Together again

Waiting in line at the canteen at Camp Squeah. A little treat for the ride home - a camp tradition.
Everyone is back from wherever they were and everyone is again sleeping in their own beds.
Feels good.

Cooper had a great time at camp, like usual. Picked him up tonight, looking more tired than I've seen him in quite some time.

Is that some serious hair or what? The funny thing is that's what it looks like without him doing a thing to it. I know some teen idols from the 70's who would have killed for that do. David Cassidy anyone?

An eye adventure

We have recently discovered (through a kindergarten eye screening) that Taggart has some vision concerns.

After a couple trips to the optometrist what we now know is:
His left eye has perfect vision.
His right eye has considerably less than perfect vision.
He has probably been this way his whole life.
He has adapted nicely, considering he is quite coordinated, can hit a baseball just fine, and really doesn't walk into too many objects.
The optometrist seems confident that this situation can be improved.
He will need glasses.

What we don't know is:
How long he will have to wear the glasses. (maybe always)
If he will have to wear a patch to strengthen his poor eye. (optometrist hinted at this)
How he will adapt to this new adventure.

If today is any indication, I think he will do okay.
The optometrist had to put drops in his eyes to dilate them. He didn't like it but he was a trooper.
His pupils were huge for hours. He kept calling them his pimples.

He couldn't even open his eyes outside in the sunlight so all afternoon he wore either my sunglasses or these red safety glasses that Tony gave him a while back which he thinks are sunglasses. Both are very big on his little face.

We will see a child eye specialist in a couple of weeks and he will prescribe the glasses.
Just in time for Grade One.
For someone who, as a Mom, in over 12 years has never taken a trip to the emergency room with any of my kids, I am finding this a little tough to swallow. Which I keep telling myself is silly because there are so many worse things that could happen.
But something else I know - he will look adorable in his little specs. We can all look forward to a lot of photos of that. :)

These two

They are either driving each other crazy or having the time of their lives. Sometimes back and forth between the two within a few minutes. But at this moment in the pool yesterday they were having a ball.
They had some time this week with just the two of them. Cooper is still at camp and Reagan was in Whistler with some friends of ours for a few days.
She returned tonight though and had a great time.
Our friend, Rich, was kind enough to download all his photos of the trip onto our computer so I can already blog a little of her memories here.
Snow in July.

A little inukshuk building. (Sophie and Reagan)

And the summer adventures continue.

I want to remember

I want to remember that most nights lately, this is the sight that greets me as I walk up the stairs late at night after you are all in bed.
Taggart, you want your door to stay open just a crack and decided that this little guy would do just the trick. You never ask me to put him there though, so I just tuck you in and say Goodnight. You must get up after I leave and place him there.
Something about you, at almost 6 years old, that I really want to remember.

For our sanity

After two days of a little too much whining, tattling, and generally driving my crazy I decided that it was time to plan a little day trip.
For all of our sanity.
We headed to Langley to our favorite spray park. It's a little farther to drive, but we all decided it was worth it.
We spent about 5 hours there.
Not one whine.
Not one tattle.
Not one fight.
Not even one tear.
Peace and sanity were restored.

A summer weekend

It started with picking up Reagan and Hudson at Camp Squeah on Friday night. It was the first time for both of them of staying there for the full week (5 nights). They both had a great time, so much so that Reagan hardly even said 'hi' to me when we arrived. I had to grab her to get a hug. Hudson didn't disappoint though, I got a big hug from him right away. I'm so happy that camp continues to be a great experience for them, year after year. Something about that place just brings such great memories for me and I always tend to get a bit emotional when I see them loving it too.


(notice Cooper in the window? Ssshhh! Don't tell Hudson, he was very sure he didn't want Coop in the picture)

Saturday everyone was in the pool. Daniela (Tony's employee) brought her little 5 year old niece over to play. Somehow when Tony is in the pool a water fight is inevitable.

These two hid behind their shields the whole time.

This one tried to lay low without a weapon, hoping her good looks would save her from anyone's blast.

I'm thinking that Daniela was quite enjoying every time she got a good shot on her boss.

Not sure what this pout was all about. He really likes to spray people, but getting sprayed?...not so much.


Today Taggart decided to go into business...selling snacks to his family. He opened up shop in the playhouse and quickly had a line up waiting for him to open.

He had fruit snacks, popcorn, crackers, and frozen pudding pops.

He was a pretty friendly shop keeper.

Looks like he's trying to up-sell Nana.

At the end of the night, his stock was sold out and he was $2 richer. He thought that it was pretty good to make a whole weeks allowance in only 1/2 hour.


Also this weekend...

A pretty bouquet from the garden made for a great back drop for an afternoon tea party. Guests included Reagan, Hudson, and Tag.
Hope your weekend felt like summer...ours sure did.

The end of Dino Town

For anybody that grew up in BC, or the Lower Mainland at least, has probably been to Dino Town. Either as a child when it used to be called Flinstone's or with their own kids.
Last weekend when we drove Reagan and Hudson up to Camp Squeah we saw the sign from the freeway to say that this will be their last season and they are closing - forever!
This place is great when you are a young kid (I remember loving it) but as an adult, it's not a place you would choose to spend your day, or your $$$.
But with Reagan and Hudson at camp, Cooper in the Okanagon with Aunty Mary and Jake, it was just Tag and I for a whole 4 days. We needed to do something special and Dino Town it was. He is still at the perfect age to appreciate it.
We did everything one can do at this place (some things twice).
We climbed all the dinosaurs.

We rode the pedal cars.

We did the paddle boats. I put my feet up for a while because Tag decided he wanted to row all by himself. After a few minutes of going nowhere he decided he would actually like some help.

We watched the Dino stage show. Aaaaaahhhhh-mazing. (insert sarcasm here)

We rode the train.

And Taggart even took part in the parade.

All sarcasm and cynicism aside though, Tag had a really great time. And for that very reason, so did I. It was so nice to be with just him where he didn't have to share the attention or time with anyone; he could go anywhere he wanted and stay as long as he wanted.

As I went through the photos tonight he sat with me and enjoyed seeing and remembering what we did yesterday. A little while later I heard him crying somewhere. I searched for him and found him lying on his bed crying his little eyes out. I scooped him up into my lap and asked him what was wrong. He said "I'm going to miss Dino Town".
I would like to think that maybe it was the alone time with me, not dilapidated old Dino Town, that he was really reminiscing about. Also thinking that if he thinks Dino Town is so fantastic, why are we spending all that $$ to take him to Disneyland. :)

When it counts

We left Cooper to babysit the other night while we went and had dinner at my brothers in Vancouver. It wasn't the first time but only once before has he done it for this long and over bedtime. I wasn't really worried, other than they might fight with each other. They seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
Nice to know that when it counts they relied on each other and all worked together to solve a problem.
I found this when I got home (they were all asleep). I particularly like the first line.

You know summer is here when....

...Reagan is once again arriving at the dinner table in her swimsuit, goggles still on her head, and ponytails still dripping.

...the dust gets cleaned off the ice cream maker. This is raspberry frozen yogurt and this morning it was breakfast.

Canada Day and Fourth of July

Event #1
Our annual Canada Day BBQ did go on as planned. We huddled in blankets (at least I did) and under tarps as the rain fell and the wind blew. Okay I'm being a little dramatic but it was darn cold and it didn't feel the least bit like July. But we weathered on :) even though only three families showed up. We're pretty sure it was the weather and not the company...pretty sure.
I have not even one photo to document that event so we will move on to...
Event #2
Since our own nation's big day was a bit of a big flop, we headed south of the border only 3 days later to check out how they do it down there.
We ended up at Birch Bay with some friends that live in Lyndon, WA.
So glad we did. Lots of photos to document this one:

People everywhere but we managed to find our little spot on the beach.

Fireworks started well before it got dark and ended long after.

We got a bit of wind

a bit of rain

a bit of cold

a lot of smoke

plenty of snacks
and good company.

These two don't see each other often but it's always a good time when they do.

Happy celebrating, whatever the occasion!

Sports Day.

I was delaying my Sports Day post. I took about 60 shots that day and I know I had some great ones. Taggart's first Sports Day and he was so excited and did so great, despite the rain and cold.
But something happened to my memory card and I lost them all. All of them! I took the memory card in to the camera shop and they ran a recovery on the memory stick (for $25) and retrieved about a dozen. Unfortunately the dozen didn't include any of Taggart, except this one.

I think at least it still conveys the joy on his face as he ran the race.
Taggart was on the red team and Reagan and Hudson were on blue.

The tug of war is always my favorite part. Lots of cheering!

One more thing to note - I got a new memory card. Lost photos don't make me happy.

EDIT: Tag was sitting on my lap as I blogged this post. When he saw the blurry photo of himself he said "It looks like I'm running so fast; it looks like I'm Sonic". Blurry photos can be good memories too.