Celebrating 80 years!!

This past Nov. 5th was my Dad's 80th birthday so I flew out to Ontario to join the celebration.   I arrived on a Friday and the following day we helped set up the JCS gym for a catered dinner.  We had a beautiful time together - although we were missing my sister's family from Indonesia and mine back in Lynden.  We had a photo booth set up where people had to set up a pose for each month based on when their birthday was.  The plan is to design a calendar with these photos (and scanned in missing people) on each months page.

The following Sunday we served cake (& coffee) to the congregation after the first service.  My parents have been in the same congregation all of their married life & it's a large church.  It was lots of fun talking to people I had not seen in years.  The following day my parents had family and friends over for morning coffee & I got to catch up with many relatives.  So glad I decided to fly out and so thankful that God has blessed Dad with so many years!   More great memories! 

Happy Birthday Vincent!

Vincent turned 3 on Oct. 15th.  It was fun to see how he understood it was his special day - even though he wasn't always thrilled with the attention he got.  After it was all over anyone who got a present or something special he would be upset with because "it's Vincent's happy birthday".  It's hard being a kid...  Here's some photos of gift opening and his little party with some friends.

The Pumpkin Patch!!

October was beautiful - so we made sure we enjoyed the outdoors as much as possible.  On a sunny Friday we set off to Stoney Ridge Farms to enjoy the animals, the pumpkins, apples and the corn maze with a group of friends.  It was super busy there - but we decided to stay for lunch and by that time all the pre-schools seemed to have left and things were a little less crazy.  The kids just loved it - especially the hay ride to the corn maze!!

Grouse Grind

This past weekend we had a fall break for our school kids and it was beautiful weather - cool and sunny.  I've wanted to climb Grouse Mountain for the past few years - it's kind of a "bucket list" sort of thing.  Google it - it's a very steep incline and you climb for 1.3 miles or so.  I went with Alec and his friend Stefan - they had no trouble bounding up like it was nothing.  I told them to just go ahead - it would make me feel bad to hold them back.  Every now and then they'd be sitting somewhere waiting for me to encourage me and then they'd be off.  They thought I did quite well for an old lady :)  The great thing about this mountain is that it's illegal to climb back down - you have to take the gondola - that I was very thankful for when I got to the top!

It's time to play hockey...

So this past month Alec has begun his first ever season of ice hockey.  We signed him up in a Christian  youth league in BC and so our weekends now include sitting in an ice rink watching him play.  We've been enjoying it - nice to chat with new people and watch him as he develops the skill.  Most kids in this league have been playing for years (they're Canadian after all) so he's definitely got lots to learn.  His first actual game this past Friday I missed - but he came home to tell us he had his first assist!!   Here he's practicing with Vincent in the garage - Vincent likes to think anything Alec can do he can probably do just as well!!

What's new?

It's a very rainy Saturday and I'm baking & cooking up a storm.  I'm usually annoyed when people post on facebook about all the amazing things they accomplished that day.  It's usually on a day where I feel I got very little done & it does nothing to inspire me...  But bragging on my blog is a little different!!!  The last month or so I've been busy in my garden - and believe me it's kept me busy.  Not sure what I did differently this year but my garden was a huge success.  I hope I can do that again next year - whatever it was...  So with all the excess produce I got busy canning & freezing.  So here's a little snapshot of what I put away - as well as my latest batch of salsa that we can't wait to try real soon!  If I'm making you feel bad because you had a very unproductive day - don't - you can come over and have chips and salsa with us!!!

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

It's been a long time since we've taken the kids to the zoo but with Vincent being part of our family we realize we are going to be doing some of these things again.  So right after breakfast on Saturday morning we packed a lunch and drove off to Seattle to spend the day at the Woodland Park Zoo with Vincent and Alec.  It was a cloudy day and not too crowded - a perfect day to walk around and enjoy all the animals.  Vincent was so excited but after a few hours his enthusiasm started to fade.  All in all, it was a lot of fun - it was high time we took the day off from the busyness to just enjoy some time together.

And August flies by...

So I'm looking back since I blogged last in July and can't believe how time just flew!  After an uneventful August we are back into full swing with school and all the other regular activities that it brings.  Alec went to Ontario for 8 days and had a blast with his cousins - hardly had the time to text me or tell me how he was doing.

I forgot to add some photos in July - Jocelyn wanted to go skydiving for her birthday so Lorelle, Alec, Vincent and myself came with to cheer her on and take pictures.  We all agree we want to do it sometime too!!  It was a beautiful hot, sunny day so we all got a lot of sun as we waited in the field for her plane to take her up.  Here's some photos.  Oh, and I'm taking them on my "new" Canon Rebel I got from my boss...  After years of my old Canon Rebel non-digital being in storage I was able to use this new camera with all my old attachments - very exciting!!  I might just get back into photography...

PS  If anyone can tell me how to rotate the photos that are sideways I'd LOVE to know - cannot see that feature on blogspot nor on the program I use to save my photos...