Yet another week is coming to an end here in our new home. Another relatively overcast week sadly but we are settling in nicely. Echo officially has her crib set up in her corner of our new bedroom with screen in place. I FINALLY get to use her adorable crib set… a Superstore purchase before she was born. Now to clean AROUND the crib and make our room our own.

Echo's corner

So very cute!

We moved on to our next chapter. Louis the swan is determined to redeem his father by paying BACK the store for the trumpet (thank goodness).

Completed pages

After our story the boys chose their activities… a bit of sun came out so Zander jumped for the chance to head out and play on his bike in the backyard.

Helmet and all

Gavin chose to go the math route and get back to work on his book. He REALLY wants to move onto the grade 2 book as soon as he can. With Echo supervising of course.

Math with a supervisor

I actually had to make her standing toy TALLER! What a milestone! Note the jaunty little bow that she is wearing – it was a gift from her Canadian god-parents for Christmas this past year. She is growing bit by bit all round.

Standing tall

It feels good to start moving back into our homeschooling more rigorously. The plan is to start out look at Canada on Monday – it won’t be hugely in depth, they ARE only 7 and I don’t have a local library card yet but we do have quite a few resources that I purposely packed where I could find them right off.

Chris and Chris stopped by briefly on their way into the city for Comic-con. I REALLY wanted to go this year but we just couldn’t swing it with cost AND how busy we are right now settling in… next year I want to go for sure! They will be stopping by on the way back on Sunday as well. It has been a while since we have had a visit with them, and their move end of the month will have them closer to Saskatchewan and further from us!

I have arranged the livingroom to my own satisfaction… mostly! The sofa is turned, the baby area set up… though I need to put blankets along the fireplace. The netbook has its place of pride on the desk. I just need to find the bag for the pieces of the kitchen table…

Finished sitting area

Ken took the 4 bigger kids on a walk around the block after supper in the limited sunshine we have had. They came back with one dog poo shoe (Emanuel) and a scraped knee (Trinity) but happy kids ready for their baths and bed.

Out on the walk

We got our Anniversary dinner today – nothing extremely fancy, just KFC… but Ken caved and got the Double Down… soooo bad for you! I am sure in July Ken and I will get a more special meal but for now we are together and having dinner and that is what is the big thing.

KFC for 2

Oh I have to say – Cousin Veronika – PASSED!!!! And apparently her Audrey Hepburn themed photo shoot went swimmingly also! I am so proud and so glad I volunteered. I definitely have a greater appreciation for how difficult it is to make someone look good for a specific reason. On she goes to the next course on Monday!

Now for tonight I have the urge to get this basement going. After all Kathy is coming to visit next Friday which  gives me a concrete reason to hold onto to make this tidying a reality.

The best image sent to me by Chris and Chris from their first day at Comic-Con... Night Elf ready for fishing! WoW anyone?

2 days away from home and Echo and I are glad to be back. We were super busy for most of it getting to know puppies and a kitty, playing with Cousin Veronika and Adam (her fiancée), eating out… and then there was the test!!!! I won’t know if we passed it (well if VERONIKA did) until Friday but I think she was marvellous,and we weren’t half bad either!

Our Tuesday started in a flurry of activity when Cousin Veronika and Adam showed up… I was still in bed (oops) and not packed so there was packing, kids wanting to visit and of course a quick shower and then the hour + drive to their home. That is where Echo met Combyne, Hollie and Dinah. (dog, dog and cat respectively) They all fell in love, though Dinah was a little cautious.

Hollie

Combyne

Miss Dinah

After putting up the playpen in the kitchen (there was some trial and error and 3 grown ups working at it) we settled in to an AMAZING lunch cooked by Adam (the man can cook and then some!)… and a lovely rest in their sunny living room. It was amazing to catch up with family and give them the opportunity to actually meet and fall in love with Echo. This was their first chance to do so. (the first of many now that we are half a far away) I am 12 years older than Veronika… she is the last and I am the first of the MacLean grandchildren (there are 5) and a lot of our experiences with our grandparents mirror each other. It is amazing how much we have in common in our memories, our likes and our sense of humour.

After visiting we headed out to the new Swiss Chalet. The service wasn’t great but Echo was kind enough to stay in her carseat and munch on her mashed potatoes and I got to eat a whole meal AND desert. CHEESECAKE! I have really enjoyed this opportunity to ALSO get to know Adam. After all he IS family. Right now he is looking for work, he just got back from commercial fishing in B.C. It turned out he has a bad reaction to the scales of the particular fish they were after AND was rather ill. I have to say we are glad to have him back.

After supper it was back to the house to have a quiet evening in. We did try and get Echo to nap throughout the day and in the evening succeeded. She slept for a couple of hours until midnight when it was time for me to collect her and head up to bed… Sadly she decided she didn’t want to share a bed and spent an hour trying to shove me out of it, and then woke up periodically all night. Dinah also helped her along by jumping on the bed and spooking me. I was tired enough and asleep enough to misinterpret the motion of her jumping ON the bed with Echo falling OFF.

We had to be up VERY early – 6/6:30 as we had to leave by 7:30 to deal with the potential rush hour traffic. Traffic turned out to be really good and we got there SUPER early… lots of time for Echo to convince us to take her OUT of her carseat and to meet some of the other face models AND make-up artists. There were some lovely ladies though Echo was VERY cautious.

The written was first and I opted NOT to wander around downtown in a busy city with a baby alone, instead I waited in the reception area and kept Echo busy with food, breastfeeding and toys. She did rather well only making a few noises I am told were not even heard. Veronika finished with some time to spare so we moved back out into the hallway and played with Echo and discussed the test.

Next was the practical… part ONE. We all got set up in our BACKLESS chairs in front of our make-up artist’s station only to be told to move ONE chair to the RIGHT… which sucked as I had JUST gotten Echo to fall asleep in my arms. Moving woke her right up. And she didn’t like the new artist. Thankfully the artist to the right again was someone Echo was enthralled with. She managed 20 of the 30 min a perfect angel watching the other lady, once she slowed Echo got fussy but we managed. The first look was to be like a Dove commercial – the make-up less look. I was pretty happy with everything BUT my eyebrows… in order to shape them and fill them in she made them VERY dark, too dark in my opinion.

The next one was an extreme smoky eye built up on the natural look… AFTER we moved 2 chairs down. Echo was pretty willing to sit and actually fell asleep for a little bit. I didn’t have time to get a picture of the natural look sadly. The new lady was a mother of 3 and was VERY aware that the best way to deal with our Echo was to quietly talk to her from time to time while she did my make-up. The other artist was younger and SUPER tense as soon as she saw she would be dealing with a baby even though it was ME who dealt with the baby. I was a little disappointed in my smoky eye. She was VERY timid about it in my mind though the blending was wonderful. I would love to se (or have Veronika do for me) a more extreme version done on myself. Keep in mind that between these two looks the instructor had to mark and then again after… Echo was less than impressed.

Smoky from the side... I need to get the image off of Veronika's camera as my forward was fuzzy

One girl had her model show up 3 min AFTER start time… ouch! But after we were done being marked we could head off for an hour lunch. We were hungry but couldn’t really eat… still TWO more tests to go and a baby who was starting to lose A LOT of interest and be VERY tired. We picked her up a plain bagel at our luncheon and headed back early to ensure time to pee and change the baby. Bagel was a HUGE success as was the fact that the last two parts of the testing were to be done on me by VERONIKA. Echo was quite content about that for the most part, chomping her bagel pieces and then finally after a few cries passing out. The first look was 50’s glam. It was fun to have the extra lines for eyeliner and the interesting colours. Then after the marking they were told to do an Avant-garde 50’s look. VERY extreme, we had to go stand at the end of a hallway and then walk towards the instructor. This meant leaving Echo with Veronika and the other artists which was NOT to her liking. She actually slept until I had to get up to do that! Poor sleepy baby. We won’t know for sure how the marking went until Friday… so I have fingers crossed… I just know she did WONDERFUL.

Runway ready

After marking we removed MOST of the over the top make-up, gathered up our stuff and baby and headed back to Adam and Veronika’s where dinner was waiting for us – a VERY yummy chicken and some cabbage rolls they picked up from a nearby (and amazing) store. We put Echo down for a nap before heading home… in a clean outfit as it was SUPER hot in the room where we did the testing and she sweated her bit of hair into curls!

Post adventure nap

Adam left to go quad-ding and we packed up and headed home… after I took some pictures of Combine! Honestly, could you resist??

Soooooo cute!

We got home to a relatively messy home and kids who were VERY happy to see me but not willing to leave their netbook fun.

Gaming

Veronika stuck around for a little visiting before heading back home as Karyn and Victoria came by. They got their baby snuggles in and we worked out with Karyn having her over tomorrow to do her laundry allowing Ken and I to head OUT for our anniversary dinner! 10 years tomorrow!! All this in 2 days! What a great way to cement one of my major reasons for wanting to move her – being closer to family!!!

On a more negative note – today the Canada Post did a complete lock out. This is NOT a good thing for our family – we have our federal and provincial child cheques to receive (we are going to get them to direct deposit ASAP) and as a contractor Ken is always paid with cheques. So today Ken called all the companies he has work with to make sure they either cancelled sent cheques OR sent them to him NOT using the post. And tomorrow we get to take turns sitting on hold with the government working on the change over to direct deposit. FUN FUN! I am REALLY hoping this will pass quickly…

Cousin Veronika, Gavin and Echo