Still Loves His Naps

A while ago I posted about Matthew going through a stage where he tried to outgrow his naps (click here), eventually napping won out and he naps most days.  Usually the only time he does not nap is on Sundays and on days when he knows there is something going on after nap time.  We make a point of not mentioning afternoon activities to Matthew as the excitement will prevent him from sleeping … and he still needs that sleep.  Most days he plays for about half an hour and the climbs into bed for a 1-2 hour nap.  He is notorious for having the need for a bowel movement about 5-15 after he goes to his room for quiet time, but once he gets that out of his system he’s good to wind down and go off to sleep.  He always crawls into bed before he falls to sleep and we never find him in funny places in his room anymore

On this particular day he arrived home after school time and fell asleep on the living room floor.  He slept there until just before supper time, when I arrived home to find him quietly snoozing.   He really does need his sleep still.  The funny thing was that he woke up and came to me for a snuggle and had no idea that he had just been sleeping for the past two hours.  He was quite sure that he had just been playing on the floor and got up to come say hi to mom.  I insisted he had just been napping and he insisted he had not.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Another time where he came down from quiet time too soon and just needed to lay his head down for a few minutes yet and catch a quick nap with daddy

Yup, he’s a napping boy, just like his oldest sister who also loved her naps for a long time.  When little, Rebecca was done napping and Marietta was still taking her daily naps.  Even now, Marietta prefers to go to bed earlier then Rebecca (not that she actually makes it to bed before Rebecca since she has such a habit of dilly-dallying and waiting until bedtime to realize she has a million things that still need to be done)  and if Rebecca goes to bed before 8:30-9pm she’s often still awake for quite some time.  Matthew doesn’t quite require as much sleep as Marietta did when little seeing as Marietta still went to bed at 7-7:30 when she was young, but Matthew is in bed around 8:30pm.  Cutting out Matthew’s nap would mean he’s in bed earlier, but I don’t mind him being up later, it gives him more time when the girls and daddy are home to be around them seeing as he spend the day by himself.  With the girls up anyways, it makes no difference to me if one more is up.  Doesn’t seem to make a difference what time he goes to bed, he’s almost always up around 6am … altho he occasionally surprises us and treats us to a late rise of about 7am, very seldom later then that, although it has happened a time or two.

Mud

I’m not sure what the kids were thinking when they called me all excited to come see them on one of the first warm days we finally had this spring. 

 

Did they think I was going to be excited and thrilled to see them covered in stinky muddy?!?!?!?!?  Only to be made worse by trying to clean themselves in the stinky rainwater barrel!!!!

Medieval Times

To celebrate our 12th Wedding Anniversary and the finishing of Rob’s 2nd year at the College we decide to go out for supper at Medieval Times.    This is something we had wanted to try for some time and needed an excuse to do  :)  It was a nice evening out and we had a nice time, although both of us agreed that we were glad we got the tickets for a good price as we would not have felt it worthwhile at full price.

We really had no idea what to expect so in that sense I don’t know really what made us disappointed.  I think we did expect more of the fighting, although it was neat to see some of the riding and footwork of the horses and skill of the riders.  I think the biggest turn off for us was how they were in your face trying to sell you something the whole time.  People spend a decent amount for a meal and entertainment and then to be bombarded by them trying to sell you pictures of yourself (they take a picture of you beside the King or Princess when you come in and then once your sitting try to sell it to you) or other types of souvenir items.   They tell you to be there one to one and half hours early to get a good seat.  We were there right when the doors open and we did not have a very greatest seat.  They also try to get you to pay more to be able to sit closer to the front …. it is not how far forward you sit that makes a difference but where you are situated around the arena.  The reason they want you to be there that early is again to try get you to spend money.  So there you sit for over and hour and hopefully you will buy a few souvenirs at the various shops or spend money to go see the dungeon, or pay to have your picture taken while being knighted by the King … or best of all buy a few overpriced drinks!  When people are in our faces trying to get us to spend more money then what we intended to it’s an immediate turnoff … it may work for many people, but for us it has the opposite effect.

The other thing that we didn’t like so much was the fact that you “have to” cheer the whole time.  I say “have to” since nobody is making us, but if your section doesn’t cheer loud enough they keep standing there encouraging you to show your devotion to the your knight until you are loud enough.  I’m trying to eat … not yell!!  Sorry, I’m not much into the cheering and yelling thing.  I was expecting to be able to sit and eat and watch a show. 

I will say that the food was delicious.  We were told there would be tons of food, but I would not say this was the case.  There was adequate food and we were properly full when done (our good hearty dutch appetites were satisfied :… but another piece of garlic bread or spare ribs would have been nice as they were yummy! :)  The lack of drink selections wasn’t all to impressive either (coke or water at supper and coffee only afterwards), but we did receive a response back after we filled in the feedback questionaire that other options should have been provided.  And yes, you do have to eat it with your hands, no utensils are provided, but it is all food that is easy to eat by hand.

So if you decide to go to Medieval Times don’t worry about being there extremely early if you already booked online, be prepared to enter a touristy setting of trying to sell you souvenirs, warm up your voice for some yelling and cheering … and don’t pay more then half price  :)  Hopefully you have better luck hearing and understanding what was being said the entire time.  Sometimes we couldn’t hear them properly and sometimes due to the accent we simply couldn’t understand.

Regardless Rob and I had an evening out with just the two of us, getting away, relaxing and enjoying each others company …. or at least sitting beside each other seeing as we couldn’t really hear each other talk much and we were busy yelling when we weren’t chewing  :)  So here’s some pictures:

 

12 years of marriage

At the beginning it went dark and it was pretty neat to see the arena with all the candles on the tables

Capturing of the Prince and announcing the arrival of the King

 

The horses and their riders/knights lined up as they are introduced so you know who to cheer for.

 

Lining up for one of the games/tournaments and one of the horses and it’s rider doing some fancy footwork

Some fighting

    

While I’m full of complaints :)  we did still have a nice evening out … really we did! :)

Bird Watching

Rebecca’s class (Grade 3/4) was studying birds this spring and so as a class trip they went to Rock Point Provincial Park for a day to do some bird watching and to see how they do bird banding.  Bird banding is done in order to monitor migration as well as give an idea of how the birds are doing and whether they are increasing or decreasing in number.  At the Rock Point Bird Banding Station we got to see some of the birds they had caught in the last hour or so and how he bands and records the bird

Some of the birds that were caught that morning.  They have nets up on the property to catch the birds.  The nets are pretty much invisible and harmless to the birds.  They only have the nets up when there are people there to monitor them and if they are not monitoring then they close them up so no birds are left in the nets for a very long period of time. 

I`m afraid I know very little about birds, and after the trip thought that we should at least invest in a bird book so we can get a better idea of what is flying around our property.  We did see quite a few warblers and  oriole birds … which I had never know where called that before … as I said, I know very little about bird, cept they have wings and most of them fly.

So I can`t tell you what these birds are, but here`s a few picture from the day

  

In the second picture he is demonstrating how they do the banding and what they check when they do the banding.  He would measure the wing span and estimate how old the bird was, sometimes there was already a band on the bird so they would record that also as it gives further information about the bird.  He also taught a few of the kids how to hold the bird so it would not be hurt and would not hurt them.

  

After we went through the bird banding intro we spent the rest of the morning wandering the park and looking and watching different birds … at least that`s what the kids were suppose to be doing … most of them spent more time collecting rocks and shells on the beach and do anything but look for birds. 

Rebecca with her friends Alanah and Taylor, who were in her group.

Sitting by the lake

 

Climbing the sand dunes

 

We received rain and rain and rain and rain and rain … and did I mention rain? this spring.  And each time it came down it came down in buckets.  It had been the plan to play baseball during the afternoon, but it was far, far too wet for this as much of the grassy areas were full of little ponds/lakes and while I did make it through all of them dry, there were enough of them where I was beginning to wonder if the water was going to go over the top of my rubber boots.  To say it was wet would be an understatement!  Instead of playing baseball we ended up walking around the park for a while longer in the afternoon … by that time the kids, as well as the parents, had had enough of bird watching and were mostly just playing and fooling around.  I got my exercise that day anyways!

Summer Haircut

It’s a bit of an argument around here on buzz cut or non-buzz cut for Matthew.  So I compromise … longer hair during the fall/winter months, buzz cut during the summer months. Isn’t it great to be a boy where it really isn’t a huge deal to grow out your hair!? (within reason Mark :)

I was quite ready for the buzz cut …. seeing as I am one of the ones who likes the buzz cut, and also considering that the fact that it’s a quicker and easier haircut.

So out came the buzzer  

Ah … that looks better!  All ready for summer!

And here’s what it looked like before (Matthew getting his face painted like a Tiger at Giant Tiger’s Anniversary)

So what do you think … buzz or cut?

Year 2 Completed

I cannot believe that these pictures were taken over a month ago already.  Wow, where does the time go?  Rob is most certainly asking himself that question as he ponders what he’s actually accomplished in the last month.

On May 14 Rob wrote his last Year 2 exam and then we could celebrate.  Didn’t matter at that point whether he passed or failed his exams, all that mattered was to celebrate surviving another year … especially the survival of the last six to eight weeks which consisted of many paper and little sleep.  Overall the year went well and Rob enjoyed it.  We could see the difference at home with him being more relaxed most of the year.  He felt like after  over 4 years of studying he had finally gotten to the part he was working towards.  In the previous years languages had been the heavy focus and taken far too many of his precious hours since this is not his strong point, but finally this year languages were no longer the biggest and heaviest subject and instead he found himself diving into the “real stuff”.  Realistically the fact that the kids were older probably played a factor in it being a less stressful year.  We cannot actually say that we finally had a study year without the stresses of illness,   this time it was not in our direct family but with my brother Nathan … how thankful we can be that this situation turned out so differently then what the doctors originally expected.

So here’s what the guys look like after two weeks of intense exams … they should take a picture before they finished the exams to show the difference … at least here they have smiles of relief on their faces.

Now that he has received his report card Rob can truly smile … another year is behind him and the Lord willing only two more to go.  After pictures students, professors and their wives and children gathered for a potluck lunch and some social time.  Once stuffed to the brim we were on our ways for a few hours before we gathered again … this time to celebrate without the professors  :)

We met again in the evening for the annual bbq/potluck supper, fire and casual unwind time. 

 

The girls were excited to go and enjoy some time with friends.  For Marietta it would mean time together with Jessica, but the girls had also recently met Corrina and they seem to hit it off pretty good.  Jared joined the gang that evening and the four of them found themselves roaming around and getting drowned in the rain that came later on.  They tried to spare themselves the drenching by staying under the bridge … but when the rain refused to give up they finally gave in and headed back to the house … to say they were drenched when they got back would be putting it lightly

Matthew and his “brother” Evan.  While Matthew has no memory of his two month stay at Steve and Cec’s, we still seem to connect Evan as his adopted brother.  I’m not sure how much Evan remembers of that time, but regardless the two boys always seem to get along great and have a good time.

   

Supper time

Soccer Time

 

I had to laugh as I walked by and heard the conversation between Zoé and Ian.  In the first picture Zoé told Ian that he could wash the dishes (take note of the shovel in Ian’s hand).  In the second picture, Ian tells Zoé what he thinks of that idea when he says “I don’t wash dishes” and proceeds to throw the shovel to the ground.  Hmmm … I’m sure he didn’t pick that up from his father  :)

Ah, and the fun of relaxing around the fire in the evening … before the rain came rushing down and sent us to the house.

Now these were monster marshmallows … I think Matthew enjoyed his!  Aghhh what a mess!

    

    

Seven years sure sounds like a long time, especially when you embark on seven years of student-life and low-income … but wow, the years just fly by.  While two more years can even seem like a long time, we can really say “only two more years”, we’re not at the home stretch yet, but we’re getting close.  Wow, a lot has happened in the past six years (six since Rob took one year off school), when I look back to the beginning I think that maybe it really was a long time.  We moved to the area with three small children, none in school yet … and here we are with our oldest almost done Grade 5.

As you may have read in my previous post here, Rob is not working full-time this summer, but instead part-time.  Part-time trucking and some other odd-jobs as the time allows.  Rob’s number one focus this summer is (suppose to be) studying dutch.  He is taking classes two days a week, with lots of homework inbetween.  He secondary focus is on completing his library … as in inputting his books into the computer and categorizing and filing all the information on the books.  The most accurate way to do this would be by actually reading the books, or at least skim reading it to properly identify what topics are covered in the book.  And then of course there’s the many other odds and ends that come up inbetween, including the recent fun we’ve been having with vehicles … just to make sure he hasn’t forgotten all that he learned during his mechanic years.

“Only two more years to go” … for now we’ll enjoy the summer!  :)