Gavin and Abby - five and two already!

I changed my setup a little from doing Rachel's picture (I'm going to redo hers too, actually) and did pictures of the big kids yesterday. I'm not sure who was harder - Gavin, who didn't seem to understand what smile normally meant; or Abby, miss short-attention span! I did get a couple that I was happy with, anyway. You'll probably be seeing them in your mailbox soon. :)

Next up...getting all three together...

Our vacation part 2 - Hamilton/Niagara Falls

We said our goodbyes in Toronto Friday morning and headed down to Hamilton to visit our friends Dustin and Jolene. Dustin and Jolene were our across-the-hall neighbors when we lived in Caronport, and now Dustin is working on his Doctorate at McMaster University. We hadn't seen them for about four years, since Gavin was just over a year and their son Nate was seven weeks old! The boys are now five and four, and we have five children between us!

We found our way to their house quite easily, and once we figured out where to park (they have some complicated system where on odd days with full moons and more than seven clouds in the sky you park on one side of the street, and then on even days with...I don't know, it confused us anyway!) we headed in.

We had a wonderful day together - the guys took Gavin and Nate to the park while the girls were napping, and we were going to join them later...but discovered Abby had used her dirty diaper to make a very big mess in their playpen before she fell asleep! We scrubbed and rinsed both Abby and the playpen, and finally headed out to the park, only to meet the guys already on their way home. We had a nice dinner together and then we headed down to Niagara Falls.

After checking into our hotel, we got everyone dressed in warmer clothes and went down to find a good spot to watch the fireworks from. Gavin had been talking about these fireworks for months, so he was pretty excited! The kids both were really impressed by them, and once some of the crowd cleared we went back to our hotel with two very tired kids (Rachel had slept through the fireworks in the sling).

Saturday morning Dustin and Jolene and their kids met us at our hotel and we spent the day together in Niagara. We did the Maid of the Mist boat ride, which was a great success even though a couple of us had to go to the washroom before we even got on the boat (we had assumed there would be a lobby-area inside to take care of these things, but once you pay for your ticket, it's just a big long line down the hill and into the elevators and onto the boat). Rachel was due to be fed as well, but thankfully she again was happily sleeping in the sling and didn't wake up until we were off the boat. We did remember to ring a waterproof camera on the Maid of the Mist, so we will have some pictures of that once we pick them up.

Like any touristy place, it seems to take a long time to get things done in Niagara (and I'm sure having five little kids with us didn't help!) so we had something to eat, visited the Hershey and Coca-Cola stores, and then somehow it was almost time to go already! We said goodbye after a wonderful couple of days filled with laughter - we had almost forgotten how much fun we have together!

Next...Part 3 - New York!

Nate and Gavin playing - they did really well together!

Getting ready for the fireworks

Niagara Falls at night - I would have loved to have tried more night photography there, but I didn't have my tripod and my hands were needed to watch children!

Our family at the Falls (Rachel's in the sling, of course - I had a lovely one-sided tan from carrying her all day)!

Dustin and Jolene and us

The rest of the Hamilton/Niagara pictures are at: http://fclark.smugmug.com/gallery/3386168#189169955

Rachel at three months

I think she's going to be a character like the other two!!! :)

Our vacation Part 1 - Toronto

After getting up very early Monday morning, we got to the airport on time and boarded our plane, leaving at 7:10am. We had a quick touchdown in Edmonton, and then on to Calgary, where we made our transfer to another flight to Toronto. Fortunately, none of our kids have ever had any trouble with their ears when flying! On our Calgary to Toronto flight, we were seated in the 'kid section' - there must have been more than ten little kids in the span of about three rows! We did get a couple of compliments on how well-behaved our kids were, which was very nice to hear (although the man Abby kept kicking in front of her didn't mention anything!).

Once we got to Toronto we had a bit of a scare when the kids' carseats didn't come off of the plane at first (Gavin and Rachel's carseats were checked baggage, and we brought Abby's on the plane - we knew we'd want her to be restrained!). Thankfully after some checking by the WestJet agents, the carseats did show up. Greg and Gavin took the shuttle to pick up our rental van, and I watched over our seven pieces of luggage (and Abby and Rachel) at the airport. Our rental was a Grand Caravan, so it was very familiar to us since ours is also a Caravan!

We headed to my Aunt Marilyn's house, which is just a few minutes from the Toronto Airport. We had a great time visiting over the next few days - we spent one day at Ontario Place (hmm, those pictures must be on the other camera), and went for a picnic with my cousins Doug and Gayle and her kids (where we nearly were attacked by flocks of Canada geese!). The kids got to go swimming a couple of times, and I think Gavin read every single book in my aunt's house!

Greg teaching Gavin how to skip rocks at the lake

Abby took quite a liking to my cousin Doug!

Aunt Marilyn loves babies!

The rest of the Toronto pictures can be seen here: http://fclark.smugmug.com/gallery/3373032#188315504

We're home!

We got back from our wonderful vacation late last night (which felt even later since we were all still on Eastern time!). We had such a great time over the last two weeks - thank you again to everyone who hosted us and visited with us!

I'm just starting to download and organize all 300 pictures from our trip, and as I get through those I'll post some here along with a few stories from the trip to entertain/bore all of you! ;)

Hello from Niagara Falls!

We're in our hotel in Niagara Falls using Greg's laptop and taking advantage of the free wireless internet!

We've had a wonderful vacation so far - we just left this morning from a great visit with Farrell's Aunt Marilyn in Toronto. We spent a day at Ontario Place with the kids (which they loved, of course), and had a picnic by the lake with Farrell's cousins and their kids. This morning we drove down to Hamilton to visit our friends Dustin and Jolene who lived across the hall from us in our Caronport days. We haven't seen them since their oldest child was seven weeks and Gavin was 15 months! We had a wonderful day with them...apart from a rather gruesome incident involving Abby, a borrowed playpen, a dirty diaper, and some artistry on her part. (Sorry again guys!)

After supper we drove down here to Niagara Falls (and didn't hit any traffic, unlike last time we were here!), checked into our hotel, and then headed out to watch the fireworks. The kids both were very impressed. ;) Rachel slept right through the fireworks cuddled up with mommy in the sling. Tomorrow Dustin and Jolene are coming down to meet us in the morning and we're going to do the Maid of the Mist and some other attractions together. Tomorrow evening we head across the border to New York to visit Wade and Wendy!

We're having a wonderful time together as a family and will have lots of pictures to share when we get home! (I could technically post them now from Greg's computer, but honestly I'm too lazy to get up and do it right now!)

We hope everyone is having a good summer - we sure are!

And off we go!

We've got almost everything packed and ready to go and soon we'll be hitting the sack since we have to get up very early tomorrow to make it to the airport on time! Our flight leaves at 7am tomorrow and we'll be in Toronto by 4pm their time, 2pm our time.

We spent most of this week in Toronto visiting Farrell's aunt and spending a day at Ontario Place, and then visit with friends in Hamilton (they lived across the hall from us in Caronport). We're spending a night in Niagara Falls, and then driving across the border to New York to spend the week with friends there (the pastor that Greg interned under in Moose Jaw). We are really looking forward to it!

We will be checking email occasionally but probably won't post here until we get back in a couple of weeks. See you then!

First haircut!

Little Miss Abby had her first haircut today! I took her to a hair salon here in town where one of the girls on my youth worship team works so she could cut it - I didn't think Abby would sit for a stranger!

We just cut a little bit off so the ends weren't so raggedy, and then she layered it a little bit as well 'to add body'! Who knew a two year-old needed body?!?

Before:

After:

Swimming lessons, take two

The last time Gavin took swimming lessons was about a year and a half ago - we got ambitious and signed him up for lessons in Grande Prairie during the winter. He was not quite four. He enjoyed it, I think, but was very freaked out by anything that resembled water touching his face. When the class played games or sang songs that included splashing, he would scream and take five minutes to recover each time a drop of water got near his eyes. He was very nervous about doing any jumping into the water or letting go of his teachers when they tried to get him to do floats or anything similar.

Fast forward to this summer. At the last minute, we decided to put Gavin in lessons here at the outdoor pool in Beaverlodge - we will probably be doing some swimming on our vacation starting next week, and we didn't want him to be screaming the whole time! :)

The lessons have been every day for last week and this week. Gavin's been doing great! The first two days he was his 'usual' self, refusing to put his eyes in the water, and holding so tightly to his teacher's neck when they went to the deep end (with lifejackets) that I kept hearing her say "Gavin, you're choking me! Gavin, you're choking me!" But by the third day something changed and we cannot believe the improvement he has made! He happily paddles off to the deep end in his lifejacket, jumps in off the side after just a moment of gathering his courage, and today he was going totally underwater to pick things up off of the bottom of the pool! We are just amazed that this is our kid!

We are just so proud of him we have to share some pictures of him at his lessons this week:

He still freaks out for a minute when it's his turn to go down the slide, but he does it! Today was the first time he went down without his teacher standing right at the bottom.