Just to let you all know - I wrote all the stuff below on July 14th - Its now Aug 7th, so it's a bit old. So sorry about that - Its really, really busy at the moment and very hard to find time to do this blog thing!!
Life is generally good. It's hard being a 54-year-old dad to 2 very energetic kids. Looking at the photos and videos below, y might imagine that everything is hunky-dory and bloody wonderful.
Well in all honestly, Life isn't bad, but it can be hard.
The kids are pushing boundaries and learning where and how they can get their own way and when they don't it can be emotional for everyone. Its important we stand our ground as parents though and teach the kids that we also get upset and tired and that's ok - but we do fight with each other on a daily basis. I don't think any of this is unusual, but I also don't ever want to give false impressions of our instagram life! We are a normal family who often disagree. But we do love each other a lot and at the end of the day once the kids are in bed we can sit and relax for 3 - 4 minutes!
Hello everybody well i'm trying something else again today - instead of typing all this out I decided that I'm going to basically look through all the photos and the videos that we have taken in the last couple of months and basically talk about them. This is what I normally do when I'm typing stuff out but I can't be arsed typing it today so let's try some AI dictation instead!
So where are we - let's go back to May and June this year...
In June this year Ollie did his first year of timbits soccer, which is for two nights a week for Ollie and Hannah did two nights a week as welll. So on those four nights a week we go to one of the local schools and the kids play soccer with their mates. It's all organized with coaches and stuff and they both did pretty well this year. There were nights when they didn't really want to play and other nights where they played really well. They both got better at soccer and they like playing soccer with me in the yard at home too. At the end of the 6 weeks of soccer they both got a little medal which they were really chuffed about.
I'm looking at these pictures and I can see the kids in the museum - the kids have been to the Manitoba museum a few times in the last year and they love it. They also still love the zoo and particularly when the dinosaurs are in the woodland walk there.
Hannah's been riding her big bike a lot and we gave Ollie a new bike too which he has started to ride without his training wheels. He started the last few days so hopefully in a few weeks he'll be properly able to ride it without any training wheels that would be cool!
Towards the end of the school year we also had invites to lots of birthday parties - the kids are reasonably popular so this year there's been about 10 birthday parties so far this year including Hani's birthday party herself where she had some friends around. We got a little paddling pool in the garden, and I'm all her friends played in a yard did crafts and messed about in the paddling pool in the yard.
It was a lovely day outside, with us sat around chatting while the kids played. Its it's really nice that the kids are growing up now, they're much more independent and can play by themselves a bit more.
I now see photos of Buffy and Hannah when Hannah decided that she wants to have pink hair like Buff so I took Ollie out for the afternoon and Buffy and Hannah did their hair together before dressing up in pink clothes and taking some fashion pictures in the garden. It looks like they had a lot of fun! They had a really good day and it was nice to to come back and see them all too so happy.
The house has had more work done too... The back of the house around our garage was terrible looking. All the old siding was a shitty, the paintwork was crap, and it was starting to look a little bit rotten so we were going to get something done about it. We were going to get it painted it first, but it turns out that siding was just as cheap as getting the old paint removed and would last longer. Anyway we decided to get a new vinyl siding and the same time we got the roof fixed with the same company. The squirrels had been making even more holes in edge part of the roof which was starting to rot, so we got the roof fixed above the sunroom where they removed 6 layers of old shingles and wood. We also got the roof above the bathroom fixed because there was some water coming into the new bathroom after a really big rain fall. That was not fun but that's all fixed now, and its just more money spent on the house!
We have also just got a new heat pump/AC for the top floor, to keep it warm in winter and cool in summer!
In June we all went out and got haircuts in preparation for Steph and Alana's wedding, it was actually the first haircut I'd had since December!
The wedding was a great day with a pool party in the afternoon and a great dinner and party later in eth evening. It was great apart from me getting called home by the babysitter because Hannah was being an asshole, and so I had to come home and make sure everyone was OK before going back to the dinner at the wedding! Buffy was very happy at the wedding because she got commented on that she looked like 'fleabag' from the TV show and since it's one of her favorite TV shows and favourite characters, she was very happy - she DID look amazing!
Back at school we had Ollie's final presentation where him and his little schoolmates all got together and songs before they finish their first year of Nursery.
Then finally on the Canada day long weekend we had our first a trip out to the cabin this summer. We had a really nice time for 4 days and had a couple of little Adventures. We did some treasure hunts, we went on a boat trip, we took a drive in to Kenora and saw the big fish! It was such a nice weekend thats the kids were actually crying when they came home from the cabin because they'd enjoyed it so much!
After the cabin weekend we came back, and it was actually BKKL (Burger King Kuala Lumpur) day so the kids came with us for the first time to have Burger King and and we had fun celebrating the 14th year after Buffy and I decided to stay together all those years ago.
Ollie is really growing up fast now and has moved into the top bunk now he's big enough to sleep up there by himself so he's very happy with that. He is also just about getting out of pullups, so hopefully no more pull-ups or daipers ever again! (Update on Aug 6th - Ollie has been dry in bed for around 20 or the last 24 nights - not bad!)
The kids have also started to have good days out with mum during the school holidays - they had a trip to the Cat Cafe (Cleocatra) where you can sit and play with cats for an hour, they're doing lots of playing outside together, they're getting on really well together at the moment.
Hani also had a first VR experience of the museum a couple of weeks ago and loved it! There was a special exhibition on and she got to wear some VR goggles. They also have their first trip to Car Town - this is where in the summer at one of the ice rinks they melt the ice and they turn it into a little town with electric cars for eth kids to drive. They love it so much that we're going to go back again a couple of times this summer. They have also done a little bit of 5 pin bowling as well with me and Buffy the other day and as I am typing their in bed shouting and playing with each other. I am not sure why, but they do seem to be having fun.
In the next few weeks we have more trips to the cabin and they're going to have a really big summer doing lots and lots of cool stuff with me and Buffy so it's all going good at the moment. The kids are crazy we're all happy and pretty much everything is good.
Well, that is not as easy as I hoped it would be - The transcription did work pretty well, but I still had to spend half an hour going over the script and tidying it up. I think I will try (or at least attempt) to keep saving small updates every few days and then putting them together in one big post, instead of waiting too many weeks and trying to do it all in one go. It takes too much time and time is summat I dont have much of nowadays with the crazies! I haven't even added photos yet! (I will do that before I post this ,so you will see vids and pics)
Anyway, time for bed for me - thanks for listening and keep in touch!
Last thing on Aug 7th - a few pics and vids from recent days...haircuts, days out, work on the house and stuff!
