Strike over! Simon's Birthday!

For the first 3 weeks of September, the BC Teacher's Union and the government seemed to make no effort to get along.  I was able to take advantage of another Mom's motivation for a couple weeks, as Callum's friend's Mom offered to home-school 10 Gr.2 kids at her home during the mornings.  Simon's preschool started as scheduled, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, so poor Max felt left-out, being the only one not going to school.  Then finally, on September 22nd, Callum and Max went to school.  
 

 Max still had to do a week of gradual entry into his Kindergarten class, but ended up with the same teacher Callum had, Mme. Julie Paulus.  So far, I will say that he doesn't seem quite as enthusiastic about school as Callum is, but he goes willingly and we are working on showing more respect to his teachers.  Callum was worried he would be in the Gr.1/Gr.2 Split class, but he ended up in a good class with Mme.Afilal. 

Simon seems unsure about school.  Out of my 3 boys, I suppose he is my most 'clingy' child, which I don't mind, actually.  He never wants to go school when it's time, but he never puts up much of a fuss once he's there and sees the toys.  He seems so much younger than Callum and Max were when they started Preschool, which he is (since they are January and March babies), and the fact that you still can't understand most of what he says.

Simon turned 3!  He has been quite into a particular Hot Wheels book lately, about Monster trucks and stunt cars.  We even found a moto-cross stunt movie on Netflix he likes watching, so we had a bit of a Monster truck-themed birthday party.  He was so sweet to have a little attention on himself.

I think I have previously confessed that my gardening abilities have a steep learning curve, and I'm still low on the curve.  What I learned this year includes: plant more carrots (don't stop adding rows!), more beets (they take longer than you think to get big), plant less kale (6 plants is too much!), less swiss chard (1 plant keeps producing forever! Allow 3 plants in spring, 3 plants in July is plenty), stagger the beans and lettuce and spinach with more time between, and thin-out the rows before the greens get bigger than 3".  Also, next year I will only grow 1 slicing-tomato plant and 1 grape-tomato plant, since the time and effort I put into my tomato plants just doesn't seem worth it.  If I'm going to build a special shelter, individually string up the vines, continually prune and hand-water these plants, they better taste better than the ones I buy at the store - they didn't.  Not even the heirloom ones.  Disappointing.  Oh, also, I ate 3 strawberries from my patch.  Three strawberries in a 10ft x 3ft garden bed.  Yes, the racoons may have impacted the harvest, but c'mon!  With the never-ending runners that continually need cutting,  I am definitely missing something in my Strawberry production education. 

These pics are just from a little family trip down to Trader Joe's before visiting friends in Bellingham - which we won't do again on a busy Sunday afternoon.

It appears that all the good things we heard about Jeff's new job are true, so far.  He is really enjoying the work and the people.  Although the commute has had it's bad days, we still see more of him.  I've been trying to get the boys to eat dinner later, so we even get to have his presence at the dinner table once in a while. 

I've asked Jeff to send me a few pics from his recent alpine-climbing trip up Mt.Baker, but haven't gotten them yet.  He had an awesome 3-day trip with our neighbour, Thure, over the Sept.12th weekend, and is already planning the next trip up Mt.Rainier or Mt.Shukchan.