A Whole Bunch of Pictures from May

A Dragon and a Puppy after a visit to the face-painters at Wings Over Wascana, an excellent nature excursion

A night out with my girls--the ones who've kept me sane with monthly outings through the deep dark winters--I love them so much!

Miniature Mozarts piano recital (rehearsal--they dressed all cute for the real thing and I forgot to take a picture!) I've LOVED teaching these wonderful kids!

An afternoon at the playground across the street:

This kid is only 8 for a few more days!

Apparently, Emerson has NOT inherited his brother's love of monkey bars

Really? This is what they pick to do when we go to the playground? Maybe we live too far from the beach . . .

Good lookin' dad riding Theo's bike

Shooting some hoops--Theo's getting pretty good!

How I love these girls! Aimee (middle) moved last winter, and Coralie (r) might move this summer too. I don't know what I would have done without them through the last three years though!!

Emer's very best buddy, Caleb

And Sera's favorite playmate, Willow

Scooting down the street

Sera wishes she could ride her tricycle every hour of every day

Addy has become quite the bike-rider--look at that form!

Emer and Addy planting something in our garden--hopefully we didn't throw it away when it sprouted a few days later . . . but we probably did. Seriously though, we're going to have a garden in our next place!

Before Addy's ballet recital

With some friends

Sera giving Addy some flowers after the performance

Next stop: Disneyland!

The Joy of Anticipation

May has been a month of anticipation. One thing I've learned from teaching Joy School so many times is that half the joy of anything comes from anticipation. And we have most definitely been anticipating around here.

Can you believe that when we moved here three years ago, we moved into this?

Have a look now.

If you see a difference on the outside, let me just tell you that the difference inside is even more dramatic--I just couldn't ever bring myself to take the "before" pictures inside because they turned my stomach too much. I remember thinking when we moved in that our house looked more or less like a trailer home that had been inhabited by a crazy cat woman. It sort of smelled that way too. Moving here was a huge leap of faith for us. Aaron's job offer was fantastic, but moving a family of six into a new country, even if that country is Canada, is a humongous undertaking. We needed passports for everyone, work permits and visas, we had to pay fees to import our vehicles (cars cost a lot more here), figure out a new tax code, figure out how to purchase property in a place with very different regulations than the US (while the housing market was going wild here and going very steeply south in the US), and cope with a loonie that was headed for par with the US dollar, even though prices here were much higher. It's been a trip, let me tell you.

Wait a second. Was that last sentence in past tense? Yup.

It was so hard to leave Cincinnati. I made Aaron swear a blood oath (not really) that after our move to Regina, I wouldn't have to move again for seven to ten years. I wanted to make friends and keep them. I wanted my kids to go to schools and have their own friends and birthday parties and, you know, security and stuff. Only then came last winter. Not last winter, but last last winter--2008-09. I'm not going through all that again (you're welcome), but it was rough and so cold that I still shiver thinking about it. And so I decided, sort of unilaterally, that maybe this wasn't the place for us after all. During the darkest months of winter, I worked my magic trying to convince Aaron to agree with me ("Oh look honey, isn't the ice on the inside of the window a pretty shape today?" "Did you see that the loonie is drifting back toward par with the dollar?"). Before long, he started dreaming about a new job and a warmer climate too. Last spring, he started sending out a CV whenever a remotely interesting job opening was posted. Meanwhile, I started a list. It had things like "interesting landscape," "not a million miles from cities we want to visit," "four seasons of interesting but not deadly weather," "no icy wind that feels like a hundred steak knives stabbing you in the face." Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. It was actually a very specific list, with things like city size (200K-ish), proximity to major cities, greenness, sports teams that would be fun to take kids to, good libraries and parks, art museums, zoo, symphony orchestra, lower cost of living, proximity to lakes/beaches, with a preference on the midwest.

Well, requests for additional materials and phone interviews started pouring in (which was seriously an amazing blessing, as there are relatively few postings in Aaron's field in a given year), and with each one we did our research and considered the repercussions of moving our family to that location. The list got some tweaks, and we reranked some of the items on it. Ultimately, Aaron interviewed at schools all over the country, from Pepperdine to Georgia State, and at the end of it all, Aaron has accepted a position at a school that very nearly meets every single item on that very long list I started over a year ago: INDIANA-PURDUE UNIVERSITY in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There are some drawbacks to our move, mainly that Aaron has worked himself so hard to achieve early tenure here (in only three years!), and now has to start all over again in a new place, and at a lower salary. But really, we feel so good about this move for our family, and are even excited (I know this is practically impossible to believe coming from me, but it's true) to pack up and move. Of course that could be because we haven't broken out the actual boxes yet. That always makes a difference.

With all that anticipation, of a new place to live, a new house, new friends, a whole new life, really, how could it get any better? Well, maybe throw in a looming TRIP TO DISNEYLAND that we've all been saving up for since last year, and you'll know how good it's really been. The kids saved up about $400, and Aaron and I have tried to make the rest come from extra things rather than our regular savings, so we've really all been working together on this. Hopefully all that extra work will make the trip one that we all remember for a very long time. We leave tomorrow (June 1) and CAN'T WAIT!!

As for fun times this month--they were mostly stashed between home renovation projects. Addy danced in her first dance recital (and did a fantastic job even though they wouldn't let us take photos of ANY KIND--I got some of her and her friends before and after), I had a piano recital with my Miniature Mozarts piano classes (which I rarely mention here, but which I have really loved teaching this year), and we went to the parks and played outside a bunch! Emer and Sera have been so good-natured about all our hours of work. They watch Super-Why and usually a couple of other television shows in the morning (yes, this from the person who used to restrict screen time to three hours a week and still really wants to do that, but the logistics are not working out so well), then play downstairs while we work, mostly without poking their fingers into paint and things. Lots of Lego creations get made every day, and they can spend hours on end laying atop our bar stools and spinning themselves dizzy while playing such favorite games as "yes/no" (one says "yes" and the other says "no" over and over and over again and they laugh hysterically), and "oh faithfully" (they sing the words "oh faithfully" over and over again on adjacent minor thirds-- I have no idea why the words are "oh faithfully," but Emer and Sera consider it their first legitimate musical composition).

Theo and Addy are busy busy at school, which they both really love this year. I can't credit their fantastic teachers enough. I think having a great time in school has really softened the impact of having such upheaval at home all the time as we move furniture around, declare various parts of the house off-limits for days and weeks, don't stay consistent on things like chores and practicing, and don't have friends over for play-dates. I can't overstate my gratitude for these great teachers this year, and I better have my act together to get pictures of the kids with them this year (note to self)!

We're looking ahead to a fun few weeks, a busy few weeks, and then a big move--so much to anticipate . . . so much joy! Okay, see ya post-Disneyland!

Spring has Sprung!

Easter Egg dyage

Some pretty cute Easter cookies, I like to think

Yeah, they'd had a little sugar . . .

Easter dinner
(Theo is absent from this and the egg-dying picture because he has taken to stripping down to a pair of nylon shorts whenever he's home)

I took Theo and Addy out for pictures afterward

I'm not good at it, but I did have good subjects

Didn't I?

Then on to some good times at the park

Did I mention that Regina is a great place to fly kites?

Because it is

Seriously. And how lucky are these kids to have Aaron for their dad?

Even Sera got in on the football action

It was a good day

April Flowers? In April?? Get out.

Just when I was ready to crown Regina the queen of cold and land of wintry desolation, she goes and gives me this April. There was one teensy little snow-shower, a couple of chilly arctic winds blowing through, but mostly lots of gorgeous, sunshiny days! We picnicked in the park, flew kites (because let me tell you, there's not a city anywhere that can compete with Regina for kite-flying), and very nearly had an outdoor egg hunt for Easter. Nearly. Easter dress wearing is a fundamental requirement for egg hunting, and it wasn't that warm.

The weekend before Easter, I finally got it together and put on a Passover dinner (Seder) for our family. I'm sure I got a few things wrong (I can't imagine any Jewish rabbi condoning our meal of pork with apples), but it was fun to dig up all the info on the internet and relive one of my favorite experiences from my time in Jerusalem 13 years ago. It helped us get into the Easter spirit, and to think more about the events leading up to the crucifiction and resurrection than we've done in previous years. I definitely plan to make this a yearly tradition in our family. Of course, it would have been lovely if I'd actually taken some pictures, but then where would my motivation to repeat it be?

During the week, we made Easter sugar cookies and dyed eggs, and then woke up to a gorgeous Easter morning the following Sunday. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and even little blades of green seemed to be pushing up through the ground. Even though it made us late for church, we took a few minutes for photos on the front porch. Good thing, because it was overcast and cold by the time we got back from church (and besides, the hair ribbons had come out by then anyway)! Since I'd forgotten Passover pictures, I made sure to take Easter dinner ones. Nothing like bright green asparagus and brilliant red strawberries. We lobbed a few of the strawberries into a pie crust for a fresh strawberry pie for dessert as well. Mmm.

Aaron's choral concert the next week was breathtaking. Performed in the largest cathedral in town, Knox Metropolitan, with their fantastic organist, Hart Godden, it was a concert I don't think any of us will soon forget. Aaron posted a video of the Sanctus on his website (it's the second one on the playlist) that you should really take a minute to listen to. I can't really say anything about it that would do it justice, so just listen (Aaron's disclaimer: he has no idea why the person who set up the camera centered it on him and didn't include the choir at all). While the Sanctus is stunning on its own, I have to add that it was even better in context, with the gorgeous Kyrie before, and finishing with the In Paradisum that makes me cry every time. One of these days I'll force him to post those as well. It made me think of the wonderful reunion that I know my Grandma Ruthie is waiting for with her husband Dean on the other side.

Pretty much every extra second of the rest of our time was spent putting more finishing touches on our house. And we're not out of the woods yet. This month we've painted baseboards and window frames, painted the living room, bathroom and kitchen, caulked a bunch of stuff, put in new vent covers, started switching out light switches and electrical outlets, reseeded the grass, and Aaron has somehow managed to plow through both US and Canadian tax returns. We had hoped to leave at the beginning of May for Disneyland, with our house on the market and everything, but with more projects still on the backlog (fence in the backyard, junk removal that we meant to have done as soon as we moved in, yard sale, painting downstairs, fixing carpet that came up with a slight water backup in March, and other stuff besides, we're pushing the trip back to the tail end of the month and forging ahead. Meanwhile, all this other work puts me way behind on regular housework like laundry and cleaning the floors. It's almost worse than last month. Maybe I'll get around to taking all the wonderful suggestions I got in the last post (thank you!) after we finish?