Busy Summer Days

We've had a busy few days lately. We've been to the Street Performers Festival, the Whyte Ave Art Walk, Farmer's Market, Jimmy Eat World concert, a premiere of Hellboy II, a library giggle fest and a magic show...and Claire got her hot pink wheelchair this week. Plus I have been going to Curves three times a week at 6:30am before Ryan goes to work.

We have been trying to teach Madeline about emotions and the faces that go with them. She has mastered 3 faces...

MAD

SURPRISED

HAPPY

Claire loves kisses - from dad...

And from uncle Greg

Here's Claire enjoying Street Performers in her new chair. It was our first outing with the new wheels and it went ok. It's hard to get used to, but it gives her so much more support. One frustrating thing is that at church there are no spaces in the chapel for a wheelchair to go. We either have to sit in the very back row (which usually fills up first) or the front row. I think I'm going to try and petition to get some wheelchair seating for our chapel.

Here is one of the groups we watched - the Yo-Yo People. It was great!

Madeline had fun at the kids area.

Claire had woken up very early that morning and crashed during the middle of our day.

Here we are at the art walk. It was neat to walk around and feel "cultured" by the weird art and the beautiful art and the scary/ugly art.

We got our "anime" family portrait done on the Art Walk - isn't it awesome?! Click on the photo to see it bigger.

While we were waiting for our anime picture to get done.

Here's Maddie walking home from the Art Walk.

Claire enjoying the beautiful summer day.

Claire is tackling daddy. She loved it!

So the wheelchair...it fits Claire so well. It's a real blessing for us but it's quite a change.

Madeline also loves to push it around the apartment and crash it into things.

Claire is so cute when she sleeps!

Extreme close-up!

This makes all the hours of scrapbooking worth it! Maddie loves to pull the books off the shelf and flip through the pages. It's fun to watch.

I love Canada!!!

We had a great Canada Day - apart from the fact that Ryan had to work. He is now doing landscaping with TWP (his friend Trevor's company) for the summer to alleviate the $ situation. Ryan's school year wound up with a lot of teary goodbyes from his loving students, lots of gifts from his kids and relief at a change of pace. He has taken a contract with the same school next year teaching grade 5 again. The funny thing is that next year he will be the only male staff member in the entire school! This past year he had one other man to relate to, but he is retiring. Ryan seems destined to be surrounded by girls - only sisters, a wife and two daughters and now an entire school of female colleagues! He is a very good sport!


For our Canada Day, the girls and I started out by relaxing at home, then (along with the Auntie Stephanies) we took in the Silly Summer Parade on Whyte Ave which is always a lot of fun. Then we came home and lounged on our deck with our luxurious pool. After a leisurely naptime for the girls whilst I prepared a yummy meal, we ate with Greg and Stephanie and Steph and took family pictures out on the front lawn. Ryan and I watched the patriotic film "Die Hard 4" while listening to the fireworks. Maybe next year we'll brave the late night and loud noises with the girls but decided against it for this year.



We haven't really fortified our Canada Day traditions since Ryan has usually had to work and so this year I came up with a couple - a nice family picnic-style dinner and a family photo. Hopefully next year we can add to it.

I can't imagine living in a better place - we have all that we need and more. Our families are close, we are free to worship the way we choose, we have so many medical advantages for Claire and so many avenues for support, there is so much funding available for her care, we can drive a couple hours and see the mountains and it always stirs me to look out on the prairie landscape when the sun is setting on a warm summer's night or when the sun is blinding off white snow...this place has always been my home and no other place can cut it for me. I'm so happy to celebrate our wonderful country!

Lots and lots and lots

I'll start out this blog by killing two tags with one stone. Ages ago Brenna tagged me to write 7 interesting things about myself and Karen just tagged me to write 7 quirks I have so I'll do them both at once:

1. I am totally squeamish when it comes to veins and needles. I can handle lots of other stuff but even right now as I'm typing, my hands are resting on the keyboard tray and I am painfully aware of the bulging veins on the inside of my wrists and it grosses me out. I can't have anyone touch my wrists because it freaks me out. Weird, I know.

2. I love doing laundry and loading the dishwasher, but I hate dealing with putting the clean stuff away.

3. I love to alphabetize things - all our DVDs and CDs are in alphabetical order (and if you saw how many we have you would know it's a big job). It really bugs me when Maddie pulls them all off the shelf and they get mixed up.

4. I have no green thumb - I try my darndest but I seem to kill every green thing that enters this house. They may appear to flourish for a while but it never lasts.

5. I love to read but I always do it too quick - my mind and eyes keep jumping forward to find out what happens next. Sometimes I even start at the bottom right hand corner of a page and read backwards. I often miss important details though and so I like to read books over and over until I have all the info.

6. I am a list maker. I even made a list of what to write for my 7 quirks before I wrote them down. I sometimes even write things on my "To-Do List" that I've already done, just so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them off. Some may feel that is cheating but I don't!

7. Whenever I eat pineapple, my tongue gets really itchy.

8. Because I'm so weird I have to add an extra one - every time I see billboards or brand names or any words when I'm bored...I count, in my mind, how many vowels are in the words and add them up. I would do this at university when I was bored with a lecture. Sometimes I even count rare letters - like x's or z's or q's. It helps me pass the time.

I would love to hear about the quirks/interesting facts about Jenny, Tanis and Sarah - if you have the time!

We've had a busy few weeks. Here's some highlights:

Madeline enjoyed playing with Uncle Robbie's new cymbal. She would run over to it and balance on it. It was pretty funny to watch.

We spent a day at the zoo with other kids from the CNIB and we got to meet lots of "behind the scenes" animals. Here is Madeline chasing the petting zoo animals. She would run from animal to animal, giving them a pat and moving on to the next. She just kept going and going!

I loved watching Claire interact with the animals. She was so gentle and careful and sat very still when she was meeting them. Our guide was so kind to the kids and made sure they each had enough time to explore. Here Claire is meeting a ferrett in the restricted area that only we got to see! We also got to touch a snake, chinchilla, skunk!, bunnies and chickens.
The girls were in heaven.

We also got to meet an armadillo and it was super cool!

Another fun activity put on by the CNIB was a visit to the Build-a-Bear store in West Ed. The ASVI gave the kids $20 each to put towards a furry friend so we had a ball picking out the sounds and accessories. Here is a picture of the lifeless bodies we picked out for the girls.

Here's Claire hugging her bear Sunshine - we picked it out because it was yellow and sparkly and picked a giggling sound for her button.

Madeline was going crazy in the store because there were so many fun things to look at and grab. She loves her Fraidy Cat and how she meows.

Luckily I had the help of Natalie and Robbie or I couldn't have done it.

It takes three of us to handle the two girls! One for each and one for damage control!

One rough part of last week was that we noticed some seizures again during the night. It's a really scary thing because it just seems like Claire isn't really there and we can't get her back for that minute or two until it's done. It was even more of a blow since we haven't noticed any since November and we thought we had things figured out. Now it takes another EEG, another day at the hospital and probably another "wait and see" or "up her meds" solution.

I love to look at pictures of Claire when she's just purely happy - she is never fake about what makes her laugh and what makes her happy. She equally as able to tell us when something scares her or hurts her. I wish I could take those scary times away from her but I'm trusting that Heavenly Father is allowing this to happen for a reason - although I can't see it now.