I almost forgot to mention Callum's BMX bike camp over spring break. His friend, Mattias, was registered for it and I'm glad his Mom mentioned it to me since I usually don't look at programs outside South Surrey, but we ventured up to Cloverdale and Callum just LOVED it. I didn't get to watch him much since Simon believed he should have been able to participate and I needed to otherwise occupy him, but Gaby, Mattias' Mom, took a few pics. Mattias' sister, Anna, was there to play with Max too.
The big news, however, comes from just 2 days ago when I told Max he is just too big for the bike seat on Mom's bike (as we biked to Callum's school for the first time this Spring on Tuesday). So we came home, pulled out the pedal bike, and VOILA! Max is a big-boy biker!! I have to say that the pride and excitement I felt while watching him learn to ride wasn't any less than when my first kid did it. Look at the smile on his face - he is SO proud of himself!
Apparently, if you whine to your husband enough about the drudgery of the house-wife life that limits any cultural stimulation and bores you to death with the redundancy, he will try to appease you with a trip to New York! Well, ok, maybe not all husbands will be so generous, but mine is! Lucky me!!!!
Kim and I left on a Thursday night (April 4th) so we arrived in New York early Friday morning then walked and walked and walked until Monday evening when we headed back home. It was great. I could have used at least 2 more days to fit in all my 'must-do' items, but I think it was an awesome introduction for me.
A small selection of pics to summarize (though not in any particular order):
And then I think it took me less than 48 hours after getting home to be ready for another break from the kids! Oh, alright, no, they aren't so bad... I love 'em.
March was pretty fun, as we celebrated both Max and Jeff's birthdays. As documented in my last blog, Max had a super awesome party and it was followed by a brief getaway for Jeff and I to Gibsons, where we awoke to an amazing mountain and ocean view (that we specifically designed for my sister's bedroom) and spent a few uninterrupted hours perusing the new architecture books I bought Jeff. The following weekend, Jeff bought himself a little birthday present - a BMW X3! He deserves it. (Besides, Jeff did get the Jetta into another little fender-bender that instigated the search for a new car).
I felt like a jet-set woman for a day, driving our new Beamer to the downtown Harbour plane airport for a day-trip to Victoria on the 17th. I sort of invited myself to visit my friend Malaika and she scored me a couple of buddy passes from her hubby Peter since he is a pilot for Harbour Air now, and it was a lovely day for a little excursion and a great chance to visit.
Before Easter, my Calgary sister, Krista, flew out so we could have a girls-night at Gibsons on Good Friday, so I was lucky to enjoy 3 separate getaways from my 3 crazy boys that have been driving me crazy (well, really it's just the youngest one that is driving me crazy!). We still managed to fit in a little Easter Egg hunt on Easter Monday, and they were adorably excited.
Oh ya, and there was Spring Break. We went to Vancouver for a day to do a little Seawall biking and meet up with our friends. I like to say that Callum is the "country mouse" that gets to play with his "city mouse" friend, Banyan, when either his Mom, Julianne, or I are willing to make the drive, but we really should do it more often since they have such fun together.
I'm not sure how we ended up choosing the theme of Max's birthday party, but it was a Secret Agent Party! He invited 7 of his preschool buddies, plus Lorelei and Callum, so it was a good little group of kids. They each got Secret Agent sunglasses and ID tags to wear before we played some games, like decoding a secret message by finding letters that were hidden in the backyard.
There was also Pin-the-Disguise-on-the-Spy.
The kids were very excited for Max to open the gifts they brought, so we did that before Cake.
I think it was a success. We had planned for Max to have a sleepover at Lorelei's that night and my Mom was going to spend the night at our place while Jeff and I went to Gibson's, to have some quiet time together for Jeff's birthday. While on the ferry to Gibson's, however,
my Mom calls to tell us we never gave her our house key - Oops!
