Sewing!

Though I am thrilled summer is finally here, I am not a fan of the heat so much. Our house is crazy hot especially the upstairs and is relatively impossible to sleep in. Ryan last night put a bowl of ice in front of Camia's fan and the helped keep her room cool enough so she could sleep. I was up last night because of the heat and since I couldn't sleep, I decided to finish a project I started a few days ago. Meet Oopsie the Octopus, the newest member of Camia's softy collection. It was fun to make, she is purely made from scraps. I got to learn how to do a few different stitches, like the ladder stitch, which makes a hand-sewn seam look almost perfect. It took the longest as I have never really done a ladder stitch properly. Since practice makes perfect, I made good use of my seam ripper.

Another stitch I used was the blanket stitch.

Here she is, all complete and ready to be played with.

Though I am not sure I am ok with letting Camia play with her just yet. Perhaps she will sit somewhere in my room for me to admire.

A Week Gone By - almost

This week has been spent plying catch up due to the amount of time lost last week. Well actually, Wednesday was spent playing catchup since Monday and Tuesday I was sick with the same bug Ryan and Camia had. Thankfully it only lasted 2 days as opposed to Ryan's 5 and Camia's 6. Ryan came home to this on Monday:

I am thankful Camia decided to nap too. That way I could catch a few winks too. And then as the week went on, the temperatures continued to rise so we smelled flowers,

we set up the pool in the back yard:

And we went to the lake under a bright blue sky and basked in the sun in 33 degree weather, armed with iced caps, lots of water and juice. We went to the Veddar since the rest of the local lakes were jam packed with people. As long as we were at the river, I counted 9 people in my line of vision. Since there is a sand bar in the middle of the river, we had to wade from shore (where there was no place to really sit and let the kids play since the river had a wild current) to the sand bar in the middle of the river. We made several trips from one side to another, sat our kids down together and went back to get our jogging strollers which we carried over our heads. Well, M carried hers over her head. Mine was too heavy so I carried it just out of the water. Lesson? Next time no stroller!! To be fair, we weren't planning on crossing a river. I was counting on walking to Albert Dyke Park and sitting by the water there. Thankfully I had decided to already pack light and donned only my beach bag, small cooler bag, camera and purse. When we got to the other side, we found a little water pit that came off the main river and we sat there since the water was barely to my calves and there was no current for the kids to get swept away in. It was a great place for the 3 of us to hang out for the afternoon when it was really too hot to do anything else. And while sitting there it made me think that I had forgotten what it was like to have no obligations. I went from being crazy busy to the point of overwhelming and being gone almost every day to being home almost every day and having time to do some guiltless blogging. And sewing. See next post. In the meantime, here is a picture of our kiddos.

The Forecast!!

I keep looking at the forecast to make sure the weather people aren't changing their minds. I like what I see. Today I set up Camia's pool, I will post pictures of that later. It was a great way to stay cool this afternoon, and this year Camia is much more into 'go simmi' as she likes to put it. Here is what I see online whenever I check. So far it has not changed at all today! :D

Thu

27CSunny

Fri

28CSunny

Sat

26CMostly Sunny

Sun

26CMostly Sunny

Mon

24CMostly Sunny

Not that this forecast has anything to do with camping up at Herald, but we are hoping we get just as nice weather up there as we are forecasted to have down here!

Flowers!

Today I took my camera and shot some of my flowers into millions of pixels that will last forever. Unless my computer crashes. Then they will be gone. Unless I get my blog published. Then they will be forever somewhere :)

To be perfectly honest, these are not my own. I admire these through the split in my fence. These are my neighbours flowers. I like.

Camping June 2010

Last weekend we packed up our gear and went camping for 5 days at Cultus Lake with 3 other couples who all together had 4 other kidlets. We had reserved the biggest double site in the campground, which was perfect for our 3 big tents as well as a 5th wheel.

We were crossing our fingers since the weather forecast was not the greatest, but were happy when we had sunny weather that allowed us to have 1 beach day. Camia loved the water. She spent at least an hour laying on the dock reaching down into the water with her fingers. Great entertainment.


She also just plunked her little bottom by the edge of the lake and looked on at the water.

There were mosquito's, something to which Camia did not react very well. This is what it looks like still today:

There were also bubbles for the kids, which Camia thoroughly enjoyed too.

On the way home from the beach, Camia and William worked together - which is something else since they acted like siblings the whole weekend pretty much - and carried the tote of toys back to the site.

Well, kind of. I think William last 20 feet, so Camia dragged it by herself for a total of another 20 feet. Then they decided that it was quitin' time.

This wagon was the favourite toy amongst all the kids. They fought over it all weekend. And they also played the best together with it all weekend. Like I said....sibling rivalry amongst those who are not related.

When we got back to the site, I got a pedicure from William.

For a 3 year old, this is not a half bad job.

And then on Sunday it poured. And rained. And poured some more. After dropping Ryan off at church in the afternoon, I headed with Camia back to the campsite where I scurried - in heels and a tight ish skirt - to drape tarps over the tents to prevent the inside of the tents from getting as wet as the outside. In 5 minutes or less I was drenched to the skin, my heels had more rain than feet in them and the tents still were not all covered. I should have changed before I started. At least my shoes anyways. I think that any passer by-ers would have thought it looked quite humorous to see me in this state of affairs. Who knows. Perhaps right at this moment someone is blogging about me and uploading photos from their camera phones and laughing silently. Hmm. That thought is actually kind of creepy. No. Not kind of. It is.

In five days of camping, uh-oh got washed 3 times. First on Sunday at my moms since he was quite filthy. The second time she left him in the wagon while it rained and I in my heels wasn't thinking about him right at that exact moment and third on Monday. In five minutes of downpour, he looked like this:Ewww. I all I have to say about that. After holding him under the hand dryer and a blow dryer for about an hour, he was ready to be cuddled again. The things we do for our kids...And when the guys came home from church, they tried to string tarps up. I think it was finished raining when they were just done. Here they are debating. I told them they looked like a bunch of construction workers.

And then after all this, Camia got sick. She was violently sick on Monday, starting around lunch time. And since we've gotten home she's been on the couch with a fever and towels and a bucket.

We were due to come home Tuesday morning/afternoon, but we all ended up leaving Monday night since 2 kids were puking sick and 2 adults were not feeling so lovely either. Despite this minor setback, we are all still talking of repeating again next year. And getting the same site.

Mill Lake

Last week Camia and I went for a walk at Mill Lake with Carla and her girls. Though the weather was not all the warm, it was a perfect day for a walk in the park. Camia loves ducks and almost fell out of her stroller a couple times while looking at them.

So I took her out of the stroller

And this is what happened next...a run away.

While walking around the Lake, we saw a Canadian Goose with 3 little ones, and I couldn't help but capture it forever. (this photo only shows 2, but the other little goose is somewhere)

We saw a turtle

And I saw some little blue flowers.

A New Bracket

As I was filling out a survey yesterday, I realized that I fell into a different bracket in the age category now that I've reached the tip of a quarter way to a century. I am no longer in the 18-24 range, but now fall into the 25-30 range. It was a nice day, I was at home all day and had several calls as well as visitors. And Camia even let me sleep in! 'Twas a great day. I got beautiful flowers

And of course my lovely Kitchen Aid that I've been using since March. It's possibly my very favourite kitchen tool.And, since Ryan had a soccer game last night, one of my friends came to spend the evening with me and we watched An Affair to Remember and sipped Green Iced Tea, which could possibly be my new favourite drink. A drink I can only handle in small doses.