Mom and Dad move in!

Mom and Dad moved into their new house in Victoria this weekend.  It is a great house, and we look forward to taking the kids down to stay :)  I didn't have time for a ton of photos this weekend, but you can see some of their touches on the house already.  It rained, which wasn't great, but it is better than the projected -22C this weekend in Salmon Arm for our upcoming move!!!

Stand-off

The kids asked that I leave out their toys tonight, and I had to get a shot of the crowd facing down the lizards and dinosaurs, led by a pig!

Winter is almost here

Winter is almost here, and Darcy and Sam are up at Silver Star for the junior racer's ski camp.  The ski club is a bit bigger deal this year as we need to have skating and classic skis for Sam, and both require waxing (no fish scales for Sam!).  It is fun learning about Nordic skiing in what hopefully becomes a family activity that we all enjoy up at Larch Hills.  It is fantastic being only 20 mins from a beautiful ski area!

Pets

It has been a while since we've been without cats and dogs, but our fish that Sam got for his birthday in 2012 is still going strong, though he does have some fin problems we are working on :(  Katy and Ian needed a photo for pre-school with their pets, so here it is!

Cute kid stories

A few cute stories from today:

When Lynne arrived over at our place this morning she asked Max if he just got new skis.  He said "No, I got them yesterday."  Apparently 24h is a long time to a six year old!

Before dinner Lynne asked the kids if they went skating today, and Ian replied "Public skating".  Then he started to repeat it slowly while counting on his fingers - finally deciding that it was four syllables (not that he knows the word syllable)!

Tonight we had dinner at the condo with Ian and Lynne.  They have a set of cutlery that is very modern, and featured in the museum of modern art.  We fed the kids and then ate in a more relaxed fashion while the kids played.  Darcy remarked that the forks were almost useless, and we agreed that they favored form over function.  A little while later we were getting out some ice cream and gave the kids the dishes with the modern spoons on the floor.  While the other kids watched a show on TV and ate their ice cream in silence, Ian stood up, walked over to us laughing with his spoon and said "Grandma!  This is a funny spoon!"

First skate of the year

Today I got out the kids' skates while Darcy helped her mum with some clean up at her house.  We met up with Grace and Josie, and skated around for an hour or so.  Sam has grown out of his skates, while the other three are basically going up to the next oldest's skates from last year.  Katy seems to need a bit of time to get back up to where she was last year - but we'll forgive her given the 6 months since the last time she skated!

Ian's a singer [video]

Apparently he is now a big Katy Perry fan !

2nd Ski of the year at Sovereign

 It was a little colder than I expected (-7 C), but the conditions were pretty nice for an early season snow.  We went up with the ski team and Max and I tooled around while Sam had his ski class.  He didn't last long, due to his boots being too small, but we've got that figured out for the ski camp next weekend.  Really looking forward to getting out as a family on the trails this year!

Cookie Caper [Video]

My first feature short made with the boys' help!  I had to give Katy the director credit, or she was threatening to go all diva on me and cry during the cell phone audio ;)

Walk in the woods

Today I took the day off for the kid's pro-D day, and met up with Anitra and Sandra for a walk in the woods with a dozen kids.  After we did a balloon hunt and played kick the can for a bit we returned back to check in with Mike and have hot chocolate and a brownie!

They are 'hiding'

 

Big helpers!

Today we continued cleaning up Ian & Lynne's yard, starting with the leaves.  The four kids were a big help!  Look at how clean they got the area they were working on...



Wow!  Down to the dirt :)




Max and Sam (and Katy and Ian) operated the dump trailer!



Bubble Bath at Nana's

After a long day hauling wood and construction leftovers to the landfill and recycler, we treated the kids to a bubble bath.  We didn't think they'd foam quite that much when we turned on the jetted tub!