April holds Trinity’s birthday. And spring. Both worth celebrating. Don’t forget Easter and sunshine and Grandma’s visit. Wow was April ever a fun one! AND a lot of it you already know… Click on the words above that will bring you to each event.

Easter display at church

Trinity had her first Communion class.

We had a super special opportunity to try out a local put put golf place that was closing down after decades of service. Renee and Christopher had gone there, and I think Ken as a child. So it was a fun way to get our kids in on something they remembered. Even though it was rather cold. 

Renee lining up her shot.

Jeffrey

We went from the golf course to a soda shop. Not just any soda shop: Blue Sun Soda & Sweets where Renee spoiled the kids with letting them chose one soda each!!

CLEARLY CANADIAN!!!

And then time to hang out at the Schwartz’s. With Mystro and all!

With their sodas!

We have been trying really hard to make Friday night a weekly date night for Ken and myself. Not only to get out for a nice and quiet meal, but to spend quality time on us. This is AFTER my Friday night workout class, so it has been fun to work really hard and then shower and come out pretty and ready for fun.

Ready for class

Noms!

We have taken full advantage of our time at the YMCA as usual.

And continued our trend of watching our godson kick butt in soccer on weekends.

Trinity has been playing with her camera, and other lovely gifts.

April has been a regular month of school, of course. With lots of completions to celebrate. 

By Echo

Aimee (fellow homeschool mom) and I made it out to a major textile garage sale and found some gems.

We rode bikes and visited the local park.


Found some early spring flowers.

Of course I snuck in some crafty time.

Crafting in the sunshine

A good and busy month.

Putting a state study together (Gavin)

A new tack board!

Grocery shopping!

Learning in the sunroom

Another view of the crew

Our youngest is a full on school age kid now! Where has the time gone? Yup, Miss Echo is officially 7 as of Sunday, August 13th. My Friday the 13th baby.

We actually had a rather fun weekend for her. Saturday was a trip to the Science Museum to see the Pixar exhibit (not that she enjoyed that all that much, so many other things to see). We went with our homeschool buds. It was fun. Expensive (the exhibit was an add on, which was annoying since we got memberships to AVOID that), but there was things to see and do that we hadn’t seen or done before.

It was nice to get out and run around and enjoy ourselves before heading back.

Before that we had spent an hour at the YMCA to swim and play.

Saturday NIGHT we had cousin Robbie over. Which is always exciting for the whole family. He is a family favourite after all.

Sunday morning we slept in a little… well some of us did. Before packing up Echo and going to take pictures out by the local library. We were going to do it at the flower beds but people were busy weeding so we improvised.

After pictures it was picking up the much anticipated cake! Then preparing everyone to head out the the birthday girl’s restaurant of choice – a McDonald’s with a play area. This was a total homeschool buds weekend as they joined us too.

Since it was a rainy day we had to table the beach plan and instead head over to our house for cake and presents.

After all that fun it was off to the YMCA for her swim lesson. Add in calls from Grandma and Nana and Baba and I think little miss had an absolute blast.

To top it off – she lost her first tooth!!! It was quite the milestone weekend!!!

Now sit back and enjoy the science museum images!

Echo and Nate

July 1st is our yearly opportunity to be very visible and very Canadian. This year was a little different… Emanuel was still away at the Scout Camp with his friend Aidan until the evening. So we did our usual photo shoot with a twist.

There was a meet up with our homeschool friends for some swimming or club (kid’s choice) with Nate and Bella as well. 

We TRIED to head to the zoo but apparently it was the day to go. So instead we turned around and headed to our favourite beach. Since the weather was a little on the cool side and cloudy it wasn’t packed. We didn’t spend much time in the water but really enjoyed the sand.

With Maple the Leaf

After the beach it was home for showers and then off to collect our absent Canadian. On the way there we stopped at our 3rd Tim Hortons so far. This one is rather close to the Novak’s house. I actually meet what I assume is an owner of one of the franchise. After a lovely conversation about the new stores and my coming from Canada to Minnesota he comped us 40 Tim Bits!!! So I left that store with 80 Tim Bits, an Ice Cap and a wonderful experience.

Snoopy!

After a visit with the family and delivery of their Canadian goodies it was off to McDonald’s (Echo’s request after the aborted trip to the zoo).

We rounded off our Canada Day with a table of Canadian sweets. Ken made traditional and mint Nanaimo Bars (we had to order the custard powder off Amazon), Maple Cookies sent by a friend, and Tim Bits. Not bad! Next year buttertarts?

We redid our group photos on the 2nd to get a full group shot.

Not bad for a Canada Day that wasn’t able to be celebrated IN Canada.