The Lazy Days

Ah, summer. Please stay with us!
Those days that last forever... where you go out for the whole day in a sleeveless shirt and don't even take a cardigan... where the day is not complete if you don't find sand between your toes... where it always ends in ice cream... where your sunglasses live on your face...

Where the kids stay up until 11 o'clock because it's still light out and then wake up at 6 because, guess what? it's light out again... where you march around with your spray sunscreen holstered at the hip ready to blast the kids at regular intervals... where you have to help the boys remove sand from delicate areas that as a female, you wish you didn't have to see any more... where you realize the whole "kids on sugar" thing is NOT a myth... where you realize you have racoon eyes from your sunglasses and trying to even up that tan results in nothing more than burnt eyelids surrounded by a ring of white and now you actually look more like a lemur than anything.

Hang on... Maybe I'm done with summer.

Nah.

Living at the beach is 100% awesome. We are seriously at the beach every day. Who wouldn't, when it is mere steps away? We ARE eating too much ice cream, though, and are already well-equipped with our frequent-cone-eating rewards cards. Tonight was a fish and chips at the beach night again. I haven't eaten fish for 21 years (with a Belizean exception in 2008) but I had a craving tonight. I don't actually remember that much grease being involved in my past fish and chip-eating life but MAN fried batter of any kind is just 50 different kinds of fantastic. Have you ever noticed that just about every international cuisine has some form of fried treat? Think about it. I have eaten (inhaled) the following finger-licking deep-fried delights: Mexican churros, Indian pakoras, French beignets, English fried Mars bars, oh my GOD Japanese tempura, Greek Loukousomethingys, South African fatcakes, McDonald's hashbrowns, and I've probably forgotten a bunch because I just had to pause and mop up a giant puddle of drool. And then I ate a Mars bar.

Where was I?

At the beginning of every summer, I sit down with the calendar, a Vancouver visitor's guide, and all the coupons from the kids' report cards. We figure out everything we want to do in our two short but glorious months of summer. Ethan wants to do every single thing we have a coupon for, and worries if we do something that doesn't involve a discount. Um, I don't know WHERE he got that from. Ahem. I heard him saying to Jack the other day: "We can't buy that balloon because our new house costs MILLIONS of dollars and that's way more than your piggy bank. and anyway, Mummy packed your piggy bank." No cash, kids, sorry!

And as for Jack, he would be happy playing Wii all day long, but once he gets outside you can't drag the kid in. I started his Kindergarten readiness booklet with him earlier this week, and we've checked off a bunch from the checklist. There was one left: practice walking your route to school. So we left from the street outside what will be our new house, and walked uphill to the school. It's less than 5 blocks. I divided it into "hard steep" - first half a block, "medium steep" - next two, and "easy level" - the rest of the way. It didn't take TOO much coaxing, whining, or moaning, and we were there in 15 minutes. Jack did "run out of power" once and I had to tow him to the stop sign, but the way back only took 12 minutes and overall I was pleased.

Right. The calendar. So far we have gone berry picking, celebrated Canada Day and my birthday, met Jack's school friends at the beach, mini-golfed, bowled and joined the summer reading club.

Berry picking - we missed the strawberries this year because of moving at an inconvenient time berry-wise, but we went to do u-pick anyway. It was raining and all that was left in the fields cost us 38 cents when they weighed our bucket. So we bought a pile of cherries and five pounds of the most amazing English peas. Yumm-o.

Canada Day was an awesome pool day at Gene and Kim's. There were 21 kids in and out of the pool throughout the day, lots of food and drink, and a beautiful sunny day. Ahhhhh. My birthday was also great as we BBQ'd and ate up on the roof top patio with the Buckdills, the Cowdens, Eliot and Megan. The kids played with Hannah downstairs until 11 pm while we ate cake and slowly realized that it had gotten pitch black somewhere in the middle of our conversation. Also, my birthday wish came mostly true. I had asked the boys to keep their hands off their crotches for the day as that would be the best birthday present EVER. They mostly obliged.

Bowling I would rather not talk about as Ethan kind of kicked my ass. I'm not going again until I practice more on the Wii. I can still beat my five year old though. Yee hah.

Anyway there is more to come. Our calendar awaits.