Happy Halloween

It has finally come and gone. It has been weeks in preparations, and now it is over. Our Jaguar, Owl and Dragon had a great time, though the mood was dimmed a bit by the pouring rain. Our Dragon made it for a few houses and then gave up, but the other animals stayed strong and were out for a long while. We even had their baby cousin, a Zebra join them!

All in all a good evening and they had lots of fun dressing up for school too! We have way too much candy and some very tired kids. Our night is done, they are in bed, but the fireworks are just beginning around here. Gonna be a fun night!

Happy Halloween!

The Fish

Yesterday we went to go watch the Salmon. See, where we live, the Salmon come every fall to spawn. It is quite the sight. These huge fish all swimming up the streams to spawn, and then to die. We saw our fair share of dead fish but saw lots of live ones too doing their spawning thing. 

We live right on the ocean, so these guys didn't really have far to go to get to their spawning grounds. In the spring we saw them release thousands of baby salmon in the creek by our house and now we get to see the grown ones come back to their home. Pretty cool!

Here are the kids checking out the ducks, and dead fish, on the ocean shore that the creek feeds into.

Here is one of the live Salmon. The girl's didn't want me to take  pictures of the dead ones, though we named one "no eyes" you can guess why.

I hardly get in front of the camera, which I am trying to change. Beaner has become quite the photographer and so she snapped this one for me!

When living on the West Coast, you need to be ok with rain, spiders, rain, more rain and slugs.

This is what Cici has been doing non stop for about a week now. Seriously non stop. At Ikea, in parking lots, at school, on the streets, in the house.

On the way back from the Salmon walk we past by the ice rink. We couldn't pass up the huge pile of snow. In fact, we raced home, had dinner and brought Paul back for a family snowball fight. All the fun of winter without the winter!

Catching Up

I feel like life has been flying by lately. Between kids at school, homework, more homework, getting meals ready and the looming event of Halloween, life has been in a bit of a tailspin. 

In all the busyness, we were able to head out to the Island this past weekend for a weekend off. We had this planned for a few weeks and then we heard that the camp Cici went to this summer was having a weekend retreat the same weekend. Cici of course wanted to go and surprisingly so did Beaner! She hasn't wanted to go to camp because of the fact that she would have to sleep away from us. But, this time, she got up the nerve and went for it. Needless to say both girls had an amazing time, and we got a weekend with just J Man at Paul's parents place. 

Other things keeping me busy...

Halloween costumes, I have an owl, a leopard and a dragon to get ready.

I made lots of perogies today. I am getting pretty good at it.

Playing the cello, yup, the cello.

Reorganizing the art in our house.

Going to Ikea to get random things. Did you know that they have a vending machine for spare parts?Yes! Got my shelves put back together because of that machine.

Getting ready to teach the preschool Sunday School class this Sunday.

Trying to find a dentist for my kids. 

Getting two of my kids ready for field trips this week.

Thought I'd introduce you to our little buddy.

This is Jumpy.

He is around all the time now and loves to eat the maple seed thingies on our trees.

I thought I'd get a picture of him, this was the best I could do. He's fast, it was getting dark and the focus on my old film lens was crazy to get right. Move it a hair either way and it was out. Oh well, it was fun to try. My family thought I was crazy with a tripod set up in the sink trying to get a shot of Jumpy!

Even though the pictures aren't great I still like the details.

Like his tiny teeth and the way he holds his tiny hands.

Or the crazy skills he has to hold himself on this branch with just 2 toes!

Or how he looks so cute holding his seed.

Or the way his tail curls around to keep him balanced.

That's Jumpy.

He's awesome.

The Last Days of the Sun

Last week, on the last sunny warm day of fall, I had the honour of taking some family photos of some good friends of ours.

We had lots of fun and captured some great moments of this great family!

Bailey

This is Bailey.

She is cute.

Very cute.

She is not ours.

She is the new addition at my parent's house.

Now I can be grandparent. 

I can play with her, cuddle her, buy her things but then leave and let her "mom" stay up all night with the crying and the trips outside!

Ranch Style

A few weeks ago, as a church, we went out to Timberline Ranch. 

It was so much fun. The church goes every year but this was the first year that we had gone.

One of the highlights was the petting zoo. Our kids named all the animals. 

This is Buddy.

This Llama is "Model",  I called him "Tick".  He was friendly but had this habit of throwing his head around.

I don't think this guy got a name.

The horses were also a huge hit. They also had names but I can only remember one...

... this one's name is Farrah.

Another huge hit which may have been the funnest, was archery.

Our kids loved it and all got turns, then I stepped up and showed them how it is done!

Later we feasted Ranch Style on some amazing food, hung out with great people...

...and watched the sun set on an amazing day.

Birthdays

Where does time go? I don't know. All I know is that kids are growing up too fast and I don't seem to be getting any older. 

My niece had her one year birthday party a few weeks ago. It was so much fun to go and celebrate with her and her family. Since I had my camera there I thought it would be fun to set up a photo booth to capture the guests with the birthday girl. 

This is what our kids did for the photo booth.

My niece wasn't the only one with a birthday. Beaner turned 8 yesterday. 

She wanted an owl birthday. She invited a few friends, Paul set up a treasure hunt to find B's "lost" owl, had an owl cake and sang "Happy Birthday" in hoots.

It was so much fun.