So it is Monday… felt like a Sunday but nope, Monday. Monday has come to mean H&W day… and once again they managed to deliver the savings! 33 cents a lb on watermelon, we got a lovely sized melon for under $3.00. As we had bought potatoes last week along with carrots this was a cheaper trip totallying just over $13.00. Still we got pitas (which of course meant PIZZA for supper!) and bananas (back down to 49 cents a lb) among other things. Always a positive way to start our day!

The afternoon was spent out at the same park we went to to see the Heritage Festival. What a change with all the tents down. On a weekday without any sort of activities the park is rather quiet. It was a perfect day – cloudy but warm with a nice breeze, the sun did peek its way out after a while but the breeze kept the heat at bay.

We set up our picnic by a bunch of evergreen style trees where there was a rather irate squirrel. After a while it gave up but for the first hour or so it would chitter angrily at us as it snuck around the patch of trees. I took all 3 boys over to see how close we could get and literally was able to stand under the branch it was on and watch it eat a pinecone! Even with the boys talking relatively loudly it didn’t move an inch, just sat way above us and enjoyed its meal.

I basically brought what was in the fridge for our picnic – luncheon meat, veggies, fruits… juice pouches I had saved for a special occassion, ice tea and a freshly (and I mean this morning fresh) baked loaf of bread. The guys all had sandwiches and I made myself a lovely salad. I brought all the raspberries I had in the fridge to snack on and Sean brought one of Ken’s favourites – chips and salsa!

To keep the boys busy I printed out a picture for them to colour of hedgehogs having their own picnic where we compared what they were doing to our own picnic.

We brought the skipping ropes of course and the soccer ball (what is a Reinsch-Johnson picnic without the soccer ball? Though we are still lamenting the loss of our nicer more professional one in Minnesota)… and the colour wonder paper and markers.

For Trinity I brought her usual toy bag though she spent most of her time running around and enjoying the freedom of a massive patch of grass and trying to terrorize the seagulls.

Daddy and His Little Girl

Making a Face For the Camera

I managed to sneak myself in a nap while the kids played their games (I think it came down to gathering sticks and leaves to create nests etc) and Sean and Ken played the game Ken brought. A German one – Cathedral which he always beats me at! Reminds me of a rather complicated version of tic tac toe, though I am sure Ken would beg to differ.

We were there until nearly 4pm. Which, after a stop off at 7-11 for slurpee and fountain pop, had us home in time to clean up and get started on dinner. The kids were incredibly happy with dinner – on top of pizza there were BROWNIES! Chris and Chris left the last of a pan of them on Friday for us to enjoy and man did the boys enjoy them! All over themselves, the table and the chairs!

There was another surprise waiting on our doorknob when we got home – Karyn had dropped off a gift for Trinity on her way up north! This month is Trinity’s baptism birthday! (of course it had TOTALLY slipped our mind) And Karyn left her a lovely card, ornament and magnet to celebrate it! I am going to see if I can hang it up over her crib! What a terrific thing to do – I think Trinity is one lucky god-daughter!!!

The dragon stitch seemingly started out well… that was until this evening when I sat down to read through the colour legend again and noticed that I had missed adding a blending filament to one of the colours! It is mildly confusing – on the left side they list ALL symbols and the DMC floss colour for each. In the next column over there is 4 symbols with their DMC floss AND the blending filament they are to be mixed with… 4 symbols that are THE SAME as 4 on the left column! So of course I forgot to check. Thankfully I was not so far along that it was difficult to tear out all of that colour of stitches, just mildly frustrating. And now my pattern has stitches highlighted as stitched which is mildly confusing but I am sure I can overcome! It is starting to take a little bit of shape… and I AM liking working with greens for once!

Ken heads off to his meeting 3 1/2 hrs or so south of here tomorrow morning leaving myself and the kids here alone. So we are keeping the day relatively simple. I figure we will work on the number 8, writing “Johnson” as a whole word (I made up the Reinsch-Johnson in capital letters poster for the wall tonight to go with their first names) and maybe some colouring before having the kids play outside for most of the day. I am hoping on getting some more cleaning done, sort out some of the Christmas craft supplies and maybe hunt down some more fun craft ideas online. With this week shaping up to be pretty nice and warm I figure we should take advantage of that and play outside as much as possible, maybe even sing some of our songs or practice some of the rhymes they have learned. Just keep your fingers crossed, prayers said, and a positive thought in your mind for Ken please. Hopefully this meeting will end the way we are hoping.

Today was just a wonderful day to be a family together and the addition of Sean to our outing was splendid. The rest of the week is busy off and on… Tuesday has Ken gone, Thursday the homeschool park date, Friday my doctor’s appointment back home and a visit with mom at her house, Saturday a free activity at Michaels and hopefully Sunday going to the tiny splash park we came across literally down the street from Nathan and Ada. A bit of driving and higher gas costs for the week but we really can’t avoid it. As much as I hate going for a physical getting in to see my doctor  can take months so I would rather not reschedule and the boys are excited about seeing Harley again. Not to mention that we can head over to the splash park there that is quite extensive while waiting on Grandma Anna to finish work! Weather permitting of course!

So here it is 9:30 and all 4 kids asleep, Ken busy on the computer and me… lazy on mine. What a day! Now I just need to get up the energy to clean up the livingroom… wish me luck!