Gerald is home

Gerald came home this morning and is resting on the couch. The kids are trying to remember not to pounce on him or even to snuggle too close. He slept for a few hours during the night and ate breakfast at the hospital before we picked him up. I imagine it will be a relatively quiet day.

Sandy

Overnight at the Hospital

Well, Gerald is staying for night at the hospital. The surgery went all as planned and he isn't in any pain right now (thanks goodness for morphine) but he is not recovering well from the anesthesia. He is extremely nauseated and dizzy. The nurses suggested it would be best that he stay for night. I agreed and told Gerald that is what he is doing. He didn't put up a fuss. He could hardly acknowledge that we were there. Andrew went to his soccer game with one of his teammates so after we checked in at the hospital Caleb and Olivia and I are at home and starting to relax from the day. We are all tired - although probably not as tired as Gerald. The nurse told me to come after breakfast and Gerald will probably be ready to come home with us. Olivia immediately asked if she could sleep in my bed. I will let her start there and then move her so that I can have a peaceful sleep.

Sandy

Gerald is in surgery

Gerald is in surgery as I type this. The nurse told me to go home and relax as it would be at least three hours before I could see him. So here I am at home all by myself as the kids are at friends. It feels kind of weird! Gerald surgery will take about an hour and a half if all goes as expected. Depending on how recovery goes he could be home as early as this afternoon or as late as tomorrow. They kept telling him he was young and in good shape so things should go well.

Sandy

Forts and Quilts

It has been a beautiful day! And it didn't freeze last night :) Gerald's parents joined us for the day. Gerald and his dad worked on the tree fort all day. The roof was put on and the door installed as well as some bracing put on. While they were outside mom and I were inside working on my quilt. Mom brought her frames and we set them up and got all three layers ready to go. We even got some quilting done in between the food preparation and laundry.


They joined us for Caleb's soccer game before they headed home. Gerald came home after the game to mow the lawn while the kids and I stayed and watched some of Dani's softball game. We walked home afterwards.

Now, the next major event is Gerald's surgery tomorrow. He is drinking tons of water right now since he can't drink after midnight and he was out in the sun all day. He has to be at the hospital by 9 and his surgery is scheduled for 11 am.

Time to get the patient to bed so he can be ready for the day tomorrow!
Sandy

Sunshine and Warmth

I'm off to a good start today. I've already showered and gotten ready for the day, have a load of laundry ready to go to the line, uncovered the garden (yes it froze again last night), moved all the flower pots out of the garage and back into place, and taken care of the dog.

It sounds like Olivia has joined the boys in their bed and I hear lots of laughing going on in there. They are definitely enjoying the lazy mornings since we finished school.

Gerald and I are making a quick trip to Winnipeg today. I got a letter yesterday from the Citizenship Office that my application is on hold until I get fingerprinted at an approved agency. Apparently they want to prove that I don't have a criminal record. There is also a concern that there is another person having the same name and biographical data as mine that is also applying for citizenship.

I need to get to all the emails about cousin power party that my mom has sent about my responsibilities - sorry mom, I will get to them shortly and respond to you.

Tomorrow Gerald hopes to work all day on the tree fort as that will be the last day he can work on it for awhile. His surgery on his hernias is on Thursday.

It is a nice sunny morning and already warmer than it was all day yesterday. Definitely a good start to the day. Hope yours goes well.

Sandy

Sandy's Saturday Story

The week went by way too fast - we were busy and enjoyed the week. The tree fort has a tarp for a roof for now and the windows were put in today. Olivia and I planted a flower in a pot and put it up on the veranda of the fort.

The garden was planted and covered several times this week as frost was predicted. One of the nights that we didn't cover the garden several of the plants were damaged and a few died from the frost. All that hard work down the drain. I also planted all the flowers - they are all doing well except the sunflowers which all died due to the strong wind that broke all the stems. I've replanted the sunflowers as well as the cucumbers and the pumpkins. I may have to go to the greenhouse and get a few new pepper plants - we'll see how they do in the next few days. It hasn't been a fantastic start to the garden season. And I saw on the 10 day forecast that there are several more nights of frost this coming week.

We have done lots of biking as a family. Yesterday the kids and I biked from our house to the church and back. The kids went up Abe's Hill and rode down several times. It made me a little nervous watching Olivia fly down the hill but she made it each time. It is good to be at this stage of life. Later that day our family biked out to Canadian Tire. With the price of gas going higher and higher we would like to keep the van parked as much as possible.

We sat around the fire last night and had a blast together as a family. The kids wanted to play No Bears Out Tonight so we did and ran and laughed lots. We stayed up until it was dark and then showered everybody and went to bed. All good memories. Olivia asked if we could have another fire tonight. We are so enjoying the long evenings as they kids can stay up later since we have finished school.

The boys went to a soccer skills camp this morning. Andrew said that he didn't learn anything new but had lots of fun with the drills and games. Olivia and I had some fun time together at home.

We made home made pizza and milk shakes for supper tonight and then went for a walk. We cleaned up outside and got ready for the coming storm and now we are getting ready for an early bed time. We have had several late nights and enjoyed them all. But tonight we are ready for an earlier night.

Enjoy your Sunday,
Sandy

May Long Weekend

This May Long Weekend we decided to spend outdoors...in our own backyard. I decided to take the day off on Friday and begin a project that has been long in coming...building a tree fort, as our kids call it. A couple of weekends ago we had already turned the steel anchors into the ground and put up the four posts. On Friday we began to install the joists, put on the OSB flooring, and build one of the walls. Because the wind was howling all day, we decided not to raise the wall we had built. On Saturday morning we raised the one completed wall and carried on building and raising the rest of the walls of the fort. By the end of the day on Saturday we had the four walls in place and it stayed standing, despite 50 mph winds most of the day...I figured that if it can handle those winds then it is solid enough for the kids to play in for the next few years.
Then on Sunday afternoon we again headed outdoors, this time to make a disco and have some friends over to enjoy it together with us. We finished off the evening by building a fire in our fire-pit and playing some hide and seek games in the darkness of the backyard...we had a such a fun family time together. The kids finally went off to bed at around 11 p.m., with smiles on their faces!
This morning it is raining but we are hopeful that we can get outside once again and do some more work on the tree fort and perhaps do some gardening, but we'll see...perhaps just a lazy day inside is in order. Sandy is talking about doing some baking if the rain keeps falling.
The kids are pretty pumped that in 17 days they are heading out to Minneapolis with Sandy to begin the Couzin Power Party...an annual party hosted by Sandy's mom for 19 grandchildren. They will take the Amtrak train from Minneapolis to Montana and spend the week there at Grandma and Grandpa's (Sandy is going as the cook this year). I will be spending that week at home with my trusty dog Lobo...I suppose we'll see if how much bonding him and I will be doing.
Hope your weekend was at least half as good as ours!
~ Gerald

Already No School?

Hey,
This is Andrew, like Olivia said, we are building a ''tree fort'' without a tree, weird huh. We all thought it would be waaaaaaaayyyyy smaller, even Dad and he planned it. I am glad that it is bigger though. I've been taking 100 soccer shots on a wall after Dad said I needed to get strength in my left leg, so I am taking 50 shots with my right leg and 50 shots with my left leg(Yesterday I could not because of the rain) . Mom has been doing lots of baking for cousin power party at our Grandma Katies. So far she has baked one pail of no bake cookies and one pail of chocolate chip cookies. Right now Caleb and Olivia are helping mom with the animal crackers for VBS. Yesterday we went to Joey's Only - one of my favorite restaurants (not my ultimate favorite, but one of my favorites) to celebrate that we had finished school. We had ''chocolate chipy bananay muffins'' as Olivia called them for breakfast, really they were just banana muffins with chocolate chips. By the name I thought they would gross but they were actually quite good.
See ya,

Summer Break

Tomorrow is our first official day of summer break. Andrew was the last to finish and he completed third grade today. We went out for supper to celebrate. Gerald asked what I planned to do for the next few weeks. I said nothing for the next few days. We will see how long that lasts.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and we celebrated by doing the 5 km Run for Mom here in town. While Andrew jogged a good part of the route the rest of us walked the majority of it. It was a fun way to spend the day and we were all impressed with how well we did. Afterwards we went to Rosenort to spent the evening with Gerald's parents and watched one of the hockey games before heading home.

There has been a nice gentle rain most of the day today. It made me wish I had put my garden in already, but then two nights ago it was still freezing at night. Caleb's soccer game was cancelled tonight due to the rain which made it possible for us to enjoy a leisure supper out.
~ Sandy

Olivia's Saturday Blog...

Hi...today we started to build a tree fort. First we put the steel posts into the ground. Then we put the big posts on top of the steel and pointed them up into the sky. We had to turn the metal posts around and around into the ground. We helped our dad hold the posts and balance them so they wouldn't fall over while daddy put them straight. Daddy bought me a hammer today and I plan on using it lots as we build the tree fort. I was a big helper today. Here are some pictures.




We also have some other pictures...

(Caleb getting his Awana award for finishing his book...all three children finished their books in just half the year)

(Our family doing some skits at our Home School Spring Program)

(Andrew playing in his first away game of his soccer career...in Otterburne)

Have a great day,
Olivia

Soccer and School

We had a great time last weekend up in Pelly, Hudson Bay and Endeavour. The kids did well traveling and a fantastic job on their part of the presentation. There were some late nights and early mornings but they still were enthusiastic about their part of the program. We got home late Sunday night.

Olivia finished Kindergarten yesterday. She was very excited to be finished and yet she spent the whole morning in the school room with the boys while they worked today. Caleb will probably finish tomorrow and Andrew will finished early next week. They have worked very hard this year and we are all ready for a nice summer break. Some nice hot weather would be nice now!

We are on our second week of soccer. Caleb plays Monday and Wednesday and Andrew plays Tuesday and Thursday. Gerald is coaching Caleb's team once again this year. Andrew had his first away game on Tuesday. We traveled to Otterburne for the game. Andrew scored the first goal of the game - he was pretty pumped about that. This level is already very interesting to watch as they are learning to play their positions and use the full field.

Tomorrow is our Spring Program with our home school group. Our family is doing three short skits. We practiced these all last weekend as we did them in each of the three churches as part of our presentation. They didn't have anything to do with our time in Mexico, (it was a missions conference) but it was well received.

Gerald has been very busy with work. He has been to Winnipeg several days this week for meetings. He is out to Anola tonight for a meeting with the youth.

Sandy