Thngs that make me late for school:

Listening to the bathroom contractor tell me about his gout.
Kids suddenly remembering it's "80's Day" and fighting over a black afro wig that has nothing to do with the 80's in the first place.
Dog throwing up a bar of soap then subsequently sudsy water all morning.
Kids the next morning saying they dressed up the day before by mistake, it's actually "80's Day" today!

Random Summer Stuff

We actually did quite a lot this summer...Jason says not since he was 12 years old has a summer lasted so long! We did a lot, but I seem to have been remiss in my blogging. It has to do with switching over to a laptop for all my photos but still using the home computer for almost everything else. Regardless, here's an assortment of summer photos:We rented a cottage in the middle of nowhere for a week and it was AMAZING!! No one fought, no one got bored, it was beautiful and peaceful and perfect for Murphy too! Hannah brought a friend and that helped even out the kids. What a good friend too to help Hannah unhook fish when she doesn't even like fishing herself!

We came across this amazing field of screaming heads. If I hadn't known this place existed from stories from our friends Nancy & Doug, I would have been a lot more freaked out by it. Apparently this guy lives on 150 acres and carves these heads and hands coming out of the ground. Even his house was full of gargoyles and strange characters. Pretty interesting to look at, but we didn't stick around...we were on our way out to dinner that evening when we happened to drive by.

We also spent a few days at my friend Nicola's parents' cottage. We were there with Nicola & her family and also my friend Karen & her family. Jason was back at work by then so I was with the kids by myself, but all the kids played so well together and it was a great time catching up with my old high school girlfriends.

Jason was back at work when we took a road trip to Niagara Falls too. The kids had NEVER been to the falls and I hadn't been there since I was about 18! Eri & I packed all our kids into my van and had a FANTASTIC road trip. There was some cross-border shopping and lunch involved and then a wonderful tour of downtown Niagara Falls. We were there until dark and it was pretty spectacular to see the lights of the city and the falls all lit up.

The Science Centre was one of our day trips while Jason was on vacation. He had 3 weeks off in a row and we really enjoyed the time with the kids together!

And now I'm back to school and the kids will be soon. Hannah took my first day of school photo in front of the flowers where I always take hers...what a sweetie. The first week was a roller coaster of feeling proud and scared and elated and overwhelmed. I'm not the oldest person in the class...in fact, of 75 of us, I would say 25-30 are in a similar situation to me where they have kids or past careers and are coming back to school after years. The workload looks very daunting, but I'm optimistic.

Of course, there will be times when I'm made to feel very old. Participation marks would be taken off if I didn't participate in my campus cheer for example! But here's my class in all our glory!

This past week was the last of Henry's soccer games for the summer. So as our summer sports wind down, hockey and figure skating will begin...another summer event...Henry lost both his front teeth!