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!  :)

Giant Tiger

Giant Tiger celebrated it’s 50th Anniversary this year and the local store had the Grades 5-8 classes come to sing

It was a bit silly since they had it at around 8:30 am when nobody was out shopping, so the only people there were those singing and their parents … but it made for a photo opportunity for them seeing as it looks like they had so many people there to enjoy the cake and celebration.  They probably got such a good turn out from the students (it was optional) because the kids were promised some goodies as a thank-you and the parents were promised some really good coupons.  The kids got a water bottle, frisbee and pad of paper in a Giant Tiger reusable bag.  The parents got … nothing!  So much for that promise.   They also announce that they will be expanding the store and when they have their grand re-opening the students would be invited back to sing again … ah, we’re all dutch and we didn’t get our coupons and deals … not so sure I’ll get out of bed early again for a photo opportunity.

 

This One’s For You Joyce!

Matt2 learning to play baseball … (I might add he’s got a pretty good swing too)   

Our silly boy!  I think some of the genes from the previous owner of that splash outfit wore off  :) 

Matthew loves attention and will gladly put on a show to get it!

Cash for Muddy

Remember our dog Muddy?  I posted about him last spring when we got him … see here.   Anyone who’s been around our place in the last year knows how fond I was of Muddy … as a few of my other posts about him gave some indication to here and here.  Muddy tipped the scale when he decided to tear up our pool after Rob had just spent hours trying to clean it and taking it down to store for the winter.  For some reason we still hung onto him a bit longer, thinking if we could make it through the winter spring would come and we’d have an older more mature dog.  He still had one good thing left about him … he stuck around and didn’t wander off or go to the road.  And then he decided to totally tip the scale and stopped sticking around.  We couldn’t let him loose for more then a few minutes and he would try sneak next door.  By March we gave up.  Muddy was constantly in his pen because he was always trying to take off and even when the kids were outdoors we couldn’t have him loose as he would take their mittens (especially Matthew’s – even the kind with the strings attached – he’d just rip the string and take off with the mitten) and chew them up.  To say that Muddy had no brains was putting it mildly.  When we got him we just figured he was a puppy and needed some training … but nothing we did could get through to this dog (I will admit we aren’t exactly experienced dog trainers).  He continued to be over hyper and jumping all the time, he continued to chew up anything in his sight, he continued to bark for absolutely no reason,  he continued to take off from the property.  What was the point of having a dog if he was always in the pen and could never be played with.  So we posted him on good old Kijiji and away he went … hopefully his new owners have better luck with him!!  We had some sad girls for a few days.  I think that’s the only reason we continue to hang onto him … we didn’t want to have to deal with the trauma of getting rid of him.  But they got over it and we were all much happier to be without an annoying dog!

It was decided that maybe it wasn’t such a wise idea to have a dog.  Our lives are rather unsettled for the next years, we have no idea when we will move next or where we will move to.  Next summer Rob will be doing his practicum and we’re not sure if we’ll be home then or how much we’ll be home.  Always having to worry about someone taking care of our dog isn’t very ideal.  We figured since we had this nice pen in the yard maybe we’d do something a bit more useful with it.   We would get laying chickens.  At least then I’d get eggs for the cost of the food we were buying.  The idea was it would allow the girls to have a small income by getting enough chickens that they could sell the excess eggs.  In order to have chickens we needed a shed for them.  So the search was on for a free shed … if it wasn’t free it wasn’t worthwhile as then I might as well buy my eggs and save the hassle.  Layers only last about 1-1.5 years so then we could get rid of them next summer if we weren’t going to be around to care for them.  The plan sounded good … but getting the shed did not work out.  There were plenty of free sheds on Kijiji over the weeks, but we never seemed to be the lucky person to be the recipient of them – or when we were they were in such a state that they had to be taken apart to get out of the yard and then put back together … not something Rob had time for. 

We hadn’t yet dismissed the idea of chickens when I stumbled across a free ad on Kijiji.  What made me look at this ad is beyond me as there are plenty of free dogs on Kijiji every day.  But I did look at it … and it suits us so well that I sent Rob a message.  Five year old altered male lab/mountain bernese mix.  He said “go for it” right away.  And the next thing we knew we had Cash.  Why we took him home is beyond me.  We went to see him, he was an indoor dog and he ran back and forth and was quite hyper.  It should of made us walk away right away, but I guess something about him just made us decide to give it a try.  What a wonderful dog … except the name.  We had to do some name modification again (Muddy was originally called Buddy).  Cash has been renamed Dash … sounds the same, no issues with him understanding.  I did speak to the owner after we got him and she said he was named Cash after Johnny Cash.  At least that explained the odd name, we really were wondering why anyone would name their dog Cash.

 

The biggest challenge with Dash has been the fact that he was an indoor dog … one that really only went outdoors to go to the bathroom and when on a leash.  He was lucky that we brought him home in the pouring rain on a miserable, windy cold day.  Originally we had said we would just start him outdoors right away and get him used to the new concept immediately … we didn’t have the heart to leave him outdoors and so indoors him came.  The first days he spent mainly indoors, the weather was miserable and he was adjusting.  I was just looking back in my e-mails and realized that we’ve really only had Dash for a little over a month, it seems so much longer then that.  With time he progressed to outdoors during the days and coming in later at night … and then last week we progressed to outdoors all the time.  The first couple nights were rough when he barked to let us know that it was getting late and time for him to come in … but now he’s does good.    He’s such a sweet and good dog that I feel guilty for leaving him outdoors when he’s been used to be inside all his life, but I just can’t cope with the hair!  I would be completely fine with continuing to allow him to sleep indoors at nights (and somehow I have a feeling I’ll be seeing him back indoors come winter nights), but it’s unbelievable the amount of hair we sweep up just from the hours that he sleeps indoors.  He is only allowed in the entrance hall-way and Rob’s office, but we find hair throughout the main floor area, especially the bathroom and our bedroom.  If it weren’t for the hair we wouldn’t even bother training him to be outdoors at night … although it is also good that he’s always outdoors for when we go away.

Dash has brains, he is very trainable, learns quick and listens well.  He learned where he was allowed and not allowed in the house and the only time he came in our bedroom at nights was when we had thunderstorms, which was understandable, and even then he just lay quietly at the end of the bed.  Being part Mountain Bernese means he’s a big dog.  He looks mostly lab, except the white on his chest, but he has the size of a mountain dog.  He’s calm and great with people and kids.  Matthew loved to lay down with him in the mornings before he would be put outside.  He is strong also, having broken through two of the ropes (leashes) that we used to tie him when we were gone.  He refused to go in the dog pen at first, but was fine with a leash.  So we had him on a leash by the house.  He wanted to be near us and we sort of liked seeing him laying by the door.  The problem arose when he kept scratching the door, and ringing the doorbell, and scratching the window and ripping the screen, of Rob’s office.  He wanted in.  So we moved him to the pen … on his leash.  He’s quite content to be in the pen on his leash … and quite smart about getting out of the pen if he’s not on his leash.  So we still have to work on Dash-proofing the pen (stones around the base so he can’t dig out).  The one things that we haven’t been able to train Dash on yet is his attraction to the road … not sure if it’s because pavement is familiar to him being born and raised in the city … but he has this attraction to the road and no fear of vehicles.  The vehicles have to stop for him!  Hopefully this does not mean a short lived country life.

He’s a keeper!!

 

  

So while we didn’t actually get cash for Muddy we did get Dash for Muddy!

Mumble Jumble

So it’s been a long day of wandering around the Science Centre with Marietta on a school trip.  I should be prepping lunches and getting breakfast ready for tomorrow … but right now a cup tea and some blog time sounds more appealing.  If only we had little fairies around here that would do those other things for me.

So here comes a mumble, jumble blog of miscellaneous pictures of this and that.

Aunt Jess is helping the girls learn how to sew, seeing as their mom isn’t exactly very talented in that area.  She came down one evening during the March Break and out of our scrap boxes they found some material and made aprons.

At the beginning of this year a group of girls from Marietta’s Grade 5 class developed an idea that they wanted to sell cards and raise money to send to Haiti.  While I would never want to squash a child’s idea to raise money for someone/something else, I wasn’t quite sure how to approach this idea when it first came up.  The girls really had no plan … except they were going to make cards and sell them.  Who they were going to sell them to and even exactly where the money was going to go they didn’t know … but they were on a mission and away they went.  At first they were excited to reach 30 cards, then 50, then 75 and before we knew it there was over a 100 cards.  It was decided that they could sell the cards during Parent/Teacher Interviews at the end of March. 

There was 5-6 girls who participated, creating a variety of talent and display.  Parent/Teacher Interviews were spread over two nights and so they took turns selling.  Of course, all the “better” cards sold the first night, which brought Marietta home in a panic the next day.  It was her turn to manage the table that night and she had to sell the remaining cards but all the good ones were gone.  The three girls that were managing the table that night worked hard at adding more cards to the collection and I think they even came up with another 25-30 cards to add.

 

We were reminded of how we should encourage our children in such endeavours when the girls were able to raise $183 (that number may be editted, Marietta’s asleep so I can’t confirm how much they made, but that’s the number that is popping into my head).

Matthew discovered stickers and glue a little while ago.  It was neat to see him busy at work on his sticker “map” (as he calls his big piece of paper).    Matthew doesn’t have any art or craft interests in him.  I can hardly get him to hold a pen or pencil long enough to draw a line.  In church he thinks his notebook is for the rest of us to draw pictures for him and when we tell him he’s suppose to do his own writing he just huffs and puffs and scribbles on or two lines and packs away the book … that’s the extend of his skills.

In April the kids had their bi-annual Easter Concert.  They did a really good job and were quite lovely to listen to.  Our girls love to sing and really enjoy these concerts.

 

Music Festival

The next highlight for the girls was the local Music Festival.   This was the first time the girls had ever played in the Festival, or any sort of competition for that matter. 

The interesting part came when Marietta couldn’t decide what her second piece would be.  She had two choices that qualified and we had told her to try play each of them and see which she liked better, but she left it until the last minute and then had to fill in the form and just picked one of the songs.  Rob and I were still cringing when we heard her play the song just days before the competition.  She practiced and she cried, and she practiced some more.  If Marietta puts her mind to something she can do it, and so she needed some extra pushes to stop saying she couldn’t get it and to focus on getting it.  If worst came to worst she could just not play.  There were very few times we heard that song played without mistakes, but come competition day she did have it together pretty good … she had put her mind to it!

The Festival was held over a two-day period and Rebecca ended up going the first day.  Rebecca is a quiet but quick learner.  She has been quietly practicing away at her piano with a determination to catch up to Marietta … and she was doing a pretty good job of it, until Marietta suddenly realized how close her little sister was to catching up to her and this put some determination back into her step.  While Rebecca does not like to perform, she did not have an issue when it came time to sign up for the festival, she doesn’t perform on choice but she felt this was just something she had to do (which she didn’t, but it was strongly encouraged by her teacher).

Both of the girls entered two pieces of music (you can only enter one piece for each category/music type).  Since it was some time ago I cannot remember how it all went … I’m sure the girls could tell you … but if there were only three people competing they were guaranteed a metal.  I think each time they competed there was at least four competitors, but I really can’t remember.  The person who got first would perform at the final evening performance.  I believe this is the third year they’ve had the competition, so it’s still relatively new, and it being a small town that means there wasn’t huge lines of competitors, meaning most/many kids received a metal.

Rebecca competing/being judge

After the judge had listened to all the competitors and decided the marks he would call each person up and give a few pointers about the song they did. He had an excellent way of doing this, giving fun and neat examples and making the kids feel comfortable and not put on the stop or feeling dumb because they did something wrong.

I’m not sure if the judge is easy with his marking … or the girls are just good at what they do … course I rather think the second, but I believe the first has something to do with it too :) Either way both girls did extremely well.  Rebecca came home with two second place metals.

Marietta competing and with the judge

The first song Marietta had to do was Menuett in F …. the one we had been cringing over!  Guess it all depends on the competition because she got first place … you know what that means … she was to perform it that night.  Her overall mark was still pretty good, although Rebecca’s marks had been better and she had gotten seconds … again, all depends on your competition.  The second song Marietta did she also ended up getting first.  Thankfully they only allow you to perform one time if you take first in more then one category … wasn’t hard for Marietta to choose what song to play.  Funny, she said she would never play Menuett in F again after the competition, but we still hear the song almost daily as she now prepares to play it for the year-end recital

Marietta playing at the Evening Performance

The Grade 5/6 class also competed and won (since we believe they were the only ones to compete I guess that makes a pretty easy win) and so they performed that evening also.

 

Disney on Ice

Okay, this is really not what I’m suppose to be doing at this moment, but if I keep waiting for a time where I can sit here and do this without any guilt that there are other things I should be doing … well then I should just pack up the whole blog idea … which at the rate of my posting it’s getting to be that way.  Except I recently discovered such a thing as Windows Live Writer.  How come nobody told me about this a long time ago?????????  You mean all these years I’ve been fighting with Blogger when I could have been easily making posts from WLW?  This means I’ll no longer have an excuse for why I haven’t bothered to post … always found the actual getting the post to look proper (seeing as what appears in the blogger preview and what actually appears on the blog are totally different) the bigger hassle then writing the post.  So far I’m enjoying Windows Live Writer!

So here we go again with some travelling back in time … way back during the March Break Aileen and I took our kids to Disney on Ice.  My parents took us a couple years ago (see here) and since then the kids have watched a few more disney movies so they had a bit better idea of what was going on some of the time … altho we’re still quite far behind in this area, but I’m doubtful that will cause much harm in their lives  :)

We did not find this show as good as the last one that we went to.  The ad had shown Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story so that was what Matthew was mostly waiting for, but there was only a small section of that at the end

Just days before we went to the show Matthew had read the Mickey Mouse version of the The Sorcerer's Apprentice

 

Unfortunately he did not like this edition of it.  Matthew has always been easily scared by shows/videos/movies when it gets dark and the music takes a specific “more scary” note, but recently he’s gotten much worse in this area and won’t watch many of the movies that he pretty much has memorized because it’s “scary”.  The show had a very long section on Halloween and bad witches from the various Disney movies.  We found it was far too long and over empahsized.  Given Matthew’s fear of dark and with scary music you can imagine he was none to thrilled about this.  Funny thing was he had actually been saying since near the beginning that he wanted to go home.  Finally during the Halloween section I took him out for a bit to wait things out.  As I looked at him I thought that he really didn’t look well … was he really that scared??  He didn’t want any snacks and kept asking to go home, he just wanted to snuggle and I began to think that he really wasn’t feeling well. 

He did finish off the show and there were a few piece he enjoyed … especially when Woody and Buzz finally made their appearance. He perked up a bit after the show but by time we put him in the van I was sure that he was not well and it felt like he had a fever … he did okay while we went shopping but by time we got to supper he was done!

   

The piggy from Toy Story was my favourite

Rebecca’s 9th Birthday

Sunday came and Rebecca got to enjoy another day of celebration.   Meaghan stayed until after lunch and then Grandpa and Grandma came after second service and the rest of my family after supper.  And what better way to spend your birthday then by going to church … okay, I know, she hasn’t quite gotten to the stage where she thinks that way.

A few presents at breakfast … the best being her “new”  bike as she had outgrown her old one

A few presents after the am church service: clothes and stamps (for scrapbooking, cardmaking)

  

Lots more presents after supper when my family came down for the evening: clothes, Road to Avonlea Season 2 and 3, game Pictureka

  

Rebecca had no idea about the butterfly cake so she was surprised when we appeared with not one, but two cakes.  And if you think she had a lot of boyfriends when all the candles were on one cake … just think how many when they were spread out over two cakes  :)

 

Uncle Mark and Aunt Val can’t come down without playing a game with the girls.  The girls love Uncle Mark and Aunt Val’s love for games and make a point of taking advantage of it whenever they can.  We keep telling them they can come every Friday night for game night … but they are just too busy with more important things :)

Must be a pretty intense game … everyone has a dictionary out.

So lady-like!!  In this picture Marietta reminds me of my sister Val (above) when she was younger … not the “lady-like” position, she just looks like Val.

 

And after a busy couple days another birthday was done … a whole year to wait until the next one!  Sure seems like a long time to her, but to us parents it’s unbelieveable how fast a year flies by.  Although Rebecca is two grades behind Marietta when it comes to general life we often have to remind ourselves that she is younger.  She desires to keep up with her sister and does a good job of it too.  Her latest desire has been to catch up to Marietta in piano lessons and for a bit there it looked like she actually would.  She continues to fly through her books but I think Marietta began to feel a bit of pressure to move along a bit faster and pick up the pace before Rebecca surpassed her … Rebecca has her work cut out for her if she wants to catch up to Marietta, but either way both girls are doing very well at the piano and there is almost a constant sound coming from the piano when they are home.  It’s really is unbelievable how big our girls are getting!  It’s a joy to see them grow up and it’s sad to see those “little girl” days disappear.