Well BUSY and fabulous… as always! 3 birthday boys, Chinese New Year AND Valentine’s Day. Not to mention it is also Nana’s birthday month. I think February has ALWAYS kept us hopping. We tend to not do a huge celebration for Valentine’s Day but we do send out quite a few Valentines. Chinese New Year is always a bit of a big deal. We clean the house, wear new shirts (usually self decorated) and eat special foods. Although we will ALWAYS miss our friends back home who made Chinese New Year so special.

We celebrated Emanuel turning 10. Double digits it is!!!

And made our very own igloo.

It was Emanuel’s turn for a workbook completion.

The boys were very grateful for their lovely birthday gifts from all sorts of loving friends and family.

With treats for the girls. Thanks Gammie!

After all, the twins are now 12!!! Where has the time gone? Next year — TEENAGERS.

We had fun with the Schwartz family.

Swam our hearts out.

And in the world of crochet – a heart scarf I gifted to a sweet friend as a pick me up.

Hung out with the Novaks (gotta celebrate with our friends on those birthdays).

Had the guys over for game night.

Raced cars with the scouts… Not only Emanuel this year! 

I got in sewing time of course – I made a jellyfish mobile for the girls’ room and for a friend back home – a hat that has a likeness to a hat on a certain Sci Fi series. 

So a happy belated Valentine’s Day… etc… to everyone! 

You can see the original post HERE, but I had overflow of the fun… duh! When do I not? Oh well, enjoy the look back at our summer of 2015 (that just does not roll of the tongue like the summer of ’69).

Golden Bamboo Lemur

Sifaka Lemur

Madagascar. Thank you Wild Kratts for being AWESOME

Hanging with the Novak boys

Lucky library finds from their rack of books no longer in circulation.

Jeffrey!

Emanuel and Zander

Snoopy!

the beginning of the rest of Alex’s birthday

more of Aidan’s birthday

And now for the ones off the cell phone!

Making Donuts with Nana!

Goofing around at the Novak’s

Look who got their bracelet to access all pools!

Emanuel’s third place Fair winner

Trying on Baba’s old uniform jacket

And now for my two favourites from the month!

Well, my goal of making my blog up to date BEFORE the end of January was a bit of a miss! But, amazingly enough, I have posted more than 2000 blog posts since I began this site! What a stretch! But then again, I have enjoyed pretty much every addition to it.

Now that I have posted June it is time to look at July… Canada Day, Independence Day… we manage both sides of the coin this month. You can see our Canada Day finery HERE and Independence Day HERE. We were spoiled with also spending a portion of cousin Gabbi’s birthday with her since it too is on July 4th and their vacation had stretched to meet the date.

We had amazing Pad Thai dinner with the Schwartz family… which also included time with the always entertaining Mystro (cue Echo asking ONCE AGAIN when we will get a cat, even the pictures set her off lately!).

We had an awesome time at Aidan’s Lego themed birthday party. Darcy went all out with the theme and Emanuel was over the moon to see at least one of his scouting buddies when they were not in session.

I wish I had the talent Darcy has with cakes. I am honestly more of a go to Target and order a cake kinda girl lately.

July was also when Grandpa Mike made his bike trip up through Minnesota. We got a whole afternoon/evening with him (minus swimming lessons). The kids were over the moon with the visit.

On the phone with Grandma

Showing him the nearby park (Echo was napping)

He even took us out to Wendy’s for dinner! It was the longest we ever sat there and one of the most enjoyable ever.

Sadly he had to bike on earlier than expected the next day when he got news of a need to visit family up in Ontario. But it was a good visit and the kids still remember it fondly.

We had plenty of time for learning and school in July with cousins back home and the weather rather fine.

Gavin is working on his art skills

Wild Kratts: fossa

Miss Echo was a laugh and a half most of the time.

But we made LOTS of time for the pool. And in turn my sewing time. After all, sunshine, warm weather and a pool in the yard… why stay inside?

Towards the end of July we were able to also make it to Alex’s birthday. Another awesome day, though we had to leave early to make it to YMCA lessons (did I ever get a lecture from the kids for that one!).

We lucked out with weather and free time and managed to meet up with the Novaks at one of their local splash pads. It is easier each year to go out and just relax, what with the older Novak boys and our own kids being older. A lot less micro managing. It is nice!

Multiple visits with the Novaks and the Schwartz family were experienced in July. Poor Trinity, so many boys!!!

Extra bonus – visit with Alicia and Cousin Robbie. She is off to university in the fall!!

We rounded out the month with swimming lessons. I am so pleased with how well all of our kids are doing. We are going to end up with little fishes very soon!!!

And of course continued our archery, cooking and running classes at the YMCA thanks to Nana and Baba!

So really July was an exercise in making the most of fun in the sun! We didn’t do half bad did we???