A Beautiful Place

... did I mention we're going on vacation in a few days??!!! :O) As stressful as getting ready for such a big trip can be... I am SOOOO excited for this vacation. Do you realize we have not taken a summer vacation yet? Do you realize that I have had to listen to all of our friends and all of our co-workers talk about the wonderful trips they've taken all over the place.. and we've gone NOWHERE!! But that was on purpose.. this trip is not going to be cheap on the wallet, so we knew we were saving up.

This is actually our first official family vacation! I'm so excited to go back to my other home... You see, Saskatoon will always be my first home... Vancouver feels like my second home and Calgary will be my permanant home.

We haven't been back to Vancouver for 3 years. I really miss Vancouver sometimes. Actually, sometimes I wonder if it's more the lifestyle and friends that I miss more. Don't get me wrong, I love my life here and all of the friends we've made here, but Vancouver was a great place to start our life together!

Speaking of which, we are very excited to spend a few days back at the place where Darren and I took our very first vacation together.. can you believe it, 9 years ago!?! It is a beautiful place in Washington called Whidbey Island. When we originally stayed there, we stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast, right on the island. We are staying at a hotel this time, but on the same island... where there are whales going right by in the sound at any given time. It is so gorgeous!

I hope to take lots of pictures and share our trip with all of you! Even though we're there for a week, with 2 weddings to go to and a schwack of visiting to do in between, there sadly won't be that much family time for just us. But, we're going to have a blast with the time we do have and a blast getting to see all of our old friends and family along the way!

Thought I'd leave you with this picture of Matthew... getting into something (as usual!).

Will write soon,
Erin

Garden Helper

...it's been kind of crazy in my world lately, so I apologize for not bloggins so much. If only I could blog at work (read - they didn't block it), then I'd get a lot more blogging in. I have a lot more energy at 6am than I seem to at 9pm.

Anyhow, we're heading off on a week and a bit trip to the coast this weekend and I hope to find time to blog while we're gone (that is if the hotel internet connections actually work!)....

It figures... I've toiled over my poor garden all summer long and just as everything is about to come ready.... we're going on holidays! I must have 50 tomatoes in the garden, but not one of them has turned ripe yet! Luckily, I have a next door neighbour who likes to garden as well and who has agreed to water and possible cover if required.

For the past several weekends now, Matthew and I have made it a Sunday habit of going into the garden to see what we can find. It's a big game for him. Mommy finds the vegetables and he carries them back to the basket. Then we both get to spray them down with the garden hose, which to him is the best part... well, besides trying to take a bit of our everything we pick!

Splish, Splash, Here I come!

This post is a bit behind, as it was actually 2 weeks ago that we took Matthew to a swimming pool for the first time, but somehow, I kept forgetting to post!

I know most people take their babies to the pools when they're quite young, and I don't know why we kept putting it off, but we did... and so we finally thought it was time to see if Matthew liked the water!

I tried to put him in lessons for this fall, but of course, I was 1 person too late and the class was full. I guess we'll wait until next session.

Matthew had no fear of the water and just wanted to go in further... and further... and further... until we were carrying him because his toes weren't reaching! His favourite part was when they turned on the wave machine.

(sorry for the crappy photos, but Darren wouldn't let me take the SLR camera into the water.. hmmm.... why not???)
Here's Matthew and Daddy getting ready for a wave:



That was fun!!



Splash!!



Anticipating a big one....



Then we tried to convince Matthew to go over to the kiddie pool.... with all of the other kiddies... but he wanted no part of it. Until... Mommy found a lifejacket and showed him how he could float on his back!

Here he is giving the thumbs up to this fun new game!





I guess it's safe to say we'll have to go back :O)

p.s. don't tell Daddy I put pictures of his... ahemmm.. lack of hair... on a public website... he'd freak!