Silence is golden

It's been pretty quiet over here on the blog these days, but don't let our silence fool you into thinking that life here has been anything but quiet! Nope, it's been pretty golden (if you could measure busy-ness and fun-factor in gold).

Sigh . . . summer came and went with merely the blink of an eye. I thought at different times that we'd moved to Vancouver, given all the rain that we experienced this year. YIKES - we're still cutting our lawn (which is normally brown and burnt by August). But despite the rain, we still managed to fit lots of stuff in.

Back in May I decided that by the time the kids were back in pants come September, that BabyBlueEyes would be potty trained. Did I mention that I HATE POTTY TRAINING? Honestly, it's the only job I've come across as a mom so far that I can truthfully say, I dread. But, I'm 5 years into diapers now and finally on the last kid. My motivation for finding something else to spend that money on is high. I kept looking for the perfect moment to start this summer. It finally came at the end of August when I realized that I was going to fail at my plan if I never started it.

I've been told that boys are harder, but I'd say that it's just different. Each of our three have had their own hangups, and Baby Blue Eyes is not without his own. The pee thing came fine, but he didn't want to poop on the potty. He'd hold it for days on end, make about 400 trips to the bathroom, sit on the toilet and then immediately get off. "Nope don't have to go". By the third or fourth day, he'd be so desperate that he'll get off and then get right back about 100 times until he would finally go during one of the "on" moments. During that last day, we'd have to go sans undies and pants, or risk a pile of pooh in them.

Well I hate to jinx it, but I think that three days ago he finally GOT it. Hurrah! Bells chiming, angels singing and the poop fairy has arrived! He was so excited two days ago that he had to call his favorite uncle in the world to tell him of his accomplishment. Funny thing is that uncle's got a business in poop -- he's a septic guy! Good thing Uncle John is a great sport and even hangs out under a truck, on gravel, covered in grease while it's raining to hear the news. You're the best poop king uncle!

June brought the Frog Princess's birthday and the end of school for the Klassen clan. I can't believe that my gal is FOUR and that she's in JK already. While a ton of stuff has happened in the past three and a half years, it sometimes seems like just yesterday that the Dino Princess was feeding cheerios to her sister in her walker! Frog Princess is doing amazing at school and was one of the rare jewels in Mrs. Elliott's class that didn't cry and beg to be taken home for the first few weeks. She loves her teacher, her friends and her school. What an amazing kid!

July and August were filled with hmmm. . . lots of stuff? The King and I celebrated our 8th anniversary by heading to Tremblant with Auntie Heather and the infamous Uncle Poop King for a four day golfing hiatus. WOW that was fun. Thanks to Linda and Sydney for moving into the Klassen abode for the duration - making it a fun holiday for the chicklets as well! We totally appreciated a relaxing holiday, while the kids enjoyed the new rules of the house while Linda was the Queen. I think we all had fun.

Dino and Frog Princess both played soccer and continued Tae Kwon Do throughout the summer. Soccer was interesting again this year, with intermittent enthusiasm on the girls part and WILD enthusiasm on Baby Blue Eyes' -- who unfortunately wasn't old enough to play (but will be TWO years older next year (wink wink - if ya know what I mean). In the end, TKD was the biggest thrill and they both were successful in getting their yellow stripes on their white belts. We celebrated by going out for dinner!

The kids did a few camps this summer and Baby Blue Eyes had his first taste of Nursery School camp as well. Much like his sister before him, he's an eager beaver when it comes to "school" and so the transistion went perfectly.

Dino Princess was thrilled to be with her friends at camp over the several weeks she attended, but the highlight of her summer was a trip to the ROM's dino exhibit with just her and mom. It was fun to watch her run from skeleton to skeleton -- debating about which bones were real and which one's were fake, which dino came first, which dino had the biggest crest/teeth/tail/feet/mouth, etc. I learned a lot about Dinosaurs that day, but my favorite moment was in the kid's section where they had a Maiasaura skeleton buried in sand for the kids to excavate. Dino Princess immediately decided to get to work. One of the leaders came over to ask if she had any questions. Dino Princess asked if the bones were real. The leader went into a long explanation about them being casts of a real skeleton. To which Dino Princess responded, "So you're telling me they are fakes". No bones about it - she's a to the point kinda gal! :)


We made a few trips over the summer to Auntie Heather and Uncle Poop King's beautiful home on the lake. Baby Blue Eyes sure loved taking trips on the "slow" (pontoon) boat, and came to really enjoy the "fast" boat too. After about the 10th time around the lake, we (the 'rents) decided to show our kids what boating is really all about and hauled out the canoe. Baby Blue Eyes wasn't so keen (he wanted to go for another spin on the fast boat), but the King and I prevailed. Uncle Poop King is the greatest. He saw the kids kneeling on the bottom of that canoe and thought they should have some padding, so he put three extra life jackets in the boat for them to kneel on. Baby Blue Eyes decided he wanted a paddle, so Uncle PK gave him the mini-paddle to use. Being always aware of safety, Uncle PK also threw in the safety kit with flares, first aid, etc. Then the kids decided that they needed a snack -- so I gave them each an apple. All set with lifejackets, crocs, sunglasses and hats, we were finally off. The King and I began paddling our crew through the still waters of Williams Lake on probably the most memorable boating experience we'll ever have. About 200 feet from the dock, Baby Blue Eyes sees the fast boat and tries to stand up in the canoe to loudly remind us that he really wanted to go on the fast boat. Dino Princess thinks the rocking sensation is cool and starts to giggle. Frog Princess joins in and before we know it -- the canoe is upside down and we are in the water. The King pops up and turns the canoe over. Dino Princess pops up, calmly swims to the canoe and hops back in the semi-submerged boat. Frog Princess panicks at first, but then realizes that life jackets help you float and proceeds to follow Dino Princess. Baby Blue Eyes pops up HOLLERING, "I TOLD YOU I WANTED TO GO IN THE FAST BOAT"! The King and I laugh and begin to collect the crapload of gear that also got dumped (ya know, the extra lifejackets, crocs, paddles & safety kit), except the apples that miraculously never left the hands of the Princesses. Uncle PK of course is calmly standing on the side of the shoreline - noting that everyone is safe and all is under control. UNTIL the semi-submerged canoe starts to sink! Then he dives in (clothes and all) to save it. We are still laughing about our first family canoe trip. Just glad that we didn't have the camera on board to capture the moment! :)

August also brought Dino Princess's 5th GOTCHA day anniversary. We celebrated with a good bunch of her ZZ sisters at our place this year. It was lots of fun to see how much each of the girls is growing up. The gals and their pals swam, ran, jumped, painted and had fun while the adults enjoyed catching up with each other. Happy Gotcha Day Dino Princess! Hard to believe that 5 years ago you were a little toothless goof who was determined to climb and walk. The climbing thing hasn't changed!

September brought about a bundle of changes in our household. Dino Princess started Grade 1, which went amazingly well considering I thought she'd have a tougher time with the every day thing. Frog Princess, as we mentioned before, loves Junior Kindergarten and only wishes it could be every day. Baby Blue Eyes is off to Nursery School on his own now and is relishing the fact that he has his "own" friends.

I started a new contract and went back to the business of selling (legal) drugs to veterinarians. Truthfully, I love my organizing business but was finding it tough to do all the networking and other business stuff that I had to do while managing a party of five at the same time. The new job is only for a year, but it will give me a chance to hang out with a great team of colleagues, catch up on the business and not have to do all the "extra" business activities that I've been juggling (rather poorly). I'm looking forward to this year! The only downside of this new contract is that the King is somewhat disappointed that he's lost his trusty sidekick. Since April I've been working as his assistant during my spare (Ha ha) time.

Two weekends ago, we made our annual visit to the Chinese Lantern Festival with the kids. Despite the Gardiner Expressway being closed and the kids having to pee into containers during our 90 minute detour down the Lakeshore, we arrived to a spectacular show. This event is always a highlight of our summer and we all really enjoy this tradition (that includes chocolate/peanutbutter ice cream from Baskin Robbins). Dino Princess was overjoyed to see a huge animated dino exhibit this year and we had to take pictures of EVERY dino. Since there wasn't a really big panda exhibit this year (our tradition holds that we always take a photo of them infront of the pandas), we decided the dinos would suffice.

Last weekend we took advantage of a PA day on Friday to head to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls. We'd intended to go to Marineland this summer, but every time we planned it there was rain in the forecast. So we decided to head down for a weekend and do the GWL at the same time. Baby Blue Eyes probably suprised us the most that weekend. He's growing up fast and had decided that the bigger slides were on his agenda. Dino Princess was thrilled to discover that she was finally big enough to "legally" ride the tube slides and took off with the King. Frog Princess (who's not so much into the scarey and fast), was thrilled to discover that one of her best friends from school was there and hung out with him on the lazy river. All in all, we had a great time.

Saturday afternoon we headed to Marineland and took in the whale show, the feeding of the Belugas (which the girls were thrilled with) and a few other things. We headed back there on Sunday to finish the park with the rides and dolphin show. Dino Princess was big enough to go on all the family rides herself, but Baby Blue Eyes and Frog Princess were in need of parental accompaniment. Not being so fond of the spinny rides, the King and I were a bit chagrinned - but what the heck! I'm not so sure that Baby Blue Eyes realized what he was in for on some of the rides, but there was only one that he came off of and said "I DO NOT LIKE THAT RIDE". Honestly I was glad that only the King had to accompany him on it because I think the bumblebee ride had already done me in.

SO . . . that was our golden summer. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Cheers,
The Queen