Cousinly Influence

My tuff cousin saw this and was reminded of me, sort of. I thought it was funny and wanted to share with y'all.

Summertime

Last weekend we went out to our friends' house for swimming, bbq, and drinks. We slept over and had a great time. Hayden rekindled his enjoyment of the pool because this inflatable dragon was just TOO enticing to stay out. I'm glad, cuz he's been scared of our pool ever since we first put it up cuz he slipped and went under the water the second time he went in. He was even scared of the bathtub for a while after that! But since the dragon was so fun, he's been in our pool too. I got him an inflatable fish ring, which he puts over his head and wears around his waist. If he slips (which he has) while wearing it, his armpits catch him on the fishy and his head doesn't go under water. Before he would wear the fish tho, he did slip and I caught him right away after he went under the water, and he wasn't too upset. I told him how brave he was and praised him and he didn't hardly cry or panic. I'm teaching him to lean back in the fish and kick his feet, and also to lean forward and kick his feet behind him. Maybe one day we'll go over to Penny's pool and play there too!

Hayden and Sabrina after I left the pool to take a picture of this event.

All the Nerpin's pool toys. How could ANYONE resist?

On Wednesday Rachael, John, Hayden, and I went out to Sandy's camp. We met up with Penny, Fionna, Elizabeth, Sandy, Wendi, Meghan, and Hannah. Oh and Carter and Sam the dogs. We had a great dinner and visit. Hayden of course was enthralled with everyone, and I've come to the conclusion he's a big flirt. At one point tho, he was in a trance-like state after a staring contest of sorts with Meghan.

The Trance

Hannah enjoying a wine spritzer.
See how happy wine spritzers make her? LOL
Penny ponders on the porch. Great view.
Elizabeth and Hayden bonding.

Weirdos

Szabbies Visit

Waiting for their arrival in a clean living room.

Jake prepared a beautiful platter for lunch.
Including fruit!
The Spread
Non-cranky babies onna couch. Doesn't Dhara look like Hayden? And I find Elora really looks like Anya in this shot too. (D beside H, E on the very right)
Ok ALL the non-cranky babies onna couch.
All kids' eyes are on funny Auntie Jennifer/Mommy.

"Give me a big smile, Anya!"
All the kids. Sage came back to see what was going on.
Anya and Hayden play in the empty toy bin. All the toys were dumped on the floor in his room. Sage tries to get in on the action.
Balancing on the edges.
Going from room to room with the box on their heads.

Dinner time, and another fruit platter.
Jake outdid his lunchtime platter with personalized initial fruit skewers.
Anya and Hayden enjoy theirs on his couch.
Until Anya dropped hers and refused to put the pieces on the table. She's hiding.

Carol and I went through all my mom's stuff last night and this afternoon. Everything except the written memorabilia and photo albums. It wasn't as hard as I had thought it might've been, emotionally speaking. It was actually really nice to be able to take the important things home with me. And Carol and I didn't have any conflicts, except for the Pogo comic books which ended up going home with her (a decision which seemed to happen when my mind was otherwise occupied) and my mom's bongos which Carol had wanted, but when Jake saw them in their van, he asked her if he could have them since he's been wanting bongos for a long time. (Which is true.) She was fine with that. There were lots of things that we both wanted, but felt that as long as they stayed within the family, that was close enough to having them. I guess access to them at each other's houses was a very close second to owning them.

Late this afternoon, BJ and Jake went off to do some shopping and stuff, and Carol and I had the kids. We decided to go to the park which is about a 20 minute walk away from here so the kids could slide and swing and play. It was lots of fun! Sage had a great time in the swing, laughing his head off for 15 minutes straight, and then falling asleep pretty much all of a sudden. While still swinging! He was so cute slumped over, but I hadn't brought the camera because we were so laiden down with keeping after everyone, we didn't think we'd have time or hands for photo ops. Carol had a harness for each of the twins and so she and I each wore a twin. I pushed Sage in the stroller and Anya and Hayden walked, holding Carol's hands crossing roads and when there was no sidewalk. We were out for about an hour when we noticed that the few puffy white clouds had become plentiful dark storm clouds. I called home to see if the men were back to give us a ride. They were and we drove home to have supper.

It's been one week since you looked at me...

said my blog to me today.

How could that week have gone by so fast? Weird.


I don't really have much to say. The other day the sky was really beautiful so I took some pictures.. here they are:

After I took those garden pictures, it really took off. The morning glories started up their strings, the pink petunia bloomed only two pink flowers, and all the rest of them were dark purple! Very strange. I noticed my garlic in the fridge had sprouted a light green stem, so I planted it in the garden too. Now it's dark green with spots of lighter green, almost like an aloe vera (is that normal?) and has about 4 thick chivey looking leaves coming out the top. My tomato has MANY flowers and is kind of leaning over. I NEED a tomato support cage asap. I'd started a couple extra pea plants inside and they were nice and tall, so I planted them the other day. A few weeks ago I'd soaked and added a few more pea seeds right to the ground, and I thought none of them had survived, but when I was planting the newest seedlings, I noticed two HAD survived although were quite small. We'll see how they grow!

Jake went blueberry picking the other day, and came back with a LOT of berries. They were so big and plump! We still have lots left, so I think I'll be making a blueberry cake this afternoon. My sister and her family are coming for the weekend, so it'll be nice for after supper tomorrow. The boys really like eating blueberries, and they're a nice convenient fruit to have cuz we can just put a handful on the highchair and Sage practices his pincher grasp picking them up one by one.

Garden Update

It's been a while since I took (and posted) pictures of my garden. So here's the update!

Here's the spinach and a snail statue my dad gave me a few years ago. The plant on the very left is actually a second shoot which came up after the initial stem fell over. It looks like there's three, but the middle one is the first one which has uprighted it's growth again. I did plant three to begin with, but the third died on a particularly hot day. I initially started five, but a couple of the seedlings didn't survive.
My LOVELY tomato flowers. So many buds and flowers.. so many tomatos in my future....
I need a proper sized tomato cage now. I still have the little cage around this one. I hope I can get it off! But look how big and lucious it is.
My VERY zealous petunias. The one on the right has had many many flowers, and the one on the left has just been growing to HUGE proportions but no flowers until just recently. You can see the pink one, and there are a few more buds to bloom soon.
The Phlox (smaller dark green plant with lighter green stripes on the leaves on the very left) looks like it might grow a bud soon. The Morning Glories in behind the petunias are several inches high, but not tall enough to reach the strings yet.
Pea Plants. With peas on 'em! I've eaten 6 or 7 already. One is usually ready every other day. Yesterday there were two ready at once and I gave them both to my dad. They are SO sweet and delicious! I have started 4 more plants inside, in the hopes that I'll eventually get to eat more than one every other day :oP
The other half of the pea section. They're very clingy and are climbing each other as well as the strings.
I planted jump ups here, and also forget me nots. I'm pretty sure these are one of those two types. The weeds growing in this area look a lot different, and see how these are kind of in a line? That makes me think they're intentional. We'll just have to wait and see! It's been quite a while since I planted those two types, and nothing's happened for weeks and weeks. Until NOW!
My garden from the side. I'm so proud!

Canada Day Events

On Canada day when I got home from work at 6pm, Jake surprised me with a hot picnic supper and all the extras all ready to go. After we decided where to go, we loaded up the car and packed in the kids and took off. We checked out a few places on our way to the place my dad had recommended, but none were quite suitable. Moonlight Beach was too crowded, Silver Lake didn't have a picnic table or a good spot for a picnic blanket, but Fielding Memorial Park was perfect. After dinner we took a walk and found a playground that Hayden and Sage thoroughly enjoyed. We drove around again and found a good high place off Van Horne to watch the fireworks from Science North which were to start at 10:15. We had bug spray and mosquito pics and long sleeves and jackets and were quite happy. At one point before the fireworks started Hayden wanted to sit in the car, and we all thought that it would be a good idea, so all four of us piled in the front seat and waited till showtime.

Our Family's Beverages

Piled in the Car

On the way home, the gorgeous moon hung low in the sky like a molten sphere of celestial gold.

The Videos

ASL don't fail me now...

Hey. You know when you go to college for a few years and rack up a huge student loan and then end up not doing anything even remotely related to it, and you realize the years and money you invested were nothing more than a very fancy and complicated and expensive way of meeting people? I met excellent friends at Cambrian, and I don't mean to say I don't value having met them.. I just wish it could've been under cheaper circumstances. But I'm digressing.

Tonight, just now in fact, we got a knock on our door. Jake held Lacey back (but not too far back, just in case because he didn't recognize the guy knocking) and I approached the screen door. To my surprise there was a Deaf guy standing there whom I'd known from college. He had dated my friend Angela for a while, until she left him cuz he hit her or something. Or else he beat some other girlfriend up and was on trial for it.. or something. Or raped someone. Or Angela. Anyway he was a creep. And now he's on my doorstep. ASL rules flooded my brain. My vocabulary lists roared back to the front of my memory. I impressed him with my eloquent fingerspelling AND reciprocation of HIS fingerspelling - which incidentally I received all the while keeping eye contact with him as per our instruction oh so many years ago. Even tho Joe [teacher] was no where to be seen and if I'd stared right at his hand it would NOT have mattered. The exchange went like this:

guy: "I need in the gate" also speaking the words.
me: "No, closed. sorry."
guy: "I have a delivery for Thomas. You know asl?"
me: "A little bit. Owner (had to fingerspell owner, I forgot that one) doesn't live here. We rent."
guy: "They told me to deliver on Tuesday but I'm here and thought if I could open the gate I could just finish now. What time do they open tomorrow?"
me: "sorry. Open around 7am."
guy: "ok thanks. bye."
me: "bye."

And now I will repeat the whole conversation with elaborations and "what I should've said"s for the next two days.