It's been awhile

So let me catch you up on what's been going on in my life over the past few months:

April - After the cottage, I hired a personal trainer to kick start my weight loss plateau.

May - For Meg and Karen's birthdays and for Mother's Day, I took the four of us out for mani-pedis, thanks to Groupon. :)

On the Victoria Day long weekend, I drove to London with Niki to celebrate Mike's birthday where she was interrogated by Uncle Art. :)  From there we went to church in Komoka in the morning and then headed back to St. Catharines to witness Alex's profession of faith.  Mike and Daniel had come as well so the four of us had dinner at my place before heading to Janna's for a bonfire to celebrate her and Monique's birthdays.  We burned some mattresses, visited the Mudcat, and watched as most people successfully (and one person *cough Niki cough* less successfully) went across the pond via zipline, and lit a box full of fireworks! Good times! :)

June was a busy month for school.  June 5-8 was a trip to Quebec City with all of the grade 12 class which went very smoothly.  Highlights included: driving up by myself with the radio blasting, ziplining, singing in the St. Anne de Beaupre, climbing over the rock wall for additional freezing mist at Montmorency Falls, going on a long hike with a few students and one of the chaperones, taking the scavenger hunt pictures, the Soldier of the Tower tour, and Kangaroo Court - 3 changed babies (licking is an option??), singing of a Taylor Swift song, accusations of being a cougar due to dancing with senior citizens.

 From there, Jared, Rachel and I drove to Montreal where we continued our adventures with the senior French class from Unity CHS from Barrie.  Highlights included the boat tour, the bike tour, the beautiful weather, my annual trip to the dollarama (hello prizes for French class!), church at the Eglise Reformee de Quebec, singing at St. Joseph's Basilica, being a possible extra in the movie "Smurfs"! :) Lowlights included staying in a hostel, getting a parking ticket, being there during a Franocophonie festival/Formula One/student protests, no seafarer's at the centre Sunday night.

The rest of June was a big push to finish marking, get exams written by me + photocopied + written by students + marked + entered.

The day after the secondary graduation and our annual celebration as teachers at Caroline's, I got lser eye surgery at LASIK MD in Hamilton.  I went from a prescription of -4.5 and -5 to almost perfect vision in a matter of hours.  The surgery itself took only 10 minutes and was completely painless.  Another item crossed off my bucket list! :)

On Canada Day, I watched fireworks at Port Dalhousie with my family and had a very nice chat with the Mulder family, especially Pam.

The holiday Monday was spent at Burlington Beach, followed by a short visit to Alex and Julie's new apartment (oh yeah, that also happened on June 16).  From there we drove to Jake's house where we were introduced to the art of skeet shooting.  I was pretty nervous about doing it because of how close it is to your eye and I didn't want to screw up my surgery.  But I caved into pressure and my own curiosity and gave it a go for the stationary target practice.  I hit two of three targets so not too shabby!! I also determined that I don't like the feel of a gun in my hands.  At all.  After some time there, we drove a few minutes down the road to Mark's house for a barbecued dinner and beach volleyball.

All that week, Megan and I spent preparing for a surprise Dr. Seuss themed baby shower for Karen which turned out wonderfully! We had truffula trees, a photo booth, quotes all over and our games (Scrambled Eggs Super - unscramble baby-related words, Oh the Thinks You Can Think! - try to guess Trevor's answers, Horton says, "An Elephant Never Forgets" - remember tray items) and menu were even Dr. Seuss inspired!  Here's a list of our food items with the book associations:
Green deviled eggs and Ham - Green Eggs and Ham
Baby soothers - Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book
Dr. Brown's Ba-ba-loots Truffula Fruit Tray -
Yink's Pink Ink Drink - One Fish Two Fish REd Fish Blue Fish
Turtles - Yertle the Turtle
Cat in the Hat fruit kebabs - The Cat in the Hat
Pinwheels - Oh the Places You'll Go
Caramel and White Cheddar popcorn - Hop on Pop(corn)
cupcakes with Dr. Seuss characters
Caramel Dip with Apples - Ten Apples Up on Top
Three Cheese Trees - Fox on Socks
Artichoke Hummus - Bartholomew and the Oobleck
Green Eggs and Ham Pretzels - Green Eggs and Ham (obvi ...)

After the baby shower (11 pm), I drove to Grimsby to pick up Sandra and we went to Iona for a weekend of camping fun.  Saturday's activities included a hike, a bit of a fail of geocaching, lots of beach time, bocce and volleyball back at van 't Voorts, singing praise and worship around the fire loud enough so that Oma could hear and a campfire original - the burning of a piano.  Sunday's shower schedule worked well so that we could all be clean for church in Komoka.  It was during this lunch that I got the great news that Ange and James and family are moving to Woodstock!!! No more long trips to Iowa!! :)  What a great weekend!!

Let's see ... after that ... oh yes!  My room!  I redecorated my bedroom - painted walls, installed new curtains and blinds, painted and antiqued the furniture .. quite the reno!  I also did a bunch of things around the house such as take down the side fence, repair the basement ceiling, repair a leak in the basement, install a roof rack on my car, reorganize the garage, weed eat the back garden, clean out the basement entrance and scrub the doors and steps, repair the clothesline, install a new front door handle and there are still a couple of things on my list!

This past weekend was spent with friends and family again.  Saturday morning, I met up with Shaun and his brother to practice tipping, re-entering and rolling our kayaks.  In the afternoon, I met up with the YA by Adventure Village. A few of us went roller blading while the rest mini-putted.  When we got back we signed up for mini-putting and batting cages.  A few chose to do laser tag as well.  I managed to get 4 out of 10 of the really fast balls ranging from 105-115km/h and 10/10 for the slow balls.  A group of 7 of us played the most hilarious, epic game of mini-putt ever while those who finished earlier began supper preparations on the beach.  Bible study was later that evening in Brampton which continued with late night discussions in the parking lot until about 12:30 am!  Sunday was spent relaxing at Kare and Trev's place for coffee and lunch (provided by Megan).

And now?  Well, I'm waiting for the announcement that Karen has had her baby, for Mom to celebrate her birthday on Tuesday, for a final post-op eye appointment on Thursday morning and then heading out for an epic kayaking adventure up in Lake Superior.  After that, I've got my 30th birthday, skydiving, two weeks at Campfire!, and one wilderness voyage before I've got to go back to school.

I LOVE SUMMER VACATION!! :)