Seeing things.

Sometimes the dollar you spend at the Dollarama is a ridiculous deal.

Things she's actually said.

Juliana:  Mom...can I have a snack?

Juliana:  Mom...when are we going to the beach?

Juliana:  Mom...are we getting ice cream today?

Juliana:  Mom...will you play UNO with Sheldon and I?

Juliana:  Mom...that's a pretty t-shirt.

Juliana:  Mom...I'm riding to the store with Daddy.

Me:  Juliana - what's up with the "Mom" thing?  What happened to "Mommy"?  I want to keep you little and when you call me "Mom" I have to admit that you're getting too grown up. [Insert sad face here.]

Juliana:  Well I have to call you Mom eventually or else I'm going to be bigger and saying stuff like "Mommy....can you please get me my....booze...?"

What the?  What?

Summer (so far).

Not sure where the time has gone, but here's a peek into what's been happening around our place since school ended.

*  *  *

I'm not sure what surprised me more - the fact that the kids played a game together without being forced or the fact that they had such a captive audience.

Packing her lunch for the first day of Cooking Club camp.

How I spend my evenings.  (And, yes, I'm a card carrying "Team Katie" member.)

Is it against the rules for more than one kid to be happy at a time? (Also, can someone please cut the tags off that damn chair?)

Juliana's true colours.

Ramp Jam at the arena.  (Sheldon's the one in the white T-shirt that looks like he's running over the ramp.  In actual fact he's mid-jump swinging a scooter above his head.  Crazy.)

Soccer sun-showers.

And then we left for some camping.  

Stay tuned...

Fifty Years: A time to celebrate.

Kind.  Supportive.  Humble.  Honest.  Inspiring. 

If I had only five words, these would be the ones that I would use to describe one of my favourite couples ever - my mother and father-in-law.

Last year, when we were sitting around talking about their upcoming anniversary, I asked them how they wanted to celebrate their 50 years together.  Whatever they wanted, I wanted to make happen.  Not surprisingly, what they wanted was simple.  They wanted their family together.  Their kids and their grandchildren.  In the same country.  On the same weekend.  

A few weeks ago, it happened.  Two parents.  Three kids.  Two spouses.  And two grandchildren.  All together at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

But it wasn't just simple.  It couldn't be.  These are two people who have spent their lives helping others and asking nothing for themselves. They deserved a weekend that they would talk about and remember for a long, long time.  

So that's what we gave them.

First there was the surprise limo ride to Niagara Falls.

(We were all supposed to meet outside the front door of our Inn to drive in to Niagara Falls to pick up Linda and Glenn from the train station.  I wish that I could have truly captured their surprise when they realized that the limo that had just pulled up, was for them.)

We spent an afternoon visiting wineries...

... stopping once to visit the grilled cheese food truck for lunch.

Later, there was another surprise when carriages showed up to take us for dinner.

And, of course, there was cake...

We wrapped up the weekend watching the Euro Cup in the company of a pub full of Brits.

Writing this post (yikes - some four weeks after it actually happened) has given me a chance to reflect.  At the time, I thought that we had pulled off the perfect weekend.  It was, as my father-in-law said, "a weekend of a lifetime".  Mission accomplished, I thought - we gave them a weekend that was completely for them.

Writing now, I realize that I was wrong.  They made us think that this was all about them.  We planned a weekend all about them.  But, along the way, it stopped being about them and they made it about us.  Which is what they wanted all along:  their kids together again.

Over the course of a weekend, their children reconnected.  Years of distance melted away and long after Mom and Dad turned in at night, we stayed up eating, drinking, and, Oh my God laughing!  And Sheldon and Juliana built some memories of their own with their aunt and uncles.

Thank you, Brian and Dawn.  For giving us the idea for your weekend, for letting me have some fun with the planning, for encouraging us to laugh our faces off, for letting us share Brian's first limo experience ever, for allowing us the opportunity to stroll down memory lane, for reminding us how fulfilling family can be, and for inspiring us all with your incredible partnership.

Fifty years.  Wow.

xoxo
  

12 on 12.

 

July  :  Thursday

01.  My first day of holidays and Peter's home from 4 days away so we reconnected over morning coffee on the back deck.

02.  Caught my shadow in the driveway.
03.  What's on for today.
04.  Meeting Bobbi for her birthday lunch.  I'm early - how about that?
05.  Picking up Sheldon from CIT.  The camp that we're not allowed to call camp.
06.  Our long lunch on a hot patio (or perhaps it was the white wine) forces me back to the deck for a wee lounge.  Before I closed my eyes, this was my sky.

07.  Our hanging planters.  It's my first year with the dipladenia and I'm never going back.  They love me even though I only water once a week... 

08.  Trying to figure out how to transfer Sheldon's contact information from his old, cracked cell phone to the hand-me-down one that I scored to replace it.
09.  Me.  Back on the deck.  Did I mention that it's my first day of holidays?
10.  Missing Juliana.  She's at Grandma's this week and yet her hula hoop, her shoes, and her practice golf ball are all still on the front porch.
11.  Our dog walk in the field.  It was so hot that even though we let them off leash they refused to run.
12.  Watching the sun go down on our way back home.

Hi.

Remember me?

I haven't been around much lately.  But that's about to change.  This is the face that is starting a holiday.

That's right.  A big, fat, long holiday.

Tonight I'm going to kick back with a glass of wine, hang out with Sheldon a little bit, call Juliana at Grandma's house, and wait for Peter to safely turn into the driveway upon his return from Kansas City.

And tomorrow?  Tomorrow I will blog.

What happens when Daddy takes you for a haircut?

You come home looking 16.

She loves having her hair straightened so I arranged that treat for her when I booked the appointment.

The appointment that Daddy took her to.

Have you spotted the feather yet?

When she asked me (weeks and weeks ago) about getting a feather, I said "sure, some day" - emphasis on the "probably not".

But she's got her Daddy wrapped around her little finger.

Apparently "sure, some day" = when Mommy isn't around.