May to June - so much to see..... not enough time to tell you about it all.. but heres a huge lump of it!

 Spring has sprung, and the snow is a far-distant memory. The 2nd side of Winnipeg and this far-flung cupboard in the kitchen of Canada is in full view now.....

It's beautiful to see 6 workmen standing around chatting as 1 of their colleagues hastily fills huge potholes in the roads with a mix of custard and old Ritz crackers.   

There are more diggers and road rollers than there are in the CAT factory where they were born, most of them stood around as there is no one to actually work so many machines. 

The river that all winter was a frozen skating rink is now a big brown flood. It covers the walkway, which for some reason no one understands was built 2 metres under the normal water level. This is basically fucking useless for 6 months of the year unless you have Waders on or own James Bonds submersible car.

In our house, we have been fighting and losing a battle against the weeds that have sprouted up all over our exceedingly large garden. It's a cool misty jungle out there, and I am sure I saw an elephant wandering past the sandbox last week, being followed by a tiger in the deep wind-blown grasslands. 

Fortunately, we have managed to clear a small area where Buffy is growing green onions and hopefully some berries and maybe even tomatoes - as long as the rabid squirrels (who are angry at us, because we filled the lovely big holes in our roof and walls where they were living) don't gorge themselves on the free vegetables first!

At the end of winter, one of our major issues was the backyard gate, which slid open. It was built too low to the ground and when the snow started to melt and re-froze overnight, it was frozen solid to the ground and couldn't be moved. Luckily, we had left it open and could still get the car out. So, last weekend we spent the morning, cutting off the top 3.5 inches of gate and in the process lifting it up and away from the ground. It worked pretty well, and we expect a whole different outcome next winter. 

We are also working on filling in the big hole that turns into a huge mud bowl whenever it rains, and we drive out through the gate. So a lot is going on.. Even more, is planned, but that's a secret for now - the only clue I will give is that my old grey naked body will fit into the new thing much better than it does now! (yes I am buying a coffin....are am I???? 😮😮😮)

It's been busy for everyone including the kids.

Hannah started her Timbits soccer training again, which runs until the end of June. 2 nights a week we pop along and watch her and a bunch of other kids kick a football round and then play in the park, before we go home and attempt to calm her down and get her into bed before midnight. Ollie loves it too because he gets to play on the play structure and have a great time while the soccer is going on. (Yes, I know it's football, but no one over here will understand if I say that!)

We also had a special guest to soccer training one evening - Mike was in town again to work and came around for the evening. It started with watching the kids play soccer on the park. Then we wandered home in the rain to have pizza for dinner and chat over a couple of beers. I really don't expect anyone to want to come and visit Winnipeg anytime. But it was really, really nice for me to have Mikie visit, just for a little while. I don't get to see many of my friends and family very often, so it was really bloody lovely. Obviously, anyone is welcome to come and visit, but honestly, I know it's not going to happen! It's a big mad cool crazy world out there and so many other places to visit. But if you ever want a free stay, just let us know!

Photo by Ollie aged 3

In between all that we had time for a night out at the theatre - The local Lawyers put on a pretty decent play every year and the profits made all go to charity - so I put on some clean clothes and Buffy got dressed up all nice to go see Joel and his lawyer mates in 'Urinetown', yep it was that kind of play! A great night out though with free wine and food, which is always a bonus!

Around the same week was when the whole world apparently saw the Northern Lights. Now we do see them fairly often but don't normally get the chance to drive out of town to see them without the city lights. Luckily we didn't have the kids for a night, so this time we did. It was a pretty good night for viewing, but I do think we have seen better from our house sometimes!

We had our first and 2nd trips of the summer to the cabin as well these past few weeks. It is a different feeling out there this time of year - nice but also chilly and breezy, so it's a good time to sit in front of a fire in the evening with a cool beer. The kids love it out there and enjoy playing on the island as well as getting out in the boat for adventures. It's also a good time to get some nice photos in the evening before the bugs get too crazy! The kids also got to use the bunk beds for the first time! No broken bones yet!!

It got a bit stormy too!

The kids have had quite a few adventures back in the city too recently - days out with mum on the bikes, storms, riding tractors - it's been a pretty fun time!

There has been too much going on to mention it all - But a couple of things I do want to mention are ....Climbing, tractors, teeth and robots,

Climbing..

Buffy would love to have the kids be climbers, so we took them for an introductory day at the local climbing wall. They were a bit nervous and didn't really get into it until they discovered that they could climb to the top of the wall and then clamber over the top to descend a ladder. That was all it took for them to spend over an hour going up and down again and again with no fear - from them at least - we were a little concerned that Ollie would drop the 20 feet down the wall, so had to climb up behind him just to make sure he didn't fall far. It was really great and so good to see the kids achieve something themselves! 

Tractors - 

We had a lovely day out with Pat and Austin at Enns brother's tractor shop. It was a family fun day when the kids got to ride tractors big and small as well as get free popcorn and treats. There's not much more to say but show you the photos...

Teeth.

We had our family visit to the dentist a few weeks back. The kids were great - sitting relaxed in the chair with the dentist deep in their gobs checking out their teeth. We couldn't have been more proud, and just later the same day Hannah lost her first tooth! She looks so great now with a little gap in her front teeth!

Finally, for now... Robots. 

I took a day off work last week to help out with the kids and had Ollie for the morning, Corydon avenue has Robot statues on the street in summer so I took Ollie and walked the entire length of the street to get up close with them. We also discovered a skid steer working behind a store, so spent half an hour watching that while eating lunch on the grass. Ollie was in his element, saying hello to everyone we met and generally being a little tearaway. He is so much fun!!

This has already been too big a post. But I haven't even mentioned a weekend with Austin at the cabin, Father's day, the snake pits or kids filling the car with gas and cleaning the windows. I will finish with one more story though.... the lemonade stand...

The kids have seen other bigger kids putting on a lemonade stand in the last couple of summers. Now that we live somewhere a little quieter than the old house, I thought we might get the kids to do one themselves some time. But they decided to do one last weekend! So we dragged out the small kid's picnic table, a load of plastic glasses and some cookies from the cupboard. 

I'll be honest I didn't expect the kids to last long but 90 minutes later and a lot of effort from the kids we had no lemonade (actually limeade) and very few cookies and the kids were decidedly richer and wiser in the ways of making money. The local neighbours were very generous and even overpaid when Ollie insisted everything was $2. It was a lovely afternoon and we got to meet some lovely people and get the weeding done while the kids earned themselves some pocket money!

I was going to leave it there for this episode. But then we had a really good weekend, so I will continue while I am on lunch and post this later today!

Anyway - Friday afternoon was 'cartown', where the kids get to go and drive play cars around an indoor town, with a car wash, traffic lights, parking spots, and a cinema (Playing 'Cars' the movie obviously). Last year it was carnage as the kids couldn't steer, crashed every minute and we ended up mainly walking beside them kicking the car wheels, so they wouldn't kill so many other kids by running them over. In all fairness, most parents were doing the same. But this year I arrived after work to see Hannah and Ollie driving around happily together, chatting about their day and when to start, stop and which direction to take! A world of difference and so nice to see them playing nicely together. 

Yes, within a minute of arriving, I watched Ollie go head over heels as he attempted to climb into the back of a toy jeep as Hannah drove off too fast -But after a couple of tears they were back to being great!

 Later that day Hannah decided it was time to try riding a bike without training wheels. We were pretty confident, that with a bit of help, we could get her riding her bike by the end of the weekend. What we really didn't expect is for it to take less than 5 minutes. Quite literally. 

Hannah pretty much knows what she wants and sometimes, like most kids, can get frustrated if something doesn't work out. But she blew us away on Friday - trying really hard and even after the usual spills on the first couple of attempts, she got straight back on and tried again. It really was less than 5 minutes and she was riding around at breakneck speed round and round the bus turn loop we luckily have across the street from us. 

Ollie also wanted to ride a bike, so he got out his balance bike and followed Hannah around nearly as fast. He later wanted to try pedals so we put him on Hannah's bike and pushed him round as he tried to pedal. He did great too - so well that we found him a 2nd hand 't-rex'  bike with training wheels over the weekend and he is now learning to ride that! Just like Hannah he got going scarily quick and after just 15 minutes asked us to take the training wheels off! 

We arent quite there yet Ollie! hehehe..

We went a great birthday party on Saturday for one of Hannah's best friends and had a lovely time - the kids playing amongst themselves and a lovely party with good friends on a sunny lunchtime! One of the things we saw at our friends' house was a back porch set up as a kids playroom, so early the next morning we finally decided to clean out the sunroom behind our bedroom and gave the kid a new place to play! It's lovely in there and they have a bed to sit on, and a few toys (not too many), but mainly a new and warm place to relax, They loved it and spent most of the day playing in there quite happily.  

  

I think that will do for this post. It's far too long already and too much has happened in the past few weeks to even get close to posting about it all!  We are all feeling good at the moment though. What a difference it makes having the kids growing up and able to do a lot of things themselves rather than us having to 'help' with everything. They are kids and as such can be a pain n the arse, But we are both so proud of them!

We have an exciting and busy summer coming up, so I'll attempt to post updates when I can! 

Thanks for reading and watching!