Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Summer Memories





I have been sooooo neglectful of this blog ..here are some random pics of summer





Biking and kayaking 


new jet ski!!! 



picking up our camper after 2 weeks. doesn't look too thrilled! had an awesome time I guess!
Loved Leah and Zandra's visit! Love this pic of me and my girl!!


Mom's bday party (she is in middle!)

Beauty's friends at cottage

the reunion with Chase!

Bike Fall and hospital in night

my girl growing up:))

could not bear to show the whole car:( my car: Chase has a big accident and did nothing intentional to cause but was the scariest night of our lives and his too. Nobody was hurt. Worst night

Daddy's girl

Beauty and her beau:)

My two babies (baby three barely saw until this weekend!)

Back to school

lots of napping in the boat! 



My darling

hunkie !

Bear was suspended for a couple of days...another story....and we hung our coming up with titles for my new book!


My little sweeties all came for a visit a few times this summer



Boys at cottahe Labor day and left quickly bc of rain the next day!

Add caption

my cutie visitors again

monopoly at the cottage



We love trent!


long swim to the bouchards!

He loves the jetski too!

the boys chilling with buddies too

some nice hair for a change!

girlies

my girlie


party at lancaster in the storm in the dark!

Sibs


My Vanilla Beans

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

All great things come to end ..

All great things come to end ..

Vacation of three weeks is over :(
Really sad as loved it .
Besides a few pretty big twists and turns that had to do with the kids ( emergency hospital for one and suspension of three days for other from work ) ... That both turned out ok in the end ... 
Was super relaxing !
Oh ya and one son not being able to get home from 15 hour shift in car as big accident on bridge so had 2 Hr sleep and went back ( and 15 days of work in a row ! )
Let's just say three nights out of three weeks we stayed up on text with our kids until 4am 

The rest ? So so so relaxing 
Besides two big kayak trips and a couple of bike rides and some eating out and a couple of shorter social things - I can't say we did anything at all except for boat , reading , swimming , sleeping and watching tv and movies !
Heaven !

And lots of time with our kids too ( more than expected bc of these turns of events ) not  all together at all expect 21 hrs but lots individually it seemed . And lots and lots of time with Beauty and her boyfriend which I assumed would stress me  as she is too young - but I ending of loving every minute of . We had so much fun with the two of them . It was actually incredibly fun .
Also thought would bother me more not to have our family together this summer much at all - but it is actually not too bad . Different dynamics and routines and getting used to it more 

Back to reality it is ! And of course after 3 weeks a very busy reality it will be with work work and more work .

Very very scared to step on my scale tomorrow! And answer all the emails I ignored while away ! And deal with the pile of work that is my real life 

Was worth every precious minute though ! Of that I am sure ...

Vacation pics took me when I have a moment .

Again for those readers who have followed my blog since 2011 - I know flavour has drastically changed and is now  used for my own family record keeping . I guess you still like it as still lots of readers following but my energy on the more creative philosophical side is going into my next book :))


Wednesday, August 02, 2017

My happy place



no time to edit again... here it is as is!


We all have our happy places in life .
Clearly mine is Trent 
And before Trent it was LDF
Cottages 
Outdoors . Nature . Escape 

When we are here for 3 weeks of vacation I truly have no need to go anywhere else or see anything else . Neither does my husband . This is it for us 
It often can take me a while to settle in from the transition from work to play ( hubby does immediately ) but when I do .... I really really do 

It fits us perfectly this place 
So far has been a lot of great weather days and downtime and relaxation. This last week a bit more on a schedule as I committed to facilitating two virtual training sessions ( something I won't commit to again as very much getting into the way of our kayak excursion plans ! )

So far a few moments of many not to forget :

Sleeping outside on sleeping dock almost nightly 
Skinny dipping in the lake almost daily in mornings when waking up 
The ducks awaiting for us :) our audience :)
Simsim making us the best dinner ever ( in the magical apron !! )
All five of us for 21hrs !!
Having bear here for 6 precious days and making him laugh all the time 
Planning Bali
Watching my daughter in love 
Chase and his hospital visit and me being on text with him all night 
Simpler meals 
Banana Popsicles 
The girls here and bonfire 
Barely being able to fall and stay asleep inside anymore 
Never coming inside unless late at night to eat 
Converting Simsim ( beauty's beau ) to our crazy eating hrs . Dinner at 10:47 pm anyone ?
Swimming everyday 
Finding our new cove : green peace
Spending so much time with our girl 

That's a few of them 
Many more 
I love Trent with my heart and soul 



Special Weekend

written 2 weeks ago...sorry no time to edit!

Up until about 2 yrs ago we used to so cherish the two weeks of summer all three kids were away at camp . Every year for maybe 10 yrs we had a week where we worked like crazy in day but morning and evenings to ourselves . Then always 6 days of vacation at the cottage alone together before 2 weeks of vacation as a family 

Times have changed ! Now we have 1 week with 2 kids , 2 weeks with one kid and 36 hrs max with the third as family vacation .

And these five days alone that we have on vacation starting last night with a romantic 21 marriage anniversary dinner ? We spent in the best way possible - with our son Chase who came down from Bromont . Was so incredibly nice and fun and not rushed .

Then Hubby and I left for cottage and arrived at 1am . We got a surprise text in morning and Chase said was coming for day to use seedoo and hang out ! Yahoo ! Boated and seedoed all day on the lake and swam in the hot and gorgeous weather . Took a long nap all three in the sun on the boat and woke up and snuggled .
Made the little prince his two fave meals since he has been deprived for 4 weeks now where he works .

After he was planning to leave but decided to stay and sleep here and leave at 8:00am the next morning and drive 4 hrs to his job .
We ate and did our tradition of leaving the dishes out and a mess until later on saturdays and moved to his fave couch. As usual we chatted and laughed and massaged him ( me his feet and hubby hands and back)

Was truly the best day and there is nobody in the world we prefer to hang out with than any of our three kids 
Quality over quantity is working for us around here quite well 
Will be interesting to all be back under the same roof come later august after both boys have had completely independent summers away working.

Beauty away for 2 weeks now but has also been incredibly wonderful to be alone with her so often just the three of us . She is maturing so much and with that getting so so so much closer and connected. It is the thing i feel most grateful for many days of the week 

This weekend felt like on of the first times where one of our kids came to the cottage out of pure joy vs being expected to. He got here and ran to the water . He slept in the sun . The next morning got up 15 mins early to go out on seedoo for a last ride .
The tickles on the couch, the special meals and spending no tech moments together , falling asleep on the couch .
Chase has the cottage bug like his mom and dad have always have .

Its what we had always hoped ... and he caught it !


Was a fabulous spontaneous and unexpected weekend of letting go and letting in .
Of sharing a weekend and time with an adult child ( did i say that ??? )

Other moments to remember :

Nic
Getting Beauty at camp 
Seeing Bear as a lifeguard at camp 
Kayak and biking with my new electric bike ! 
Lazy days 
Dancing latin with kids 
Kids finally finally doing what i  have always wanted  them to do ( cook , waterski , want to be in boat, clean up instinctively after themselves ) 







Monday, July 10, 2017

3 Reasons Why ....



 I decided that our 21st Wedding anniversary coming up Friday July 14... does matter the most.

I profoundly love, respect, trust and admire the Dad in these pictures below. And I get to call him mine. 

After one hell of a year (and a few years) and a hell of a ride with many bumps and obstacles, we are still kicking stronger together as a couple.
And that deserves to be celebrated doesn’t it?

If ever anyone needs to ask themselves if it is worth it? Take a look below; these pictures are worth a thousand words to me.

The Truth and the Trust is right before my eyes.










Friday, July 07, 2017

Life Lately

Note : I posted a few blogs same day so scroll down to read if you want more!

I am finding my blog very hard to keep up with lately . For a few reasons as work and life are getting more and more busy but also I will soon be launching a new book in 2018 and a lot of my focus is and will be doing on that . This is on top of course full time current career .

That being said lately I am devoting any blog entry to capture family memories as that is all I seem to have time for . I really want to do this mainly to preserve our family memories and it is a great way to be disciplined with pictures too . Each time I consider giving up the blog I feel sad .
So I am not giving it up ! More and more often will be a few  monthly posts often in rapid sequence and all with pictures capturing at least some snapshots of life around here .

June and beginning July was filled to the brim with fun stuff . Stuff that makes us so happy and fulfilled. With work can be hard to juggle to do weekend and evening stuff but all is worth it .

We had Father's Day and had all 5 at cottage for 6 hrs ! And dinner out at a great Greek resto . These days with the kids jobs 8 hrs all of us is precious and sacred !





These two left for their summer jobs working as lifeguard and bike instructor at 8 weeks sleep away camps 





This girl got into advanced math !!!! Was so wonderful as has struggled in math a lot this year and then final exams got both exams in the 90's ! We got a personal email from the director telling us they were putting her in the scientific advanced math for next two years ! She leaves for 2 weeks of camp on Sunday and has been working hard and daily babysitting 




We had a great visit from Savvy and Zandra from Toronto for a cottage weekend . Had a cool  mini version of PG 2017 in the jacuzzi with some interesting topics! Fun ! And visit was short and sweet but amazing as always . Savvy and I had so much to talk about live but also so connected daily or weekly by text that it's icing on the delicious cake when we get to see eachother ! Love that girl :)










Had a couple  of visits from soulkeeper and family  to use  new seedoo at cottage . Was so fun !






Celebrated early my moms 67th bday with a few of her friends . Was such a lovely and warm summer evening and wonderful to spend time with these great ladies 




Few other things to remember :

A great Visit with Savvy mom who has not been well lately and who lives close to me . Felt good to take time out of schedule and just be able to find time to do something that matters . Was such a nice visit and conversation and lifted my heart !

Had to go get Bear from his lifeguard job as being tested for mono :( I pray not that !

I stayed at cottage for 4 days alone between two long weekends and wrote the  skeleton draft of my book ! ( very very draft ! )

Hubby fire to himself in an extremely stupid and dangerous accident!
This burn got like a million trillion times worse . On both legs. this was only day 1. We cant decide if we should call him Ash or Puff


Happy summer  everyone !