Thanks for all of the birthday wishes, it was a fun day spent at Ambleside beach and then a hike through Lynn Canyon forest. I was well spoiled by my family, and gorged on lemon buttermilk pie all week! It's my birthday, forget those pesky food sensitivities. Unfortunately, it's Ryland's food insensitivities and so that meant he was up lots at night and I'm now back on track with eating well!!!! Amazing what kind of incentive lack of sleep is - oh, and of course, my poor baby's discomfort!!

Tomorrow is Jamie's last day of work. And it's been an emotionally exhausting week, as we sort out all of the details, he says goodbye to many coworkers and clients that he will really miss, and we take one more step towards leaving Vancouver. Who knew that something that is so exciting and feels like such a right decision, could at the same time be so hard and make us feel so grumpy. At least we have a few more months of summer fun in order to say good-bye, we're going to have to pack a lot in!!

Hello!

We're still here!

Alive and well, just really really really busy.

Must be all that movie watching we're doing, now that the remote has been found, te he!

We're wrapping up a great weekend here in the McKay household - partially because I was gifted much time to putter, sew, stock up ambitiously on knitting projects, read my novel and visit with my sister in celebration of my 33rd birthday tomorrow so that was really nice. I was chuckling because when I remember my birthdays in my early 20's it was all about getting totally loaded in a Yukon bar and going out partying. Yet this year, it's about sewing, knitting and I even ventured out to go bra shopping ALL BY MYSELF. The luxury of looking at lingerie without three pairs of helping hands was savourable, AND I walked out of there with two new bras. Great, supportive, beautiful but also by far the most expensive bras I have ever bought before in my life!!!! As I walked out of the store, it kind of hit me - after getting married, buying a house, birthing three children and now raising said kids, today it actually hit me that I am a full-fledged adult. Gasp, when did that happen?!!!! Better go do something really irresponsible before I become too boring!!!! Te he! ;)

The main reason, though, that this weekend was fabulous was that it was the last weekend leading up to Jamie's last Monday at work. That's right, FIVE MORE DAYS. And then work is done and we look forward to hitting the road - the best birthday gift ever!!!!!!

A VERY productive weekend

So Jamie was puttering around in the backyard with all of the neighbourhood kids on Sunday. They had the rubbermaid full of outdoor toys that is usually stored by the back, basement, never-used door and as they slowly emptied every toy from it, Jamie looked inside to discover THE REMOTE FOR OUR DVD PLAYER!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! Special features, here we come. Movies with subtitles may re-enter our house. Previews can be skipped. Hallelujah!

Ryland is a superstar stasher, it seems. We'll have to keep our eyes on him!

Today we woke up to a rainy, wet, grey Vancouver day. So we decided to pull out all of our raingear, find our herbal identification book, grab a coffee from our favourite coffee shop and go in search of some nettles. They're usually ready to start picking around May Day, and friends had told us of their favourite spot (near Spanish Banks) to harvest wild nettles. It took us a while to find the right spot, but once we did it was definitely a treasure-trove of nettles. We weren't exactly sure what the whole plant looked like (we've only ever bought the leaves at a local market in the past) so Jamie was touching all of the plants we came across and eventually found one that stung. And stung and stung - he's still finding his hands rather tingly and numb 12 hours later!!!!!!! Of course, the leaf shape, hollow stem and dark green/blue colour of the leaves also gave it away, but if in doubt, just touch it and it will let you know. (Or if you're at all smart, get your partner to do the touching!!!!!!!!)

Now I have a pot of nettle soup sitting on the stove, and I can't wait to eat it for lunch tomorrow. 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, fry in some oil or butter. Once they're soft, add in potatoes and nettle greens, and heat through. Then add soup stock (I used chicken, veggie would of course work well), bring to a boil and then cook for 10 minutes on low. Add a pinch of nutmeg, blend together and if you're able to eat dairy, add a bit of cream. Deeeeeeeee-licious!!!

Happy May Day....

Tiegan's Mayflower crown
Originally uploaded by the five mckays

A couple of days late.

Because life is like that around here these days.

We had a beautiful celebration with friends in the park, creating crowns and dancing our own version of a Maypole. More photos on flickr for those interested!

It's Fri night, our brains are tired and frazzled, so I'm going to veg for another hour then go to bed. More coherence (I hope!) tomorrow!!!!!!