Chill-axin July

We started off July 1st with a bang - a Canada Day run.....so much for chill-axing!! ;) Both Keziah and Lincoln ran a 1 km (I ran with Lincoln), and Nathan ran the 5 km. It was a good way to start the celebrations of our nation's birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A hard run always deserves a treat of ice cream!

 

School must be done and Keziah must be home........she leaves a creative trail wherever she goes...

 

Painting rocks at 8 in the morning, the first morning of summer break. Yawn.

So fun to have friends over and make memories!

 

We've received a LOT of rain this summer, and so one day we decided to hit the mall. The kids get so excited to do this. Although the mall is only 15ish minutes away, we rarely go and so it felt like quite the treat! Even Lincoln doesn't mind - as long as he can play at some point and if we hit every.single.escalator and elevator ;)

 

Keziah's birthday once again fell in the weeks that we were gone camping and so we had a shared birthday party before we left. This was the sign she made and taped it to our door ;)

 

The birthday girls!! What's kind of neat is that to the girl to the left is a daughter of Nathan's cousin (on the Helder side), and the girl to the right is a daughter of Nathan's cousin (on the Witten side). So both are related to Keziah....I believe that makes them second cousins?!

Fishing in our pond.

So peaceful.....

"I got one!!!" Oh wait...it's a snag. A really big snag. So big the line snapped. Oops!!

And that was our July! We've enjoyed sharing a pool with others most afternoons but I realize I don't have a single picture of any of it! It was a good month - a month where I didn't want to think a single thought about school. But now, we are in August. School (for me as a teacher) will begin this Monday. 'Member all those boxes and moving? Yeah, they need to be unpacked now and a classroom needs to be set up. Thankfully the first two weeks of August were very restful as we camped so now I am getting more ready to pick up my task as teacher again.

Camping pictures next time! I hope you are enjoying your summer so far! Or winter....depending where you are from ;)

Jumpin' June

I seem to do my monthly reviews when the next month is more than halfway over!! Oh well, better late than never :)

June. Jumpin' June. Was it ever a month of jumping - between report card writing, organizing a Play Day for the school, wrapping up curriculum with my students, saying good-bye to them, then packing, packing, packing everything in our school as our school is moving into a new building. Jumpin' June?! I'd say so!! And that was just SCHOOL stuff!! Never mind HOME stuff! But we got through it and I managed to take a few pictures as well.

Play Day - a day where the student body is divided up into teams and they play different team building games as well as track and field challenges. Here are some of the games:

Kids had to pour water from cup to cup till the end of the line, where the last person then filled a pop bottle. The more pop bottles they fill, the more points they get.

 Not too sure how successful these two were, considering they weren't watching what they were doing :)

Spider Web - where each team member needs to go through an opening (that has not been used yet) of the web without touching the sides.

High jump! Keziah did quite well in this event.

 

Water balloon Volleyball - using two bed sheets, they need to pass a water balloon back and forth. The more complete passes, the more points the team gets.

Skis (that Nathan made!!): the team needs to work together to move the skis past 6 pylons. The more pylons you pass, the more points. Very tricky!!

It was a fun day. I was one of the Play Day Committee members, and I managed to put 23, 000 steps on my Fitbit that day! The kids weren't the only ones exhausted that night!

Nathan was gone for a few days and we discovered skype!! That was pretty exciting for the kids. And me :)

We had some marvelous sunsets!

 

 

My dad comes to visit often (when he is not off motorcycling, atving, snowmobiling, traveling etc.), and the kids LOVE it when he reads to them.

Goofball

 

This girl has discovered chapter books!! It's slow going but she is getting there!

The cozier the spot, the better to read!

Keziah found a couple beautiful butterflies on the way home from the bus stop. Aren't they gorgeous?!

 

 

My old classroom, almost done packing!

Lincoln's self portrait :) Not sure about the orange teeth....but everything else is pretty accurate :D

And that was June. It was a busy but fruitful month. Oh, and our basement renos also finished. But that's another post for another time. We are enjoying our summer holidays thus far - enjoying God's creation and all that summer has to offer. I hope you are as well!!

Does it Have to End?!

It is hard to get our minds wrapped around the fact that it is September. Here where we live that means the school year is about to begin. In fact, it began TODAY!!

It's not that time goes by so fast that makes it hard to adjust to it being a new school year. It's the fact that it is plus 40 degrees C (with the humid-x)!! And no, our school does not have air conditioning. Today we melted. I know because I was in the classroom all day. That's my job now - surrounding myself with 13 lovely little treasures from God. They are 7 and 8 years old, an age where for the most part they still love school. An age where feeling arms around my waist as a student says good-bye is still okay. Gr. 6? Nope. But Gr. 3? Yup!! :)

I am teaching all day Monday, Tuesday and then am done Wednesday at lunch. That leaves Wednesday afternoon, all day Thursday and Friday to carry out my first priorities: taking care of my husband and our two little gems. In my mind, it seems like a great balance. I guess time will tell!

But before we woke up this morning to a brand new normal, we made sure to enjoy every moment of our summer-normal yesterday:

 While I didn't shed a tear today, a few fell out of my eyes yesterday. Why, you ask? Well, just look at these pictures of Keziah and Lincoln. This is what they did all.summer.long. They played. And played. And played. Sure they made a mess everywhere they went, but I honestly would not see them for hours at a time as they were so busy adventuring. Isn't this childhood?! I love it. And that is why I cried. Tears of thankfulness for them. Tears of thankfulness they have each other and are blessed with such a close bond. And tears of sadness, knowing once school starts, the freedom of playing whenever goes to a minimal.

 

 

She's in there somewhere......see her hand poking out just under the table?! Her and her forts.

We also made sure to spend lots of time in the pool yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great last day of summer. Maybe it's a good thing summer is winding down - my chocolate brownie is turning into a blonde brownie, thanks to sun-kissed hair!

(yes, I realize I jumped from camping pictures to first day of school pictures without finishing my camping posts. They are coming!! :)