Happy Birthday Mumma/Grandma 29/6/2007

Here's to you, my beloved Mom & fantastic Grandma, on your 63rd birthday...oops, did I say that out loud?? :o) Hope you had a wonderful day, how fantastic that we got to celebrate together this year...on the same continent! The lobster was divine, kudos to Dad for the exceptional cooking of the darling crustaceans...hehe. Sorry I had to run away while you murdered/cooked them...hahaha! I need at least an hour until I can face the cake...ugh. Nice to know that your only granddaughter has inherited her Mommy's "champagne taste", I'm obviously raising her right!!

Cheers to Grandma!

Hey, what's that on your plate??
Only the legs left...poor little lobster! LOL

We all love you so very much, happy day to you!
Love,
Darling Daughter & the gang XO

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day to Tim and Norm, what a lovely day we all had (with the exception of Delsin pitching into the lake...hehe) and we all love you both very much! How wonderful that we all got to celebrate together this year! Here's to many more days like this!

Love, hugs and smooches,
Laura, Janette, Connor, Cameron, Maeghan, Delsin, Oscar, Schat & Bug XOXOXO

"Super-Ballerina" strikes again!

Just wanted to announce some amazing news from today!! Mae's wonderful ballet teacher, Miss Hill, mailed us Mae's R.A.D. Grade 3 Ballet results from her exam taken on 29 April. I'm so very proud to say that my princess received a "Distinction" with an 87% grade...woo hoo, way to go peanut!! **Mommy doing happy dance** This is an amazing achievement and Mae is so thrilled and pleased with herself, as she should be! Congrats to "ma petite ballerine", everyone is so proud of you, well done on all your hard work and it certainly paid off! Many thanks to Miss Hill who prepared all the girls so well, we will miss her very much and can only hope we find as wonderful a teacher as her wherever we end up living. Congrats to all Mae's classmates as well, we hope you were pleased with your results too!

What a wonderful way to end the week, hope you are all having a fantastic week too.

Laura :o)

Pictures....LOTS of pictures...

As promised, here are some pics of the new chapter of our lives so far! Sorry it's taken so long, I've had technical "issues"...hehe...I miss my own computer!

Connor and Cameron arrived (traveling with my Dad) four days before the rest of us... Cam reunited with his beloved Oscar!

Next, three days later, it was our turn...The junction to Mom and Dad's place..."wheeeeee, we're here!"

The welcoming committee! My family cracks me up!

Me and Mae with the Canada umbrella hats...haha!
Delsin loves his Grandpa....awwwwwww.My view as I blog! This place just sucks...mwah ha ha!
A welcome gift from our neighbours Paul & Caroline: "Tree Pee", their locally...I mean REALLY local, as in the maples right around us...LOL...tapped maple syrup from this spring 2007
The kids & Tim take their first plunge into Buck Lake! Mommy and Delsin abstain...hehe.
There goes Mae...brrrrrrr
And Cammy-doodle...
Connor does things his own way, none of this jumping-in crap...hehe.
Mae is really having fun now!
Cam is having a blast too!
Connor does eventually join in the fun for a great water fight...hehe.
"Oscar-guardian-of-the-boat" keeps an eye on things...or is that a tongue??!!

The kids head off to their new & temporary local school on May 28th...stinky old Mom & Dad!
Delsin is a "big school boy", little darling!
Outside the new school...note the yellow school bus in the background. :o)
The boys just chilling out!
Cam & Mae having a tootle on Grandma's piano, all the kids love it!
Delsin decided to add even more drama to the only hockey game worth watching for us broken-hearted Sens fans....booooooohoooooooo...by falling up the hardwood stairs and splitting his chin open...DOH! So a late-night run to the ER in Perth was needed with my Mom driving because I had already consumed the two necessary Stanley Cup beers...hee hee. Needless to say, he managed to charm everyone in the eerily quiet ER department, LOL

Getting his temp/pulse read by the lovely nurse
With his "numbing agent" cotton ball...it made him look like Santa! LOL
Just call him "mummy-boy", clever technique to avoid being struck by little arms & legs...hehe.
With his fab-o doctor
Proud owner of two blue stitches!

Del is going to school on alternate days for a full day, normal in rural areas because of the transport issues with the distances they need to cover! Dad and I headed off on a car shopping day while Del hung out with Grandma...she kept him nice and busy. :o)
After the first whirlwind week at school for the kids, Tim in TO working, me and Dad car shopping, Mom watching Del on his off-school days and a full Saturday test-driving our short-listed cars with the whole brood, we took the Sunday off to enjoy on the lake. The weather is amazing for this early in the season so we headed off in the boat to swim at a sandbar that runs between our point and a neighbouring island. **Note the gorgeous weather as we head out...it will mean something later...hehe**

Captain Mae pilots the boat!
Grandma & Connor enjoy the ride
Daddy and his boy
Oscar loves the boat!
We get Del & Mommy into Buck Lake...fark it was cold...hehe
Me and my girl go for a paddle
The three big lunkies!
The Taverner-Berry swimming gang
So...it's a glorious day, we've taken a dip and now decide to go for a little tour of the lake before heading back. No problem right??

Captain Del takes us out of port **snort**
Connor sits on the back of the boat "skiing" with is feet in the water...hehe
Then suddenly it all goes "pear-shaped". For the first time in the 24+ years we have owned this cottage, we got caught out on the lake as a storm blew in...EEK! The next picture is innocent enough looking, beautiful mating pair of loons floating on the lake. But if you look carefully in the background there is a boat screaming up the lake like a bat out of hell...hehe. This boat was anchored in the sandbar at the same time we were with the occupants also enjoying a dip!
As we drove a bit further around a big point, the sky blackened, the winds whipped the lake into whitecaps and there was this eerie green mist swirling along the tops of the trees on the islands and points...**gulp**. Dad, wisely, immediately turned the boat around (so we didn't get picked up by a gale and flipped over) and we took shelter behind an island. The storm hit us with driving rain and wind so we headed for the first dock we could see, docked, got the hell off the boat and hid under the decks and overhangs of this unoccupied cottage!! It was pretty scary, driving rain, wind, lightning, thunder, YIKES! Dad watched until there was a lull in the storm and we jumped back on the boat and made it back to our dock and ran back up to the safety of our cottage!! Mae will now NOT go out in the boat until my Dad pulls up the weather radar and assures her that there are NO storm systems headed our way....hahahahahaha! As it turns out there were weather warnings issued after we had gone out for severe thunderstorms, lightning, hail, and even tornadoes. Welcome to summer weather in southern Ontario!! I was really proud of the kids, and Oscar, as we hid out chattering in the cold and rain, they were really brave. So we fed them, plunged them in a hot tub, got them ready for bed and they had a great story to tell!

My Mom, bravely, dug out her camera and captured this shot of us cowering under an anonymous cottage on the island....hehe

So there is a glimpse into our first two weeks in Canada! There has been more whirlwind activity with me doing a househunting trip to Toronto with Tim and another one yesterday with my Mom and we've decided on our cars as well. Tim is off to Montreal until tomorrow & then he is in Toronto until Friday. June is a great month to be a kid at school as the year is winding down which means lots of fun activities and field trips...woo hoo. Del went to a farm yesterday, Cam is off to the Ontario Science Centre on Friday and Mae gets to go to an "interactive Medieval realm" called "Blades of Glory" next week...think she'll have a "leg up" after living and learning in the U.K. for the past 4 years...hehe. I hope we find a school in our next town that is as great as this one has been!

Hope you enjoy the pics, I have more to post after I get around to downloading them!!

Love to all,
Laura :o)