Sweet Memories

 I received such a sweet gift from my friend Annie this morning - she sent me a bunch of photos that she'd taken during our (far too short) visit with her and her family this summer.  They live in Northern BC (were living in Hazelton when we saw them) so a bit far away for us to get to - but we were SO glad to have made it there this summer.  I just wish we could have stayed longer, and I really hope it's not too long before we make it back.......

Here's a quick glimpse of our morning, through Annie's lense:-)  I really wish I remembered the names of these places, but she took us down to this gorgeous river where the kids roamed free, until Kea and I discovered the gorgeous meadow behind us!!!  We ate delicious food, buried ourselves in the sand, built forts, did a little fishing, a little bonfire building and, of course, played with photography!!!!  Oh, and did just a wee bit of talking and talking and talking and talking - had to fill our cups to last us until our next get-together!

I'm so happy to have these memories from our trip, and to have these gorgeous photos of me with the kids!!!  I don't get in front of the lense often enough.......thank you Annie!

Math Night at Naismith

Tiegan and Ryland are both going to Naismith Memorial Public School this year (Kea is in grade 9 now, at the local high school), and we are so happy to be involved with such a wonderful school.  The principal is super involved and does everything she can to make our school year as positive as possible. One thing that was noticed, through the standardized testing that the government does each year, was that the math scores were pretty poor across the board.  So the teachers and principal got together and decided to make math the focus of this school year.

I've really noticed the kids playing so much more with numbers since the fall, both excited to come home and work on their math, they have online programs that they can practice skills with, and then a few weeks ago, the teachers also put together a fabulous math night at the school.

The idea was to have families come together and have fun with math - seeing the kids' teachers in action and getting a sense of how they teach, seeing how math is being taught in this day and age, and also giving us ideas on how to play with math each day at home.

In the first class we went into, we played with giving letters a number value and adding up words, and then we played with money and making various combinations of coins to make up an amount.

In the second class, we played with tangrams, and by the end of it my brain was hurting a wee bit trying to create certain shapes - so creative!!!

And in the third class, we played with patterns.....I had no clue how complex they could be!  Ry kicked butt in this area, but it probably has something to do with this being his class teacher:-)

The kids were so proud to share their expertise in various things math-related, I really enjoyed getting to know their teachers better, and it turned out to be a social night with the families of the kids' friends!  We only got to visit 3 out of 8 classrooms this evening, so I'm really hoping the school will run a few more of these math nights.  And until then, each class sent us home with our own manipulatives and tasks to work on math at home - which the kids are STILL pulling out to play with!  All in all, a very successful night, I'd say:-)

Halloween.....

I LOVE Halloween.  I love the rituals of picking out pumpkins, I love the creativity of each child figuring out what they want on their pumpkins (Kea went with the skeleton of an electric eel, and had to negotiate with Jamie how best to carve it.  Ry went with a dragon, which was the cause of much frustration and heart ache on his part when he discovered he had to draw it - but then he persevered, and was SUPER proud of the results!  And Tiegan drew many complicated renditions of things on her pumpkin, but eventually went the simple route.  Oh that girl, we're needing to push her a little to take risks and try new things these days......), I love wandering the streets, meeting neighbours, seeing other costumes and having fun outside with good friends.  I love roasted pumpkin seeds and the excited anticipation of the kids.  I could do without the great amounts of candy, for sure, and wish life didn't feel so busy in the lead up to Halloween so we could really savour it, but we do what we can.

Our Halloween was a bit different this year - Kea was invited to head into Ottawa to go to her first ever Rocky Horror Picture Show in the theatre, so she trick and treated a little bit with us then caught a ride into the city.  Tiegan made plans with a couple of girlfriends, and we were informed that we were NOT welcome to join them:-)  So we hooked up with a couple of Ry's friends, and everyone was trick or treating in the neighbourhood around their school - loved all of the haunted houses and fun neighbourhoods, it was a fun night:-)

Celebrating Tiegan!

Better late than never...........we've been planning to take some of Tiegan's friends to the rock climbing gym FOREVER now, in order to celebrate her birthday, and about a week ago we finally made it happen!!!  We LOVE this rock climbing gym - it has both a regular rock climbing section, and a clip-and-climb geared for the younger kids.

The clip-and-climb is bright and colourful, very appealing - and full of drastically different routes to try out.   I love how they utilize different things to create the walls (plumbing pipes, trailer hitches, etc) and am inspired to try a few of them at home.  Somewhere.  It's also neat to see how the different holds develop various muscles for rock climbing, and teach the kids different techniques - so cool!

This double wall is a race with stop watches at the bottom with each person stopping the clock by hitting a button at the top of the run...

This is a very cool route, where you can mirror each other up a window - Ry and Jamie did this one a few times:-)

The green 'stairs' are freaky once you get to the top - it's crazy high, and your mind definitely plays tricks on you even though you're tied into a rope!!!!

This one Kea is doing is crazy, as each dial moves as you put weight on it so you really have to play with balancing.  I can only get to the third dial, but Kea made it almost to the top - her goal was to hit the button, but she only got her hands on the top 3 circles.  She was SOOOOOOOO frustrated, with her shaky arms and exhausted legs:-)

I LOVE this wall, so colourful and many of the hand holds are upside down so it's a crazy arm work out:-)

The perk of having your birthday party at the gym is you get to do this crazy slide that Tiegan has always eyed up!!!!  You have to put on a protective suit and helmet, and then they pull you crazy high up until your fingers can't hang on anymore:-)  Oy!!!!!

After over an hour of climbing, we went to the party room for pizza and veggies and this rock covered cake:-)

Tiegan was pretty excited:-)  She's such a ham.....

The tallest cake I've ever made - was a BIG hit!!!!

One happy, well-celebrated, well-loved newly minted 11 year old:-)  

We love you Tiegan.