In the meantime...

Hello Friends,

I know it has been a while since I updated! We had a great trip to Maine in June, and we've had a visitor from New York City from the Fresh Air Fund for two weeks, and celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, and we had Agape Valley Bible Camp (daycamp) for a week, AND we're now in swim lessons and all sorts of summer activities!! Wow!

So, I am hoping to put up some photos from the Maine trip at some point; it was a wonderful vacation. But in the meantime here's a a couple of our friend Janelle (from Queens NY) and our children after some face painting!

Flying high at Pearson

Daddy David has been in California on a business trip this week, he came home today! Usually he flies out of Buffalo, but this time he went from Pearson International and we went to pick him up. It was the first time the children had been to Pearson, and it was a pretty exciting adventure!


Pearson seems to have lots of cool things to look at: hanging from the ceiling, on the walls, and like this tank/sculpture, right in the middle of the floor. This nifty tank thing had plastic cubes in it, and jets of water would turn on and off and make the cubes drift around inside the tank. It was also fun to look at it from different sides, and to wave at your siblings through it.

But perhaps the best part about the visit to the airport from the children's perspective was that it was profitable! We found lots of baggage carts that hadn't been returned to the cart kiosks, and for every cart we returned, we made $0.25. After we left, we counted the haul (a large fistful of quarters!) and we had returned 24 carts! So each child has an extra $1.50 in their pockets right now!

Actually the best part (of course) was meeting Daddy again! He almost got knocked down when he appeared by the big sliding doors! We had some fish and chips on the way home, and he is reading stories to them right now. All's right with the world again!

Recitals

It seems to be recital season here. We had a recital with our homeschool group (called a Showcase) with students playing or singing or reciting. Three of the Marshwiggles played piano pieces, and all did very well.

Ben has just finished his first piano book, so he played the last piece in the book. The piece is also written as a duet, so I went up to play with him. I think it helped his nerves having me beside him softly singing along with the piece.

Emmi has been preparing for her Grade 3 Royal Conservatory exam, so this was a good opportunity for her to try out one of her pieces. She played a study called "Arabesque" that is quite dramatic and ends with a lovely decending crescendo to a final chord. A crowd pleaser!

Tim has been making progress this year with piano, and has started playing pieces that require movement in his hands (from position to position). He played a piece called "The Galway Piper" and pulled it off nicely.

The other students did well also, and we had a time of snacks in the church basement after - always welcome after the stress of performing!

Orthodontics Have Arrived!

Tim has been seeing the orthodontist for quite a while now, but I don't think anyone else would notice. In April he had a nifty gizmo (a palate expander) put in place that I get to wind up every night to widen his top jaw. Well the orthodontist thought we'd wound him up enough, so he decided to put braces on. Here's Tim before the visit (above) and after (below).



Keep an eye on him and you may see the front gap get smaller!

Marineland!

We took a trip to Marineland last week with our local homeschool group and had a great time!

Emmi set herself a goal to ride every single ride at Marineland - and she suceeded! (A little disclaimer - one ride was closed, so she didn't ride that one, but she rode every other one, some multiple times!) As you can see, she enjoys rides!


Tim was able to hang out with a good friend who has similar tastes in rides, they did crazy things like ride certain spinny rides 6 times back-to-back-to-back-to ... whoops - got a little disoriented there!

However, it is Ben who gets the award for most multiple trips on a single ride. He and a friend (pictured below) rode this Orca Screamer (a smaller version of the Sky Screamer) 30 times! Then Ben came back and did it twice more by himself! 32 rides! Each ride drops you down 10 times - 320 drops! I am fortunate that his scrambled brains still seem able to handle his math!

This is what you see from the ground once the Orca Screamer gets going. Then it drops them down, lifts up and spins, and repeats, nine more times.

Pip had a lovely time riding with all sorts of friends and relations. He tried the grown-up roller coaster, but found this kiddie coaster to be more his speed!

We have seasons passes now, so we will be heading back at some point. I'm not sure if the records we set will stand, or if there will be some work to break them!

She's a good one to have in the family

I was pretty proud of my girl recently - she baked her first pie! She made the pastry, rolled it out, stirred up the filling, put it all together and baked it. The only things I did were help peel and cut the apples, and give general advice from time to time. (The photo above shows a detail where she cut her name into the crust as steam vents. It's hard to see - but I thought it was neat, signing your work like an artist!)

The pie smelled great in the oven, and it tasted pretty wonderful. The boys were impressed. They know having a sister is good, but it might be great.

Paradise for Boys (and a Girl)

"There is nothing--absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 1

We spent a great afternoon with some friends! Our friends are a family of 4 boys, about the same ages as our children, their parents, auntie and grandparents. The grandparents live on a large piece of land with a creek running through it, and the boys built a raft.

Here is the raft waiting to go in the creek:


Almost there!


The crowd waiting for the first trip of the raft to the bridge.


Emmi is a monkey!


The afternoon was warm, and this is what ended up happening to the boots:


What's she got in her hands?

Look closely - can you see the frog?

We came home pretty muddy, but thankful for good friends, and the chance to enjoy and explore God's exciting creation.