Not necessarily bigger, just a better layout for our stage of life. We could reno our place, but the price to get what we want would almost be equivalent to a new one. So...we're looking at some options. Hard to believe I've lived in this house for 7 1/2 years! That's longer than I've lived anywhere in my life! We sure have used every square inch of it and have done a lot to it...leaving our mark on almost every room with paint/renos or dents! And especially in the yard. (Here's my dreamy bedroom with our massive new King bed.) Anyway, it keeps my mind busy thinking of the options for building/buying a new one. The boys are busy and keeping us on our toes. There is never a quiet day where I don't have to referee (their fighting) or drive them somewhere! We bought an electronic drum set for Christmas and they all three have been loving it. We got Liam into drum lessons and he is constantly drumming on his leg, the floor or the walls. He loves the lessons and is super pumped about it. Shea is still in piano and Riley in guitar, so we have many lots of music going on during the day. Liam started basketball recently and has had some great games against some local schools which is a total riot to watch. Liam is not an overly competitive athlete but is doing great considering he has people all in his face while he's trying to shoot! Shea is our social butterfly who has friends wherever he goes and is quite an easy going guy. He is doing well on the ski hill and will tear down those green runs like a champ. We're still working on him getting up off the ground when he falls! but he's getting it! We joined my aunt and uncle and cousins up there on family day, and he was trying his darndest to keep up to everyone! Hmm....what else is new. Honey bought me some pretty flowers for Valentines. I need to get back into my running routine again now that the roads are clearing of ice. It will be so nice to get back outside again and play in the yard. Well many more things have happened with us, but that is some of the last few months. Spring break will be here soon and I need to decide what we're going to do before it's here!!

Birdies

This is my latest little knitting project! So cute! They were small, but not too quick as they have a few pieces and are a little fiddly! But I would definitely make some more! Here's the pattern on Ravelry.

Life keeps rolling by. My kids are growing up! The kids are doing well in school and definitely have their areas where they shine. I marvel at Shea's reading ability and though he still hates to draw, his writing skills have improved and his little messages he writes on his own in birthday cards are the sweetest! He has almost finished his third piano book and is quite the little performer. I imagine he is wearing on his piano teacher, but also a riot to watch. Liam is enjoying being the oldest in the school, with many leadership opportunities. He has joined a junior youth group with a friend and is branching out doing his own things. Riley is continuing to marvel us with his musical abilities. He has started trombone now, is taking electric guitar lessons, but also plays bass, acoustic, ukelele, and trumpet. He is not afraid, and because he can hit the high notes, he gets all the first trumpet high parts. I just watched his band play 2 songs at school, and it was awesome. He seems to prefer his grade 8 teachers, to his 6/7 ones, and isn't overwhelmed with homework yet. Hard to believe that he's in his last year of middle school!? He keeps us guessing with his up/down mood swings these days! I have started taking more shifts at work again. Two ladies are taking week holidays, so I'm covering both at the hospital and at the care home. It will be a bit of a stress to be working the full weeks, but easier in the sense that it is done in two quick planned weeks, rather than being called in one day a week here and there. My bank account was starting to dwindle, so I figure I'd better get back at er! Two more positions are opening again, so I'll probably do some coverage while those are being filled again (like last year!). Shea and I have a ski seasons pass for our first time ever, and I am excited to try skiing more than three times a year! I may actually improve some? Time to buy some long underwear! In my down time, I've been taking some photos, and keeping up with my running. Here's my latest photo shoot, of my cute little nieces and nephews... (Also growing up right before our eyes.) Their house is coming along nicely, and this week they started framing in the basement! We joined them for lunch yesterday, and as usual, neighbors with a horse (needing riding) dropped by, numerous friends and family came over...yup, it's never a quiet place. Maybe we can convince Luke to build a skating rink out there on their huge land somewhere to add to the fun!!? Hard to believe that November is here. It came sooner this year due to the late start of school. Before you know it, it'll be Christmas.

Jasper

Just got back from a Girl's Weekend in Jasper. It was gorgeous and sunny. I went up the skytram and did an hour hike up farther to enjoy the view from the top. Amazing. Due to all the late nights and sharing a hide-a-bed, I didn't get much sleep. I'm pretty tired, but glad I got away!

Better late than not at all

The kids are back to school, and it's a good thing cuz that was a LooooooooNG summer! 5 weeks longer to be exact. Thanks to the teacher strike and the stubborn government! Today was only the first official day in their classes. They are in grade 8 (the oldest grade in middle school), grade 5 (the oldest grade in elementary school) and grade two. Next year my three will be in three different schools. We were trying out the homeschool routine while I had them home the past 3 weeks, and it wasn't pretty. I had fun with seeing them learn new things, and thinking up crazy art or science experiments. But trying to instruct such different grades at the same time was nearly impossible. One would goof while I'd be working with another, and on and on. I felt pulled in three directions and my house was always chaos. So we know for sure now that I was not meant to homeschool. And blessings on those moms who can do it, because you are very selfless and have more patience than I do. So we're happy to be back to the usual routine and getting the last two mornings on my own to breathe and do my dishes has been wonderful. They come home at 2pm, so we still have a long afternoon together. Shea is back into the swing of piano lessons and started up with swim club. Riley is in guitar lessons again, and will be in school band. We're not sure what Liam will be up to, but we're just happy to be back in school for now!

August

Another month has passed, and here we sit with no end of summer in sight as our schools are still negotiating contracts with the government. We've been told there may be a month yet of strikes or even longer. It makes what would have been the last week of summer feel rather weird. We haven't shopped for school supplies, and we aren't starting to get back into sleeping routines or taking those "final" trips to the beach. It is strange. We've had a lot of fun the last two weeks. We took our family vacation week in the middle of August. We hooked up the trailer and went down to Osoyoos for the first night. Then we drove over the border into the States for the first time with the kids. We drove to Coeur d'Alene where we had booked 4 nights at the Lake Coeur d'Alene Resort Campground. It was a long drive through some dry old Prairie looking towns. It was close to 40 degrees. We were happy to get to our campground which was set in the forest and stayed very cool and quiet. The next two days were spent at the Silverwood theme park, just half an hour from our campsite. We had heard about this great amusement park and figured the boys would enjoy it as much as Disneyland, so we had to check it out. The first day was spent at the waterpark side of the grounds. It was 38 degrees that day, and so we were thankful for the water. Unfortunately 50,000 other people had the same idea, and we were in lines for over an hour each time, so we hit the wave pool most of the time. The next day we went to the rides. We came early and got first in line for one of the largest wooden roller coasters! Shea (who is 7), was just tall enough, and this was his first roller coaster! Wowza, it was crazy fast! We nearly scared all of them with that first ride! So the three of them stood there in horror as "daddy" and I rode the next one, Aftershock. It was SO fun! I can't do the spinny rides anymore, but the coasters are a blast. The boys got their courage up again and tried a pile of other crazy rides. We loved it and would do it again for sure. The next two days were spent shopping in Spokane and wandering the beautiful city of Coeur d'Alene. It actually looks very similar to Salmon Arm, but the waterfront there is developed so nicely with great boardwalks, marinas, shops and beaches. Makes you wish our town could do the same! We have too many nature enthusiasts in our neck of the woods, who don't want to disturb the bird sanctuaries! Then we headed north, rather than heading back west, and crossed the border near Creston. We camped there one night and toured the Columbia Brewery the next day as our campground was right across the street. It was a fun little spontaneous adventure, and the boys felt like they were in a live episode of "How it's Made". They had lots of questions for our tour guide. It was really cool to see the cans being filled and sealed and pushed along crazy fast. Did you know that something like 98% of glass beer bottles are recycled and reused (after being sanitized) up to 15 times? We watched the part where they wash the bottles and remove the old labels with their fancy machines. Then we took two ferries and stopped in Crawford Bay on the way, to see the artisans there, such as North Woven Brooms, the place that made brooms for Harry Potter and the Bewitched movies. Also we watched glass blowing and the blacksmiths doing their amazing work. The kids were pretty impressed. We camped in downtown Nelson and wandered around the shops there for a bit. The weather was starting to get pretty wet and cold and the kids (and parents) were getting pretty tired. We decided to shorten our trip by a day and came straight home the next day through Revelstoke in the pouring rain. We didn't stop at the hotsprings as we had hoped, but aim to do it sometime in the fall when we're not so tired and wet! We came home to company as Greg's family was coming for the next week. We hosted his sister and her boys and did many fun family beach days and dinners together. We've now got 8 kids under 12 between us!

The two older girl cousins have stayed longer for an extra week with grandma, so the fun isn't over yet! Today we're hitting up the beach and the little 3 will do the waterslides tonight while the older 2 go to the movies with Greg and I. Riley and I have also decided to get in shape, so this August we started the Couch to 5K running plan. We are into our 4th week and are running about 16 min. of the half hour now. It works you up to running really gradually and we haven't hardly had any trouble. I used to do 5K's quite frequently, but Riley has never run much, so this has been great for him. We do lots of talking during the walking parts, and quite often Shea is following us on his bike or scooter. Riley and I even did one run in Creston, and one in Coeur d'Alene! It should take 9 weeks til the program is done, and you're running the 5K. So we are already over half way there! I have 60lbs of peaches sitting in my hallway, so I have my work cut out for me this weekend! I am also planning to do pickles and hopefully some salsa and corn! This morning I started my day doing the ice bucket challenge (to raise money for ALS)! Be sure to check out my video on Facebook! The boys were so happy to dump ice cold water on their mom and film it! I have photos to go with all these words, but most of them are on G's phone, so I will add them later!

I told my boys they had to write 5 sentences in a journal today. (What a slave driver, mean old mom they have, right?) Thankfully my two oldest got right down to business. They know! We've done this every summer, and though I hadn't made them do it yet this summer, they know that I'm not going to let them get out of it. So they did their duty. The youngest, however, maybe he thought it would go a whole lot faster if he cried over every letter he wrote. And he was writing about kittens and waterslides. Really sad topics. So then my mom bugged me by saying I didn't write my five sentences today...so here I am. In fact, I already just wrote over five sentences and didn't even cry, so there. So summer came early, and work/school came to an abrupt halt. I wasn't quite ready for it all to be over, and yet it was. We went down to meet that sweet new baby nephew of ours. Then when we came home, we camped out at my brothers new farm with my family. Even since the campout we've spent a lot of time out there as they nearly gutted their new house and have done lots of work since. This past weekend (almost a month later), we helped them move out of the basement and into their newly carpeted/painted/trimmed rooms. It looks like a whole new house. So beautiful. Luke and Pam are work horses who we wouldn't see if we didn't practically move in there and work with them! We do take lots of time to enjoy their yard/pool/cherries and animals too though! Anna (my sister) and her kids have been there for a month and she has done so many projects too. She also is my personal side-kick at the beach, pulling weeds, chewing Spitz, picking raspberries in the rain, bellyflopping into the pool, flying down the waterslides, grocery shopping, doing dishes, and we'll often be found wandering around with 9 or so kids! So glad to have her here and sad she's leaving soon. Our little family also did a 3 night stay in Osoyoos with our trailer and sweated it out in the 40 degree weather! We spent most of the time in the water and lived in our bathing suits! We are hoping to do a few more trips before this summer is over.