Thursday 23 June 2011

The beginnings of a great summer...but it still feels like spring outside!!!

The winters are harsh, but I'm definitely acclimated to the Canadian summers!  Temperatures have been in the mid 70's...today it is supposed to be 80.  I've been told that it doesn't get much warmer than this.  It does feel a lot warmer in the sun, but there is no humidity.  Sounds great, hey?

We've already have a wonderful visit with my mom and Scott.  And I realized that I forgot to mention how silly my mom was about Canadian money.  She could not figure out which coin was which.  If you've never seen Canadian coins before, they are almost the same sizes and colors as American coins...which is why we thought it was ridiculous that she couldn't figure it out.

Casey's mom came to visit for 2 weeks...just left us on Monday.  We had a very nice visit with her too although the weather could have cooperated a bit more towards the end of her trip including her flight home.  Thanks to crazy midwestern storms, she got to fly from Minneapolis to Kansas City (almost land) and fly back to Minneapolis, spend the night in the airport, and fly again from Minneapolis to Kansas City the next morning.  Yikes!!!

But we did get to do some fun things during her visit.  We went to the Children's Festival on the river and had lunch at the Bus Stop.  Brogan had a blast at the Children's Festival...planted sunflower seeds (which are growing like crazy in our window sill), dug for fossils, and made lots of art projects. 


We also went to Kinsmen Park (missed out on the carousel and train rides AGAIN!!!), sampled lots of yummy foods at the farmer's market, and played at lots of playgrounds.  We had lots of fun hanging out with Nonny and were very sad to see her go.



This week Brogan started the first of three summer camps.  He has been fairly clingy since the move, so I was a bit nervous to drop him off.  I'm happy to report that he is LOVING camp!  I'm pretty sure that he is going to be sad when this week is over.  They are learning about farm animals this week...a different animal each day.  He is so excited to go to camp and find out what animal they are going to talk about.  I had high hopes for my mornings with Neala...but nothing ever seems to pan out.  I end up just hanging at home listening to the silence.  It's kind of nice in its own way.  Maybe I will have to plan better for the next camp.

There is a salon for kids in Saskatoon called Beaners, and we have been taking Brogan there for haircuts.  At the end, they will spike up his hair and spray color in his hair...just colored hair spray I believe.  Well, this last time, he chose red.  It looked like the red had faded out over the course of the day, but when it came to bath time, Brogan had red dye dripping down his face and it had turned his bath water pink.  It was like a scene from a horror movie...so I thought I would share the picture.



Neala seems to have taken off these last couple of weeks!  She has started eating fruits and veggies.  Her first was sweet potatoes, and she was definitely not a fan.  They made her gag!  But she has taken much better to squash, prunes, and apples.  She is a really good eater and gets very antsy/angry when she sees us making her food or when it's all gone.



Neala also has a lot of new "tricks".  She is rolling over all the time and just started sitting up by herself for short periods of time.  She is working on her crawling skills, but right now does what I like to call the "snow plow".  Her face is on the ground, butt up in the air, legs going like crazy pushing her around a bit.  It's pretty amusing to watch.  She also likes to put her toes in her mouth (which totally makes me want to vomit).  One night she was sucking on her toes and gagged herself...threw up all over the place!



Casey and I are doing well.  Casey had a successful shutdown...unfortunately he has another to look forward to at the end of the summer because there are 2 crush plants here.  He is also working on a new project at the plant...installing a pelletizer to increase the amount of meal they can get into a rail car.  He loves project work...I love the end of his project work!  

We had fun playing in a golf tournament...first time I had golfed in 4 years and didn't do too bad.  I took home the title for Women's Longest Drive.  Other than that, I just continue to enjoy the kids every day.  It's nice being able to stay at home, but I do miss working (mostly the people I worked with!).  And I miss "home" very much!!!  Counting down the days until I get to see friends and family!!!