Our House in the Middle of Our Street

The other day, he noticed it was a cloudless day. That's pretty rare for our current location and season, and he took full advantage of our week off of home school.    "Mom, let's fly my kite! It's so nice out!"he asked.  How could I say no to that? Well, easily. I had been in a bad mood since roughly 6:07AM that morning, and even their voices were like crows cawing to my tired head. We needed to get out.  Life's funny. You move somewhere to be closer to the nature that you love so dearly, and then you realize, you haven't even seen it for some time. When you see the ocean, the mountains quite clear in the distance, you realize, what the heck was so important that we missed out on this ?  The rock he's standing on doesn't look nearly as ominous as it is in real life. When he told me he wanted to perch up there to start the kite off with a bit more wind, I was hesitant.       "Dad lets me do this all the time, " he ...

We've been here for over eight months now. I can't believe it's already nearly a year and that that's all . The places we have explored, the activities and events we've gone to, the summer camps we walked to, all make our time seem faster than it is. The grey skies, the low-hanging fog for long, continuous days, and the simple routine we've gotten ourselves into has slowed down time in our favor. I don't remember saying 'yes' to things I didn't want to say yes to back in Lincoln, but I remember having to quit something every so often just to catch my breath. I was over-booked and our days were going at warp-speed. There was never enough time for too many things. At least, I felt that way. I made lists every day of 10+ items that I thought had to be done that day, instead of that month. It was pure nuts. I look back at that time and I wonder how we didn't drain the life out of our marriage, and our family. After moving here, we had noth...

A few Sunday evenings per month, our family packs up some water, snacks, and sturdy shoes and jackets for an evening walk or hike. We love to get out into nature, and it has a calming effect on everyone. Not only that, but walking around  a park or going on a hike is a great way to find your own entertainment and it's free. Free is often our budget requirement. Now that all of us have our nexus cards, hopping between borders to see the sights is so easy since we don't have a border wait. We literally have two countries at arm's length to discover and explore. Often we like to go to Langley's Campbell Valley , which are more nature walks than hikes, yet great training for future treks with the kids. Each time we're there we do between 2.5 and 4 mile walks with them. They're practically running the whole time.  A month ago or so, our Campbell Valley hike gave us an unsuspecting find. About twenty tiny nuthatches (see below) were crowding around this...