I"m so sorry

Keira. I'm so sorry to read about your grandma passing away. I read it in the Armstrong news paper. She was a sweet lady!
Kirsten

My Little Farmers

I still have so many pictures from BC! Here we are at my dad's farm. In the last one, Roman is grabbing onto Gina yelling "Horse! Horse!" Like "come on, sister, come see this thing!" Angelina loved being a "little farmer" and feeding the animals and picking vegetables for dinner.

Roman is still as obsessed with letters as ever; they're his reason for getting up in the morning. Seriously, he wakes up mumbling "lellas" and goes straight to his fridge magnet letters. I don't think I have mentioned this before, but he has a nemesis: the letter u. If he sees something that starts with the letter u, he points to it and hollers angrily, "u, uuuuuu!" and there is no consoling him. Luckily not many things start with u, although I believe fall is rainy here so we'll see more and more umbrellas, unfortunately.

Angelina is excited that gymnastics starts up again tomorrow. Her little friend Zachary goes too. We went to his birthday yesterday, and Angelina told me, as she kept me up all night chattering, that her favourite part was the cake, her second favourite part was the big "3" balloon, and her third favourite part was the icing on the cake.

Pumpkin Pictures

Beautiful beach babies, best buds

Super summer smile

Best BC buddy

Happy handsome

Car cuddles

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

A speech from Hamlet is a weird thing for a three year old to know. But grandpa Garcia, who loves Shakespeare, recited it to her and she loved it so he repeated it... again and again. And Gina's memory is astounding.

Back from BC

I have so many pictures! Here are the first couple of days:

This is how Roman spent a small part of the plane ride

Look out BC, here we come!

Roman's funnest outing

Me and Bilbo Baggins, my favourite sister



At Bill's house, playing with her stuff

No Offense, Little Lakers

When we come to BC (tomorrow!) we're going to say, "you call that a lake?"

Another Little Reader

Roman made this by himself and then called me over, pointed to it and said "daddy!" I'm pretty sure he would have got the first letter too, if we hadn't run out of "d"s! He also spells "go".

Our Trip to Toronto- part two: downtown

There was a very New York Times-Sqare-ish part. This wasn't quite it. Anyway it was very cool to finally see Toronto!

Angelina was very excited to see a real castle. We will definately be going back to see inside.

Those pictures above were taken from the roof of this bus.

Delicious, delicious Mexican food.

Romey strolling his sister through Toronto

Our Trip to Toronto- part one: riding the GO train

Visit

The Highway of heroes is actually the highway leading into Toronto, so we've actually been on it a bunch of times. I haven't seen a soldier funeral though.


Yes, we're coming really soon! We arrive on Friday August 28th and leave September 7th. I super want to make our dates now; the last weekend we're definately booked up and it sure would be nice to see everyone.


I'm hoping to get together at the beach and have picnic/burger stand lunch. That way the kids can play and we can actually visit, unlike at a restaurant. Weekday mornings are best for the kids, but we could do dinner during the week or we also might have a dinner free on the first weekend.


It would be wonderful to see everyone; please let me know when you're available!

Visiting...

You are coming down this month Keira??? Or just for the wedding? I really hope you have time to visit with us!! :)
Love the video of Roman....so cute!

My Son is Such a Boy!

It's amazing: he's into trains and airplanes and dirt and all that boy stuff. It's definately inborn, none of my doing.

I just can't get two of them looking nicely at the camera. Yes, that includes Matt!

I love it

I love the video of Roman. I started laughing when he was trying to stand on his tippy toes with his shoes on. Too cute.
Not too much exciting happening with me. Busy with work, volunteering for the Roots & Blues Festival in Salmon Arm and with the Red Cross.
Have you guys been on the Highway of Heroes? My mom's friend was telling her about the highway when her son come home after being killed in the Afghanistan. She said that everyone stops and waits for the fallen soldier to go by. People stand on the overpass, on the side of the Highway, and all vehicles pull over. She said that the drive was very intense.
Anyway, I can't wait to see you this month. When is the family coming back home for Erin's wedding?

See you when you get here,
Sammi

Audience Participation

Here we are at Angelina's ballet class this morning.


So happy for you Ang, although it sounds like you won't be moving out here closer to me :( But speaking of buying a house, they are waaaaay cheaper here in Oshawa!

HI!!

OMG Keira.... they are sooo cute!! and getting so big! I am happy for you guys, looks like you are having a blast. Loved the video....especially where she was talking and leaning on the wall :)

PHOTOSYNTHESIS!!! are you serious!??? wow....she is going to be a doctor or scientist when she gets older.

Some new things here in our lives... Bryce got a really good paying job in Kelowna which means that we plan on staying here in the Okanagan so that I can still work...and together we will be making pretty nice cash. He really likes the job so far and is very excited to be able to start paying off his massive student loans... I have decided to apply to the RCMP and become a member for 911 dispatch in Kelowna... a very long process but it needs to be done (so that I can still work and get pregnant :) So depending on how long it is going to take, I think we are looking at moving to Kelowna this fall, hopefully. Would love to buy a house, but we have no $ for a down payment so need to look at our options.

Other than that...working on wedding photos and trying to stay inside out of the horrible smoke and ash...I assume you have heard about the forest fires here... 2 are contained now and the fintry one just keeps getting bigger...they are now on evacuation.

Well, so glad to hear from you guys on here.... keep posting :D Say hi to Matt from us!

Both Babies

Here are a few more pictures of my cutie-patooties, including Roman! That guy is so hard to get a picture of, becuase he won't sit still. Now that I say that I remember Angelina being the same way at his age; there's a period of time where all the pictures are of her little butt running away. I have taken so many pictures of the back of Roman's little bald head!

The weather here is so gorgeous. It's shorts weather most days, but there's a breeze that makes it so comfortable to be outside. It rains once or twice a week, but as a result there are no forest fires here and everything is so lush and green. As my Gina always says, the plants need the rain for their photosynthesis.

I figured out why my pictures were coming out so blurry, like those ballerina ones. There was a big fingerprint on my camera lens! So this should be the last of the blurries. Here we are doing fun summer stuff!

Angelina, Stage Performer

Angelina has been taking little kid music classes and had a recital recently. Here is a video of one of the two songs she performed. Out of the whole class, only Gina and the other "shy" girl were brave enough to get up in front of the huge audience (the recital was for very many classes and ages). I think it's hillarious that by the end she is talking to the audience, then she leans on a wall, super-casual. What a star!

Angelina Ballerina

Funtastic Weekend!

Hello Everyone,

I will be volunteering at Funtastic weekend starting on Thursday or Friday. I have my Statistics final on Friday morning, and I will be done my summer course. The pictures are beautiful; I love the view of the lake.
I informed everyone that Keira was updating the blog, so I expect some great updates from everyone. I do see alot of updates on Facebook.

Anyway, until next time.
Sammi

Super, Natural...Ontario!

Here are some pictures of beautiful, beautiful Ontario and a few of the things we've been doing. The first one is a road into the city (5 mins) from our house. Oshawa is very very green and treed; even the main roads. The next two pictures are in wooded groves that start at the end of our road (a few houses down); they're full of hiking and biking trails. The next picture is in one of the waterfront parks near our house. It's on Lake Ontario and it looks exactly like being on the Stanly Park waterfront trail except that you can see the CN Tower. That's where we recently did a walk/run for allergy awareness. Then there's a picture of Angelina riding an "elephant" at the Oshawa zoo right near our house. She can ride a real elephant at one of the other zoos, 20 minutes from our house. All of this stuff is within minutes of our house and we haven't even scratched the surface. Needless to say, we are having a great time! The weather so far is perfect; it is warm and sunny but there's always a breeze so you don't feel hot and gross. Hope everyone is well and having as much fun as we are.

See you in two months!