Valentine's Day at Our House

(Not at all as you would likely expect.)

Today was Everette's and my 25th Wedding Anniversary.  (We don't recommend getting married on Valentine's day.  We'd marry each other over again, but we wouldn't choose Valentine's Day to do it.  But that's beside the point.)

We spent yesterday together in Victoria, window-shopping, checking out new art supply stores, having lunch, taking in Tea-tasting at Silk Road, buying our family a tea set. ( Tea is our new education.  We never liked 'tea' until last month when we actually tried the Real McCoy, and now we are tea drinkers.  So it was a treat to spend more than an hour tasting and smelling and learning about tea yesterday. Then when we returned home we sipped and sampled tea with the children on the living room floor, sitting around flickering candles. )

Today we spent our actual anniversary here at home with our children.  A quiet, lazy day of togetherness.  Sharing, playing, creating, dancing, eating, working together.  A lovely family day.  And I gave my Valentine a surprise.

I must admit, I gave myself a bit of a surprise too.

After 25 years & 14 pregnancies (includes losses which still put weight on me!)

I'm up 14 pounds and still fit in the dress!  

I think that's pretty darn Good!!

 The satin needs a good ironing job, but this was impromptu so it didn't get done, and got shoved back in a sack in storage afterwards, so what would be the point.  Besides, I'm allergic to ironing!

To say that the children enjoyed seeing mommy in her wedding dress is to make an understatement.  Over and over again the younger girls pampered me, fixing my train, dancing around me, wishing they could be my Flower Girls.  They were so delighted.

Tonight we spent the evening trying to figure out our Jive steps for dance class.  And we got Layne and Mitchell learning some steps, too.  There was laughter, and some bouncing like bunnies instead of stepping like dancers, but it was all so enjoyable.

And then there was the cuddles with the children as we watched documentaries and a Tinker-bell movie.

We ended it with lighting sparklers on the back patio, sending light into the darkness.  I hope that our Love gives some light into the darkness.

Being together, its been an absolutely enjoyable Valentine's Day, and a great celebration of our commitment to One Another.  Here's to another 25 years.

Family Fun

Rauchelle caught the train down to spend the weekend with the family to celebrate my birthday.  Its a challenge for her to find the time from work to get down to our place via the train, but it beats the bus!!She treated me to beautiful bag of wholesome, natural goodies in a great natural fabric bag with says about 'A Wise Woman......'  I was a bit giddy opening the packages as they were daintily wrapped, and we aren't big on Gift Giving.  I think Rauchelle had as much fun watching me open it as she had shopping for it!

 Then....what Mama wanted to do was for the Family to go out for a walk together.  I see this hill from the children's bedrooms and I was curious as to what was up there.  So, the rain had stopped and we trekked out.

Toveli found a four-leaf clover.

Rauchelle had brought 

bandana's for Maret and Mitchell, and was wearing some herself, but 'Jesse' was feeling left out so he mooched one off of Rauchelle to be a Bandit.

Always somewhere's new to climb and conquer.

Rauchelle is always up to fun and a challenge. 

 She did stand on this and roll it.  This is where she fell off.

Two Buds at the Top

We found a water reserve at the top of the hill, and it had a ladder..........so of course we had to climb it.  Only of course, the bottom had a metal cover to discourage climbers, but we got over that, one way or other.

The littles climbed up the backside, squished between the ladder and wall.

Evaluating how much farther he had to climb.

He got right up to the top!

Even Mama did it!

There's most of us, at the top.

Rauchelle and Toveli

Taking a leap of faith.

Thanks, family, for making my day a special, love-filled one!  I am Blessed.

7 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About Me

1.  My feet went from about a size 8 to a 9-9.5 shoe due to pregnancies, and have not returned to their previous size.  I somehow did not read about this Hazard in the Pregnancy Literature.

2. I won the Elementary School Top Student Award in Grade 7 (Teachers Pet) and received an S badge and a coffee table book on Photography.

3. I begged my dad for a new 10-speed bike and received one over the summer, to have it stolen by October.  I swear I locked it up at the school bike rack!

4. I get faint at the thought of needles, and have been dragged across the gymnasium floor after getting a shot, and once I fainted at the medical clinic (after getting a few tubes of blood taken) when I needed to use their telephone to call home and get some pertinent information.  When I went down, so did the nurses stack of files and papers ;)  I can deliver a baby no problem, just don't prick me!

5. I no longer believe that hell is an eternal place. 

6. I think that a woman's breasts are fascinating.

7. I still don't bake with raisins, but I am more likely to eat your baking with raisins in it than I used to.  I was so adamantly against raisins in any type of food that when Everette once snuck 1 lonely raisin into my morning oatmeal,  the moment my mouth identified the foreign object it was propelled across the table to my astonished husbands chest. 

Introducing Laars' Perspective

He likes the camera.

You can just see Tigger peeking out of a tent (applique) at the bottom of Laars' own jean pantleg

He LOVES Mama

What did I tell you?  He Loves Me!!

He loves cars, too.

Maret kept getting lower and lower to try and stay in the field of view!

This one got a little help from Mama, but I think he's getting the hang of it for a 3yo.

(ok, there were alot that got deleted.  Thank God for digitals!)

Before & After Photos

About Dec 6th, 2009 I started eating according to The Daylight Diet (by Paul Nison).  It mostly entailed eating only during daylight hours, which in the depth of winter required me to adjust gradually to not eating after 3pm.  I started by not eating anything at all after 6pm.  I found that easy, so I moved it to 5 pm.  And rapidly I wasn't eating (most days) after 2 or 3pm.  I was truly amazed that I could do that, and feel good about it.  I honestly had to start embracing the rumblings in my belly, and recognize that they were signs of a healthy digestive system and aiding in elimination.  It was a good thing, not something to throw food at to stop it.

The weight started to come off right away, and Everette and I boosted it with a 5-day Juice Feast .  Since that time, we have predominantly eaten healthy other than when we traveled and when we stay with people.  Actually, the traveling part went fairly well for us as we stayed mostly High-Raw.  But staying with people makes it more difficult, that's for sure.  And 'living' with people who eat the comfort-foods that easily entrap us....that's hard.

Anyways, here are pictures of me at my starting weight of 184 lbs, the beginning of Dec 2009.

 

My weight now is 147 lbs.  Actually I've been at this weight roughly 2 months (give or take a pound or two) while we traveled the country and been staying with people.  I am confident that as I continue to eat healthy and incorporate other health practices, the weight will melt off and I will level out at a healthy weight for my body.  I don't actually have a target weight.  I believe my body will know what is ideal if I give it healthy fuel and help it eliminate the harmful stuff.

So, here's pictures taken just yesterday morning.

To see in closer proximity so as to compare......

I was slacking off for awhile from doing my Hoe-Downs, but this week I've gotten back to doing them and I feel better for that.  I feel that they have been helpful in getting my tummy in better shape while losing the weight.  I still have more work to do, but its been a fun and easy way for me to incorporate abdominal and buttocks exercise into my day (most days).  I love the T-Tapp philosophy and highly recommend the exercises (free on YouTube or purchase thru their site.  I'm happy with my purchases.)

Granville Island

This afternoon we drove out to UBC to pick up Layne after her

morning of teaching ESL and we headed to Granville Island.  We found an organic grocer there at the Public Market and stocked up on Pink Lady's, nectarines, strawberries, cherry tomatoes and pears and sat outside by the marina in the sunshine and devoured our nutritious lunch. (Later followed by not-nutritious apple-fritters and a humungous raspberry bran muffin).

 We wandered thru the stores a bit, especially over at the Kid's Market where the Toy Store is, and listened to the Bucksters outside of Bridges and the Bakery.  I didn't see the magician but much of the family did, and from the crowd that gathered it was a sensational show.

We found another park for the children to play at for a couple hours in the city as we enjoyed some short snoozes and chatter before driving Layne back to her temporary abode and an evening for her of getting paid to watch a movie with the ESL students! 

New Looks

Anders got a mohawk.

Laars didn't

And Mitchell lost his.

While the boys did something with their hair, us girls did something with our toes and fingernails.

A New Look for alot of us.  Plain and simple.

Animal Grossology & Remembrance

A trip in a Submarine, captained by Toveli!

And Factoids about barnacles, leeches, sea urchins, etc.  It was a fun & fact-filled morning when we checked out Animal Grossology at the Metropolis at Metrotown.  We know it's a hit when Anders asks "Can we come here tomorrow?"

Lots of info about dung and all other kinds of poops.  If Mitchell were a dung beetle, he'd be able to move up to 3,750 pounds of poop!!  50 times his own body weight.

The Slime Game, where you discover which creature makes the most slime in the world. 

Learn about the cow's digestive system.

And why do we always think of blood as being red??  And there's green blood, too!  Don't forget green in some caterpillars!

The morning was over (we also had a quick visit with Aunty Helen at her workplace) and we headed over to Central Park for a picnic lunch and a walk along the Terry Fox Circuit (not the whole thing), and reminisced about stopping east of Thunder Bay at the Terry Fox Memorial for where his run across Canada ended when cancer was rediscovered.

The children played Frozen Tag

and Hide 'n Seek (Laars is counting)

and watched a kazillion squirrels scoot here and there.  This pic shows how close they would come to our picnic.  Closer actually than viewed here.

Laars had a handful of huckleberries and you can see his excitement!

Lots of ducks and a few ducklings.

Two ponds.

We counted 14 turtles sunning here.  And there were some really big fish in this pond too.

Across the street from the park is Ocean View Cemetery where my father was buried almost 22 years ago, so we took the children there to see & remember.  Obviously, they don't remember Grampa.  None of my children do, unfortunately.  But we remembered, outloud, and shared about him as we do also about Grampa Johnson at times.

Gaelyn and Toveli place feathers at Grampa's graveside and have a peaceful moment there.  Wondering what he was like.  Imagining what he looked like in 3D. What he sounded like. 

Just wondering.