And it looks like the Summer is over

To your left, you can see a picture of my happy family enjoying the summer. If you're here for the photos, you can check out several new albums linked on the right hand side. If you'd like to read an update on our family, please proceed.

September is almost over and life is busy again, which feels like an oddly comforting thing. Perhaps it's our need for routine. The past year and a half have been anything but routine. It will be nice if things settle into "normal" again.

Summer went by too quickly again. We didn't really do very much, just the ever so trendy "staycation". Deb was off work on maternity leave, but I was teaching summer school and we had an exchange student stay with us for a couple of weeks. So, we really didn't have much time to take a vacation anyways. Even if we had the time, we'd have had to stay in Canada because we don't have passports. In July though I received my Canadian Citizenship card after an 9 month wait. Now, I am Canadian again, after apparently unwittingly living in limbo for several years when rules changed for Canadians born overseas. So, we can actually apply for passports and be ready to travel, except perhaps for the time and the money issues!

Staying at home gave both Deb and me plenty of time with the kids. This is both a good and a bad thing :) We love them dearly, but there are admittedly times when you can have too much of a good thing. Tiernan is back at daycare now three days a week which gives him the opportunity to get out his energy playing with friends and gives us a chance to refuel.

Here's how we've spent the last few months.

Tim - It was strange going back to work in April after three months off on sick leave. The end of the school year was somewhat of a blur. A lot of the time it felt like my brain was stuck in molasses. I wasn't especially eager to work summer school, but my mortgage seemed to think it was a good idea. I don't know if the kids actually were worse this summer or if it just seemed that way. I was happy when it came to an end. As stated above, we didn't really do much this summer, but I did enjoy my weeks at home with the kids. I did do a few things around the house, though nothing as major as adding a room like I did last summer. There was wiring that needed fixing, a leaking toilet to repair, new screens to be made for some windows, and a whole bunch of other little things. It's funny really, our international homestays (Andy and Anthony) who live with us find it so strange for a "professional" to be doing "manual labour", but in our culture we encourage people to tinker in the trades and I enjoy doing it. Knowing when to call the professional tradesman is very important though and I try not to bite off more than I can chew.

School started up again in early September and I'm finally feeling somewhat on top of things (except for the marking that has already begun to pile up!). My jobs as International Student Coordinator and Social Studies Department Head take up a lot of my time and involve a lot of paper work. It's actually nice when I have the chance to teach! This year it's going to be fun to learn how to use the SMARTBoard that is going to be installed in my room courtesy of funds from the Langley Foundation.

Tiernan - Tiernan missed going to daycare over the summer and seeing his friends there. He kept busy though in a variety of ways. He went to a whole bunch of summer camps which meant a commitment of about an hour a day. These camps included soccer, baseball, gymnastics, cooking, and drama. He found the ones for team sports quite difficult - he's easily frustrated when he can't do something right that others are doing around him. So, we'll have to wait a while longer on things like soccer and baseball. However, he had a lot of fun at the rest of the camps and learned some new skills along the way.

Tiernan also spent a lot of time going swimming with Dad. We especially liked going to the outdoor pool in Fort Langley. He progressed a lot during the summer. At the beginning he spent a lot of time swimming in a life jacket. By the end, he could swim in the deep end by himself with the life jacket or in the shallow end without a life jacket doing a sort of hop/push/swim combination. He also loved sticking his head underwater diving for rings.

Tiernan enjoys spending time riding his scooter that he got from Grandpa and Grandma Duncan. He also spent a fair bit of time of his tricycle. (There's video of him on the scooter and the tricycle in Tiernan's Video Album). Just about a week ago we bought him a new bike because he had really outgrown the tricycle. He's had a lot of fun on the Tonka truck themed bicycle (with training wheels still attached).

Tiernan's big challenge this summer has been toilet training. It would have been great if he learned earlier, but since Deb had such a lousy pregnancy and then I got extremely ill, it's understandable that he hadn't learned. It was somewhat frustrating at times, but the use of stickers (and sadly candy and prizes) has finally succeeded. There are occasional accidents, like today when we waited too long in between toilet visits. But, for the most part he is now succeeding. Currently, he's working to accumulate enough stickers for a Little Tikes Camera. He's very excited that he's going to have a camera of his own and I'm excited that he's going to stop using mine!

Zéphyrine - Our beautiful daughter has spent the last few months growing like a weed (or perhaps a less noxious, but still fast growing plant like bamboo). Looking back at her baby pictures, I'm amazed by how much bigger she looks. She's doing a lot more now too. She is constantly moving it seems. One of her favorite places to be is in the Jolly Jumper - she just loves to bounce. She also enjoys standing and can now pull herself up to a standing position on her own. She also seems to be very close to crawling, so it's going to be even crazier here soon.

Zéphyrine loves to talk, often quite loudly making her point. She and I like to play a game where we both talk/growl at each other at the same time. She loves one-on-one attention. When I am trying to use the computer while I hold her on my lap she reaches up and grabs my face and turns it so I'm looking at her. She loves to giggle as well. Zéphyrine is a Mommy's girl, but her giggles are usually reserved for playtime with her brother. However, but just this weekend I discovered that she is now very ticklish. I had tried earlier without much success, but this time I put her in a giggle fit. Her laugh is very similar to Tiernan's. Is that genetics?

Deb - My wonderful wife had a pretty crazy last year with a pregnancy that involved a lot of sickness and then a husband getting very ill just before she gave birth. She's enjoyed having a more normal last few months. She's been keeping busy recently looking after Tiernan and Zéphyrine and a lot of things around the house. She's also been enjoying being able to go to regular Mom & Tot workout classes.

That's about all for now. I'll be trying to post more regularly this fall, but no guarantees. Enjoy the photos in the albums listed on the side.