So...

You dress for what looks to be a rainy day and wind up sweating in the beautiful, cloudless sky that emerges 10 minutes after you leave the house...

This is while you are walking with the kindergarten class from the school to the gymnastics club for a field-trip...

This is after the teacher, the other parents and you have made sure all the kindergarten kids have on their jackets and sweaters so they are all sweating too...

I could not be a kindergarten teacher, I was far to tempted to tell them to suck it up. If I am going to sweat, so can they!

Six.

Today I am not going to post about living up north... Today is my baby boy's 6th birthday. I am in awe that six years have past since he was born.


Each time either of my kids have a birthday, I find myself thinking back to where I was on the day they were born, at certain times during the day... Maria was born at night after 4 hours of labour and I can still remember the day leading up to her birth (going to the Dr. in the morning, having lunch with my Mom and Irene, watching Tony Parsons on the news, falling asleep on the couch and waking up to my water breaking!).
Allan was born at 8am after less than two hours of labour. So for him I recall lifting up Maria at 6am and feeling my water break, the contractions started about 15 minutes later.

I can remember being quite mad at Anne because she wanted to have a shower before we left for the hospital (I was in labour! There is no logic!) I also remember arriving at the hospital and only having about 1/2 hour until he was born.


So my day of recollection for Allan's birth is over by 8 am... from there my day of recollection gets difficult.
Most days, I forget that Allan ever had anything wrong with him. He is such a happy, healthy, active, smart and charming little boy. But on his birthday I re-live it a little bit and the re-run lasts for a little more than a month, until the day we got to go home from the hospital. That was a day of pure joy and excitement and sunshine and Maria's crazy curls and Allan's gaunt little shaved head and Suki being ecstatic and Michael and I finally able to relax and celebrate our new addition to our family.


That said, today IS Allan's birthday and we will be having fun and celebrating the big boy that he is turning into and trying to grant him a few wishes along the way.

Happy birthday my little man, I love you.

May Long Weekend!

There is a strange tradition up here for the May long weekend, I had never really heard of it before. We missed out on it the first year we were here but we have totally been overwhelmed by it this and last year. I am not much of a fan of this tradition... in fact it is not very popular at all, but...


You can't stop the snow.

From my yard...

Although it may be a "postage-stamp" sized yard within the city limits, we are surrounded by nature. In many ways more so than any other house we have lived in (except the one we rented for a year between Crofton and Duncan - but about equal to that!).

From my yard I have seen several moose, elk, deer (they were IN my yard), fox, Michael saw a wolf (eek!), squirrels, loads of birds... The only thing my tiny yard is lacking is the privacy and seclusion from neighbours... but I am working on that. I have trees and gardens growing to hopefully help bring some on my much loved privacy. And today is a beautiful day (around 23 degrees!) and a good day to be working outside... so that is where I will be!

Sandals and Snow

Spring is definitely upon us here... about two months earlier than last year, although there is still a very good chance that we will see snow again before summer arrives, it isn't likely to last.

I have flowers blooming (and yet unidentified - I need to download the pics from my camera) and tulips, iris' and dahlias coming. My trees are budding and my grass is growing! Today we are expected to reach 24 degrees, and it is beautiful outside! While dropping the kids off at school the people are all in the mood for warm weather... shorts and t-shirts and sandals on almost everyone... including me. Yet, I still have snow in my back yard! Only a little bit, the remainder of the snow-slide Hubby built for the kids and it is in the shade... but it seems strange to be wearing sandals and to be able to kick snow!

Home...

We are home after a rather long time away. It was spring break and therefore time for my son's annual check-up with his doctor in Victoria. We take advantage of the fact that we will be on the Island to visit with all the people that we love and miss during the rest of the year. This year we were there even longer than planned as hubbies grand-father passed away just before spring break so we went down early for the funeral as well.


It is almost shocking, going down to the Coast and the Island now. It is so moist and so very green... almost suffocatingly so at times. The damp is everywhere and I never noticed it at all for the first 34 years of my life! It is beautiful and stunning to look at, but also rotten and decaying at the same time... The rain that used to seem so normal is now overwhelming and seemingly, constant. It is not home, anymore. It makes me sad to admit that, and I do know that if we were to move back I would soon adjust, but it is true. I have grown out of the bonds that held me to the coast.

I still love the ocean and the gardens and the green... I love the clean. Everything is scrubbed clean down there by the frequent rain, unlike the dust and dirt that coat everything up here. More than anything though, I miss the people that I love, both family and friends. However, I am not yearning to move back, as I once was.

Now we are settled, happy where we are. My kids have so many friends and such a fabulous school. The town seems to be getting smaller to me, which I assume means that I am now part of it... I can barely go downtown these days without stopping and chatting with someone I know. Not to mention the wonderful job that hubby has, which allows him to be home enjoying his family more than any other job I have ever heard of. The big sky is fascinating and full of beauty, the rivers we still have to explore... The fossils that seem to be all over, if you have the patience to look for them and the wildlife that is everywhere.

Yet we are not certain that we will remain here forever either... I think the one thing we are certain of, is that we are uncertain what our future holds. There is something exciting about that... so many options and possibilities it is up to us to find the path which is right for us.

Bugs...

I have never liked bugs. Everyone who knows me knows this and they also know that I have a particular loathing (some might say phobia) of spiders. So knowing these facts people also couldn't help but taunt me, when they learned that we were moving up North, about ALL the bugs they have up there! I heard plenty of...

"They have two seasons up there, winter and bug season!"

"Well you can't go outside in the summer, the mosquitoes are so big they will carry you away!"

... and many other pearls of wisdom like that.

So right now we are still in winter so it isn't bug season... but by that it means there are NO bugs... AT ALL! Every time I turn the light on in the basement bathroom, I cringe. Waiting to see the scurrying away of a spider or some other basement dwelling yuck but there aren't any and there haven't been for months. Even in the summer we only had small spiders in the basement and not that many. As for the mosquitoes and other flying bugs... yes they are around in the summer, especially if you are anywhere near a beaver pond. But all in all I have never experienced the quantity and size of the bug life that is on the Island... Holy crap!



The spider in this picture is on the ledge of my bathtub in Duncan... it almost takes up the whole ledge!! I thought it was a toy spider when I first saw it, and this is just a house spider - those bloody jumping spiders that infested my house in Ladysmith where terrifyingly aggressive and fast and big... and then those ones that were really long but so thin you practically couldn't see them (they looked like balls of hair) and that isn't even touching on the wood bugs, centipedes, earwigs, and all the other nasty things.

So as far as bugs go, I prefer the ones up here!

We have been having an amazing winter this year. We had a couple weeks of the very cold weather and then a couple weeks of snow and for the last while we have been sitting between -10 and +2 and this week has had the sunshine as well... it is beautiful. I can hear birds singing, the icicles were huge from the melting during the day and freezing at night although ours are almost gone now. We still have a fair bit of snow but if this weather keeps up... who knows maybe by the time spring break is here, it will already be spring?!