tHe sHApe oF Me aND oThER sTuFf

for those of you who dont know, "the shape of me and other stuff" is a title of a dr seuss book i read as a kid. what does it have to do with my blog? absolutely nothing. :)

so word on the street is you cats at home in estevan wanna hear "real life" stuff. so that's what i'm gonna do.. basically tell you all that's going on in our personal little journey with our little family here in burnaby... get a cup of something warm and get comfy..this is going to be FAR from short. ;)

what do our days look like here? well..i suppose first would be getting out of bed - and on tues/wed/fri am's at 815 caleb goes to before school cross country practise.
he got #19 in about 120 kids his age on his first meet. i was fairly teary eyed.

then the kids get taken to school for 9 and from there it can go many different ways...some days that's when i go for groceries - the least busy time to do that at costco or superstore..or i will go to the community school office at the kids school and look in my "president" drawer for anything i should know/tell/see etc.. the beauty is i co-president with a lady, angela, who has been onthe parent's association for a few years, so i let her take the reigns for most of it.. :) i do more of the hands on stuff, cuz i have more time (hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!) then she does...and you thought I WAS BUSY!! :)

i love my "job" tho - photography - cuz i can make up my schedule to my liking - i dont do the 9-5 thing and get bored and be "at work" all day. thats a beautiful thing about my job. i love my job. i love that i get to be with people, most of which dont think they are photogenic..so i get to show them otherwise! yesterday jonathan and my friend tanya helped me doing a food shoot down on granville island at a restaurant. jonathan was my "food stylist" and tanya my "reflector girl". it was so much fun.. and that shoot will for the most part pay for next months' rent - thank you jesus! the crazy thing about my job too, is that i dont have a "set" salary/income.. so talk about trusting the lord to make good contacts to then book appointments. but god always comes thru JUST when we need the work/money. isn't that always His way tho?? :)

keeping the common areas of the house is a full time job in itself, so i do that sportatically during the day when i can..with all the traffic, it seems sweeping and washing the floors is a very regular occurance.. and keeping on my kids to pick up their stuff cuz the space isn't "ours" to clutter can be tiring too! i would have to say this is the hardest part of my life...where it causes me the most "grief and stress".. anyhow, moving right along! :)

jonathan's on a 2 week break from school so that has been awesome to have him home to be here..i'll let him blog about school.. :)

we're planning a dinner party for friday..for our neighbors and some co-workers and friends. we've got 17 coming plus our 7 i think..plus 8 little people. :) it's going to be wonderful - jonathan's got his chef pose from school are putting together a 5 course meal! CAN NOT WAIT! and maurice and his buddies are going to be doing some live music..it's going to be AWESOME! :) :)

but i will tell you one little thing that pertains to jonathan, sort of.. someone back home gave us $1000 for a coffee machine for the house, for when we do these dinners/parties. long story short - we got the coffee machine, regular $2500, for a crazy price of $1200, all thru jonathan telling the sales lady about the "use" of the machine, which led into what we are doing here at mission burnaby. she's coming tonight for supper actually, and will give us a tutorial of how to use this big coffee monster! god is so cool, hey!? :)

the kids often play with both sides of neighbors - olivia and jack on one side, and graeme, keaton and charlie on the other.. cant say it enough, but we are soo blessed to have both families next door..so great how god gives your kids instant friends!
calebs best buddies stanley and harry (korean brothers who are here on a student exchange) just live in the adjacent apartment building from brian and meryl, which is just down the street from us. i woudl have to say they come over to play 5 days of the 7 and always sleep over on the weekend. :) their mom MJ is coming too on friday for the dinner. :) they're such a sweet family.

other "normal stuff".. hmmm...got the car serviced last week..need to get the childrens's teeth serviced soon, but that will have to wait until i get some fabulous shoot to pay for it! hee hee.. looks like it's almost tim eto do the fall yard work...leaves are starting to turn, trees need to be pruned. speaking of which, our garden! we got some good produce from it..and some not so good from it. we knwo what we'll plant next year and not plant. currently we are getting some sweet cucumbers!! :) :) downstairs got a new dryer, as the other one broke.. after coffee machine tutorial tonight, the instrucional CD will be played for all who intend to use it.. not even kidding.. :) hee hee

the dog - pacey - has been escaping the yard..near missing getting hit and barking at people on the sidewalk...DUMB DOG! he's squeezing his measly little body UNDER the steel gate. so hopefully j will get to fixing that this week.

i think that is all i can think of now..i'm looking after hayley this aft - taking her to her gymnastics (jesus help me!!)... then coming home to do a bunch of emailing to clients and business people..more laundry..perhaps some tea time in there...a scrabble game too i hope!

thanks for letting me just talk.. :)

talk soon,
hugs,
trace