Let's try this again.

Okay, soooo....I totally sucked at dropping off on my blog. I am not going to list a whole bunch of excuses other than to say that life was busy and I am a lazy person. So, Pete and Granny - this is for you, an updated blog that spans a year. Here goes nothing!

Back to work this year was busy but awesome. One of the easiest and delightful classes I have ever taught. However, in the fall we put our house up for sale. That meant leaving the house in 'showing/staged' condition as nine times out of ten we had showings that day (most of the time ones that were unknown to us). Yes, leaving by 7 am with all members of the family dressed, fed, and house looking like a magazine. We did this for two months. Every. Day. I shudder to remember it all. In the end right before Christmas we sold our house and bought our dream home. Well, the bones of our dream home with a ton of work to be done. We started knocking down walls as the last box came off of the truck. We gutted and rebuilt the kitchen in a week. I also completed my report cards. We also both continued going to work during that time period. It was a small miracle, okay big miracle. But we had lots of help from friends and family. In the end totally worth it to live in the countryish. Yay for space and trees!

Oh, somewhere in the middle of that we celebrated Jude's birthday, River's birthday, and Christmas. Hooray for cake and presents!

Fast forward to the summer, in between it was just work and unpacking and boring things like that. Our good friends, the Biermans were leaving for Indonesia so we had many tear filled gatherings with them before they headed out on their big adventure. This included a camping trip with some friends and attending the Mariposa Folk Festival. We came home, unpacked and went camping some more. The kids love it, I love it, good times were had by all. Phew, here we are today! Here are some pictures:

Jude's Birthday - Everything Orange in honour of his favourite colour.

 Cutting down our Christmas tree at Rob and Ashley's place.

 Christmas visit with Nana and Poppy (Mom and Dad) in Kingston. Thanks for sending these awesome glasses as a gift from Vancouver Peter and Devon!

 Christmas in New Lowell, Rob and Ashley's new place was all cozy and festive and we had a fun Strikwerda Christmas.

 New Year's Eve at the Bierman's. Yes, there were lots of people there, but I think this pic captures the evening quite nicely.

 Winter fun at Pops and Bep's house. Jude tried skating for the first time, not to bad with those double bladed skates.

 River turns two and we celebrated with a Thomas the Tank engine birthday breakfast.

 Bud Cup! Kurt's team one and we had fun watching.

 The big move!

 Jude was really eager to help out with the demolition.

 Finally the new kitchen arrived, the kids loved using the empty spaces as a fort.

 March Break, we stuck around Barrie. We enjoyed hanging out with friends, and dog sitting. The boys loved having Cohen around for the week. The mostly sat or laid on top of him though, I am not sure that Cohen loved his visit as much as they did.

 Finally spring arrived! There was more work to be done outside.

 May long weekend we headed to Lion's head to visit the Vanderkooy's. Love, love, love Tobermory, it is so gorgeous. It helped that the weather was really warmed and we were able to enjoy some beach time.

 Enjoying our new backyard.

 Jude started playing t-ball, very cute and hilarious. River can't play yet, but loved watching the games.

 Kurt took Jude to his first Jay's game.

 Summer fun began! The boys getting ready to do some serious dip netting.

 Canoeing to Little Lake with Scott and Jillian.

 Mariposa Folk Festival

 Jude really got into some of the performances.

 Camping at Grundy.

 Look at all those blondies!

 Canoeing with the boys.

 More construction at the new house, digging out the driveway to get ready for paving.

 Camping at Awenda.

 Maybe potty training this summer??  River tells me that he is "not ready yet", his words, not mine.

 The 'big last game' for the Minesing Otters. Did I mention Kurt is the coach?

 Oops, Jude was so excited to run home he ran to me with the camera instead of home plate.

It has been awesome being at home with the boys. Every day the play together more and more. Now that River is talking, a lot, they play all these pretend games. They get so caught up in their games that they often end up arguing about things that don't exist, like eating the last of their imaginary food, taking each others imaginary tools, you get the idea. The other day River came to me in tears at the park because he said that Jude at his ice cream, I simple told him that I saw the delivery truck at the store and he was instantly happy and again.

Okay, that's it. Not sure if anyone will even see this but I will try to post again on a regular basis!