Before 9

Before 9am we went camping, built a fire, rescued some stray animals and built a corral for them behind the ottoman, created a bird sanctuary on the coffee table, made pancakes, laughed at the comics from the Sunday paper, took all of the babies for a walk in the stroller, and slept under the stars outside of the tent.

After 9am fevers grew, coughs became persistent, crankiness abounded and I instilled doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. In fact, I was so serious about this, I made jammies go back on. And by 6pm, the day turned around. Just in time for bed.

good times.

We celebrated Everly's sweet little friend Tay's birthday this afternoon. These two are a dynamic duo who have built their friendship on like-minded ways such as tenacity, imagination, and their never-ending love of pink and all things girlie. Fine with us, their moms say as we sip our coffee and chat while they play.

Everly was beyond excited for Tay's party today. She woke up asking about it. We began wrapping her present at 8am and the wrapping concluded in three different stages throughout the day. She tried on different outfits and "party clothes" and asked questions about the party with a nervous excitement. It was pretty cute. And a big deal. Because I realized as time crept closer to Party Time, Everly has never been to her very own friend's party. Like any second born, she tags along a lot to her brother's friend's parties with other kids her age. And she has been invited to her friend's parties, but being three there's only really one year of opportunity to have a party she can remember and I think we've been out of town for all of them. Hence, Operation Complete Party Preparation (it lasted all day).

I think her excitement about the event was absolutely fulfilled when the party consisted of all of her friends, making beaded necklaces, a game involving a blindfold and a rainbow cake. And there was Everly the entire time, with an excited grin and eyes wide with wonder. She kept whispering to me "This is a party!".

affirming.

We have a little set of frames by our front door where we all can write each other little love notes throughout the day. Little words of thanks or appreciation or adoration. We put it in our main hallway where it would be visible all day, every day. Jeremy and I exchange little notes to each other, and notes to the kids. They love it. They stare at it. They ask us to read it to them over and over again.

And then yesterday I found Parker and Everly with a stool they pushed over from the kitchen, wiping off each other's old words from Jeremy and I and writing little notes to each other. Parker has learned to write (a lot!) since the beginning of the year. He read it to Ev and she smiled and held his hand and then had him wait with his eyes closed for her to finish. She wrote a series of hearts, each one meaning something different as she pointed to them and told him "Love, hug, kiss, friend, playing with you". Ah, such cuteness.

Happy {belated} Halloween!

We were gone for Halloween this year - an unprecedented moment for Jeremy and I. Beyond Christmas, Halloween is probably our favorite holiday to celebrate with the kids. So much fun. Since we were up on Vancouver Island, we were going to travel the 4 hours back, involving a long ferry ride to come home for a few hours and participate but we were talked out of it by four doting grandparents who were excited to "man the holiday" by themselves. And when you mix in dressing up, trick or treating, walking about town in costume and organizing a large loot of candy, apparently we aren't even missed in the slightest.

 And since it POURED down rain, Everly was completely happy with the stash she got from town and opted to stick around the house and answer the door and handout candy while Parker finished up with the neighborhood. At one point my mom said she asked him if he was wet and he said "Only to my skin" and then she asked if he was cold and he replied "Only where I'm wet". Buddy, the grandparents said they hadn't seen it rain that hard in a long time. And I think he was soaked and cold everywhere. But candy has a way of distracting.

Everly managed to make this extraordinary cookie at her preschool Halloween celebration. It's difficult to balance two pounds of toppings on a small cookie, but she managed to be successful.

Jonah and the Whale.

Parker has declared he shall be a marine biologist when he grows up. And if a five year old's month long obsession can project the future, I believe him. He is gathering and memorizing as much information about whales and sharks right now as humanly possible. He can name all the classifications, species, and scientific names of whales and sharks right now as well as A LOT of random facts.

Tonight, as usual, we were reading The Scientific Classification of Whales and Encyclopedia of Whale Species (it's a real page turner, let me tell you), and I began reading a little side bar excerpt. As soon as I started I paused a tiny bit, but kept reading because we're reading this book word for word, no matter how scientific it gets or difficult to understand for even mom and dad. The excerpt was called "Jonah and The Whale; Fact or Fiction, a myth proven wrong." I read part of it, laying in his little bed, Parker listening intently, when he put his hand on my arm and says "Stop for a minute. I need to tell you something." And this wise little guy put into words some things that astounded me.

"So, there's two types of stories. Fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is made up and non-fiction is not fake, which means it's true. I think this book says Jonah and The Whale is fiction. But it's non-fiction. It's in my bible and I have my own bible and I believe it's true. Different families believe different things, and I know my bible is non-fiction. Other people think it's fiction, but that's not what I think. God is in Heaven and Jesus helps me. It's like I'm like a ship and he helps steer me. Some of my friends don't know that, but they are still nice and some day they might know about all that like me."

And just like that, the conversation ended. I tried to ask him a few questions, but he said he wanted to just keep reading, so we did. And I laid there, trying to memorize every word he said so I could keep it with me forever. Because this is the moment. The moment where our decision to put him in public schools because we believe in them and we also believe we can have our own values and greatly benefit from friends of all kinds and backgrounds came together. That Parker learning about different families, different worlds, different cultures benefits all of us, without changing our beliefs in our home.

Just like that, my hopes and prayers came together in an instant. Whales and fiction and non-fiction and Jonah and International Baccalaureate public schools and beliefs all came together in a little five-year-old mind and he eloquently explained everything I've been trying to faithfully let go of.

"But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24.15

Distractions.

We realized something on this trip. We realized that we cannot get enough time with our dear friends who live way too far away from us (they had to leave a couple of days early). We realized that we never run out of things to talk about with each other. And we realized that we can have a good time for about 5 days at the most before missing our kids turns into a slight desperation of missing our kids. So we spent the last couple of days of our trip ramping up the distractions to keep our minds occupied amidst the "I wonder what they're doing right now. I wonder if someone put an extra pillow under Evie's little head for her cough at night. I wonder what Parker's favorite part of school was today..."

We arrived home tonight to squeals of glee (them and us) and spent the next four hours before bedtime chatting and catching up. Parker taught us new math games he learned at school, Everly reenacted answering the door for trick or treaters and we all poured over the photos we took to show them the time we had and the spots we scouted out to revisit as a family. And then we kissed and hugged and snuggled them in their beds way past their bedtime and talked to them until their eyes finally closed. And then we stayed just a little bit longer. It feels so good to be home.

Here's how we enjoyed distracting ourselves...

 We found every delicious bakery we could and enjoyed many a treat at each one.

 

We also found multiple delicious cafes to drink coffee at and eventually wandered into a bookstore and treated ourselves to a book to enjoy over said coffee.

 We went kyaking on smooth and pristine waters.

 

 We went hiking to Englishman Falls. This is a photo of the aftermath of the falls that was right behind me, but the falls were literally so HUGE that I couldn't get a photo of them with my wide-angle lens. It was like a mini version of Niagara Falls and then all that water that water disappeared into a rock cavern and shot out the other side. It was unbelievable.

 We rode a lifeboat in the pouring rain out to a tiny island where we enjoyed lunch at a floating pub.

 And Jeremy noted this combines a few of his loves in life - docks, saltwater, pubs and beer.

 And then we drove up to a gigantic bridge over a river and went ziplining. Very fun. Very distracting.

 It was also pouring down rain during that excursion, but we are not fair-weather people.

 It was good to find out that no matter how much we could pack in or look forward to this vacation, we miss our kids. And sometimes it feels really good to miss them. And good to get home.

exploration.

 

We have been exploring this beautiful island up and down. We have walked sandy, endless beaches. We have visited tiny bakeries. We have walked through the woods. We scrambled down the banks of rivers. And we took ourselves on a mighty fine little wine tour through the valley. We did so with friends by our sides and conversation about life, kids and home flowing. Exploring this island and celebrating a decade long friendship has been grand. And it's not even over yet!