Some nights just seem perfect

Last night,

Lots of kids
Running, rolling, laughing, swinging, screaming, wheeee
Hammock line-ups and giggles first up

Mexican seven-layer dip - need I say more?

Buddies and beer, pouring freely from the keg, and chuckles,
stories of wolf eels and octopus and hoses and soda and rebreathers

And breathing cold air...

Foosball, darts, more darts, broken darts, holes in the wall...wheee

Talk of life and how we want to live

Axes and wood and fire and blazes and matches and ash

Tortillas and tacos and steak and veggies

And more kids rolling in the...

...Snow...falling gently, whipping in the wind, wheeee

Meeting new friends,

Thanks for being safe and sleeping over

Until next year.

Bluffs

One of the best things about our new neighbourhood is that we live on a hill and can hike up pretty quickly to the lichen-covered bluffs above us. Come with!

Hike up...



Keep going...



Enjoy the view... but don't get too close to the edge...



Ah.... nice view! (Yes, that would be the USA you are looking at in the distance.)



Back down through the forest path.

Home sweet home

I know I am about...oh...six months late on this...but here are a few pictures of the house when we first moved in. Not the deer. Not the waterfall or the frog. Not the hammock. The house. Enjoy.

Walk into the kitchen (see that big empty floor - that is where the drum set is!)

Turn behind you and enter the dining room and living room. The fireplace is on now!

Close up of those beams. (I know I showed these already, but really, they are the best part of the house. Except for maybe the windows. And trees. Um... fireplace?)

Open the sliding glass door in the dining room. Walk out to the deck. Nice trees!

And here is a sliver of the view from the deck.

Trumpet solo

Went to Paris's band concert. He was all dressed in black. Black dress pants. Black dress shoes. Long-sleeved button-up black dress shirt tucked into a black belt. Whew...Handsome man all of a sudden.

Here he is on another day, playing away.

Canadiana Kitsch

Playing with my photos. And yes, this is our backyard.

Happiness assumed

Was reading to the little guy (well, not so little anymore) the other night, and came across the phrase "Mama Bear lost her temper!" (Mama bear was tired of picking up after Brother and Sister bear.)

Me: Do you know what it means to lose your temper?

Him: Yah, it means she lost her happiness.

I love that! Lost her happiness. Implying that at all other times of Mama Bear's life she is full of robust, unqualified happiness. Every other time she was stepping on airplanes and sticking her foot in glue and putting away puzzle pieces she did so happily. Permasmile stuck on.

I don't deny that our life has changed a bit over the last six month, and that with all the backing and forthing and upping early and staying late, our happiness has at times been more than overflowing and at other times swirling around mediocrity. 5:00 wake up to catch a ferry just doesn't have much appeal.

I wonder if our Little Bear thinks we are permahappy parents. (Really, the large majority of the time happiness can be assumed.) I wonder how many of us Mama and Papa Bears could could do with a little finding of happiness.

Positive outlook

¨For every minute you´re angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.¨

Ralph Waldo Emerson