A little update -

I've been finding it quite a challenge to keep up with this blog. I think for a while I was so overwhelmed with all of the constant changes, and yet left with nothing concrete to really report (ie we found a piece of land, oh didn't work out - put an offer on a piece of property and got very excited, then it was rejected. Found another piece of property, are keeping our fingers crossed - such a roller coaster ride of emotions and stresses, and not conducive to great blogging material!). It's been a big change for all of us to get used to living in Ontario, we feel very unsettled with nothing really resolved for so long, and we're often exhausted at the end of the day, so I've let the blog just sit silent for long periods of time. Then I get enough nags from family and friends who are a little worried and very curious to know how we're doing, so I start trying to catch everyone up on all that we've been doing - but that then takes so much time that we live more during that time, and already I'm behind again!

SOOOOOOOOOOOO, I thought I'd give a very brief update right now on all that is going on in our lives right now, and then hopefully find the time and energy and stamina to keep up more regular blogging:-)

When we arrived in Ottawa we thought we would select our piece of land to purchase and spend most of this summer building our dream house. However, we're wanting to buy this piece of land with Meg and Ian (Jamie's sister and her husband), and it turns out it's much more complicated to buy land that can be split in two and have two houses built on it. We also want it to be close enough to Ottawa that people can commute for work, so it's been a challenge to find land to meet all of our needs. The end dream is still very appealing to us, and well worth the wait, but it just means we've had to be a little flexible in our planning. During that time, Meg and Ian have been generous enough to open up their basement for us to make a little home for ourselves. But as time went on and it was obvious that we were not going to be able to move onto our land before the winter, we had to start thinking of plan B (or C or M or whatever we're on at this point!!!!!) We needed our own space, and Meg and Ian needed to reclaim theirs - ESPECIALLY before their second baby is born, due on Sept. 22nd!

SOOOOOOOOOO, we started looking for places to rent and found an awesome house to housesit for 10 months. It's in the Britannia area which we hear from everyone is very family friendly (we haven't even moved in yet, and we already have the schedule for the bi-weekly family potlucks, and leads on potential babysitters!), and also near a beach, bike paths, and a big park. Jamie then decided to try going back to work part-time, while our plans are on hold a little. Morrison Hershfield has an office here in Ottawa, and he's moved right into the 'green team' there. The goal is to work a maximum of 30 hours with up to 3 days in the office, eventually being able to work more and more from home - and perhaps this will be the solution that works for us. A less stressful work situation, more time with the family, full benefits and decent money coming in - so far it seems ideal, we'll see if it keeps as well rounded!

We've also just put in an offer on a piece of land today, and are crossing our fingers that it all works out!!! It's 12 acres, but backs onto acres of trees and empty lots so very secluded. It's close to Almonte, but also near Perth and Lanark and Calabogie, all really funky areas. It's possible to commute to Ottawa from it, but also possible to create wonderful communities in these other towns - and it's less than 2 km from Middleville where the "Art of Being Green" festival was held this summer! Cross your fingers for us!!!

So, our weeks seem to fill up quickly - Jamie works from Mon to Wed at the office. Last week we went camping for the first two days of his time off, and then enjoyed the folk festival here in Ottawa. This week, we drove down to NYC for the weekend to visit with Anja and Vernon - it felt like a long drive there and back, but it's such an awesome city to visit we both felt quite refreshed wandering the streets and taking in a bit of culture! Not to mention a great visit with friends! Tomorrow we move into our own place, and on Thur we fly out to Vancouver for a visit with family and friends, and my cousin Hallie's wedding.... as you can see, our days are pretty busy!!!!!!

Camping at Murphy Point

And here's a few photos from our recent camping trip - with Wendy and her family, at Murphy Point just past Perth. We hiked a bit in the woods, discovering many of the local plants and taking turns walking Wendy's dog. We swam in the lake, both in the sun and in the pouring rain. We sang campfire songs, swatted mosquitos and enjoyed relaxing in a tent once more. Kea even showed off some of the survival skills she learned at a summer camp she attended, creating a shelter out of wood and moss! There's many great parks to explore around the Ottawa area, and we're pretty stoked to start exploring them. A couple more camping trips in the fall, perhaps, and then definitely next spring/summer!!!!

Breakfast with Cam and Ryland!

It's definitely been an adventure, learning to live for a few months with another family - especially given that we both have two year olds!!!!! Ryland is about 4 months older than Cameron, very rambuctious and a third child whereas Cameron is used to being an only child, living a quiet life and is quite a sensitive and reserved type of personality. So as you can imagine, there have been a few clashes since we've moved in! However, one of the big joys of spending so much time with the Pettipas/Nolans has been watching this relationship grow and change - it's so neat to see them both find ways to play together, make each other laugh and find common ground. These are a few photos I snapped one morning while they ate cereal together, and did numerous 'cheers' with their milks, giggling all the while! I'm sure over the years, these two will be getting into all sorts of joint adventures, I look forward to watching them grow together!

A few more highlights from our summer here.....

I thought I would include a few more photos of things we've been enjoying this summer. First off, Meg and Ian spent a lot of time growing the most amazing garden, starting the seeds in the basement and lovingly caring for them over the spring/summer. And lucky us, we've been able to reap the rewards :-) Incredible amounts of green leaf lettuce, swiss chard, fresh peppers and flavourful onions - yum! All the perks without any of the weeding!!!! Here's a photo of my favourite carrots that I picked the other day!

On the days that it's been hot, the kids have loved playing with the hose, setting up the sprinkler or splashing in Cam's little pool. Of course Ryland seems to be taking after his older sister and challenging himself to always do more complicated activities! Instead of just swimming in the pool, he has taken to balancing along the outside rim! Or instead of just playing catch, he first needs to balance on top of the lawnmower in order to catch the ball. And instead of walking down the stairs, he of course needs to slide down head first - I'm surprised the boy does not have more bruises!!!!!!




We're also enjoying a few outdoor swimming holes, including Britannia Beach - not quite like the ocean we're used to, but still enough to cool us off!!!!

We've discovered that a great perk of living in Ottawa is the access to amazing museums and the summers full of concerts - many free!! We've now purchased memberships to the Art Gallery, and the Musuem of Civilization and are slowly exploring them. We thoroughly enjoyed the Egypt exhibit that has just left, including a great dress up area!!!!!!!






By the way, the other kids you see in the photos belong to our new friends, the Whitakers! I was lucky enough to sign up for the homeschooling yahoo group upon our arrival here in Ottawa, on which Wendy posted about two open spots in her summer camp. It sounded like a fun camp, full of free play, horse rides, egg-collecting, ice-cream making, fresh food harvesting, etc and I also hoped that the kids would be able to make a few friends by going to a camp or two. But in the end, our whole family found we had a lot in common with the family who ran this camp, and have been spending lots of time getting to know each other and share resources. We still have many tears for the friends the girls have left behind, but it's been reassuring to see them happily playing with some new friends that they already have so much in common!

Art Store

Here's Lucas, waiting for a customer at his art store! We often travel over to Sean and Chloe's house to spend a few hours visiting -getting our fix of cuddling the baby, watching the younger kids run around the play structure in all sorts of elaborate games, and wondering where the older girls have gone off to - usually playing Cat Warriors in the bushes, or playing on the computer together!

It's also been a fun summer of watching Meg's belly grow and grow, and thinking up fun photos to document it all!!!!! The last photo was taken with a fish-eye lense which was a lot of fun, but made her belly look much HUGER than it actually is!!!!

Beautiful Elsie

We've been really enjoying getting to know our newest niece, Elsie - she is truly adorable, and really starting to engage more with the world, full of smiles and giggles. She's already teething, full of drooling and gumming everyone and everything within reach! This has been one huge benefit of moving to Ottawa, getting to see our nieces and nephews on a much more regular basis - watching them grow and change almost daily and seeing our kids bond with them!

Tiegan

So Tiegan's big and exciting news these days is that she has FINALLY lost not one but two of her baby teeth! She feels like she is the latest of all her friends, and even her adult teeth were getting impatient - they grew in behind and literally pushed her baby teeth out, so she barely has a gap at all from the loss of her lower two teeth. Growing up so fast.........

Montreal

Here's a few photos from our 3 nights in Montreal - Anja and Vernon drove up from NYC to meet us and we had a blast wandering the city. Well, actually, the walking part of the wandering was pure torture as there seemed to be a lot of it - made even more unbearable by a slough of whining kids. And we didn't even think of bringing a stroller for Ryland, not to mention that we lost his shoes en-route somehow, so our arms were TIRED! However, we enjoyed exploring the city, wandering around old Montreal, visiting the Science Centre, checking out many of the kids activities at the Jazz Festival, and most of all, hanging out with good friends! Anja found us an apt to rent very close to downtown, with a kitchen and laundry - a perfect place to relax with kids, and it even came with a garden full of snails! The kids were in heaven:-)

And here's some fairly random photos of our days - we went to a great sheep shearing festival, and Ryland rode a pony which was very exciting for him - and a bit nerve-wracking for me as the saddle seemed to slip more and more sideways as they went around and I was just waiting for him to fall off! But he made his circuit twice unscathed. And I was obviously NOT worried enough to give up my post as photographer and go stand next to him or anything!!!!!!!



I've been getting lots and lots of cuddles and snuggles in with my newest niece, and exclaiming over just how quickly she's growing. Those darn babies are just so delicious, I'm completely addicted. At least those around me seem to keep popping them out so I can get my fix!!!!!!!!





The kids all got their hair cut - this was Ryland's first ever real haircut, and he looked like a dramatically different child when it was all done! But I have to admit, I don't miss the rats nest in the back of his hair one bit! I'm still on the lookout for a short haircut that is kind of funky and different, but for now we have the generic boy haircut #4 (I opted against the buzz cut, though that was the #1 choice there)




And we bought ourselves a new vehicle! Bartha is just too big and bulky for regular city driving, not to mention the fact that propane is very difficult to find in Ontario - we've never had so many problems filling our vehicle with propane anywhere else! Since we're currently out in Kanata, we find we need to drive ALL. THE. TIME. and so we thought it was high time we bought our own vehicle rather than bumming one from Meg and Ian whenever they didn't need theirs! We opted for a diesel engine in the hopes that once we're in our own space we can convert it to veggie oil, and since we wanted to get more than 5 seats (at the very least so we can include friends and cousins in our plans) and I have an allergic reaction at the thought of driving around in a minivan (silly, I know!), we opted for the Japanese import. It's cute, it's cuddly, it's rather tall but very narrow, and it's so much fun to drive around! And it's not technically a mini-van, though I think SUV sounds much worse! But anyways, we have wheels and we're burning them on the Queensway and dreaming of setting ourselves up somewhere where we're not driving all the time - a wee bit of a culture shock from our car-free life in Vancouver!!!!

So, a wee bit of an update on our lives here......it has been so long since I've been regularly blogging, and we have done so very much in that time, that I am completely overwhelmed at the idea of catching up. So I thought that instead I would do a mass upload of photos, mention things as they crossed me mind, and carry on from there!!!!!!! So first off, we have some hula-hooping! We picked these awesome hula hoops up in Joshua Tree, as one does, and the girls have become masters at the artful skill of hula hooping. Kea can bring them up to her neck and back down, and so far can do two at once. And Tiegan can keep a hoop going FOREVER. I'm very jealous of their stomach muscles these days!!!

In looking back at our photos, I also found these fun ones from our camping trip in early June where my brother Sean and Chloe (with Maya, Lucas and Elsie) drove up to Bonnechere to meet us for a few days of buggy fun. We rented a canoe and paddled around - saw a beaver, many turtles and frogs - AND escaped the many bugs while we were out there for an added bonus! I can't believe Ryland's hair in these photos, I've become used to his new haircut I suppose! And the Elsie is the beautiful baby in the photos - wearing the green sweater I'd knit for her birth. That sweater was created while driving the Barth all throughout the desert, many happy memories wrapped up in that - and wishes for a long healthy life full of love and adventure!