Harvest Fest

The kids were excited to head to Port Rowan to attend Harvest Fest, a dinner and dance for families put on by the Lions club. Papa is a member and he worked hard all day cooking the meal. S, my niece, came up for the night as well.

The kids hammed it up for the camera before leaving.


Ayla danced the night away, mostly wearing her cousin's wig.


Sebastian mostly sat out for the dancing, although I did see him busting a few moves when the lights were down low! He had the thrill of winning best costume for his age group as well!

Ayla has been full of questions over the last few weeks about where the sun goes at night and where the moon is during the day and what is happening on the other side of the earth. I mentioned to Oscar that I was thinking about making a model of the solar system with her somehow. This morning he and Ayla decided to start on a paper machie model. Sebastian helped out when he got back from his piano lesson. They also started on some cool halloween decorations and a rocket ship.


Oscar and I found a neat little tower that Ayla created in Sebastian's room. She has been very creative lately, always cutting, gluing or building something.

Motivation

I just finished reading through the blog of a woman I was good friends with as a teenager. In August she completed a race called the Ultraman Canada. It is held over three days. The first day she swam 10 km and biked 145km. The second day she biked 274km. The third day she ran 83km (that's the same as TWO marathons - in one day - after the first two days - yah). She's 33 and has two daughters who are 8 and 6.

I have been slacking off on my running over the last three or four months. I've been tired, busy, blah, blah, blah. The pounds have been creeping back on, to the point where I'm avoiding looking in the mirror. I'm am in awe of my friend, and feeling inspired and motivated. I've been toying around with the idea of training for another half-marathon this winter, and if that all goes well, and I stay injury-free, going right into training for a marathon in the spring. It's tricky to make the running clinic times with Oscar's schedule but I think I need to try to make this work. I really enjoyed the last one that I did, and I think I was happier then. Life is good now, but I think I really need that outlet. I'm a fairly laid-back person, I think the intensity of hard exercise is good for me, both physically and emotionally.

Anyways, I thought writing this down will make me feel more committed to this. I think I'm going to work out some running goals to work towards until January when the clinic begins.

Now...I think I need to e-mail my friend and thank her for the motivation :)

And she's off!

This was the only picture I could get of Ayla last month as she left for her first class of her "Mornings with Melissa" class. She was so eager to be off and to ride her bike there she could not possibly hang around for a picture!

Boy's Group

Sebastian has been participating in a boy's social group over the last year. It started initially as a way for the boys to meet each other and make some connections. This year it is being run as a series of coops. The first has been an outdoor survival theme. The kids put together survival kits the first week, learned how to build shelters and some lashing and frapping the second week (I forgot the camera that week, but the kids had a blast and really built a great shelter) and learned how to navigate using a compass this week. Sebastian has really enjoyed himself and is very excited about the plan for fire-building next week!

The kids also played a predator and prey game today and had lots of time to run around the beautiful woods and enjoy the mild day.

I'm back!!

Did you miss me? Anyone??

Anyways, I finally figured out a way to get pictures on here once more, so now I feel like posting! We had a great trip to a pumpkin patch on the weekend with Michelle and Everett. This was our second year going. We all had a great time, lots to do and the weather was beautiful.

Chewy

During the spring, we were out for a walk in the woods with our friends when we happened upon a baby squirrel. Puck actually happened upon him, I looked down and the two of them were sniffing noses! We kept him for a couple of days until we found a wildlife rehab person who look him (he had an injured tail). The kids (and Oscar and I) had a great couple of days with him. Chewy spent a lot of time with Ayla, to the point where he would repeatedly run up her leg when she put him down. Our friends visited often to check on him and then helped us take him to the rehab person.