The Brothers Turn Another Year Older

Mathew and Michael share May 6th as their birthday. Since Sarah's birthday is on April 10, we decided to get a couple of cakes to celebrate the birthdays.

Calvin's Dedication

While we were out in BC we had Calvin dedicated at our home chuch, South Abbotsford, on May 9 (Mothe'rs Day). It was so good to be back and be surrounded by our wonderful family. Calvin is a very loved little boy.

The verses we chose for him is Psalm 25:4-5, "show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

Our Trip to BC

We got home from our trip to BC at 2 am on May 19th. We had a wonderful time with family and friends and are so glad the flight/ travel part is now behind us. The last few days have been busy with laundry, clean up, card orders and general kid busyness. The weather has been amazing here since we got home, so we were able to get the garden planted and general yard maintenance caught up. It's good to be back in our own space again. The kids seem to now be adjusted to Ontario time and their general schedules. We love travelling, but the lack of schedules can make life difficult. It's amazing how schedules affect everything in a child's day, even appetite!

I've got lots of photos to share that I'll post in the week ahead. For now, here are som pics with oma and grandma. They were sure happy to see the grandkids again. For David's mom, grandma and sister it was the first time they saw little Calvin.

I love this pic of David and his grandma. With our grandparents growing older, I have tried to intentionally take more photos to capture the memories we have with them.

Calvin's first red envelope from his grandma. A special moment in Chinese culture.

A Visit to the Zoo

Last Saturday eve we went for a walk around the zoo.

Family Photos

On Saturday we had family photos taken. It was great to finally get some new photos of everyone including the kids.
Barrie and Kiara

Uncle Barrie and the kids (love this pic)

Oma and the grandchildren, I love these as well!

Andy, Sharalee, Chloe and Kiara

Barrie

Matt and Libby

I wonder what our family will look like in 5 years?

Family Pics with Dad

Mother's Day weekend was the time for family pics. On Saturday morning we got a family photo with my dad and in the afternoon we did family photos with my mom. It's amazing how much our family has grown and changed through the years.

Cricket

Our kids are big fans of my moms little bird, Cricket. However, after biting Sarah's finger and a lot of loud chirping, Cricket is having a holiday elsewhere for the rest of the week.

No More Hockey

This was Sarah's response to the end of this year's hockey season. We were listening to the game on the way home from Vancouver. Too funny!

Half Price Starbucks Fraps!

From May 7-16 Starbucks is having happy hour between 3-5 pm daily. Fraps are half price during this time, there's also a few new flavours.

The Week in Review

It's funny how time can just get away on you. I realized that other day that I hadn't posted in almost a week, and for me that's a long time. So what have we been doing?

Well, my website's host's server crashed last weekend meaning that my site was down or not working from noon Saturday-noon Tuesday. This created a bit of stress, especially as people were emailing me to tell me they wanted to order but couldn't. In the end the site was restored and I had about 6 hours of work to add images and information that were deleted in the crash. So that wasn't very much fun and took up my computer time at the beginning of the week. I'm happy that all is well again and things are back on track. I've decided to keep the "shop" open while we're out in BC for digital orders only. I didn't think it would be a good idea to totally close for 2 weeks. That means that I also had to copy all my files onto our laptop and create extra back up discs. This is something I wanted to do anyways, it was just a good reason to get it done. I've been thrilled with the consistency and growth of business that I've had so far.

I've been taking the kids to the Early Years Centre a lot these days. We went 3 mornings this week. Sarah loves it and it passes those couple of hours before lunch and nap time. There's circle time as well, which has been good for her language development.

On Tuesday I took Sarah to a speech assessment appointment. She doesn't say a lot and what she does say doesn't sound quite right. I was a little concerned so I made a free assessment appointment for her a couple of months back. In the end they concluded that she has moderate speech delays. She has about 15 words when she should have about 150-200 words, so you get the idea. So she has been put on a 6 month waitlist for speech therapy. If at that time, she has caught up and all is well then she's removed from the list. If not, we start regular speech therapy. So we'll see what happens. We're not worried or discouraged. Every child/ person has something or things to work on, no one is perfect. I never taught a student who didn't have any struggles. Looks like speech may be one of Sarah's struggles, so we'll work on it, give her the extra help she needs and go with it.

Calvin got his second tooth yesterday. He went from rolling last week to full out army crawling a few days later. He's now able to pull himself along the floor to get to where he wants to go, which is usually a toy or book. I thought it was difficult to child proof a home when Sarah was this age. Well... this is much more difficult since Sarah keeps moving things around and putting papers and small toys on the floor in his reach. The idea of having a child proof home is truly impossible in my opinion.

Tomorrow we have to back our bags and get ready for our trip to BC as we leave on Monday! We're super excited to go, just not looking forward to the travelling part. We've got some mini events and get togethers planned for while we're there so I'm happy about that. I think it will be a pretty relaxed trip, especially since there isn't a big holiday or event happening while we're out. Can't wait to see everyone!

David's Big Award

A few weeks ago David attended the Ontario Hostelry Institute's Gala to receive his award that went along with his Scholorship. The Institute just emailed us a few photos from the award ceremony before the gala so I figured I would post them. So proud! Hard to believe he only has 3 classes and a thesis left.

On Wednesday David started his new job. He had a great first few days of work and is looking foward to working there throughout the summer and fall. He feels that it's a good fit and is sure that he'll learn a lot. He works Monday- Friday 9-5, pretty awesome! He'll have to work over time during crush, but for now it's great. We're thrilled to be able to spend our evenings and weekends together.

A Change of Plans...

A few posts ago I wrote about how David will be working at Southbrook Winery for the fall and most likely the summer. Well, that is no longer happening. To make a long story short, he had to have a couple more interviews at Southbrook to see what the summer plan would be. They wanted him to start asap, however we are planning on going to BC (in just one week!) therefore that wasn't possible. In the end they were just able to offer him a fall placement and nothing for the summer (which he also needs).

In the meantime he was contacted by someone that he's volunteered with/for the wine media events the last couple of years. She told him of a possible job opportunity, so David made the contact and an interview was set up.

He was offered a job, starting this Wednesday (with the 2 week leave for BC) and ending at the end of December at Megalomanic Winery. John Howard is the owner of the winery and he will be working directly under the head wine maker, Sue Ann Staff (also of Staff Winery). David is super excited! This opportunity seems to be even better than what he was initially hoping for at Southbrook. Megalomanic isn't a bio dynamic/ organic winery, however there are so many other positives.

This seems to be a great personality fit for David, both with the owner and wine maker. David can already tell that he will be able to learn a ton. He will also be given more responsibility at this winery. It's a smaller winery/ vineyard for one. The owner is also part owner of a winery in St. Emillion (near Bordeaux, France) and will have to travel several times during David's employment to France. The neat part is that David and I spent a day in St. Emillion when we were in France and actually saw his vineyards.

The pay is also better than we were expecting. This isn't a huge deal, but it's a wonderful bonus that we're thankful for! We are continually reminded of how God's plans are always better than our own. This is a great opportunity, one much better than David could have ever hoped for. I'm not sure what to think when I keep hearing him say that he can't wait to go to work. I just feel glad that he's loving what he's doing and so happy that we took the leap of faith to do this. I am SO proud of him!!

David writes his last exam tonight and then he doesn't return to school until January. He only has 3 actual courses left and his thesis. In the meantime it's just co op. We're getting there!

The above photo is of the winery. This large room serves at the working area of the winery, holding tank space and the boutique. David will be spending a lot of time in this room, especially since he will be in charge of the wine tastings, etc for much of the summer.

In case you were wondering this is what Wikopedia defines Megalomania:

A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions. I was curious.

If you're curious about the winery, etc here's the link. It's a neat website.
http://www.megalomaniacwine.com/