Keeping cool......

Our house is fabulous at keeping cool in the heat of the summer - for the first 5 days of a heat wave anyways. But after a week of crazy hot temperatures, and not really cooling down overnight, it just doesn't have a chance to cool down. Not that it doesn't stay much cooler than the outside temperatures, but it just starts to feel hot and muggy inside and out when we do anything physical. So one way to help us out during the long heat wave we experienced this summer was to buy a stand up fan - and what a difference that has made. First of all, great for moving the air around the house and cooling us off at night, and secondly as a form of entertainment for the boys as they discover the thrill of singing into the fan at the top of their lungs!!!!!  Hours and hours of loud but happy entertainment:-)

Summer days......

Here's a few more photos from our summer fun.  One of the things on our summer bucket list this year was to get out and about swimming in the lakes and rivers as much as possible, so we've been trying to make a point of cooling off in one of the many swimming holes near us.  These photos are from Carleton Place, one of the favourites of the kids - it's on the Mississippi River which can get quite dirty but early on in the summer it's good to swim in.  And when the river is no longer great, there's a water park next door:-)

And another item on the list was to go berry picking.  Last year I was so thrilled to find a local place that had U-Pick strawberries and raspberries and figured I'd use it for years to come.  But wouldn't you know - this year they've decided to retire:-(  Sooooooooo, the search begins again........unfortunately with the crazy heat and long drought, I was too late for strawberries but we did discover a u-pick place for blueberries on our way home from Deep River (Hugli's) so stopped in.  For some picking and then for buying a bunch more pre-picked!!!!!!

Our freezer is filling up this summer with all sorts of lovely produce, and I'm excited to enjoy it all winter long!

Deep River Summer Music Camp

For the third summer now, Kea attended the music camp in Deep River for two weeks.  Her and Maya go up together, and enjoy a couple of weeks with no younger siblings, time with Granny Marcia, lots of TV, computer and junk food:-)  Oh, and two weeks of day camp thrown in, just to insist on a bit of structure and time away from the TV, te he.  The last couple of years Kea has really enjoyed the Junior Choir with Jackie, and the instrumental portion was secondary.  This year, however, Jackie was taking a break from leading the choir, and Kea has grown a bit beyond the junior level, so we opted to bump her up to the intermediate level.  Which meant she had to get a bit more serious about practicing and learning musical theory........not something she was overly thrilled to be doing with her summer holiday (especially now that her summer holiday actually means something!)  She brought her violin up, and worked with three other violinists learning some new songs.

Maya played the recorder this year, and I was amazed by the sounds that they could create with the recorders at the intermediate level - very lovely, and not at all like my music class memories from school!

They played three pieces, the first was Gaillard d'Angleterre by C. Gervaise, the second was Sonata Theme by W.A. Mozart arr. Morris and the third was March and The Bear by D. Shostakovitch.  I wasn't familiar with any of them, Kea declared that she hated all of them and didn't enjoy learning them, but I thought they sounded pleasant enough!!!!!!

She was also a part of the massed choir, where they sang quite a few songs together.  There were a lot of complaints from both of the girls about the more religious songs (the words were VERY religious, for sure) but in the end most of those were cut out of the concert.  As a girl after my own heart, Kea loved singing Scarborough Fair the most!!!!!!!

I know it was a lot of work for her, and she found a lot of the camp boring this year unfortunately, but she really pulled it together for the concert.  I'm so thrilled that she's had this opportunity to play as a group, as there's a whole new skill set needed for that, and I'm hoping I can encourage her to continue practicing regularly and hopefully trying another year at the camp next summer?!  We'll see.......

Lazy summer days....

Well hello there!!!!!!  It seems it has been a while since I've updated the blog, and I know I have so much to catch up on here, but for today I was just downloading some photos from the camera so thought I'd share some random snapshots into our days these days.  Or really, one hour of one day that I was shooting this past weekend:-)  It's been a good summer so far, a perfect combination of camps and busy days, off set with lazy days at home.  A bit of paddling here, playdates and museum trips there, lots of ice cream and popsicles and roaming around the property in pj's until every inch of our bodies are dirty!  We're dreaming up our road trip in August, looking forward to one more week of camp and trying to 'get things done' while still enjoying this slower, unscheduled pace:-)

 We've decided to finally go ahead and get some chickens - we'd love the eggs, and the kids are DYING for some sort of pet and for now, I think chickens will do!  A local farm is selling ready-to-lays so we're hoping to get a few of those, but it depends on how quickly we can put the chicken coop together.  Here's the start of it, whipped up using all salvaged wood from around here.  Excited to see it going up, and I can't wait to see the finished product.  I hear plans of a green roof on top, and barn board siding - sounds neat:-)

 Ryland has a big scrape under his arm, from sliding shirtless down a stump.  I was gone the day it happened, so he had to show it to me all day long the next day.  I think it was really sore for him, poor guy - not that it seems to have changed his mind about running around in the woods shirtless!

 Our garden is growing well - the few things that have taken, that is.  These are our pumpkin plants, Jamie made a fun ramp-like stand for the stalks and we're very hopeful that we'll get a few pumpkins off this plant.........if we can keep the critters away from them.  Chipmunks and squirrels are our nemesis around here, not so much the deer that we thought would be.  Rain is here now, after so many weeks of hot hot hot sun, so we're THRILLED.  Hopefully this will help the garden take off even more, and will also make us worry less about our well:-)

The other project Jamie is working on is installing a few sky-lights into our green roof before we put all the soil up there.  As he was working away on the roof, he came across this wasps nest - which he discovered by being stung in the middle of his forehead.  Ugh.  Anyways, we're not so sure what to do with it - I'm inclined to leave it where it is, Jamie's less thrilled by that notion but didn't really know what else to do.  Does anyone know if they'll die off in the winter so we can move it then?  Or have any compelling reason (beyond the occasional sting - but really, this is up on the roof) to move it now?!

Anyways, there's a glimpse into a bit of our lives these days - Kea has this bummer of a cold that is really lingering and starting to settle a bit into her lungs so we're focusing on resting at home, drinking lots of hot teas, doing lots of steams and neti-pots and whatever else we can think of to get her healthy.  Cam, Keane, Ry and Tiegan are inseparable when they're all home these days, roaming around in a pack from one house to the trampoline to the sand pile to another house and back out to the garden, etc.  I love seeing how creative their play gets, and I also love the time that gives me - in theory to clean the house, but also to find snippets of time to do stuff on the computer or read one more chapter of my book:-)

Happy Thursday to you all, and I'll try to check in again soon!!!! xo

A Day in the Life (July 2nd - 2012) - Part 2

Lunchtime, and Jamie and I enjoyed some soup with pearled barley and sprouted mung beans - looks gross, but was surprisingly tasty!!!!  And obviously very nourishing:-)

After lunch everyone was T.I.R.E.D. so we all took some down time.  Tiegan had been in Deep River for a few days, then up at the neighbours house all evening for a party, home late and up early to go up again before Julia came home.  So when she got home this afternoon, she was a MESS.  Crying non-stop and so angry at her brother and OBVIOUSLY needing to chill out!  So we canceled our afternoon plans of a bbq with friends :-(  and they all settled in for some screen time.

I finished up the handstitching of these fabric patches on Kea's shoes (that had developed holes in the back)

And then hopped into the bath while everyone else was distracted - I'll take a hot bath with a book over a movie/computer any day!!!!

Jamie finished the boxes, and check out how much neater our front entrance is now - amazing!!!!!  You can't see it, but there are wheels on all these boxes, so it's super easy to glide them in and out, and they've transformed the look in here.  Now to focus on shoe storage on the other side - another day!

Time to start getting dinner ready - bbq burgers here since we weren't going out, yellow beans and various salads....

Prototype of how we're going to store our rubber boots outside on the front deck - still playing around with the design, but this is the basic idea.  We have a couple of pairs of boots each, which adds up to a lot of muddy boots - but I don't want animals making homes in them, so we're hoping this will work!

While the burgers were cooking, I decided to wander around and take some photos outside to update you on things......and of course, the kids were jumping on the trampoline.  That thing still gets daily use, often multiple times a day!

And here's the beginnings of our tree fort, whipped up this weekend by Jamie and the kids.  Can't wait to add the zip line (just ordered!), the rock climbing wall, perhaps the nets and higher look-out towers - and so much more!!!  Never sure if this is more for Jamie and I or more for the kids, but hopefully it'll inspire much more time played outside!

Stuff's coming up in the garden, so it's fun to see that.  I think we still need to cut down some trees to get more sunshine in, but we'll see.....

Break for dinner - quinoa salad, beet salad, greens.....

Some of our sprouts on the kitchen window sill - these are clover and mung beans.

Our freezer is starting to fill up, so far soup stock, tonnes of strawberries and some soups.  Need to reorganize before blueberry season hits!

Re-stuffing the rope bag, a favourite pastime of Jamie's.  I gather the last time we went canoeing it had been left wet, so it was kind of stinky.  We soaked it in tea tree oil, hung it in the sun and now it's ready to go out again!

Ry spent some time this evening playing with his beyblades - an activity he discovered through his school mates....'one, two, three - let er rip' over and over again:-)

Bedtime - where Kea continues to listen to the story and draw.

And Tiegan practices writing

And Ry flip flops and never wants to settle down.....

This is one of the notes Ry got from his Kindergarten teachers, and I found it taped up by his bed a couple of days after school ended!  He REALLY misses going to school, and can't wait for September to arrive:-)

The never-ending task of doing dishes.....

And a wee bit of mending before work the next day.

Jamie whipped up a quick hat tree stand for the front entrance

And we continued to debate various colours.  I HATE this process, it seems like such a big decision - and hard for two different people to agree on one shade!!!!!!!  Oh well, I think we've really narrowed things down.  This is also the sweater that I've been knitting for Ry.  I LOVE the way it looks, but I tried it on him and he complained that it was itchy.  I'm telling myself that it's because he had bare skin and it'll be MUCH different this fall when he has a long-sleeved shirt on underneath.  RIGHT???!!!!

Finally, after a very full day, Jamie and I settle into bed to veg out - me with my tea and knitting, Jamie with the rest of his wine - to watch the second season of Republic of Doyle.  Jamie is constantly pausing it to show me various buildings that he's gone to for his work trip (and excitingly enough, tonight's episode had the Morrison Hershfield office in it - that was a huge highlight!!!!!), and I constantly tease him by exclaiming over 'tower hill' every time signal hill comes up (all the time)  Fun times in the McKay household:-)

G'night, until next month!!!!