A Week Long Journey

 For memory sake and for family I wanted to post about our trip to Smithers. We rented a motor home from church friends and headed up to Green Lake as our first stop. It wasn't worth camping over night here in the end... seeing as it took up an extra 2 hours of our time but it was neat to see a different lake. Our campsite backed onto a nice large grass field and a playground within close sight. Camron was adimit about swimming in the lake that evening so after he jumped in to get washed up Alivia followed and Abby too of course. After the sun set it soon began to get dark and Geoff and I enjoyed s'mores over the campfire and the full sky of stars.

Our ride for the week.

Excited to go.

For the most part the girls sat in their seats...

Camron on the other hand loved it up top by himself.

First stop- Green Lake. (not sure why he's grum

A Quarter Century Young!

I am so behind on blogging on here its terrible but life has been still going regardless. Now that the summer fun is now ending and slowly heading into the fall months I'm feeling more compelled to write on here again. Time to pull out the sewing machine (maybe) and get back into the hobby groove. 

We had a very fun packed summer with many beautiful sunny days. We went on quite a few day trips and even a week holiday up to Smithers BC to visit my whole VanderDeen family again. 

These blogs pictures are from way back in June on my birthday. Abigail has an inconsistant lazy eye and with that requires a few doctors appointments. We were booked in to see a childrens eye specialist next to the Vancouver General Hospital. The date happened to land on my birthday much to our surprise but I was thinking it would make a fun family trip out there. We booked a beautiful hotel with the whole interior redone and smelling new. The only scary thing was the balcony railings were not secure so we couldn't let the kids outside. Thinking back... we had a very restless nights sleep with our kids waking several times but all in all it was good. 

The van was loaded down to the max, just barely fitting in all of our bikes plus the bike trailer but with some figuring out and some tires coming off we made it work. We biked for 15 km along the Seawall running from Granville Island to the end of the sea wall. We had an amazing day! 

Abigail's raoring to go to the appointment... and into the toilet!

Looking at the map with free wi-fi.

Over looking false creek. We found many crabs and feathers.

Birthday gift time. I was sure spoiled!

It was a rough go at the beginning but before long the girls got the hang of it.

Fast asleep!

Father's Day

I figured its never to late to post an old happening... (or is it?!) anyways I thought this was to cute to not post since the kids loved helping out with this idea....We ended up getting these photos printed on a mug.
To daddy,
We love you!

A tribute to Alivia

Has it really been that long since my last post, yikes! I'm trying to think back what happened since June and first came to mind was Alivia's 2nd birthday. We had a great celebration and she loved being spoiled. We bought her a play kitchen and she plays with it everday.
She has sure changed, with more communication and talking. She learns at least 1 new word a day and surprising us with very random sentences. She has a love for dollys and puppies. She's always hauling her favorite blanket around with the nice silky edge on it. She's a sweetheart through and through and daddy's little cuddler. We love you!

1 month old
born June 3rd, weighing 5 lbs 7oz

6 months old
at 9 months she was crawling.

1 year old
and walking just 2 days before her birthday

17 months
and such a sweetheart!

2 years old!

Time in the Sun!

Camron helping me in the flowerbeds, weeding, cleaning, watering... he's in there like a dirty shirt all the time. He loves to discover bugs!

Alivia hasn't been feeling to well this past week and before that. She's up to par now and gaining her lost weight back. She's always packing around her dollies and playing house with Camron.

Abigail is almost 8 months. She's crawling and standing up and anything she can! She's turning into a busy girl already and I have to wash and vaccum almost every night. She's now sharing a room with Alivia but they seem to keep each other up all the time... I know its a phase but one I'm hoping will be out of soon.

While the kids play outside I like to be there with them but you can only do so much gardening and cleaning up so I've been thinking of ideas and crafty things to do while watching them outside. I found this idea off of pinterest and ran with it. I love all my tools! I bought a drill, jigsaw, compound saw and I have a few more to add to the list yet. I'm sure Geoff doesn't mind me adding to the collection!

Spray paint... how I love thee! Its so easy and fast!

I purchased a few plants for this and took some out of other peoples gardens... I won't disclose them :)

The final project is complete ready to be hung up on the fence. I love how the red pops around the edge. A few of the plants are almost ready to bloom already too.

Biking

Our family found a new love...the love of biking. Almost every sunny (ish) day I'd go for a walk with the kids and slowly burn off my baby weight. This year Camron learned how to ride his bike but without training wheels. I wasn't up for jogging quite yet pushing a double stroller so I was pretty keen on buying some bikes. Although bikes weren't exactly in our budget we have been making due (very well, they are nice bikes) with free ones! I love reusing things and saving money. I'm riding Geoff's Oma's old bike. He fixed it up for me, replaced the brakes and patched a few things here and there. A few weeks ago we hit some garage sales and picked up 2 more bikes. Between the 2 Geoff got himself a very nice bike too. I bought a bike trailer off a facebook group and now we try go twice a week after dinner. I go with the kids during the day often too. Camron is so good a biking, he'll do 5 km no problem! Abigail isn't a fan of sitting in the bike trailer, I'm really hoping she'll grow out of that. If we plan a bike trip around her nap time she'll nicely sleep the whole way, even better :)

Getting the trailer hooked up.

Pedal to the metal!

Enjoying a picnic lunch.

There was half a tire sticking out of the water, I told Camron it's probably an alligator and if we were quiet it wouldn't come to eat us. He wasn't to impressed and asked to stand up in the tree. He was happy to wave goodbye when we left.

VanLaar Photoshoot

A huge thanks goes to Joanne Bos. Thanks you! (http://www.joannebosphotography.com/blog/2012/04/26/the-vanlaars/)I love the pictures, they turned out beautiful! Looking forward to printing them and putting them up.