This and that.....

So, here are a few of the things that have kept us busy over the past couple of weeks, including links to photos!

1) My friend Stephanie and I took our four kids up past Pemberton to a BC Forestry campsite called Strawberry Point to go camping. It was a beautiful, walk-in site with a great lake to swim in and as noone came by to collect fees, it was free. However, the mosquitos were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad (ie 24 hours a day, biting through everything, taking particular delight in my eldest daughter whose ankles both swelled up to three times their normal size) that we had to pack it in a bit early. We stayed for two nights, but after very little sleep both nights, and a lot of screaming during the day too, I had to leave for my own sanity's sake! The torture continued even when we got home, but at least then Jamie could deal with it! We now need to find the miraculous cure for mosqito bites, as there's no way I want to give up camping!

2) We spent a fun-filled afternoon at the Tigers and Dragons Exhibit on Granville Island. This is a small scale example of what we hope will become the Children's Museum in a few more years, something that we're just trying to get the word out about, and do a bit of fundraising. The kids had an absolute blast, playing in the Chinese marketplace, hearing stories from China, learning classical Indian dance and getting some henna done!

3) Kea and her good friend Lucy spent a week of summer camp at a dance class, where they worked on creating a play, learning different dances and coming up with all of the different sets. It culminated in a half hour show that was very sweet, but only because they were our own flesh and blood!!!!!

4) We spent a weekend at Jericho Beach enjoying the amazing music at the Folk Festival, something we enjoy every year! This year it felt like a really long weekend, partially because we now have two kids who want to do their own things and partially because I have the energy of a woman in her first trimester, but we're envisioning only picking one day for next year - ESPECIALLY adding a 5 month old to the picture!!!

Other than that, my friend Anja came from New York City to visit us for about a week and only caught her flight home this morning, and my dad is in town until tomorrow, and then this weekend we head over to Victoria and Sooke for a week with my mom! And then August we do very little at all - or at least that is the plan right now!!!

July 14th

July 14th
Originally uploaded by the four mckays.

Okay, I'm soooooooooooooooo far behind in blogging it's not even funny! But we've been busy, and I'm still suffering through the first trimester and well, it's summer and we're spending all our time outside (or flaked out on the couch trying to catch a nap while the girls watch a video - depending on when you peek into our lives!)

Anyways, tonight Jamie's out at a performance with my dad and the girls went to bed early, so I thought I would work on uploading photos and catching up the blog a little! The plan is to take a photo of my belly each month on the 14th, so you can see the progression - and so here's what my belly looks like now! Basically, I'm at the lovely stage where I'm gaining a bit of weight but no defined belly yet, so I just feel fat and my clothes don't fit! But I know soon enough I'll be able to pull out my maternity clothes!!!!! We had our first midwife appointment today, but nothing exciting came up - still too early to hear the heartbeat so we'll wait until our next appointment in Sept. Somehow it's always so reassuring to hear that steady beat!

Okay, I have lots of sets of photos to add so I'll do those now.....

We're back!

So, we made it back from Glacier - where we had a great time hanging out and enjoying the gorgeous sunshine, but did FAR too much in such a short week and I'm now totally exhausted. The condo had a couple of pools, so the girls spent a lot of time swimming there, and got really good at diving down to pick up leaded rings. We bought some inner-tubes and after watching the locals all float down the river decided to give it a try. You put in at one end, float 4 hours down a lazy river and pull out at the other end - a very hot day, amazing scenery all the way along and it would have been very relaxing except that Heather seemed to have this knack for finding any potentially dangerous spot to get herself into. She flipped during the first set of "rapids" (increase in water movement) as she was really nervous, and scared herself a lot by not being able to touch. Then in another spot she was pushed to the left when she should have stuck to the right, and ended up pushed against a log and flipping again - but this was more scary as she kept getting pushed under the log and banged herself up a bit. So needless to say, she didn't really enjoy the trip, but was a trooper right to the end.

The next day we opted to take the tubes up to the mountain instead, where the kids had a lot of fun sliding down on the snow! Gorgeous views, a beautiful glacier lake and I'm sure fabulous hiking trails to be explored! We'll have to head back there sometime! We ate taeberries and blueberries bought at local farms, ate at a local brewery/pizzeria/wedding chapel that was just fabulous, played Euchre at night and relaxed to the sounds of the river outside our patio door! If you want to see a few photos, you can check them out here. Meg and Heather flew back to Ottawa bright and early this morning, and now we have the weekend to putter, or spend in bed as I did this morning!!! Thoroughly enjoying this great sunshine, even if it's through my bedroom window!!!!