Mom and the Kids

Do you remeber back when there were places in the mall where you could get your photo taken? The photographer would set up shop for a week or so you just dropped by....no appointment necessary. I do believe this was taken at Sevenoaks mall back in the day. I'd say early 80's...just my mom and the kids!

Theatre Night

Back in April...or what is May, I purchased tickets for ;The Lion King'. Over the years I had heard from various people what a fantastic show this was and definitely wanted to see it for myself. Since getting our family to NYC to see it on Broadway is not a travel goal of ours, a trip to the QE Theatre in Vancouver was a perfect solution!

Words could never do it justice. Everything was amazing...props, costumes, acting, singing, and pure raw talent. Just phenomenal!

I wasn't sure how we should dress. I thought that it being a family type show it would be a casual group. As we drove up to the theatre I saw mostly dresses and 'Sunday' clothes. Oh dear! What can I say...we are country bumpkins. As we entered the lobby I relaxed as I noticed there was everything from shorts, to jeans, to dresses and heels. We fit in just right. We had nosebleeds seats but the view was wonderful. What a great memory!

Redwood Park

Have you ever been to Redwood Park in south Surrey? We hadn't until this past Sunday. What a lovely place. The trees are gorgeous, the park is huge and I can imagine it would be a nice cool place on a hot summers day. The playground is very new and has lots of stuff for kids of all ages. Check it out on google...there is an interesting history behind it as well.

We were really pleased to be invited to a birthday BBQ with the Gaughan clan to celebrate Jessica's birthday. Just to give you a bit of background...Jessica is Cormac's wife. Cormac is Sinead's brother and he's the one that guided us around Dublin last summer. They are here for Orla's (Sinead's sister) wedding....and are currently taking one year to travel the world. Amazing!

They organized a great lunch. We all contributed and there was plenty of food. Here are Cormac and Sile getting the Coleman going. They cooked up some farmer sausage and salmon.

Sinead and I. I feel we have been spoiled because in the past five years we have got to see our dear friends on three seperate occasions. I don't know if there is going to be any visiting in the near future....unless another Gaughen sibling decides to get married in Abbotsford. Here's hoping! Otherwise, we'll have to plan another trip to Ireland.


Sile's son Laughlan and Liam really enjoyed many rides in the wagon. They are birthday twins...born within minutes of each other!


Here is the newlywed couple. Congrats Cam and Orla!

Gorgeous rings.

Even though Jessica was insisting she's only 23 years old, we all know that DQ ice cream cakes never lie. Welcome to the 30s Jessica! It's not so bad at all.

Jessica enjoying us all singing to her! We insisted on a speech and she said that whoever said she was 23 could have a nice big piece of cake. Alright then!

We took a short stroll around one area of the park. Many of the trees are labeled and there are signs with lots of interesting historical tidbits. The variety of trees is amazing.

The six Gaughan sibs. Cormac, Sinead, Ashling, Orla, Sile and Michael. I've know all these peeps for about 20 years now and have come to think of them as family. Hard to believe Ashling was a wee toddler when I first started hanging out with Sinead and now she's in her third year at SFU.

We managed to set up the camera on the cooler and get a shot of the whole gang!

Here are my Irish sisters :) Well, Jessica is from Mexico but since she's married in, she's Irish too!

We had a great afternoon! Wonderful memories. I took so many pictures but this small sampling gives an idea of our great day.

Young Pups

Oh dear. Another kissy kissy. This was taken in September of 1991 at Mt Baker. Keith and I had been dating about 2 months. As you can see Keith is wearing his 'skinny' jeans...and now they are back again. That makes us quite old y'know! Keith was my first (and last) serious boyfriend. 1991 was a bit of a tough year for us as Keith had one more year of high school and I had just graduated. I do believe I was a distraction to his studies and his grades slipped!

A Very Lucky Boy

This past weekend, Nathan spent a few days with his Auntie Suzanne. A very special treat as she lives in Victoria which meant an overseas voyage to get there. He had the BEST time...he told me 'the BEST time in the WHOLE WORLD'. Wow...gonna be hard to top that. They went to the mueseum, IMAX, a bird park with raptor demos, out to eat (including the Marble Slab) watched movies, took bikes rides, walked the dogs in the forest and went to an amazing park called 'Wild Play'. It's an obstacle course with different challenges ranging from easy to very difficult. Nate was harnessed (makes me happy) and took upon many neat adventures such as zip lines and rope bridges. He just loved it.

Nathan and Suzanne at the ferry terminal. We picked him up and said a quick hi/bye to Suzanne as she turned around and took the ferry home. Thanks for bringing him back...we missed him! Nathan is about the same height as her now....egad!

Chad was extremely lonely without Nathan home. Liam kept saying 'boat boat' since we explained Nathan went on a boat to see his aunt. I love this photo of them all in the backseat on the way home. Chad's not taking his eyes off his beloved brother!

Thank you Suzanne....you've treated our boy extrememly well and he's going to have some fabulous memories!

Setting Up Shop

Darryl and Sinead asked Keith if he would trim Emma's hair the other evening. They are getting some family photos done and Emma was looking a bit shaggy. As you may or may not know, Keith cuts his own hair. He's beyond particular about it and thinks he can do a better job than any barber! That definitely saves us a lot of money since he cuts his hair every three weeks!

Emma switched between enduring the trim to downright anger. We tried many distractions such as lollypops, clips of home movies on the phone and singing!

Well all was said and done she looked great!

Meanwhile, Clodagh was more than happy to water my garden. What a great help that was!


After seeing all the 'fun' Emma had, Clodagh now wanted her bangs or fringe trimmed as well. She was a good little customer. Both girls are now looking quite spiffy and ready for their family portraits!

Playmates

Liam has been chanting 'Emma' and 'Clodagh' ever since they arrived in Canada. He was very happy to have them over this morning for a little play time. They are sweet little girls and I do so wish they lived closer!

They made much 'beautiful' music together.
Dressing up was a highlight. Here we have a firefigther lion and cute little lady bug!

White Rock

Not a cloud in the sky! It's low tide! What more could one want for a day at the beach?

Maybe some peanut butter and banana sandwiches!
I just could not resist taking a photo of this man in the background. Liam was a handy cover. He got out his sun lounger, oiled up his already leathery hide and lit his pipe. What a picture of health! Meanwhile his companion had a hat, sunscreen and lily white skin. I thought she was the wiser of the two until she lit up a cigarette!

Pie Boy

Little boy Chad and his pie. He still loves Nana's pie and will eat it until we stay 'ENOUGH'!

Can't Get Enough

Fresh blueberries...we LOVE them!

(yellow upper lip from 'smelling' the danelions!)

I Think We're CRAZY!

After our last cat died I said that we'd never get another cat.

We got another cat!

Actually what I meant was I would never get another cat unless it was declawed and I didn't want to pay for declawing so I thought that finalized our decision right there. Then my neighbor told me about a sweet one year old kitten that needed a home...and she was already declawed! It seemed like it was meant to be. She's a wee little tabby (the best breed for families in my opinion) and she's ours now! I hope we've made the right decision....yikes.

Welcome to our family, Bella!

Finally!

I have been waiting 'forever' to do this post! I can now say with relief that our flood restoration is FINALLY finished. When this all happened back in May I thought it would be all done in about 2-3 weeks. I was ever so wrong about that! It was a bit of a pain between dealing with adjustors, contractors, project managers and suppliers but now it's done and I don't have to think about that stuff anymore! Here are the long-awaited before and after pictures...

Special Guest

Thursday morning there was a lovely young lady at my door bearing gifts such as these...it was Ceara! We have what can only be called a traditional sleep over that has been happening ever since she was a wee thing on her visits to Canada.

I was very happy to have some female company in the house and she's such a pleasure to have around. She's matured into quite a nice young lady as you can see. Even though she and Nathan are only 4 months apart the emotional maturation level is becoming quite noticable. I'm glad she was able to still enjoy being with the boys though! They love spending time with her.

After lunch I took the gang to the wave pool. They swam for 2 1/2 hours solid and seemed to really enjoy themselves. Ceara was loving the diving boards! I was stuck in the kiddie pool with Liam which was exhausting. That kid has no fear!


For supper I made a big hearty pan of nachos with the works. We demolished them after our active afternoon.


Next on the agenda was a bit of hot-tubbing!

And then ice cream sundaes to go with our movie! Ceara made herself quite the masterpiece.

Finally they got settle to sleep in the family room...it was quite late. I needed them to get some good solid sleep for our day at the waterslides!

Yeah, we made it to Bridal Falls Waterpark before lunch. We were given some coupons (thanks Lois!) so it wasn't as dear as I thought it might be to get us all into the place.

Here are the kids warming up in the giant hot tub. I don't know why they needed to even go in that pee pool since the sun was plenty warm! We had so much fun going on the river rapids ride. I love it and came out injury free! That is a plus at my age! Keith did something to his back. Just figures!

Liam loved the waterpark and enjoyed all the sliding he could do.

All that fun made for a tired boy and Keith was able to get him to sleep for about half an hour in the afternoon. Once he woke up he was raring to go again!

Here are my tired critters at the end of a long and very fun day! Thanks Ceara for being our wonderful guest and I hope you had as much fun as we did.