1. I think I’ve sealed my nomination for “wife of the year” award. On my last holiday of the summer (last Friday), I crawled out of bed at 5:00 in the morning to go fishing with my dear husband. Yes, you read that right – FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!
2. Here he is, just as the sun was rising over his “happy place” – his favourite fishin’ hole in the world. We’ve been visiting this place for about 16 years by now (since before we got married).
3. Speaking of which, we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary while we were on vacation in August. We’re finally getting a chance to celebrate it for real in a few weeks with a romantic getaway in a cabin that’s so close to his happy place, we’ll probably spend some time fishing there again. But not at 5:00 a.m., or it won’t be MY happy place!
4. I like fishing, but it’s mostly because Marcel is fairly tolerant when I let him look after both of our fishing rods, and instead I do a couple of my favourite things – reading and wandering around taking pictures. I only managed to reel in one tiny fish, and then I passed the rods on to him. (Oh don’t I just look so wide awake? I can hardly believe I’m showing you this picture.)
5. Here’s me doing one of those favourite things after catching my token fish:
6. If you’re looking for a good read, try “Twenty Chickens for a Saddle”. (Thanks, AP!)
7. And here’s one of my favourite pictures from the day of “fishing” – just before the sun burned off the morning mist:
8. In other excursions, in the last weekend of the summer, we finally managed to squeeze in a visit to my brother’s place (about 2 hours away) for pizza night. No trip to their house is ever complete without the cousins putting on a little parade after a visit to the dress-up box.
8. Why is it that EVERYTHING has to start up again in September? After a relaxing August, I’m just not ready for the crazy schedule of soccer games, music lessons, homework, and a little business travel thrown in for good measure. Can I go back to that lovely island off the west coast again?
9. Maddie’s comment after seeing one of her friends after a summer apart. “So, L has some blue hair now. It’s not every day you see someone with blue hair.”
10. The first day of school was fairly uneventful and relatively low stress in our house. Except for a minor meltdown over a forgotten pair of indoor shoes, and a tiny bit of stress over not knowing if a combination lock would work, the kids are all quite content and relaxed. Whew.
11. Why are there so many blasted mosquitoes around these days? Shouldn’t they have hibernated… or DIED… by now?!?
12. If I can’t get wife of the year, can I at least get mom of the year for watching soccer games on nights that are so blasted cold my fingers can barely function enough to zip up my third layer of jackets?
13. Okay, so I’m probably not wife of the year or mother of the year, but you can’t deny that I’m pretty darn lucky to be the mom of these three unique and beautiful girls: (First day of school photos, and I actually got all three of them – or at least the one that normally chafes at group photos – to cooperate long enough for a few pictures!)