Catching up

Trying to keep up on the blog...
Last Wedenday Aaron's preschool went to the firehall. I accompanied Aaron as he learned the basics of fire safety. They learned about diiferent dangers around the house and acted out a pretend fire, first they were firefighters and then the were the family in the burning house.
They also got to witness a firefighter in full gear and check out the fire trucks.










Shelby has started jogging a few times a week and sometimes we have joined her to hang out and the playground nearby.





Here is Aaron on a trail near the playground.





On Monday we went to the Fort Langley parade, last year we were in the parade and this year we watched. Our Noise friends were there as well as other friends.


Here are the kids in the street waiting for the parade to start.



Good buds!


Crazy kids!




Later that afternoon we had a BBQ at our house. There was some great food and we played bocce and volleyball. Aaron got to entertain baby Carter and Carter thought Aaron was hilarious, pretty cute actually.






Today Aaron decided to dress up in his construction outfit, which isn't that unusual, but today he added eggmuffs. Not quite sure if they suit him?




Kyle's pretend eggmuffs


Nice face Aaron!



I have more to update but I'll try to add it tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Our celebrity look-alikes

Mother's Day recap

For Mother's Day we decided we would skip church and spend the day out as a family. The weather was cloudy and a little cold, but at least it wasn't raining. We went out to Mud Bay for a walk along the trail near the beach. It was a bit windy down there, so the kids we bundled in their winter jackets, so it may look a little colder than it actually was.

Aaron got to see the Amtrak train quite close up, which he enjoyed, but would not be the last train he would see that day...

We brought the stroller with us and Kyle rode in that a lot, but he also wanted to walk and this picture is Kyle running. We also found a geocache on the walk and there was a whistle in the cache. I gave it to Kyle and he quite enjoyed blowing it as loud as he could. The whistle may be 'accidentally' missing now...

This was my attempt at a creative photo on our walk.

After our walk we went to Art Knapp's(yes the plant store) in South Surrey and they also have a large model train collection with trains of all sizes. They even have a ride on train in which you can take a tour of Art Knapp in. I think it's better than it sounds, anyway the kids enjoyed it.

This is an attempt a a mothers day shot, getting everyone to smile and look at the camera wasn't easy.

Aaron and Kyle watching the outdoor trains...

and playing with the Thomas the train collection inside.

This was my last attempt at a mother's day picture at home. Aaron is holding his mother's day present for Shelby. He made her a little pot with some sort of paper flowers and an umbrella in it. Something only a mother could love?

Question: Are husband's supposed to get their wives mother's day presents?
I opted for the safe answer and ordered her something online, but it hadn't arrived on time, it is still coming though. So my backup plan was to get her a Starbuck's card(always a good option for Shelby) and made her a shirt with the kids picture on it(you can kind of see it behind Aaron and Kyle), it says "We love our mom" and it's true.

A day in pictures

The photo website Flickr had a 24 hours of Flickr on Saturday May 5. Basically you take a bunch of pictures that day and decide on 1 to sum up your day.
I thought that would be a fun thing to do, so we tried to have some fun outings with the family.

In the morning we went out to White Rock, the weather was a little overcast, but the sun popped out every once in a while. We brought the kite with us and headed to the beach.





Aaron and Kyle both loved running through the puddles, good thing for rubber boots and waterprook pants.






Kyle is not as alone as he seems:-)






Time for snack.




We also walked around the town a bit and then headed home for lunch and nap time.

In the afternoon we headed down to Fort Langley to check out the town and I took the kids to see the caboose, which they enjoyed.





And hanging around the tracks as well.

Then after we met up with some friends from church at Derby Reach park.
We had a nice dinner grilled over the campstove and hung out for a while.
The kids enjoyed running around the park and throwing rocks in the river.





I had an enjoyable Cinqo de Mayo and I think the kids were for the most part well behaved.
I was able to take about 90 pictures that day and it was hard to choose 1 picture to sum up my day, but ultimately I chose this one. Good times.





If you want to see what other people submitted to Flickr as their picture of the day you can click here.

Love my Belly

I was paying for my purchases at a store yesterday and heard a bit of giggling behind me. So I looked over to see a little girl kind of hiding behind her mom laughing in embarrassment. She was looking in the direction of Kyle. When I looked over at Kyle he was standing there smiling, lifting up his shirt to show off his big belly. It was quite funny.

Bye Bye Soo

Last night I decided it was time to say good bye to "Soo". Kyle has used this same soother for the past few months and would not use a different one. Needless to say the thing was in pretty bad shape and I was getting a little afraid that it may break apart while he was sucking on it. So at about 7:00 last night I told him he should go put it in the garbage. He did it quite easily and he even said good bye to it ( I prompted him). BUT at 7:30 at bed time the consequences of what he did finally hit him. It all made sense to him now and he let the tears flow. The tears only lasted a few minutes but he was probably up until 9:00 in bed talking away, trying to sooth himself to sleep. I felt a little guilty because it seemed like he thought I had tricked him. BUT this was going to happen at some point soon anyways. So night #1 is finished and our punishment for this is a child that woke up at 6:30 this morning and has been pretty cranky since. Good thing he's going to Grandma's for a while this morning :)

Sleepin' and hangin'

Kyle woke up quite early this morning. He was crying and throwing up.
We weren't sure what was wrong. He must have had sort of bug in his stomach,
because after breakfast he was feeling a bit better, but fell asleep on the couch.
The after lunch and he had another nap and he seems to be doing better now.

A week ago Aaron went to his friend Alyssa's birthday party at The Little Gym.
Here is Aaron having fun hanging upside down.

Aaron runs the mini Sun Run

Last Sunday in our annual family tradition we went to the Sun Run. This year was Aaron's turn to try to mini Sun Run which is 2.5K and starts an hour earlier than the official Sun Run.


Shelby was Aaron's escort this year and they did a great job together. I think Aaron ran most of the way. The mini Sun Run is not officially timed but they crossed the finish line in just over 20 minutes.



I unfortunately missed Aaron and Shelby's race as I was confused about where the race ended, luckily my parents were there to take some pictures.

At the official Run , Mike and my Dad ran in our family and also a bunch of people in our church formed a Sun Run team. Our team finished 7th in it's category which isn't too bad. I finished in 51:56, which isn't a great time for me, but I thought I did OK. Finishing 1 second ahead of my brother made it all that much sweeter though.
There's always next year.

Self-explanitory?

Coaster fun!

Our sister-in-law Sara over in Japan blogged about her roller coaster adventures at Fujiku Highland with some video by Jamie of their adventures. This reminded me of the video I took of the Mindbender roller coaster at West Edmonton Mall almost 4 years ago.

Hold on!

Easter in the Okanagan

We ventured up to Westbank for the Easter weekend to celebrate Shelby's grandpa's (Papa) 75th birthday. Shelby's parents came over from the island and we headed up to the Okanagan on Good Friday. The weather was great every day expect on Monday, but we were heading home that day, so it didn't matter. Shelby and her dad were sick most of the weekend, so it wasn't as enjoyable for them.
During the day on Saturday I took the kids to the park which they enjoyed.









We didn't have Aaron's bathing suit with us, but he still wanted to test out the water.

On Saturday night we headed up to the Lost Moose which overlooks Penticton to have dinner for Papa. Most of Shelby's moms side of the family was there as well.
There were a few things to keep the kids entertained while we waited for dinner.







Here is a self portrait shot of me and the Penticton city lights below.

After dinner we headed to Papa and Grandma's house for some cake.



It was a late night and we didn't get home till 10:30.
The kids slept on the way back to Westbank.



Even with a late night it didn't stop the kids from waking up at 6:30. Since it was Easter morning they had some new Easter presents to play with, including a new Thomas musical caboose and some tracks and some play cars. Then they went outside to look for some Easter eggs and this year Kyle was able to join in on the hunt.



Since Shelby and her dad were sick and Shelby's mom was cooking Easter dinner, I took the boys out. We went on an adventure trying to kind a geocache in the area. It's a long story, but part of the walk/hike included me trying to find a bathroom.



And then taking a short cut up a trail only to get attacked by thistles or was it cactus. Ouch!

This picture was taken after the cacti incident, I think Kyle had enough at this point.
(Up too early?)



Then we headed to Kelowna because Aaron wanted to see the Ogopogo again!?




In the evening we had a nice Easter dinner with some family. There was lots of food to go around and the food was delicious.(Thanks to Pat and Shelby and Grandma's Waldorf salad).


(You like my cheesy grin?)

Monday we packed up and headed back to Langley.

That was Easter 2007 for us.

Kyle is 2!

Well our little Kyle turned 2 today. We had a little family get together yesterday. Shelby made a nice half ice cream half vanilla cake cake, if that makes sense. It was good good but Kyle does not like cake anymore so we got to enjoy it while he enjoyed goldfish crackers instead.




Kyle got some cool presents including a ride-on plane and a new tricycle






and some new clothes from Auntie and Unc Unc all the way from Japan




and Kyle has his very own backpack which Aaron picked out for him




Here is the latest family pic from yesterday,
but all the little/big boys look different now
that we all got our $5 haircuts today.




Here is a video from today which includes Aaron singing
Happy Birthday to Kyle and Kyle's Birthday Star as seen on CBC today.




We head up to the Okanangan for Easter weekend so
I'll try to update this blog next week from our trip up there.