walkathon

By beautiful Daughter.

These are from yesterday. Evelyn looks SO GOOD in that shade of blue!

The school is hard at work preparing for a production of 'Peter Pan'. Evelyn will be a mermaid called 'Moonglow'. She has memorized her lines, and last night we worked with her on knowing when to say them. She is SO excited about being in a play.

We had a disagreement about what she wanted to wear yesterday. She picked out a nice outfit that matched for colour and was weather appropriate, but the shorts had gotten WAY too short. They were like little hot pants.

So, I had to try to explain to her why she could not wear them to school. I don't care if she wears them at home, or under a dress, but not paired with a t-shirt. This was trickier to explain than I thought it would be. I did not want to bring in the concept of 'sexy' or anything like that. That was not the issue for her anyway!

She could not understand what the issue was, because usually, my objections are that her chosen outfit is too warm, or cold, or way too un-coordinated for her to wear. This outfit was none of those things! So, she eventually, after some pouting and sitting curled up among the clothes in her laundry hamper for a few minutes, allowed me to chose an alternate outfit to wear. She apologized for being rude (without prompting!) and stated she decided to change her attitude, and will like the outfit I chose for her. She has really matured lately in her self control and emotional control. I'm so proud of her when she stops herself from totally loosing it and pulls herself together.

This last photo is from playgroup yesterday. These are Ethan's closest friends in the group. The boy in the red shirt is Nicholas. He and Ethan are inseparable when they're both there. The girl on the far side is Nicholas' twin sister Julie and the little guy in the striped shirt is Corstian. The group took advantage of the nice day to head to the park.

At one point, Ethan tossed some sand in the face of Corstian. Sand throwing is a big 'No-no' for obvious reasons. Thankfully, it did not go in Corstian's eyes. Ethan immediately fessed up to his misdeed and apologized without any coaxing on my part. For that, I am very thankful! Later, when Ryan asked him about his day, Ethan told Daddy that we went to the park and he played with Nicholas, but he threw sand in Corstians face and that was not good. So, I think he really internalized that lesson!

In other news, the house showing on Monday went really well. The wife, apparently, loved the house. But, they want to build a HUGE garage and are not sure where they could put it... So, we are trying to figure out exactly where our property ends on the treed side of the lot, to see if they could stick something over there. Alternately, at the very end of the property, in the back, they may be able to build something, but they'd have to be careful of the septic field and would need to put in quite a long driveway to access it. Ryan and I have both tried to find the survey stakes with a metal detector, but we have not been able to find one yet. So... we wait. When I talked with our realtor yesterday, she said the husband is away to work now for a couple weeks. So they likely would not move on the sale until he returns. In the meantime, our listing was the 'featured property' in the LLB paper, and also had an add in the Athabasca paper. I am hoping that we may be able to show it again this weekend.

This afternoon, I am planning to take the kids to a co-workers house to see her baby lambs. The kids are so excited to see a farm.

Ryan is still waiting to hear back from the position he applied for. He is hopeful that he will get a call soon.

music night, toothpick towers and raindrops

Evelyn, her kindergarten class, and 3 older students from her school participated in a night of music in Lac La Biche. The older girls sang and rapped the majority of the song, and the kids joined in for the chorus. It was that popular song they're playing on the radio now about a waving flag. It was cute, and even Ethan has learned how to sing it.













Ryan is doing a science unit that involves evaluating and learning about the strength of objects. For a demonstration he is planning, we all pitched in to build several types of towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows. Evelyn worked on this tower based in square units for about 20 minutes. Shortly after I took this photo, she decided her design was too unstable and was not going to work. So, she took it apart and promptly ate all the marshmallows. I'm not sure if her evaluation, or her desire for some treats was the main motivator for her taking it apart!

Earlier in the day, I gave her a princess makeover using the 'hair' and makeup from her Disney makeover. This is why she is wearing fake hair and eyeshadow in this photo!







This last photo is from today. It was a very gray, rainy sort of day. Evelyn decided to dress to match the weather and came out of her room, stood straight and tall, and declared "I'm a raindrop!" After taking a photo of my little raindrop, I reminded her to get used to the weather. When we move home to the island, there will be LOTS of rain and cloudy days.

On that note, I cleaned my house thoroughly yesterday, and today we heard from the realtor that someone from the LLB area wants to come look at the house tomorrow! So, at around 11 am, we will be heading to the school while some stranger looks around the house. It's a bit of an odd idea, but I hope it will bring great results! So... guess what I'll be doing tomorrow morning? Cleaning - again!

snow white - the home grown stage play

A quick update

House hunting went well. There were 4 properties that interest me. Any of them will work, each have their own good and bad points. I was able to spend a little time with the Parrish and Sahota's and their friend Christina.

We will have to wait until our house gets an offer before we put an offer on one of them. Or, there may be another house that will come onto the market and blow all the others out of the water!



Back at home, Ryan has applied to a grade 2 position at a private school in north Nanaimo/Lantzville. Please pray that this will work out well.

Ethan has been helping around the house, cutting grass with Ryan and doing odd jobs. We have noticed him rubbing his eyes and sniffing quite a bit. His eyes get red and puffy and he says they itch. It sounds like he has some environmental allergies. Tonight, he went into the bathroom, got a bunch of lotion, and rubbed it in his eyes! His rationale was that when his skin is itchy, we put lotion on it, so lotion should help his eyes too! Yikes! He does better with Benadryl, so I'm pretty sure he has Hay Fever.


Evelyn has been great at helping keep the house clean. She sorted the laundry without me asking her, and happily cleaned both her room AND Ethan's room. She is going to be singing a song in Lac La Biche tomorrow night, and in early June she will be a Mermaid in the schools production of Peter Pan.

The kids had 'camp out's' in their rooms last week. They made forts in their rooms and Evelyn actually slept all night in hers. Ethan kept kicking his and then it would fall in. Eventually, he gave up and went to bed.








#1 is actually 4 bedrooms and a bunch of small rooms in the basement. (the listing says 8 bedrooms) They have done a lot of work on the structure of the house, but there is a bit left to do. It is close to the hospital. Evergreen Way.

#2 is completely done inside, is a short walk to Departure Bay beach, and has a cool rock wall in the back yard that looks like it would be fun to climb. This house needs new windows. King Richard Drive.

#3 is also completely done inside, is close to all the malls in the north, and, if Ryan gets that grade 2 position, it would be close to that school too. It has a nice back yard, granite counters in the kitchen, and it needs the roof to be re-shingled. Doreen Place.

#4 is in a nice neighbourhood, has a great, bright kitchen and a massive amount of space in the basement. It needs quite a bit done in the basement, and the upstairs bedrooms and closets are tiny. This was my favorite house until I really thought about how much needed to be done. Now, I just like it. Hillside Ave.

Our house is listed!

Check out our listing!

Please, pray that we sell quickly, and at asking price. All of you who live on the island will appreciate how much we want to move home. There are a lot of pieces that need to fall in place, but I know it can happen.

Lot 7 Caslan Crescent

Our asking price is a bit lower than I had hoped. The idea was to excite interest and hopefully sell faster. This weekend is a very busy one for Caslan, and we hope to have an open house for a couple hours on Saturday. This may attract some of the 'city people' who are up for camping.

I have 3 properties in Nanaimo that are on our short list. I hope that one of them, or some other perfect house I have not seen yet, will be on the market when we receive an offer on this house.

So, the waiting game begins... I am believing on God for great things to happen. He has blessed us immensely in the past, and I expect those blessings to continue to pour forth on us.

Before and after

It's been a 4 year, gradual process. The kitchen is probably the most dramatic change. The paint colour made a big difference too. I'm very pleased with the outcome. For those of you who have actually been up to visit, the 'after' photos will look different even from the time you visited. I don't think anyone (except our babysitter Serena) has seen how it looks now!

As an update, I got my letter of hire, but it did not include my FTE (0.77), so I am waiting for a revised letter (the bank needs the FTE to calculate the mortgage). Shortly, I expect to have a pre-approved mortgage that I can use to go house shopping! I am planning a trip (just me) mid-May to look at several houses. I hope to place an offer and possibly have an inspection of our future house done before I leave. If you're interested in getting a link of the top 5 houses we are considering, LMK and I'll send them to you...I'd appreciate your opinions.

Ryan is still waiting to hear back on one position he applied for. The postings for teachers have not gone up yet, so it's still a waiting game.

Once I have an approved mortgage, I will look into selling our house. Overall, we have taken one step forward, but have many more to take before we are 'home' again.