Round 1 to the table

We had inaugural handbells last night. A wanted to come with me so I let her. She brought her bears and read them stories, put them to bed, played with the clothespins (used to help turn pages quickly with gloves on for the non handbell players out there) and really just entertained herself.  She did really really well until the last two pages of music. Literally we were on the last page and she ran head long down the center aisle, right into a table. We managed to get lots of blood and a fat lip from the experience. Maybe we will also learn to continue reading her books when mommy says we are almost done. Here's hoping.

Tubing, Pool Style

The lifeguards were bored and since we were the only kids there we got to play with the rescue tubes! 

Ear Tubes

Yesterday G received a set of tubes for his ears. It was a nice quick surgery, I think it took all of 15 minutes. The doctor told us that there was a lot of fluid in the ears that was suctioned out during the surgery. There has also been a bit of drainage.  G will tell us that his ears feel better (we're taking whiplash inducing head shaking of, "yes") when we ask.  He came out of the aesthetic mad as a hornet and then calmed down about half way home. He also took a nap and got the rest of the medicine out of his system. By the time we got home he was ready to play and go about his day.

Overall this has been an interesting week here. We started with a cyclist with several connections to people at work being killed on his way to work.  The driver had crossed over two lanes of traffic to accidentally hit the cyclist. It has caused quite the stir amidst the cycling community here.

Chris is getting ready for a new fall term that brings a new set of challenges. He will hopefully not have to teach at night, or only teach one night a week. 

Anyway, off to face another hot, humid, sticky day.

Swim Lessons + Thunderstorms

The past two weeks we've been dealing with swim lessons and thunderstorms. Swim lessons were only supposed to last one week, but because of the storms, they lasted the better part of 2 weeks. We learned a lot, including that G doesn't really want to swim until you get him in the water. Then good luck getting him out. A will need to continue her swimming, but that involves a bit more time away from mom and dad than she'd like. She hasn't figured out how to move her arms and legs fast enough to effectively keep her head above water. She has a few more years at the current level before she can test out though, so hopefully we will continue to practice and test out next year. 

We've finally gotten some much needed rain. The thunderstorms are understandably at the end of the day as our days are typically around 100 degrees.  We enjoy the storms, but the kids are still not so sure. G will sleep through them if he's asleep, but they wake A up. 

G will be getting tubes this Wednesday. Hopefully it will be an easy surgery and not a lot different than what we have now.  We expect him to "hear a bit better" though we can't really tell that he's lost any hearing. Hopefully any damage that has been done this far will go away and is not lasting. 

I suppose that's the update from NC. How about you?

Cool Pops!

One of G's favourite words is cool pops! It even sounds enough like the word to often get what he asks for.  We have them as snacks after school. Here the kids are enjoying their snack

Video

At the blackberry festival A talked with my boss about getting a princess ukulele with ninja turtle stickers.  She then said that G could have a ninja turtle ukulele to play with her.  She has previously said that she and G are going to have a band that plays about Jesus and play in church. So here is her rendition of what there band will be like once G is playing both guitar and drums.

Future Band: https://youtu.be/8bEWTPYiNp0

Blackberry Festival

We have a blackberry festival in our town yearly. Since we had nothing else to do today, and taking two young children to play in the 90+ degree weather for a few hours sounded like a good idea, we walked up the street to see what this blackberry festival was all about. The kids did quite well and only got testy towards the end. Or neighbours run the train that goes in around a block, so blessedly we got to ride for free. G had decided that trucks and trains are the best thing EVER and we had trouble getting him off. Alexis also liked going and talked the neighbour girls into riding with her when Chris and I got tired.

Overall a new lackey had started for Chris. Hopefully, this guy will work out better than the last helper he had. Summer sessions are almost over, so hopefully we won't end up with a truly wacky fall term.

Nothing new is really happening for me at work.  We have our biannual qualification happening this next week, so the past week has been a bit stressful preparing for it.