Family Fun - Week 17

Our New Year's resolution was to do at least one family activity or outing, just the five of us, every week this year. This is week 17 of family fun.

We haven't all been biking together yet this spring, Connell's bike was stolen last fall and he has just replaced it. Fiacra, Ailbhe, and Finian loved the idea of biking for ice cream as this week's family fun.

Ailbhe seems a lot stronger on her bike this year and is better able to keep up with Fiacra. Finian also likes his bike seat a lot more than he did last year. He chatters away the whole time, pointing out everything he sees. Last year he tended to slump down in the seat, his bike helmet was then pushed forwards into his face, making for an unhappy biker.

We are going to bike a lot this summer!

Family Fun - Week 16

Our New Year's resolution was to do at least one family activity or outing, just the five of us, every week this year. This is week 16 of family fun.

When we asked the kids what they wanted to do for this week's family fun, they said they knew exactly what they wanted to do, to go hiking at Synder's Flats. I'll never say no to hiking, so decision made.

As we were driving out there, we decided to stop and grab a snack at Tim Hortons, Finian was not happy. He was very quick to notice what we were doing and started yelling "not go to Tim's, I want to go hiking".

We went on a trail we hadn't been on before, it was wet and a bit muddy in parts but very enjoyable. I don't know how we have lived here for 8 years and only discovered Synder's Flats this spring. We love it there.

Family Fun - Week 15

Our New Year's resolution was to do at least one family activity or outing, just the five of us, every week this year. This is week 15 of family fun.

Fiacra wasn't feeling great today so we were looking for something fairly low-key to do. We have never gone bowling as a family so that seemed like a good choice for this week's family fun. We went to the Waterloo Bowling Lanes, which has lanes with bumpers so that the kids don't get non-stop gutter balls. Unfortunately, we were only able to get a lane with bumpers for the first half, and then had to change to a regular lane. So we all enjoyed the first half and four of us enjoyed the second half.

Fiacra got increasingly frustrated and upset with each gutter ball, and even his good bowls didn't cheer him up. As we were leaving, Connell and I said that this was actually a good reminder of how much Fiacra has matured because this kind of thing used to happen ALL the time, kind of ironic really!

House Update

We moved into our new house almost two weeks ago. We then spent a busy week putting the finishing touches on our old house before putting it on the market. We left most of the furniture in place and really just moved kids, kids' beds, toys, and kitchen essentials. We also completely emptied the basement and painted the walls and floors. It looked so good when the for sale sign went up and it was sold 4 days later. It worked out well for us having the overlap between the two houses.

Our house never looked this good when we lived there.

Sitting room

Kitchen

Dining room

Family room

Bathroom

Connell and my bedroom

Kids' bedroom

My office

Deck

We loved our realtor, Naomi Thompson, with Coldwell Banker. All of these photos were taken by James Leiper for the listing.

The closing date is in mid-June. Since moving, we have decided that we are going to immediately replace the kitchen, so we will move back into the old house while the renovation is taking place. We have 6 weeks to plan and renovate an old kitchen, yikes!

Family Fun - Week 14

Our New Year's resolution was to do at least one family activity or outing, just the five of us, every week this year. This is week 14 of family fun.

Spring is very slow coming to Ontario this year. The grass, trees, and plants still seem really lifeless. This makes for a great time for gathering cool sticks - clearly an eight year old's point of view. So we did a hike for this week's family fun. We have often walked along the mill race trail in St. Jacob's but always starting in St. Jacob's and going in a single direction. This time we started in St. Jacob's and went the opposite way. The kids loved being beside the river and spent a long time throwing in rocks and sticks and walking out on logs and generally getting wet and muddy. The trail is wide and would be perfect for biking, that's now on the list of future family fun activities.

We checked the temperature before we left, 12ºC, but we didn't account for the wind. It was so windy. Fiacra and Ailbhe seemed oblivious, Finian didn't mind too much, but Connell was freezing. Perhaps he shouldn't have listened to his wife making fun of him for thinking about wearing his winter coat in 12º.

New House

We got the keys to our new house today - it has been a long wait! We signed the agreement of purchase and sale in June so a really long closing period. As Connell, Finian, and I were pulling up to the house, Finian said "This my new house. I sell my old house." I sure hope so, our current house goes on the market on Tuesday.

I was showing a friend around the house and she spotted a mourning dove on her nest just beside the deck. I had walked past at least 10 times without noticing her. Fiacra took these photos and added the effects on my phone. It will be fun to see the eggs hatch and watch the baby birds. 

 It was a beautiful day today. Spring has hopefully arrived. It was forecast to be 19ºC, the kids were really hoping it would make it to 20º. We go for ice-cream the first time it hits 20º each spring. Thankfully, it didn't get to 20º - there was no time for ice-cream today!

We are still preparing our house for sale. It will be a busy week!

Family Fun - Week 13

Our New Year's resolution was to do at least one family activity or outing, just the five of us, every week this year. This is week 13 of family fun.

Our family fun this week was pretty low-key  - an Easter egg hunt. Connell and I are pretty tired from the constant house prep. (Recently checked off the long list is packing up the basement. Everything in our basement is now packed and ready to move.) So, thanks for that, Easter Bunny, we appreciate it.

In our house, Easter Bunny hides various eggs all over the sitting room, the kids search and when all have been found, they merge them and then divide them up. Finian had such a good time searching for eggs, that Fiacra and Ailbhe kept re-hiding eggs from their baskets for him. Just before lunch, Finian said to Fiacra "go and get the Easter bunny to hide more eggs." So we had another hunt for him. Since Fiacra and Ailbhe don't actually eat many eggs, there was no shortage of eggs for hiding. The candy they got for Christmas is in a kitchen cupboard, mostly untouched, their Easter candy has now joined it. They still enjoy getting it, I guess it's a bonus they don't really eat it, unless I eat it!