Love my mom...

Half our family is down for the count. Here is mom doing what she loves and does best: taking care of us and cooking with us. Here is Elliot making cream puffs with her, and they'll be prepping a turkey dinner soon too!!!

Isaac caught my cold. So he is back to bed, miserable but he's sleeping, so that's good. 

And me?

Trying to stay quarantined so as not to spread the pink eye that graced me with its presence this morning.

A ten day long cold thought it needed a little something extra to throw on the pile!!  Again ..... Glad my moms here. I can smell cream puffs!! She just walked with the best homemade chicken soup - fresh noodles and everything!

Sort of sweet to eat this under my grandmas quilt. 

Boys take Nona up the mountain!!

....and she only had to pay the each 5$!!

I know we've taken the boys up the mountain a ton since they were born but I really wasn't sure how they would do as the guides! 

They led her up amazingly well!!

There are those silly bunny ears again!!

Eating and staining stuff like tables and vests !!

We eat really well when Nona and granddaughter here!!

Dad agreed to help me to stain our kitchen table.... Here we are heading over to the shop.  It was nice having Zalinko's gone this week because dad and I had full access to the shop without feeling like we were stepping on any toes.

I have never stained anything before ... But our table has been looking really rough for years!! So it was a valued project!!

Dad put his vest on the side of our work area to keep his clothes clean..... He should've kept them on. My stained gloves grazed his vest and you should've seen the saddest look on his face when he saw it!!  

It was a fun project with my dad ....

Botanical Beach

On Saturday, we decided to hit up Port Renfrew and go on a little road trip together.  Always a stop at the big Spruce!

For some reason bunny ears make every shot today!   Even the selfie stick waterfall landscape shot!!

Elliott was trying to have fun with some sea kelp......It bit him back!

My lovely parents on their adventures.

Road trips, spa fun, nettles etc!!

We dropped the kids with their grandparents for the anticipated trip to the Vancouver aquarium!!  

We went for a quick coffee before I had to get to work. Laura is so tense that my mom just went and started rubbing her neck.  L just kinda melted into it, it was sweet. I love sharing my mom. She just wants everybody to feel good. It's a lovely trait of hers. 

After work, (if you can call it that, I was not the most optimal worker today - been sick for a week and I'm not getting better).... But afterwards, she and I went to Elizabeth's spa .... I got a beautiful manicure and mom got a pedicure with brand new blue polish!

On the way home, Laura said Mike could hook us up with nettles for soup. So we stopped. Y the farm and he walked us out to this amazing new trail he's had built on the back property with new trees, ponds for irrigation, and a beautiful bark path to walk on. He's done such good work out there. So we happily went on our way home with a bag full of nettles. 

I'm so sick so I was pretty excited for this!

The Vitamix did a bang up job pureeing it!  

Introducing Schitts Creek ....

This is what my mom looks like while watching Schitts Creek. Her face says it all!!!

3pm-it must be nap time.

As if right on cue, 3pm hit and his eyes closed. Daisy is keeping a watchful eye on him. 

I'll bet he's tired from staying up last night with leanne and I watching "Austenland"!!....he really wanted to know how it ended!!! Lol 

Off to the IF AGM....

After a big night at camp night on Friday night, these two guys did the drive back down to Victoria to attend the Imadene Foundation AGM on Saturday morning.  

These two. 

Camp night! Fun with Sister!

My sweet husband has been getting ready for camp night this week.  Here he is with one of the best guys, Jon.  Jon brings so much energy and is just a great guy to have around when you're doing fun nights like this.  

After dropping off the kids at Lambrick Park Church for Camp night, Carrie and I went to the mall to spend the money that mom sent me to spoil her for her birthday!  As we walk into the mall, Carrie immediately said "I have been wanting a pair of really great slippers for a long time now maybe tonight's the night"... And it was! The soft moc store had her slippers on sale as well as a very sweet pair of boots that she gravitated towards the moment saw them..... And they both came to just over $100 together!

Walking past the store we both were disgusted at all the sleezy looking outfits.  But I've been wanting a pair of tighter jeans for a while and they are hard-to-find at thrift stores!  So we went in!  Somehow we ended up at the back of the store and the woman said that everything was about seven dollars! And the music was great, so with armfuls of clothes, we hit change rooms!  Dancing to Michael Jackson and trying on clothes with my sister was definitely the highlight of the evening!  

After all of our money was spent, we went back to Lambrick Park church to pick up Mel to come with us for dessert to celebrate Carrie's birthday!  Turns out my old friend from camp qwanoes named Leanne was there as well. She came to surprise me but didn't let me know she was coming so she's lucky that I had stopped back in.  The four of us piled into my car and we headed out to a nearby restaurant for cake.....

Thank you Mel for snapping this shot of me and my sister!  There is nothing like being with Carrie. When we are out and about, people immediately know that she is my sister. We laugh at the same stupid things and we have the same mannerisms which normally would be pretty embarrassing, but are absolutely hilarious when partnered with each other.  Pretty hard to believe that she will be 38 tomorrow, I'm glad we got to spend some time together.  She's the best.

Check out Elliot right behind his dad!!!!

Chris and Jon did a great job that night with the biggest camp night to date in history! Over 200 kids came out and had a really great time!  

Saturday fun with the family

OK, so this blog is a week late. It just shows how busy this last week was.  But last weekend our family went out for dinner downtown.  We are on a pretty fun, tight budget. So we went for pho!!! Two huge bowls of noodle soup and all the extras was just a little over 20 bucks!!!

we love our little downtown core. There is so much character.

they still hold hands with their dad.....

and they still lead us down streets but the toy stores are on.... And get pretty dramatic on their knees when they find out it's closed... Lol

Oh please don't ever change Elliot......

Saturday....

It was another rough night with neck pain and stomach pain and a wild headache and just an overall sense of uneasiness.  It's funny that the acupuncturist said I would feel worse before I felt better. I didn't really think much of it until last night.  Without really meaning to or thinking about it, I actually didn't eat a meal yesterday. I wasn't hungry but I was quite thirsty for these aloe vera water drinks that I had about four of those.  A lot of fruit and veggies but no sugar or caffeine and by the evening there was a headache and understandably so I guess.  So today I feel better,  just the neck pain is left so that's good. I am in my happy place in front of the fire and there are a gaggle of boys running around in the sun. Isaac has invited his friend Noah over to play today so his mom and brother just dropped them off a few moments ago.  She had never been to camp so we gave her a really quick tour.  It's interesting looking at the camp from an outsiders eyes and how often they say how lucky we are to live here. I forget.

Chris has been working night and day getting this really cool café up and running down at camp in the old program room.  French doors that would cost $1700 new,  cost Chris $50 cash and almost a weeks worth of evenings and carved out work time of refinishing them - he saves this camp so much money and bring so much talent and vision, I am in awe.  Last night he asked if I wanted to come up to the gym and sand down our dining room table that we've been wanting to get done for a while. So with him working on the French doors and me working on our dining room table, we actually had a nice part of the evening together.  

Living out of envelopes this week has actually been really fun. We have not spent a ton of money.  Chris has done well with his Tims card too!  It's actually quite amazing what you can spend mindlessly.  We did make an error this week in purchasing a bunny for Elliot.  He was a beautiful standard gray velvet bunny who is three months old. Turns out he needs to be neutered ASAP because he sprayed everywhere and the kitchen smelled like a barn the next morning!  The dogs room was also quite littered with little landmines of poop even though the woman said that he was litter trained. I understand that he is stressed and not settled but nope.....This is not the pet for us.  There is someone coming to pick him up in a few hours.  We didn't spend any money on the bunny, just the food so it wasn't a huge loss.  But we definitely knew we had to move him along quickly before anyone got attached.  But in hindsight, I don't think there was any question of getting attached considering the boys haven't really even checked in on the bunny. So there is our answer in regards to a pet.  It's nice to have gone through this and now I can put it out of my mind.  I dream of something affectionate and cuddly and easy to maintain and the bunny fit all those descriptions, however this bunny was pretty big and carved me up pretty good if I ever tried to pick it up so Elliot got frustrated pretty quickly.  Maybe this summer we will get a little tiny Netherland dwarf female bunny, maybe ...we'll see.  

Plus who needs a pet when you can love your neighbours pet??  Love Tucker ...

Acupuncture !!

After my Dr. appointment this morning, it was time to check out acupuncture ....

As we spoke, I told her about my tummy issues and my irregularity, so she did a two for one! lol 

My neck was not so bad today when I went in, not as bad as Monday ... so that was good.  I am not sure about this treatment ... I was very relaxed when I left, and it didn't hurt.  It was interesting.

Apparently the ones in my forehead and ears are my relaxation points!!  It was weird!  Upside is that I did fall asleep for abit while the needles did their thing!  She laughed as she enjoyed taking pictures of me and my extremities!!  She says people ask her to do it all the time!