'Big Fat Juicy Weiner' BBQ

We had big fat juicy weiners and hamburgers for dinner tonight along with a kick-ass potato salad that Shannon made, chickpea salad that I made and dessert (triffle, brownies made by Jeff and Rum Cake made by Shannon). I ate a little bit of all three desserts! Shannon and Jeff always bring over so much food. But how can I tell them not to when everything they make is so tasty? Yummy. Here are some pictures. One of the highlights was holding Jaia for a LONG time. Yes, it's true, I held him while he slept and I held him for at least half an hour. That is a record since he never wants to be held by anyone else besides his own mama.

So what is new in my life? I am totally immobilized with stress and indecision. Everynight James asks me....did you re-book Alex's appt with Dr. Shapiro - to which I respond, no. Then he will ask....did you find us a place to live - NO. Did you pick out the knobs for the kitchen drawers - again No. NO NO NO NO. I have so many decisions to make, so many things to do and yet I do nothing at all. Which is stressing me out. It's like I can't move my body to do all these pressing things. There's too much to do so instead I'm doing nothing but my normal routine of going outside with the girls. Obviously this has got to stop NOW.

We have exactly one week in this rental. Ed has graciously let us stay here one extra week. And who knows when we will actually move into our new house and where we will be living in the meantime. So enough procrastinating already. I'll let you know what we decide to do....I guess sometime before next week In the meantime...anyone interested in coming over for a BBQ tomorrow night?

Deja Vu?

I know, I know, you are all probably thinking OK Audrey enough pictures of your kids by the lake! But it's really hot summer weather here and we live right by the lake and I always want to take pictures of my girls. So there. It's the same spot as always, just another day. We are REALLY enjoying the lake and this weather.
It's been a relaxing day so far. Layed outside on the beach, read my book, James' relaxed with us, the girls played in the sand/water, and Tobi followed everyone around.

We just woke up from our nap and James went out with the girls to check out the newly opened Wholefoods Market. We are waiting for some friends to come over soon so we can ....guess what....yes, go back and enjoy the lake. Everyone is welcome to come and visit us. But better come soon, before we move out.

Alex, Rachel & their new friends

The girls met Adam & Scott this weekend. They are also identical twins (almost 4 years old) who are visiting from Dubai. The girls played hard to get at first. Ignoring the boys completely. But after hours of hours of not saying a word to them, they eventually warmed up and they were all playing & laughing together... that is until the boys hogged the plate of chips away from the girls!

What does this mean? We have the Strawberry Shortcake Seaberry DVD which has on it's cover Strawberry Shortcake with her friends all wearing beachwear. Rachel loves to look at this cover and tell me that she wants to wear no clothes like SS. And today since we played in the lake she wore her bikini and LOVED it. She didn't take off the bikini top all day long. And when I put her in the bath tonight she still didn't want to take it off. I had to convince her that we will probably go back in the lake tomorrow so she can wear it again tomorrow. So one of my daughters likes to dress almost naked. Hmmmm, weird.

And on a very emotional sad note, my Alex has the biggest cavity in the world. It feels like the end of the world for mama me. We brought her to the dental office tonight and did everything we could think of to fix it. She opened her mouth long enough for James' to clean up a little bit of the decay but she reached her point where she no longer wanted to stay put. So after she cried for a long time, then I started to bawl. I feel like such a bad parent. How can this happen?!!! I brush her teeth. Obviously not well enough. So we have sworn off juice and anything else sugary until we get it fixed at the specialist office. Our appt right now stands for November!!!! But James is going to try and pull a few strings and get her in sooner. I feel so badly that this has happened and now is out of my control to fix. James tried to make me feel better by telling me that he sees this all the time. I will keep my fingers crossed that it gets fixed up soon.

Good night everyone!

1st Summer BBQ

We had a great evening last night celebrating the 1st weekend of summer with a backyard BBQ. We collaborated with our neighbor to plan a big bash and share the food and the backyard. It was so much fun. There was lots of seafood and everyone brought such different yummy salads & desserts. It was great to see all our friends and all the gang from James' office drinking and eating together.

The highlight for me was definitely dancing with my friends. It felt weird actually dancing in 'public' and not just in the house with Alex and Rachel. Dancing crazy/silly with friends to the one-man band that was playing here last night. He was really awesome - except for the fact that he didn't play any ABBA songs :(
Here are a few of the pics that were taken last night.

Both Lakes in One Day?!!!

Today was a really fun relaxing day for us girls. James is at work so he couldn't join in the fun. This morning the girls wanted to come with me to walk Tobi at S Beach. We had gone there yesterday as a family and the girls biked the whole length of the S Beach, then we all played in the sand and then we came home. So when we got there this morning they wanted to do the same thing. The bikes were still in the back of my van, so I pulled them out, got the girls on their bikes, and we all went for a stroll walking Tobi. Tobi was so excited to be included in this big ordeal. I remember when the girls were really young and a handful, that I wondered when I would ever be able to go out with them by myself. And today on my walk, I was amazed that the time has passed so quickly and that it was so easy to get out with the girls. The girls were saying such funny things like....Ready, Set, Go! before they raced off on their bikes or Rachel taunting Alex...you can't catch me.....and Alex looking at me and saying....mama this is so fun.

So we got back home just in time for their naps. They napped and I read a book curled up on the couch under a blanket. Oh ya, this was after I packed up a couple of boxes. So not totally laxy.

Then in the afternoon I had errands to run in town. So we got all of them done AND we got to play at O Beach (or Black Cherry Beach) for another hour. So 2 Beaches/Lakes in one day. Pretty good day, eh? But once in the car after I had driven away and on my way to the post office, Rachel says to me...oh oh I have only one shoe? She had flip flops on. I kept driving thinking that one flip flop must have fallen off in the car. So I told her not to worry and that when I stopped driving I can help her get the other shoe. She responded ....but shoe is still on the beach. What!!!!? She explained that she had left it behind on the steps off the beach. That was too crazy. So I drove back and found it exactly where she explained it. Can you believe it?!! I was so happy that she told me that BEFORE I got to the post office. I love that they can communicate completely with me.

One bad part of the day....my rice maker broke!!!!! Aaahhh. To may people this may not really matter but we eat rice almost every day. It's been kind of on the fritz for a couple of weeks but whenever I jiggled the cord, I could get it going. But of course, today when everyone is starving it decides to not work...which means I have to make rice on the stove top. Which I guess turns out OK. Time to eat now so I'll end this here. Bye guys.

Happy Father's Day Grandpa!

We had so much fun with you in Montreal this past May. We especially loved the special candy that you brought for us. And also the hula hoop lessons at Susan's house. But the time went by too quickly and we miss you already. So please come and visit us soon in Penticton.


Love, Alex & Rachel & Family

No Secrets at this House

Alex, Rachel & I spent Friday afternoon making & decorating Father's Day cards for Papa. I quickly cleaned up the evidence and told the girls that Father's Day is Sunday and we have to hide these cards until then. So then we hid the cards. OK Done. But then, as soon as Papa got home and we sat down for dinner, they turned to me and said....let's give Papa his cards....When I pretended I didn't hear what Alex said, she continued...you know...the one we just made...the sparkly one...the one you are hiding. Oh brother. So we gave James his Father's Day card early on Friday night.

Then yesterday, the girls and I went out to look for a small gift for James. But I couldn't find what I was looking for. So we headed to Winners and bought him some underwear. Everyone needs new underwear, right? On the drive back home, I mentionned that we have to wrap Papa's present and give it to him tomorrow on Father's Day. But soon after we got home, Rachel blurts out....we bought you new underwear... it's in the bag in your bedroom....go see Papa. Too funny. So my question is, how do you keep anything secret/surprise nowadays with these 2 girls talking so much? Anyhow, it was a fun(ny) Father's Day at our house.

Happy Father's Day Papa!

Me and Baby Jaia

Kaili just emailed me this picture and I absolutely LOVE it so I had to post it on my blog. It's the first time that I got to hold Baby Jaia at the airport. It's one of the rare times that I've seen Jaia with his eyes open. Well maybe his eyes are open when I see him but I can't tell since he's always nursing on Kaili! He's so adorable.


And then there are my two goofs. I guess I should stop calling them babies, eh?

June 15th, 2006

Finally the sun came out this afternoon. It looked like it could either be beautifully sunny or turn again and rain. But the rain stayed away so we got to go and play at our favorite beach. Black Cherry Slurpee beach to be exact. And to make it even more fun, our friend Shannon came and joined us. OK OK I was needing some adult conversation so I lured her with the promise of delicious slurpees. We had a great afternoon that led into a great evening. Jeff (Shannon's hubby) joined us and we drove to pick up some fruit and veggies at this fruit stand off the highway and then we made our way to dinner.

When we got home Alex showed James a picture of Cinderella and said something along the lines of ....when I get bigger...I get married. James then asked her who he was married to. Alex answered...you married to mama. Wow, James thought, she's brilliant. So then he asked her if Papa could marry someone else too. To which she looked a little puzzled. James suggested...maybe papa can marry Shannon? Alex thought about this and then said no but followed up with...maybe marry Jeff? hahahahahah James then thought wow, she's so liberal.

We are hoping that the sun will shine again tomorrow so we can head back to our favorite spot on the beach. Really... I love the black cherry slurpees that much...and the girls love the sand, so it's perfect. Anyone want to join us???

Procrastinating

Well I should start packing. I've pulled some boxes out. But I'm feeling so lazy this morning. The house looks sooooooo messy. So instead of packing or cleaning the house this morning, we are just hanging out. We had to walk Tobi outside this morning so the girls came with me. They wanted to wear their boots so they could jump in the puddles. Anything and Everything seems more fun than packing.

Rainy Days

Well here are my lovely planters. If these planters suck, please don't burst my bubble and tell me. I'm just so excited that the flowers are blooming and that the planter is filling in nicely.

So we have exactly 2 weeks left at our rental on the lake. Boo hoo hoo. Even though this place has it's problems....(ants) we have fallen in love with it. Living on the lake is really priceless.

So we don't actually move into our house yet. It's still not ready yet. And won't be for a couple of more weeks. They are telling us we should be in by the 3rd week of July but we are not holding our breath.

We have a dilemma that's stressing me out though. We have to move out in 2 weeks but we are not sure where we are moving to. We have 2 options right now. Choice no 1, beautiful walk out basement suite with absolutely no furniture. So we will be out in the boonies/isolated with no table or chairs to eat on for 3 weeks. And we will be sleeping on aerobeds. But pretty cheap. No cable, no phone and we would have to borrow a TV and DVD from Silvano.

The other option is staying at this resort/hotel. Fully furnished, right on the beach/lake with use of their pool. But there is no washer/dryer in the unit. I'm worried about the noise factor. My girls making a lot of noise and bothering the other people at 5:30am. It's not as spacious as the first option either. And of course, it will be a lot more expensive. We will find out exactly how much the resort wants and if it's too much then we will definitely take option 1 since we don't have too many options at this point.



Anyhow, we got a phone call today from Jeffrey Shapiro's office. He is THE guy on Alopecia research and is known around the world. He works out of UBC and we had wanted to meet with him for a while.
But we couldn't get an appt. Long story short, we got an appt for Alex. He does a lot of research in Alopecia and was very interested in meeting the girls since they are identical twins. And supposedly twins are very much sought after when it comes to research when one has a condition and the other doesn't. So I don't know what will come out of this appt but we are looking forward to talking to someone with so much experience in it. Her appt is booked for mid-August in Vancouver. So that is good news.

The girls are sick with a cold. And it's been kind of rainy afternoon weather here lately so we have been staying indoors tonight with cozy flannel PJs on. Here are some pictures they girls painted recently. Nothing more to really say except that I should start packing this week. Note to self.....moving sucks.

New blogger in town

Hello all,

I wanted to let you know that there is a new blogger in town. Check out Romy's new blog at www.dogs-dogs-please-more-dogs.blogspot.com Do you think it's pretty obvious that she is a dog lover?

Talk to you all later. I will post some pictures of my awesome planters soon. I know you guys are all anxiously awaiting more pictures of it. just kidding. I'm so happy that they are still alive and blooming blooming blooming!

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Lately the girls just love playing dress up. They love all the princess characters like Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, etc.....But funny how they have never watched the real fairy tale movies but they already like the characters. I tried to rent them some of the princess stories but they usually find some character in the story scary and want me to turn the movie off. We do have the Cinderella book which they want me to read them all the time. But the version I bought has Cinderella's father in it and he dies and leaves Cinderella to her stepmother. They are fascinated with this page. When I overhear them reading it to each other, they always say, man dies....just like ants. Clearly they don't understand. But they love this book, especially the page where the fairy godmother turns Cinderella's clothes into this beautiful ballgown. And the ballgown is flowy and white. So you can imagine how much they loved these dresses that they got for a birthday gift from James' sister. Usually beautiful dresses like these only get worn once to a special occasion but I think it will get daily use from my girls when they want to imagine themselves as princesses. The only mirror they can see themselves in is the one on my dresser. So they spent lots of time on my bed looking at their own reflections and having loads of fun.

We're Back

We got back safe and sound yesterday, June 6th. On the day of the girls' birthday. They got so much attention on their birthday this year. When they get older they will probably ask us to always travel to Montreal and Toronto around that date because they get to celebrate their special day numerous times. First my sister Susan threw them a big BBQ party in Montreal where they got so many presents from grandma, grandpa, aunties and cousins. Then their auntie Sonia in Toronto got them a cake for their birthday and shipped us box loads of more presents. Not to mention the cool new bikes from their godfather. But it doesn't end there. When we arrived at the airport yesterday, Kaili, Robin and Jaia were there to surprise us. And they brought the girls beautiful flowers for their birthday and came over to our house for a visit. I got to hold baby Jaia! So tiny and so adorable. I loved seeing him.

AND our friend, Shannon who was there to pick us up from the airport had brought the girls balloons (the girls absolutely loves balloons) and awesome gifts from Hawaii (don't you just love the hula outfit on Rachel? Alex had hers on too but she changed out of the outfit before I got my camera out). As well, she made us her famous lasagna, salad, bread and beautifully decorated cupcakes!!!!!!!! Shannon you are awesome! Thank you.

So the girls had so much attention on their birthdays and they loved every minute of it. I still can't believe my little babies are already 3 years old. Thanks guys for making their birthday so special.

oh and by the way, the limes in the hula top was Kaili's idea....are you surprised?

Toronto Visit details

Blogger is weird. I posted details but they didn't show up!
The pictures were taken at a delicious Indian Restaurant. That night we had intended to go for Chinese Buffet at this place called Mandarin. But when we got there at 7pm there was a wait of 1 1/2 hours. Can you believe it? So we decided to go this Indian place and it was fantastic. We wanted to have another meal there before we left Toronto but never made it back.

The pictures are of James' family. His parents, his sister and her husband and their 2 kids, Ava and Brandon. It was the first time that we met Brandon who is almost 9 months old. And he wasn't the tiny baby that we imagined him to be. He's so big now and so cute. And Ava is a great older sister. Thanks guys for a great visit and thank you Ava for sharing all your toys with Alex and Rachel.

Toronto Visit

A Wonderful Afternoon in Old Montreal

One of my favorite things that we did this visit was spend some time in Old Montreal with Alex and Rachel. First, I had to convince my mom and James that we should go to China Town for Cantonese Lobster (yummy). And bonus on top of that was we went when the restaurant was serving dim sum. So after this delicious lunch James and I took the girls to Old Montreal. We went on a horse/carriage ride, looked at all the beautiful buildings and ate ice cream & drank slushees. Basically we did all the touristy things that we never did when we actually lived in Montreal. The girls loved it. But they were quite disappointed that we could only feed the horse oats instead of apples and carrots like Strawberry Shortcake does with her filly friends.

More Pictures from the Weekend

I tried to post these pictures with my last post but it didn't work. So here they are.

We just got back from such a delicious dinner. My auntie had made such good Korean food that we ate lots and lots. Sorry Joyce, you missed out. Susan had brought a strawberry cheesecake that none of us could resist so we are all super full. (While we were getting in our cars, Susan brought us a bag with 1/2 dozen Almond Croissants along with Chocolate Croissants to have for breakfast tomorrow morning from my favorite boulangerie. She knows what I love to eat. So my diet will officially start when I get back.)

I just tucked the girls into bed. And they started off by saying, good night to me, then to each other, and then I hear....good night kleenex, good night toys, good night telephone, etc.... they were naming anything and everything that they could see in the room. And then they would giggle together. Such goofs together.