WOO-HOOOOOOOOO!

Jamie just got off the phone with the doctors' office, and his latest stool samples came back 100% NEGATIVE. As in, the amoebia's have been eradicated! Yeaaaahhhhhhhh!!!! We'll be celebrating with a hearty glass of wheatgrass juice as we try to build Jamie back up after his month of brutal medication, but luckily that ordeal is behind us. It's SUCH a huge relief to find this out, it's amazing how much the little niggling of worry has been weighing us down. Now onto a great summer of health and house-building:-)

Easter weekend on the property

And here's a few photos from our day spent out on the property over the Easter weekend. Nana Heather hid chocolate rabbits for the kids, Ryland and Cam made everyone nervous by insisting on standing on the same hill and throwing heavy rocks and sticks in each others' directions, and Ian finally got to pull out his chainsaw for some serious tree-clearing. Time to get serious about putting in our driveway, the first step before we can bring in many of our supplies for the houses. Severance isn't official until it is passed in the council meeting on May 17th, so until then we just do minor stuff, and then the ball really starts rolling after that. VERY exciting, in a freaked out kind of way!!!!!!!

It was a beautiful day out there, and every time we visit the property, we fall more in love with it and really cannot wait to be living out there full time!






Check out the sun rays in this photo of Cam and Ry in the yurt - I'm going to have fun creating photos this summer!!!!! I saw it as the boys were coming out of the yurt, and I couldn't quite convince them to stay there for a couple more moments so I could play around with it - they don't seem to share my passion for taking endless photos of them, go figure!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keane at 6 months

Another night during the past month, we were lucky enough to babysit this adorable little guy - we spoiled him with kisses and cuddles, smeared him from head to foot with mushed carrots, all five of us taking turns to get the food in his mouth, and discovering all of his many tickle spots! He's such a smiling, happy-go-lucky baby, it was an absolute pleasure to spend an evening with him! And, of course, I couldn't help sneaking a photo or two of him:-)

Indian night....

We've been trying to think of different ways to travel the world from our little cottage here by the lake - it seems as soon as we get settled, we all start to get the travel bug once more, and instead of packing it all in right when we just got settled again, we thought we'd brainstorm on different ways to travel vicariously. We've bought a few maps and pored over juvenile atlases to learn about different countries, we've been seeking out stories and information books about different countries and cultures, and we've been watching fun travel videos designed for kids. We LOVE The Little Travelers - I've gotten many neat ideas from the blogs, and we get the DVD's from the library and especially the younger two LOVE them. We've also been borrowing DVD's of the series Are We There Yet? which is a fun way to get a quick glimpse into another country, but personally I find it a bit adhd-inducing, I wish they were longer and more in detail. Again, the younger two LOVE these, whereas Kea will watch them and learn stuff, but doesn't love them. I REALLY wish they had shows geared for older kids - does anyone know of anything good?!!! One more DVD suggestion that I have is the Storybook International series. I bought them on a suggestion from The Little Travelers site, and we all LOVE LOVE LOVE them. All three of the kids will sit down to watch them, and I love the glimpse into other cultures around the world.

Another way that we've been trying to nurture our travel bug without breaking the bank is to host multi-family country-themed meals. Everyone is encouraged to dress up, bring new foods to try, share books or items from that country and sample each others cooking. The first one we hosted was for Chinese New Year, and then last month we enjoyed an East Indian feast, with Hollywood Bollywood music playing, numerous saris, bindi dots, henna designs and beautiful picture books. One family experimented with venison curry, I created a delicious vegan dahl for those of us on a very limited diet (re: Jamie's drugs) and hot samosas tempted us all! Yum:-)

Hello!

We're still here. Still consumed with Jamie's gut, and so. very. sick. of. being. sick. We've moved on from actively dealing with amoebias (haven't gotten results from samples yet) and onto the stomach flu making its rounds. Of course, with him already feeling so 'crappy', Jamie's been totally wiped out by his bout with the 24 hour bug and is now feeling fairly depressed by how little energy he has and his inability to really do anything these days. Fun times. I know it'll just take time for him to get his strength back, and we've been ingesting our fair share of soups, kale, wheatgrass, rice, teas, etc - anything we can think of that will help him recover. But essentially, as any of you who know Jamie know, he doesn't do well with sitting around in any form at the best of times, so this has been really hard for him.

I seem to have various photos and ideas for blog posts floating around, but never seem to find a lot of time for the computer. The poor kids feel neglected these days, the house is a pigsty and I feel like most of my energy is being spent caring for others - not enough solo-time to recharge myself. I know this will pass, and hopefully May proves to be a brand new month for us, but for now we feel very much like we're on survival-mode.

However, there have been a few happy days throughout the past month, and I thought I'd share a few photos from those.........and hopefully you'll be hearing from us a bit more regularly, as I'm feeling an upward shift in the energy - the sun is shining, Jamie's out of bed more often than in it and we are all going to be totally healthy very soon!!!!!!!!

The Entamoeba Histoloytica / Dispar Battle

Our lives have been consumed by this little entamoeba.... It turns out that there are two that look very similar, and only one can be killed with antibiotics. Apparently, there is a specific test can tell them apart - why we didn't get that test the first or second time... Who knows.. Anyway, back to the testing lab to see which one it is and what we should do about it. I am really hoping for no more Flagyl!!!

Jamie

P.s. I found this little cartoon during my research. Erica says that I have to stop kissing stray dogs and playing with poop.

Tiegan's skateboarding

I just wanted to share a few photos of Tiegan figuring out how to stand up on her moving skateboard - she was pretty excited to figure this out on her own! And now I see that we have to get her into surf lessons soon, as she already seems to have the technique figured out!

Happy 38th Birthday Jamie!

We woke up yesterday morning to Ryland sitting at the edge of our bed, struggling to put on a pair of pink striped tights - those can be tricky to get the feet on properly! Then he joyfully exclaimed, "It's dad's birthday today!!!! I need to find a fancy dress to wear today!" and off he bounded to get dressed up with his sisters. Just what every dad wants to hear from his son first thing in the morning!

We celebrated his special day with kale soup, eggs and more rice but we also splurged on some halibut and fresh asparagus for the bbq - Jamie has been on a crazy diet for the past few weeks, and it sucked to have to continue it over his birthday celebrations, but we made do. He got many thoughtful birthday greetings from friends and family, money to spoil himself with, a few DVDs to help him through his miserable evenings of nauseousness and general blechness, a great resource book about the trees found on our property, and then the best gift of all was this creative voodoo doll created by Kip and Brenda! We've already had lots of fun poking black pins into it:-)