Our House in the Middle of Our Street

The gorgeous Wild + Free nature journal by Kristin Rogers !  This was another lackluster reading month for me, and I fear May is going to be even worse! I was stuck between three books, one I had to read for a deadline, one for book club (still going strong, but it's loooong) that I didn't finish, and another that I was at the head of the line for, and promptly took me two days to finish. I also finished book five in our Chronicles of Narnia series, and have two more to finish before school's technically over. Although I finish school early June, out here the kids finish late June. Can you even imagine?! Horrid. I hope, at least, to finish The Last Battle by the end of June.  Hallelujah Anyway by Anne Lamott - I love my Aunt Anne. I mean, she's not really my aunt, but she's been a part of my spiritual formation over the last 10+ years and therefore I see her as family. I read everything she writes and put my name in the request slot at the library the se...

  peek through the trees looking at Hayward Lake  A couple weekends ago, we planned a hike. We've got to be really intentional about getting it on the calendar. The work doesn't end there. There's lunches and water for four people, researching where to go and get directions, find car items for kids if we have quite a drive, and get out the door at a decent hour before most recreational parks get too busy.  Stefan found Hayward Lake and said that it would be a walk around a lake. That sounded alright, since we hadn't been hiking hiking in over a month, but thankfully we talked to a very nice and engaging Parks worker cleaning the bathroom who told us, 'oh no, this is for the dog-walkers, if you want a hike, go to the Reservoir trail'.    Ani near the water taking a quick break with a power ball in her mouth! I'm really glad we took her advice, though it took us two tries to find it, and we happened upon the BC Hydro Stave Falls visitor cen...

view from the top of Mount Thom A few weekends ago we knew the clouds would part (at least for a little while) on a Saturday morning and I practically ran the family out of the house to get a hike in. We haven't been hiking in the last few months due to rain, family obligations, or just general laziness, but this was a hike that promised to be both quick and yet challenging, and it lived up to that Mount Thom is in Chilliwack which was a 35 minute drive for us each way because there was very little traffic. The site notes say that it only climbs 375 m in elevation, which I was surprised by, because that hike was, with the exception of maybe 2-3 small slopes, a very vertical climb. Maybe I was just huffing and puffing because we hadn't been out for awhile. It was a busy trail even though we left very early in the morning, but when we were descending the mountain around 11AM, there were probably 70+ people going up, so going early was better! trying to find Cultu...

 The 30 ft. pool at Lynn Canyon The list that I've tried to come up with has been a little harder than in years past but as I let it sit and brew for a bit, I had plenty of fresh ideas. The yearly lists (you can see 15 in 2015 , my 29 before 30  birthday list here , and 28 before 29 here ) help me focus on small/big, personal/family/friend, and creative/mental goals I have in any given year. Sometimes they are silly and sometimes I get them done before even writing them down, as you'll see below. They are just things I want to try, things I want to do, or things I want to enjoy with others. Some are big Bucket/Lifetime goals (1 below!) but most are pretty small things that niggle the back of my mind and writing them down helps me attain them quicker than forgetting about it 3 times.  16 in 2016 1) get a dog! (this didn't happen for various reasons last year, this year we're still considering it) 2) make ' sweet treat ' hair clips for the gir...

Thrift store scores and library books Every year I find immense joy in curating a good yearly book list. Resolutions? Nah. I'll just stick with books. 2015 proved to have a fairly easy list (with more then 30 tacked on in my journal) and I read a good 80% of them. A few I looked for but couldn't find locally, and two I just recently found at the thrift store! I write a small list for the beginning of the year--around 30 books--because I almost always find tons of books throughout the year I want to read and add to the list. I end up reading about 60 books a year, and 30 is a good jumping off point. Here's the list! *Packing for Mars by Mary Roach *Stiff by Mary Roach *All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr *What Alice Forgot Liane Moriarty *Essentialism by Greg McKeown *Imagine Childhood by Sarah Olmsted (H) *Satisfy My Thirsty Soul by Linda Dillow - Bible study book *Art of Memoir by Mary Karr *Being Mortal by Atul Guwande *Lila by Marily...

Alright guys, settle down. Yes, I read a lot this month but I barely did anything else. The three of us were 'off' school from Dec. 8 and aside from two wonderful Christmas dinners with extended family, the holiday season was pretty slow for us. I spent this month of no extracurricular stuff on the couch reading nearly every night. It was delightful! Stay tuned, since I have 2016's reading list coming up soon. * My Kitchen Year by Ruth Riechl - This half-memoir, half-cookbook was full of pretty color photographs from Riechl's year after Conde Naste shut down Gourmet , the magazine Riechl had been editor of for years. It's her year of grief over losing a job she loved, a year of confusion as she felt restless and like a wanderer, wondering what to do next, and of slow meals meant to satisfy herself and those closest to her, quiet in the sustenance of time and thought. It's a beautiful memoir, though I didn't have it long enough to try any recipes. Not a...

The contents of the Kith and Kin sun prints box* For some reason, I tend to have a lot of luck in the giveaway department. I literally spend a total of 5-10 minutes a day entering giveaways that I find on instagram, blogs, facebook, what have you, and I have won quite a few of them. I was excited to win the Kith and Kin sun print craft box, because I knew my kids would be in heaven creating with it.  It was around the time we'd be heading to Nebraska for a few weeks, so I had Kith & Kin ship it to my mom's house, so we could enjoy the contents there. Turns out we had relatively no free time outside of planned grandparent & friend activities, so I brought the box home with me to BC and we did it during the kids' school day as an art project.  I don't know about you, but I love receiving Happy Mail...that'd be anything aside from bills or ads. The Kith & Kin sun print box was definitely happy mail. As you can see above, they include all the ...

my favorite view 5 minutes from my house I am feeling quite behind already, having missed this post by 5 days, and not finding myself in this space quite often this Fall. Our family was sick from about the last week in October through the bare end of November, so while just about everyone had antibiotics, probiotics, vitamins, and plenty of fluids, we weren't up and about too much. That makes for some excellent days of reading, if I do say so myself. Here's what I enjoyed this month. What about you? * Felicity by Mary Oliver -- One of my favorite poets had a new book out this past month and I obviously put it up for hold the minute I found out. This wasn't my favorite collection of her work, but certainly not the least. A good one-hour, shaped by beautiful words about the natural world.  * Chasing Francis by Ian Cron -- I really enjoyed this one! I first found it via Tsh and it piqued my interest. I pinned it for later and recently came back to it on a whim. I ...

Shannon Falls view  On Labor Day, Stefan and I had planned to take the kids up to Squamish. Originally we'd planned a day up there with friends, but with schedules, timing, and weather it hadn't worked out. I wanted to get up there before the rains came, and before our upcoming trip, and since we had 3 days off together, I knew we'd be able to spend 1 of those up in Squamish. Stefan looked up hikes, I packed enough food for a lunch and a decent snack, got the kids ready in exercise clothing, bathroom breaks, and something to do in the car, and we took off relatively early. The traffic was excellent (holiday) and we got to Squamish in an hour from our house, which is unreal. So far, so good. The walk up to  Shannon Falls  was...not a hike. Since I had no preparation for what we were doing, I was a little disappointed when there were a hundred tourists just looking at a waterfall that was relatively far away, but oh no...we had not even begun!  the top ...

Happy Canada Day! We spent the morning hopping on our bikes down to the Fort's big July 1 celebration. It involved tons of free crafts for kids, vendors of all sorts, a Mountie or two, birthday cake, and free drinks, popcorn, balloons, and Maple-leaf flags.  At the community event the kids especially loved the museum (which we unfortunately didn't stay long at--too crowded), and the petting zoo, where each kid got to hold a little bunny, pet a piglet, and cuddle with a lamb. In the afternoon we went to the Al Anderson swimming pool for two hours in the water. Since the heat has been really high the last week or so (with next week not looking good, either), it felt amazing to be in the water! Canadians sure know how to celebrate--all events and activities we did were free today! 

image via Surrey website Ever since our family started and we decided to be on one income, we've had to be a bit more creative with 'field trips' and fun things to do that are good for the budget. I find it to be a bit of a game to master, the highest score going to FREE. Back in Lincoln there was a quarterly newspaper that held all the fun and local family-friendly events within about a 2 hour radius. We don't have a paper like that out here, that I've found anyway (send those resources my way if you know about them!), but I have found the rec centers to be AMAZING out here. There are seemingly endless amounts of programs you can put your young students in, even better for homeschoolers is that very often you can get funding for them! Those don't include the entire family, though, just the kids. We've found that although it's not necessarily advertised on the website, each weekend there is a FREE 2-hour family swim time at one of four Surrey rec ce...