12 on 12.

April  :  Friday

01.  5:00 a.m:  It's supposed to be a work day but when the alarm went off I checked out the back patio door and found the world covered in ice.  There's no safe way to get to work or school so it's back to bed and a day at home for everyone!
02.  Juliana crawled into bed with me and we celebrated our sleep-in with a warm snuggle.
03.  My kitchen window - covered in ice.
04.  Breakfast with my girl.
05.  Peter getting some work done for the Youth Centre.
06.  2:00 pm:  There seems to be even more ice on the back deck, if that's possible.
07.  My summer white lights are completely covered in ice.  Where the heck is spring?
08.  I remember playing Mastermind with my Dad and now I play it with the kids - it's one of my favourite games.  This afternoon Juliana and I tried our best to outsmart each other!
09.  A little guitar interlude - they are working on Harvest Moon.
10.  Maggie gets towelled off after a run around in the backyard.
11.  7:00 p.m:  The rain has finally stopped and the sun is setting.  The ice has almost disappeared and my daffodil buds are still hanging in there.
12.  Peter's off to hockey.  It's the first game of Tournament Weekend.  Go Team Purple!

I blame Jian Ghomeshi.

At Christmas, I gave Peter the book 1982 - a 'rock memoir' about the year Jian Ghomeshi was 15 and how the music that year impacted his life.

Lately Sheldon has been after us to let him go see a live concert in the City.  His first concert.  The most recent request is for an all ages, outdoor festival with one of his favourite punk bands headlining.

He will be 16 (gulp).

I'm hesitant.  But, then, I'm a worrier by nature.

I sent an email to Peter with all the details of Sheldon's request - the when, the where, who he's going with, the ticket prices, who is offering to drive and links to the venue.  What did he think?

This was his response:

So I ordered the tickets.

Oh boy.

Saturday.

Slept in a little.

Sheldon brought me coffee and I stayed a little longer in bed and read.

Juliana made us pancakes for brunch.

More reading.

A little nap.

It doesn't happen like this very often, but when it does, we don't waste a single second of enjoyment.

Full disclosure.

Our family is awesome.  But we are FAR from perfect.

Let's be honest - as lovely as our holiday was, for every amazing moment we found, there was another full of attitude, sulking, anger, frustration, unhappiness, or fighting.   Oh, the fighting.....

Which is why the first take of our family beach photo looked like this:

And then, when everybody retreated to their own corners, like this:

Which means, the next day, in the blazing sun, we ended up with this: